What is Everybody Reading?

[Neb]

Side comment / minor nit: The lost books of the bible are referred to as "lost" by many, but they were not really lost. They were known to the early Church, and they were intentionally excluded from the bible canon. Which is to say, they were purposefully discarded.

Nothing wrong with reading them, of course. They can provide insight. They just don't carry the same level of authority, and they were determined to include some error or otherwise unreliable statements, even if they also happened to include some duplicative truth as well.

Yup!

Example

In one story a young Jesus was playing with other kids when one kid ran into him. The kid died immediately. The neighbors complained to Joseph. Joseph dragged Jesus home by his ear.

I liked The Forgotten books of Eden more. Particularly the books about Enoch. He may have gotten about 3 sentence mention in Genesis. He got 24 pages in the book.

Ben

 

[goshengirl]

Finished reading Memory Keeper of Kyiv by Erin Litteken. Highly recommend. Such history should not be forgotten (it's historical fiction during the time of the Holodomor.)

On a side note - that was the first book I've read for enjoyment on my phone. I still prefer the paper, but that wasn't as hard on the eyes and I thought it would be. And oh so convenient!

 

[Magpie]

I read this while I was away- found it at the airport, never heard of it before, scary stuff in a 'Famous Five-Esque' language
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/941731.The_Death_of_Grass

 

[Wingnut]

I'm in the middle of a new Western titled BRANNIGAN'S LAND, by William W. Johnstone (with J.A. Johnstone). It's not bad, I'll probably read the rest of it tonight, since I don't really feel like watching any TV. If I had a football app, I would, but I think I'll just read instead, I just powered down some dinner (custom beanie wienies with hamburger chunks and hot peppers, a little ketchup on top and some Italian bread with real butter on the side, lol), and I'm about to have a root beer float for dessert, using this 'Caramel Butter Pecan Praline' ice cream and Barq's root beer as the main ingredients. That should finish me off for the night, lol... and a good book will eventually lead to crashing somewhat early, I'm not in the mood to party tonight. Meh, rainy nights were MADE for reading, and my rack is mighty comfortable (and warm) with a comforter and extra blanket on it, lol. Well, time for that root beer float... y'all have a good night! Cheers!!!

 

[Magpie]

Just finished some poets on Irish poets, and on this one now- https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-modern-explorers/robin-hanbury-tenison/9780500296325

 

[ABR]

Been reading a lot of murder mystery and historical fiction set in WWII. Currently I'm reading a book on the OJ Simpson trial (interest because of a university assignment) and I've got 2 more OJ case books lined up.

 

[FarmOR]

Always get the strong hankering this time of year to read. Found a used bookstore on eBay running special buy three get one free.

Adam Smith "the wealth of nations". Was assigned reading in my high schools AP class. Can barely remember Lasse faire... Gonna read it again.

" the seven habits of highly effective ". Heard so much about it. Next on list.

" the art of war". What I know about the book makes it very fitting for the time we're living in?

"nueoroscientist proof of heaven". Curiosity got the better of me for this one.

 

[Caribou]

Just started "MMS Health Recovery Guidebook". Perhaps I can get off some of my meds.

 

[Bacpacker]

Just finished reading the material for the class I very been taking. On top of that was something like 75 web links to more info, documents on rules, standards, antennas, and plenty of other stuff. Haven't read much else last 3 months.
I have started a kindle book, first in a series " Ememy Foreign and Domestic".
Also started a hardbound "The World of the End" by Dr.David Jeremiah. Just one chapter in, but its a study on Mathew 24. I've read others and wanted to compare his thoughts.

 

[Peanut]

It is a book… found it tonight. When I was a kid our church didn’t have vacation bible school in summer like other churches. We had singing school. I hated it! I do not sing for a very good reason.

This was shaped note singing. I had to attend and being inquisitive managed to learn a few things like the musical symbols. Later I found it useful when playing guitar or banjo in church when I needed to know the key and timing.

Anyway, glad I found this book. I actually have need of information it contains. Just wish I could find the other old music book I was actually looking for. There's a Bob Wills song I want to dissect. Western swing in those days had a style of guitar playing that uses chords in place of most notes. So lot's and lot's of different chords are used.


I think this is the 1926 edition. The copy right on the cover is 1909.

 

[Wingnut]

Picked up an old friend today: a book on Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, this book deals with the 'Long Stories.' I have another book with the regular tales of adventure, but I chose this one to refresh my memory, aye? The book contains these four stories:

--- A Study In Scarlet

--- The Sign Of Four

--- The Hound Of The Baskervilles

--- The Valley Of Fear

A less literate friend of mine once referred to that last story as 'The Valley Of Beer'---sacrilege, I tell ya! It's a sheer pleasure to read Doyle again, I'm enjoying every minute of it. Doyle is one of my favorite authors, those I call 'The UK Masters'---Doyle, C.S. Forester, Nevil Shute, Henry Rider Haggard, and a few others who never fail to entertain.

