What are you reading

[Otto]

And I like to read one or two non-fiction books parallel to the novels
I'm reading.

So I'm still in the middle of Norman Cohn's "The Pursuit of the
Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the
Middle Ages" (1957) and have recently begun John Toland's "Battle: The
Story of the Bulge" (1960).

I've never went too deep into Max Weber's "Wirtschaft und
Gesellschaft" (Zweitausendeins reprint, 2005; Understanding Sociology
[Economy and Society]), but it's a fascinating book which starts with
a helluva lot definitions that are really worth to think about, but of
course it's hard stuff:

"Vorbemerkung. Die Methode dieser einleitenden, nicht gut zu
entbehrenden, aber unvermeidlich abstrakt und realitätsfremd wirkenden
Begriffsdefinitionen beansprucht in keiner Art: neu zu sein."

[1] An introductory definition of concepts can hardly be dispensed
with, in spite of the fact that it is unavoidably abstract and hence
gives the impression of remoteness from reality. The method employed
makes no claim to any kind of newness.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/weber/method/basic/basic_concept_frame.html