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What are you reading right now ?


Patrick Hand

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Hester..is that buckle period? :lol:

Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants won't help....

Her reputation was her livelihood.

I'm a pirate, love. By nature and by choice!

My inner voice sometimes has an accent!

My wont? A delicious rip in time...

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I must admit that the only book I have "read" as of late is the latest Clive Cussler novel The Navigator. Clive Cussler and Patrick O'Brien are my two favorite authors. Thanks to my maniacal reading style witch could be summed up as to hell with the world and every damned thing in it I am reading damn you. (Witch to be honest is how I approach everything) and my Fiancee's reaction to it. I have become more and more reliant upon books on tape. To witch end I have recently finished the Thirteen Gun Salute by the afore mentioned Patrick O'Brien and A Spectacle of Corruption by David Liss. Both of these books were un abridged and delightful. In abridged form I have also listened to Guns Up, Visions From A Fox Hole, 60 Days in Combat, Terrible Terry Allen, and A Ranger Born. I attempted an abridged version of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein but the reader did such a poor job that I was unable to make it through the rather slow beginning of this classic. I also glistened to a Version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I have no idea how closely it follows to the original nor if it was abridged but I can say it was VERY GOOD. Oh and I also listened to an Abridged version of Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. Mission if you are drawn to Stephen Mautrin as a charterer's some of the books in that series focus mostly on him and his intelligence work. A story aspect cut from the movie. A few of these novels are The Reverse of the Medal and to a lesser extent the Thirteen Gun Salute. The odd couple that is Jack Audbrey and Stephen Maturin is to me the high light of this series. As a fan of both the books and the style in which they were written could you do me a favor and go into more detail as to why you as well as many others find them clogged with detail? Also I would recommend Dewie Lambdin's Alan Lewrie series for a less detail rich and or laden as to your perspective and somewhat faster paced set of novels. I do not think him O'Brien's equal as an author but they are still good.

THIS BE THE HITMAN WE GOIN QUIET

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Cradle of the Deep by Joan Lowell ... another one of my out-of-print finds on ebay. I read this when I was in high school and loved it then. It's Ms. Lowell's true story of growing up on a whaler with just her father. It was originally published in 1929.

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The Borgias by Marion Johnson

Another interesting period in history. ;)

...schooners, islands, and maroons

and buccaneers and buried gold...

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You can do everything right, strictly according to procedure, on the ocean, and it'll still kill you. But if you're a good navigator, a least you'll know where you were when you died.......From The Ship Killer by Justin Scott.

"Well, that's just maddeningly unhelpful."....Captain Jack Sparrow

Found in the Ruins — Unique Jewelry

Found in the Ruins — Personal Blog

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Try Frankenstein again, Hitman. It's wonderfully creepy! I got goosebumps while reading it and that doesn't happen that often.

Delivery can make all the difference if you're listening to audiobooks - I listened to Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders" - an incredibly fascinating story, ruined by the deadpan delivery of the reader. This guy was narrating about the amazing lives of the men who joined Roosevelt's Rough Riders and made it sound less interesting than a grocery list.

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A note on this book: Be careful about what you accept as "fact" in Zack's book The Pirate Hunter (the title notwithstanding). It's an enjoyable book for pirate aficionados, but some of it is not provably true and (if I recall correctly) it doesn't cite sources. Check out this thread in Captain Twill for some discussion on the book. Note particularly the comments by Foxe, who has a whole site devoted to debunking pirate myths.

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” -Oscar Wilde

"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted is really true, there would be little hope of advance." -Orville Wright

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I went to Zack's lecture when he was here in New Orleans a couple of years ago: have a signed copy of the book, but haven't read it yet. Just not enough time....

I'm currently reading Remini's book about The Battle of New Orleans: The Blue and the Gray, a terrific history of the Civil War, compiled from excerpts of original documents: and Swords Around a Throne, about Napoleon's Grand Army.

Capt. William

"The fight's not over while there's a shot in the locker!"

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Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris

Totally creepy, extremely messed up! But very well written and crafted.

OOps! That was my outside voice;)!

"Big on self-reliance and personal responsibility. Down on culture of victimology. Nobody owes you a thing and life isn't always fair. Spend a little more time being grateful and less time bitching and you just might find a smile replacing that scowl. Being miserable doesn't make you 'deep;' it makes you insufferable."-The Thirsty Celt

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~Sail it like you stole it!~

"Silence is Golden; Duct Tape is Silver"

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Aye the delivery on an audio book is crucial Red Handed Jill I have heard more than one really good story ruined by the reader's inadequate delivery. Part of the problem for me is that I buy my audio books in truck stops thus limiting both the selection and the quality of them. I intended to use more on line sources in the future but for now :rolleyes: . I have several recordings from librivox and to be honest they aren't bad but some are better than others. I also find that philosophy doesn't make for great audio books. One day I am going to have to read Descartes's Discourse on the method... as listening to it did not leave my slow witted self enough time to comprehend it as completely as I would have liked.

