View Full Version : What book are you reading?
Oh come on, a little bit more substance :book2:
i) Sounds exemplary of the arrogance of the Eng. Lit. elites.
ii) In what sense does LOTR "ignore" death? Is it literal, referring to the Gandalfian resurrection? (...) Unless he's merely against happy endings
iii) That's Tolkien's idea, not necessarily his readers'.
iv) Is there an uncorrupted romanticism? Wouldn't all those 19th c. novels be guilty of "coddling" and "telling comforting lies" as well?
v) What does Watership Down have to do with any of this, though.
i) Odd, as the man is criticising Tolkien and Lewis, both part of the Oxford literary elite.
ii) He protests against:
J. R. R. Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories": And lastly there is the oldest and deepest desire, the Great Escape: the Escape from Death. Fairy stories provide many examples and modes of this - which might be called the genuine escapist, or (I would say) fugitive spirit. But so do other stories (notably those of scientific inspiration), and so do other studies... But the "consolation" of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. For more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending.
Because, he argues in a salient paragraph:
Moderation was the rule and it is moderation which ruins Tolkien's fantasy and causes it to fail as a genuine romance, let alone an epic. The little hills and woods of that Surrey of the mind, the Shire, are "safe", but the wild landscapes everywhere beyond the Shire are "dangerous". Experience of life itself is dangerous. The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious confirmation of the values of a declining nation with a morally bankrupt class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of Thatcherism. Humanity was derided and marginalised. Sentimentality became the acceptable subsitute. So few people seem to be able to tell the difference.
The Lord of the Rings is much more deep-rooted in its infantilism than a good many of the more obviously juvenile books it influenced. It is Winnie-the-Pooh posing as an epic. If the Shire is a suburban garden, Sauron and his henchmen are that old bourgeois bugaboo, the Mob - mindless football supporters throwing their beer-bottles over the fence the worst aspects of modern urban society represented as the whole by a fearful, backward-yearning class for whom "good taste" is synonymous with "restraint" (pastel colours, murmured protest) and "civilized" behaviour means "conventional behaviour in all circumstances". This is not to deny that courageous characters are found in The Lord of the Rings, or a willingness to fight Evil (never really defined), but somehow those courageous characters take on the aspect of retired colonels at last driven to write a letter to The Times and we are not sure - because Tolkien cannot really bring himself to get close to his proles and their satanic leaders - if Sauron and Co. are quite as evil as we're told.
iii) Great, as he is arguing against Tolkien and his generation in that paragraph after all.
I have to remark time and again the amazing skill of so many posters of criticising an opinion without reading it. Quite astounding. In this case (iv)
He very precisely defines his usage of the term:
“corrupted romanticism - sentimentalized pleas for moderation of aspiration which are at the root of their kind of conservatism. In Lewis's case this consolatory, anxiety-stilling "Why try to play Mozart when it's easier to play Rodgers and Hammerstein?" attitude extended to his non-fiction, particularly the dreadful but influential Experiment in Criticism.”
If you believe 19th century romantic authors to have made “sentimentalized pleas for moderation of aspiration”, I imagine quite a few are right now turning in their grave.
v) A second case of disagreement based upon the critic not having read the material he is berating. Adams was quoted in very different context:
Another variety of book has begun to appear, a sort of Pooh-fights-back fiction of the kind produced by Richard Adams, which substitutes animals for human protagonists, contains a familiar set of middle-class Anglican Tory undertones (all these books seem to be written with a slight lisp) and is certainly already more corrupt than Tolkien. Adams is a worse writer but he must appeal enormously to all those many readers who have never quite lost their yearning for the frisson first felt when Peter Rabbit was expelled from Mr. Macgregor's garden.
Hmm, maybe that's the problem. Has this guy ever actually read any fantasy?
You are giving me pause. The chap comments on dozens of specific passages of fantasy literature taken from the works of a score of authors, and you accuse him of not having read fantasy.
The actual mind-bending irony is that the critic is a Nebula prize award winning author himself, one of the most influential fantasy aficionados in the world, was the editor of publications focused on the genre for decades and one of the original promoters of the “New Wave” current in the ‘70s: Michael Moorcock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock)
I suppose anyone who shakes one’s cosy feelings of yearning for bad fantasy literature is to be dismissed as one who never read any of it, of course...
:shrug:
As to your jab on “ ‘erudite’ essays”, what’s next, condemning well-read persons for being “intellectuals”?
Ubik. Philip K. Dick.
V.good.
In the end, though, I think even he would agree that reading Tolkein is essential for establishing a young reader's literary foundation.
Hmm, I personally agree with you, but I have a feeling he would also want to provide a solid alternative on the same bookshelf. Otherwise, I do not think he would want Tolkien to be ostracized by young readers.
Oh and you guys, what about The Man in the High Castle (http://www.amazon.com/Man-High-Castle-Philip-Dick/dp/0679740678)?!
To have it published at that point in time must've been groundbreaking; as in, opening the dialogue.
Although I didn’t agree with the I Ching bits he inserted and overall influence, I found the book awesome! Have it as audio, still among my picks during a long drive.
Montmorency
12-05-2011, 21:31
Odd, as the man is criticising Tolkien and Lewis, both part of the Oxford literary elite.
The literary in-crowd is riddled with exclusive and highly specialized cliques who have become "out of touch" with everyone and thing outside: that's the point. :shrug:
I have to remark time and again the amazing skill of so many posters of criticising an opinion without reading it.
Physician, heal thyself! But I'm cool with it if you are. :S
I suppose anyone who shakes one’s cosy feelings of yearning for bad fantasy literature is to be dismissed as one who never read any of it, of course...
Nice strawman, bro.
If you believe 19th century romantic authors to have made “sentimentalized pleas for moderation of aspiration”, I imagine quite a few are right now turning in their grave.
Moderation of aspiration in fantasy? Where? *Don't actually reply to this, please. It's rhetorical, and is addressed below-low. *
As for romanticism: this should make it clearer -
He begins
by dividing fiction, somewhat unorthodoxly, into three divisions—
romantic, realistic, and imaginative. The first ‘is for those who
value action and emotion for their own sake; who are interested in
striking events which conform to a preconceived artificial pattern’.
The second ‘is for those who are intellectual and analytical rather
than poetical or emotional … It has the virtue of being close to life,
but has the disadvantage of sinking into the commonplace and the
unpleasant at times.’ Lovecraft does not provide an explicit definition
of imaginative fiction, but implies that it draws upon the best
features of both the other two: like romanticism, imaginative
fiction bases its appeal on emotions (the emotions of fear, wonder,
and terror); from realism it derives the important principle of
truth—not truth to fact, as in realism, but truth to human feeling.
As a result, Lovecraft comes up with the somewhat startling
deduction that ‘The imaginative writer devotes himself to art in its
most essential sense.’
The attack on what Lovecraft called ‘romanticism’ is one he
never relinquished. The term must not be understood here in any
historical sense—Lovecraft had great respect and fondness for such Romantic poets as Shelley, Keats, and Coleridge—but purely
theoretically, as embodying an approach not only to literature but
to life generally:
The one form of literary appeal which I consider absolutely
unsound, charlatanic, and valueless—frivolous, insincere, irrelevant,
and meaningless—is that mode of handling human
events and values and motivations known as romanticism.
Dumas, Scott, Stevenson—my gawd! Here is sheer puerility—
the concoction of false glamours and enthusiasms and
events out of an addled and distorted background which has
no relation to anything in the genuine thoughts, feelings,
and experiences of evolved and adult mankind.
...
"But that's Tolkien!", you might protest. Sure is - I'm just making myself understood. Do not take this as alignment with Lovecraft's aesthetic sensibilities!
The actual mind-bending irony is that the critic is a Nebula prize award winning author himself, one of the most influential fantasy aficionados in the world
Tolkien was more influential. This is irrelevant. The point I should have made is that this guy restricts his analysis to a very specific subgenre of fantasy, as demonstrated by what he quotes.
I'd love to pick on some of his lines, as they are, standing alone, but I'd also rather not belabor this (too much). So...
As to your jab on “ ‘erudite’ essays”, what’s next, condemning well-read persons for being “intellectuals”?
Interesting. Discredit those you disagree with by repackaging their words as anti-intellectual. Useful trick. Will have to get that one down.
I'm surprised you didn't remark on the essay in the spoiler. It uses similar premises as yours, but takes them somewhere more interesting than the latter does, with its hackneyed this make society dumb wraghghg message.
the Lord of the Rings is a pernicious confirmation of the values of a declining nation with a morally bankrupt class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of Thatcherism. Humanity was derided and marginalised. Sentimentality became the acceptable subsitute. So few people seem to be able to tell the difference.
is equivalent to a wet fart in the shower. What you call the ambience, I call the miasma.
But look, we've clarified this: that I find Moorcock's conclusions hysterically silly, and particularly disagree with his view on the motivations for reading 'Tolkienesque' fantasy.
Moorcock: Tolkienesque is taken to mean 'pastoral'.
I think it is simple neophobia which makes people hate the modern world and its changing society; it is xenophobia which makes them unable to imagine what rural beauty might lie beyond the boundaries of their particular Shire.
Me: Tolkienesque is taken to mean something closer to 'hack-n-slash', or 'adventure'.
It's not parochialism that fantasy readers seem to be motivated by, but rather a thirst for the exotic.
Inspired by Tolkien, but not really like Tolkien. Important thing to note.
Take it or leave it, that's what I'm trying to get across. However, maybe I'm off the mark in even the specially highlighted respects!
Bakker: Maybe corroborates Moorcock! In a way. Then again - read it for yourself. :wink:
Sample:
Both science fiction and fantasy are attempts to compensate for these impending phenomenological disasters. Both genres are consolatory. Where science fiction attempts to recover our lost horizon of expectation through narrative, fantasy attempts to recover our lost space of experience through narrative.
...
Given the gap between the intentional world of our experience (what is commonly called, following Husserl, the Lebenswelt, or ‘lifeworld’)–the world we recognize–and the deintentionalized world described by scientific theory–the world we cognize–one might expect a culture to generate surrogates, worlds where recognition is cognition. Since the scientific deintentionalization of the world has caused this lacuna, one might expect these alternate worlds to repudiate the validity of science. Since all we possess are pre-scientific, historical contexts as models for ‘intentional worlds without science,’ one might expect these to provide the models for these alternate worlds. Put differently, one might expect culture to provide ‘associative elimination rules,’ ways to abstract from the present, for the production of alternate intentional contexts which conform to, and so repatriate, the otherwise displaced space of our experience.
One might expect the development of fantasy literature or something like it.
...
5) In terms of what Heidegger calls the ‘ontological difference,’ science fiction is primarily an ontic discourse, a discourse concerned with beings within the world, whereas fantasy is primarily an ontological one, a discourse concerned with Being itself. What this suggests is that the socio-phenomenological stakes involved in fantasy are more radical than those involved in science fiction. In Adornian terms, science fiction, it could be said, is primarily engaged in the extension of identity thinking, whereas fantasy, through its wilful denial of cognition, points to the ‘messianic moment,’ the necessity of finding some way out of our functional nightmare.
Oh boy, you’re opening yourself so much that I find myself feeling in the mood for a handful of very biting remarks pertaining to your style and reasoning, yet at the same time I cannot, in good conscience, do that when I believe we simply started on the wrong foot somehow.
The point I should have made is that this guy restricts his analysis to a very specific subgenre of fantasy, as demonstrated by what he quotes.
I'd love to pick on some of his lines, as they are, standing alone, but I'd also rather not belabor this (too much).
I mean, look at this :shrug: It is the core of our disagreement.
Moorcock criticizes Tolkien and the ones who subsequently copy him. He never confused this “subgenre” with fantasy on the whole, and for every author he comments on negatively in his essay, he mentions another fantasy writer which in his opinion treats the genre with the respect he thinks should be given to it.
What he does assert at one point, and which may have confused you into thinking the above, is that this subgenre had gained such a following that it was, at the time of his writing, the most visible.
I also know a score of Tolkien readers, a few of them Brits, who would very much disagree with Tolkien being read as a “hack-n-slash”, and these chaps are really hardcore, they read The Hobbit every year. They are actually very much rejoicing in the cosy miasma (I may be using the term unrelated to the concept which you expressed) of the book. Certainly Tolkien’s apologists disagree with you, I am sorry to say, “hack-n-slash” are really not the virtues they extol in his works.
It was my opinion, expressed in this thread in passing, that most fantasy literature of not very long ago was dominated and defined by the epigones of Tolkien, or at least they were the most commercially successful; through their tripe they suffocated quality prose within the genre until a few, like Martin, finally obtained wide accolades from the public. That doesn't mean quality fantasy was not being written in the period, yet it simply didn't survive commercially near the former - in most cases. Moorcock cites more than a handful of writers who did just that in his essay.
I can’t honestly say you made a dent in this conclusion, and I am really not writing this to provoke you.
EDIT: Oh and "picking on his lines", as you put, is exactly how you should always argument your positions, as opposed to generic judgements.
As to the essay you linked, it was the smartest piece I read today by far (and I read it whole; more than ten hours ago; it simply did not contradict any of my arguments), and I thank you for introducing me to its author and I thank its author for introducing me to Koselleck, I’ve enjoyed it so much reading it over lunch today that I ordered both
The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts (Cultural Memory in the Present) (http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Conceptual-History-Concepts-Cultural/dp/0804743053/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1) and
Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought.) (http://www.amazon.com/Futures-Past-Semantics-Historical-Contemporary/dp/0231127715/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3) without even researching his biography – if you’d know me in life, you’d know why this is a big deal, I’m the type of neat freak who doesn’t even download a movie without reading its reviews for two hours. Wish I had read him six years ago during my Semiotics and Imagology courses.
