Talk Elections

General Politics => Book Reviews and Discussion => Topic started by: feeblepizza on August 13, 2010, 11:09:11 PM



Title: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on August 13, 2010, 11:09:11 PM
Political or non-political, fiction or non-fiction. I'm just interested. I am reading IT by Stephen King.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Јas on August 14, 2010, 10:06:08 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on August 15, 2010, 10:45:38 AM
A Concise History of Brazil by Boris Fausto


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: k-onmmunist on August 21, 2010, 05:30:27 AM
Just finished Catch-22.

Starting on Decline of the West next.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Citizen (The) Doctor on August 26, 2010, 08:42:11 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dr. Cynic on August 29, 2010, 11:22:22 PM
Rereading an old favorite:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Nhoj on September 01, 2010, 01:52:59 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on September 30, 2010, 06:24:31 PM
Now it's Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Psychic Octopus on September 30, 2010, 07:16:38 PM

Oh, that is a great book. I read it about a year ago, and I really enjoyed it. What do you think of it so far?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Nhoj on October 01, 2010, 12:20:57 AM

Oh, that is a great book. I read it about a year ago, and I really enjoyed it. What do you think of it so far?
Was good. but since i was reading it too slow i had to return it to the library. I will probably check it out again soon and try to finish it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on October 15, 2010, 11:29:29 PM
Started The Tommyknockers (another King)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on October 26, 2010, 06:08:20 PM
Atlas Shrugged


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on October 26, 2010, 08:43:43 PM

oh, you're like clay to be molded.  Don't take this forum so seriously.

By the way, once you get past the first five hundred pages, it actually starts to get interesting.  You'll fly right through next five hudred pages. 


Me?  I just started another Tony Hillerman novel, Hunting Badger. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on October 26, 2010, 09:10:05 PM
The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on October 26, 2010, 10:02:21 PM
Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov (my favorite author)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on October 27, 2010, 07:49:36 AM

oh, you're like clay to be molded.  Don't take this forum so seriously.

By the way, once you get past the first five hundred pages, it actually starts to get interesting.  You'll fly right through next five hudred pages. 


1) What makes you think I'm a clay to be molded? I don't agree with everything in the book. It's not like I'm going to convert to atheist/objectivism, and tell William Buckley he's "much too intelligent to believe in God".

2)You're right abour the first five hundred pages. I'm on page six-hundred-something, and it's a heck of a lot more interesting than some of the incredibly boring back story and stuff that you read in the first five hundred pages.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on October 27, 2010, 09:25:27 AM

oh, you're like clay to be molded.  Don't take this forum so seriously.

By the way, once you get past the first five hundred pages, it actually starts to get interesting.  You'll fly right through next five hudred pages. 


1) What makes you think I'm a clay to be molded? I don't agree with everything in the book. It's not like I'm going to convert to atheist/objectivism, and tell William Buckley he's "much too intelligent to believe in God".

2)You're right abour the first five hundred pages. I'm on page six-hundred-something, and it's a heck of a lot more interesting than some of the incredibly boring back story and stuff that you read in the first five hundred pages.

I said that to a friend one time about twenty years ago, that stuff about the last five hundred pages being more interesting than the first five hundred, and he laughed, like I was joking. Like, how can a book be a thousand pages long.  Anyway, I got into Ayn Rand after I found out she was one of Niel Peart's influences.  I was a big RUSH fan back in high school and college.

I was just ribbing you about being easily influenced, and I meant more by the posts of the posters on this forum than by any book. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on October 27, 2010, 02:04:57 PM

oh, you're like clay to be molded.  Don't take this forum so seriously.

By the way, once you get past the first five hundred pages, it actually starts to get interesting.  You'll fly right through next five hudred pages. 


1) What makes you think I'm a clay to be molded? I don't agree with everything in the book. It's not like I'm going to convert to atheist/objectivism, and tell William Buckley he's "much too intelligent to believe in God".

2)You're right abour the first five hundred pages. I'm on page six-hundred-something, and it's a heck of a lot more interesting than some of the incredibly boring back story and stuff that you read in the first five hundred pages.

I said that to a friend one time about twenty years ago, that stuff about the last five hundred pages being more interesting than the first five hundred, and he laughed, like I was joking. Like, how can a book be a thousand pages long.  Anyway, I got into Ayn Rand after I found out she was one of Niel Peart's influences.  I was a big RUSH fan back in high school and college.

I was just ribbing you about being easily influenced, and I meant more by the posts of the posters on this forum than by any book. 

I actually started reading this book before I ever heard anyone outside of my dad mention it. He brought it home one day from like the salvation army or a garage sale. I only read a couple of pages, then I pikced it up about a jonth or two ago and decided to keep reading.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on October 27, 2010, 02:48:24 PM
Definitely not Return of the Native

;)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on October 28, 2010, 02:42:13 PM
The Struggle For the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class by Anna Clark.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on November 06, 2010, 02:46:24 PM
Hari Kunzru - My Revolutions


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on November 06, 2010, 04:10:01 PM
Doris Kearns Goodwin - Team of Rivals


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Free Palestine on November 06, 2010, 07:48:33 PM
The Myth of Two Minds by Beryl Lieff Benderly.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Joe Republic on November 06, 2010, 09:03:51 PM
Just finished The Trial by Franz Kafka, and have now started Amerika.

I feel so inteleccshual!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: - on November 06, 2010, 09:25:31 PM
My latest reading list-

The Big Burn (Timothy Egan)
Game Change (Mark Haleprin, John Heileman)
The World is Flat (Thomas Friedman)
An Election for the Ages- Rossi vs. Gregoire, 2004 (Trova Heffernan, forward by Secretary of State Sam Reed)
Take This Job and Ship It (Senator Byron Dorgan)
Reckless! (Senator Byron Dorgan)
A Time to Fight (Senator Jim Webb)
The Great Deluge (Douglas Brinkley)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Yelnoc on November 06, 2010, 10:51:51 PM
Lord of the Rings.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Vepres on November 06, 2010, 11:00:28 PM
Foundation, Foundation and Empire, The Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, "I, Robot", The Last Question (short story)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on November 07, 2010, 01:43:49 PM
I actually started reading this book before I ever heard anyone outside of my dad mention it. He brought it home one day from like the salvation army or a garage sale. I only read a couple of pages, then I pikced it up about a jonth or two ago and decided to keep reading.

Good for you, man.  I read Anthem first, then some other stuff by Ayn Rand, then eventually Atlas Shrugged.  You started right off with the driest, longest of the Ayn Rand books.

Yesterday I started another Tony Hillerman novel, The Wailing Wind.  Good stuff.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on November 14, 2010, 01:31:40 PM
Henry James: The Golden Bowl and, later The American Scene. I have to reacquaint myself with literary English.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on November 14, 2010, 05:40:42 PM
The last one I read was In My Opinion:  A Guide to Writing Parliamentary Opinions.  I've written a review of it that is scheduled to be published in January.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on November 25, 2010, 08:17:30 AM
I'll still read Atlas Shrugged, but I've recently received Life by Keith Richards, so I'll be reading that too.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MyRescueKittehRocks on November 25, 2010, 09:25:18 AM
Ain't My America: The Long,Noble History of Anti-War Conservatism and Middle American Anti-Imperalism
Quite interesting read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on November 25, 2010, 09:55:22 AM
I needed a diversion, so I re-read Ordinary Girl, Donna Summer's autobiography.  It amazed me how, at the height of her career, she had exceptionally low self-esteem.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: phk on November 25, 2010, 02:07:11 PM
Equity and Fixed Income


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on November 27, 2010, 05:00:25 PM
The Shack by William Paul Young


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Thomas D on November 27, 2010, 07:35:38 PM
At the risk of being considered a light weight:

The war for late night

(About the Leno/O'Brien Tonight show battle)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: GeorgiaSenator on December 05, 2010, 03:08:56 PM
Theadore H White, The Making of the President, 1972.

Good read also enjoyed same book, same autor 1960 & 68 versions.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on December 05, 2010, 03:19:18 PM
America: Our Next Chapter by Chuck Hagel


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 08, 2010, 03:00:48 PM

oh, you're like clay to be molded.  Don't take this forum so seriously.

By the way, once you get past the first five hundred pages, it actually starts to get interesting.  You'll fly right through next five hudred pages. 


Me?  I just started another Tony Hillerman novel, Hunting Badger. 


when Dagny Taggart had sex with John Galt I could no longer pretend to take the whole thing seriously.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on December 08, 2010, 03:23:04 PM

oh, you're like clay to be molded.  Don't take this forum so seriously.

By the way, once you get past the first five hundred pages, it actually starts to get interesting.  You'll fly right through next five hudred pages. 


