Bogleheads.org

by **randomwalk** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 7:48 pm

I just finished The Aeneid by Virgil (Robert Fagles transl.).

Now reading Metamorphoses by Ovid.

by **Kemosabi** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 7:21 pm

Just finished Jack Welch's autobiography 'From the Gut'. Interesting, I never met Jack but grew up with his kids in Pittsfield, Mass.

by **hsv_climber** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 11:52 am

Finished TIm Ferriss "The 4 hour workweek" : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307465357
Book is somewhat controversial and have a bit of survivorship bias in it, but it is also quite inspirational and provide great tips on time efficiency, passive income, different lifestyle, etc. I've liked it and I'd recommend it to anyone in early / mid career.

by **jubal** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:01 pm

I'm reading a bunch at once. Probably more than is on this list (but here they are, most of them): http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1891667-shane?shelf=currently-reading

by **mickeyd** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:18 pm

Just satarted readibg American Sniper. Sure glad that those guys are on my side. 8-)

by **Cacapon** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 2:43 pm

Just finished: "The Great Bull Market, Wall Street in the 1920's" by Robert Sobel
Just started: "Chronicles of the Black Company" by Glen Cook

by **jackpistachio** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 4:40 am

Latest edition of Irrational Exuberance. Love the way Shiller thinks: rationally pessimistic.

by **envinv** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 11:24 am

I'm currently reading two books:
A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
Battle for the Abyss by Ben Counter

Both books are part of different very large/long series. I can only spend so much time in any one world so to speak before I need a little variety so that is why I'm working on two books at once.

by **RyanC** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 12:20 pm

Currently I'm reading Herman Wouk's "War and Rememberance." It is book 2 of his 2 part historical fiction work on WWII. The first is "Winds of War."

As I really enjoy historical fiction, and WWII history, I am really enjoying this book. Highly recommended. It is similar to works by James Michener, but encompassing a much smaller time frame.

by **Go Blue 99** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 1:44 pm

I just started "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn. It doesn't come out until June 5, but I was able to get an advance copy.

by **randomwalk** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 9:46 am

I just finished Metamorphoses by Ovid.

Now reading Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar.

by **Sidney** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 1:01 pm

mickeyd wrote:Just satarted readibg American Sniper. Sure glad that those guys are on my side.

What, you don't think the "other side" (whoever they are) don't have snipers?

by **chaz** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:27 pm

"Death of a Stranger" by Anne Perry.

by **Colorado13** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 9:08 pm

I just finished "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" by Charles Duhigg. The author discusses a bit of brain science, memory and habit. He describes how habit led to one woman's gambling addiction, how retailers analyze our buying habits to increase our spending, and if/how we can replace bad habits with positive ones.

by **chaz** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 6:17 pm

"Gone For Good" by Harlan Coben.

by **runthetrails** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 4:18 pm

I'm on the third book of Larry McMurtry's Berrybender Narratives. I'm new to McMurtry's writing and not a fan of the Western genre in general, but am enjoying these very much. I plan to read his Lonesome Dove series at some point in the near future.

by **beowulf** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 7:55 pm

Just finished The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford, nonfiction description of the "race" of Amundsen and Scott to the South Pole; debunks idea that Scott was heroic.

Also Shackleton by the same author. Amazing story of endurance: party went from wrecked ship to ice floes, to deserted Antarctic island, on 700 mile open boat journey to another island, climbed its mountains to get to whaling station and assistance, then back on another ship to rescue all those left on deserted island. Boy, those guys sure were tough and resourceful back then.

by **Mrs.Feeley** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:05 pm

grok87 wrote:
mamief45 wrote:Just finished "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Just started "Brighton Rock" by Graham Greene

i like Greene but I never read Brighton Rock. I hear its pretty depressing.
My favorite Greene novels are Travels with my aunt and Monsignor Quixote.
cheers,

Thanks for the recommendations. Just finished Greene's "Travels with My Aunt."

Rather depressing at times, as Greene tends to be, but I loved the ending.

by **traineeinvestor** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 12:06 am

Just finished Toby Wilkinson's Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt - a really fascinating read on a fascinating subject.

Starting on Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow.

by **abuss368** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 12:34 am

I am planning on reading a book on Sam Zell - the newspaper and REIT investor.

by **Magnum** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 10:50 pm

This is my first day of posting, so I apologize if this has been covered, but I find that http://www.goodreads.com is a great site to track 1) what you are currently reading 2) what you've already read 3) what you would like to read and 4) compare your lists to what your friends are reading.

I just finished:
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing by Larimore, LeBoeuf, and Lindauer
Clockwork Prince (Infernal Devices series book #2) by Cassandra Claire

And am currently reading:
City of Bones (Mortal Instruments series book #1) by Cassandra Claire
Three to Get Deadly (Stephanie Plum series book #3) by Janet Evanovich

And can't wait to read:
Red, White, and Blood (Nathaniel Cade series book #3) by Christopher Farnsworth
Insurgent by Veronica Roth

by **Igglesman** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 7:42 am

The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America
Erik Larson

Interesting historical recount of the Chicago World's Fair and the times.

by **randomwalk** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:34 pm

I just finished Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar.