Montmorency
12-05-2011, 23:53
I also know a score of Tolkien readers, a few of them Brits, who would very much disagree with Tolkien being read as a “hack-n-slash”, and these chaps are really hardcore, they read The Hobbit every year. They are actually very much rejoicing in the cosy miasma (I may be using the term unrelated to the concept which you expressed) of the book. Certainly Tolkien’s apologists disagree with you, I am sorry to say, “hack-n-slash” are really not the virtues they extol in his works.
Tolkienesque.
Inspired by Tolkien, but not really like Tolkien. Important thing to note. That should do it.
1.Resembling or influenced by the works, ideas, or literary style of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973).
What Moorcock does not like is the bold. I get that. That's done, then?
I can’t honestly say you made a dent in this conclusion, and I am really not writing this to provoke you.
EDIT: Oh and "picking on his lines", as you put, is exactly how you should always argument your positions, as opposed to generic judgements.
Dare I say that it wasn't warranted? :P
But I wasn't hoping to provoke a debate about the social impact of Tolkien, so that's fine.
As to the essay you linked, it was the smartest piece I read today by far (and I read it whole; more than ten hours ago; it simply did not contradict any of my arguments), and I thank you for introducing me to its author and I thank its author for introducing me to Koselleck, I’ve enjoyed it so much reading it over lunch today that I ordered both
The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts (Cultural Memory in the Present) and
Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought.) without even researching his biography – if you’d know me in life, you’d know why this is a big deal, I’m the type of neat freak who doesn’t even download a movie without reading its reviews for two hours. Wish I had read him six years ago during my Semiotics and Imagology courses.
Our entire exchange has been a mechanism of control designed to influence you into following this path.
:evil:
Tsar Alexsandr
12-06-2011, 07:16
Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
Finally finished Snow (http://www.amazon.com/Everymans-Library-Cloth-Orhan-Pamuk/dp/0307700887/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322914116&sr=1-1) by Orhan Pamuk last night, as I was reading it in parallel to Quicksilver (http://www.amazon.com/Quicksilver-Baroque-Cycle-Vol-1/dp/0380977427) by Neal Stephenson, at GC's recommendation. As I wrote in an above post, if you've read My name is Red (http://www.amazon.com/Name-Everymans-Library-Classics-Contemporary/dp/0307593924/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1), you should definitely pick Snow up as well, in spite of the chronological gap.
So, to comment on Quicksilver, leaving aside that its prolonged excursions into the debates of the day have exactly the type of detail you feel too many other novels only glance into, I find the vividness of the world depicted amazingly well done. You won't regret giving it a chance.
edyzmedieval
12-16-2011, 21:22
Any recommendations for good medieval, historical fiction novels? :book:
Perhaps I could throw in my two cents.
Most astoundingly, considering the male-dominated medieval field, in my opinion the two most superb writers of historical fiction based on the period are two absolutely genial female historians Marguerite Yourcenar and, especially, Zoe Oldenburg. Not a “Get these books, you’ll have a good time” recommendation, rather a “These books will forever shape your views on the era more than any other literary work” and I went through more than a score of the best of them.
The world is not enough (http://www.amazon.com/World-Not-Enough-Zoe-Oldenbourg/dp/1842125125/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2) is perhaps the most moving of Zoe Oldenburg’s novels, though do not misinterpret it for sentimentality. It simply treats superbly the psyche of the medieval human being.
Yet the ones you should probably start with, and which you will find most gripping, are The Crusades (http://www.amazon.com/Crusades-Zoe-Oldenbourg/dp/1842122231/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1) and The Cornerstone (http://www.amazon.com/Cornerstone-Zoe-Oldenbourg/dp/0786705248/ref=pd_sim_b_1), which you will absolutely relish. Oldenburg penetrates so well the minds of the crusading peasants, knights and mercenaries, it outlines so amazingly the horizon of their world and the depth of darkness they perceived to surround them; the experience of going through these two works is unforgettable.
She wrote a seminal novel on the Albiegensian Crusade as well, Massacre at Montsegur: A History of the Albiegensian Crusade (http://www.amazon.com/Massacre-Montsegur-History-Albiegensian-Crusade/dp/1842124285/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3), of which I was reminded quite a few times when reading Martin’s description of the war raging through Westeros. I would recommend reading it last however.
Placed towards the end of the Middle Ages, Marguerite Yourcenar’s The Abyss (http://www.amazon.com/Abyss-Marguerite-Yourcenar/dp/0374516669) is to the beginning of the Renaissance what Oldenburg’s The Crusades are to the beginning of the millennium. Again, it will shape your thinking and educate your perception of time, not to mention Zenon is a terrific character.
And, because I mentioned it before, you should obtain Maurice Druon’s Les Roi Maudits (http://www.amazon.com/Iron-King-Accursed-Kings/dp/0712608761). To quote myself from a few posts above:
I believe I read in an interview Martin wished initially to stay well clear of fantasy, and simply create an alternate world.
A pity he did not follow up on that, I think he would have come very, very close to Maurice Druon's Les Roi Maudits (http://www.amazon.com/Iron-King-Accursed-Kings/dp/0712608761). In fact, the vivid medieval world ASoIaF depicts seems to me to have been very much modelled on Les Roi Maudits and A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings could have very well taken place in Druon's setting, while a host of Martin's characters were almost transposed from the French historical novel - compare Martin's Tywin Lannister to Druon's Phillipe the Fair for an exact mirror. Plus, despite it being a historical novel, Druon takes great care to render the collective mental horizon of the age by illustrating belief in magic as an element almost as present and real as it seemed in Martin's first two books. But I'm totally rambling off-topic by now, apologies!
It’s basically Martin’s Game of Thrones without all the fantasy – though you should not understand magic to not be present.
There is a Romanian translation from a few decades ago for it, yet I would recommend reading it in French if it’s within your grasp. If not, at least get it in English, as ours (the translation) simply isn’t doing it justice.
edyzmedieval
12-17-2011, 15:59
Multumesc Nowake. :bow:
CountArach
12-19-2011, 02:41
Anyone read 'The Blade Itself' by Joe Abercrombie? It looks quite good based on Amazon reviews. I like my fantasy dark and gritty and it seems that is what it delivers. Anyone have any thoughts?
Thoughts yes, a direct answer, mmmmnot really sigh.
That is, after reading ASoIaF I kept bringing it up with some my friends and, since this was literally the first fantasy book I had read, they were falling over themselves to recommend other authors.
In this context, I began reading Abercrombie’s The Heroes (http://www.amazon.com/Heroes-Joe-Abercrombie/dp/0316044989) – so I can at least attest he’s an able author, I certainly wouldn’t qualify buying one of his books as a waste of money under no circumstances.
On the other hand, I couldn’t finish the book. For no fault of its own I might add.
I also abandoned The Lies of Locke Lamora (http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Locke-Lamora-Scott-Lynch/dp/055358894X) by Scott Lynch while having gone through a third of the book or so. Again, for no fault of its own.
Both The Heroes and The Lies of Locke Lamora are very, very well written, the plot is masterfully weaved, the personages are vivid and the colour and gritty realistic portrayal of warfare characteristic for this new type of fantasy, introduced in the past decade or so, is there. However smart though, they’re pure adventure books. They lack the in-depth world-building which ASoIaF offers; in Martin’s books you continuously gather details, hints and subplots which allow you to guess the demographics, the economical details, the social interactions, the military potential, the technology available – you discover the world thought of by Martin as a modern day historian would by delving into a chronicle.
Abercrombie and Lynch... how should I put... they build up a world for their characters, while Martin tends to build up characters to populate his world. In the beginning of their books, this difference is merely a nuance, a few chapters in it becomes too prominent to ignore.
Hope this gives you an idea as to where Abercrombie goes with his prose.
CountArach
12-19-2011, 06:43
Thoughts yes, a direct answer, mmmmnot really sigh.
That is, after reading ASoIaF I kept bringing it up with some my friends and, since this was literally the first fantasy book I had read, they were falling over themselves to recommend other authors.
In this context, I began reading Abercrombie’s The Heroes (http://www.amazon.com/Heroes-Joe-Abercrombie/dp/0316044989) – so I can at least attest he’s an able author, I certainly wouldn’t qualify buying one of his books as a waste of money under no circumstances.
On the other hand, I couldn’t finish the book. For no fault of its own I might add.
I also abandoned The Lies of Locke Lamora (http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Locke-Lamora-Scott-Lynch/dp/055358894X) by Scott Lynch while having gone through a third of the book or so. Again, for no fault of its own.
Both The Heroes and The Lies of Locke Lamora are very, very well written, the plot is masterfully weaved, the personages are vivid and the colour and gritty realistic portrayal of warfare characteristic for this new type of fantasy, introduced in the past decade or so, is there. However smart though, they’re pure adventure books. They lack the in-depth world-building which ASoIaF offers; in Martin’s books you continuously gather details, hints and subplots which allow you to guess the demographics, the economical details, the social interactions, the military potential, the technology available – you discover the world thought of by Martin as a modern day historian would by delving into a chronicle.
Abercrombie and Lynch... how should I put... they build up a world for their characters, while Martin tends to build up characters to populate his world. In the beginning of their books, this difference is merely a nuance, a few chapters in it becomes too prominent to ignore.
Hope this gives you an idea as to where Abercrombie goes with his prose.
Thanks, that really does help me. I'll buy it then, but I won't expect a second ASoIaF.
I finally finished Starfighters of Adumar (by Aaron Allston), the 9th and final book in the Star Wars: X-Wing novels.
It wasn't my favorite, but it was still a decent enough way to end the series. I'll definitely be picking up the books for myself!
Am now simultaneously reading two books: Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia (which I received as a Christmas present) and George Orwell's classic 1984.
I've never gotten around to reading the latter until now. However, contrary to my expectations -- I'm a little ashamed to admit that there's a lot of classics that I don't enjoy -- I'm actually finding myself quite intrigued with 1984. I'm already at the halfway-mark, and am very curious to see how the rest of the book goes.
Footprints, the sorta biography of powderfinger, as well as The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin.
Graiskye
01-03-2012, 21:10
I just received and started 'A People History of the United States', authored by Howard Zinn(RIP).
Its considered by many to be the unvarnished version of the history of the Americas, and starts with Columbus's rather complete genocide of the Arawak Indians, of what is now known to be Haiti/Dominican Republic.
And then it on to the Americas...yipee yee haw.
Mans own inhumanity to man, is deeply disturbing, to put it mildly.
Dont want to get too into it, but it seems a pretty interesting read, and I look forward to finishing it.
In his own words Zinn tries to tell the history from the view of the the people who were often oppressed by it.
Its a well known fact that history is wrought by the victors, and they simply don't tell the losers story.
In this book Zinn tries to correct some of these historic imbalances.
If you are interested in the more real history of the USA, and North America in general, you would do well to check it out.
If nothing else it should help me to achieve a more rounded, and complete understanding of our forefathers in the USA.
While I am Canadian, I am a child of history, and especially the more recent history of our world.
We just seem to forget things so quickly nowadays.
Peace all.
Peasant Phill
01-05-2012, 00:31
Just finished 'I kill giants' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Kill_Giants). Actually it's a short comic series (not a book per se) but the subject, symbolism and pacing was very well done.
Great for a quick read in between bigger volumes.
CountArach
01-05-2012, 12:44
I've got several books going in my post-Christmas binge...
I'm finally reading through Polybius cover-to-cover and comparing him to Livy as I go. This is for my PhD so is likely to be an ongoing project for quite some time.
I'm more than half way through the second part of A Storm of Swords. I think it is the second best book thus far in the series (after the original) - so many huge things happening. That and I really like all of the POV characters.
I've read a couple of chapters of 1813 Leipzig: Napoleon and the Battle of the Nations by Digby Smith. I admittedly know very little about the 1813 campaign and so asked for this as a Christmas present. The book is immensely detailed, but this can slow the narrative somewhat. Still, it uses a lot of fascinating translated accounts, particularly from the Prussian soldiers, that adds a real sense of 'closeness' to the battle.
Childhood's End. Sir Arthur C. Clark. In three words: Frantic, haunting, beautiful.
Rant about an entire genre alert
Crime novels. Is it just me or is everything a crime novelist writes an open sollicitation to a movie-studio.
I picked up loads of books from a shop in Maastricht on Tuesday; included was some of Hafiz's poetry and Hugh Kennedy's "The Great Arab Conquests".
I finished up 1984 last week.
I thought it was both brilliant and (of course) deeply disturbing, both thought-provoking and incredibly depressing. Regardless, I found it to be an enjoyable read (albeit in a horrific/macabre sort of way).
I also completed re-reading The Courtship of Princess Leia. Although I liked the book well enough, I didn't enjoy it as much this time around as when I first read it.
The dialogue felt "juvenile" in a lot of ways, and both Leia & Han felt...wrong, somehow. Their personalities (as portrayed in the book) didn't mesh very well with how most other authors in the Expanded Universe have written them, to say nothing of not fitting in with their personalities in the films. Of course, Courtship was one of the earlier Star Wars: EU novels (back when the main characters' personalities were less well-formed), so probably Dave Wolverton can be forgiven this.
Next up: Partially on a whim, but partially because I've long been meaning to check out the series (but have never gotten around to doing so until now), I picked up The Midshipman Hornblower and Lieutenant Hornblower by C.S. Forester at the library.
Given how big a fan I am of David Weber's Honor Harrington books, I realized it's only natural & right that I read up on the character that inspired them in the first place. :yes: Also, Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World (the film adaptation of Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin novels) is one of my favorite movies, which gave me further impetus to check out (what seems to be considered) the gold standard of the "Wooden Ships and Iron Men" genre.
I've definitely not regretted it so far. I'm already over 2/3 of the way through Midshipman after just two days of reading, and am eager for more. I'm actually having to pace myself so I don't get through the books too quickly!
and Hugh Kennedy's "The Great Arab Conquests".
That's a good one, almost reads like a novel
I finished up 1984 last week.