Me?  I just started another Tony Hillerman novel, Hunting Badger. 


when Dagny Taggart had sex with John Galt I could no longer pretend to take the whole thing seriously.

I haven't reached that part yet...:(


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on December 08, 2010, 04:29:25 PM
Twentieth-Century Spain: 1898-1998 written by a person with a Spanish name. I was hanging out at the library on Monday and thus decided to take out books, which I actually hadn't done before.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Robespierre's Jaw on December 10, 2010, 05:57:17 AM
Despite having an insurmountable amount of time to waste, I find myself reading many books at once, including:

The Communist Manifesto

Catch 22

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and

The Trial


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on December 10, 2010, 03:00:33 PM
Non-Fiction: The Making of the English Working Class by E.P Thompson. Needless to say I am interested in the views of one particular forummer this book. I´m about half way through

Fiction: The Man Who Was Yesterday by G.K Chesterton. Strange combination with Thompson I know. Oddly all the English sections of Spanish public libraries (not very large sections I´ll add) have Chesterton in them - Catholics!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on December 10, 2010, 03:32:47 PM
Non-Fiction: The Making of the English Working Class by E.P Thompson. Needless to say I am interested in the views of one particular forummer this book. I´m about half way through

In what respect? :P

It's an extremely important work from a theoretical/historiographical point of view; Thompson's understanding of class was extraordinarily sophisticated and much of that side of things is still surprisingly 'fresh' now. Particularly amusing has been the way that his approach to class can be used to demolish the arguments of postmodernists and poststructuralists who entered into the ever-vicious world of working class history in order to... er... debunk Thompson's approach to class. That's basically why the book was important and is important, and was, more or less, the point of the book all along.

Other things to comment on might be (for example) Thompson's weird style; he never really wrote in an academic fashion, and his work tends to read like a cross between polemic and literature. I suspect that may be way certain people found it all too easy to misinterpret his thesis. On the other hand, while it's brilliant, it's also flawed, and often quite obviously so; he actually repeated the argument that Methodism led to political conservatism amongst the working class, despite that theory having been totally discredited by Hobsbawm in the late 50s.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on December 11, 2010, 09:04:58 AM
Non-Fiction: The Making of the English Working Class by E.P Thompson. Needless to say I am interested in the views of one particular forummer this book. I´m about half way through

In what respect? :P

Who said I was talking about you? ,)

Quote
It's an extremely important work from a theoretical/historiographical point of view; Thompson's understanding of class was extraordinarily sophisticated and much of that side of things is still surprisingly 'fresh' now. Particularly amusing has been the way that his approach to class can be used to demolish the arguments of postmodernists and poststructuralists who entered into the ever-vicious world of working class history in order to... er... debunk Thompson's approach to class. That's basically why the book was important and is important, and was, more or less, the point of the book all along.

Other things to comment on might be (for example) Thompson's weird style; he never really wrote in an academic fashion, and his work tends to read like a cross between polemic and literature. I suspect that may be way certain people found it all too easy to misinterpret his thesis. On the other hand, while it's brilliant, it's also flawed, and often quite obviously so; he actually repeated the argument that Methodism led to political conservatism amongst the working class, despite that theory having been totally discredited by Hobsbawm in the late 50s.

That has been pretty my perspective on it so far as well (Though I can´t claim I know the period too well and I wish I had more foreground knowledge before diving into the minutae of the London Corresponding Society but oh well...). Regardless of probably the worst argued pieces of the book, I enjoyed the takes on Methodism (even if clearly wrong and/or dubious) simply because I went to a Methodist school. I´m rather enjoying it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: phk on December 13, 2010, 11:09:00 PM
Excel Modelling, Building Financial Models for Tech Startups


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 14, 2010, 12:19:00 PM
Non-Fiction: The Making of the English Working Class by E.P Thompson. Needless to say I am interested in the views of one particular forummer this book. I´m about half way through

848p? Christ you just made my bag back to NY heavier


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on December 14, 2010, 08:00:35 PM

The magical pixies, I think.

Quote
That has been pretty my perspective on it so far as well (Though I can´t claim I know the period too well and I wish I had more foreground knowledge before diving into the minutae of the London Corresponding Society but oh well...).

Yeah, that's the other thing about Thompson.

Quote
Regardless of probably the worst argued pieces of the book, I enjoyed the takes on Methodism (even if clearly wrong and/or dubious) simply because I went to a Methodist school.

LOL

Actually the interesting thing about him on that subject is that his attitude is oddly contradictory; you have (of course) the over-the-top condemnation of the church leadership and various laughably inaccurate stuff on certain aspects of the religious practice, but then you have clear and obvious admiration for elements of it as a movement. Interesting, that is, as an example of how hard it presumably is to write about something that you have reacted against but which is, despite that, sort of fundamental to your worldview (whether you care to acknowledge it or not) as well.

One of the best little passages, btw, is his take on the ideology of the New Poor Law. It's a rant, but a brilliant one - and entirely justified and basically accurate.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 15, 2010, 12:04:49 AM
Al have you read any Debs biographies? I picked one up last night, written by a prof. I'll be taking next semester. the prof. was active in a Brooklyn Teamsters Local in the 70s and his last name is Salvatore, so I'll watch my words carefully.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on December 15, 2010, 12:33:59 AM
Well, I guess I'm not the only person that recently read E. P. Thompson.  :P

Fantastic book.  It took me two months.  :(


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: k-onmmunist on December 15, 2010, 04:06:39 AM
About to start on Social Contract by Rousseau


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on December 15, 2010, 11:11:30 AM
Non-Fiction: The Making of the English Working Class by E.P Thompson. Needless to say I am interested in the views of one particular forummer this book. I´m about half way through

Fiction: The Man Who Was Yesterday by G.K Chesterton. Strange combination with Thompson I know. Oddly all the English sections of Spanish public libraries (not very large sections I´ll add) have Chesterton in them - Catholics!

Chesterton is great. But surely you meant to say The man who was Thursday??


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on December 15, 2010, 01:46:59 PM
Non-Fiction: The Making of the English Working Class by E.P Thompson. Needless to say I am interested in the views of one particular forummer this book. I´m about half way through

Fiction: The Man Who Was Yesterday by G.K Chesterton. Strange combination with Thompson I know. Oddly all the English sections of Spanish public libraries (not very large sections I´ll add) have Chesterton in them - Catholics!

Chesterton is great. But surely you meant to say The man who was Thursday??

Ugh. Yes. Brain Fart on my part. Great book btw despite all the reactionary Catholic nonsense it contains at times. I´m still a bit miffed on the ending, mind.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: phk on December 15, 2010, 02:01:06 PM
Yet Another Introduction to Analysis


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on December 15, 2010, 02:07:46 PM
despite all the reactionary Catholic nonsense it contains at times.

Though the name 'G.K. Chesterton' on the cover presumably counts as a fair warning for that.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on December 16, 2010, 05:18:09 AM
Currently reading:

()

Just finished:

()

Begun, set aside for other stuff, but will definitely finish: Alexander Mitscherlich, Die Unwirtlichkeit unserer Städte

Also in the queue: Yevgeni Zamyatin, We (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_%28novel%29)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: k-onmmunist on December 17, 2010, 04:55:43 PM
I'm currently reading Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler. It's actually very interesting.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on December 17, 2010, 05:18:21 PM
Just started: Anthony Burgess' Napoleon Symphony. Looks intriguing, not sure what to expect.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RichmondFalls on December 17, 2010, 08:09:41 PM
I've recently received Life by Keith Richards

^^ currently reading that. Great book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on December 21, 2010, 06:16:19 AM
Well, I guess I'm not the only person that recently read E. P. Thompson.  :P

Fantastic book.  It took me two months.  :(

Yeah. Fantastic Book. But it took me TEN DAYS BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA etc, et cetera.... ;)

Will provide thoughts when I have more time. Now reading: A History of the Arab Peoples.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Fmr President & Senator Polnut on December 23, 2010, 12:30:24 AM

Ugh - HATED that book...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Frink on December 23, 2010, 04:54:04 AM
The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout.

