Just finished Bob Seebohar's "Metabolic Efficiency Training".
Let me just say that, while it provides a good explanation of what he's trying to get across, it basically is of little-to-no use without getting lab tested.
And even then, it's pretty straightforward...(paraphrasing) "more aerobic (less anaerobic) training will allow you to burn more fat and teach your body to burn fat". DUH!!!
In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks by Adam Carolla. I pretty much love everything Adam puts out, don't let the title throw you off. This is a great book.
I finally finished "Pillars of the Earth" (Ken Follett) - and it was great! That it took me so long is only an indication of how little time I spent reading this past season (started it in the hospital in Jan and finished it over T'giving... I think the second half got knocked out post-IMFL).
I'm 75% through "What the Dog Saw" now (by Gladwell, of "Blink" fame). It's a series of short stories tht are all really interesting (about people, events, phenomena). I have "Outliers" of his in my queue, too.
For my Christmas trek I'll be starting something new, "The Lost Symbol," by Dan Brown. The BF read it and thought it was very captivating - a good travel book. Being based in DC is also cool... so I suspect I'll finish up What the Dog Saw after I get back - not enough left to cover me for 14+ hours of traveling over the next week... why I'm taking something new (besides, both are hard cover).
I just finished the Keith Richards autobiography, Life. It was excellent. He is a terrific storyteller and it helped that I could live through his tales of life and creating great songs that impacted my life through the years. Highly recommended.
Assholes Finish First and I Hope they Serve Beer In Hell, both titles by Tucker Max. They are stories about a guy who gets drunk, hooks up, and does obnoxious stuff. I liked both books. Definitely not something to read if you are prone to being offended.
Shit my Dad Says great book will take a couple hours to read I couldn't put it down.
Dear Mrs Fitzsimmons by Greg Fitzsimmons, about a guy growing up getting in all kinds of trouble at school, with the law. Pretty interesting but not as good as the 3 books above.
Adler's Appetite for Destruction by Steven Adler. He was the drummer for Guns and Roses who was kicked out of the band for excessive drug use. I apparently like books about drug and alcohol abuse and the tales people tell when they abuse drugs and alcohol. This was no different, I loved this book
I got a Kindle, I love the thing. Iowa is cold in the winter, my training time is limited in the OS. I work long hours often times with no real "work" to do. I've been enjoying my kindle.
Finishing "The Long Run" about triathlete/marathoner and FDNY guy, Matt Long, that got run over by a bus while on his bike, and lived to tell about it. I highly suggest it.
Got a Kindle for Christmas and have read a couple books.
First was the new Tom Clancy book, Dead or Alive. Typical Clancy though wasn't that impressed with this one.
Second book was The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman. Highly rec this book. Friedman is the chief intelligence officer at Stratfor, a private intelligence company. They do a great job with their intelligence releases. Here is a summary:
"With a unique combination of cold-eyed realism and boldly confident fortune-telling, Friedman (Americas Secret War) offers a global tour of war and peace in the upcoming century. The author asserts that the United States power is so extraordinarily overwhelming that it will dominate the coming century, brushing aside Islamic terrorist threats now, overcoming a resurgent Russia in the 2010s and 20s and eventually gaining influence over space-based missile systems that Friedman names battle stars. Friedman is the founder of Stratfor, an independent geopolitical forecasting company, and his authoritative-sounding predictions are based on such factors as natural resources and population cycles. While these concrete measures lend his short-term forecasts credence, the later years of Friedmans 100-year cycle will provoke some serious eyebrow raising. The armed border clashes between Mexico and the United States in the 2080s seem relatively plausible, but the space war pitting Japan and Turkey against the United States and allies, prognosticated to begin precisely on Thanksgiving Day 2050, reads as fantastic (and terrifying) science fiction. Whether all of the visions in Friedmans crystal ball actually materialize, they certainly make for engrossing entertainment."
Not for everyone but all who I know who have read it have raved about it. He also has a new book coming out next week called the Next Decade. Must buy for me.
