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What are you reading?

Principles for Dealing With the Changing World Order, by Ray Dalio. My son in law turned me onto this book. Dalio is not your average billionaire hedge fund manager, but is also a thorough analyst of historical empires and powerful countries. He focuses on the big three for the last five hundred years - the Netherlands for the seventeenth century, then England for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the U.S.A. for the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The dollar is today's international monetary unit, replacing the British pound, which replaced the Dutch guilder. Dalio traces the economic and social rise and fall of these nations, measuring a number of factors, including debt, wealth separation of the uber rich from the rest of us, and a number of other factors - education, inventiveness, etc.

Lurking in the background is China, which has gone through these cycles many times in the last 1500 years. Will the Yuan be the next world currency?

Altogether a very interesting read.
 
I'm in the middle of that, too.

He waffles a lot but the underlying information is, as you say, interesting.

ETA 24/3: but not funny.
 
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Why I Am Not an Atheist: Confessions of a Skeptical Believer, by Christopher Beha.

It's interesting. I'm enjoying it. It is the history of philosophy, plus the history of a guy studying philosophy.
Well written, well read. Talks about philosophers whose names I've heard of all my life, but about whom I knew nothing but the names. Fun stuff for those who like that sort of thing, which, in this case, includes me.
 
Time for more silly books that I enjoy reading to the people where I volunteer>

A Dog's Guide to Humans by Karen Davidson

Dogs seem to know more about us than we know about them.
 
The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Richard Flannagan.

Must be loosely based on Weary Dunlop. Beautifully written.
 
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Currently reading Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago.

Everyone's heard the expression "Couldn't put it down!" But with this book, it's true. I plowed through the first 200 pages very quickly, and I usually read slowly. Totally engrossing.
 
ideologyhunter said:
southernhybrid said:
ideologyhunter said:
southernhybrid said:
Now I need to see what other silly books I can find to read to them.
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Look into Dave Barry Slept Here, which is a daffy rewrite of U.S history through Reagan/Bush. I used to read portions of it in 5th grade social studies, and the students loved it. My favorite sentence concerns conditions aboard The Mayflower: "As giant waves washed over their tiny ship, tossing it about like a cork, the Puritans, realizing their fate was not in their own hands, got down on their knees and, drawing on some inner strength, threw up."
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Anything by Dave Barry is bound to be hilarious.
 
The truth is I'm reading too many books and sometimes I never finish them. So, here's a list of some that I've started but only read now and then and often forget what they are about.

A Dogs' Guide to Cats by Karen Anderson. I haven't read this one yet to my ALF friends, but apparently it's another silly book about dogs telling others how to deal with cats.

2000 Years of Disbelief by James A Haught. It's about how nonbelievers or those who had the wrong belief were treated, including sometimes given the death sentence. I may have mentioned this book before. I met the author several years ago. Just about every one of the men who founded the US were atheists or agnostics. I read it on and off as it had a short chapter on each person.

Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz. This book goes into a lot of detail about each body part or sensory organ of dogs. I've read about half of it, very interesting, especially if you love dogs.

Unlikely Freindships by Jennifer Holland. I bought this to read when I volunteer. It's about true stories of unusual animal friendships. The first one is about a black bear and a black cat who bond. Seriously.

The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals by William Hornaday. The book is about the observations of a scientist who was interested in studying animals behavior. To put in simply. We have a lot more in common with the other animals than most people know

How Dogs Work by Raymond Coppinger. I've not read any of it lately, but I think the title tells you what he book is about

HoW Dogs Love us by Gregory Berns I read most or all of it, but it's about the observations of neuroscientist regarding the canine brain based on his observations of his adopted dog.

The Origins of Cool in the Post War Era.. I haven't started this one yet

I have so many unread books on my kindle because I use digital dollars from Amazon Prime so most of the books are free or only cost me a few dollars. As you can see, reading about dogs and other animals are my favorites. I've read a lot of other books about mental illness, psychopathy and things like that as well. I usually finish those books.

Happy Reading to all !
 
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Reading a book I actually somehow never read before, Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, from the 50s. Picked it up free at the library where every day they give away books, though usually they are terrible. Just read the first 18 pages and it’s … really good.