Very good book if your into archetypal "whodunit" detective fiction with some nice twists (courtesy of the great characters created by Rex Stout).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on December 24, 2010, 06:30:10 PM
For Christmas I'm reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. The last book I read was The Feast of the Goat (I think that's the English title) by Vargas Llosa. I'm working on my contemporary literature credentials.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on December 24, 2010, 07:45:53 PM
I just finished The Emperor's Children, an unwitting exposure of the New York City literati and hypocrisy.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on December 27, 2010, 05:00:23 PM
Finished Freedom. Pretty amazing stuff. I recommend it highly.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on December 27, 2010, 07:52:37 PM
The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama, and enjoying it immensely.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Јas on January 03, 2011, 08:37:30 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Dowager Mod on January 03, 2011, 09:12:13 PM
() (http://img821.imageshack.us/i/booksn.jpg/)



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Free Palestine on January 08, 2011, 08:29:25 PM
Femininity by Susan Brownmiller


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on January 15, 2011, 06:35:25 PM
The Yiddish Policmen's Union by Michael Chabon

parallel to

Die Zukunft der Grünen: "So kann man nicht regieren" (The Future of the Greens: "You Can't Govern in That Manner") by Joachim Raschke


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Fmr President & Senator Polnut on January 15, 2011, 07:44:45 PM
The Catcher in the Rye


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on January 15, 2011, 10:21:19 PM
Don't Vote:  It Just Encourages the Bastards - P J O'Rourke

Good, but his bast were the late 80's early 90's.

I'm also re-reading Resume Power by Tom Washington, because I'm writing an article on how to resumes for the type of consulting I do.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: memphis on January 15, 2011, 11:25:38 PM
Twain's Life on the Mississippi. It's not his best writing.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on January 17, 2011, 01:11:57 AM
True Compass, by the most recently dead of the dead Kennedys.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Franzl on January 17, 2011, 07:27:58 AM
True Compass, by the most recently dead of the dead Kennedys.

Legitimately surprising.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on January 17, 2011, 06:28:27 PM
True Compass, by the most recently dead of the dead Kennedys.

Legitimately surprising.

I've also read Slick Willie's My Life and B. Hussein Obama's The Audacity of Hope.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on January 18, 2011, 08:42:33 PM

I hated that book!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Franzl on January 18, 2011, 08:49:28 PM
True Compass, by the most recently dead of the dead Kennedys.

Legitimately surprising.

I've also read Slick Willie's My Life and B. Hussein Obama's The Audacity of Hope.

Equally surprising....as it would be if you were reading books from right-wingers as well.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on January 19, 2011, 07:43:19 PM
True Compass, by the most recently dead of the dead Kennedys.

Legitimately surprising.

I've also read Slick Willie's My Life and B. Hussein Obama's The Audacity of Hope.

Equally surprising....as it would be if you were reading books from right-wingers as well.

Yes, I've read Ronnie Reagan's and Momma Grizzly's books as well.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Franzl on January 19, 2011, 08:33:46 PM
True Compass, by the most recently dead of the dead Kennedys.

Legitimately surprising.

I've also read Slick Willie's My Life and B. Hussein Obama's The Audacity of Hope.

Equally surprising....as it would be if you were reading books from right-wingers as well.

Yes, I've read Ronnie Reagan's and Momma Grizzly's books as well.

I don't think you quite understood what I was implying...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on January 19, 2011, 09:08:28 PM
France its Empire since 1870


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on January 22, 2011, 10:46:02 AM

When does the description stop?  I wouldn't really categorize France as an empire, even in a broad sense of the word, since the mid-1960's.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on January 22, 2011, 12:31:06 PM

When does the description stop?  I wouldn't really categorize France as an empire, even in a broad sense of the word, since the mid-1960's.

Then you haven´t been paying sufficient attention.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: phk on January 22, 2011, 08:21:37 PM
The Intelligent Investor


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on January 23, 2011, 01:12:23 PM
L'avenir dure longtemps as well as Les Faits and some random short essays by Louis Althusser.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on January 25, 2011, 01:36:21 PM
GB84, by David Peace.
Yes, it inspired my current sig/username/map location. Why do you ask?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 25, 2011, 01:51:08 PM
GB84, by David Peace.
Yes, it inspired my current sig/username/map location. Why do you ask?

Like it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on January 25, 2011, 02:01:45 PM
Yes. Or a lot of it. Not an easy read though (besides, I found out that I don't actually know the subject well enough.)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 25, 2011, 02:19:30 PM

Peace has an odd style, but it can be very effective.

Read any of his other stuff?

Quote
(besides, I found out that I don't actually know the subject well enough.)

Perhaps that's for the best; it's seriously depressing.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on January 25, 2011, 02:42:24 PM
I read 1974 quite recently; after reading a glowing review of the tv adaptation of the Red Riding series (which was shown at some ungodly hour on German tv. And which I didn't watch). It's the only part of it that the Frankfurt library system stocks... but they got three German copies (at different branches) and one English copy of that one. Go figure that one out. (If it weren't the first part, I wouldn't have bothered.) When I left for the Mosel a week ago, I looked through the English fiction section at a bookstore at the station. And found this other title by him, thought the subject matter interesting, and invested a tenner.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 25, 2011, 02:51:34 PM
I read 1974 quite recently; after reading a glowing review of the tv adaptation of the Red Riding series (which was shown at some ungodly hour on German tv. And which I didn't watch). It's the only part of it that the Frankfurt library system stocks... but they got three German copies (at different branches) and one English copy of that one. Go figure that one out. (If it weren't the first part, I wouldn't have bothered.) When I left for the Mosel a week ago, I looked through the English fiction section at a bookstore at the station. And found this other title by him, thought the subject matter interesting, and invested a tenner.

Swans.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on January 25, 2011, 04:24:46 PM
Just finished several in the past week, including De Tocqueville's The Old Regime and the French Revolution and (a truly fantastic book) The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare As We Know It by David Bell (2007).  Highly recommended.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: opebo on January 27, 2011, 06:03:10 AM
Second volume of Somerset Maugham's short stories, appropriately lent me by a gay French expat.  

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 27, 2011, 08:04:02 AM
Second volume of Somerset Maugham's short stories

Could you be more predictable in your reading habits, lol.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on January 28, 2011, 02:48:19 PM
"Critique of Criminal Reason", Michael Gregorio


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: opebo on January 28, 2011, 05:15:46 PM
Second volume of Somerset Maugham's short stories

Could you be more predictable in your reading habits, lol.

Haha, yes.  My favorite authors are Waugh, Huxley, Baron Berners, Ronald Firbank, Nabokov, and good old Maugham.  I do love Orwell of course, but obviously he's not the old-shoe fit these others are.

I just realized this is only supposed to be about political books. I guess I don't often read those.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: To be is the answer to all penus on January 30, 2011, 11:11:56 PM
re-reading the Wealth of Nations, and the Book of Mormon.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on February 22, 2011, 12:17:40 PM
De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on February 27, 2011, 05:21:08 PM
Reading E.J. Hobsbawm's The Age of Revolution, along with some things for class.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on February 27, 2011, 05:45:08 PM
The last book I read was A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo. A funny, interesting book. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Taft Republican on February 27, 2011, 06:18:07 PM
I have a tendency to read a lot of books at once, so unfortunately I don't finish them all :P.

Currently there's Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on February 27, 2011, 08:08:41 PM

Currently there's Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky

What


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on February 27, 2011, 09:17:42 PM
I've got a lot on my reading plate also, but it doesn't include Saul Alinsky. this is a recap of stuff I've posted previously as well as other books:
The Choice by Bob Woodward (almost half-way)
Atlas Shruggedby Ayn Rand (over half-way)
Life by Keith Richards (about one fifth or fourth done)
Known and Unknown by Donald Rumsfeld (Like a tenth done)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on February 27, 2011, 10:17:03 PM
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Psychic Octopus on February 27, 2011, 10:28:48 PM

I've got that one. Haven't read it, though.

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

Another good one. I found it pretty interesting. I usually use it as a reference book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Fmr President & Senator Polnut on February 28, 2011, 12:49:10 AM
Just finished The Great Gatsby - took me only about 5 hours to read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Associate Justice PiT on March 01, 2011, 04:10:46 AM
     Almost done reading The Old Devils.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on March 01, 2011, 03:49:34 PM
Conscience of a Conservative-Barry Goldwater
Decision Points-George Bush


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Taft Republican on March 05, 2011, 11:57:10 PM

It's about organization, it's a lot more interesting than I would have given it credit for.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 06, 2011, 04:20:46 AM
I'm now reading Hunger by Knud Hamsun, the Norwegian author. It's the current book of the Literary Society of my university.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on March 06, 2011, 06:32:06 AM
I'm now reading Hunger by Knud Hamsun, the Norwegian author. It's the current book of the Literary Society of my university.

Despite being over a century old, it is ridiculous how accurate to the experience it describes the book is in places. Pity about the author, you know, being a Nazi and all that.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: phk on March 06, 2011, 02:53:10 PM
Business Analysis with Microsoft Excel 2010

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 07, 2011, 04:05:24 PM
I'm now reading Hunger by Knud Hamsun, the Norwegian author. It's the current book of the Literary Society of my university.

