What are you reading??

[producer123]

vacation brings extra time to read...

for myself:

- couple books on the life of siddhartha and how his plan to save the world works. couple books queued up on some kind of jewish-buddhist fusion.
- "man's search for meaning", by a psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor. always interesting to read about the holocaust, for some reason. picking up therapeutic tips at the same time means bonus points.
- 'roughing it' books for young readers, such as "robinson crusoe" and "my side of the mountain". in which i find sleepy's advice valid, in terms of following the animals to find edible food. one of the most interesting ideas is how you can use a skunk cabbage leaf to make a cooking vessel by binding together the ends and filling it with water. even when the flame is hitting the bottom of the leaf, the moisture is so great that it protects the leaf from falling apart and spilling the contents, apparently. good deal when you don't have a turtle shell handy.
- "i am alive and you are dead", one of the most famous biographies of my favorite writer, philip k. dick. but quite difficult to get through- the idea that someone who could write so provacatively and with such clarity could be so mentally damaged is hard to reconcile and hard to take. what do you do when your heroes are shown to be basket cases?
- jacques cousteau' survey of the oceans, which is the kind of book i regularly inhale without even noticing.
- king solomon's mines, which was just lying around. quite dated (1885), but a cracking good read when you get past the difference in eras. the writing style itself is highly readable and modern compared to books of that time.
- on a video note, for their honeymoon, my brother and his wife are apparently watching the star trek series in reverse order, starting with "enterprise", which i had barely seen before. does anybody enjoy that series? so far it just seems like the usual berman-bragga formula, with none of the actors or characters standing out much. spending time looking for discontinuities seems pointless, particularly since the producers retroactively refitted the look and feel of the series, something which is understandable but at the same time doesn't sit too well with me.
- just read a couple quick reviews of the last futurama DVD movie, "wild green yonder". i like the idea of fry getting the girl (leela), but the movie itself sounds pretty mediocre, unfortunately. 26 new episodes have been ordered to air next year apparently-- but can they rediscover the quality of the original series? on a happier note, season four of the "venture bros" begins next month...