What are you reading?

Mark1966 said:
See Dan!

We ALL should be reading this and being prepared. Maybe I should move from being a Shavepocalypse 'Prepper' to a Sewerpocalypse Prepper too!

The last dam we built in this country was a long time ago from memory @glenos (although not wanting to get too controversial) and we have infrastructure issues front and centre here in Canberra. Pre self government in 1988 the Commonwealth paid for everything so the infrastructure was pretty darn good. Since we have been paying for it ourselves (sort of) the longer term locals are adamant that the quality and maintenance has been forgotten and ignored.

Utopia? Can't watch it - too close to the bone when you live here ...
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Apparently its not only water infrastructure - a lot of bridges built in the 40's and 50's are starting to fail - and the costs of repair/replacement plus the inconvenience and traffic mayhem don't bear thinking about :eek:
 
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As the Crusades rage, a secret war begins.
 
Snooze said:
Apparently its not only water infrastructure - a lot of bridges built in the 40's and 50's are starting to fail...
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The post WWII infrastructure boom was great and has served us well, trouble is we didn't keep up with the work.

I saw an episode of Adam ruins everything, when he talked about the US manufacturing boom post WWII. Annoying show it is the only time I've watched it, but he made a great case of why the US and to some extent Aus will not be manufacturing power houses again, unless we bomb the living shit out of China. It is the same with the infrastructure.
 
I’m also on a philosophical kick and have been reading a lot of books on esoterics, unfortunately I have read them all and now have to wait for the next pile to arrive.
 
updates.
A seller on eBay had the first 22 Jack Reacher books in a group lot so thank goodness for those Aus post 5kg extra large tough bags aye.
 
Ferret619 said:
updates.
A seller on eBay had the first 22 Jack Reacher books in a group lot so thank goodness for those Aus post 5kg extra large tough bags aye.
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I'm a cheapskate - read the whole series over the last couple of years on e-book, audio book or real book borrowed from ACT Library.

Not high art but easy read, although reading them in relatively quick succession you start to not the patterns and strategies that underpin their writing - which is interesting!
 
Am I the only one that enjoys listening to a documentary whilst falling asleep and then somehow retaining weird information a few weeks later?

All jokes aside, Documentaries are my thing, especially on engineering or true crime.

I might have ADHD by the sounds of it, as when I'm scripting up work emails or documents I need that background noise to keep me on track!
 
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Currently reading Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil. It's the last in the dual trilogy of Star Wars "Thrawn" books (book 6/6). An excellent series if you enjoy Star Wars or other Science Fiction universes as the Ascendancy Trilogy doesn't have too many references to the "mainstream" Star Wars events/media etc.

I've been meaning to keep a record of sorts of what I've read during the year as I have read all the Game of Thrones books and these 6 books this year and it's hard to keep track of things :ROFLMAO:
 
Mark1966 said:
I'm a cheapskate - read the whole series over the last couple of years on e-book, audio book or real book borrowed from ACT Library.

Not high art but easy read, although reading them in relatively quick succession you start to not the patterns and strategies that underpin their writing - which is interesting!
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I had a fortuitous moment at work a while ago when I mentioned to a bloke that I'd watched the Reacher series on TV and that I was thinking about reading some of the books. He told me that he and his wife both love the books and have the complete set and he was happy to lend them to me. I'm just about to start book 7 on the list, but I have read a couple out of order due to quickly grabbing one out of the box on my way to work when I didn't have time to look for the next one on the list.
 
Zeke said:
I had a fortuitous moment at work a while ago when I mentioned to a bloke that I'd watched the Reacher series on TV and that I was thinking about reading some of the books. He told me that he and his wife both love the books and have the complete set and he was happy to lend them to me. I'm just about to start book 7 on the list, but I have read a couple out of order due to quickly grabbing one out of the box on my way to work when I didn't have time to look for the next one on the list.
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I grabbed the set of 22 (so I need.. what 5 or 6 more? I donno) but I was actually talking to this seller on eBay and they told me all about how she and her family moved from the NT down south and are using eBay to supplement their income as she stays at home and hubby works- I donno we had a good chat, don’t usually get that on eBay so it was a present surprise.

Certainly cheaper than buying a new razor ;)
 
Fall from Grace.

It's a biography about “Shoeless Joe” Jackson who was one of the best baseball players in history. I guess most people would only know him from the movie Field of Dreams unless you are into Baseball.
 
Golden Boy

Here's a short prologue:

"WINNER of Wisden's Finest Cricket Book Ever Written, 2019!
Shedding new light on the 'club' of Lillee, Marsh and the Chappells, Golden Boy examines the most tumultuous era of Australian cricket through the lens of the story of flawed genius, Kim Hughes."
 
I'm revisiting some Russell Hoban novels. I always think of Hoban as British, but he was an American expat (died 2011), and his work I believe is way underrated. His prose is equally often hilarious and neck-pricklingly beautiful:

"Leaving the zone of conviviality I was on the left-hand side of the street. Below me on my left was the long shape of the main-line station showing dim blind lights as I was swallowed up in the visible darkness. ‘The moon’s my constant Mistrisse,’ I sang tunelessly to the colours in my mind,

And the lowlie owle my morrowe,
The flaming Drake and the Nightcrowe make
Mee musicke to my sorrowe.

There was no moon.
..."

(from "My Tango with Barbara Strozzi")
 
Recently finished Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Quite an extraordinary book, at times it had me laughing out loud like no other book ever has, other times I had to force myself to continue towards the end. I'm glad I did.
 
bomber.79 said:
Recently finished Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Quite an extraordinary book, at times it had me laughing out loud like no other book ever has, other times I had to force myself to continue towards the end. I'm glad I did.
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That's one of my all-time favourite novels. I couldn't even tell you how many times I've read it over the years. I'm well over due to pick up another copy.
 
bomber.79 said:
Recently finished Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Quite an extraordinary book, at times it had me laughing out loud like no other book ever has, other times I had to force myself to continue towards the end. I'm glad I did.
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Heh, I first read that when I was about sixteen, and re-read it about a year ago. Yossarian lives. Apparently, at least. Someone once asked Heller if he was dead, and he replied "Not by my hand"... :LOL:
 
Ahhh, Catch-22

That's some catch, that Catch-22.
 
We really should all read Orwell's 1984 -

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The trick now is that it is more correctly shelved in non-fiction ... ;)
 
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