Despite being over a century old, it is ridiculous how accurate to the experience it describes the book is in places. Pity about the author, you know, being a Nazi and all that.

Yeah, that aspect of Hamsun is obviously less palatable. Although from what I recall reading about it he wasn't really a Nazi by Hitler standards, but more of a general conservative fellow who was too naive to bother with what the Nazis were actually up to.

But it's always good to remember that great artists don't necessarily have any political judgement. At all.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on March 14, 2011, 06:17:04 PM
I'm a little longer than halfway though Man of the House, by the late Speaker Tip O'Neill.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Elyski on April 22, 2011, 09:00:05 AM
Just finished Animal Farm in one sitting. Very easily comparable to most of the history of the Soviet Union might I add.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cincinnatus on April 22, 2011, 09:37:45 AM
I'm about a third of the way through John Adams by David McCullough.  Debating whether or not to buy 1776 when I'm finished.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on April 22, 2011, 01:20:19 PM
Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on April 22, 2011, 04:43:42 PM
A first draft of one I wrote.  A committee is editing it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: rundontwalk on April 27, 2011, 04:04:49 PM
The Anarchists of Casas Viejas - Jerome R. Mintz
Ninety Three - Hugo
Homage to Catalonia - Orwell
'
I'm detecting a common theme here. :p


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on April 27, 2011, 04:58:16 PM
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon.  I am ashamed it's taken me this long to get to it; it's been on my shelf for a solid four years now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on April 27, 2011, 05:28:34 PM
To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on April 27, 2011, 08:00:03 PM
Goldwater, the memoir of Barry Goldwater written by Barry Goldwater and Jack Casserly


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Fmr President & Senator Polnut on April 27, 2011, 09:08:03 PM
The Prodigal Daughter, Jeffrey Archer

Book club, not exactly a taxing read - but the closest thing to a 'popcorn' author until Dan Brown came along


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on April 28, 2011, 02:48:16 PM
The Progressive Party in Canada by W.L. Morton. The seminal work on the topic.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on May 02, 2011, 08:39:00 PM
Goldwater, the memoir of Barry Goldwater written by Barry Goldwater and Jack Casserly


Cool. I'd like to read it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on May 07, 2011, 07:17:47 PM
Goldwater, the memoir of Barry Goldwater written by Barry Goldwater and Jack Casserly
Cool. I'd like to read it.
He actually never wanted to run for President. His goal was to spread the conservative message. He said he would "lose the election but win the party." I think that may be what Paul/Johnson are doing now. The GOP may shift libertarian in the decades to come, especially with Americans becoming more moderate on social issues, especially gay marriage.

btw, I fixed the quote tags ;)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on May 07, 2011, 07:34:47 PM
Time's The Civil War: The Illustrated History

This is what I was reading when the news broke about OBL being killed


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dancing with Myself on May 07, 2011, 09:44:20 PM
()

It's been good so far. I'm in Chapter 3, the chapter;s about the Dem primaries


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on May 08, 2011, 05:14:36 AM
I'm reading Soldier's Pay by William Faulkner.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on May 14, 2011, 06:11:25 PM
The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian by Shelby Foote


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SmokingCricket on May 14, 2011, 08:03:34 PM
A History of Warfare, by Field-Marshal Viscount Bernard Montgomery of Alamein.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on May 21, 2011, 08:55:41 PM
I just listened to Obama's Dreams from my Father on audiotape, although I missed some parts because I had taken a benedril and passed out.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on May 21, 2011, 09:25:06 PM
Nixon and Kissinger by Robert Dallek


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on May 22, 2011, 09:36:41 AM
Basque Nationalism and the Spanish State by my former Canadian politics prof.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: feeblepizza on May 22, 2011, 02:25:53 PM
The Moral Center by David Callahan - Started it a couple weeks ago, but I've been busy and have only gotten 70 or so pages in.

All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings by George H.W. Bush - Started it just today, and have gotten 50 or so pages in.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on May 27, 2011, 06:02:39 PM
Reading Game Change, which is pretty terrific so far. I'd recommend it to everyone on this forum.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Јas on June 01, 2011, 12:10:44 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on June 01, 2011, 04:37:18 PM
Liberty Defined----still....(Amazing book, just have had no time to read it)

Game Change is amazing...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Robespierre's Jaw on June 04, 2011, 08:29:27 AM

I read that some time ago. Dallek's a decent writer, although he can be dry at times.

As for me, Power Without Glory by Frank Hardy. He was unashamedly inspired by the life of ALP powerbroker John Wren, did he not?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on June 04, 2011, 10:25:12 AM
Franco - Paul Preston.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on June 04, 2011, 05:49:33 PM
Game Change was pretty good, though the writing was really gratingly informal and a lot of the book veered into gossip-y unimportant personal stories. I would have liked to read more about the actual strategy behind the campaigns, instead of endless examples of the candidates using the f-word in private. Still a lot of interesting stuff in it though, and really hard to put down once you get into it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on June 04, 2011, 06:32:41 PM
()

I plan on reading more books from this series. They're extremely informative even if wonky and boring.

Also:
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on June 12, 2011, 03:30:31 PM
Breakfast of Champions really is Vonnegut at his best, isn't it? I've always thought Slaughterhouse Five was pretty stale, so perhaps I should apply the term 'overrated' to it, much as I despise people who use that word with ease.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Joe Republic on June 12, 2011, 03:34:21 PM
Breakfast of Champions really is Vonnegut at his best, isn't it? I've always thought Slaughterhouse Five was pretty stale, so perhaps I should apply the term 'overrated' to it, much as I despise people who use that word with ease.

It was amazing to see the difference that twenty years made to Vonnegut's style between Player Piano and Breakfast of Champions.  They could have been written by completely different authors.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 12, 2011, 03:35:10 PM
Just finished "The Choice" by Bob Woodward yesterday.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on June 24, 2011, 08:18:20 AM
Breakfast of Champions really is Vonnegut at his best, isn't it? I've always thought Slaughterhouse Five was pretty stale, so perhaps I should apply the term 'overrated' to it, much as I despise people who use that word with ease.

That almost makes you a horrible person.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on June 24, 2011, 10:07:38 AM
Breakfast of Champions really is Vonnegut at his best, isn't it? I've always thought Slaughterhouse Five was pretty stale, so perhaps I should apply the term 'overrated' to it, much as I despise people who use that word with ease.

That almost makes you a horrible person.

Not sufficiently liking Slaughterhouse Five? Or liking Breakfast of Champions?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: UpcomingYouthvoter on June 24, 2011, 12:57:54 PM
Reading John Adams by David Mccullough, which is very good. Also reading The Fellowship Of The Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien which is so far forgettable and overrated.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: CatoMinor on June 24, 2011, 06:41:07 PM
The Fountainhead


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on June 24, 2011, 09:11:37 PM
Capitalism and Social Cohesion: Essays on Exclusion and Integration (eds. Gough and Olofsson). For work, y'understand.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on June 24, 2011, 09:29:02 PM
The Civilization of the Middle Ages by Norman F. Cantor


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on June 24, 2011, 09:52:55 PM
Geopolitique de l'Espagne


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Fmr President & Senator Polnut on June 26, 2011, 01:48:33 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Јas on June 27, 2011, 08:41:36 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on June 27, 2011, 02:44:03 PM
Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 27, 2011, 03:39:43 PM

I had to read that for school. Yet another pointless book that English teachers assign. :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on June 27, 2011, 08:46:35 PM
The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy. Richard A, Posner

Against a Hindu God:  Buddhist Philosophy of Religion in India. Parimal G. Patil (reviewing it for a journal)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 16, 2011, 03:22:29 AM
Breakfast of Champions really is Vonnegut at his best, isn't it? I've always thought Slaughterhouse Five was pretty stale, so perhaps I should apply the term 'overrated' to it, much as I despise people who use that word with ease.

That almost makes you a horrible person.



Not sufficiently liking Slaughterhouse Five? Or liking Breakfast of Champions?

Not sufficiently liking Slaughterhouse Five.

In other news, my recent reads are Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and Jerusalem by Selma Lagerlöf.

The former was pretty good and an easier read than The Waves, for sure. Jerusalem was wonderful, but then again Selma is always wonderful. Definitely my favourite Swedish author.

Currently I'm reading I Am A Cat by Soseki Natsume. Pretty good so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on July 16, 2011, 12:38:56 PM
My favorite Vonnegut was always Cat's Cradle.

Currently this (http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/12095.html). Before that I reread Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (after a long long time) and simultaneously The People of the Abyss. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_of_the_Abyss) Both in German.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on July 16, 2011, 12:59:15 PM
A few things...

Gladstone by Morley.