Now reading How Rome Fell by Adrian Goldsworthy.

by **chaz** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 4:10 pm

randomwalk wrote:I just finished Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar.

Now reading How Rome Fell by Adrian Goldsworthy.

I like your avatar.

by **chaz** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 6:34 pm

"The Constantine Covenant" by Aiden Crisp.

by **mickeyd** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 6:42 pm

Igglesman wrote:The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America
Erik Larson

Interesting historical recount of the Chicago World's Fair and the times.

Near the top of my all-time favorite reads...

Also loved Isaac's Storm also by Erik Larson.

by **nisiprius** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 9:25 pm

Igglesman wrote:The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America
Erik Larson

Interesting historical recount of the Chicago World's Fair and the times.

Loved all the engineering/architectural/cultural stuff about the World's Fair, bolts falling out of the Ferris Wheel and the white buildings being made of some flammable composition stuff and Olmsted etc. Bored to tears by the crime stuff. By the way when you're done with that, I thought Thunderstruck, which similarly intertwines the stories of Marconi and the Crippen murder case was equally good.

by **nisiprius** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 9:33 pm

T is for Trespass, by Sue Grafton. I've already read U is for Undertow. Not sure I can get V is for Vengeance at the library yet. Pretty scary, my life will seem temporarily devoid of meaning once I've read them all.

Finished The Drop by Michael Connelly, very satisfying.

Finished Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George, she can't write a bad book but this is not one of her best. I'm very much afraid she's gotten trapped by her "series" characters. Some distinct problems in this one. Problem 1, I don't believe the subplot involving Deborah. Problem 2, I think there should be a rule that you're not allowed to use mistaken identity more than once in a single book plot. Problem 3, the central "whodunnit" mystery is clever but unsatisfying. Problem 4, I can't believe nobody told Barbara Havers (or George) about Google Translate (Barbara Havers is helpless because she can't find anyone who translate Spanish websites...)

by **chaz** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 9:37 pm

the police should have someone who is bilingual in Spanish to translate for Havers since she can,t use google translate.

by **gkaplan** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 9:52 pm

I don't think Havers is computer literate.

That's not my main problem with this series, however. My main problem is that Ms. George is getting ponderous. Six hundred pages plus is just too long for a mystery. Secondly I find the secondary characters, well, secondary. I'm much more interested in Inspector Lynley and Sergent Havers than I am in Lynley's posh friends or Havers' Pakistani neighbors. That said, I still plan on reading her most recent book.

by **chaz** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:02 pm

gkaplan wrote:I don't think Havers is computer literate.

That's not my main problem with this series, however. My main problem is that Ms. George is getting ponderous. Six hundred pages plus is just too long for a mystery. Secondly I find the secondary characters, well, secondary. I'm much more interested in Inspector Lynley and Sergent Havers than I am in Lynley's posh friends or Havers' Pakistani neighbors. That said, I still plan on reading her most recent book.

I still read her books from time to time.

by **cid64** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:27 pm

Just finished "The Expats" by Chris Pavone and currently reading "Hemingway's Boat" by Paul Hendrickson(just got back from Cuba)

by **Saphomd** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:34 am

I am currently reading 2 books:

1)Another World is possible----David McNally.

2)Stolen Continents-----Ronald Wright.

by **gkaplan** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:43 am

The Third Reich in Power, the second in a trilogy by Richard J. Evans. Evans is a professor at Cambridge, and this seems to be his specialty, given his other works (besides the trilogy).

by **randomwalk** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:53 am

gkaplan wrote:The Third Reich in Power, the second in a trilogy by Richard J. Evans. Evans is a professor at Cambridge, and this seems to be his specialty, given his other works (besides the trilogy).

I loved the trilogy, though the third volume seemed somewhat less original to me, probably for the obvious reason that so many books have been written already about the war itself. You are certainly right that this is Evans' specialty. If you have time, you might find it interesting to read about his role as an expert witness in the libel case brought by David Irving for being called a Holocaust denier.

Evans wrote a book about it called Telling Lies About Hitler.

by **gkaplan** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:58 am

randomwalk wrote:If you have time, you might find it interesting to read about his role as an expert witness in the libel case brought by David Irving for being called a Holocaust denier.

I read Dorothy Lipstadt's book when it first came out, but I just might want to read Professor Evans' book, as well.

by **nisiprius** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 1:11 pm

gkaplan wrote:I don't think Havers is computer literate.

She isn't, very, but she knows enough to find South American newspaper stories in Spanish about the people she's trying to track, and even though she's trying to keep it unofficial she has computer-literate friends. I mean this is just a place where it's hard to suspend disbelief. She's working on this for days, and never finds out about Google Translate or Babelfish? An editor should have caught that.