I thought it was both brilliant and (of course) deeply disturbing, both thought-provoking and incredibly depressing. Regardless, I found it to be an enjoyable read (albeit in a horrific/macabre sort of way).
TBH I could never finish that one. I think I made it 1/4 through and got bored. Maybe I'm "mature" enough to give it another go. That is as long as I don't turn into psychotic late-70s Roger Waters.
Sasaki Kojiro
01-19-2012, 08:39
I recently finished The Riddle of the Sands which I recommend...great sort of spy/mystery novel written around 1900...
I just received and started 'A People History of the United States', authored by Howard Zinn(RIP).
Its considered by many to be the unvarnished version of the history of the Americas, and starts with Columbus's rather complete genocide of the Arawak Indians, of what is now known to be Haiti/Dominican Republic.
And then it on to the Americas...yipee yee haw.
Mans own inhumanity to man, is deeply disturbing, to put it mildly.
Dont want to get too into it, but it seems a pretty interesting read, and I look forward to finishing it.
In his own words Zinn tries to tell the history from the view of the the people who were often oppressed by it.
Its a well known fact that history is wrought by the victors, and they simply don't tell the losers story.
In this book Zinn tries to correct some of these historic imbalances.
If you are interested in the more real history of the USA, and North America in general, you would do well to check it out.
If nothing else it should help me to achieve a more rounded, and complete understanding of our forefathers in the USA.
While I am Canadian, I am a child of history, and especially the more recent history of our world.
We just seem to forget things so quickly nowadays.
Peace all.
That's a terrible book and the amount you know about history will decrease with every chapter you read. Try walter mcdougalls history instead, though it only goes up to 1880 or so...
Next up: Partially on a whim, but partially because I've long been meaning to check out the series (but have never gotten around to doing so until now), I picked up The Midshipman Hornblower and Lieutenant Hornblower by C.S. Forester at the library.
Given how big a fan I am of David Weber's Honor Harrington books, I realized it's only natural & right that I read up on the character that inspired them in the first place. :yes: Also, Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World (the film adaptation of Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin novels) is one of my favorite movies, which gave me further impetus to check out (what seems to be considered) the gold standard of the "Wooden Ships and Iron Men" genre.
I've definitely not regretted it so far. I'm already over 2/3 of the way through Midshipman after just two days of reading, and am eager for more. I'm actually having to pace myself so I don't get through the books too quickly!
I like all of those books...there's like 10 more I think...
Continuing working through the Hornblower series. Have finished Midshipman, and am already almost halfway through Lieutenant.
I really wish I'd not waited so long to pick these up! They're most definitely a good, fun read. :2thumbsup:
TBH I could never finish that one. I think I made it 1/4 through and got bored. Maybe I'm "mature" enough to give it another go. That is as long as I don't turn into psychotic late-70s Roger Waters.
:laugh4:
How old were you when you tried reading it the first time?
The Hobbit. 19% complete. :D
What!? You of all people, I should think, would really like that book. Its all about the manipulation of information, and the philosophical implications of that. Well, and a lot more, but that's certainly one of the most interesting themes.
I guess I'll give another go.
How old were you when you tried reading it the first time?
Early teens.
CountArach
01-23-2012, 13:37
I picked up The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie based on the post by Nowake at the top of this page. It is quite well-written, very pacey for sure. I like the main characters thus far, despite their misgivings as people. The humour is pitch black and while I haven't got very far into the plot it does already seem to have some depth.
Hooahguy
01-23-2012, 14:02
I picked up 7 of the Richard Sharpe books. Finished one of them (Sharpe's Rifles) and just started Sharpe's Eagle. Really good series, Ill have to watch the tv series at some point.
Have started Hornblower and the Atropos. Not as good as the previous two so far (Forester's writing seems to struggle a bit when not focusing on naval action), but it's still early.
After I finish that one, I'm taking a break from the HH series to read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Haven't read pure fantasy in a little while now (a few months at least), and a couple of my friends have roundly praised the book, so I'm looking forward to getting into it!
Early teens.
Yeah, it might be worth trying it again then, now that you're older. I suspect most of us are unable to fully appreciate it at that age (I know I would've been!), so perhaps it's time to give it another go.
a completely inoffensive name
01-25-2012, 02:20
Just finished E=mc^2: a biography of the world's most famous equation by David Bodanis
Now starting Utopia by Sir Thomas More
Sasaki Kojiro
01-26-2012, 06:53
Just finished The True Believer by Eric Hoffer, the "longshoreman philosopher". He went blind at age 7 and the regained his sight at age 15 and started to read all the time...worked as a longshoreman and then wrote this book at age 50. About how mass movements like communism, fascism, revolutions, and religions start proceed and end, and the psychology of the people involved. Very good.
a completely inoffensive name
01-26-2012, 06:54
Just finished The True Believer by Eric Hoffer, the "longshoreman philosopher". He went blind at age 7 and the regained his sight at age 15 and started to read all the time...worked as a longshoreman and then wrote this book at age 50. About how mass movements like communism, fascism, revolutions, and religions start proceed and end, and the psychology of the people involved. Very good.
What was the medical condition behind his temporary blindness?
Sasaki Kojiro
01-26-2012, 08:18
What was the medical condition behind his temporary blindness?
Unknown, possibly a fall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer
Strike For The South
01-26-2012, 17:10
Sluaghterhouse 5 by Vonnegut
Furunculus
01-29-2012, 23:41
second game of thrones book - awesome.
Voigtkampf
02-06-2012, 11:54
Just finished Haruki Murakami "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" short stories collection. The man encouraged me to and embrace accept my own short stories, no matter how insane or mundane they might appear to the general public.
Trying to force my way through Stephen King's "Lisey's Story", but it actually physically hurts to see that genius becoming - IMHO, ofc - anything less than a brilliant writer.
Peasant Phill
02-07-2012, 12:25
Started with the first book of Stieg Larsson's Milennium series. Let's see if the hype is deserved.
CountArach
02-07-2012, 15:33
Pawnee: The Greatest Town In America. This book was written entirely by the writers for Parks and Recreation (ie - the funniest show on television by a very long way) and it details the town's history, looks at the various people who live in it and is just absolutely astounding. I can't believe they wrote it just based on a single episode in which the main character Leslie published this very book whilst preparing to run for higher office.
GeneralHankerchief
02-08-2012, 09:57
Pawnee: The Greatest Town In America. This book was written entirely by the writers for Parks and Recreation (ie - the funniest show on television by a very long way) and it details the town's history, looks at the various people who live in it and is just absolutely astounding. I can't believe they wrote it just based on a single episode in which the main character Leslie published this very book whilst preparing to run for higher office.
Such a good show. I'll have to pick it up now.
Started with the first book of Stieg Larsson's Milennium series. Let's see if the hype is deserved.
NO
It has everything that makes the genre such a joke, people just don't behave like that. Sloppy writing all style, zero believability. The movies are ok though that is one HOT vikingchick
Peasant Phill
02-08-2012, 12:21
NO
It has everything that makes the genre such a joke, people just don't behave like that. Sloppy writing all style, zero believability. The movies are ok though that is one HOT vikingchick
I heard the opposite.
I'll see for myself. For reference I disliked Dan Brown's book as well as the movie adaptation.
Comparable to a Dan Brown book in making you feel that you are reading a movie script. To both their credit people who usually don't like to read pick it up en masse, which is always good
Sasaki Kojiro
02-13-2012, 03:29
God and Gold Britain, America, and the making of the modern world, by walter russel mead.
Looks at the last few hundred years of history from the perspective of the maritime liberal capitalist societies of the UK and the US which he relates very closely. Then looks at the wider foreign policy issues and what light is shed on them. Interesting book, puts a different perspective on history.
Also, I found this bit very amusing:
"Seats in the House of Commons were openly bought and sold, as were the votes of the electors. In 1734 Anthony Henley, a British MP from Southampton, wrote a letter in answer to constituents' complaints about his support of the excise tax:
Gentlemen:
I received yours and I am surprised at your insolence in troubling me about the excise. You know what I very well know, that I bought you. And I know well what perhaps you think I don't know, that you are now selling yourselves to somebody else. And I know something you don't know, that I am buying another borough. May God's curse light on you all. May your houses be as open and as common to all excise officers as your wives and daughters were to me when I stood for your scoundrel corporation."
Concurrent with The Name of the Wind (which I'm now about 80% of the way through), I've also begun reading What If? 2. It's a collection of essays written by by various historians & professors examining how the world might be different had certain historical events gone a different way.
The reading is a bit dry at times, but still interesting. I've now finished the first essay, which contemplates how Western philosophy might have changed had Socrates died in his mid-forties at the Battle of Delium (in which he fought), which was before he became truly well-known. Have just begun the next essay, which looks at a world in which Antony & Cleopatra won the Battle of Actium (and how they might have been victorious in that battle). Good stuff so far.
edyzmedieval
02-24-2012, 15:09
Night Train to Lisbon, by Pascal Mercier. ~:)
Ja'chyra
02-24-2012, 18:16
Dune, on the Kindle naturally.
Never actually sat through the whole film and wanted to see if it's as good as people say, not too bad so far but only read 15% of it.
Fisherking
02-24-2012, 19:02
I am almost finished with Why the West Rules~ for Now, by Ian Morris.
I can’t say enough good about it. Anyone who likes history shouldn’t miss this book.
Sasaki Kojiro
02-24-2012, 21:25
I am almost finished with Why the West Rules~ for Now, by Ian Morris.
I can’t say enough good about it. Anyone who likes history shouldn’t miss this book.
hmm, I googled it and found this review (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1091) and response (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1091/response). I have to say I came away with a very poor opinion of Morris.
Fisherking
02-24-2012, 22:49
hmm, I googled it and found this review (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1091) and response (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1091/response). I have to say I came away with a very poor opinion of Morris.
The book is not your typical History. It is a multi disciplinary study of human social development. It looks for patterns of history, rather than the traditional names, dates, and places and dose not go in-depth into what we all know or can find elsewhere.
It is a first attempt at using history as a prediction tool.
As social development is the focus it dose tend to cut short personalities focusing on the ups and downs of development in the eastern and western core areas.
Frankly I find the review to be little more than sniping missing the point completely, however, if you have not read the book that would be most difficult to tell.
I wish I had more time to do justice to both the review and response but my time at the moment is short.
There are plenty of positive review of this work. Buying this particular review is a mistake, to me.
Read it and write your own.
Sasaki Kojiro
02-27-2012, 08:20
The book is not your typical History. It is a multi disciplinary study of human social development. It looks for patterns of history, rather than the traditional names, dates, and places and dose not go in-depth into what we all know or can find elsewhere.
It is a first attempt at using history as a prediction tool.
As social development is the focus it dose tend to cut short personalities focusing on the ups and downs of development in the eastern and western core areas.
Hmm, well I read some of it. But this is my main problem with the book. He pushes everything into the pattern he wants. I find his description of the forces of history to be absurd. On the whole the book seems very shoddy :shrug:
Frankly I find the review to be little more than sniping missing the point completely, however, if you have not read the book that would be most difficult to tell.
I wish I had more time to do justice to both the review and response but my time at the moment is short.
There are plenty of positive review of this work. Buying this particular review is a mistake, to me.
Read it and write your own.
Duchesne does have a huge chip on his shoulder. But I just finished his book "The Uniqueness of Western Civilization". In the first part of it he gives a detailed critique of many of the books Morris relies on. They are quite bad. I found his analysis of the different techniques this group of historians (which seems to include Morris) uses to twist things the way they want to be very revealing. The rest of his (D's) book is pretty good to.
By the way, did you see this bit from the Duchesne review?
In a lecture he gave at the Carnegie Council, October 28, 2010, Morris said the following regarding the arrival of Europeans in the Americas: ‘There are other factors as well involved of course, but the Europeans are the ones who settle in the Americas, take it over, and kill the enormous majority of the native population with their disgusting European germs’
That about sums up Morris.
Another telling bit quoted in that review is the part where after he is forced to acknowledge that Newton's book was great he hurries to mention the Salem witch trials and how Newton got into numerology. He is very agenda driven.
Anyway. Not to trash your taste or anything...
Fisherking
02-27-2012, 17:21
Hmm, well I read some of it. But this is my main problem with the book. He pushes everything into the pattern he wants. I find his description of the forces of history to be absurd. On the whole the book seems very shoddy :shrug:
Duchesne does have a huge chip on his shoulder. But I just finished his book "The Uniqueness of Western Civilization". In the first part of it he gives a detailed critique of many of the books Morris relies on. They are quite bad. I found his analysis of the different techniques this group of historians (which seems to include Morris) uses to twist things the way they want to be very revealing. The rest of his (D's) book is pretty good to.
By the way, did you see this bit from the Duchesne review?
That about sums up Morris.
Another telling bit quoted in that review is the part where after he is forced to acknowledge that Newton's book was great he hurries to mention the Salem witch trials and how Newton got into numerology. He is very agenda driven.
Anyway. Not to trash your taste or anything...
I am not clear at all on your objections to the book.
I assume you are questioning his data sources, no? Or is it something else?
Is it the whole concept that history can be used as a tool to evaluate what came before and use it to figure out what is likely in the future?
I took most of his quips with a grain of salt. None seemed exactly mean spirited. His point of view in most regards seemed like mainstream academia.
Citing Newton as a closet alchemist should be nothing new or earth shaking to anyone fimilier with him, nor dose it undo his works.
Some of his main points were; that lazy, frightened, and greedy people are those driving social development, that people in large groups are pretty much the same, and that the great and the foolish only serve to speed up or slow down events in development.
I think that most of us could agree with at least two out of the three without coming to blows. I will leave it open as to which two any one wishes to choose.
I was much more interested in the concept of using history to predict than I was with any one set of data points.
I certainly don’t believe that this is the end all be all of the world but I did think it contained some valid ideas and analysis, from the data he chose to use.
The ending is a bit strained. It dose not leave much room for alternatives but maybe some of us will live to see if he got it right.
