So, what am I currently reading? Anything that can’t get away.
As usual, I have several *ahem* a goodly number of titles I’m working through, some for fun, some for research, some because they are the academic version of whole grain cereal and greens.
Robert Kaplan The Revenge of Geography Geography (What’s where? Why there? Why care?) shapes history and policy more than some people care to admit. Good but detailed and requires much attention.
Paul Gleirscher Noreia – Atlantis der Berge: Neues zu Göttin, Stadt, und Straßenstation It is a small booklet (190 pages) about Celtic Noreia, the area now Carinthia and parts of Croatia and Styria, looking at recent research and findings. It works my language muscles and is providing fodder for some long-term projects, both fiction and otherwise.
M.M. Kaye, The Sun in the Morning is the first volume in her autobiography about growing up at the end of the British Empire. She’s a fantastic writer, as well as providing info for a possible project.
Robert Baden-Powell “Aids to Scouting” is a military textbook for scouts, written by THE scout of scouts during WWI.
James H. Billington The Icon and the Ax follows Russian religion and culture from the 1000s to the Soviet era.
Lois McMasters Bujold The Curse of Chillion I like her writing, I don’t like Miles Vorkorsigan, and I needed a brain break.
Mary Catelli Curses and Wonders More brain break by a writer of fantasy that I enjoy very much.
Jeff Dunterman The Cunning Blood Reading in the field and seeing how he writes hard sci-fi.
Ceilia Hayes The Chronicles of Luna City. I’m a sucker for small-town, slice-of-life humor, and this has it in spades. I know so many of these people. 🙂
James Cracraft The Revolution of Peter the Great Cracraft looks at how Peter’s innovations and changes upset Russia’s society far beyond just the beard taxes and the creation of the navy.
Michael Khodarkovsky Russia’s Steppe Frontier is THE book about Russian expansion south and east in the 1600s-1800s. Everyone else draws on this as a starting point, and it has a lot that will be incorporated in the next Colplatschki book.
Alfred Kieber The Struggle for the Eurasian Borderlands is one of those books that makes my brain work very hard. He’s looking at how empires and other peoples meet and react, and uses a lot of current academic theory (and jargon). It’s useful, just slow going.
Roger Scruton Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands is about all those people who came up with so many of the bad ideas dragging the New Left into the weeds. Antonio Gramsci, E. P. Thompson, Sartre. I’m glad Scruton read their work, because I really don’t want to (although I have. Sometimes of my own free will.)
Stephen J. Nichols Jesus: Made in America What happens when Protestants go their own way? You get everything from Johnathan Edwards to Dashboard Buddy Jesus and Precious Moments (TM).
Peter Rosegger Waldheimat and Acht Erzhälungen are two books by an Austrian writer of the late 19th century that describe rural life in Styria and Carinthia.
I’ve also got an environmental history of the 14th Century in progress (The Third Horseman) and a few other things I’m nibbling at from time to time. And those are ones I’ve started that are not for school. We shall not discuss the TBR pile and class research reading.
Cat Rotator's Quarterly 
Miles wasn’t one of my favorite characters either, but I put up with him for the rest of the story, because I liked her writing also. At least until he married that limp dishrag, between not being able to stand his wife and the descent from implausible to ridiculous in other parts of the stories (stunner tag? The author needs a taser used repeatedly on her for that idiocy) I dropped the series.
I liked the two novels combined into _Cordelia’s Honor_. And then along came Miles and . . . He’s too much for me. But her writing style sings.
Yep, I loved Cordelia’s Honor.
Luna City 2 is now available, and a good read. JoeBob sez, check it out.
I love Celia’s writing. I haven’t read it all, but it’s on my list. For light reading, and much humor, may I recommend Jana Deleon’s “Mudbug”
series, and her “Miss Fortune” series? She also writes some pretty good mystery/romance/voodoo books. They’re all set in small towns in southern Louisiana, and are very true-to-life, in many ways.
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have a new book coming out in July. I’m still waiting for Sarah Hoyt to complete “Rogue Magic”, and for Dan Hoyt to write a sequel to “Euclid’s 9th Prince”. I’ve also enjoyed reading Christopher Nuttall’s books lately. I also just finished Sabrina Chase’s follow-on to “The Scent of Metal”, “One Blood”. I just finished Dave Freer’s “Changling’s Island”, and downloaded “Tom”.
Geography is one of my favorite subjects (history and earth sciences are the majors). I spent 26 years in the Air Force looking at the Earth’s surface from various altitudes (8-80,000 feet). Reading Dave Freer’s books, I followed along on Google Earth (did that somewhat on someone’s book I beta-read, too. . . 8^)). I loved my job, and still love looking at things from above.