Reading a good book...

Coldhardsteel

Gold Member
So, anyone reading anything good right now?

Post the title, author, and why.

Although it may label me, I'm currently reading the Communist Manifesto, By Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels. I'm a bit of a socio-economic activist at heart, and I was curious to see how the other side of the argument put their stance. The writing itself is good, and the principles work in theory, but...

Well, it's communism.
 
I read a few books at the beginning of the year by Dale Carnegie,
How to Win Friends & Influence People (HTWFIP) and Lincoln The Unknown (LTU). I picked these books up many years ago and just could not get through them. I guess I was just not ready to read them. However, if I did, it may have helped me with all the people problems that bands usually have. HTWFIP is basically a book telling you that if you want to express yourself and you need people to listen to you, do not piss them off. If you do people just do not listen. Now, if you already know that, you’re many steps ahead of me. LTU goes through the life of Abe Lincoln and contrasts Abe’s life of being the ultimate diplomat, to that of his wife, Mary, who was just crazy and never knew how to ask anything of anyone politely. Lately though, I am just reading technical books and not spending much time reading other things.
http://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Dale-...r_1_34?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275312542&sr=1-34
 
Re-reading Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, just finished Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, and up next are 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne and then On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Dharma Bums and On The Road are both semi-autobiographies in kind of a spoken word format, so they require a bit more concentration than the average book, but Dharma Bums was excellent, and I can't wait to get to On The Road.
 
I'm reading Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries. I have always been interested in him and so I decided to read about him.
 
I'm currently reading (and re-reading) several books:

The Beatles Biography (Bob Spitz)--in the main bathroom
Effortless Mastery (Kenny Warner)--in the 2nd bathroom
The Art of Possibility (Rosamund Stone Zander)--next to my alarm clock
Black Coffee Blues (Henry Rollins)--in my backpack. Rollins' books are a staple with me for road travel...
 
Re-reading Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, just finished Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, and up next are 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne and then On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Dharma Bums and On The Road are both semi-autobiographies in kind of a spoken word format, so they require a bit more concentration than the average book, but Dharma Bums was excellent, and I can't wait to get to On The Road.

Nice to hear someone still appreciates Jack Kerouac - the closest thing to rhythmic writing that I've come across - he should have been a jazz drummer. If you get a chance "Desolation Angels" is also very good - carries on from Dharma...

What am I reading? apart from Audio Technology and Rhythm mags..... Lord of the Rings (again) - I seem to read it about once a year - just fantastic!
 
Nice to see people are still reading Kerouac.

Currently I am reading The Latin Beat by Ed Morales. It is a history of what we know today as Latin music. Aside from his disturbing confusion regarding clave, it is not bad.
 
A colour picture periodical I found in the woods.

I remember finding those colorful periodicals in the woods when I was a kid and thinking it was like gold. Now kids have have it so easy with the internet... damn kids.
 
Cyberwar by Richard Clarke. Clarke worked for Bush in the Whitehouse and predicted something big was about to happen. Then 9/11 hit. Now Clarke is predicting Cyberwar and suggesting how to achieve cyberpeace.

Led Zeppelin: When Giants Walked the Earth by Mick Wall. I am re-reading this book. Wall gives a no-holds history of the band as opposed to John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums by Chris Welsh who writes in a sanitized and reverent way.

GJS
 
No Angel by Jay Dobyns. Memoir by an undercover ATF agent who infiltrates the Hells Angels. His account spans almost two years and it's actually pretty interesting but moving a little slower than I would like.
 
Other than business books, I only really like to read auto biographies of musicians.

I avoid the biographies, because so many are thrown together by wanna-be journalists who just collected interviews and toss it together to sell some copies. I'd rather here it from the actual person. The lone exception was Keith Moon, since he's not really able to write his own book.

The last two books I read were:
Joey Kramer's Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top.
The editor should be shot for how badly it's edited. Cymbal is actually mis-spelled in some spots, as other other musical terms. Every page or two, a sentence is high lighted in big bold type, for no apparent reason. The editor just did a poor, poor job.

As for the writing: A good chunk of the book comes off rather whiny, but the last 1/4 of the book redeems itself and makes it worth having suffered through the first 3/4s of it. I have to give Kramer a lot of credit for laying himself out there like that.

The other book (which I've quoted from here and there over the last few months):
Bumping Into Geniuses by music mogel Danny Goldberg, about his various jobs in the music industry, which included everything from doing PR for Zeppelin, managing Nirvana to being President of major labels for periods of time.

Writing style can be annoying at times, as he has a habit of going off on tangents suddenly in the middle of a story. And I thought he focuses way to much on his time with Nirvana, while only glossing over some of his other accomplishments. But overall, it's really great insight into how the music business worked during the 70's, 80's and into the 90's (and he makes no bones about that fact that it's all different now). His recount of helping make Warren Zevon's last album were particularly touching.
 
Just finished 'Catch 22' for the first time. It reminded me heavily of 'Red vs. Blue' at times, weirdly enough.

Currently reading (for about the tenth time) 'World War Z' by Max Brooks. Possibly the most realistic book about the human psyche in apocalyptic times I've ever read...and its about zombies. Gotta love it!
 
I read the whole Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy last summer. Now I just stick to audio-books, since I'm lazy. I've heard through World War Z, David Lynch - Catching the big fish and all the Sherlock Holmes books.
 
On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Bad Science by Ben Goldacre - two very different genres but great books so far.. Got 1984 by George Orwell lined up

Also want to read David Lynch's Catching the Big Fish, Naked Lunch and then Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates..
 
Last edited:
I'm currently reading Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern by Anne McCaffrey on my laptop. It is pretty good, but I'm going slowly through it since it's the sixth Pern novel in a row I'm reading and I've had a bit of an overload.
On paper I'm halfway through The Science of Discworld by Terry Pratchet Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. Not a bad read, but the science parts could be a bit more science-y for my liking.
Oh, I also have a copy of A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking back at my parent's that I read when I visit. I haven't read it before and I'm liking it so far, even if some parts are getting outdated.
 
Back
Top