What's on your reading/listening list?

I still cannot claim listening to an audiobook or podcast constitutes reading. One can learn lot, but it's not reading.

Anyway, here's my proximate future reading list:

Currently, Europe in the Modern Age (Great Courses lecture series)

Next:

The Industrial Revolution (Great Courses lecture series)
"Black Land, Red Land" a non-fiction book on daily life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz
"Hieroglyphs and Temples" by Barbara Mertz
The French Revolution (part of the Revolutions Podcasts by Mike Duncan)
The History of Byzantium (podcast by Robyn Pierson)
The History of Egypt (podcast by Dominic Perry)
The Ancient World (podcast by I Forget Whom, I'll Loot It Up, I Promise)

There are too many good podcasts and only so many driving and cooking hours in the day. I also listen to Philosophy in Action, and El Explicador (100+ episodes already in my phone! Help!!) I expect I'll catch up a bit on the trip to Vegas, though the trip only lasts so many hours. Last year I tried listening while playing VP, but it turns out I cannot concentrate on both. Ditto when doing my makeup in the morning.

I want to listen to "To Pimp a Butterfly" I heard it is a good album and is a return to conscious hip-hop.

I got "Black Land Red Land" by Dr. Mertz. I'll read it when I get tired of podcasts and lectures during my trip.

Quote: Nareed

I got "Black Land Red Land" by Dr. Mertz. I'll read it when I get tired of podcasts and lectures during my trip.

Currently reading Chickenhawk reccomended by Mosca. Viet Nam War copter pilot.

Going the read the Flashman series again, best
historical fiction ever written. All 12 od them.
Best researched historical fiction ever.

I'm consuming "Black Land Red Land" slowly, savoring it, really. Despite a tendency by Dr. Mertz to repeat the extent of our ignorance about Egypt, she's informative and entertaining regarding all aspects of life in Ancient Egypt.

Yesterday I downloaded the Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookbook (or words to that effect) a $0.99 online promo. I'm eager to explore recipes with peanut butter.

I started reading a really good Viet Nam book: A Patch of Ground, about the siege of Khe Sanh, written by Michael Archer, who was there as a radio operator. It's the first book to have caught my complete attention in some time.

Currently reading Micheal Connelly "Gods of Guilt"
I love Michael Connelly.
I've read all his stuff in the order it was written, probabbly well over 20 books.
Good Stuff.
Fun reads

It's interesting to get a take on the same subject from different authors. In this case Egypt, as told by Bob brier in his lecture series, Dominic Perry in his podcast, and Barbara Mertz in her books.

It behooves me to say all three are professional historians with academic credentials and field work.

So you kind of expect more agreement. the essentials are close, but there's wide difference of interpretation, of weight given to this or that theory, of ideas, of emphasis, and even of names (like the god Ra spelled "Re" and pronounced either as "rah" or "ray;" it doesn't help that ancient Egyptian lacked written vowels).

Of the three, Brier is the most enthusiastic, holding ancient Egypt just about supreme over all other cultures of the time. he doesn't denigrate the others. He just talks Egypt up a lot. Mertz is by far the most skeptical of both the source materials (as in we don't know a lot of the context for the materials), and of many academic theories about Egypt.

One thing about Brier. Despite his love for Egypt, he does say again and again "Egyptians never recorded defeats." He further explains accounts of wars in which the Pharaoh won every battle but "he just kept winning them closer and closer to home."


It's quite a ride!

The Given Day - Dennis Lehane.
Historical Fiction Boston circa 1919.
One of my favorite writers.
I've read many books by him. Recommend them all. A few have been made into movies. Shutter Island, Mystic River, Gone Baby gone.
This is the 1st of a trilogy