Where It All Began

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Looking down the road outside the pods you can see rows of these buildings in this housing area. It's pretty impressive the infrastructure they have here.

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Reading List

The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes (Not my typical book but it was well written and short enough to allow me to get through it :). It deals with how we see our past and the responsibility we have for how our life turns out, including the impact we have on others. A search for meaning without God but he does raise interesting ideas about actively living vs. letting life happen to you.)
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (I liked East of Eden more (I prefer the individual to the group) but I can see why it is a favorite of lit classes. There are so many different themes he explores through one family. It gives you a good sense of the desperation experienced during the Depression.)
The Training of the Twelve - A. B. Bruce (I have been working on this one for a while. It is not only long but very dense - not something to be absorbed the first time through. Bruce does an excellent job of using the gospels to show how Jesus brought a group of rather non-descript men together and trained them to be the Apostles that would oversee the development of his Church. He has a lot of very good insight on why Jesus taught what he did when he did.)
Airframe - Michael Crichton (I think he got interested in airplanes and how they are made so he decided to write a book to subsidize his research. The plot is weak but interesting if you are curious about airplanes.)
84, Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff (a wonderful little book of twenty years of letters between a book loving writer in New York (Helene) and a used book store in London)
The Hunger Games (book III) - Suzanne Collins (now that I have read all three I have to adjust my first impression - the writing is still about average but there are ideas and plot lines that got me thinking. Too complicated to discuss here)
The Home of the Blizzard - Douglas Mawson (a very entertaining story of the Australasian Antarctic expedition. I had only read reference to this expedition as it happened at the same time as Scott's but they had their own share of hardships)
East of Eden - John Steinbeck. (there is a reason some books are classics - it's fun to read a really good writer. He does a good job of exposing the weakness of man in his sinful nature)
The Hunger Games (book II) - Suzanne Collins (best described as cotton candy for the mind)
Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift (I don't think I have ever read the whole book before, I enjoyed it and it is amazing how much of the critique is still applicable today - I guess people don't change much :)
In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin - Erik Larson (interesting personal look at the beginning of Hitler's reign from the American ambassador but too much in the weeds for me)
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins (another attempt at light fiction with better results)
Killing Lincoln - Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard (why you would put your name to this I don't know - grade school level reading and added nothing to the much better books on the subject already out there)
The Commanders - Bob Woodward (a good analysis of the lead up to Desert Storm)
The Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo -Stieg Larsson (something to break up the non-fiction but I don't recommend it)
American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur - William Manchester (I learned a lot about a man I knew very little)
Blink: The power of thinking without thinking - Malcom Gladwell (a fascinating look at how our subconscious can process vast amounts of information without us even realizing it)
Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris (the third book in his biography - excellent)
Christian Science Monitor - still the best news magazine I have found
Daily Bible - so far I am keeping up :)
Foreign Affairs - A subscription I picked up before I left, so far I am not disappointed - I read them cover to cover