I am usually reading 4-5 books at any given time. I find I stay on my treadmill a lot longer if I can read, watch DVDs, anything to get my mind off of how much I dislike my treadmill (I feel a bit like Fred Flinstone running and running and not going anywhere).

I was hoping to have a book thread where we can share titles of books and our own reviews. Books are soooo expensive and I don't want to waste money on boring books.

Sunta told me she was reading a book that I had heard of but hadn't heard reviews one way or another. It is:

"THE CHRIST CONSPIRACY, The Greatest Story Ever Told" by S. Acharya.

The title is self descriptive, so far it is quite interesting but I haven't read much of it yet as I just received it. Perhaps Sunta can shed more light on details.

"The Dark Side of Christian History" by Helen Ellerbe

This book is excellent so far. Besides, there are lots of pictures. The drawings and artwork really do go a long way to give you the creeps about historical Christianity. It makes you wonder if that is really what it looked like way back when. The way people were tortured, etc. I am always and repeatedly shocked by how primitive people were way back when and how they came to believe what they did.

"Stiff" by Mary Roach

Okay, this one isn't going to appeal to a huge audience but I find it fascinating. I am almost done with this one and I'll likely read it again. There are so many facts and pieces of trivia about how dead bodies have been used, treated, tested, and experiemented on throughout early history (last 200 years).

Before reading this book I had no clue that dead folks were put on airplanes, the airplanes were then crashed, and they wanted to see the damage to the bodies depending on the type of crash and location of seat.

Early one brave dude wanted to use human fat for burning street lights in New York. He thought with 250 folks dying in New York daily they would have more than enough "fat" fuel for street lamps. I'm thinking "odor" but maybe I'm alone.

Just the study of dead folks is really interesting, it's quite an eye opener what people have done with dead bodies. One guy attempted to sew a living monkey head on a dead human body to see if the body would keep on ticking.

It didn't.

Since I enjoyed this book so much I purchased another by the same author:

"SPOOK" by Mary Roach

I haven't even started this one yet but it is the scientific study of the afterlife. I have no opinion on it one way or another just yet. But I love the author's amazingly dry sense of humor. She's very funny and it is easy to pass the time away on my treadmill while reading her writing thus, I purchased this book.

BTW, if anyone posts a title and you don't mind used copies, check out:

AddALL book search and price comparison

It is probably one of the most comprehensive sites to find new, used, and out of print books I have found. For some time I was buying up all kinds of great books when people didn't realize what they were selling. For example, I purchased one book on ebay (found it on AddALL originally) that was selling for $9.95 but it is actually worth about $800.00. I spent a great number of (fun) hours finding treasures like this with the idea of reselling them but I just never get around to reselling them. I end up buying more antique trunks to hide them in from hubby. For some strange notion he believes I have far too many books and they take up too much room.

AddALL is one place to find such treasures. Some people don't want to take the time to see what they are selling. Not only can you get great deals on used books but you can find many great titles that are worth a great deal of money and those selling them don't realize this. However, one has to know titles and book quality before this will work well. Usually people specialize in specific types of books. For me it is antiquarian medical and slavery books.

Anyone else reading anything fun right now?

Hey girlfriends, I have no idea how to navigate here. I'm used to the "other place."

You found us, Yipppe!!

I got chicken Chinese salad. OMZ! It was soooooo good! I haven't ever been able to eat salad, not even at home! I got that because there were so many different things in there I thought surely one would go down and it did! Red cabbage, green cabbage, carrots, baby orange things, white crunchy things... it was sooo good. Brought most of it home.

I'm tempted to mail the dressing to Vicki so she can tell me how to make it. I haven't enjoyed food that much since before I was banded, not kidding. It was great and you know what? I didn't BARF~ I couldn't be more proud of myself! HA!

Yum, sounds good. I always worry about something getting stuck or people noticing that I eat really slow. They never do though, but they always noticed that I ate really fast before the band.

The thing that I can't get used to here is that when you do a quick reply it does not close the window so it looks kind of like it didn't take.

Yum, sounds good. I always worry about something getting stuck or people noticing that I eat really slow. They never do though, but they always noticed that I ate really fast before the band.

The thing that I can't get used to here is that when you do a quick reply it does not close the window so it looks kind of like it didn't take.

Yes, I was kind of dreading today because there was a person there I didn't know. Eating slow and taking tiny bites is embarrassing. Before I knew it my friend told him all about my surgery, my band, the changes, etc. He was cool about it. They just sat and waited for me.

There is (another) bug right now in the software. It doesn't usually give an error message with each post. Alex will hopefully fix it soon.

I'm currently reading 2 series. The first one is the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey, I'm on the 5th or 6th one, it's really enjoyable. The other series is the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. It's FULL of satire, it's really funny. I've only ever gotten to the 5th book in the series, I'm actually re-reading up that far. It's got 20 some books in it.

My mom bought me the first 5 books of the Pern series when I told her I hadn't ever read it. I think she nearly fainted, lol.

i just got 'The Art of Happiness', his holiness the Dalai Lama

Fantastic in a way i cant begin to describe.

Just finished Jeffery Deaver's "The Cold Moon." It gets 2 thumbs up.

also reading..at night.."Hannibal Rising" Thomas Harris. i know...wierd contrast eh?

by day the dalai lama, and at night Cannibalism at its finest.