When it comes to American authors, I list Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Jack London, Herman Melville, and James Fenimore Cooper as my top five choices, they don't suck either, but the Anglo-Saxon part of me really likes the UK Masters, lol. Such good stories... and contemporary authors don't even come close in terms of style and smoothness.

Anyway, my ankle is feeling better, so I decided to celebrate with one cold beer before I return to 'The Sign Of Four'---I may have "turned the corner" with this ankle injury, as I was able to hobble around today with the aid of the walker. I don't think I could do that if the joint were actually broken, I just did a number on it lurching upward from such a low level.

This will serve as a reminder to be more careful next time, otherwise I miss out on motorbike rides, lol. I probably won't be able to ride on Thursday as previously planned, but as long as this ankle trouble goes away, I won't complain... y'all have probably noticed that I don't do a lot of ranting, nobody wants to hear it anyway, lol. This injury took me by surprise!

I'm still not exactly sure how it happened, since I was half-asleep at the time... and there was no immediate pain, it only manifested itself when I woke the next time and my foot was hurting like blazes. Meh, I'll ride it out, I'd like to think the worst is over but we'll just play it by ear, and keep using the walker until the joint settles down... good item, that walker!

Okey-dokey, I'm just about done with this beer, reckon I'll log out and catch up to ya'll manana... it's nice to lie on the ol' rack without my foot throbbing in pain, those aspirins I took didn't do much for the severity, lol. Meh, maybe after another night of sleep the blasted ankle will be mellow again... last two nights were less than stellar, lol. But no worries!

 

[montanabill]

Went to a motorcycle event and one of the participants was the husband of the manager of a bookstore in a little town in montana. They have over 100,000 books there. we were discussing planes and I mentioned I had been researching the B36 bomber which still is the largest propeller driven plane in actual use. It had six engines and four jet engines.
He said wait a minute and went out to his car and brought in a hardback all about the B36 and told me to keep it

 

[Magpie]

Have a list of books to read for Uni- can't fit them all in so listening to Orlando by Virginia Woolf and reading Castle Rackrent at the same time. Heart of Darkness up next - again!

 

[FarmOR]

Currently reading three books. Never really read in this manner before. I find unique insights from being in a frame of mind and then jumping into another subject.

7 habits of highly effective. Best seller list. Mormon author. That itself, I find interesting because they are a dominant population here. We tend to jump to negatives, but they have many positive attributes. One in particular is their emphasis on leadership. I'm over half way and finding good learning from an outsider perspective. Akin to Chief Joseph learning "white man magic"?

The wealth of nations. I read most of this during AP US history in high school. I was the dumbest kid in AP. Nonetheless, I got a g tood grade and college credit. In retrospect, kinda sums up most of my life as an overachiever? Back to the book: only 1/3 in. Tough read. Data heavy! But surprisingly relevant. Keep reminding myself that it was written in 1776. Ode to the timeless lessons included?

Adventures of Captain Bonneville. The " discoverer" of Boise. When I lived there, I frequently sought escape with my mtn bike. Bonneville point was one of my favorite trails and destinations. This book is easy read and entertaining for the native American stories as the west was being mapped. And introduction of two completely different cultures happened in the early stages. I'm often thinking primitive savage economics and then jumping to advanced economic ideas in the other two books. About half way in...

 

[Buffalo]

I'm in the middle of a new Western titled BRANNIGAN'S LAND, by William W. Johnstone (with J.A. Johnstone). It's not bad, I'll probably read the rest of it tonight, since I don't really feel like watching any TV. If I had a football app, I would, but I think I'll just read instead, I just powered down some dinner (custom beanie wienies with hamburger chunks and hot peppers, a little ketchup on top and some Italian bread with real butter on the side, lol), and I'm about to have a root beer float for dessert, using this 'Caramel Butter Pecan Praline' ice cream and Barq's root beer as the main ingredients. That should finish me off for the night, lol... and a good book will eventually lead to crashing somewhat early, I'm not in the mood to party tonight. Meh, rainy nights were MADE for reading, and my rack is mighty comfortable (and warm) with a comforter and extra blanket on it, lol. Well, time for that root beer float... y'all have a good night! Cheers!!!

I really enjoyed all of William Johnstone books but just can't seem to enjoy the ones with his niece (J.A.) involved in them after his death. Her writing style is just different enough to throw the pacing of the whole book off for me. Now I really enjoyed the Preacher and Smoke Jensen series and wish I would have held onto my copies of them, but I gave them to a couple of buddies who were depoying to the sand box.

