Books I'm Currently Reading

I often have more than one book "on the go" at a time, but right now I seem to be in overdrive in that regard. Here's the list as of right now:

Sixty Days and Counting by Kim Stanley Robinson - I'm about 1/4 of the way through and currently stalled. I enjoyed the first two in this series (Forty Signs of Rain and Fifty Degrees Below) but for some reason the conclusion just seems very uninteresting to me. I relished the thought of an environmental apocalypse (in fictional form, of course) and have so far just gotten a personal story about a woman on the run and the man who lusts after her. Yawn! I haven't completely given up yet, though, despite having not picked the book up in over a month now.

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner - Tammy brought her copy home over Christmas, and the three of us read aloud from it over the holidays! When Tammy left, there were still a couple of chapters to go, and so Vicki and I have similarly been narrating it to each other. Just one chapter remains in what's a very, very good book. It'll be hard to ever look at statistics relating to teaching, crime or sumo wrestlers quite the same way again!

Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem - This is, what, my fifth Lethem book now? While not quite as captivating as The Fortress of Solitude or Motherless Brooklyn, it's still proving to be an entertaining read. I'm about 2/3 of the way through this hybrid detective/science fiction novel in which animals have been forcibly evolved to possess intelligence and the U.S. government keeps it population well medicated.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - I'm almost done Gladwell's latest page-turner, which I've enjoyed every bit as much as Blink and The Tipping Point before it. I realize that he's not everybody's cup of tea, but I appreciate his unique perspective and how he applies it so well in ways that I'd never even considered (like how the cultural background of airline pilots affects their ability to handle crises in the air). Any Gladwell fans would enjoy Freakonomics (and vice versa), I suspect.

Watching the Watchmen by Dave Gibbons - Despite being somewhat disappointed in the contents, this "coffee table book"-sized collection of sketch art and ruminations from the artist of Watchmen is still occasionally thrilling me. I'd hoped for more words but instead got lots of preliminary artwork... which I guess I should've expected, given that it's written by an illustrator! Having said that, I've still learned a thing or two about the creation of Watchmen, and that's quite an accomplishment for a property as well publicized as that one's been!

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama - Vicki managed to return A Confederacy of Dunces after I decided that I didn't want to read it, and replaced it with this best-seller. I'm about 60 pages in and have a favourable impression of it so far. In some ways, it's drier than I'd hoped for (given Obama's eloquence in his prepared speeches) but part of that is the subject matter that he's covered up in those early pages (mostly political, talking about the similarities and differences between Democrats and Republicans). The one aspect of reading The Audacity of Hope that absolutely gives me goose bumps, at times, is the notion that the man who put all of these fine ideals down on paper for all the world to see will shortly (in less than 2 weeks!) be leading the most powerful nation on Earth! Wow! If he can accomplish even half of what he lays out in this book, the 21st century may actually recover from the incredible damage perpetrated by Bush & cronies in its first 8 years.