Both English volumes ( Citizen of the World and Just Watch Me)on Trudeau.

English's Pearson bio.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 16, 2011, 02:28:37 PM
My favorite Vonnegut was always Cat's Cradle.

Currently this (http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/12095.html). Before that I reread Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (after a long long time) and simultaneously The People of the Abyss. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_of_the_Abyss) Both in German.

Have you read the cat-book I'm reading? You like cats, correct?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on July 16, 2011, 02:31:08 PM
My favorite Vonnegut was always Cat's Cradle.

Currently this (http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/12095.html). Before that I reread Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (after a long long time) and simultaneously The People of the Abyss. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_of_the_Abyss) Both in German.

Have you read the cat-book I'm reading?
No.
Quote
You like cats, correct?
Yes, but they don't write books. :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on July 16, 2011, 03:16:24 PM
Yes they do.  It's how they can afford to buy cheezburgers. ;)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: #CriminalizeSobriety on July 30, 2011, 11:35:38 AM
()

For the third time. I'm a junkie...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on August 08, 2011, 12:29:30 PM
Pale Fire


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on August 11, 2011, 03:49:04 PM

Yeah! My favorite novel. You won't be disappointed.

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: bullmoose88 on August 12, 2011, 12:58:11 AM
Currently Reading:
The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva

Read in the last few weeks:
Full Black by Brad Thor
The Prophecy by Chris Kuzneski
The Devil Colony by James Rollins
Foreign Influence by Brad Thor
The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry

Yes Yes, I read a lot of thrillers.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on August 12, 2011, 08:01:11 AM

I wasn't :) Nabokov is a tremendous writer, but I tend to care less for several of his other novels as the plots often strike me as a bit banal. Pale Fire of course has a very interesting structure, and an entertaining story, which helps to appreciate Nabokov's genius. I was a bit disappointed by Rorty's preface (I read the Everyman's edition), as its analysis doesn't seem to hold up to me. His remarks on Lolita and Pnin seem more on the mark to me. (though I've only a passing familiarity with the latter novel).

Now, I'm doubting between Conrad's Nostromo or some Freud.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on August 12, 2011, 08:33:19 AM
()

For the third time. I'm a junkie...

Love this epic!
The 2009 discovery of "Cao Cao's tomb" rose quite a stir in China too.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HST1948 on August 12, 2011, 02:52:41 PM
Currently Reading Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: You kip if you want to... on August 17, 2011, 06:44:01 PM
The Strange Death of Liberal England - Dangerfield


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on August 17, 2011, 09:00:18 PM
The Strange Death of Liberal England - Dangerfield

What do you make of the general thesis?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Bacon King on August 17, 2011, 10:14:21 PM
I just started reading Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. Only ~150 pages in but it's really good so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on August 20, 2011, 04:12:59 PM
Started on To Kill a Mockingbird yesterday.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: You kip if you want to... on August 21, 2011, 04:54:03 PM
The Strange Death of Liberal England - Dangerfield

What do you make of the general thesis?

Only about 100-150 pages in, but it's an interesting read so far. I do see where it's coming from though, and although i've only read the first section about the Parliament Act, I do think Dangerfield's rested a bit too much on that, but we'll see.

I might be doing my extended project for UCAS on the decline of the Liberals or the something about the National Government (or, pretty alternatively, Harold Wilson's or Gordon Brown's premiership) and my tutor told me it'd be an essential if I was going to do either of the first two.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cincinnatus on August 21, 2011, 05:18:28 PM
Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Fmr President & Senator Polnut on August 21, 2011, 11:12:09 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cincinnatus on September 01, 2011, 10:27:40 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Yelnoc on September 01, 2011, 02:22:11 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on September 08, 2011, 12:20:36 PM
Just finished Animal Farm. Attempting to shift through the uber-wonky boredom mixed in with interesting factoids that is Politics, Culture and Sociability in the Basque Nationalist Party while continuing bits and pieces of The Discovery of France by Graham Robb at the same time.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on September 08, 2011, 01:10:21 PM
Jean-Paul Sartre - The Age of Reason.  three chapters in.  certainly a lot of negative things I can imagine people saying about it but it's entertaining to me.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Хahar 🤔 on September 08, 2011, 03:29:49 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Taft Republican on September 08, 2011, 03:54:58 PM
The Brothers Kamarazov- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Stranger- Albert Camus
Looking Backward- Edward Bellamy


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on September 10, 2011, 12:40:57 PM
Catch 22


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on September 18, 2011, 08:00:03 PM
Second volume of Somerset Maugham's short stories

Could you be more predictable in your reading habits, lol.

What's so predictable about opebo and Somerset Maugham?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on September 24, 2011, 12:45:37 PM
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dr. Cynic on September 25, 2011, 02:15:53 AM
()

It's extremely fascinating. I've always found that period among the most interesting in British politics, so I thought I'd pick it up at a library sale.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on September 30, 2011, 03:29:08 PM
Just finished reading or re reading all Nietzsche main books. Heidegger comes next.

In literature, I've been trying with the russians, but  Dostoyevski was kind of grim. I'll give a chance to Tolstoi. In poetry reading for the fifth time the Duino Elegies.

Right now, just super heroes comic books. DC's New 52 are fantastic. Also, this this gem of french comic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dy6uVmRpyM






Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on September 30, 2011, 03:31:33 PM

Good one. Read it as a teenager and loved it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on September 30, 2011, 06:38:23 PM
Over the past three weeks, I read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Victor Hanson's Why the West Has Won, and Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence for an international history seminar I'm taking. All pretty interesting, though Hanson is obviously a neocon idiot (but still the best writer of the three).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on September 30, 2011, 07:10:40 PM
()
One of the many books I'm currently somewhere in.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on September 30, 2011, 07:54:08 PM
Over the past three weeks, I read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Victor Hanson's Why the West Has Won, and Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence for an international history seminar I'm taking. All pretty interesting, though Hanson is obviously a neocon idiot (but still the best writer of the three).

Neoconservativism is the cancer of International Politics Theory.

Mixing Kant with Quantitativism, what the fuçk ?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on September 30, 2011, 07:56:12 PM
I'm getting sick of everyone hatin' on neocons!!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on September 30, 2011, 07:59:22 PM
I'm getting sick of everyone hatin' on neocons!!

I don't hate neocons, I just think (and I've always thought) that their main idea (in INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY ergo democracy equals peace) it's stupid. They act like hawks, think like doves, and miserably fail.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cincinnatus on September 30, 2011, 10:13:12 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on October 01, 2011, 01:47:15 AM
Over the last fortnight:

Cannon's Concise Guide to Rules of Order, by Hugh Cannon, who I met once.

()

The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli, who I've never met.  That is a reread; I'm writing an article on it.

()

Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 11th edition, by Henry M. Robert, III, who I just met, et al., several of whom I know quite well.  (The 11th edition came out a week ago.)

()

The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, basically as a reference for the article I'm writing.

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on October 01, 2011, 11:06:40 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Taft Republican on October 01, 2011, 07:21:04 PM
In literature, I've been trying with the russians, but  Dostoyevski was kind of grim. I'll give a chance to Tolstoi.


Whyyyyyyy!?!? D: I found The Brothers Karamazov extremely hopeful! But I give massive credit to Tolsoy, and you can't go wrong with either in my honest opinion.

I'm actually trying to decide between Madame Bovary, or The Antichrist or some other Neitzsche book, Or Crime and Punishment


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on October 01, 2011, 10:22:02 PM

In literature, I've been trying with the russians, but  Dostoyevski was kind of grim. I'll give a chance to Tolstoi.

May I suggest Gogol.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on October 01, 2011, 10:47:04 PM

In literature, I've been trying with the russians, but  Dostoyevski was kind of grim. I'll give a chance to Tolstoi.

May I suggest Gogol.

I've always found Gogol's work rather horrifying, especially "The Nose" and "The Overcoat." Good stuff but lighthearted it's not. I don't know how much appeal it would have to someone who finds Dostoevsky too "grim."

I think you are missing the satire. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on October 01, 2011, 11:19:01 PM
In literature, I've been trying with the russians, but  Dostoyevski was kind of grim. I'll give a chance to Tolstoi.


Whyyyyyyy!?!? D: I found The Brothers Karamazov extremely hopeful! But I give massive credit to Tolsoy, and you can't go wrong with either in my honest opinion.

I'm actually trying to decide between Madame Bovary, or The Antichrist or some other Neitzsche book, Or Crime and Punishment

If you are new to Nietzsche ideas begin with Twilight of the Idols.

Madame Bovary is fine.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on October 02, 2011, 09:33:01 AM

My point is that Gogol's satire is depressing and grotesque. (Unless you mean that your suggestion wasn't serious, and in that case, yes, I did miss it.)