My Horizontal Life By Chelsea Handler, a collection of stories about one night stands she has had. This book was OK, I'm certainly not raving about it, but I did manage to finish it.
Dan always a ringing endorcement when you say you just finished it I did see that come up on my amazon recommendation list and thought about it but passed. For whatever reason when it comes to memoirs I prefer ones about drug abuse. I do want to read life even though I am a bit young to be a rolling stones fan.
Speaking of reading books you normally wouldn't... I am almost exclusively a non-fiction reader. Other than the occational Dean Koontz novel (and even that is no longer interesting me) give me history books over made up books. However the son of my mom's best friend (who I kinda know) wrote a book called The Metropolis Case, about Wagners Tristan and Isolde opera, and a few people's lives (over centuries) interact with the opera. You couldn't get something _less_ interesting for me at first glance. Like opera as an idea, not really someone who seeks it out. However sat down to read it, expecting to tell my mom 'yep great book' when in reality I read the first chapter. Course what happens? Love it... Now I am looking at the met opera schedules and seeing if 5 hour wagner productions are interesting for friends (cause you know Leigh ain't going LOL).
Also finished Just Kids, Patti Smith's tale of love with Robert Mapplethorpe. Really enjoyed it, having lived like 3 blocks south of CBGB's in the early-mid 90's, which granted was _way_ past it's prime. Sad book in a lot of ways, but also an interesting period piece. Not a fan of either of them, which I think made it better since I didn't have a notion of who they were or what to expect. Heck didn't even know that they were lovers back in the day...
Finished What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell - it was a series of short works about various interesting people, places, and things. All were quite interesting.
I also finished the Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. It was a compelling read, great for traveling as it was a real page-turner, but there were some things in the story line that don't quite add up...but would still recommend it if you have a long flight.
About halfway into the Omnivore's Dilemma now and wow is it interesting. I know many of you have already read it. I've read Fast Food Nation and seen Supersize me, and this is more of the same. I plan to read In Defense of Food soon, too. But, I think next up will be Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Outliers (another Gladwell book).
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is a collection of short stories by newly-minted MacArthur Fellow, Yiyun Li. I learned that chinese guilt and midwestern guilt are very close cousins. "Son" and "The Princess of Nebraska" completely broke my heart.
After beautifully written, sad, guilt stories, I switched to a crime novel. I picked up a copy of The Lemur, by Benjamin Black. Short. Pretty to read. Good yarn.
Now, I am back to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, attempt two. If I make it to page one-hundred and still don't like it, I'm giving up.
@Beth... give me some time to catch up to you - that's my next in line. We can make a book club out of it. FWIW, my mom told me it starts dreadfully slow with a ridiculous amount of detail re people and relationships but she swore it does pick up and becomes very very compelling... Hopefully I'll be through Omnivore's Dilemma next week.
I had the same experience with the Dragon Tattoo. The first 100 pages are snoozey and took me about 6 months to get through. However, once I made it past that point, I finished the book in about 6 hours. Power through, it speeds up! The second and third books are better than the first.
+Whatever on Dragon Tatoo. Got in March of last year and haven't touched it since May. On the Kindle, probably won't pick it up again but we'll see.
I just now purchased the 21st century Friedman book and will get "Next 10 Years" or whatever after that. Many of you know this, but "The World is Flat" is a large part of our inspiration for creating EN: leverage technology and a community to create something bigger than ourselves, scale what we were doing separately, and create a space where the members created value for themselves. I always dig his stuff though "Hot Flat and Crowded" kinda scared the crap out of me....
Just finished 'Unbroken' It's a great read and take on WWII Pacific theater aviator who was a former Olympic 1500M runner and his story of survival through incredible conditions. The end feels a little rushed, but it was a sufficiently inspiring read that I got through most of it on a BOS-LAX non-stop.
I totally gave up on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Life is too short to read a book with that much admin/boring reading cost.
I have been reading,Salt, A World History. This book is delightful read if you like food and history. I've decided to claim the eight-foot tall, creative, brightly-dressed Celts as my spiritual ancestors. I had no idea they were so smart and cool. I've also just read about four chapters on herring trade and liked it. Sure sign of a good read.
