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Thread: What Are You Reading in 2013?

  1. #11
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Iris lily View Post
    I'm reading Scott Pecks' People of the Lie, a modern popular classic. It's about "evil" in humankind as something different than sickness. He considers it as something that science should really pay attention to. He dips into the theory of evil as a tangible thing (as in using an excorcism to erradicate.)
    I read that a long time ago and really liked it.. and never thought I would. He certainly had an interesting mind. Apparently he was also a very interesting personality, with some "demons" of his own.

    I'm reading 50 Prosperity Classics by Tom Butler-Bowdon. I love his series--you get so much bang for the buck with those books (50 Success Classics, 50 Spirituality Classics, 50 Self-Help Classics).
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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  2. #12
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    Currently reading Anarchy and Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill. This is the 4th Dr. Siri Investigation set in Laos. These mystery novels are written by a Brit ex-pat who lived in Laos for several years. They are set just after the end of the Vietnam war. Lots of fun.

    Also in the middle of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Here's the synopsis from the cover:
    "Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

    Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave and her children can't afford health insurance."

  3. #13
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    I've recently read:

    Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan by Paton. This was my first-time reading it, and it is now one of my all-time favorite novels. It's truly a beautiful piece of art.

    In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alverez. I've had this book on my shelf for years and made a couple of attempts to read it but couldn't get into it. This past week, I decided to spend time with the book and either finish it or declutter it. I ended up loving this book. I appreciate how the author lets the story unfold rather than race to the end. In fact, the reader knows the ending of the book from the very beginning so there is no need to rush through to find out what happens. I really loved the pacing. I also enjoy reading about historical events through personal lives, and this book does just that. It's set in the Dominican Republic during Trujillo's dictatorship.

    The Jesus Dynasty by James Tabor. A historian's look at the life of Jesus. I enjoy books like this, and I thought this one was well-written.

  4. #14
    Senior Member Gardenarian's Avatar
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    "Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World" by Emma Marris.
    This is the most important and thought provoking book on nature conservation that I have read ina very long time. Marris has a sometimes irritatingly sarcastic style, but there is lots of solid information here on how humans effect the Earth and what we can, perhaps, do about it. Highly recommended!!

    "A dance to the Music of Time" by Anthony Powell.
    Anglophilia delight - I don't know why I never read this before. A 12 book series - should get me through the month! "The story is an often comic examination of movements and manners, power and passivity in English political, cultural and military life in the mid 20th century." Wikipedia

    "Back to Blood" Tom Wolfe. I enjoyed "A Man in Full" by the same author. This feels almost like the same book, but set in Miami - exploring the same themes of racial tension, class, and power. I didn't like it much.
    "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” -- Gandalf

  5. #15
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MaryHu View Post
    ...

    Also in the middle of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. ...
    I read and enjoyed that not long after it came out. I was fascinated by her amazing cell line years and years ago.

  6. #16
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    Just started The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond. About how the world has changed more in the past 100 years than in all the previous milennia and what we can learn from traditional cultures. Thus far, it's a bit dry but interesting stuff like why we now have high blood pressure.

  7. #17
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    23 years after the first volume was published, the final "Wheel of Time" book has been published. I've spent most of 2012 reading summaries and commentaries on the previous 13 volumes. (I would have reread the books themselves, but I couldn't imagine how long it would have taken me to reread 12,000 pages; 4,000,000 words!) I've actually still got half of Book 12 and all of Book 13 to re-familiarize myself with before I can start Book 14, which is just as well because they're releasing the e-book three months later (What's with that?), and there's no way I'm going to put my wrist through holding a 912 page novel up night after night, squinting to read the small type, for weeks, when I can wait a few months and read it on my Kindle, in whatever size type I want.

    I tend to read two books at once, one for entertainment the other for enrichment. I'm "in between" enrichment books right now, but I've loaded my Kindle up with The Open Society and its Enemies by Karl Popper and An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. I'm also responsible for creating a discussion session for church on Skepticism, and another one on community covenants, so I'll probably have to slot in some fast reading on those topics somewhere.

  8. #18
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    God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet
    http://amzn.com/1594488436
    This is a fascinating book. Written by an M.D., it chronicles her time at the nation's last "alms hospital" in San Francisco, in an aging building that predates modern hospital design by at least a century. She is at the same time studying medieval medical history and trying to relate the methods of Hildegard of Bingen to modern medicine, and finds many connections. She spends a sabbatical in Switzerland and her insights on the culture there as it relates to medicine and culture are really interesting.

  9. #19
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    Currently Reading:
    The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
    The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution 1769-1783 by Robert Middlekauff
    Legacy of the Dead by Charles Todd (Ian Rutledge mystery #4)

    Recently finished:
    Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle by Thor Hanson. Very well written on a subject I knew nothing about. Just how did feathers evolve? Was flight from the bottom up or from the top down? Lots of interesting material written in a casual talking with a friend style.
    Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry. #2 in The Giver series. Science fiction which I don't usually read or like but this series is really good!!

  10. #20
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    I'm in the midst of reading House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. It's my 4th time reading this book - I do love it, though it is a downer and I don't like the main character, lol. My teen daughter is reading it for the first time, and she is not liking it.

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