What to read during Taper or a 14 hour flight....

By popular demand I am giving a list of reading mateials to help kill those long rest days, layovers, travel, or hours on the Spinner, When Troy has become too annoying.

Angels and Demons by Dan "I'm rich because of the Da Vinci Code" Brown.
It's a prequel to the Da Vinci code and personally I think it has a better plot, unfortunately no Albino Catholic Monk hitmen.


The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Elan Poppe
Poppe is an Israeli and pretty much finds the essence of the whole Arab-Israeli stems back to land and "land grabs"...including one major one in 1948 which displaced about 500,000 Arabs...Not a bad read, gets a little dry at times, pisses you off at times, and gets you to see why the Palestinians are so pissed off.

The Popol Vuh
An English Translation of the Religious Texts of the Quiche Maya. Seriously this book is full of shape shifting, talking animals, blood ,gore, ritual, coming back form the dead....it's a pretty cool read almost trippy at times. Gives you a different world view when you're done reading.

The Longest Night
Can't remember the author, but the basic is plot is one of Meyer Lansky's Hit men goes to occupied Holland in 1943 to help spring a train load of Jews from a concentration camp. The hitman is cynical as all hell. It's got action, suspense, comedy, it's a good read. Finished it in a weekend.

A Man's Place by John Tosh...I think
A text book for my Victorian England. it describe what the "social ideal" was for a middle class man in Victorian England. Pass the opium and Absinthe please.

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
Better than the Musical. Dark, violent, the Phantom is a BADASS cross between the Joker, Pavarotti, David Copperfield and the Unibomber. Christine is Easy , and Raoul is a real prententious smuck. Also has a ghost from the Phantom's past in this thing called the Persian...and he's BADASS...the writing gets a little repetitive and some of the chapters don't make sense until you read a little more...It's a decent book, but it plays headgames with you. It's the 1890's version of a Bond Flick.

There are others but these are the books that came to the top of my head, mainly becaue I'll be reading Poppe and Tosh on the flight accross the Pacific, as I desperately try to cram my class work into a nice 14 hour flight. Figure that way there will be less for me to do in NZ and I can enjoy my Travel expereince instead of spending it hunched away in my hotel room writing about people who died over a hundred years ago....or how the stituation in the Mid-East is ticking me off. Free Gaza!.....Two State Solution!....Jerusalem as an International City!..oops let my politics show....

Last night I got in a 40 min. Run with Bjoern on the icy slick roads of New Britain....It was almost like the scene in Cool Runnings where the Jamaicans are learning how to run on ice. ( my home is till without internet so I can't upload the video clip.) It was my first physical activity since Monday and it felt good. Tonight I've got master's on tap, tomorrow hopefully an easy morning swim, followed by work, a short ride with Bjoern, and then packing The Bitch Stopmer for its voyage. My W-2 came into payroll Yesterday, which means I won't be able to pick it up until Tuesday, which means I'll hopefully file Tuesday Night and I'll have my tax rebate in on the Wednesday I'm in NZ. Hopefully some of that refund will be going to pay for a Kona Entry, other wise it will be going to Master Card. Well that's it for now.

Fire on Ice
R.D.