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What books do you guys read for entertainment?

Recently, I (thought I had) completed reading Harry Turtledove's alternative history of the Civil War and World War I. While I was getting together the info for this list, I discovered that he has just completed another book in the WWI series. I guess I know what I'll read after I finish Ann Coulter's Treason (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400050308/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/102-4998032-2154557).

For now, I'll stick to the novels that I've enjoyed recently - or are on my list.

Highly recommended for all gun owners!
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Unintended Consequences (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1888118040/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_3/102-4998032-2154557)
by John Ross

This is the beginning of Turtledove's alternative history series, in which the South won the Civil War.
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How Few Remain (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345406141/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_2/102-4998032-2154557)
by Harry Turtledove

World War I begins, with some unforeseen alliances.
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The Great War: American Front (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345405609/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/102-4998032-2154557)
by Harry Turtledove

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The Great War: Walk in Hell (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345405625/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_f/102-4998032-2154557)
by Harry Turtledove

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The Great War: Breakthroughs (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345405641/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/102-4998032-2154557)
by Harry Turtledove

An uneasy peace exists in North America after the USA's triumph in WWI.
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American Empire: Blood and Iron (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345405668/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/102-4998032-2154557)
by Harry Turtledove

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American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345444221/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/102-4998032-2154557)
by Harry Turtledove

[cookie]

I just found out about this one today. Guess what's next. :)
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American Empire: The Victorious Opposition (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/034544423X/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/102-4998032-2154557)
by Harry Turtledove

I haven't read this one yet. It's not actually part of either series, and is more of a science fiction work with time travelers delivering AK-47s to General Lee's army.
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The Guns of the South (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345384687/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/102-4998032-2154557)
by Harry Turtledove

[Travis McGee]

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[Nightcrawler]

I liked Turtledove's WorldWar series, and am eagerly awaiting the next volume in the Colonization series.

As a rule, I avoid political fiction. I've studied enough political science, and read through enough drab, poorly written PoliSci textbooks that I don't need authors preaching their ideaology to me in fiction, too.

Even if I agree with what they're saying, I'm not usually in the mood for a book that has an obvious political message as it's primary reason for being written (but that's just me).

So, if you're a writer, take note. Science fiction or no, The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Cliches (http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/cliche.htm) has some good tips on what's been overdone.

Specifically, this one:
The author lectures the viewer/reader; the lecture takes the form of a Platonic Dialogue between two characters, or of the Cosmic Message from the Ultra-enlightened Aliens to the Great Unwashed Human Masses.

You get the idea. I, personally, dislike books that do this.

Again, though, that's just me. I might pick up Enemies. Is it available on Amazon, by chance?

[4v50 Gary]

Finished the memoirs of General William T. Sherman & Baumgartner's Kennesaw last week and presently reading John Billing's Tenth Massachusetts Battery. Billing's more famous work is Hardtack and Coffee.

[Dorrin79]

most recently I read

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

re-read Return of the King in expectation of the film

re-read Len Deighton's Blitzkrieg, an analysis of the opening stages of WWII

currently reading Carlucci's Edge by Richard Paul Russo. (2nd in a trilogy, Destroying Angel, Carlucci's Edge, and Carlucci's Heart)

[Ed]

In sales I listen to lots of books on tape as I drive.

Anything by Lee Child, Great books about an x Army MP.
Tess Geritson has some good ones.
Right now I'm reading Ghost Soldiers.
Michael Conely has good books too.

[FireInTheHole]

Nightcrawler: Have you read the 5th imperium series by David Weber? Seems like half of the list of Overused Science Fiction Cliches is used up in the first book "Mutineer's Moon".

Good yarn though, I've read the series a couple times now.

[priv8ter]

The two most recent books I read were Lucifer's Hammer by Niven and Pournelle, and I bought a new copy of I Am Legend, by Matheson....great story...spooky as all get out.

Right now, I am reading 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' to my pregnant wife...my way of bonding with the kid. Great book to read, but man, oh man, that Loonie way of talking sure makes it tough to read to someone else...

[Jack19]

Lately, been working on "London," by Edward Rutherfurd. Great hisorical fiction as are all of his books.

Have also been reading Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. "What country, friends, is this?"

