Postman just delivered. I'll do a "book report" after I've read it. 
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What book are you reading right now?
- Thread starter Wordman
- Start date
He wrote some great articles for the mags. Really interesting how extreme angles of lean affect perception.
Nearly finished 'First Gyro' by Norman Surplus. Surplus was diagnosed with cancer, treated, made a good recovery, and took up flying gyroplanes. His enthusiasm for this new-found pursuit led to him planning and completing the first circumnavigation by this type of aircraft - the sub-title of the book is 'The last type of aircraft to conquer the World'.
For them as might not know, a gyroplane is pushed along by a powered propeller but gains lift from free-wheeling blades, so it looks like a helicopter but has very different flying characteristics.
Surplus ultimately went on to complete the circumnavigation but the trip took years due to a number of factors - a flying accident was one, but the biggest cause of delay was the intransigence of the Russian authorities who stonewalled Surplus' requests to fly through Eastern Siberia to the Bering Straight.
It's a good story of difficulties met and overcome. Surplus takes the reader in the open cockpit for every single flight so we experience the extremes of weather, the worry of running low on fuel, the nerve needed to set out for extended flight over open seas in a low-powered, single-engine aircraft, the joy of vastly different vistas all around the globe. A good read, not just for aviation enthusiasts.
For them as might not know, a gyroplane is pushed along by a powered propeller but gains lift from free-wheeling blades, so it looks like a helicopter but has very different flying characteristics.
Surplus ultimately went on to complete the circumnavigation but the trip took years due to a number of factors - a flying accident was one, but the biggest cause of delay was the intransigence of the Russian authorities who stonewalled Surplus' requests to fly through Eastern Siberia to the Bering Straight.
It's a good story of difficulties met and overcome. Surplus takes the reader in the open cockpit for every single flight so we experience the extremes of weather, the worry of running low on fuel, the nerve needed to set out for extended flight over open seas in a low-powered, single-engine aircraft, the joy of vastly different vistas all around the globe. A good read, not just for aviation enthusiasts.
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TED SIMON - JUPITERS TRAVELS
I read this book years ago and just came across it again after finding it in longtime storage.
I read this book years ago and just came across it again after finding it in longtime storage.
Just finished "Educated" by Tara Westover. The best book I've read in a few years. Won many, many, awards and nominations, and was on the NYT's Hard Cover best seller list for 132 consecutive weeks (over two years).
Kind of hard to summarize. A true memoir of a girl growing up in an isolated, family of fervently anti-governmental survivalist Mormon-zealot lunatics, with no education of any kind until she somehow gets into college, who goes on to get a Doctorate from Cambridge. That really doesn't describe it. Very gripping and incredible.
Prior to that, I read "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. I read this as kid, but probably only got about half of it. Highly recommended.
Both "Educated" and "Huck Finn" were read on my new Kindle which I continue to really like. "Huck Finn" was another free eBook from Project Gutenberg. The ePub includes the 174 excellent original illustrations including the one above.
I read "Huck Finn" in preparation for my next read which will be "James" by Percival Everett. This is a re-telling of Huck's and Jim the slave's raft trip down the Mississippi, but told from the point of view of Jim. It just came out this year to rave reviews and much acclaim.
About 1/3 way through "No Man Knows My History" by Fawn M Brodie. Bit of a strange read, but that's what you get sometimes.
Just finished re-reading "The Old Man and the Sea" by Earnest Hemingway. I read this when young, and maybe read it again at some point.
A fantastic short book. There is a reason that Hemingway is at or near the top of any and all "Greatest American Authors" lists.
Mikey
got muscles in his head that ain't never been used
I just ordered this book from the local library
Sounds interesting
I must read that book.
Just finished "When In the Course of Human Events, the case for Southern Secession" by Charles Adams
Reading 'Matter' by Iain M Banks. Those who know Banks know he puts his middle initial when he write SF, this book is part of his 'Culture' series of SF books. I don't read a lot of science fiction these days but Banks' books rise above the genre.
Just finished 'Educated' by Tara Westover. She writes of her upbringing on Buck's Peak in rural Idaho. Her family were religious fundamentalists, she and three of her siblings never attended school, indeed their births were never registered with the authorities. The book covers her gradual discovery of the World away from Bucks' Peak and her family, the gulf this caused, her struggles with feelings of disloyalty and her eventual coming to terms with herself away from her family. Family forms most of the narrative - home schooling, helping on the farm and in her farther's junkyard. But the book tells of an amazing journey from a very circumscribed life, rules imposed by her parents, physical abuse by her brother to her education at Brigham Young University and on to her PhD from Cambridge. Hard to read but an uplifting story of self-discovery.
Excellent, riveting book. I beat you to it -- my post # 186:
By the way, the author's mother, LaRee Westover wrote her own memoir, titled "Educating." I take it to be a rebuttal of "Educated." Tara Westover comes down pretty hard on her family in "Educated."
Recently re-read a couple of Edgar Allen Poe short stories. Another author in the top ten of most Best American Authors lists. I only wanted to read "The Pit and the Pendulum" because I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was about. But after that, I noticed "A Descent into the Maelstrom" in the index of the Poe short story compilation that I was reading, so I re-read it too. Pretty good. If you know what my last name is, you'll know why it caught my eye.
This is certainly not the story I expected it to be. I find it difficult to put down. Chapters alternate between 18th century and present day Natchez, Mississippi. It is enlightening for me.
TJZ662
XS650 Addict
“The Life of Olaudah Equiano”
Would be a good follow
Would be a good follow
“The Life of Olaudah Equiano” would be a good follow up!
Got suckered into replying to a four year old post.
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Wordman
XS650 Addict
Wordman
XS650 Addict
Postman just delivered. I'll do a "book report" after I've read it.
"A Twist of the Wrist" is a great book! Especially his exercises on seeing what's going on around you and the parts about "a dollar's worth..." I use both when discussing Situational Awareness and Situational Preparedness.
Currently 80% through reading Vietnam an epic tragedy 1945-1975 by Max Hastings, regarded as one of the most authoritative and deeply researched books on the Indo-China wars. Like most of us on this forum, I lived through the war and now seems like a good time to look back and see how events that were on the media when I was young fit into the warp and weft of history. The violence and suffering meted out on the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia reflect very badly on all governments involved - France, USA, China, Russia, N Vietnam and S Vietnam.
