what is the last book you read?

[MangusKhan]

I wondered if this thread existed.

Notable reads of recent include:
Young Hitler: the Making of the Fuhrer, by Paul Ham


Very interesting depiction of young Adolf. He's a real character, and some of his exploits are just outrageous. Keep in mind that this book deals with Hitler at a time when he was innocent of his greater crimes, and can at times be quite charming as the reader is led through the eccentric Adolf's various struggles and adventures as a young man. The latter part of the book, dealing with Hitler's budding political career, really makes one wonder just what he was channeling during his speeches and how he was doing it. A fun read and an enlightening glimpse into the mind of the man who's confused dream of heroic world liberation/brutal world domination has shaped all of our lives.

Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death, by Adrian Owen


This book is simply fascinating. Materialist through and through, it still holds a lot of food for thought even for the spiritualist, especially since the conclusion of the book basically states that even with all this amazing brain-imaging technology, science is still very much baffled by what makes a person conscious. Includes a multitude of case studies which follow a timeline of technological progress as scientists try to find ingenious ways to make contact with the living beings trapped within defunct bodies. The results are pretty incredible.

Serpentine, by Thomas Thompson


A highly entertaining, true account of the life of one Mr. Charles Sobraj, later known as the Bikini Killer. A great look into the life of a very intelligent and manipulative negative entity, beginning from his birth in Saigon, Vietnam and spanning what seems like the entire world as he changes identities and escapes from one self-created mess after another. Sometimes I want to scream at the pages for someone to just shoot the guy already, and other times I am laughing, in awe of the brilliant methods and the dumbfounded victims of this man. What perhaps makes this book, and this man, most interesting though, is the way Charles seems to still have a heart, and how he suffers and misses out on opportunities because of it. I don't usually read crime novels but this one reached out to me from the shelves of the book exchange, and like a victim of the man himself, I was sucked in from the start and left bamboozled.