What are you reading?

• justincredible

  

  Cool, I will check it out eventually.
  
  I started The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team this morning. It's about two guys that had a baseball podcast focused on advanced statistics who were offered the opportunity to run an independent league baseball team. Two chapters in so far and it's very interesting.
• justincredible

  

  Finished The Only Rule Is It Has to Work a while back, it was a great read. I'd recommend it to any baseball fan. Finished The Fountainhead the other night, finished Pastoralia by George Saunders last night. I am listening to Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell currently.
• justincredible

  

  I'm almost finished with Fed Up: An Insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America. I just recently started Since We Fell, the newest book from Dennis Lehane. It's pretty good so far, I'm about 50 pages in.
• Con_Alma

  The General vs. The President by H.B. Brands
  
  ..MacArthur against Truman
• Apple

  

  Currently reading "The Quartet - Orchestrating the Second American Revolution 1783-1789" by Joseph J. Ellis. I'm a big American History buff. This is a great read so far spotlighting how George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison were able to move post-revolution colonial thought from being 13 individual states into a united federal government. Very interesting book. $6.97 off the discount rack at Books A Million on the Strip in Canton.
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  Con_Alma;1853325 wrote:The General vs. The President by H.B. Brands
  
  ..MacArthur against Truman

  How is this?
• justincredible

  

  I'm pretty sure I read The Quartet last year.
• Con_Alma

  Dr Winston O'Boogie;1853350 wrote:How is this?

  O.K. I'm still pretty early in it. ...painting the picture of personalities and setting the premise for MacArthur's anger after he dipped his toe into politics while still being in command of the Pacific and rebuilding Japan. He was an arrogant persona that's for sure....convinced that no one knew better than he and certainly not the suits in D.C..
• isadore

  I have been reading FDR, Dewey and the Election of 1944, between a charismatic but dying political pro vs an ambitious automaton with Ohio Governor John Bricker, 'an honest Harding, a Rep VP candidate, Henry Wallace, a super flake as FDR's VP and Senator Harry Truman, feisty but maybe in over his head as Wallace's successor. The quest for a 4th term with a backdrop of WWII. MacArthur's abortive attempt for the Republican nomination was part of the campaign.
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  Con_Alma;1853366 wrote:O.K. I'm still pretty early in it. ...painting the picture of personalities and setting the premise for MacArthur's anger after he dipped his toe into politics while still being in command of the Pacific and rebuilding Japan. He was an arrogant persona that's for sure....convinced that no one knew better than he and certainly not the suits in D.C..

  Thanks for this. I knew that about MacArthur. This story seemed intriguing because of that fact. It also seemed like a case study on what to do when an underling challenges the leader's authority.
• Apple

  

  justincredible;1853352 wrote:I'm pretty sure I read The Quartet last year.

  ...doesn't surprise me!
• Con_Alma

  Dr Winston O'Boogie;1853385 wrote:Thanks for this. I knew that about MacArthur. This story seemed intriguing because of that fact. It also seemed like a case study on what to do when an underling challenges the leader's authority.

  Truman didn't handle it well. Basically let him run rampant in Asia almost starting WWIII. That's exactly what the book's about.
• isadore

  William Manchester, American Caesar, is a great biography of MacArthur. Although it is hard to hold that ego in a single volume of 816 pages.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  I finished Peter Zeihans book The Accidental Superpower.
  It is an interesting read, especially now a days. I disagreed with some of it, but his central premise I generally agree with. He states the U.S. will be fine as it sort of retracts from the world due to its wealth of rivers, demographics boom, natural gas, and large economic engine.
  
  I am now reading Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything. Tales from the Pentagon.
  It explores the continued military industrial complex in the post 9/11 world and how we lean on the military to do everything from humanitarian relief to combat piracy to and nation building. It is alright so far, but shows how large and complex the DOD bureaucracy is and just how ingrained it is in the budget process.
• iclfan2

  

  Again, y'all read too many deep books. I've killed like 7 jack reacher novels for fun. Can't even remember the last time I read a book that was real. Maybe I should start
  
  
  Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
• justincredible

  

  I recently listened to The Plot Against America. It was an alternate history novel where Charles Lindbergh beat FDR out of his 3rd of 4th term, running on a platform of keeping the US out of WWII. The premise was interesting enough, and I finished the book, but I can't say I was very satisfied with the book overall.
• justincredible

  

  And an FYI: Audible is running a 2 for 1 sale right now, and this is by far the best sale I've seen them run in terms of titles available.
• isadore

  justincredible;1853453 wrote:I recently listened to The Plot Against America. It was an alternate history novel where Charles Lindbergh beat FDR out of his 3rd of 4th term, running on a platform of keeping the US out of WWII. The premise was interesting enough, and I finished the book, but I can't say I was very satisfied with the book overall.

  How was it unsatisfying?
• justincredible

  

  isadore;1853457 wrote:How was it unsatisfying?

  It was a little slow for my liking, though when I think back on the book a few weeks later I think I appreciate it a little more.
• Dr Winston O'Boogie

  

  justincredible;1853467 wrote:It was a little slow for my liking, though when I think back on the book a few weeks later I think I appreciate it a little more.

  I don't care for Philip Roth. I know the book you're referring to and I also found it wanting. Sometimes an author gets a reputation as a genius and then all of his works have to be regarded as masterpieces. That's my opinion of Roth and his books. I have never read one that I enjoyed or that stayed with me.
• justincredible

  

  This is the only book of his I have read, I'm really not familiar with his other stuff at all.
  
  I started listening to We are Legion (We are Bob) this morning. The general premise is that Bob has his body cryogenically frozen when he dies and is brought back to "life" as an AI program 117 years in the future. I'm two chapters in and it's entertaining so far.
• Fab4Runner

  

  Shea Serrano is helping an independent bookstore in Louisville, KY called Carmichael's and has challenged his readers/followers to order 1,000 books today, which is typically how many online orders they get in an entire year. I ordered Spaceman by Mike Massimino and Talking as Fast as I Can by Lauren Graham.
• BRF

  

  How do any of you find the time to read so many books?
  
  
  What time of the day do you do most of your reading?
• iclfan2

  

  I read mainly before bed or while watching a crappy girl show. I'll also read while driving which we do a decent amount of and I let her drive
  
  
  Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
• justincredible

  

  BRF;1853699 wrote:How do any of you find the time to read so many books?
  
  
  What time of the day do you do most of your reading?

  I read before bed and over my lunch break at times. I also listen to audio books a lot.