Reading update time!

Recently finished (in no particular order):

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail - Bill Bryson. Bryson did an incredible job researching the subject and related subjects at large, and intertwined them cunningly with his story of adventures on the Appalachian Trail. I learned a lot about the trail and enjoyed the read, from his rather comical perspective. I'd never try the AT but perhaps the PCT someday...I think that would be a cool honeymoon, or perhaps fun to do with my brothers. Not both together, though. Anyhow, I'm going to try to add Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything to my list in the near future.

Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller. This was, like many books, about what I expected of it. Not a completely amazing book, but it did make some good points, sometimes in interesting ways. Miller at times almost seemed to be trying a little too hard to be a spiritual "hipster," for lack of a better way of putting it - but it was still a pretty decent read. I like reading this genre because its close to some stuff I hope to write myself someday.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - A Low Culture Manifesto - Chuck Klosterman. Basically a semi-structured rant on pop culture in the US. Really funny at parts, a bit pedantic at others. Kind of like Bell, above, came off as trying really hard to not appear to be trying to be cool, so as to actually be cool...and basically just losing the reader in the process.

Metal Men: How Marc Rich Defrauded the Country, Evaded the Law, and Became the World's Most Sought-After Corporate Criminals - A. Craig Copetas. Rich basically single-handedly created the futures markets for things like oil and a million other things that come out of the earth - metals, ores, etc.. He avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars to the US and fled the country - Clinton pardoned him on his last day in office but Rich has never returned to the states - likely because acceptance of a presidential pardon implies guilt, and he's still afraid they'll figure out a way to get him. Rich also cunningly bought up the entire world's supply of boron at one point, allowing him to set the price on it, which he drove up - which had a significant affect on his mass ownership of other products dependent on a cheap supply of boron - although the book doesn't go into a lot of detail on that in particular. Interesting book for us businessy types.

Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality - Rob Bell. Similar to the BLJ genre, above - I liked it because I'd like to write from my own perspective on similar topics someday. Bell is a fantastically smart guy, however there were certain things (read: endless, long endnotes that should have just been included in the regular text) about his writing style that didn't quite jive with me. Also, not a lot of new ideas here, but some interesting additions / extrapolations to old ones.

Currently reading:
What is the What - Eggers;
Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck;
Teach Yourself Afrikaans - McDermott

(I can't read one book at a time, its a problem)
(There's probably 20-30 books that were read between these ones and the last time I updated my sidebar. FYI. I will probably never remember what they all were.)