 

[Wingnut]

I like the WILL TANNER, U.S. DEPUTY MARSHAL series, and I think those also list J.A. Johnstone as an assistant. The 'John Hawk' series by Charles G. West is also pretty good, though he isn't a lawman. Both characters are classic...

 

[dademoss]

"A Dog Returns", by Gordon Carroll"

Gil comes face to face with the man who destroyed his life, only to learn it was just the beginning of the monster’s plans for him. To make matters worse, he realizes that his own father-in-law has betrayed him. Can Gil survive the intricate plot designed to crush him while also navigating the delicate, emotional paths of love and romance without hurting the ones he cares about most? Join Gil and his K9 partners as they seek to conquer various evils while fighting to stay true to what is right and good and pure.

 

[Old Whatshisname]

Being housebound for all of this time, and coming to the realization that television is really pretty bad I have started to go back into my library, and find things of interest. My library is focused on historical non fiction from the period of 1850 - 1900. I am a huge fan of the Old West.

It was heartbreaking to me when the Library closed, and admittedly that caught me very much by surprise. I used to go to the library every week. My wife and I are both voracious readers.

Has anybody else increased their reading? Any favorite genres or authors?

"The Trail of the Spanish Bit" by Don Coldsmith M.D., (HERE) is a series of stories of the earliest days of European activity with the Plains Indians. In the mid-1500's a young Spaniard is separated from his exploration party (perhaps Escalante or Cardenas searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola), is injured and found by a tribe of Indians (calling themselves "The People" more like Kiowas).

He is adopted by them, marries a local girl, and ends up becoming a sub-chief. He lives his life; subsequent books trace his lineage for three hundred years. Coldsmith knows his anthropology and history, and I consider him to be on the level with Louis L'amour or Zane Gray. Get his first book of the series; you won't regret it!

Finally, an excellent Old West writer, Cormac McCarthy, does some great stuff, but I like his post-apocalyptic novel "The Road"; it won him the Pulitzer in 2009.

 

[Neb]

Continuing my intense reading...

The Wealth of Nations, (Adam Smith)

My departed father in law invented a holiday to honor Smith's birth ( in August since there wasn't any holiday in that month). I know little about the book aside from it is supposedly the bottom line explanation about how wealth moves and operates.

Ben

 

[Amish Heart]

I was a Johnstone fan, too, Buffalo. Read them all, and didn't care much for the ones written after he passed. Getting ready to read, "A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World", by CA Fletcher.

 

[Weedygarden]

Yup!

Example

In one story a young Jesus was playing with other kids when one kid ran into him. The kid died immediately. The neighbors complained to Joseph. Joseph dragged Jesus home by his ear.

I liked The Forgotten books of Eden more. Particularly the books about Enoch. He may have gotten about 3 sentence mention in Genesis. He got 24 pages in the book.

Ben

I was at a funeral and the minister read a passage that I think was from the book of Enoch. It was a long time ago, so I could be wrong. I had never heard of the book of Enoch, so I questioned the minister afterwards. I believe he was Episcopalian, but I could be wrong. He told me that some books are included in the bibles used by certain denominations. This business about different denominations having different books really bothered me.

 

[Old Whatshisname]

"Educated" by Tara Westover.
"In the early 2000s, Tara Westover was a preteen living in Idaho with her fundamentalist Mormon family. They were isolated from other people, even her extended family, except for at church. Her father didn't believe in doctors or “government schools,” putting the children to work in a family-owned junkyard. Eventually, she and a brother taught themselves enough math to attend Brigham Young University. When Westover arrived, she fully believed she would return home eventually, marry, and live in the way her father intended." Vanity Fair
Tara grew up in the northern part of my state, not too far from Ruby Ridge (some of the older of you may remember that name): a survivalist-prone area in a Survivalist-prone state. Her family lived in a rugged and remote part of Idaho, and the book gives some interesting and rather disturbing insights about what is truly like to grow up in such an environment.

I'd strongly recommend it.

 

[NotMeantForTheCity]

I've been an unrepentant bibliomaniac since the 3rd grade back in the mid-1970s. But, between arthritis, declining eyesight and the fatigued caused by my blood pressure meds it's hard for me to sit an read an actual book. So I am limited to the audiobooks I can get from the public library and online. I started Ron Chernow's biography of U.S. Grant when Covid started and it took me until just 2 weeks ago to finish it.

I've tried to start Eric Metaxis' If You Can Keep It, but I don't think the quality if very good, and I may not bother to finish it. I also started Margaret MacMillan's Great Scholars lectures on the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.