The series is still good, but it's gotten to be more like a cherished sit-com where part of the pleasure is the predictability of the characters, as opposed to when I started reading them, where I felt more as if the characters were really real and I actually cared about what happened them.

She could have gotten just as much comedy out of Havers using Google Translate and having it come up with a mistranslation...

by **RadAudit** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 3:03 pm

Just finished up "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray - a delightfully well done little study by a social scientist on why America is doomed.

He places the blame for the eventual demise squarely on the elites - those folks in the upper 1% to 5% (?) of the socio-economic class. Fortunately, I'm not in that group; but, some of you may be. You'd know who you are. :moneybag

by **Renaissance Man** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 4:01 pm

6miths wrote:Recently listened to 'The Emperor of All Maladies: Biography of Cancer' by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Was amazing. Must read for all medical professionals at the very least. Just finished reading 'The Age of Wonder' by Richard Holmes which was about science in the UK during the romantic period and spanning the life and times of Joesph Banks, the Herschels and Humphry Davy and their involvement with the Royal Society in London. A bit denser but very interesting nonetheless.

The Emperor of All Maladies is not to be missed.

+1. The Emperor of All Maladies is an amazing read, learned so much information about the history of chemotherapy and treating cancer. Currently reading Body of Work by Christine Montross. It is about a medical student entering the human anatomy lab. About half way though and I am entertained although not blown away.

by **Mrs.Feeley** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 11:49 pm

Just finished "The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the International Race to Split the Atom" by British journalist Brian Cathcart (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004). Excellent, dramatic account of the birth of the particle accelerator.

Now rereading Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street," the satiric account of young and idealistic Carol Kennicott's struggle to transform the sadsack midwestern town of Gopher Prairie into a sparkling colonial-style American hamlet, the pictures of which she has seen in library books.

by **CaliJim** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:10 pm

Just started "Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer", in which journalist Shannon Brownlee chronicals the estimated 30% waste in US healthcare. I'm reading now about how perverse incentives motivate doctors to perform more procedures, rather than cure patients as economically as possible.

Today I learned:

"The really fascinating thing to me is to think that what predicts your risk of surgery today in a particular region is what it was ten years ago in the same region." This pattern of practice, or "surgical signature" as Wennberg puts it, persists over time. "If you move from Tampa to Fort Myers, Florida, your chances of getting back surgery go up 60 percent."

Some regions, especially where there is a high concentration of specialists, are more prone to surgical solutions than others, but outcomes are no better in those regions. Wow.

by **jebmke** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 9:19 pm

just finished Heartwood, James Lee Burke

now on to The Drop by Michael Connelly

by **kontango** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:21 am

Planning to pick up Finance and the Good Society by Robert Shiller.

by **Calhoon** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:29 am

Blood Meridian -- Cormac McCarthy. One of the better books I've read, ever, though might not be everyone tastes. Horrific.

Also rereading No Country for Old Men for a second time.

Anyone know of any good authros who write in a style similar to McCarthy's later books. By that I mean stark, little to no detail, no interspection. I'm amazed at how he does with so little.

by **jives** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 9:05 am

"Catch 22" by Joseph Heller.

Hilarious in a morbid sort of way.

by **tj218** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 9:11 am

In honor of opening day I have been reading: Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst . Dirk Hayhurst was a perenial minor leaguer (he does eventually get called up) and he wrote this book about life in the minor leagues and how playing pro ball is a dream for many but it can also be a nightmare of failure and not living up to your own and other people's expectations. Some very funny stories that aren't really PC but capture life on the road with a bunch of 20-25 year olds.

by **reykim** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 2:51 pm

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel

and

The Ominvore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

by **randomwalk** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:19 pm

I just finished How Rome Fell by Adrian Goldsworthy.

Now reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

by **nisiprius** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:22 pm

A Mencken Chrestomathy, by H. L. Mencken. Hard to believe that I've never read it before, but I haven't. Better late than never.

The Last Light of the Sun, by Guy Gavriel Kay, on my wife's recommendation.

We will see whether I finish either of them...

by **Sam I Am** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 2:03 pm

I'm alternating between two books, one fiction, and one that would make me much happier if it was a book of fiction.

My fiction read is by Jonathan Kellerman, one of my favorite who-done-it authors. This time around Lt. Sturgis and Doctor Delaware are trying to find a serial killer, and the body count is rising, in Victims. The Kellerman family of authors also includes wife Faye, son Jesse, and daughter (her name escapes me for now). The daughter is young, and hasn't written any books geared toward adult readers, to my knowledge, yet. The son and wife are fine authors in their own right.

My non-fiction read is by Charles Murray, and is titled Coming Apart - The State of White America, 1960-2010. The book discusses the growing divide in how upper class and lower class Americans are separated by much more than just income, as they have so little in common today vs 50-60 years ago. Depressing reading with more than a little truth in his observations.

Sam I Am

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