Spring Vacation and What I'm Reading Now

You may or mayn't have noticed a lack of posts recently. That's due to a couple of factors. First, I am finishing up a novel and am busy checking cover templates, formatting, and doing final edits before publication. Second, it is spring break and I decided to take time off of blogging to spend time and play with my daughter (the most important and fun task a father has) and catch up on some reading.

What am I reading--I rhetorically ask myself hoping you'll all be interested. Good question.

I just finished Jonathan Mayberry's book Dead of Night and have immediately jumped into Patient Zero. I'm half way finished. Both are good action/thriller/horror survival stories involving zombies. If you like zombies, or just good writing, definitely worth checking out.

As I come to the last chapter of Bart D. Ehrman's excellent book Forged, I contemplated buying his new book Did Jesus Exist?, but in the end I changed my mind. From the reviews I've read of Ehrman's new book he doesn't introduce anything new to the debate. It's all old news. I guess if you haven't read any of his other works or haven't studied Christianity and are unfamiliar with the details surrounding the question of the historical Jesus and whether or not he existed in antiquity, then it might be a good introductory look at the main arguments for Jesus' existence. 


But if you have read hundreds upon hundreds of NT criticism and have two bookshelves overflowing with religion and philosophy books such as I have, it seems a rather begrudging re-examination of the same old same old.

So instead I opted to download (last night) two physics books instead. I purchased Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw's new book Quantum Universe (And Why Anything That Can Happen, Does) and A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.

At the same time I am slowly inching my way through Dirty Minds by Kayt Sukel, the most scientific and in depth look at how the brain generates the emotion of love and how it plays off our biology and influences our behavior. It's a dense book with tons of neuroscience jargon, so if you are unfamiliar, it takes a bit of getting used to the new terms.

Finally I am two thirds into Michael Shermer's The Believing Brain. An excellent introduction into cognitive science and learning about the human brain. I can't recommend this book enough. It's definitely one everyone should have on their bookshelf.


After I finish Forged, The Believing Brain, and Dirty Minds, probably by the end of this week or next, I will start my attempt to read the entire collected works of H.P. Lovecraft. I've read numerous shorts before, but now that I have the entire collected volumes of his fiction, I am itching to get into it.

Well, that's what I am reading this month and next. It's about the amount I read every three to four months. If you are wondering how I get so much reading done, the answer is I commute to work on the train. And hour and a half every morning to work, and back again in the evenings, which provide a solid chunk of time for me to read without distractions. 


Also, owning a Kindle allows me to carry numerous volumes with me wherever I go, and I can zip in and out of books with the flick of a touch panel. It has given me a portable library I can carry anywhere. Very handy if you travel or read voraciously.

So what are you currently reading? Feel free to share in the comments section bellow. And if you're not currently reading anything but have an excellent book recommendation, I'd love to hear it.