[Dr.Rob]

Lets see...

In Search of Captain Zero (strangely well written nonfiction exploration of self and surf by AC Wiesbecker)

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett (it's the apocalypse, as written by Monty Python or Douglas Adams... very funny)

Sometimes fiction doesn't need to be gunrelated though they both have their moments.

[ACP230]

I just reread "Oliver Wiswell" by Kenneth Roberts.
It is a book on the American Revolution written from the Tory perspective.

Roberts did several other books on the Revolution and the War Of 1812 including: "Rabble In Arms," (from the Revolutionary side) "The Lively Lady" ( about privateers) "Arundel" and "Northwest Passage."

I read them in high school and now have most of the books since the library sold them off for a dime each about 10 years ago.

Roberts did extensive research. I recommend his books.

[Border]

The Da Vinci Code, 1/2 through, good so far....

[hksw]

Now reading Star Risk, LTD. by Chris Bunch. Also, various catalogs for replacing a BSA scope atop my recently converted 10/22M (from .22 mag to .17 HMR).

[kudu]

Anything by David Drake, David Weber, Eric Flint, Stephen Hunter, and Simon R. Green. The first three are excellent military sci-fi writers, lots of action. John Dalmas also, plus a whole lot of other authors not necessarily all about guns.

For some good dry satirical laughs try Terry Pratchett's Discworld Series, not about guns.

[Okiecruffler]

I just discovered P.J. O'Rourke so I've been reading his stuff. Funny guy. I'm also about half way thru The Snakebite Survivors' Club by Jeremy Seal. Interesting read if you're into handling snakes, pretty boring if you're married to a guy who's into handling snakes who keeps reading you passages from the book.

[Brian Williams]

Recently read the Richard Sharpe series by ????? about a young man enters british military and goes to India and thru the Napoleonic wars as a rifleman.

Dune

Chronicles of Thomas Covanant by Stephen R Donoldson


Secrets of the Koran Scarey people.... scarey book, the Koran that is.

[tyme]

(not gun related)
Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde)
Don Juan (Moliere)
Pygmalion (Shaw)
re-read Thucydides Melian Dialogue (from History of the Peloponnesian War)
re-read the Prince
re-read 1984
most of Lincoln's Constitution (Farber)

I read a chapter of History and Utopia (Cioran) in the store before buying it, but it's really bizarre. After I get done with that I'm thinking about reading Vico's The First New Science and Cassier's Myth of the State, all three of which together I figure should drive me completely insane.

[Sindawe]

Interesting reading list so far. OK, here's the current population of my reading shelf.

VBS in a Nutshell - O'Reilly Press
The Tribe of Tiger - Disertation on cats, large and small
Choosing Names, Man-Kzin Wars VIII
The American Zone - Fiction, L. Neil Smith
Aftershocks - H. Turtledove, alternate history
She is the Darkness - Fantasy, Glen Cook
Petty Pewter Gods - Fantasy Gumshoe, Glen Cook
Deadly Quicksilver Lies - ibid

Eagerly awaiting:

Eneimies Forign and Domestic
The next, first and last Heinlein novel
The Ballad of Carl Drenga

[coylh]

Heinlein has a number of good novels.

[swingset]

I don't read much gusto/guns stuff, reading to me is relaxation time so I usually bug out to some Sarte or Camus. Just got through "The Myth of Sisyphus" the other day. Pretty cool book.

I'm weird that way.

[timbo]

Read? What's that? I've been too busy reading up on manufacturing methods to finish off my master's thesis, so I'm not getting a lot of variety in my literature. When I'm not involved in a lot of writing, I tend to go through some Tom Clancy stuff and some fantasy novels.

[Sergeant Bob]

Perfessr Chronicles of Thomas Covanant by Stephen R Donoldson
Leper, outcast, unclean. I'll have to dig that series out and read it for the 4th time! Great books.
Have you read his Gap series?

Just finished Enemies, Foreign and Domestic (I got the AIplane Edition!). Coudn't put it down! Stayed up WAY past my bedtime

[FireInTheHole]

Here's my list(in order):

Dune Series
Lord of the Ring
Lucifer's Hammer
Starship Troopers
Armour
The Wheel of Time(Grrr... R. Jordan needs to finish it!)
5th Imperium Series

Various other junky fantasy/scifi.