FLASH! Bars, Boobs, and Busted: 5 Years on the Road with Girls Gone Wild
Actually a pretty interesting book, In 2002, author Ryan Simkin took a new job as co-production coordinator for Mantra Entertainment, produfcer of the infamous girls . Over the next several years, he rose through the company to become GGW founder Joe Francis' right hand man, supervising operations across America for the brand known for getting hot, young coeds to "go wild".
A sort of behind the scenes account of how they made the films, got permission to film, set up, got girls to flash etc. Pretty interesting stuff. Love it or hate it these guys were pretty smart.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first in a 3 book series (if it hasn't already been mentioned). It took me until about page 250-300 of that book to get into the story. After that, I could not put it down, just about to finish the 3rd book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest. I have heard there have been some translation discrepanies, but the copies I got from the library were fine. Bottom line, I enjoyed them and thought it was worth suffering through the first few hundred pages.
Totally agree with Carly. First 25-35% of Dragon Tattoo is dreadfully slow. The second half is awesome. The second book follows a similar pattern. The third book is non-stop from front to back. Terrific series, very much worth getting through the slow part.
Finished Friedman's "Next 100 Years or Whatever" last night on the Kindle. I enjoyed the macro level, big trends in history stuff. But when he had the Japanese launching a sneak attack on US "Battle Stars" orbiting above the earth...a sneak attack of moonrocks with rockets attached, launched from secret bases on the darkside of the moon (!!)...in 2050, I said "whoa, chief, hold on there!"
Yeah, I know you can't predict anything but...he gets into very, very detailed discussions of specific events he's projecting (I guess) to happen 50-70yrs from now.
Reading "The Checklist Manifesto" now and picked up Ender's Game.
Green Tattoo: got it, started it like last March and took me till May to get as far as I got, haven't touched it since. Y'all are making me feel like it's spinach or something that I'll eventually like so I "may" pick it up again.
I'll mail my rejected copy of the Girl with Dragon Tattoo to anyone who wants it. Ugh.
R - I just started The Man with Two Arms. It is not science fiction, but very promising baseball fiction. The first two chapters are all babies and Wrigley in springtime. What could be better?
@Mike - not complete SF but check out Anathem by Neal Stephenson (one of my favorite authors). It's got it's own language so it takes a couple of chapters to get used to but I really enjoyed it.
Other Great Neal Stephenson novels: Cryptonomicon, Zodiac & Snow Crash
Comments
Let me just say that, while it provides a good explanation of what he's trying to get across, it basically is of little-to-no use without getting lab tested.
And even then, it's pretty straightforward...(paraphrasing) "more aerobic (less anaerobic) training will allow you to burn more fat and teach your body to burn fat". DUH!!!
I'm 75% through "What the Dog Saw" now (by Gladwell, of "Blink" fame). It's a series of short stories tht are all really interesting (about people, events, phenomena). I have "Outliers" of his in my queue, too.
For my Christmas trek I'll be starting something new, "The Lost Symbol," by Dan Brown. The BF read it and thought it was very captivating - a good travel book. Being based in DC is also cool... so I suspect I'll finish up What the Dog Saw after I get back - not enough left to cover me for 14+ hours of traveling over the next week... why I'm taking something new (besides, both are hard cover).
One of my all time favorites, The Alchemist won't take you 14 hours, but you could read it over and over...
Recent reads:
Assholes Finish First and I Hope they Serve Beer In Hell, both titles by Tucker Max. They are stories about a guy who gets drunk, hooks up, and does obnoxious stuff. I liked both books. Definitely not something to read if you are prone to being offended.
Shit my Dad Says great book will take a couple hours to read I couldn't put it down.
Dear Mrs Fitzsimmons by Greg Fitzsimmons, about a guy growing up getting in all kinds of trouble at school, with the law. Pretty interesting but not as good as the 3 books above.