I merely think that these ideas are worth considering and perhaps someone else could do a better job with different data sets, if that is what you mean.
Sasaki Kojiro
03-01-2012, 05:00
Is it the whole concept that history can be used as a tool to evaluate what came before and use it to figure out what is likely in the future?
I've always considered that to be history, though, it seems like that's why people study history to me. His concept seems to be more about using statistics, a kind of data driven approach.
Citing Newton as a closet alchemist should be nothing new or earth shaking to anyone fimilier with him, nor dose it undo his works.
It's not new...but my impression of the book is that he's too motivated to lift up china and downgrade the west. And since this is his motivation he has to "balance things out" after he's mentioned newton by bringing up witch burning etc. The first part of Duchesne's book goes into a bit of detail about the various authors from this school of thought and the way they try and twist certain things to reach this result. It makes the whole book questionable.
Some of his main points were; that lazy, frightened, and greedy people are those driving social development, that people in large groups are pretty much the same, and that the great and the foolish only serve to speed up or slow down events in development.
I think that most of us could agree with at least two out of the three without coming to blows. I will leave it open as to which two any one wishes to choose.
I don't think people in large groups are pretty much the same. Different cultures can lead to very different mentalities even when looking at the group on the whole. The other two aren't things I would say either...
I think whenever someone tries to use a system to evaluate history they will end up distorting things in order to make them fit into the system. Because a system isn't useful if it is very complicated, and yet history is complicated.
************************
Just finished "The Birth of the Modern: 1815-1830 by Paul Johnson. Very good book. My only complaints are that from time to time some modern political issue will come into play and he gets biased. Also that he's a little too credulous regarding lurid anecdotes.
He tries to cover everything interesting about the time period and does a good job at it...really makes it come to life. He quotes a lot from diaries from the time period. But it's not just disconnected anecdotes, he relates it back to show how things were changing into the modern era in many ways. So he will be discussing carriages and will tell about what it was like to ride in them and how many varieties there were that we don't even think about, and how often there were accidents and fatalities, and then turn that into a discussion of the roads and how the were modernized, and then finally to the railroads.
Fisherking
03-01-2012, 07:10
I've always considered that to be history, though, it seems like that's why people study history to me. His concept seems to be more about using statistics, a kind of data driven approach.
It's not new...but my impression of the book is that he's too motivated to lift up china and downgrade the west. And since this is his motivation he has to "balance things out" after he's mentioned newton by bringing up witch burning etc. The first part of Duchesne's book goes into a bit of detail about the various authors from this school of thought and the way they try and twist certain things to reach this result. It makes the whole book questionable.
I don't think people in large groups are pretty much the same. Different cultures can lead to very different mentalities even when looking at the group on the whole. The other two aren't things I would say either...
I think whenever someone tries to use a system to evaluate history they will end up distorting things in order to make them fit into the system. Because a system isn't useful if it is very complicated, and yet history is complicated.
That was not my impression. I don’t think he glorified China at the expense of the West.
It is handled fairly well, so far as I am concerned.
Charts and graphs can be useful tools and are not that new to history. We analyze the differences between combatants in wars or economic rivalries. This is just with a broader set of values. Cultural values can speed up or slow down developments in different fields but they don’t stop them taking place.
I don’t remember the point he was making with the witch burnings but it was no OMG moment.
I think you have taken on a few preconceived biases, of others, and allowed them to color your opinion.
In many ways I find it hard to think we are talking about the same book.
Of course you may see it as academic or historical heresy but to me it is just a slightly different approach and I do think it sheds some light into some very complex issues.
Sasaki Kojiro
03-05-2012, 06:49
Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert Massie.
Very good book about an interesting person and time period...started off a little shaky but the great northern war part was excellent. Massie is of the 'don't judge' school which makes for some weird moments, but he gives you more than enough to judge for yourself.
The Wizard
03-31-2012, 17:30
Fisherking, if you want to hear why historians have a problem with an author like Morris, it's this exactly:
It is a first attempt at using history as a prediction tool.
History isn't a tool for predicting anything. It's history. It never repeats itself and the only thing you can learn from it is how not to repeat mistakes in past situations -- which will never occur again. It may provide interesting parallels but nothing else.
Don't get me wrong -- the contribution Morris wrote together with Walter Scheidel in the excellent volume they co-edited, The Dynamics of Ancient Empires, was great historical theory. But no historian today can seriously support what Morris essentially presents in the book you read: a reworked, Anglicized version of Fernand Braudel's famous histoire de la longue durée (in essence: the only important history is long-term history, and that is the history of the [constant] effect of geography on societies). So, Morris is hardly being original; he simply reworks a much older hypothesis for the consumption of a wider Anglophone audience unfamiliar with the works of the Annales school, of which Braudel was the dean.
In fact, anybody who's read Braudel's magnum opus, La Méditerranée, can tell you that even Braudel was not able to prove his much-cherished theory of geography determining long-term history. The vast majority of the first part of La Méditerranée (in which he describes the geographic factors affecting all Mediterranean societies, and thus the longue durée of his chosen subject) is economic and social rather than geographic, and thus by Braudel's own terminology not long but medium-term history. His book was seminal and the extent of his knowledge and ingenuity staggering, but still he could not make the longue durée believable. If Braudel couldn't do it, then I sincerely doubt Ian Morris can. Geographic determinism is simply not a viable school of thought.
Mouzafphaerre
04-08-2012, 15:55
Finnegans Wake :book2:
Sasaki Kojiro
04-09-2012, 20:52
Guadalcanal Diary: Richard Tragaskis. Compiled from his notes that he took as a war correspondent through the first 6 weeks or so of Guadalcanal. Definitely stays upbeat for the benefit of the wartime audience back home, but that's part of the charm. It's interesting to see the story told from the 1st person point of view of someone who has limited information about what's going on.
The Wizard
04-10-2012, 15:19
Reading a great Dutch translation of the Iliad by Patrick Lateur, set in the same hexameter as Homer used.
Mouzafphaerre
04-16-2012, 23:29
Makes one want to learn some ORGish Dutch. :yes:
No, not now at any rate...
Sasaki Kojiro
04-20-2012, 05:06
Storm of Steel: Ernst Junger. Fantastic WWI book, drawn from his diary, vivid descriptions of his experiences. I find it bizarre that I only heard of this book a few months ago while "all quiet on the western front" is everywhere even though it's a fictional novel written by someone who saw far less action than Junger.
a completely inoffensive name
04-20-2012, 05:14
For God, Country and Cola-Cola. It takes me forever to read books because I waste so much time on the computer or at uni. :(
Kralizec
04-20-2012, 10:01
Just finished reading Our man in Havana by Graham Greene (bestest spy novel ever) and Robots and Empire by Isaac Asimov. Not sure yet what I'm going to read next.
Strike For The South
04-20-2012, 15:56
What hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe
I recomend it if you are about to spend a lengthy bout in prison
Kralizec
04-22-2012, 14:48
Re-reading the Dune series for the hundred billionth time. Never gets old. Brainfood, I say!
:thumbsup:
edyzmedieval
04-23-2012, 15:39
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carre. Dark and gritty.
Sasaki Kojiro
04-26-2012, 07:33
Hajo Holborn--A history of Modern Germany (reformation up to 1945). Excellent book. Huge time frame to cover, but it's really nice to get the whole thing in a continuous telling.
Wish I could find something like this for the other major European countries.
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Hajo Holborn--A history of Modern Germany (reformation up to 1945). Excellent book. Huge time frame to cover, but it's really nice to get the whole thing in a continuous telling.
Wish I could find something like this for the other major European countries.
A History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill. Four volumes, with excellent narrative and covers it right from Caesar to WW1. Makes for a relatively light, fun read.
Kralizec
04-28-2012, 20:36
Just started reading The Kite Runner. I just hope that having seen the movie before doesn't ruin the book for me.
Sasaki Kojiro
05-02-2012, 06:20
Nietzsche: a philosophical biography-- by Rudiger Safranski. Goes through the development of Nietzsche's ideas by placing them in context of what was going on in his life at the time, e.g. he'll quote from the book he was writing and then from his notes or letters. The first half was very enjoyable and interesting, second half shows the strangeness of Nietzsche. Also the second half spends more time on the parts of Nietzsche's philosophy that I don't find very interesting.
I read at least 3 books at once:help: Currently in order of depth of time reading them ie-which one I have read the most. In Search of the Dark Ages - Michael Wood; Sex with Kings - Eleanor Herman, and Sixth Edition of The Western Experience Volume I to the Eighteenth Century - several writers,authors. Ther ewas a large book sale 2 weeks ago and I spent $30 USD on books at 50 cents USD to $2 USD:2thumbsup: My best pick up for $1 USD is Teach Yourself Latin by Gavin Betts. Believe me I'm taking a whole salt shaker to make sure I don't stumble:laugh4:
Sasaki Kojiro
05-04-2012, 03:49
Media Madness: James Bowman. Excellent book, short at 100 or so pages but that's all the longer it needed to be. Avoids wasting time talking about liberal bias in the media, instead he talks about how the need to pretend to be objective causes a wide variety of problems.
Husserl's "Philosophy as strict science"; possibilty of philosophy beyond counterphilosophies of old and new like naturalism, psychologism and historicism, all forms of scepticism. :2thumbsup::book2:
Sasaki Kojiro
05-08-2012, 05:25
Heaven's Command: an imperial progress--Jan Morris. One of my favorite history books that I've read so far. Covers the first 60 years of Victoria's reign, following the growth of the British Empire. Morris has a real knack for painting a lively and interesting portrait without much straining. First book in a trilogy.
Sasaki Kojiro
05-11-2012, 06:46
Vikings!: Magnus Magnusson. The exclamation point was the publishers idea I think. Good book, gives the background on the vikings and Europe, and then takes you up to 1066. He goes back and forth between talking about viking culture and quoting from the sagas, to describing important people and events, to diving into scholarly and archaeological questions. Hundreds of pictures which are very helpful.
Sasaki Kojiro
05-14-2012, 07:06
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in history--Thomas Carlyle.
Collection of six lectures:
1. (5 May) The Hero as Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology
2. (8 May) The Hero as Prophet. Muhammad: Islam
3. (12 May) The Hero as Poet. Dante; Shakespeare
4. (15 May) The Hero as Priest. Luther; Reformation: Knox; Puritanism
5. (19 May) The Hero as Man of Letters. Johnson, Rousseau, Burns
6. (22 May) The Hero as King. Cromwell. Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism
Very interesting book, his general comments and bio's as well as his discussion of hero-worship. Excellent writer.
Found Lovecraft app, awesome. Started with The colour from space, his most creepy story imho.
Peasant Phill
05-14-2012, 21:09
Found Lovecraft app, awesome. Started with The colour from space, his most creepy story imho.
Great that Lovecraft is public domain. Just don't read to many stories right after each other, they'll become a bit to predictable.
On a bit of a Star Wars/Timothy Zahn kick at the moment: I just finished Outbound Flight, and have now begun Survivor's Quest.
After that, will probably (re)read Steven Pressfield's Last of the Amazons.
edyzmedieval
07-18-2012, 23:22
Game of Thrones - A Feast for Crows. :beam:
Major Robert Dump
07-18-2012, 23:31
LOLOLOL
edyzmedieval
07-18-2012, 23:33
LOLOLOL
I will make sure I will send my direwolf your way, Sir.
Major Robert Dump
07-19-2012, 03:54
I will make sure I will send my direwolf your way, Sir.
I wasn't laughing at the subject matter of the book.
I was laughing becoz people reading books.
HopAlongBunny
07-19-2012, 04:19
Migrations of the Holy: God, State and the Political Meaning of the Church; William T. Cavanaugh
My annual foray into theology; odd habit for a non-believer.
edyzmedieval
07-19-2012, 21:06
I wasn't laughing at the subject matter of the book.
I was laughing becoz people reading books.
I sent a direwolf pack your way, my lord.
Kralizec
07-19-2012, 21:50
Finished "Spijkerschrift", a book by an Iranian-Dutch called Kader Abdolah bloke last week. Reading Mario Puzo's Omertà at the moment, almost finished.
I began my annual rereading of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy earlier this week. Am currently halfway through Fellowship of the Ring; Frodo is currently recovering in Imladris.
edyzmedieval
07-29-2012, 08:57
A Great and Terrible King - King Edward I by Marc Morris.
HopAlongBunny
07-30-2012, 06:57
The Templars: The Dramatic History of the Knights Templar, The Most Powerful Military Order of the Crusades; Piers Paul Read
A book that reminds how little I actually know about history :)
Finally finished the Return of the King (including the appendices) on Friday. So much do I enjoy my annual reading of the trilogy, that I'm always a little sad when I come to the end of it; it feels a little like saying good-bye to an old friend who I know I won't see again for a long while.
I've now started Last of the Amazons by Steven Pressfield, one of my favorite authors of historical fiction. I read it once before about a decade back (sheesh, can it really have been that long??), and enjoyed it enough that when several months ago I found a used (but still in decent condition) copy for cheap, I couldn't resist picking it up.
A good read so far. The memory of my previous reading is extremely fuzzy at this point, so it's almost like I'm reading it for the first time. Fun!
Shokifer
08-21-2012, 12:02
Troy by David Gemmel
It's quickly becoming one of my favourite series.
edyzmedieval
08-24-2012, 12:20
Game of Thrones - A Dance with Dragons.
Am halfway through Mercy Kill by Aaron Allston. It's the just-released 10th novel in the Star Wars: X-Wing series.
It's a good read, but I can tell that by not having read the NJO, LotF, and FotJ series, I'm missing out on a fair bit of the background material being referenced.
CountArach
09-01-2012, 14:56
Reading Dinosaur Comics: Volume E by Ryan North. Sure, it is available online for free, but supporting independent art by buying it is cool too.