Russia was a fairly depressing place at the time.  He lightened it by making fun of it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on October 02, 2011, 10:20:49 AM

My point is that Gogol's satire is depressing and grotesque. (Unless you mean that your suggestion wasn't serious, and in that case, yes, I did miss it.)

Russia was a fairly depressing place at the time.  He lightened it by making fun of it.

That's a... novel... interpretation.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on October 02, 2011, 10:21:41 AM

Heretic.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on October 02, 2011, 11:38:21 AM
I finished I Am A Cat. Very good. My most recent read was a weird book by Italo Calvino, called Cosmicomics. Very interesting but also rather strange. Calvino is really shooting up on my list of favourite writers.

Also, commenting on other stuff, Dostoyevski is hardly grim. If you want grim you should read Zola. Then again, Tolstoy is definitely more positive than him. If you want a less depressing Russian I'd think Bulgakov might be a good choice as well.

Madame Bovary on the other hand...talk about depressing. It makes even Dostoyevski's Demons seem lighthearted...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on October 02, 2011, 12:51:02 PM
I'm getting sick of everyone hatin' on neocons!!

Hanson's argument is that freedom and free-market capitalism are why "Western civilization" (which to him encompasses everything from Greek city states to Alexander the Great to the Franks to the Holy League to 16th century Spain to Americans in Vietnam) triumphed over... well, he never really defines who they triumphed over, just everyone who didn't love freedom and capitalism enough, I guess. It's a ridiculous, ahistorical, contrived thesis, only saved by his talent at describing battles.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on October 03, 2011, 03:07:55 AM


Madame Bovary on the other hand...talk about depressing. It makes even Dostoyevski's Demons seem lighthearted...

I hated the book when I read it for High School. So many descriptions! But 10 years after failed and successful relationships, now I can understand the character as a romantic Quixote and that very idea is great.

My problem with Dostoyesvski is that I started with Crime & Punishment....and wow, it was like several punches in my soul. My brother recommended me that I tried with Karamazov Brothers or The Idiot, but   couldn't find a good edition...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on October 03, 2011, 03:10:22 AM
If you want grim you should read Zola.

I bought Nana several years ago but never tried it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on October 03, 2011, 08:38:12 AM
I recommend you start with Demons. It's great and also frequently hilarious.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: I Am Feeblepizza. on October 03, 2011, 09:09:18 AM
Known and Unknown, by Donald Rumsfeld. Right now he's talking about the Republican primaries of 1976 and the defense buildup that started after he became defense secretary under Ford.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on October 03, 2011, 12:29:27 PM
What about White Nights ? My brother has a copy here at home.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on October 03, 2011, 12:29:53 PM
I recommend you start with Demons. It's great and also frequently hilarious.

I usually hear Notes From Underground recommended to those beginning to read Dostoevsky. Admittedly, I've never finished Demons, but Notes is less intimidating at about 60 pages.

I wasn't being entirely serious; Demons is a very complicated book (multiple layers, multiple genres, the usual unreliable narrator...) and is probably not suitable as a gateway drug to Dostoyevsky. It is wonderful though.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on October 03, 2011, 02:00:04 PM
What about White Nights ? My brother has a copy here at home.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on October 03, 2011, 02:55:03 PM
Reading Carlyle's French Revolution.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Roemerista on October 03, 2011, 09:59:41 PM
I always enjoyed Crime and Punishment more than Brothers K.

I would highly suggest to you Notes from Underground.  I think it is accessible...but its still him, so expect punches to the Soul.

As for me? Well I am tackling What it takes right now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on October 04, 2011, 07:03:20 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on October 06, 2011, 07:29:28 PM
Has anyone ever read this book?

()

It's really fascinating. All I really knew of Soviet law was the Stalin-era show trials/purges, so it's interesting to see the more just post-Stalin mish-mash of continental-style civil law and socialist influences, as well as the way more day-to-day mundane cases were handled.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Yelnoc on October 06, 2011, 09:27:27 PM
I'm getting sick of everyone hatin' on neocons!!

Hanson's argument is that freedom and free-market capitalism are why "Western civilization" (which to him encompasses everything from Greek city states to Alexander the Great to the Franks to the Holy League to 16th century Spain to Americans in Vietnam) triumphed over... well, he never really defines who they triumphed over, just everyone who didn't love freedom and capitalism enough, I guess. It's a ridiculous, ahistorical, contrived thesis, only saved by his talent at describing battles.
What drivel.

I suggest Why the West Rules - for Now by Ian Morris.  An apolitical comparison of east and west over all of history, using both quantitative and qualitive methods.  I learned a lot about history while reading it; specifically eastern Europe.  I knew the Chinese dynasties from school, but knowing the dynasties and knowing the economics, population patterns, culture, wars, and public works is much more useful.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on October 07, 2011, 12:05:41 PM

My point is that Gogol's satire is depressing and grotesque. (Unless you mean that your suggestion wasn't serious, and in that case, yes, I did miss it.)

Russia was a fairly depressing place at the time.  He lightened it by making fun of it.

That's a... novel... interpretation.

I saw the satire.  I love Dr. Strangelove, too.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on October 07, 2011, 01:32:35 PM

Yes... you see... it's not spotting that it's satire that is... um... novel.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on October 08, 2011, 06:27:55 AM
I am reading The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Orthodox on October 08, 2011, 08:38:29 PM
Rereading Postwar by Tony Judt.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Yelnoc on October 10, 2011, 09:31:21 PM
Just finished...

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Marokai Backbeat on October 11, 2011, 09:18:06 PM
()

Rereading this again since the first time I read it when I was just 14, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it was the first book related to politics that I read in it's entirety, but looking back on it so many years later, I'm frightened by now much I feel like the foundation of my attitude on politics was formed by this book, as well as Truth (With Jokes) that I read a year later.

Yes, blah blah, it's Al Franken, but throughout the entire book, Franken places a very serious importance on telling the truth, on basing your arguments in fact, and responding to untruths with empirical truth. It's a very very simple concept, but it's also a very important one that our politics, especially in the last decade+ has forgotten. Politics is serious, and it matters a whole lot, and it shouldn't be treated like a game. The issues we debate are serious, and if we deserve anything, it's that the issues should be debated genuinely and honestly in good faith.

I very very strongly believe that. And it's the foundation for almost everything else that I believe in.

Near the end of the book, Franken writes this, which I think is the take-away from the book, even though it focuses on right-wing figures or particular lies from the Bush Administration:

Quote
How do we get it back? We have to fight. But we can't fight like they do. People say that Rush, and Fox, and their ilk are entertaining. And if you can stomach that sort of stuff, I suppose they are. But a part of their entertainment value comes from their willingness to lie and distort. They fight with lies.

We can't do that. We have to fight them with the truth. Our added entertainment value will have to come from being funny and attractive. And passionate. And idealistic. But also, smart.

He's right. It only depresses me that, since writing this book 7 years ago-ish, the other side has only gone further down the rabbit hole. One side of American politics earnestly wants to govern and treat politics as a system for doing good. The other side, does not. And they do not value empirical truth the way that we do.

Those who treat politics and elections as a game are not serious people. And they should not be treated as serious people. That's essentially the message of the book. Don't lie about stuff that matters, and if someone does, go after them with everything you've got.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Хahar 🤔 on October 13, 2011, 02:30:45 AM
I'm getting sick of everyone hatin' on neocons!!

Hanson's argument is that freedom and free-market capitalism are why "Western civilization" (which to him encompasses everything from Greek city states to Alexander the Great to the Franks to the Holy League to 16th century Spain to Americans in Vietnam) triumphed over... well, he never really defines who they triumphed over, just everyone who didn't love freedom and capitalism enough, I guess. It's a ridiculous, ahistorical, contrived thesis, only saved by his talent at describing battles.

Exactly what you would expect from the title, isn't it?


I think that my favorite part of that book is that the name of the hypothetical Bangladeshi child making shoes in a factory is "bad shoe" in Bengali.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on October 13, 2011, 09:01:37 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on October 13, 2011, 09:03:31 AM
I think that my favorite part of that book is that the name of the hypothetical Bangladeshi child making shoes in a factory is "bad shoe" in Bengali.

How to write "Xahar" in Bengali alphabet? (I'm asking because "Xahar", as transcripted, means "sister" in Farsi :P)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on October 13, 2011, 02:07:54 PM
Taking a break from the Carlyle (which is, need it be said, very entertaining) for some Houellebecq in the shape of Plateforme. The guy is such an incredible nazi, I like him very much.