Adler's Appetite for Destruction by Steven Adler. He was the drummer for Guns and Roses who was kicked out of the band for excessive drug use. I apparently like books about drug and alcohol abuse and the tales people tell when they abuse drugs and alcohol. This was no different, I loved this book
I got a Kindle, I love the thing. Iowa is cold in the winter, my training time is limited in the OS. I work long hours often times with no real "work" to do. I've been enjoying my kindle.
First was the new Tom Clancy book, Dead or Alive. Typical Clancy though wasn't that impressed with this one.
Second book was The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman. Highly rec this book. Friedman is the chief intelligence officer at Stratfor, a private intelligence company. They do a great job with their intelligence releases. Here is a summary:
"With a unique combination of cold-eyed realism and boldly confident fortune-telling, Friedman (Americas Secret War) offers a global tour of war and peace in the upcoming century. The author asserts that the United States power is so extraordinarily overwhelming that it will dominate the coming century, brushing aside Islamic terrorist threats now, overcoming a resurgent Russia in the 2010s and 20s and eventually gaining influence over space-based missile systems that Friedman names battle stars. Friedman is the founder of Stratfor, an independent geopolitical forecasting company, and his authoritative-sounding predictions are based on such factors as natural resources and population cycles. While these concrete measures lend his short-term forecasts credence, the later years of Friedmans 100-year cycle will provoke some serious eyebrow raising. The armed border clashes between Mexico and the United States in the 2080s seem relatively plausible, but the space war pitting Japan and Turkey against the United States and allies, prognosticated to begin precisely on Thanksgiving Day 2050, reads as fantastic (and terrifying) science fiction. Whether all of the visions in Friedmans crystal ball actually materialize, they certainly make for engrossing entertainment."
Not for everyone but all who I know who have read it have raved about it. He also has a new book coming out next week called the Next Decade. Must buy for me.
Dan always a ringing endorcement when you say you just finished it
I did see that come up on my amazon recommendation list and thought about it but passed. For whatever reason when it comes to memoirs I prefer ones about drug abuse. I do want to read life even though I am a bit young to be a rolling stones fan.
Speaking of reading books you normally wouldn't... I am almost exclusively a non-fiction reader. Other than the occational Dean Koontz novel (and even that is no longer interesting me) give me history books over made up books. However the son of my mom's best friend (who I kinda know) wrote a book called The Metropolis Case, about Wagners Tristan and Isolde opera, and a few people's lives (over centuries) interact with the opera. You couldn't get something _less_ interesting for me at first glance. Like opera as an idea, not really someone who seeks it out. However sat down to read it, expecting to tell my mom 'yep great book' when in reality I read the first chapter. Course what happens? Love it... Now I am looking at the met opera schedules and seeing if 5 hour wagner productions are interesting for friends (cause you know Leigh ain't going LOL).
Also finished Just Kids, Patti Smith's tale of love with Robert Mapplethorpe. Really enjoyed it, having lived like 3 blocks south of CBGB's in the early-mid 90's, which granted was _way_ past it's prime. Sad book in a lot of ways, but also an interesting period piece. Not a fan of either of them, which I think made it better since I didn't have a notion of who they were or what to expect. Heck didn't even know that they were lovers back in the day...
Next up history of the Mossad
I also finished the Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. It was a compelling read, great for traveling as it was a real page-turner, but there were some things in the story line that don't quite add up...but would still recommend it if you have a long flight.
About halfway into the Omnivore's Dilemma now and wow is it interesting. I know many of you have already read it. I've read Fast Food Nation and seen Supersize me, and this is more of the same. I plan to read In Defense of Food soon, too. But, I think next up will be Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Outliers (another Gladwell book).
I just finished two good books:
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is a collection of short stories by newly-minted MacArthur Fellow, Yiyun Li. I learned that chinese guilt and midwestern guilt are very close cousins. "Son" and "The Princess of Nebraska" completely broke my heart.
After beautifully written, sad, guilt stories, I switched to a crime novel. I picked up a copy of The Lemur, by Benjamin Black. Short. Pretty to read. Good yarn.
Now, I am back to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, attempt two. If I make it to page one-hundred and still don't like it, I'm giving up.