 

[NotMeantForTheCity]

I was at a funeral and the minister read a passage that I think was from the book of Enoch. It was a long time ago, so I could be wrong. I had never heard of the book of Enoch, so I questioned the minister afterwards. I believe he was Episcopalian, but I could be wrong. He told me that some books are included in the bibles used by certain denominations. This business about different denominations having different books really bothered me.

There's a group of writings known as the Apocrypha. In ancient times these books were considered authentic, but not Divinely inspired. Roman Catholics count some of them as part of the Bible, but I don't know if any Protestant denomination considers any of them to be Biblical. They were, however, printed as part of the King James Bible, but they were in their own section. I don't know right off when publishers removed them, but I think it was done mostly to save printing costs.

 

[Tacitus]

There's a group of writings known as the Apocrypha. In ancient times these books were considered authentic, but not Divinely inspired. Roman Catholics count some of them as part of the Bible, but I don't know if any Protestant denomination considers any of them to be Biblical. They were, however, printed as part of the King James Bible, but they were in their own section. I don't know right off when publishers removed them, but I think it was done mostly to save printing costs.

Discussed elsewhere in this thread, but I will note: The Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals (Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach, 1 & 2 Maccabees and Wisdom) were part of the Bible from the beginning of the Bible (around 390 AD) until Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation (1517). He succeeded in removing those books from most Protestant Bibles (they had previously been challenged by the Jews, and they had some purgatory language he didn't like, among other things). Luther tried, but failed, to eliminate Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation (he stood alone on those, and couldn't get others to agree).

Some Protestant Bibles omit the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals. Others put them in a separate section to denote that some (e.g., Luther) call them into question. I suppose leaving them out might have saved printing costs at one point, but the reason for omitting them was mainly theological disagreement between protestants (who wanted them removed) and Catholics (who didn't want them removed). Sadly, wars were being fought over this kind of stuff at the time.

 

[NotMeantForTheCity]

Discussed elsewhere in this thread, but I will note: The Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals (Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach, 1 & 2 Maccabees and Wisdom) were part of the Bible from the beginning of the Bible (around 390 AD) until Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation. He succeeded in removing those books from most Protestant Bibles (they had previously been challenged by the Jews, and they had some purgatory language he didn't like, among other things). Luther tried, but failed, to eliminate Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation (he stood alone on those, and couldn't get others to agree).

Some Protestant Bibles omit the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals. Others put them in a separate section to denote that some (e.g., Luther) call them into question. I suppose leaving them out might have saved printing costs at one point, but the reason for omitting them was mainly theological disagreement between protestants (who wanted them removed) and Catholics (who didn't want them removed). Sadly, wars were being fought over this kind of stuff at the time.

Protestants base their Bible on the books that St. Athanasius believed were Scripture. He didn't include any of the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals. I think he also left out Esther.

 

[Neb]

Protestants base their Bible on the books that St. Athanasius believed were Scripture. He didn't include any of the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals. I think he also left out Esther.

Esther?

Not Esther!

I love that book. It is the prototype of the good and faithful win in the end.

Ben

 

[Tacitus]

Protestants base their Bible on the books that St. Athanasius believed were Scripture. He didn't include any of the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals. I think he also left out Esther.

Yeah. There were many competing canons (lists of books) until the bishops of Christianity got together at the end of the 4th century and established a settled canon (e.g., at the Councils of Carthage & Hippo). Luther decided to go another way.

What's interesting to me is that in the Internet era, we have people discovering books like Enoch, which never made the cut into any major canon as far as I know, and were therefore never part of "the Bible," but those books are now cherished as "lost books of the Bible" even though they never made it into the Bible. Meanwhile, we have books like Wisdom which those same people will often just ignore, even though all Christians accepted Wisdom as a legitimate book of the Bible for over 1000 years (until Luther came along).

 

[Neb]

Yeah. There were many competing canons (lists of books) until the bishops of Christianity got together at the end of the 4th century and established a settled canon (e.g., at the Councils of Carthage & Hippo). Luther decided to go another way.

What's interesting to me is that in the Internet era, we have people discovering books like Enoch, which never made the cut into any major canon as far as I know, and were therefore never part of "the Bible," but those books are now cherished as "lost books of the Bible" even though they never made it into the Bible. Meanwhile, we have books like Wisdom which those same people will often just ignore, even though all Christians accepted Wisdom as a legitimate book of the Bible for over 1000 years (until Luther came along).

I enjoyed the book of Enoch and the forgotten books of Eden. They filled in a lot of "how do we know this" questions.

I have learned men state that Jesus referenced the book of Enoch frequently. Is that fact true or false I can't say.

I do like to learn from the man that did not have to die and walked with God.


Ben

 

[Mountain trapper]

I just started reading: Story of the Wild West and Camp Fire Chats by Buffalo Bill Cody. Copyrighted 1902.
Recently read; Days of Noah: book 1 by Mark Goodwin