I guess i just revealed a great deal more about myself than planned...ha...

I've just started to read Hannibal Rising. I think I'll finish it this weekend while at the lake.

Im reading a combination of a few books but could never read and exercise Id get neasea. Though I do subscribe to audible and listen to books while at the gym.

OK, am I the only one around here that likes Jackie Collins???? That woman writes the best books, I swear. That is if you like a little sleaze to get you through the day;)

I highly recommend Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. They are some of the best books I've read recently and I'm an English professor. They are tearjerkers, but have a lot of information on Afghanistan. Hosseini makes his characters so human that the reader can overlook the general chaos in Afghanistan. I'm going to teach a contemporary world literature course because I loved The Kite Runner so much. I also recommend anything by Isabel Allende. We are going to read House of Spirits for the class, but her other books are good too. She's so funny though she wrote a book for her daughter who died of porphyria, and it's a family history. It's still fascinating and one sees how very much she loved her daughter. Sorry, I tend to go for the literary stuff, but these books are not boring and I think people would like them. I read Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels repeatedly. He's a British guy and the Discworld is sort of a fantasy world but not really. His books are hilarious which is why I reread them all the time. His best books are about the Ankh-Morpork police starting with Guards, Guards. He also has some really good books about the witches of Lancre which are hilarious. The first one is a take-off on MacBeth and it's really funny. They feature Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick though when Magrat becomes queen of Lancre, Pratchett adds Agnes Nitt as the third witch. She's sort of fat but has a thin girl named Perdita living in her. Agnes can sing in harmony with herself. I love these books.

I highly recommend a book called "for one more day" by Mitch Albom. it is about a man, through a series of unfortunate events, decides to commit suicide. He was on his way to the house he grew up in to do it and when he got there, his mother was there...his mother had been dead for 8 years. He was able to spend the day with her and try to make up for all the things he should have said or done while she was alive. The author said that when he was looking for ideas on what to write about, most people that he asked if they had a chance to spend one day with, who would it be....most all of the responses were someone in their families that had passed away. So that is where he got the idea for the book. I cried at times while reading it. Very touching. It is only in hard back right now, but worth every penny!!

I also just finished "The Husband" by Dean Koontz. Good one too.

And...I also just read "Fool Me Once" by Fern Michaels. The typical family secrets revealed book. I loved it though...it makes my life sound so "normal". LOL

Right now I am reading "Mary Mary" by James Patterson. A good murder mystery.

This is my favorite thread EVER! I've found more avid readers. Yay for me!!!!

bitteroldhag, (love your user name!), I second your recommendation of The Kite Runner. It was one of the best books I've read in years and I recommend it to everyone I know who reads.

I've picked up some great ideas here, I'm going to get: Fighting Weight, Shoot the Moon, Stiff (my family owned a funeral home when I was growing up and my dad is a mortician!), and something by Anne (Ann?) Rice.

I finished my master's degree this spring and the first thing I did was cancel my television service because I wanted to read, read, and read...FOR PLEASURE, instead of for school. I've read around 20 books in June and these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head...

White Oleander, Prep, Life of Pi, The Kite Runner, Infidel, A Lotus Grows in the Mud (Goldie Hawn's autobiography), The Book of Ruth, Geek Love, Good in Bed, and A Virtuous Woman and all of the Hannibal books. I've been in a joyous book reading frenzy!

Oh yeah, in case you didn't catch it the first time.....READ THE KITE RUNNER! =) :clap2:

I'm also going to find For One More Day, that sounds great.

Are any of you members of paperbackswap.com? It is the best (FREE!) website for voracious readers! You post your books and get credits and then you can order books from other folks with your credits. It's only $2.13 to mail a paperback book so it's a great (and cheap) way to find new reads. If any of you are interested in joining, if you don't mind, would you PM me and give me your email address so I can send you an invitation? You don't need my invitation of course, but if you sign up I'll get a free credit if you use my name. *greedy Gibson* =)

<p>Funny that you ask...I am reading my Monthly magazine: "Life Extension" with Dr Gupta's picture on the front...who ever don'tknow this guy---he's the Doc who is hired By CNN for the health news. Then at the same time--"The Weight Loss Cure--"they don't want you to know about". It's the continuation of the other two books by Kevin Trudeau. I have read the other two books--"Natural Cures--they don't want you to know about. Part 1 and 2. In the Life Extension there is one story about Statin Drugs and how we overdose on them.When I was really heavy...I was put on the drugs Zycor and switched to Lipitor....I used to get swollen legs almost every night and I feared the worst---I had kidney problems. I was also on Prozac At first--without tests--the Dr said--OH--you will have this because of the long day you're standing at work. I had to reminded him--I am at home each day--I am retired....I demanded to get a kidney function and Liver function test....Low and behold..I had kidneys working at a 80% rate and a fatty liver. I stopped these drugs around the same time I decided to get banded--in November. Remarkedly--My tests taken in May showed I had little trace of me ever having any differculties. Then a nurse says--Mr B____--You are not the only patient to complain of pain and swelling...Oh--by the way--don't tell anyone I told you that said this about the Lipitor--WTH???? Then the Doctor proceeded to give me a large pack of samples--just in case I changed my mind...Even though--I had only a 208 score on the Cholesterol--:cry