The best bit so far has to be the narrator's throw-away remarl about pets on the opening page.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sbane on October 13, 2011, 09:19:09 PM

I think that my favorite part of that book is that the name of the hypothetical Bangladeshi child making shoes in a factory is "bad shoe" in Bengali.

Thanks for reminding me! That was hilarious. I wonder how many people who read the book actually got it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TJ in Oregon on October 13, 2011, 10:00:06 PM
()

Trying to read it at the advice of a more philosophically inclined friend... we'll see if end up finishing.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: King on October 14, 2011, 11:12:10 PM
I'm currently a few chapters into Confidence Men by Ron Suskind.  Good stuff.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on October 15, 2011, 04:00:40 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on October 15, 2011, 05:35:24 AM
Is it legal to read Mein Kampf in Germany?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on October 15, 2011, 05:46:22 AM
()

Trying to read it at the advice of a more philosophically inclined friend... we'll see if end up finishing.

Don´t bother... MacIntyre is the very definition of self-important indulgent nonsense.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on October 15, 2011, 07:19:16 AM
Is it legal to read Mein Kampf in Germany?
Yes... but it's illegal to publish without the consent of the copyright holder. Who happens to be the state of Bavaria, and not in the habit of consenting to anything of the sort. So you'd have to purchase used - which is perfectly legal - or have inherited some pre-45 copy. Or just import from somewhere, such as Britain or America or, well, most of the world, that doesn't recognize Bavaria's rather dubious claim to ownership of the copyright. (Turkey recognizes it, for instance... as a means to ban the book without officially banning it.) Will expire in 2016 (70 years after Hitler was officially declared dead), anyhow. What they'll do after that, I dunno.
Attempts to have the book put on the Index (which would ban any but over-the-counter sales, ostensibly to protect the youth) or declare its content seditious (and thus distribution illegal) have been made in the past and failed - the latter paragraphs are so tightly drawn that virtually nothing can be banned under them. Which I think is due to court interpretations aimed at not having to declare the law unconstitutional.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on October 18, 2011, 02:46:04 AM
Is it legal to read Mein Kampf in Germany?
Yes... but it's illegal to publish without the consent of the copyright holder. Who happens to be the state of Bavaria, and not in the habit of consenting to anything of the sort. So you'd have to purchase used - which is perfectly legal - or have inherited some pre-45 copy. Or just import from somewhere, such as Britain or America or, well, most of the world, that doesn't recognize Bavaria's rather dubious claim to ownership of the copyright. (Turkey recognizes it, for instance... as a means to ban the book without officially banning it.) Will expire in 2016 (70 years after Hitler was officially declared dead), anyhow. What they'll do after that, I dunno.
Attempts to have the book put on the Index (which would ban any but over-the-counter sales, ostensibly to protect the youth) or declare its content seditious (and thus distribution illegal) have been made in the past and failed - the latter paragraphs are so tightly drawn that virtually nothing can be banned under them. Which I think is due to court interpretations aimed at not having to declare the law unconstitutional.


I thought Mein Kampf sold pretty well in Turkey a few years back?

Anyway, I am currently reading Blood Meridian.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on October 18, 2011, 06:11:31 AM
Tableau politique de la France de l'Ouest sous la Troisieme Republique, the ultimate nerdy book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on October 18, 2011, 07:04:15 AM
Anyway, I am currently reading Blood Meridian.

Very nice, that one.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on October 18, 2011, 11:49:04 AM

I thought Mein Kampf sold pretty well in Turkey a few years back?
It was de-facto-banned three years after the Turkish translation first appeared. It sold fairly well in the interim.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on October 18, 2011, 04:34:33 PM
In all fairness if an English translation were published tomorrow, and received an average degree of press coverage, it too would sell a decent number of copies. So no need to diabolize the scary muslems. (If anyone were intent on doing so.)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on October 18, 2011, 04:58:50 PM
And everyone who bought it would immediately regret having done so.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on October 18, 2011, 08:05:50 PM
And everyone who bought it would immediately regret having done so.

I've only ever had to read a 9 page excerpt.

It's the equivalent of smashing a brick into your head.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on October 18, 2011, 08:11:58 PM
And everyone who bought it would immediately regret having done so.

I've only ever had to read a 9 page excerpt.

It's the equivalent of smashing a brick into your head.

Except that doing that would probably be more productive.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Хahar 🤔 on October 18, 2011, 09:29:05 PM
And everyone who bought it would immediately regret having done so.

I have a copy. It would be charmingly strange if it weren't so horribly real.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on October 19, 2011, 02:36:57 PM
And everyone who bought it would immediately regret having done so.

I have a copy. It would be charmingly strange if it weren't so horribly real.
Yes, that reminds of Andreas Maier's verdict.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Marston on October 31, 2011, 07:32:44 PM
()

Bly makes some interesting points in regards to contemporary males becoming overly-feminized but I think he's mostly full of it and makes some broad assumptions to back up his theory. I absolutely hate his style, also. Very repetitive and draining to read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on November 01, 2011, 09:46:06 PM
()

I've been reading this over breakfast and usually some Sophocles in the half hour before I go to bed.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on November 02, 2011, 12:48:13 AM
Just powered through this book for class yesterday, really good read.

()

This weekend I will be reading The Yankee International by Timothy Messer-Kruse and The First International in America by Samuel Bernstein. And also Greg Grandin's Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism if there is time.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cincinnatus on November 22, 2011, 12:59:49 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Ban my account ffs! on November 22, 2011, 03:04:56 PM
The Little Ice Age:  How Climate Made History 1300-1850 by Brian Fagan.  I've also read his book on the Medieval Warm Period, "The Great Warming" which focuses on the period 800-1300AD.

It's very interesting to learn how the natural climate processes researched in the past ten years have turned climate science on its head.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on November 28, 2011, 08:18:26 PM
In the last week i've read 'The Hunger Games', which was a reasonably good page turner with zero heft; 'Enchanted Glass', Diana Wynne Jones' last book, which was not up to her standards to be frank; and finished the three-month process of going tgrough the second book from 'Game of Thrones', which I am rather enjoying.

I'm currently 1/4 of the way through 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', and 3/4 of the way through 'The Boys From Brazil', with 'Stephen Fry in America' next on the list.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Foucaulf on November 28, 2011, 09:39:01 PM
Finished with Camus's La Peste. Parts 3 and 4 are astounding, and so is the rest of the novel if you don't mind its plodding bits.

Two books lined up this week: Parfit's Reasons and Persons and Faulkner's Light in August.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Taft Republican on November 30, 2011, 08:00:57 PM
Reading the great Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, but terribly worried about a bad translation :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 21, 2011, 07:17:52 AM
Reading the great Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, but terribly worried about a bad translation :P

all I've ever read of the Russian authors is Constance Garnett, who is probably heavily criticized, but I've managed to enjoy myself all the same... try not to worry about it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on December 21, 2011, 08:52:06 AM
Ghada al-Samman, Beirut Nightmares


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on December 21, 2011, 09:50:24 AM
La France aux urnes by Pierre Brechon. Great book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on December 21, 2011, 06:41:57 PM
Nana by Emile Zola. Looking to be about as depressing as every other Zola.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on December 21, 2011, 07:05:26 PM
Daniel Deronda, it's an okay read, though I can understand why some people would grow tired with the jewish/zionist bits. Can I do with that for as far as Eliot's concerned or is Middlemarch really a must-read?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on December 21, 2011, 08:23:17 PM
()

Quite good and explained a bit of the history of family dysfunction.  :)

()

In light of the Penn State scandal, it helped show how insular the institution is.  It is about an on campus murder in 1969.  The author is quite a good researcher. 

He actually cited something I wrote.





Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Taft Republican on December 21, 2011, 09:28:21 PM
Reading the great Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, but terribly worried about a bad translation :P

all I've ever read of the Russian authors is Constance Garnett, who is probably heavily criticized, but I've managed to enjoy myself all the same... try not to worry about it.

I try not too, but I heard that Garnett 'softened' the language, and I worry about having the plot somehow become weaker. I try to stick with Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, but library's usually only have the Garnett translation, cheap jerks.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 22, 2011, 12:52:02 AM
秋風の記 (Record of the Autumn Wind). Rereading. One of the best Tokugawa-era poetic travelogues, and it doesn't get anywhere near enough love.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 22, 2011, 10:03:39 AM

'A Life' was the best subtitle the six figure editing department could come up with?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Хahar 🤔 on December 24, 2011, 04:04:52 AM
Reading the great Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, but terribly worried about a bad translation :P

all I've ever read of the Russian authors is Constance Garnett, who is probably heavily criticized, but I've managed to enjoy myself all the same... try not to worry about it.

I try not too, but I heard that Garnett 'softened' the language, and I worry about having the plot somehow become weaker. I try to stick with Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, but library's usually only have the Garnett translation, cheap jerks.