Hell's Angels Hunter S. Thompson. Very interesting read, filled with facts, quips and insights into both the biker sub-culture and the dominant American culture of the mid 20th Century.
I've also been looking for books that would help me formulate better opinions and arguments against religious fallacy, I have read various writings of Richard Dawkins and Bertrand Russell. Any other suggestions?
Proletariat
10-16-2012, 19:46
Couple hundred pages into Skagboys, Irvine Welsh. Loving it. I realize now that it wasn't just the Scottish dialogue I had been missing all this time, it was Rents the main character from Trainspotting.
Couple hundred pages into Skagboys, Irvine Welsh. Loving it. I realize now that it wasn't just the Scottish dialogue I had been missing all this time, it was Rents the main character from Trainspotting.
I really hated that one, there can be only so much style over substance. It isn't that I can't read it but it just annoyed me.
SwordsMaster
10-17-2012, 15:35
Currently working on several:
Three Musketeers - A. Dumas. Re-read this every few years. Still one of the best novels ever written.
Children of Dune - Frank Herbert. I find the sequels find themselves a little less focused than the original Dune. But it's very interesting nonetheless.
The PMI Professional Project Manager certification guidebook. - About as fun as it sounds.
The 4 hour Work Week - Tim Ferriss. Hate the tone, but like the content. If you have ability to separate the chaff from the corn, read this.
Why so many at once? Well, the musketeers I almost know by heart, having read it in 4 languages and probably about 12 times since I was 14. Dune requires focusing of my imagination, which is great before bed, and the PMP one is mostly professional. Ferriss I read on a more-or less on-off fashion during my commute/boring meetings.
Mouzafphaerre
10-17-2012, 20:30
Pushkin, The Tales of Bielkin (TR translation)
Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (read it once a year and almost each time begin in autumn)
Not sure about mentioning the schoolwork scraps of Herodotos, Cicero and Plinius
:book2:
Proletariat
10-17-2012, 23:49
I really hated that one, there can be only so much style over substance. It isn't that I can't read it but it just annoyed me.
That's a shame, Frags, but I felt the very same way with just about every other Irvine Welsh book but this and Trainspotting. Porno had the great characters again but it was depressing if anything seeing them later in life. Marabou Stork Nightmares was very tedious and Glue was forgettable. I don't have the patience I did as a teenager to slog through bad books, doubt I could finish any of those if I read them now
Kralizec
10-22-2012, 08:48
My favourite sequel was Dune Messiah. The sadness of the story almost drips from the pages. Allthough GEoD was excellent as well. The last two of his books in this series were less satisfying. If he ended with GEoD it would have been a good end to a good series. Heretics and Chapterhouse just left me puzzled and wondering where he was going with these new storylines.
Just finished Bonita Avenue, a Dutch book. Good but probably overrated by all the good press it has gotten. Not sure what I'm going to read next; although there are a couple of non-fiction books I loaned from friends and relatives that I have lying around.
This of course http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves
I will continue to spam it untill one of you reads it
SwordsMaster
10-22-2012, 13:29
Thanks for the Dune recommendations, lads, will get those next.
Franconicus
10-22-2012, 13:39
I am just reading July 21st. An alternative story, what had happened if the assassination of Hitlr would have worked.
SoFarSoGood
10-22-2012, 14:46
Rereading Anna Comnena's Alexiad; a biography of her Father the Byzantine Emperor at the time of the First Crusade with character portraits of the main leaders of the Crusade (whom she met). Can't beat first hand history.
Fisherking
10-22-2012, 19:57
@ Franconicus
Care to share? Did things get better or worse?
Recently finished Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. Am now in the midst of my annual reading of Asimov's Foundation series (all seven books).
Kralizec
10-23-2012, 14:04
@ Martok:
You might also want to check out "Robots and Empire", if you haven't already, as it's basicly a prequel to the Foundation Series and explains some of the stuff.
Allthough it probably would be better still to read his robot books first, maybe the galactic empire stories too, before picking up Robots and Empire.
Just finished The Time Machine - all hundred-ought pages of it - and I remembered why I always thought Wells was a genius - because he is. About to start "The War of the Worlds", and then "The Invisible Man". I've read Wells' non-fiction and always found him brilliant, but until last week I never read any of his fiction.
Next on the list is "Faust". I've heard it may compensate for the moral and intellectual damage caused by that foot-high stack of Maxims I keep by the john.
If you're gonna do faust, make sure you also check out the old German silent film adaptation. It's on Netflix!
Sounds great, thanks. But I'll watch the film only after I read the book. I don't want my mental imagery "corrupted" by someone else's representation of the characters and scenery.
(Sorry if that sounded snotty, wasn't meant that way at all.)
@ Martok:
You might also want to check out "Robots and Empire", if you haven't already, as it's basicly a prequel to the Foundation Series and explains some of the stuff.
Allthough it probably would be better still to read his robot books first, maybe the galactic empire stories too, before picking up Robots and Empire.
As it happens, I own -- and regularly reread -- both the Robot and Empire series as well (just not as often as the Foundation novels). ~:)
CountArach
10-26-2012, 09:07
Currently working my way through The Rise and Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte - Book 1 by Robert Asprey. The focus is military in nature (from a former USMC officer that probably isn't surprising). Asprey's nationalism really annoys me at times (we get it, you're American, no need to crowbar it in) but the historical component is fairly interesting. Napoleon is one of those figures who has always been treated either as a demon or as a god. While Asprey probably leans more to the latter (many things become carefully calculated by Napoleon rather than plain dumb luck), he still runs a fairly decent course between the two poles. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the military history of Napoleon, as that is where this really shines, but as a biography a lot of it is really strong stuff too.
Greenlizard0.
10-27-2012, 15:59
Reading a book called "Best served cold" from Joe Abercrombie and a book named "Libaries in the ancient world". (And a bunch of others are currently on hold). I also play with the idea to re-read the "Wheel of Time" series (Robbert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson) anticipating the release of the last book of that serie in January.
Mithrandir
10-27-2012, 17:36
I just finished the last book in the Game Of Thrones series...
I can't wait till the next one is published :(
. . . and a book named "Libaries in the ancient world".
Just Amazoned it. Looks interesting.
Did you enjoy it?
CountArach
10-28-2012, 10:35
Reading a book called "Best served cold" from Joe Abercrombie
Such a great author.
I also play with the idea to re-read the "Wheel of Time" series (Robbert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson) anticipating the release of the last book of that serie in January.
I'm considering that too :P
I'm planning on doing a complete re-read of the WoT series as well (once the final book comes out). I can't believe I've been waiting for 15 years now...
I never finished reading the wheel of time books. I stopped around book seven because (quite frankly) i had other things to do.
Well Book 7 (Crown of Swords) is generally considered to be when the series started bogging down, so it was as good a (temporary) stopping point as any.
HopAlongBunny
12-01-2012, 05:46
I'm trying to get a grip on American politics so:
Calvin Trillin: Dogfight
Furunculus
12-10-2012, 19:34
eddings' belgariad for old times sake.
Kralizec
12-10-2012, 20:37
Finished re-reading Red Dragon. Next: Silence of the lambs.
edyzmedieval
12-14-2012, 16:50
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman.
Finished re-reading Red Dragon. Next: Silence of the lambs.
That's in the wrong order?
That's in the wrong order?
Nope. In the story chronology, Red Dragon is first. After the success of the Silence of the Lambs movie, they redid Red Dragon on film. The original Red Dragon adaptation was Manhunter (1986?), by Michael Mann, with Brian Cox as Lecter.
Mouzafphaerre
12-15-2012, 06:48
Morgoth's Ring
I finished Fifty Shades of Grey last night.
What the hell did I read?
Well you read pretentious crap if you ask me
I don't think you have correctly assessed the meaning of the word 'pretentious'. Fifty Shades of Grey isn't pretentious, it's just bad.
I don't think you have correctly assessed the meaning of the word 'pretentious'. Fifty Shades of Grey isn't pretentious, it's just bad.
It's the best book ever written. Now, I don't suggest that you go read it, because it's not a reading material for anyone who is biologically male. No, buy it for your wife/gf/whatever, have her read it, then ...umm... reap the benefits.
Peasant Phill
12-17-2012, 12:11
I don't think you have correctly assessed the meaning of the word 'pretentious'. Fifty Shades of Grey isn't pretentious, it's just bad.
A better question is, did it turn you on?
I don't think you have correctly assessed the meaning of the word 'pretentious'. Fifty Shades of Grey isn't pretentious, it's just bad.
Basicly porn that tries to be smart. Got it as a curiosity
Montmorency
01-16-2013, 03:34
Private journals of Vasily Grossman. His tactical accounts of the Eastern Front leave the reader with an impression (of the Germans) of bungling, buffoonery, and cowardice. Many of the frontliners he interviews or observes seem to be preternaturally skilled.
Edit:
Severe frost. The snow is creaking. Icy air makes one catch one’s breath. The insides of one’s nostrils stick together, teeth ache from the cold. Germans, frozen to death, lie on the roads of our advance. Their bodies are absolutely intact. We didn’t kill them, it was the cold. Practical jokers put the frozen Germans on their feet, or on their hands and knees, making intricate, fanciful sculpture groups.
I'm surprised he didn't mention the teabagging - oh, wait...
HopAlongBunny
01-17-2013, 00:17
Taking a shot at Ulysses; Penguin ed.
My brain seems to have degenerated, much of this is going by in a blur. I am curious though why we don't bury people feet first...
Right now I've started The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Baker but it didn't particularly grab me. Things like THE NO-GOD, and a guy wearing sandals in winter really put me off.
But I still have to finish The Hero With a Thousand Faces and some other books, not to mention I'm waiting for a delivery by amazon.co.uk:
Items Ordered Price
1 of: Deadhouse Gates (Book 2 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen)[Mass Market Paperback]
By: Steven Erikson
Condition: New
Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
£6.29
- 1 item(s) Gift options: None Change gift options
1 of: Memories of Ice (Book 3 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen)[Mass Market Paperback]
By: Steven Erikson
Condition: New
Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
£6.89
- 1 item(s) Gift options: None Change gift options
1 of: Morte D'Arthur (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature)[Paperback]
By: Sir Thomas Malory
Condition: New
Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
£3.87
- 1 item(s) Gift options: None Change gift options
1 of: Two Lives of Charlemagne: The Life of Charlemagne; Charlemagne (Penguin Classics)[Paperback]
By: Einhard, et al
Condition: New
Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
£6.89
- 1 item(s) Gift options: None Change gift options
1 of: The Once and Future King[Paperback]
By: T. H. White
Condition: New
Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
£6.89
HopAlongBunny
03-29-2013, 09:22
Read Neil Young: Waging Heavy Peace. Interesting overview of his life, music and passions.
If you are a "style" junkie you might be disappointed; rambling at times, conversational and chronologically a little strange. Fortunately he is an interesting guy with an interesting story. He does push his present "pet" projects; might be annoying if you are not committed to seeing high quality sound reproduction in digital format, nor committed to fuel-efficient/eco-friendly '50's Cadillacs. I actually enjoyed the book and learned a lot.
Sick Puppy by Carl Haasen, great fun. It reads too much like a script for a movie though, and I can't escape the thought it was meant for that in the first place.
Ser Clegane
03-29-2013, 16:32
Currently reading India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (http://www.amazon.co.uk/India-After-Gandhi-History-Democracy/dp/0330396110/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364571014&sr=1-1) - quite interesting ~:)
The Lurker Below
03-29-2013, 17:24
James F. Cooper The Leatherstocking Tales
Furunculus
04-02-2013, 22:50
the second prequel to the newly re-released Chung Kuo books by David Wingrove.
Currently reading India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (http://www.amazon.co.uk/India-After-Gandhi-History-Democracy/dp/0330396110/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364571014&sr=1-1) - quite interesting ~:)
Hey Ser, :bow:
I'm about to order a book on Ghandi, his views/interpretation of the Bhagavadgita. I went to grab something out of my library a few weeks ago and took the Bhagavadgita out by mistake - I bought it and only cruised it briefly before - but what a glorious mistake it was. I've been spending a good deal of time with it and thinking about it. I'm finding it to be of great value to me, and I am anxious to read Gandhi's views on the book.
I've had few books hit me as hard and fast and deeply as the Bagavadgita, except perhaps Walden, and the Consolation of Philosophy.
"Der Ruf ins andere Land" original title: "A dark Horn blowing"
"Symbol"
Ponds Bvlarian dictionary
Furunculus
04-17-2013, 22:19
last book of wheel of time.
HopAlongBunny
04-17-2013, 22:49
Currently reading India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (http://www.amazon.co.uk/India-After-Gandhi-History-Democracy/dp/0330396110/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364571014&sr=1-1) - quite interesting ~:)
Bah! Not available outside UK :( at least on Kindle
HopAlongBunny
04-17-2013, 22:50
double posting goodness :p
HopAlongBunny
05-29-2013, 01:04
Presently reading: The Origin of Feces: What Excrement Tells Us About Evolution, Ecology, and a Sustainable Society [Paperback]
David Waltner-Toews (Author)
The author gets into the "problem(s) of excrement" in a very interesting way. Yes, it piles up everywhere, can be toxic, renewing, nutritious or annoying depending on your PoV. We have also managed to concentrate it like never before due to expanding population, urbanization and factory farming; at the same time globalizing its effects as a transfer of resources and disease vector.
Highly recommend it; never knew there was so much to know about s:daisy:t
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Origin-Feces-Excrement-Sustainable/dp/177041116X
a completely inoffensive name
06-03-2013, 05:56
I just remembered I never actually finished Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Even though I know all the astronomy the book covers, I still enjoy reading it with his voice in my head and the parts where he gets more abstract and philosophical are great. After this I will probably start on another graphic novel, Persepolis which is a semi-fictional account of a girl living during the Iran Revolution.
Legend (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_%28novel%29).
I can't believe I haven't read this book before now. I'm 8 chapters in and it promises to be epic. :2thumbsup:
Legend (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_%28novel%29).