I’d recommend to anyone interested the collected fiction of Cormac McCarthy, who unfortunately died a few years ago.
 
A long time ago, one of my siblings bought me a copy of Mick Herron's Slow Horses, which went onto my "to read" pile, and stayed there gathering dust. Spy thrillers are not really my thing (although to be honest, I will read anything; As a kid, I learned the text on the bottles and jars on the breakfast table by heart).

A few days ago, I saw a reference in passing to the book (which has apparently been adapted for TV in the interim), so I finally brought it to the top of my list.

It was brilliant. Now reading the second in the series, Dead Lions.
 
Is the book you're reading different from the one written by Sloan Wilson? Or are the titles just very similar?
pood said:
Reading a book I actually somehow never read before, Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, from the 50s. Picked it up free at the library where every day they give away books, though usually they are terrible. Just read the first 18 pages and it’s … really good.

I’d recommend to anyone interested the collected fiction of Cormac McCarthy, who unfortunately died a few years ago.
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That was also a movie made in 1956 by that name. I know I saw it when I was very young, but I don't remember any of it. My guess is that I saw it on "The Million Dollar Movie". If you grew up in the NYC area during the 50s or 60s, you might remember that was a local station that played the same movie over and over for a week, assuming it had made at least a million dollars at the box office, which was a big deal back in those days. The movie description reminds me of my own father who suffered from severe PTSD related to combat and who then entered a professional sales job which he always referred to as extremely stressful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Gray_Flannel_Suit


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The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit​


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Theatrical release poster

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The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is a 1956 American drama film starring Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones, with Fredric March, Lee J. Cobb, Keenan Wynn and Marisa Pavan in support. Based on the 1955 novel by Sloan Wilson, it was written and directed by Nunnally Johnson, and focuses on Tom Rath, a young World War II veteran trying to balance the pressures of his marriage to an ambitious wife and growing family with the demands of a career while dealing with the after-effects of his war service and a new high-stress job. The film was entered at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.[4]
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southernhybrid said:
Is the book you're reading different from the one written by Sloan Wilson? Or are the titles just very similar?
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Yes, by Sloan Wilson. I have always known about this book but for some reason never read it. My reading of 1950s writers is mainly the beats (Kerouac, Ginsberg, etc.) and stuff Hemingway wrote in the 50s like Old Man and the Sea. Not a huge Hemingway fan but Old Man and the Sea is quite good. My three favorite works of his are all short stories: The Snows of Kilimanjaro, A Clean Well Lighted Place, and The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber. James Joyce called A Clean, Well Lighted Place the best short story ever written, iirc. I wouldn’t go that far.
southernhybrid said:
pood said:
Reading a book I actually somehow never read before, Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, from the 50s. Picked it up free at the library where every day they give away books, though usually they are terrible. Just read the first 18 pages and it’s … really good.

I’d recommend to anyone interested the collected fiction of Cormac McCarthy, who unfortunately died a few years ago.
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That was also a movie made in 1956 by that name. I know I saw it when I was very young, but I don't remember any of it. My guess is that I saw it on "The Million Dollar Movie". If you grew up in the NYC area during the 50s or 60s, you might remember that was a local station that played the same movie over and over for a week, assuming it had made at least a million dollars at the box office, which was a big deal back in those days. The movie description reminds me of my own father who suffered from severe PTSD related to combat and who then entered a professional sales job which he always referred to as extremely stressful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Gray_Flannel_Suit


[th]
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit​


[/th]

[td]

Theatrical release poster

[/td]​
​


​
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is a 1956 American drama film starring Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones, with Fredric March, Lee J. Cobb, Keenan Wynn and Marisa Pavan in support. Based on the 1955 novel by Sloan Wilson, it was written and directed by Nunnally Johnson, and focuses on Tom Rath, a young World War II veteran trying to balance the pressures of his marriage to an ambitious wife and growing family with the demands of a career while dealing with the after-effects of his war service and a new high-stress job. The film was entered at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.[4]
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Now I want to see the movie after I finish the book.
 
My own favorite short story, at the current time, is James Joyce’s The Dead.
 
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