What Are You Reading Right Now? The IAC Book Thread

Bleyseng · Post by **Bleyseng** » Wed Jan 09, 2013 9:41 am

I picked up the final book in the Wheel of Time series-Memory of LIght. So far its quite good...

Cindy · Post by **Cindy** » Wed Jan 09, 2013 12:58 pm

I temporarily abandoned the two books I just mentioned and flew through Stiff, a book about the curious "life" of cadavers. Loved it.

Cindy

Post by **Amskeptic** » Wed Jan 09, 2013 4:08 pm

Cindy wrote:I temporarily abandoned the two books I just mentioned and flew through Stiff, a book about the curious "life" of cadavers. Loved it.

Cindy

. . . do tell.
Coldaver

Cindy · Post by **Cindy** » Wed Jan 09, 2013 7:35 pm

Amskeptic wrote:
Cindy wrote:I temporarily abandoned the two books I just mentioned and flew through Stiff, a book about the curious "life" of cadavers. Loved it.

Cindy
. . . do tell.
Coldaver

I was surprised to find there are so many uses for cadavers. Medical research and anatomy studies, of course. But there are people who study very specific rates of decay to learn more about forensics, and people who study the effects of explosions on human feet so they can better develop gear for soldiers who clear mine fields. The author also goes into the history of "body snatching," and writes about a number of modern "disposal" methods (like the one created by a Swedish company which can turn your departed loved one into compost for a memorial rose bush).

I myself would like to someday nourish a maple tree. I'd be broken down by ultrasound and placed into a small biodegradable box (made of corn starch, if I recall correctly). Then I'd be planted at the root of the tree and be drawn up from the soil as food. Pretty cool.

Cindy

JLC71 · Post by **JLC71** » Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:42 pm

Currently reading "The Wilderness Warrior" it is about the life of Teddy Roosevelt

Post by **Amskeptic** » Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:17 am

Cindy wrote: I myself would like to someday nourish a maple tree. I'd be broken down by ultrasound and placed into a small biodegradable box (made of corn starch, if I recall correctly). Then I'd be planted at the root of the tree and be drawn up from the soil as food. Pretty cool.
Cindy

I know the tree, too. Just stick my cadaver in the wood stove. Fold it in half. If I can help warm someone up for an hour or two, my life will have been worth it.
Coldaver

(reading Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson !)

satchmo · Post by **satchmo** » Thu Jan 10, 2013 9:49 am

Just finished Moonwalking with Einstein by Josh Foer. An excellent book on memory, the history of memory enhancement techniques, memory savants, 'mental athletes,' and some other stuff I can't remember right now.

Tim

PS: I read Stiff by Mary Roach a couple years ago. Also read Spook, Bonk and Packing for Mars by the same author. All of them quite fun to read.

Sylvester · Post by **Sylvester** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 6:04 am

I finished Chickenhawk, about a Huey pilot in Vietnam. I finished Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege Of Dien Bien Phu by Bernard Fall, and have now moved onto Street Without Joy, also by Fall. He is a very good writer, had Kennedy and Johnston had a chance to read these, we would have never had advisors in Vietnam let alone troops, in my humble opinion.

glasseye · Post by **glasseye** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 10:02 am

Cindy wrote: I was surprised to find there are so many uses for cadavers.
Cindy

Nearly finished "Every Dead Thing" by John Connolly. I've lost count of how many murders have occurred in this plot, but well over a dozen, and I'm not done yet. Connolly's protagonist is "Charlie Parker", called "Bird" by his friends. He's a retired cop, now a PI. Engaging characters, exciting situations, convincing environments and horrific descriptions of murders.

He mentions in passing that William Harvey, in order to learn more about the circulation of the blood, dissected his sister.

(edit) Having just finished this 400+ page tome, I gotta say "It wasn't worth it".

Cindy · Post by **Cindy** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 12:33 pm

From a book I just finished called Wasted.

"I was perpetually grief-stricken when I finished a book, and would slide down from my sitting position on the bed, put my cheek on the pillow and sigh for a long time. It seemed there would never be another book. It was all over, the book was dead. It lay in its bent cover by my hand. What was the use? Why bother dragging the weight of my small body down to dinner? Why move? Why breathe? The book had left me. There was no reason to go on.

You can, perhaps, foresee a series of terrifically dramatic relationships in my future, all ending with me in an Ophelian heap in my quilt. I had a love affair with books, with the characters and their worlds. Books kept me company. When the voices of the book faded, as with the last long chord of a record, the back cover crinkling closed, I could swear I heard a door click shut."

Cindy

Jivermo · Post by **Jivermo** » Fri Feb 01, 2013 2:25 pm