I can't believe I haven't read this book before now. I'm 8 chapters in and it promises to be epic. :2thumbsup:
Oooh, heroic fantasy I ain't heard about. Will have to check it out.
I've been gnawing through books like a starving rodent. Recent stuff: Dmitry Glukhovsky's Metro 2033 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_2033_(novel)) (very weird book), Steven Baxter's Flood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_(Baxter_novel)) series (typical Baxter, big ideas, nobody to care about), John Scalzi's B-Team (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Division) stories (which I would give a B-minus to), Mira Grant's zombie books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_(Grant_novel)) (good fun), and some random Charlie Stross (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross) stuff.
My only real "discovery" of the past six months or so has been Ian Tregillis, who has a wonderfully weird trilogy of books about British sorcerers fighting Nazi science-monsters (http://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Seeds-Ian-Tregillis/dp/0765361205) in WW2. Not just strange, but skillfully strange.
-edit-
Speaking of skillfully weird, Xiahou, if you haven't seen it, you might enjoy Joe Abercombie's heroic fantasy work, a good example of which is The Heroes (http://www.amazon.com/The-Heroes-Joe-Abercrombie/dp/B00B9ZCM92/ref=pd_sim_b_6). The dude knows how to describe a battle.
My only real "discovery" of the past six months or so has been Ian Tregillis, who has a wonderfully weird trilogy of books about British sorcerers fighting Nazi science-monsters (http://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Seeds-Ian-Tregillis/dp/0765361205) in WW2. Not just strange, but skillfully strange.
-edit-
Speaking of skillfully weird, Xiahou, if you haven't seen it, you might enjoy Joe Abercombie's heroic fantasy work, a good example of which is The Heroes (http://www.amazon.com/The-Heroes-Joe-Abercrombie/dp/B00B9ZCM92/ref=pd_sim_b_6). The dude knows how to describe a battle.Both of those sound like they're worth checking out. Thanks. :bow:
Just finished Storm of Swords Part 2. God that was a good book. I raced through them, but that one was packed full of so much. Tired me out, having a break before I start on Feast.
I'm currently reading the Saxon regulations of 1753 (as in the communist part :clown:), and it's boring. don't read it.
OK, jokes aside, try out a book called Jane Eyre: interesting reading. very dark in its tones with themes involving insanity, love, lust, shame, etc. The Brontes were pretty unusual people I must say.
I finished Legend quite a while ago. It was a fantastic book. A likeable cast of characters defending a fortress against impossible odds- all of them having their own reasons for facing certain death. Loved it.
When I finished that, I quickly jumped on to the next book in the Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, which took place 100 years after Legend. It was a worthwhile read, but it didn't live up to its predecessor while having a similar plot.
However, after finishing that I moved on to Quest For Lost Heroes, which takes place several decades after The King Beyond the Gate. This is good stuff. I don't know that it will be Legend good, but I'm really enjoying it. For me, the easiest way to tell how much I'm liking a book is when I read it in my spare time vs. when I make time to read it. The King Beyond the Gate was the former, where Legend & Quest For Lost Heroes are in the latter category.
a completely inoffensive name
07-18-2013, 08:28
Gotta finish reading The Republic by Plato for my class since we are about to move onto Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.
Fisherking
07-18-2013, 17:49
Oh great!
You may want to reevaluate your views on caffeine
Given how many books I read, I should update back here more often.
Currently in the middle of: Neptune's Brood (http://www.amazon.com/Neptunes-Brood-Charles-Stross/dp/0425256774).
Interstellar financial fraud (and an incidental genocide) with murderous androids. Space pirates who double as loss-prevention auditors. Trippy stuff, very well thought-out. Equal parts trashy space opera and thoughtful economic treatise.
I don't understand why Charles Stross (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross) isn't the biggest of all possible deals in modern literature.
The Outsider
07-19-2013, 22:10
Well i can advice you giys to read metro 2033 though i cant remember the name of the writer. Its a russian fellow. It take place in the moscow metro after a nuclear war. Has elements of sci-fi, horror and action but in the greater picture its much deeper than that. In my opinion its one of the best post apocalyptic books written really. You can find a free legit copy online, so give it a try.
Ps. Also there is a sequel but i dont think that it has been translated to english yet.
i cant remember the name of the writer. Its a russian fellow.
The author is Dmitry Glukhovsky. I talked (very briefly) about the book here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?58917-What-book-are-you-reading&p=2053535596&viewfull=1#post2053535596).
And no, there is no English translation of the second book, which is a bummer. You can buy a single English chapter (http://www.amazon.com/METRO-2034-English-Chapter-ebook/dp/B00CR1DW6O) on Amazon, but that seems kinda ... cruel.
Reread Three Men in a Boat and it is still incredibly funny after so many years. So decided to get the second one, Three Men on the Bummel, enjoying it a lot. Some bits are simply hilarious.
Read the part about Harris and Clara's cycling mishap. Just cannot stop laughing
Reread Three Men in a Boat and it is still incredibly funny after so many years.
It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt. [...]
The only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.
I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn't I got housemaid's knee? Why this invidious reservation? After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid's knee.
~D
I remember that.
This one's from the second book.
Harris, in his early married days, made much trouble for himself on one occasion, owing to this impossibility of knowing what the person behind is doing. He was riding with his wife through Holland. The roads were stony, and the machine jumped a good deal.
“Sit tight,” said Harris, without turning his head.
What Mrs. Harris thought he said was, “Jump off.” Why she should have thought he said “Jump off,” when he said “Sit tight,” neither of them can explain.
Mrs. Harris puts it in this way, “If you had said, ‘Sit tight,’ why should I have jumped off?”
Harris puts it, “If I had wanted you to jump off, why should I have said ‘Sit tight!’?”
The bitterness is past, but they argue about the matter to this day.
Be the explanation what it may, however, nothing alters the fact that Mrs. Harris did jump off, while Harris pedalled away hard, under the impression she was still behind him. It appears that at first she thought he was riding up the hill merely to show off. They were both young in those days, and he used to do that sort of thing. She expected him to spring to earth on reaching the summit, and lean in a careless and graceful attitude against the machine, waiting for her. When, on the contrary, she saw him pass the summit and proceed rapidly down a long and steep incline, she was seized, first with surprise, secondly with indignation, and lastly with alarm. She ran to the top of the hill and shouted, but he never turned his head. She watched him disappear into a wood a mile and a half distant, and then sat down and cried. They had had a slight difference that morning, and she wondered if he had taken it seriously and intended desertion. She had no money; she knew no Dutch. People passed, and seemed sorry for her; she tried to make them understand what had happened. They gathered that she had lost something, but could not grasp what. They took her to the nearest village, and found a policeman for her. He concluded from her pantomime that some man had stolen her bicycle. They put the telegraph into operation, and discovered in a village four miles off an unfortunate boy riding a lady’s machine of an obsolete pattern. They brought him to her in a cart, but as she did not appear to want either him or his bicycle they let him go again, and resigned themselves to bewilderment.
Meanwhile, Harris continued his ride with much enjoyment. It seemed to him that he had suddenly become a stronger, and in every way a more capable cyclist. Said he to what he thought was Mrs. Harris:
“I haven’t felt this machine so light for months. It’s this air, I think; it’s doing me good.”
Then he told her not to be afraid, and he would show her how fast he could go. He bent down over the handles, and put his heart into his work. The bicycle bounded over the road like a thing of life; farmhouses and churches, dogs and chickens came to him and passed. Old folks stood and gazed at him, the children cheered him.
In this way he sped merrily onward for about five miles. Then, as he explains it, the feeling began to grow upon him that something was wrong. He was not surprised at the silence; the wind was blowing strongly, and the machine was rattling a good deal. It was a sense of void that came upon him. He stretched out his hand behind him, and felt; there was nothing there but space. He jumped, or rather fell off, and looked back up the road; it stretched white and straight through the dark wood, and not a living soul could be seen upon it. He remounted, and rode back up the hill. In ten minutes he came to where the road broke into four; there he dismounted and tried to remember which fork he had come down.
Perditrix Mvndorvm
07-29-2013, 07:00
I just picked up a book from the library about Japanese history. It's very general since I'm new to east Asian history. Soon I'll be finished with that and will start on 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. I've seen the movie a couple of times and loved it.
I don't understand why Charles Stross (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross) isn't the biggest of all possible deals in modern literature.
I own and have tried reading Accelerando having heard good things about it/him. Couldn't get into it, from memory the amount of technical detail, '-isms' and '-ists', while impressive in creating a rich interesting world, was ultimately off-putting for me.
Edit: Was that a good one of his to start with? You know how bibliographies can be; often books for the baptised and unbaptised so to speak.
---
Half-way through The Man in the High Castle, not his best imho but all his usual themes are present. About a third of the way through The Man with the Golden Arm, very good and very quotable (Everything arrived in nothing flat; great stuff).
Soon I'll be finished with that and will start on 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. I've seen the movie a couple of times and loved it.
People are going to hurt me for saying it, but the movie is better than the book imho.
Kralizec
08-08-2013, 18:28
Finished Dit zijn de namen a couple of days ago, written by a Dutch writer called Tommy Wieringa. It's seriously overrated.
On the bright side, just an hour ago I bought 2001: A Space Oddessey and Stranger in a strange land, so I should be in for something good.
a completely inoffensive name
08-09-2013, 03:32
I am reading a collection of American short stories from 1820-1880s. 90% of the ones which are not written by Mark Twain suck.
Just polished off Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X), by Reza Aslan.
The first few chapters, detailing the political/military situation in Judea and the eastern Roman empire at the time? Golden. Wonderful. Page-turners.
The rest? There's so little documentary evidence about Jesus of Nazareth, it all gets a bit speculative. How can it not?
But I would have happily read a few hundred more pages about the political shenanigans.
a completely inoffensive name
08-09-2013, 21:27
Just polished off Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X), by Reza Aslan.
The first few chapters, detailing the political/military situation in Judea and the eastern Roman empire at the time? Golden. Wonderful. Page-turners.
The rest? There's so little documentary evidence about Jesus of Nazareth, it all gets a bit speculative. How can it not?
But I would have happily read a few hundred more pages about the political shenanigans.
Be honest Lemur, did you only read it because of that interview Reza had on Fox News? The controversy of whether Jesus actually existed always seemed to me to be.....irrelevant I guess, for all intents and purposes.
did you only read it because of that interview Reza had on Fox News?
That was part of it, yeah, the viral video made me aware of the book. But honestly, it's also that Rome II is coming out, and hits the same time period.
I was also curious to see if more third-party, non-religious figures had been found writing about Jesus. The only semi-contemporary I know about is Josephus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus) -- had more been found? Answer: Nope.
So yeah. Good primer on the history of Judea under Roman occupation, and a blood-chilling description of the destruction of Jerusalem circa 70 AD. The rest ... meh. I don't doubt for one minute that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person. But getting contemporary accounts, third-party testimonies? Lost cause.
HopAlongBunny
08-10-2013, 02:55
Looked at the sampler for this:
http://www.amazon.ca/Told-You-So-Weekly-Columns/dp/1609804740
Seems he called it right all along.
Anyone read any Borges and willing to provide this here man with a starting point? Thanks in advance.
Reading Ubik again, at least until I get my hands of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
HopAlongBunny
08-17-2013, 05:58
All I have of his is a collection.
Labyrinths Selected Short Stories & Other Writings: Jorge Luis Borges
Edited by Donald A. Yates & James E. Irby
It includes short stories, essays and the like. Can't for the life of me remember anything about it though.
a completely inoffensive name
08-22-2013, 02:53
Reading The Hobbit for the first time. After that, I may immediately jump into the Lord of the Rings for the first time.
Meh Tolkien. I am 99% sure it's a gay fantasy
Forcing myself to finish the third part of The Hunger Games to please my sister, but it sucks. Badly. I kinda liked the first, movie is better, second and third are meh.
Mouzafphaerre
09-24-2013, 17:29
Read the Ice and Fire series in a roll and now trying not to think about what happens next...
edyzmedieval
09-26-2013, 10:46
Read the Ice and Fire series in a roll and now trying not to think about what happens next...
:grin2:
Winds of Winter should be (hopefully) close.
a completely inoffensive name
09-26-2013, 20:32
Fundamentals of Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer
by Welty, James
Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering (4th Edition)
by Fogler, H. Scott
Quanta, Matter, and Change
by Atkins, Peter
Hooray for uni starting again today. :(
AntiDamascus
09-27-2013, 16:24
The Great Influenze by John Barry
It's ok and shockingly about the Great Flu Pandemic
I've started on the Mistborn series of Brandon Sanderson. (the guy who finished wheel of time). Very refreshing in the fantasy genre.
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Safon. A fascinating book.
Mouzafphaerre
10-02-2013, 23:41
Why the West Rules -for now
Ian Collins
The Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg.
I feel my Total War time is about to be cut short.
Also, James Clavell's Shogun.
a completely inoffensive name
10-13-2013, 09:44
The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason and the Laws of Nature. by Timothy Ferris
I have only read the first chapter so far. His basic premise he wants to show is that the democratic revolution during the Enlightenment was due in no small part to the rise of science in the Renaissance and Age of Reason. He harps on the fact multiple times already that science demands respect for different opinions (freedom of speech) and the ability to freely associate in order to spread scientific results and findings (freedom of association).
This is all fine and dandy but none of this really matters one bit to me because the very first question I have which he has not addressed yet is how science which was only available to rich aristocrats/middle class businessmen somehow promoted the ideals of democracy to the lower classes who probably had no idea why the elite were playing around with weights and measures.
AntiDamascus
10-13-2013, 16:27
The real reason is the rich continually talked about those ideas to get the poor on their side. In the same way they said to slaves at the time: "All men are created equal.... oh we won? Yea, we just meant white guys"
Getting poor people to parrot the points of the rich, even if it's science, isn't that hard.
