So... what are you reading?

[Emills]

Turn the Ship around by David Marquet. I recommend it for anyone that may be in, or aspiring to, a leadership position, regardless your profession. Ditto for It's Your Ship by Mike Abrashoff.

[Jack Daw]

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson. It's a non-fiction account of 2 Americans who find a sunken WWII U-boat. It's an iBook that I just purchased today and hope to begin this evening.

[Peter Crowe]

Just finished, Bomban: Royal Hong Kong Police Inspector by Jack Humphreys. This is a memoir of an exciting career by Mr. Humphreys who served in the late 1970's and the 80's as an expatriate British 'Gweilo' Probationary Inspector/Inspector/Senior Inspector/Chief Inspector in various uniformed and CID roles within the Royal Hong Kong Police. 'Bomban' is the Cantonese term for a Police Inspector (the UK ranks of Inspector/Chief Inspector being analogous to the US Police ranks of Lieutenant and Captain). The RHKP Inspectorate ranks were a career entry point for university graduate expatriate British and other Commonwealth, as well as local Chinese officers more like a subaltern in the Army and had slightly more grades as unlike the UK constabularies it was based on, it was a more rigidly hierarchical paramilitary force with a strong internal security role.

[KiltedDixon]

Prairie Time by Matt White.

[EagleJCS]

Wound up going the 'something different' route. Slogged through The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan by Kaiten Nukariya. A lot of history of the different Buddhist sects from India, through China and into Japan (these students followed this teacher and they started their schools, who had these students, etc.), with a lot of references to this sutra and that prajnya by their Indian names. Not a lot of discussion about how Zen actually influenced the Samurai and the social influences of Zen on Japanese culture.

Followed that up with Sir Walter Scott's Old Mortality. Much better read. Set mainly in the period of 1679-1689 and discusses some of the philosophy between the Covenanters and the Cavaliers through the use of personifications and caricatures of some points of view.

Now reading Edgar Rice Burrough's Synthetic Men of Mars and plan on following that up with Sir Walter's The Monastery and The Abbott. Then I'll probably go to Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 3.

[GMan]

It Takes a Pillage by Nomi Prins

[GMan]

Just starting Van Morrison No Surrender by Johnny Rogan

[thescot]

This month it was:

Underwood, Scotch, and Wry by Brian D. Meeks (a little bit of fluff, but snarky and fast-paced and interesting);
Killing Hemingway by Arthur Byrne (a nom de plume ficitonal character from Underwood . . .; actually by Brian D. Meeks)
Out of the Labyrinth: Setting Math Free by Ellen Kaplan, Robert Kaplan (Not math, but about math and a very interesting approach);
Killing the Rising Sun by Bill O'Reilly (great history);
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue by John McWhorter (about English and probably more than you really wanted to know)

Any of the above is worth reading, but O'Reilly's book was magnificent. Well researched and written.

[frank_a]

I'm reading the new Safehold novel on my Kindle (At the Sign of Triumph) by David Weber, and am re-reading Origin of the Species by Darwin on it's 150th anniversary.

Cheers!

Frank

[Nile]

Since Thanksgiving, I've been taking a break before starting the last volume of the Outlander Series (my wife is reading it, "An Echo In The Bone" now).

I've discovered Ian Rnakin's Inspector Rebus novels and have read "Knots and Crosses" and "Hide and Seek". They are fun reads if not overly complex murder mysteries and I noticed a great deal of stylistic improvement between the first and second of these 'Rebus' novels. The cadence of the "Scottish" dialect took a little time for me to get used to and interestingly, the term "outwith" shows up a lot in both books.

I am now reading "44 Scotland Street" by another Scottish author, Alexander McCall Smith. This is a really fun read and has a very funny segment in it regarding one of the main character's foe-paw when wearing a kilt to a dinner party. I highly recommend it to anyone wishing a glimpse into the lives of a variety of extraordinary, ordinary characters who live in Edinburgh.

Nile