I dont get much leisure time to read (besides textbooks!) anymore.:(

[TonyB]

just finished NightPrey by John Sandford,it's the second book of his that I've read......I've read almost every Stephen Hunter book,and look forward to Havana..... my wife got me a book about Delta Force written by the guy who helped form it,that's my next one...I like simple stories w/ lots of guns....like me.:cool:

[Jonesy9]

ACP- I'm with you, Roberts is great for historical fiction. I haven't read Oliver Wiswell but Arundel, Rabble in Arms and Boone Island are among my favorite books and I reread them every few years. Lively Lady was ok, Northwest Passage is great too!


Recently I've read:

The Prince of Providence- a book about Mayor Buddy Cianci of Providence, great book about RI's favorite mayor and his downfall. Just think what could have been if Regan had chosen him over Bush for VP back in 80 LOL!

Mystic River- by Dennis LeHane- great quick read, and as usual, 10X better than the movie

Wealth and Democracy- Another awesome analysis from nixonite Kevin Phillips, very dry and wonkish, much more so than Politics of Rich and Poor. I still haven't finished it, it takes a while digest.

[W Turner]

I will read anything I can get my hands on with Sci-Fi/Fantasy being a glaring exception.

Recently:

Stephen King- The Gunslinger, The Stand (5th time), Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Stephen Hunter- Dirty White Boys, Time to Hunt, Pale Horse Coming, THe Master Sniper

Patricia Cornwell- Southern Cross (hilarious)

Also on my bookshelf: William W. Johnstone's Ashes series (only missing three)- its pulp, but I like it anyway, multiple Stephen King novels, Dean Koontz, Bill O'Reilly, Jesse Ventura, Robert R. McGammon,

Its kind of odd, when I go to Books A Million I look almost exclusively at non-fiction, but my bookshelf is about 85% fiction.

Need to change that,

Mino

[glockten]

Last book read: Guarding The United States And Its Outposts by Stetson Conn, Rose Engelman, and Byron Fairchild. A volume in the series "The U.S. Army In World War II".

Currently reading Cartridges Of The World, 10th Edition by Frank Barnes and Stan Skinner; and Gettysburg by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen.

Next up: Snakes In The Cockpit: Images Of Military Aviation Disasters by L. Douglas Keeney; and Strategy And Command: The First Two Years by Louis Morton.

[Kamicosmos]

Hmmm...I read a lot...let's see, I'll limit it to this year:

Currently reading the novel of Battle Royal (Yeah, the Japenese story about a jr high class put on an island and forced to kill in other in a sick game run by the gov't)

Before that read Book III of the War of the Spider Queen Series Condemnation

Then it was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Then Book II of the WotSQ, Insurrection
Diamond Dogs and Resivor Days by Alistair Reynolds (HardCore SciFi)
Redemption Ark also by A. Reynolds.

Books coming up are:
Book IV of WotSQ: Extinction
The Annonated Legends
Enemies: Forgien and Domestic
Unintended Consequences
and maybe finish Hot Springs, then Pale Horse Coming and Havana by Steven Hunter. (I think I'm the only Hunter Fan that isn't into the 'Earl' series...)
The next A. Reynolds book (If I can get it from England, otherwise, gotta wait a year)

[HankB]

I liked Turtledove's WorldWar series, and am eagerly awaiting the next volume in the Colonization series. Sad to day, I believe he "closed out" the series with the last book . . . probably running out of ideas to continue this particular story line.

Anyway, what I've been reading lately are . . .

Saturnalia by John Maddox Roberts. Book number 5 in his SPQR series, it tells the story of Decius Caecilius Metellus, a Roman who often gets drawn into murder investigations, often with dangerous political overtones. Well, written, it gives a good insight into the dark side of Caesar's Rome. I plan to buy the followup books soon. (They're titled Nobody Loves a Centurion and The Tribune's Curse.)

Re-reading the Sten books of Alan Cole and Chris Bunch. Set in the 40th century, they tell of the recruitment and missions of a man named Sten, in the service of the Eternal Emperor, an immortal who controls the supply of AM2, the Empire's main power source. (Despite the EE's title, this is hard science fiction, NOT fantasy.)