I have been reading a series of books recently called Warrior of Rome (http://www.goodreads.com/series/46043-warrior-of-rome).
Been finding it quite enjoyable. It follows a Angle barbarian called Marcus Claudius Ballista (Angle name: Dernhelm) later on in his career as a Roman Dux Ripae through various defeats and victories.
a completely inoffensive name
11-04-2013, 23:44
The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason and the Laws of Nature. by Timothy Ferris
I have only read the first chapter so far. His basic premise he wants to show is that the democratic revolution during the Enlightenment was due in no small part to the rise of science in the Renaissance and Age of Reason. He harps on the fact multiple times already that science demands respect for different opinions (freedom of speech) and the ability to freely associate in order to spread scientific results and findings (freedom of association).
This is all fine and dandy but none of this really matters one bit to me because the very first question I have which he has not addressed yet is how science which was only available to rich aristocrats/middle class businessmen somehow promoted the ideals of democracy to the lower classes who probably had no idea why the elite were playing around with weights and measures.
Going to finish this book tonight. What should I read next?
Stay tuned, I will edit this later tonight with the answer.
a completely inoffensive name
11-07-2013, 03:56
Ok, I couldn't decide what to read that day. I eventually settled on more Sherlock Holmes. Just finished the Memoirs, so now I need to read two more novels and two more collections of short stores.
Calumskie
11-20-2013, 16:51
Hey folks,
I'm reading "The Eagle in the Sand" by Simon Scarrow. It's the 7th book in the "Eagle" series.
Not the most demanding of reads, but who doesn't enjoy a bit of Roman fiction?
Montmorency
11-22-2013, 22:18
This is so cool!
Behavior Analysis and Learning: Fifth Edition (http://www.amazon.com/Behavior-Analysis-Learning-Fifth-Edition/dp/1848726155)
Behavior Analysis and Learning, Fifth Edition is an essential textbook covering the basic principles in the field of behavior analysis and learned behaviors, as pioneered by B. F. Skinner. The textbook provides an advanced introduction to operant conditioning from a very consistent Skinnerian perspective. It covers a range of principles from basic respondent and operant conditioning through applied behavior analysis into cultural design. Elaborating on Darwinian components and biological connections with behavior, the book treats the topic from a consistent worldview of selectionism. The functional relations between the organism and the environment are described, and their application in accounting for old behavior and generating new behavior is illustrated.
Expanding on concepts of past editions, the fifth edition provides updated coverage of recent literature and the latest findings. There is increased inclusion of biological and neuroscience material, as well as more data correlating behavior with neurological and genetic factors. The chapter on verbal behavior is expanded to include new research on stimulus equivalence and naming; there is also a more detailed and updated analysis of learning by imitation and its possible links to mirror neurons. In the chapter on applied behavior analysis (ABA), new emphasis is given to contingency management of addiction, applications to education, ABA and autism, and prevention and treatment of health-related problems.
The material presented in this book provides the reader with the best available foundation in behavior science and is a valuable resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in psychology or other behavior-based disciplines.
Humans are social animals. Most of the daily life of people takes place in the company of others. An
important aspect of human social behavior involves what we do with words, as in speaking, writing,
signing, and gesturing. Behavior analysts use the term verbal behavior to refer to this kind of human
activity. In this chapter, verbal behavior is analyzed according to the same principles of behavior
that have been used throughout this book. The analysis explores the role of contingencies of
reinforcement in the regulation of verbal behavior.
In terms of behavior analysis, Lee notes that language tends to obscure environment–
behavior relationships. Language usually directs research attention to grammar, syntax, and unobservable
mental representations and processes (structure), rather than to the objective conditions that in sequence
influence the behavior of a speaker or writer (function). Catania has also noted that the “language of
reference” implicitly proceeds from words to objects in the world. The possibility that environmental
contingencies regulate our speaking and writing is usually not considered. Catania states:
We also speak of language as if it were directed toward events or objects. We say that words or sentences
refer to, deal with, speak of, call attention to, or are about things. The language of reference implicitly
includes the direction from verbal behavior to environment. Everyday language doesn’t include words
that emphasize the opposite direction. What if our everyday language has prejudiced us about the ways
in which our verbal behavior works? We hardly ever say that we utter nouns in the presence of relevant
objects or that sentences are occasioned by relevant events. Instead, we say that words refer to objects
or that sentences are about events. There are good reasons for these usages . . . [but] they may be
misleading in an analysis of the behavior of speakers and listeners or readers and writers.
:couch:
Montmorency, Mrs. Lemur is a very high muckety-muck in the world of Behavior Analysis. If you ever want to talk to her, let me know. She's done favors all over the place for people who need their, um, I don't know what you call it, but the thing where someone trying to get their BCBA has to pay for time going over sessions and so forth. She knows a lot of people. I had no idea you were into the field.
What I'm reading: Equoid (http://www.amazon.com/Equoid-Laundry-novella-Tor-Com-Original-ebook/dp/B00EWZCTD0), but Charlie Stross. The best $1.99 I spent this week. (And he even forced the publisher to release it without DRM. How can I not reward that kind of behavior?)
Montmorency
11-23-2013, 06:46
I had no idea you were into the field.
:laugh4:
I'm not (yet?), I'm just checking it out for, uh...
What can I say, I love behaviorism.
I might be able to heavily incorporate this stuff into something else that I might do in the future, though.
What can I say, I love behaviorism.
I might be able to heavily incorporate this stuff into something else that I might do in the future, though.
Personally, behaviourism is not one of my favourites. It is like trying to look at basic instinctual responses, anything more complex and it starts to fall apart rather easily. Many other branches include looking at these underlying structures in a far more succinct manner.
Montmorency
11-25-2013, 02:32
It's not so much about "instinct" as the fact that all biological mechanism and function is fundamentally stimulated.
Kralizec
11-28-2013, 01:36
It's been a while since I've finished reading it, but there's a book that I can highly recommend. It's originally written in German and titled "Melnitz", but it in the Dutch translation the title was "Het lot van de familie Meijer". Author's name: Charles Lewinsky.
Basically; it's about a jewish family in Switzerland throughout the years 1870 till 1945. The family and their experiences are entirely fictional, but a lot of work went into the historical background.
To me it gave a good deal of insight into jewish culture (which I otherwise know little about) and how they fared in the period before WW2. Not much else that I can tell about it without spoilers. It's a little early to tell because I tend to lose perspective once I'm impressed by something, but it might be one of the best books I've ever read.
Kamakazi
11-28-2013, 05:14
The Rise of Nagash
Read Enders Game and the Speaker of Death. Might start on Xenocide soon.
I blame Lemur.
Gregoshi
11-29-2013, 12:33
Read Enders Game and the Speaker of Death. Might start on Xenocide soon.
I blame Lemur.
Now that you have read the Enders Game, how does the book compare to the movie?
BTW, I loved Enders Game but didn't like Speaker for the Dead at all. So much so that Xenocide sits on my shelf unread.
Might start on Xenocide soon.
I blame Lemur.
Oh no, you can't blame me for Xenocide (http://www.amazon.com/Xenocide-Ender-book-saga-ebook/dp/B003H4I41S/). That's where the series begins its steep, sudden, and irreversible dive. I tell my friends the same thing about Ender's Game (http://www.amazon.com/Enders-Game-1-Ender-Quintet-ebook/dp/B003G4W49C/) that I do about The Physiognomy (http://www.amazon.com/The-Physiognomy-Well-Built-City-Trilogy/dp/1930846533/): just read that one book. Ignore the others. Your life will be better for it.
Currently reading: Collapse (http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Succeed-Revised-Edition/dp/0143117009).
It's been a while since I've finished reading it, but there's a book that I can highly recommend. It's originally written in German and titled "Melnitz", but it in the Dutch translation the title was "Het lot van de familie Meijer". Author's name: Charles Lewinsky.
Basically; it's about a jewish family in Switzerland throughout the years 1870 till 1945. The family and their experiences are entirely fictional, but a lot of work went into the historical background.
To me it gave a good deal of insight into jewish culture (which I otherwise know little about) and how they fared in the period before WW2. Not much else that I can tell about it without spoilers. It's a little early to tell because I tend to lose perspective once I'm impressed by something, but it might be one of the best books I've ever read.
Got it on the shelve, never read it. I know how critical you are so I'll give it a try, that's a solid recommendation if you say that
Oh no, you can't blame me for Xenocide (http://www.amazon.com/Xenocide-Ender-book-saga-ebook/dp/B003H4I41S/). That's where the series begins its steep, sudden, and irreversible dive. I tell my friends the same thing about Ender's Game (http://www.amazon.com/Enders-Game-1-Ender-Quintet-ebook/dp/B003G4W49C/) that I do about The Physiognomy (http://www.amazon.com/The-Physiognomy-Well-Built-City-Trilogy/dp/1930846533/)
I won't read it then. I didn't get around to starting yet anyway.
I did read: The Map by T.S. Learner. Admittedly, it wasn't that good in my opinion and the ending was very lacklustre. (if you sign up to his newsletter, you get the extended ending which ties it up.. no thanks.)
Togakure
12-07-2013, 21:53
Against All Things Ending by Stephen R. Donaldson, third book in the final quartet of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and White Gold Wielder.
Sorry Lemur, I ended up reading some of Xenocide. I think I am near the end but I agree, it reminds me of Starwars Expanded Universe in the badway.
And it just ended... that is a disappointing ending. :sad:
Now that you have read the Enders Game, how does the book compare to the movie?
BTW, I loved Enders Game but didn't like Speaker for the Dead at all. So much so that Xenocide sits on my shelf unread.
Sorry Gregoshi, I must have over looked your post.
The Movie and the Book are both for different audiences. Would have been nice to have the 'Hive Queen' authored in the movie instead of the ending it had and having a longer length would have would prevent the feeling of 'lots of montages', even more so in comparison to what happened in the book.
Don't read Xenocide.
What I'm reading: Equoid (http://www.amazon.com/Equoid-Laundry-novella-Tor-Com-Original-ebook/dp/B00EWZCTD0), but Charlie Stross. The best $1.99 I spent this week. (And he even forced the publisher to release it without DRM. How can I not reward that kind of behavior?)
Cross-dimensional unicorns with a desire to kill? Is that the same setting as the Concrete Jungle?
a completely inoffensive name
12-10-2013, 09:28
I gave up 3/4th through Speaker of the Dead when I was 12.
Is [Equoid] the same setting as the Concrete Jungle?
Yep, it's the Bob Howard/Laundry series (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheLaundrySeries?from=Main.TheLaundrySeries), which I strongly recommend to anyone who digs reading.
Montmorency
12-14-2013, 05:06
My average reading rate for books for pleasure (including days for which I read nothing from a book or long reading) is probably 5 pages or less. In other words, I don't read very much at all. So, I've decided to set a goal for myself: to read 4000 pages from books or long readings for pleasure over the next half-year - an average of about 20-to-25 pages per day.
Here's a proposed list of titles, alongside their page-counts (including nothing that is on the Internet and/or is a "short" reading, nor any fiction):
Non-Reality of Free Will - 225
Free Will Guide - 185
Evol Psych & Prop Attitudes - 70
The Measure of Mind - 250
Intro Phil Mind - 290
Cogito, Descartes & Thinking - 110
The Elm and the Expert - 120
Personal Identity - 120
The Unconscious - 115
Belief About the Self - 180
Self-Consciousness - 200
Epistemology of Decision - 90
Seeing Red, Study in Consc - 140
Verbal Minds - 105
Cognitive Integration - 195
Contradictions, Neurosci and Religion - 175
The Evolving Brain - 85
How Likely Extraterrestrial Life - 110
Pre-state Societies - 90
Logic Short Course - 105
Logical Properties - 55
Philosophy of Language - 150
Fixing Drugs - 155
The Sceptical Challenge - 125
Love, Freedom, & Evil - 180
No ancient Wisdom, no followers - 140
Unintended Cons Renewable Energy - 70
Prosopagnosia - 80
Adolescent Brain Dev - 80
Alexithymia - 50
Understanding Econ Growth - 105
You'll notice that many of these readings are fairly short; that's an accommodation to the shallowness of my interest and attention span. I feel as though a couple more hours a day of concerted reading should be manageable without impinging on my daily tasks. I feel up to it by now, though it might pale in comparison to the 5000+ pages of mixed non-fiction-fiction I read in a three-week period during my 15th summer, my apex in this regard. But hey, at least I'm improving, and have grown enough in confidence to rise to such an undertaking. I'll report back in half a year on my level of success. If it works out, perhaps I'll make up another Half-Year Plan, and push my limit toward a 30-to-35-page per-day average.
:on_attention: :on_glasses: :on_hero:
Which will it be?
:on_idle: :on_zzz: :on_read:
a completely inoffensive name
12-14-2013, 09:36
I am finally about to finish reading Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and I want to take a break from LOTR at least for a bit before getting into Return of the King. I think I will start working on Pox: An American History by Michael Willrich.
Gregoshi
12-15-2013, 05:52
I am finally about to finish reading Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and I want to take a break from LOTR at least for a bit before getting into Return of the King.
Don't forget to read The Two Towers before Return of the King or you'll miss the key part where Aragorn falls off the cliff, into a river and nearly drowns...oh wait, never mind. :laugh4:
a completely inoffensive name
12-15-2013, 08:17
Don't forget to read The Two Towers before Return of the King or you'll miss the key part where Aragorn falls off the cliff, into a river and nearly drowns...oh wait, never mind. :laugh4:
haha, oh shoot I guess I was either not thinking or jumping the gun. but yes, I brought The Two Towers with me for winter break.
Swords and Dark Magic (http://www.amazon.com/Swords-Dark-Magic-Sword-Sorcery/dp/0061723819), because a longtime friend is the editor, and he asked me to buy a copy, and I am a spineless sucker.
I did read Prince of Thorns (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Prince-Thorns-Broken-Empire-1/dp/0007423632).
