On Today’s Bookshelf (XIII)

It has been months since I last shared what I am reading with you. (If you are interested in reading prior On Today’s Bookshelf articles, please click the link “On Today’s Bookshelf” above.) Alas, I wish I could say that my to-be-read pile is getting smaller, but it isn’t. It seems as if not a day passes when I am not adding yet another book or two or three to the TBR pile; although I am managing to make my way through the books, I am adding new books faster than I can read what books I already have in the TBR pile.

In a way, my situation has become more complicated. Recently, Barnes & Noble sent me a coupon for a great deal on the Nook HD or HD+. The HD is a 7-inch tablet with a 720p screen; the HD+ is a 9-inch tablet with a 1080p screen. I already own — and am very happy with — a 7-inch Nook Tablet (it’s just not high definition) but after looking at the device in my local B&N, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to buy the HD+ for slightly more than half price. So now I have a Sony 7-inch eInk reader that my wife uses, a 7-inch Nook Tablet, and a 9-inch Nook HD+ Tablet.

What I have done is divide my books. On the Nook Tablet, I read fiction; on the Nook HD+ I am reading nonfiction and occasionally watching a video. The Nook HD+ is perfect for nonfiction and for PDF documents. However, the more I use the HD+ tablet, the more I like it, so I expect it won’t be long before all my books are on the HD+.

Here is a list of some of the books that I am reading (or acquired since the last On Today’s Bookshelf post) either in hardcover or in ebook form:

Nonfiction —

• If Rome Hadn’t Fallen by Timothy Venning
• The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara Tuchman
• Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
• The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
• Empire: What Ruling the World Did to the British by Jeremy Paxman
• Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions by Susan Tice & Cami Ostman
• Inside the Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Ray Monk
• Hitler’s Commanders by Samuel W. Mitchum, Jr.
• Carthage Must be Destroyed by Richard Miles
• Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham
• Perfect Victim by Christine McGuire & Carla Norton
• A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester
• Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History’s Most Notorious Women by Elizabeth Mahon
• The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany 1944-1945 by Ian Kershaw
• Belisarius: The Last Roman General by Ian Hughes
• The Forge of Christendom: The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the West by Tom Holland
• All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings
• The First Four Notes: Beethoven’s Fifth and the Human Imagination by Matthew Guerrieri
• The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York by Matthew Goodman
• Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy
• The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language by Mark Forsyth
• A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War by Amanda Foreman
• Cicero by Anthony Everitt
• Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-1842 by William Dalrymple
• The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins
• The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
• The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century by Alan Brinkley
• The Second World War by Antony Beevor
• The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I by Stephen Alford

Fiction —

• House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion, Vol. 1 and In Fury Born (2 books) by David Weber
• Antiagon Fire by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
• Inda; The Fox; Treason’s Shore; and King’s Shield (4 books) by Sherwood Smith
• The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
• The Purples by W.K. Berger
• City of Dragons and Blood of Dragons (2 books) by Robin Hobb
• The Serpent’s Tale; A Murderous Procession; Mistress of the Art of Death; and Grave Goods (4 books) by Ariana Franklin
• I am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits
• The Cadet of Tildor by Alex Lidell
• Season of the Harvest and Forged in Flame (2 books) by Michael R. Hicks
• The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett
• A Walk Across the Sun by Corban Addison
• The Blade Itself; Last Argument of Kings; and Before They are Hanged (3 books) by Joe Abercrombie
• Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of the Nagas (2 books) by Amish Tripathi
• Game of Souls by Terry C. Simpson
• Ruins of Legend; Nature Abhors a Vacuum; and In Defence of the Crown (3 books) by Stephen L. Nowland
• The Traitor Queen by Judi Canavan
• The Concubine’s Daughter by Pai Kit Fai
• The Pledge by Kimberly Derting
• Little, Big by John Crowley

That’s some of what I am currently reading. I’ve got about a dozen hardcovers on preorder and a growing list of hardcovers I want to purchase.

Please feel free to share your reading list with us. Doing so may well bring your favorite authors some new readers.