@Beth... give me some time to catch up to you - that's my next in line. We can make a book club out of it. FWIW, my mom told me it starts dreadfully slow with a ridiculous amount of detail re people and relationships but she swore it does pick up and becomes very very compelling... Hopefully I'll be through Omnivore's Dilemma next week.
I was suprised I didn't see this in the list, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. What a story! If you don't know what it's about, check it out.
Dave
Beth,
I had the same experience with the Dragon Tattoo. The first 100 pages are snoozey and took me about 6 months to get through. However, once I made it past that point, I finished the book in about 6 hours. Power through, it speeds up! The second and third books are better than the first.
+Whatever on Dragon Tatoo. Got in March of last year and haven't touched it since May. On the Kindle, probably won't pick it up again but we'll see.
I just now purchased the 21st century Friedman book and will get "Next 10 Years" or whatever after that. Many of you know this, but "The World is Flat" is a large part of our inspiration for creating EN: leverage technology and a community to create something bigger than ourselves, scale what we were doing separately, and create a space where the members created value for themselves. I always dig his stuff though "Hot Flat and Crowded" kinda scared the crap out of me....
Just finished 'Unbroken' It's a great read and take on WWII Pacific theater aviator who was a former Olympic 1500M runner and his story of survival through incredible conditions. The end feels a little rushed, but it was a sufficiently inspiring read that I got through most of it on a BOS-LAX non-stop.
In the middle of "Once a Runner'. So far so good.
I totally gave up on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Life is too short to read a book with that much admin/boring reading cost.
I have been reading, Salt, A World History. This book is delightful read if you like food and history. I've decided to claim the eight-foot tall, creative, brightly-dressed Celts as my spiritual ancestors. I had no idea they were so smart and cool. I've also just read about four chapters on herring trade and liked it. Sure sign of a good read.
Actually a pretty interesting book, In 2002, author Ryan Simkin took a new job as co-production coordinator for Mantra Entertainment, produfcer of the infamous girls . Over the next several years, he rose through the company to become GGW founder Joe Francis' right hand man, supervising operations across America for the brand known for getting hot, young coeds to "go wild".
A sort of behind the scenes account of how they made the films, got permission to film, set up, got girls to flash etc. Pretty interesting stuff. Love it or hate it these guys were pretty smart.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first in a 3 book series (if it hasn't already been mentioned). It took me until about page 250-300 of that book to get into the story. After that, I could not put it down, just about to finish the 3rd book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest. I have heard there have been some translation discrepanies, but the copies I got from the library were fine. Bottom line, I enjoyed them and thought it was worth suffering through the first few hundred pages.
Finished Friedman's "Next 100 Years or Whatever" last night on the Kindle. I enjoyed the macro level, big trends in history stuff. But when he had the Japanese launching a sneak attack on US "Battle Stars" orbiting above the earth...a sneak attack of moonrocks with rockets attached, launched from secret bases on the darkside of the moon (!!)...in 2050, I said "whoa, chief, hold on there!"
Yeah, I know you can't predict anything but...he gets into very, very detailed discussions of specific events he's projecting (I guess) to happen 50-70yrs from now.
Reading "The Checklist Manifesto" now and picked up Ender's Game.
Green Tattoo: got it, started it like last March and took me till May to get as far as I got, haven't touched it since. Y'all are making me feel like it's spinach or something that I'll eventually like so I "may" pick it up again.
I'm looking for some fiction. Science fiction?
I'll mail my rejected copy of the Girl with Dragon Tattoo to anyone who wants it. Ugh.
R - I just started The Man with Two Arms. It is not science fiction, but very promising baseball fiction. The first two chapters are all babies and Wrigley in springtime. What could be better?
Beth, bummer. I won't try to talk you out of it, even though I really want to. I agree it is a shame that it takes so long to get going.
Other Great Neal Stephenson novels: Cryptonomicon, Zodiac & Snow Crash
Nope. Life's too short for books that are that slow.
Sci fi reco: Never Let Me Go. This really is one of the best books I've read recently. Have you read Oryx and Crake?