THIS BE THE HITMAN WE GOIN QUIET

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I really like books on tape. I find I retain more of them for some reason. I have a session on Descartes on my rental shelf at Simply Audiobooks.

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” -Oscar Wilde

"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted is really true, there would be little hope of advance." -Orville Wright

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Starting John Adams Biography

Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants won't help....

Her reputation was her livelihood.

I'm a pirate, love. By nature and by choice!

My inner voice sometimes has an accent!

My wont? A delicious rip in time...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got the Harry Potter book on Saturday.

*Note: there are no real spoilers in this. Please don't post any for those who haven't read this and want to do so. Thanks *

It was a decent read (as are all of her books). Actually, it went pretty much the way I suspected it would. There was only one real surprise to me as far as the basic arc went. [And it was very minor, involving a minor villain.] She sure took us on a whirlwind tour of the other books' locations, though. It had a tiny bit of the cloying "remember this bit?" aspect to it. Kind of like Episode 3 and Die Another Day.

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” -Oscar Wilde

"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted is really true, there would be little hope of advance." -Orville Wright

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Mission wrote

Got the Harry Potter book on Saturday.

A-hah! So that's why barnes & noble looked like a halloween bash.

I just finished "All For the Union" by Robert Hunt Rhodes, which is a diary of a civil war soldier from Rhode Island. It's so weird to know first-hand the places he mentioned. Coincidentally, the soldier (Elisha Hunt Rhodes which the author is related to), the book tells of the death of his father, the sea captain who drowned in a shipreck in the Abacos, Bahamas in 1858 while shipping rum & molasses.

It is perfect bathroom material :lol: because you can read each day's diary.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Mission wrote
Got the Harry Potter book on Saturday.

A-hah! So that's why barnes & noble looked like a halloween bash.

I actually ordered it from Amazon. Had I known there was going to be a Halloween-style bash...I probably still would have ordered it from Amazon. (Somehow my primary Haunted House character, Mute, the mailman, doesn't seem to fit HP. Stupid owls...)

I am just finishing Never Check E-Mail In the Morning by Julie Morgenstern (which is excellent for the topic) and preparing to start The Case of the Missing Neutrinos: And Other Curious Phenomena of the Universe by John Gribbin

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” -Oscar Wilde

"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted is really true, there would be little hope of advance." -Orville Wright

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Have you seen the Sharpe's movies? Sean Bean does a really good job in those.

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” -Oscar Wilde

"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted is really true, there would be little hope of advance." -Orville Wright

gallery_1929_23_24448.jpg

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The Sixth Exticntion

also scary stuff

on what we are losing to extiction and at best guess rates, not just plants and animals, but languges and cultuers as well

Mud Slinging Pyromanic , Errrrrr Ship's Potter at ye service

Vagabond's Rogue Potter Wench

First Mate of the Fairge Iolaire

Me weapons o choice be lots o mud, sharp pointy sticks, an string

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Have you seen the Sharpe's movies? Sean Bean does a really good job in those.

I have seen four or five of these, and Bean is very good.

Sometimes the movies take some pretty serious... um... artistic license, so you lose a lot of the book, but that's about usual when you're trying to put a novel into an hour-and-a-half of film.

Plus, of course, there's that legendary British television budget: the uniforms and weapons are amazingly accurate to the period, but battles that were fought by hundreds if not thousands of men on each side are now fought by a couple dozen guys all-told.

Yes, I'm exagerating to make a point, but not by much. And I do still really enjoy the movies...

:rolleyes:

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  • 2 weeks later...

At the moment as usual I am reading several books at a time

Scotland's Black Death

Grania: She-King of the Irish Seas

A History of Pirates

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

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Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.

The Dimension of Time is only a doorway to open. A Time Traveler I am and a Lover of Delights whatever they may be.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

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The Case of the Missing Neutrinos: And Other Curious Phenomena of the Universe by John Gribbin turned out to be a series of essays on extra-planetary phenomena, much of it dated, so I only read about a 1/4 of them before I lost interest. I switched over to Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V. S. Ramachandran et al and The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (thanks largely to the post by hitman). The Holmes mysteries have proved quite riveting.

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” -Oscar Wilde

"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted is really true, there would be little hope of advance." -Orville Wright

gallery_1929_23_24448.jpg

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I have ordered "The Sailmaker's Apprentice" can't wait till it arrives. Whoo!

Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants won't help....

Her reputation was her livelihood.

I'm a pirate, love. By nature and by choice!

My inner voice sometimes has an accent!

My wont? A delicious rip in time...

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