Another book finished...

I've finished reading Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution, by Richard Fortey.

It was as good as I had hoped it would be, and I'll have more to say about it soon. Right now, just let me say that I have a huge urge to go off and study historical geology and palenotology. In fact, I've got a friend who just started a course in historical geology tonight, and I'm a bit jealous even though I've taken that particular class at that particular school already.

Now, I'm just reading The Miracle Detective, by Randall Sullivan, but I'm looking at a couple of different possibilities for a second book to start. I've always liked having more than one book in progress at a time, and it is very rare that I will read one book straight through without dipping into other books along the way.

Currently reading...

Two books in progress:

First of all, still working on Fortey's Trilobite! It's very good, although just a bit dense in places. That means I need to take breaks from it occasionally.

So, I'm also reading The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Visions, by Randall Sullivan (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004; 450 pages. I'm only about 50 pages into this book about how the Vatican investigates miracles and visitations. Quite interesting so far. I never knew that they classify miracles as either medical, physical or moral. Pretty much only the medical miracles count toward canonization of saints, at least since the last century.

My goal is to finish both during the coming week. We'll see how that works out in a full work week. I got spoiled, having so many days off during the holidays. I actually had time to read.

Still reading...

Just dropping in quickly to say that I'm still reading American Conspiracies. I'm less than 20 pages from the end, but it has been a busy couple of days (I'm helping a friend get ready for a trade show this weekend) and I haven't found much time to read. I had been hoping to finish the book up tonight and write something about it (because I have a few things to say about it), but I've got the headache from Hades and I think I'm just going to go load the dishwasher and start it and then go to bed.

I had also planned to share a few thoughts about the guy who has issued an "n-word" free edition of Huckleberry Finn, a story that has been all over the news today, including an interesting piece on NPR this afternoon (which I only heard because it was on while I was in my car on the way from work to helping my friend and I happened to tune in while it was on). But, again, I'm fairly sure that if I attempted to write about that, or much of anything else, tonight, I wouldn't manage to make much sense. So, I'lll just leave well enough alone for now.

A few words on what you'll find here...

So, far, the books I've mentioned here have had to do with religion, serial killers, rock and roll. Oh, and then there was the mystery novel.

This might be causing you to wonder about what you might be seeing here in the future. What kinds of books I'm going to review, what kind of other reading material I might write about, that sort of thing.

The short answer is: Almost anything.

No. Really. I'll read almost anything. Fiction and non-fiction. Oh, I have my favorites, of course. I read a lot of history and current affairs, and quite a bit of anthropology and the other social sciences. My education was in anthropology, with an emphasis in the anthropology of religion, so there will be some of that. In fiction, my favorite genres are science ficiton and fantasy and mysteries. But I do not limit myself to those genres and topics. Right now, I've got a book about trilobites on my to-read pile, as well as a couple of books about conspiracy theories (one advancing them and one debunking them), a memoir by an Iranian woman, and a Russian science fiction (or maybe it's fantasy) novel in translation. And those are just the books I've got out of the library right now.

Besides writing about the specific books I'm reading now, am getting ready to read, or have read in the past, I also plan to write about the topic of reading in general. Because, and I'll be frank about it, I think that most people don't read enough.

I'll probably also be writing about libraries from time to time. I love libraries. I use them all the time, and I think more people should use their public libraries more often. I'll likely also write about bookstores and their somewhat precarious position these days.

Another thing I hope to do here is to point you all toward interesting things to read on the internet. I love books, but there is also a lot of information to read on the 'net. Even entire books, free for the reading. When I find those, I'll tell you about them.

So, you'll just have to come back and check, to see what I'm on about on any particular day. Of course, I won't promise that I will post new content every single day. I do have a day job that I have to keep up, after all. But I'll be around most days, even if it's just to let you know what I'm reading and to see if you've dropped any recommendations of your own into comments. Which I really hope you will do. I'm always looking for more good things to read.