What are you reading tonight DU? Me, Paul Cellucci "Unquiet Diplomat".

[applegrove]

And American Ambassador's take on being posted to Canada. He was a Bush appointtee, so I look forward to discovering more about how neocons face a social democracy like Canada. Must have been very traumatic for him LOL!

[tigereye]

1. Keith Richard's bio- Life

It's actually pretty good- he's a much more complex and thoughtful guy than I would have thought.

[applegrove]

2. I really liked that book but kept thinking, since I am not a musician, I was missing so much outta

that biography.

[tigereye]

11. yes, it's really cool to read about how he writes songs and

how he changed his guitar-playing style over time, using 5 strings instead of 6 for example, and talking about how no one can play Start Me Up correctly if they use a typical tuning. I do play a few instruments, so that's kind of cool to read about. It's always really interesting to read about how the Stones composed their songs and music over time- Stanley Booth's bio didn't really talk about that as much. It's also interesting to hear how Richards, despite being seen as a totally decadent drug addict, was very motivated to write songs, play, record, and comes across as a very thoughtful guy. You also get a sense of how he survived all these years!

:hi:

[kentauros]

3. Eldon Taylor's "What If?"

Author's page: http://www.eldontaylor.com/what-if/what-if.html

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/What-Challenge-Self-Realization-Eldon-Taylor/dp/1401927378

[Aristus]

4. The Official West Wing Companion.

A little light reading after my last book, A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. An amazing read. Fantastic.

[applegrove]

5. I should read A People's History. I had one term of US history in high school in Canada and that was

it.

[Kat45]

6. Celucci is a Massachusetts Republican. I don't think he's a neocon.

At least he wasn't when he was in the state government.

[applegrove]

7. I just assumed he was a neocon because W.Bush gave him the job I think.

He is anti-tax. So in I go and read this book while holding my nose.

[Gormy Cuss]

12. Celluci is not a Yankee conservative, and he probably is close to a neocon.

He was lt. gov. to the moderate Republican Bill Weld, but Cellucci was always pretty far to the right of Weld. He and Andrew Card were pretty similar, politically speaking, and Card worked in the W White House.

Cellucci is battling ALS these days -- not a fate I'd wish on anyone.

[MiddleFingerMom]

8. Not tonight... but probably STARTING one of these tomorrow:

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A coupla weeks ago, I remembered I had a certificate for about $30 worth
of books from this GREAT used bookstore in Tucson (Bookman's).
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I found good-sized paperback editions of two of my all-time favorite novels
(both by Tom Robbins) -- "Jitterbug Perfume" and "Skinny Legs & All".
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I STILL can't decide which one to read first. They're both just amazing.
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As I amember it... they were about $3 each.
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[MiddleFingerMom]

14. Decided on "Jitterbug Perfume" -- the choice was easy because...

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...the other book I got was Tom Robbins' "Still Life with Woodpecker" -- ALMOST but
not quite as good as the other two.
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MiddleFingerMomSis turned me on to "Still Life..." in the 80's when I was visiting and
asked her for a good book. I got about 15 pages into it and put it aside, wondering
why she thought I would EVER like something like that.
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I don't know what the hell had been wrong with me, but I picked it up a coupla years
later and it became my favorite book (at least until I read his other two mentioned
above).
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I really like the way inanimate objects become vivid characters in his novels.
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.

[Jmaxfie1]

9. Actually, Mein Kampf......It's for a history paper I promise.

I'm working on a paper for history about American Pre-war views of Hitler.

[yankeepants]

10. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

[applegrove]

16. I saw that movie as my Edwardian grandmother was moving out of her house. They did have an inordiant

amount of silver things for even the most obscure function...silver lipstick holders...a silver pickle fork...and on and on. It was just the fashion to have so much junk. If you could afford it and people to polish it. So funny. I've never read any of Wharton's books. I should look into that one because the story certainly makes a lot of sense to me.

[femmocrat]

13. Still reading "The Fall of Giants" by Ken Follett.

Historical fiction; an easy read.

[Lilyhoney]

15. Star Island by Carl Hiaasen

I am enjoying it very much.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

17. "Consider Phlebas" by Iain M. Banks....

Rollicking, space opera-ey, good time.

[Lionel Mandrake]

18. "Hitler's Uranium Club" edited by Jeremy Bernstein

This book contains English translations of conversations among German scientists who had worked on a nuclear project for Hitler during WW2. The scientists were being held at a safe house (Farm Hall) in England and didn't know that their conversations were being recorded.

The most famous of the scientists, Werner Heisenberg, claimed to have sabotaged the project. Bernstein thinks these recordings show that Heisenberg was lying. Historians still argue about this.