Book Suggestions - Revisited

[PonoBill]

... and reading them all straight through on my iPad.

iPad for me as well.  I just can't bring myself to reading glasses yet, so the variable font size is keeping me young for a few more years...with the added sense of accomplishment of reading 700 pages an hour.

Keep holding off on the glasses, and you'll be up to 800 or 900 pages per hour in another year or two.

FUNNY! I think I'm getting close to that.

[Ichabod Spoonbill]

Oh, yeah. Read "The Hunger Games". Coming from an English teacher, it's a lot of fun (and a few sniffles). I'm going to see the movie alone so my wife can't see me cry like a girl, about a girl.

[pdxmike]

All the Sherlock Holmes stories.  They're about the only fiction I read apart from political autobiographies. 

[headmount]

Classic PDX... They're about the only fiction I read apart from political autobiographies.

And you'd need to be as astute as Sherlock Holmes to understand what they're really trying to say.

[Admin]

... and reading them all straight through on my iPad.

iPad for me as well.  I just can't bring myself to reading glasses yet, so the variable font size is keeping me young for a few more years...with the added sense of accomplishment of reading 700 pages an hour.

Keep holding off on the glasses, and you'll be up to 800 or 900 pages per hour in another year or two.

FUNNY! I think I'm getting close to that.

There are so few words displayed on each page now that when I use the bookmark function, the mark shows up on a previous page - Sadly, no kidding on that one.  Actually, that may aslo be a benefit as I typically have forgotten what I last read by the time I get back to it

PS:  I followed up with another Man Booker winner, The Sense of an Ending.  Strong, but in a hard position after Banville.  Man, can he lay down the words. 

Great resource, though:  http://themanbookerprize.com/prize/archive

[Strand Leper]

It is so sad.  I have a pair of bifocals at my office.  In my car.  In my briefcase.  In my room.  In my home office... and pretty soon will be randomly placing them in bathrooms at the house and the office.  You know you are old when you are reading your IPOD with the big words... and wearing your bifocals.  My wife thinks it is pretty funny.

Tim

[Admin]

It is so sad.  I have a pair of bifocals at my office.  In my car.  In my briefcase.  In my room.  In my home office... and pretty soon will be randomly placing them in bathrooms at the house and the office.  You know you are old when you are reading your IPOD with the big words... and wearing your bifocals.  My wife thinks it is pretty funny.

Tim

Hah!  Middleagery loves company.  At 42, it took me about 3 months to figure out what was going on.  I was looking at the small print on Advil containers and the likes, and thinking, the printing quality on these things is going to shit.  It just wouldn't register.

[Strand Leper]

It is so sad.  I have a pair of bifocals at my office.  In my car.  In my briefcase.  In my room.  In my home office... and pretty soon will be randomly placing them in bathrooms at the house and the office.  You know you are old when you are reading your IPOD with the big words... and wearing your bifocals.  My wife thinks it is pretty funny.

Tim

Hah!  Middleagery loves company.  At 42, it took me about 3 months to figure out what was going on.  I was looking at the small print on Advil containers and the likes, and thinking, the printing quality on these things is going to shit.  It just wouldn't register.

I gave up on reading those bottles at 42, (when they started making the print smaller).  Now, whatever it is, I just take four.  Don't even talk to me about figuring out how much air goes in my wife's tires (yes, headlamp plus bifocals)!

[pdxmike]

Those are actually words on those bottles?  I thought it was a bar code. 

I actually had the opposite situation.  I couldn't see well when I was little.  When I got an operation and my first glasses when I was about four, it was the first time I realized the grass and the living room carpet were made of little pieces.  So I have a long way to go before my eyesight gets as bad as it was, and I still think seeing is pretty amazing. 

[headmount]

PDX... now I can see (pardon the pun) why you liked my memoir.

To all, I had patches over my eyes for almost half a year when I was a kid.  Books were my total world when the patches came off.

Pono has eyes like a hawk.    He's sandbagging.  I don't believe he's a slow reader either. He's just trying to make you 40 somethings feel good.

[soulpaddler]

At 35, I can still see uo close, but just had to get my first pair of glasses for distance last october.  Oh well.

To the OP, Hero Found, a true story of a navy pilot in Vietnam who was shot down, captured, and then escaped and survived is a wonderful book.

[PonoBill]

Same deal as PDX--No one knew I was blind as a bat until I was 13. But I was 20/300  and 20/400 before lasik with pretty bad astigmatism. After Lasik 20/10 20/15 which has since mellowed to 20/20 20/30 but I don't usually need reading glasses.

I do have my iPad set for larger type, but I can actually read pretty small print in good light.

I haven't noticed anyone recommending Game of Thrones--fantastic stuff. The Trilogy weighs in at a few zillion pages but you'll just blast right through. Unfortunately George R. R. Martin is a VERY slow writer, which drives his fans insane.

Other very worthwhile books--anything by Bernard Cornwall. Sharpe series, Arthur series, etc. Not a big fan of his Civil war stuff, but all the Napoleonic and early brit stuff is first rate though lightweight.

Ken Follet Pillars of the Earth and World Without End -- massive page turners about building cathedrals spanning generations. Marvelous.

[SlatchJim]

I read B. Cornwall's Agincourt recently and enjoyed it.  My nieces are getting to the age where I can really shine and read some of the quote/unquote young adult fiction I enjoy so much.  On my list are the Artemis Fowl series (Eoin Colfer) and the Harpers Hall series (Anne McCaffrey).  Yea, I'm that old guy at all the Pixar movies too, laughing like a fool.