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What do you read for fun?

I'm more boring. Currently reading Lincoln on Leadership.
Typically I read business books: customer service, self improvement, leadership, management, bio's of leaders and business people. Hey, it starts from the top down and success leaves tracks.
 
I got the habit from the nuns at Saints Simon and Jude. "We don't care what he reads, as long as he reads something!"

Fiction, mainly. Paul Theroux, John Irving, Richard Russo, Nelson DeMille, Elmore Leonard, Nick Hornby,Carl Hiaasen,Tom Wolfe,,,

Can't miss favorites: Hotel Honolulu, The Water Method Man, Straight Man, Gold Coast, Get Shorty, High Fidelity,Strip Tease,Bonfire of the Vanities,,,

The lastest keeper is Rock Bottom by Michael Schilling. A story about a ficticious rock band, the blood orphans, in the process of imploding.

My favorite quote (Mark Twain): "People who don't read have no advantage over people who can't."


mike
 
I forgot to mention Neil Gaiman. I've read pretty much all of his stuff and it's pretty good. If you want an entertaining read, try Good Omens. Silly, but funny.
 
Stephen Damon Smith said:
I am going to have to pick that one up: Is it good?

From Amazon
Product Description
With its emphasis on the rights and power of the individual, Lincoln on Leadership is destined to become the must-have handbook for executives in the nineties.
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So far very interesting to me. Apparently Lincoln was a "Management by Walking Around" type. Criticized for not being in the White House enough, he often was inspecting troops and arms and seeing what the troops had for supplies or even visiting with his generals. He delegated well but he didn't sit in the Ivory Tower. Had to make some tough decisions. Truly, a great leader.
 
Steven Nelson said:
...that because of his voice and background wouldn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of being elected today. I'm not sure what that says about our societal evolution.
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Oh that's a given. He was not by any means "TV friendly."
 
I don't read much for fun. I like to do more active stuff for fun. Reading is not that good for your health. It's bad for myopia, and you just sit there vegetating. The only excuse for reading is to improve your intellect.

I like thoughtful non-fiction; demanding works that are hard to get. There are some writers that I just cannot get, like Heidegger, Husserl, and other German philosophers. I don't think I have the IQ to read that stuff. I did wade through Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man: Immoral Society. He was a deep Christian thinker with dense sentence structure.

Fiction seems like questionable reading to me. It seems like a trap being set by the author, who guides you into their world, with total control of the circumstances, and loads you up with a truck load of biases.

I read only the best fiction; and that's what I recommend to others. I did read Atlas Shrugged. It has the usual author biases, and was too long. It did make a thoughtful defense of capitalism. The Brothers Karamazov was awesome, and it takes you inside the tortured Russian soul. Fyodor was a true genius.

I like reading biographies about really smart people. Nikola Tesla was a favorite of mine. Richard Feynman was another. The downside of reading about these people is that you realize that they had a drive that you don't have. You realize that it takes smarts plus beaucoup drive to achieve greatness as a person.

I guess all of this makes me an odd duck.
 
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I agree I'm hooked on Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series

He has been writing a few fill in short stories about harry

If you didn't get to read them ill get you the anthologies they are in

There must be at least 4 or 5 now.


Also anything by Dean Koontz is a blast

And I recently got hooked on tess gersten's medical examiner serial killer novels

But since I have a sci fi collection larger than most libraries Ill have to catch up on my reading after if i ever retire.


Steven Nelson said:
Urban fantasy stuff like Dresden Files. I get plenty of reality the rest of the day.
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steven ehrenworth said:
I agree I'm hooked on Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series

He has been writing a few fill in short stories about harry

If you didn't get to read them ill get you the anthologies they are in

There must be at least 4 or 5 now.


Also anything by Dean Koontz is a blast

And I recently got hooked on tess gersten's medical examiner serial killer novels

But since I have a sci fi collection larger than most libraries Ill have to catch up on my reading after if i ever retire.
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Simon R. Green has a pretty edgy series called the "Nightside".

Do you have a favorite of the series? I've read one of the short stories that was a prequel to the series. I think he's also working on some splinter series with Thomas as the main character. I've never thought of him as more than a supporting character, so it should be interesting.
 
If you like Brad Thor, check out Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills.
 
Stephen Damon Smith said:
Flynn is probably my favorite.. Read all of his. Mitch Rapp kicks arse. Have not read Mills. Will have to try him.
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Very similar writing style, but the main character is no Mitch Rapp or Scot Horvath. Instead, you get an out of shape, functioning alchoholic!
 
95% non-fiction


history, philosophy and fishing make up most of it
 
Just re-read Meier's biography of Julius Caeser

Plato and Aristotle "complete" works

Lefty Kreh's Presenting the Fly

After the Ice (don't remember the author)

A biography of Teddy Roosevelt's early years (Mornings on Horseback I think was the title)
 
Man, some of you guys must be a laugh riot in person. Some of you sound dry enough to crack when you stand up.
 
try Fragment by Warren Fahy


very quick read

just finished it and its more science fact than science fiction


very good
 
Just finished "Mysteries of the Middle Ages, The rise of feminism, science, and art from the cults of Catholic Europe." Author Thomas Cahill.

Enjoyable and quick read. Not can't put down material though.

Stephen, just read "The Poor Man's James Bond" for all your collapse necessities.:D
 
Reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Fates of Human Societies. It's written by Jared Diamond and won a Pulitzer. I'm facinated by the way civilizations burn themselves out especially since we've already lived through the peak of our own republic.
 
C. Gregory Vickers said:
Reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Fates of Human Societies. It's written by Jared Diamond and won a Pulitzer. I'm facinated by the way civilizations burn themselves out especially since we've already lived through the peak of our own republic.
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Be sure to read "Collapse" by Diamond as well.
 
Just finished Rain Gods, by James Lee Burke. If you liked No Country for Old Men, you'll like this. West Texas crime fiction.


mike
 
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