It is a dark medieval style setting. I am actually interested in reading the sequels as it apparently gets better in many ways, though there are some changes.
The main character who you read through the world from in many ways is evil and ruthless. As being a quite moral person myself, you would automatically guess "How am I able to relate to this character?", I dislike those fantasy games or stories where the evil choice is pretty much be a 'hithead, however, the main character is a cruel and calculated evil, you can understand why he acts in certain ways, you can see how his tormented past affected him, you can understand and sometimes even agree to the way he acts. In many ways, it is Evil fighting Evil and in some ways, the character you follow is the 'lesser evil' so you want him to win, and in many ways, you want him to unite the Broken Empire.
The author is a video game player, there are many instances where you can point and say 'That idea was featured in Dragon Age', 'I am sure that is a plot from Fallout'. As a gamer, it was slightly jarring as I recognised these things, but on another note, it does make you re-think the entire series at moments, as you start thinking of certain aspects as 'If this was the Fallout universe, than 1+2+3 can be explained in these ways..'
So the book wants me to read more, the preview of the first chapter of the next book makes me curious as to what will occur as well.
Finished the sequel, King of Thorns (http://www.amazon.co.uk/King-Thorns-Broken-Empire-Book/dp/0007439024) this morning.
It has roughly three main time periods running through the thread of the story. One is the current day, a group of around a thousand trying to fight off an army of roughly twenty thousand strong army of the 'Prince of Arrow' (with a King Arthurian destiny). One is four-years ago, starting three months after the end of the first book with a 'moment lost' during this period. The last one is the 'moment lost'.
It works on the premise that something utterly unspeakable occurred, and a magician called Luthar put the memory of the incident in the box. Fragments of this memory have escaped but he does not know what it is going on, he can only assume something bad and the reader is put through a few journeys along the way, such as a mini-plot-line making me think "It wasn't like that in the first book, it cannot be right.." Luckily, it turned out it wasn't and my memory was correct, I should have held upon my gut instinct as that was closest to the mark to how the ordeal turned out.
The ending was is a big Deux Ex Machina, and it was pretty much expected with a 20-to-1 odds and knowledge of a sequel, but the suspense was enough to make you think "How on earth will he do it..." and the life-saving grace was just at the very end, so you don't feel too robbed, but with the ending events, it makes you wonder how A+B+C occured, since they are not covered in the backstory.
HopAlongBunny
12-21-2013, 04:09
Starting Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Era http://www.amazon.ca/Solar-Dance-Genius-Forgery-Crisis/dp/0307398595
It was referenced in a radio program I heard; sounded interesting ... we shall see :) How far wrong can I go with WW1 and Vincent Van Gogh?
The Long Walk, Stephen King. Had to check this one out after seeing Battle Royale, and Koushun Takami pay his respects to it (and King).
A Song of Ice and Fire. Love it so muccch!
Montmorency
01-22-2014, 13:25
"Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts."
Please recommend books that jive with this quote.
HopAlongBunny
02-03-2014, 07:50
A History of the Modern Middle East; William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton; Westview Press, 5th ed. (2012)
Unfortunately, as a survey it talks about a huge number of things (people, events, wars...etc) each of which could fill a separate book. Still, a lot of stuff I never knew before.
a completely inoffensive name
02-03-2014, 11:11
Taking a break from LotR because it got to be too tiring to continue and I didn't want that when I am about to start the chapter on the battle for Minas Tirith.
So I decided to get a book I wanted to get for a while, What Money Can't Buy: The moral limits of markets by Michael Sandel. I have been a fan of him since I watched the Justice youtube series a few years ago, I even read the follow up book of the same name. So far it has been a good read, featuring many, many examples which highlight the type of values which he is trying to assert are valuable and more effective than applying market principles to every aspect of our social lives.
a completely inoffensive name
03-25-2014, 18:44
Finished What Money Can't Buy a while ago. Last night I just finished Lord of the Rings and I read through the appendixes as well. Now I am incredibly sad it's over.
Gregoshi
03-25-2014, 23:49
Last night I just finished Lord of the Rings and I read through the appendixes as well. Now I am incredibly sad it's over.
I get that way too each time I finish reading them.
I finished Gettysburg The First Day recently. I'm currently reading Gallipoli The Fatal Shore. Since I'm in Australia now and the "ANZAC legend" was born at Gallipoli, I thought I'd better learn about the campaign.
HopAlongBunny
03-26-2014, 05:08
If you liked Lord of the Rings and found it did not quite "fill you up", try the Silmarillion.
Creation legend and how it all came to Sauron :)
Spoonska
05-07-2014, 17:52
I've been reading The Martian by Andy Weir (http://www.amazon.com/The-Martian-Novel-Andy-Weir-ebook/dp/B00EMXBDMA). I absolutely love this book. It takes place in the not so distant future where we have a functioning Mars program. On the third man led trip to Mars some stuff goes down, and it results with one guy being stuck there. The problem is the next mission to Mars isn't for another four years and he only has enough supplies to last about one.
It's told through the juxtaposition of his log entries and the NASA crew back on Earth. NASA figures it out that he's still alive and is in a race to save him. It's witty, very suspenseful and isn't too far fetched as far as science is concerned. It's kinda like Cast-Away meets Robinson Crusoe.
I'm only half way through the book, and I can't put it down. I doubt anything is going to happen that will change my opinion, but this is one of the best books I've read in a long time.
Gregoshi
05-08-2014, 01:32
If you liked Lord of the Rings and found it did not quite "fill you up", try the Silmarillion.
Creation legend and how it all came to Sauron :)
I'm reading The Silmarillion to begin yet another full journey through Middle-earth. This time I'm reading them in historical order rather than the order they were published (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion) like I usually do.
HopAlongBunny
05-08-2014, 11:42
That used to be my annual ritual for a long time: The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings.
I don't even know if I have the attention span to do that anymore :on_shame:
ReluctantSamurai
05-22-2014, 17:29
The Orion Mystery by Robert Bauval and Adrain Gilbert.
I'm a Pyramidiot from waaay back...I have about five or six good books on the subject dating from the early seventies. I'm not a subscriber to many of the crazy theories floating around about the Pyramid complex at Giza, and Bauval tends to wander a bit in presenting his theory, but it seems obvious to me that the meridian locations of the Giza Pyramids and those at Saqqara and Dashour are not simply random places to build pyramids. While I do not agree with all of Bauval's proposal, I think he's spot on that there was some kind of "master blueprint" for the locations of the seven major pyramids built during the Fourth Dynasty. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.
An even better read is Engineering the Pyramids by Richard Parry. An engineer by trade, he completely debunks (to me, anyway) the idea that the Pyramid builders dragged the approximately 2.3 million blocks of stone that went into Khufu's pyramid, weighing an average 2.5 tonnes each, by sled from the quarries along the Nile to the building site. If the builders were intelligent and skilled enough to raise a structure that, as an engineering feat, wouldn't be equaled until the 20th century, they were smart enough to figure out how to move those blocks quicker and more efficiently.
They did. They rolled them:rolleyes4:
Blackbook of Communision, there are a lott of things I didn't know. Good read. Also stands proudly with Mein Kampf as it's publication was tried to banned on Dutch universities. Uncomfortable truthsin the book I guess. Communismbad how dare you the nerve
to banned on Dutch universities.
citation required.
citation required.
It is the Uva ffs, maagdenhuis? Do you think Nijmegen is called Havanna aan de Maas for no reason. Both are soaked. Non-communist views aren't exactly apreciated there.
I'm just saying that I couldn't find any reference of that particular book being banned at any university in the Netherlands.
Knowing Hax, he would be able to point it out at his University Library.
I'm just saying that I couldn't find any reference of that particular book being banned at any university in the Netherlands.
Because there aren't any
Well, if you don't have anything to back up a statement like that, why say it in the first place? I'm more opposed to communism than most Dutch people, but I can't find anything about this issue at all.
EDIT: I just checked, Le livre noir du communism is in Leiden's University library, in the regular loan closed stacks. Same for the University of Amsterdam.
Well, if you don't have anything to back up a statement like that, why say it in the first place? I'm more opposed to communism than most Dutch people, but I can't find anything about this issue at all.
EDIT: I just checked, Le livre noir du communism is in Leiden's University library, in the regular loan closed stacks. Same for the University of Amsterdam.
Never said it worked, that's the original French title and it's available in the library of every Dutch university, but activist teachers really tried to prevent that, not kidding you, I know you are way too smart to be bothering tricking you.
Montmorency
06-01-2014, 02:28
It's official: my little project is pretty much an utter failure.
:shrug:
I've been reading The Martian by Andy Weir. I absolutely love this book. It takes place in the not so distant future where we have a functioning Mars program. On the third man led trip to Mars some stuff goes down, and it results with one guy being stuck there. The problem is the next mission to Mars isn't for another four years and he only has enough supplies to last about one.
It's told through the juxtaposition of his log entries and the NASA crew back on Earth. NASA figures it out that he's still alive and is in a race to save him. It's witty, very suspenseful and isn't too far fetched as far as science is concerned. It's kinda like Cast-Away meets Robinson Crusoe.
Tenth of the way through so far. (Picked it up on this recommendation.)
They should have called it The Towers of Hanoi: The Novel.
Furunculus
06-01-2014, 15:16
reading Roger Crowleys history of Venice:
http://www.rogercrowley.co.uk/city.htm
Great read, essential for playing Empire (or CK2 I imagine).
Spoonska
06-06-2014, 14:31
I just finished up "One More Thing" by B.J. Novak (http://www.amazon.com/One-More-Thing-Stories-Other/dp/0385351836). I had high hopes for this book because I'm a big fan of Novak's writing abilities on the small screen. That said it was thoroughly disappointing. Most of the stories were flat, unmotivated and unfunny. A large majority of the book I would say the stories aren't stories but just random thoughts. Especially towards the end of the book. There were a few gems here and there though. There's a story about a sex robot that falls in love with the guy that got her. He then proceeds to return her because that's not what he wanted. That was probably the best one, and had a really good commentary on relationships. Overall though, like I said, big disappointment for me. I'd give it a 2-2.5 / 5.
On deck is "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" by N. Gaiman. (http://www.amazon.com/The-Ocean-End-Lane-Novel/dp/0062255657) I'm looking forward to this one big time.
Well, if you don't have anything to back up a statement like that, why say it in the first place? I'm more opposed to communism than most Dutch people, but I can't find anything about this issue at all.
EDIT: I just checked, Le livre noir du communism is in Leiden's University library, in the regular loan closed stacks. Same for the University of Amsterdam.
Done, they were right to try to ban it, any proffesional integrety is lost, there are no remarks that can be verified at al, all they do is just claim things and want you to agree. Not falling for that. Fuck this book. Nice to have, but it is not something I can recommend don't try to make me stupid with fancy words. I don't buy it I notice it when you try.
Decided to actually finish 1984 this time. I understand how, in the context of its publication, it became so widely acclaimed. But, honestly, it sucks. It reads like an angst ridden teen pouting, in exaggerated terms, about the injustices and machinations of the 'system'. OH NO COMMUNISM IS BAD. OH NO CAPITALISM IS BAD. This duality is no longer relevant, and is a mindset that has caused so much propaganda fuelled partisanship that it needs to be taken round back and shot through the head like the broken legged horse that it is.
It's more than that though. Blair's writing style is straight up dull. Duller than brown rice cooked in a brown pot over an electric stove in a brown kitchen. And the march of the plot... when he's not complaining about this that or the other thing he's got his characters doing sweet FA. If I want some sweet FA I'll go sit in the park and daydream. I WANT SUBSTANCE!
Three black-eyes and a bucket of crabs out of 10.
HopAlongBunny
06-30-2014, 13:29
Re-visiting Catch-22.
Read it in high school; I'm willing to bet it's even more relevant today.
The Nanny Diaries, obviously a book for chicks, sis insisted. Tried it before but gave it up after two or three pages. It's really fun, it's full of that typically American FML humor, a horror-story untold.
Montmorency
07-02-2014, 12:44
Norman Stone's World War One: A Short History.
It's very brief, so the author gets to get away with making some very snappy and strong categorical judgements and statements.
So far, my favorite is in reference to an unfortunate jingoistic lecture given by the estimable Max Weber a few years before the war:
[Weber] talked what now appears to be gibberish, making less sense than Hitler[...]
This was received with rapture by the audience. It is one of the stupidest documents ever put together by a clever man, and hardly worth even parodying. Every step in the argument was wrong...
Sick burn.
HopAlongBunny
08-08-2014, 06:29
Just finished:
All Quiet on the Western Front: a novel
http://www.amazon.com/All-Quiet-Western-Front-Novel-ebook/dp/B00DAD25O8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1407475720&sr=8-2&keywords=all+quiet+on+the+western+front%3A+a+novel+kindle
Notes from the Gallows (Reportáž psaná na oprátce) of Julius Fučík.
Highly recommended to any Eastern-european suffering from reactionary emotions.
AntiDamascus
08-08-2014, 15:39
I'm just about to start "The Last Battle". Got it as a Christmas gift
HopAlongBunny
08-21-2014, 10:21
Finished:
The Road Back: a novel (sequel to All Quiet...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Back-A-Novel/dp/0449912469/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1408612594&sr=8-2&keywords=the+road+back
Started:
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408612883&sr=8-1&keywords=capital+in+the+twenty-first+century
Started a series last week called the Saxon Stories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saxon_Stories), currently on the second book "The Pale Horseman" by Bernard Cornwell. Starting with the Danish invasion of England and looks like it would end with its liberation.
Fisherking
08-23-2014, 12:05
A fun series. The latest addition comes out on 2 Sept. The Empty Throne.
Much more likely to be a finished series than anything written by GRRM.
edyzmedieval
08-24-2014, 17:41
Cambridge Medieval History
The volume on the closing of the Middle Ages. :yes:
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