What are you currently reading? Volume 4:

[Fireand'chutes77]

Currently reading a collection of short stories by Tobias Wolff. We read selection of his stories (Powder, Bullet in the Brain) for my Creative Writing class, and a few weeks later he visited the campus as part of a guest speakers program. They had a book-buy-and-sign after his talk, and the in-class readings and his in-person discussion/reading made me interested enough to get some of his stuff.

[TransWarpDrive]

I finally finished the book on the presidency and am now reading The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age by Tom D. Crouch and Peter L. Jakab. It chronicles the Wright Brothers' efforts to design, build and fly a practical heavier-than-air flying machine. Right now I'm up to the part in 1905 where they're trying to interest the U.S. Government in buying airplanes while simultaneously receiving offers from the British who are definitely interested in purchasing some.

[lunchmeat]

Begining Hopkirk's Quest For Kim where the author retraces the paths of the characters in Kipling's story.

[TransWarpDrive]

I'm currently rereading an old favorite - one I haven't read in years, if not decades! It's Star Trek: Log One, the book adaptation of three episodes of the short-lived Saturday morning Trek television series that aired on NBC in the mid-1970s. The episodes' scripts were adapted for the printed page by none other than Alan Dean Foster, an award-winning SF author in his own right. Mr. Foster did an excellent job of fleshing out the scripts, adding well-written character descriptions, dialogue and scenes not included in the TV episodes.
I have fond memories of buying each book in this series (there were ten in all) and reading them in high school and college. Back then, Star Trek was still being shown in syndicated reruns on local TV stations and the idea of making a big-budget motion picture based on the series was just a remote possibility. So when these books first hit the stores in the summer of 1974, I jumped at the chance to get them - I was hungry for any "new" Star Trek stories back then. Yes, the animated series was being shown on TV then, but by that time I was in high school and had long since outgrown the childhood habit of getting up at dawn on Saturdays to watch a whole morning's worth of cartoons. Saturday was my day to sleep late, so I did!
I've seen a couple of the animated Trek episodes on TV; and now I own the complete series on DVD, but I still enjoy the books because of all the extra material Mr. Foster put into each story. Back then, I used to read each book while referencing shipboard locations and the equipment the characters used in my copies of the Star Trek Blueprints and the Star Fleet Technical Manual, drawn by Franz Joseph and published by Ballantine, the same folks who gave us Mr. Foster's Star Trek Logs.
Now to properly relive those bygone days, I should plug in my headphones and play a selection of my favorite albums from back when I was a teen-ager and first read these books....

[campy]

I'm reading Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. It's their latest novel featuring Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast of the FBI.

[TransWarpDrive]

Still reading Star Trek Log One, but tonight I finally rearranged the books on my top bookshelf. After my niece moved in the end of July, I had to sort everything out by subject - got the bottom two shelves done, but not the top. Well, tonight after dinner and some TV, I took the time to tackle that last shelf. Now all those books are arranged according to category on each shelf, making it easier for me to find a book on a given topic. I also swapped some books on my shelves with some still boxed up in my closet - there were some I hadn't read yet but not on the shelves; and some shelved ones that I'd already looked at. So last night while hunting for a couple of specific books, I performed the switch of those others.
Always nice to have your personal library organized...

[campy]

Now working on Iron House by John Hart, a novel with an extremely complicated plot involving two orphan brothers, a NYC crime family, a billionaire US senator and his trophy wife, and more twists and turns than an Alpine slalom run.

[TransWarpDrive]

I'm now reading Spitfire: Life of the Legend by Robert Jackson. It's a large, "coffee-table" book about the fabled British fighter plane from World War II. It's lavishly illustrated with photographs, and tells the story of this aircraft from the founding of the company that built it, Supermarine, to the last Spitfires produced after the war's end. Lots of anecdotes from the pilots who flew them, as well as stories about the British citizens who, singly and collectively, raised funds to buy Spitfires for the RAF. Also included are photos of the gear issued to and used by Spitfire pilots, as well as plenty of pictures of the planes themselves - both on the ground and in flight (some of the latter being actual dogfight images!).
A good read for any World War II buff - I highly recommend it.

[campy]

I just finished reading Painted Ladies, the final Spenser novel by Robert B. Parker. It's about art theft and murder.

[campy]

I've been reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

I highly recommend this novel to anyone with an interest in role-playing games, video games or pop culture of the 1980s.