And I'm waiting for the next installment of William Forstchen's "Lost Regiment" series, a chronicle of the battles fought by a Union regiment of the 1860's after being sucked through a vortex onto another planet, where humans from many cultures are "cattle" to the nomadic, Mongol-like aliens. (The Union soldiers decide to fight, and convince others to join them.)

For non-fiction, I'm trying to find something about WWII Air Commandos, especially anything that references the 3rd Air Commando Group, my Dad's WWII outfit.

[RobW]

I gave up reading temporary fiction, reminds me too much of Hollyweird.

Work in progress now is "Story of the Great American West" Great illustrations that show how a canestoga is designed, how a fort is organized, how the railroad was built etc. etc.

Goes from early mountain-men to Texas oil. Very nice made book! (Reader's Digest Association, 384 pages).

[Sharpdogs]

recently finished the Richest Man in Babylon (great finance book, but the wealthy barber is still my favorite)
currently reading The DaVinci Code, half way through, can't put it down
next The Black Book of Communism (all about the atrocities and crimes of communism through out history)

[larryw]

Love the Prey series by John Sanford! Great stuff.

Currently halfway through James Huston's books. Like Clancy, only not as technical and slow to start.

Clancy and King are always at the top of my list.

[Donkey Hote]

High Guys, I am a new poster, have lurked here for a while. I am also on one of the other well known sites, but with recent childish activity, I decided to register here and begin posting.
Anyway, back to the topic, I just finished reading "In The Company Of Heroes" by Michael Durant. Very good read, got me choked up a couple of times. It gives you a different perspective of the Blackhawk Down story.

[Hkmp5sd]

LEGACY: Paying The Price For The Clinton Years by Rich Lowry

Havana by Stephen Hunter

1000 Years For Revenge: International Terrorism and the FBI by Peter Lance

TIME: A Traveler's Guide by Clifford A. Pickover

Three Roads to Quantum Gravity by Lee Smolin

Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy by Kip S. Thorne

None Braver: U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen in the War on Terrorism by Michael Hirsh

The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency by Phillip H. Melanson

[m.i.sanders]

I haven't been able to read as much lately as I'd used too, but I've been reading Ayn Rand. As soon as I can I'm going to pick up the following though,

Naked Empire by Terry Goodkind
The ABC's of Reloading
CISSP Study guide.
And the newest one from Terry Brooks, it's a fantasy but I don't remember the name.

[cpileri]

I have read all of these (and more) at one time or another, and now want to get a copy of each as a base library for my kids.
C-

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Candide by Voltaire
Don Quixote: Cervantes
Les Miserables The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Hugo
The Count of Monte Cristo: Dumas
Crime & Punishment/The Brothers Karamazov: Dostoevski
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Verne
All Quiet on the Western Front: Remarque
Gulliver's Travels: Swift
Pride & Prejudice: Austen
Ivanhoe: Scott
Great Expectations: Dickens
Jane Eyre/Wuthering Heights: Bronte (even though these books SUCK, I think Nathaniel should be exposed)
Alice in Wonderland: Carrol
Treasure Island: Stevenson
Heart of Darkness: Conrad
1984: Orwell
Animal Farm, Orwell
Melville, Moby Dick
Dante, Divine Comedy
Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Moore, Utopia
The Epic of Gilgamesh
"De Excidio Britanniae", St. Gildas
"History of the Britons" , Nennius

Plato’s Republic
On Human Nature, St. Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas,Summa Theologiae
Homer, Iliad and Odyssey
Hobbes, Leviathan
Virgil, Aeneid
Locke, Second Essay of Civil Government
Augustine, Confessions
Machiavelli, The Prince
Rousseau, Social Contract
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

The Federalist Papers (all 85), Hamilton, Jay, and Madison
The Articles of Confederation
The Constitution of the United States, et al.
The Declaration of Independence, et al.
The Bill of Rights, et al.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of taking up Arms, July 6,1775
First Continental Congress
Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress
George Washington Farewell Address

Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

The Bible, several translations

[cool45auto]

Right now I'm on a John Grisham kick. The Testament, The Summons, A Time To Kill, The Firm...etc.