I'm reading "Chronicles" by Bob Dylan. Excellent book. I highly recommend it. If you are a fan of music, not necesarily Dylan, you should read this book. It's the only book about one of the "Rock Gods" that is actually written by the man himself...
i just finished "the book on the book", which analyzes conventional baseball strategy against statistical analysis. it was pretty good. it draws some intereting conclusions. for example, bunting is almost always a bad idea (except for pitchers), and any player who cant steal at an 80% rate should never try again, and players who can should steal every single time they are on base. i guess this book was sort of an afterword to the statistical conclusions of "moneyball".
That's cool. In Chronicles, Dylan speaks at lengths about his total repulsion to the way people reacted to his music. He basically said he didn't "dig" the persona he was given, the "spokesman for a generation" persona. He said that many times during his career, he wished he had a 9-5 job with a nice house and a picket fence. He also said that while critics and fans were analyzing every lyric he wrote as "groundbreaking," he was taking his kids to the playground, to school, and being a dad...
My wife got me a Baptist edition for Christmas. I'm enjoying it. It's just neat having a Bible that says Baptist on it. :grin: It's just a King James with Baptist learning aids. For valentines day, I got my wife a gift card from the LifeWay Christian Store so that she can pick out a new one for her. She's had the same Bible since she was very young. Speaking of LifeWay, they have a very good selection of books written on Christian topics. Nowadays, if I find myself with extra time for reading, I might as well read something constructive. Most importantly though, is the Bible. No matter which translation.
I have three books open at present: 1. Flashman on the March -- George MacDonald Fraser's latest in his series of Flashman novels. A great book for those who appreciate a good fictional scoundrel interacting with real historical figures in accurate historical settings. Hilarous, bawdy stuff. 2. Strongholds of the Realm: Defences in Britain From Prehistory to the Twentieth Century -- Charles Kightly's well-illustrated study of the fortesses of Britain from the iron age entrenchments through the age of medieval castles, Victorian forts and Cold War bunkers. 3. The Beatles: The Biography -- A fine book by Bob Spitz and the first Beatles history done by a historian. Unlike earlier authors who used a lot of unsubstantiated and undocumented sources, this study is meticulously noted, footnoted, bibliographied, and indexed. Unlike the Beatles-produced "Anthology" it includes material that the Beatles tend to mythologize, like the sacking of Pete Best. Extremely well written.
I may have to get one of those Baptist editions. My wife has been wanting to get a Life Application Study Bible. I got one when I graduated high school (King James) way back when. It's full of all sorts of good study aids and references. I'm a fan of Lifeway myself. My sister gave us a devotional book for Christmas by James Dobson (Night Light is the name of it) from Lifeway. Been reading that too. Very good devotianal book for married couples. I think there is also one for parents, but we haven't gotten there yet.
I have two "Life Application Study Bibles" (New Living Translation). One thing I've noticed is that the editors don't seem to be able to interpret every verse according to a New Covenant philosophy. Some of the exhortations in the margins and footnotes (in the Gospel narratives) seem to be Old Covenant driven.