I was pleased with the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of Crime and Punishment.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 24, 2011, 07:42:58 AM
just bought a Kindle yesterday.  trying to avoid the gadgets as a rule but made an exception, this one seemed like it had a chance to be actually edifying.  fun stuff.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Roemerista on December 25, 2011, 11:04:40 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on December 25, 2011, 11:24:58 AM
I got "Giants: the parallel lives of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln" for Christmas.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 25, 2011, 03:09:15 PM
I've also been going through Bill Clinton's newest book, mostly for amusement.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on December 25, 2011, 03:42:29 PM
()

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on December 25, 2011, 07:38:18 PM
Finished Nana. Favourite Zola so far. The fact that it's the upper classes going to hell makes it easier to laugh at the absurdity of their behaviour instead of feeling nauseated.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on December 26, 2011, 09:13:08 AM
My gf has asked me to read Isaacson's bio of Steve Jobs with her over the break.  One thing I can say so far is that Isaacson knows how to dramatize a point.

I just finished the chapter where Woz has just completed the first prototype of the Apple 1 and it's begun to sell.  Isaacson notes at the end of the chapter that Ron Wayne, who had originally bought in for 10% of the company and did its first legal paperwork, decided to cash out his shares when Jobs and Woz took out a loan to make more machines.  Wayne was skittish, in the end, about the new venture, because he had failed in a business before, and he says even to this day that he doesn't regret getting himself out when he did.  His shares amounted, when he pulled out, to $2,300.  Isaacson reports that, today, Wayne is living off Social Security checks in Nevada and playing slot machines.  If. Isaacson points out, Wayne had held on to his shares until the end of 2010, they would have been worth $2.6 billion.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on December 29, 2011, 04:40:40 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Free Palestine on December 29, 2011, 04:43:09 PM
Bakunin: The Creative Passion by Mark Leier.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lucius Quintus Cincinatus Lamar on December 29, 2011, 04:53:40 PM
I have a weird system in which I rotate between 2-3 books at the same time.  Currently reading:

The Essential Russell Kirk: Selected Essays by Russell Kirk and
The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard

Just finished:

Every Day by the Sun: A Memoir of the Faulkners of Mississippi by Dean Faulkner Wells


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lucius Quintus Cincinatus Lamar on December 30, 2011, 10:20:32 AM
I have a weird system in which I rotate between 2-3 books at the same time.  

I do the same thing; it's much easier to read all day by switching books each time that you've finished a chapter. It's like tabbed browsing.
That is similar to what I do, but I must admit my exact system of switching between books is a little too OCD inspired for me to delve into here. :)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cincinnatus on December 30, 2011, 11:37:27 AM
I have a weird system in which I rotate between 2-3 books at the same time. 

I do the same thing; it's much easier to read all day by switching books each time that you've finished a chapter. It's like tabbed browsing.

Certainly.  I get bored of one subject pretty easily, so rotating between 2-3 books at the same time is great.  Once in a while I'll pick up a book interesting enough to where I can read right through.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on December 30, 2011, 12:20:55 PM
Haven't read more than a couple of pages yet, but I got Carlo Feltrinelli's biography of his father for christmas.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on December 30, 2011, 12:28:55 PM
Just started Nixonland, which I got for Christmas, last night.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on December 30, 2011, 02:22:24 PM
I'm reading John Lewis Gaddis' new biography of George F. Kennan.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on January 18, 2012, 05:04:54 PM
'A Brief History of Neoliberalism' by David Harvey and 'A Confederacy of Dunces' by John Kennedy Toole


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on January 18, 2012, 05:12:31 PM
'A Confederacy of Dunces' by John Kennedy Toole

Approve


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on January 18, 2012, 06:56:35 PM

Greatly Approve. Obvious influence on Opebo there.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Fmr President & Senator Polnut on January 18, 2012, 08:54:07 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on January 19, 2012, 10:59:09 AM

was recommended to me by my half-brother, who named his dog Ignatius in honor.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on January 19, 2012, 06:54:35 PM

was recommended to me by my half-brother, who named his dog Ignatius in honor.

Fantastic novel, I loved it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: John Dibble on January 19, 2012, 07:31:41 PM
I recently finished The Grand Design by Hawking and a fiction book called "Dragon Champion" that was pretty decent that I will likely read the rest of the series for.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on January 21, 2012, 12:08:04 PM
Who of us hasn't been influenced by it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 21, 2012, 01:36:58 PM
Border Country


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on January 21, 2012, 02:14:41 PM
Robert's Rules or Order Newly Revised, 10th and 11the editions.  (I've been writing papers.)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on January 21, 2012, 05:29:09 PM

None of us of course. Just felt like giving the obvious shout out. Actually I was a bit surprised that Tweed hadn't already read it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on January 22, 2012, 06:00:40 AM
Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on January 30, 2012, 01:19:28 PM
The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, and frankly, I'm excited. There are some poems that don't work for me at all, but others are pretty close to poetic perfection as far as I'm concerned.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 31, 2012, 06:41:33 PM
The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, and frankly, I'm excited. There are some poems that don't work for me at all, but others are pretty close to poetic perfection as far as I'm concerned.

Elaborate, do! I have strong and occasionally somewhat conflicting opinions on Stevens.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: k-onmmunist on January 31, 2012, 06:43:21 PM
Finnegan's Wake.

Yeah.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Miles on January 31, 2012, 08:34:51 PM
I met the author when he came to LSU last month.

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on February 01, 2012, 05:50:21 AM
'The Breathing Method', a novella by Stephen King.  I took a hint from the 1996 The Get Up Kids song, one of my favorites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS3Xc4FN9fw


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on February 01, 2012, 05:54:05 AM
The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. Great book, although I prefer Freedom so far. Interesting development of his style when you compare them.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on February 01, 2012, 07:03:55 AM
The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, and frankly, I'm excited. There are some poems that don't work for me at all, but others are pretty close to poetic perfection as far as I'm concerned.

Elaborate, do! I have strong and occasionally somewhat conflicting opinions on Stevens.

Well, in general whenever Stevens goes for the can with French and German words (which generally happens in the more lighthearted of his poems) the poem in casu almost certainly will fall short as far as I'm concerned. But when Stevens goes for the more heavyhanded (well, not that heavyhanded) angle, he sometimes can really hit a homerun.

My favourite poems mostly are, I notice now, from his first volume, Harmonium, with such little jewels as Tea at the palaz of Hoon (the last stanza of which just begs to be quoted in a mediocre paper on idealism), the quite well-known The Emperor of Ice-Cream, Cortège for Rosenbloom which is an awful lot of fun,....

In the latter half of the volume Stevens strikes me as even more in control, but for some reason less interesting to me. The amount of metapoetical reflection is probably a contributor to that, as well as (very prosaically, I know) the growing length of the poems. I can get a bit worn out when I'm reading longer shreds of lyrical poetry. Though perhaps my favourite Stevens poem of all must be The search for Sound free from Motion, which combines the virtues of total poetic control with the absolute sheer beauty of the lines that read 'All afternoon the grammaphone / parl-parled the West-Indian weather'. I'm really sort of in love with that poem.

Of the longer ones The Owl in the Sarcophagus stands out as being the most emotionally pure of his poems. I also like the mobilisation of ancient imagery (which is mostly just implied) to talk about the 'mythology of modern death'.

I hope you forgive me the general rambling tone of this post, but you asked yourself for an elaboration ;) And feel free to share any of your thoughts!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on February 01, 2012, 03:52:15 PM
Do you have any thoughts on The Auroras of Autumn or Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour?

My favorite early/short Stevens poems are Earthly Anecdote, Indian River, and Depression before Spring. I never really liked The Emperor of Ice-Cream all that much for some reason I can't really pin down.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on February 01, 2012, 07:11:58 PM
Cannon's Rules of Order


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oakvale on February 01, 2012, 07:13:52 PM
I just started Mike Doughty's (of Soul Coughing fame) memoir, The Book Of Drugs. I'm really enjoying it so far. It manages to be harrowing and kind of funny at the same time.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on February 04, 2012, 11:58:07 AM
The Shining by Stephen King


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on February 04, 2012, 12:23:05 PM
Andreas Maier & Christine Büchner, Bullau. Versuch über Natur and Jörg Heinisch, Mehr als nur der 12. Mann: Ein Streifzug durch die Fanszene von Eintracht Frankfurt


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on February 05, 2012, 01:23:56 AM
Is that an academic paper on the fan culture of Eintracht Frankfurt? That sounds pretty cool. Didn't know anyone wrote about things like that.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on February 05, 2012, 04:39:15 AM
Is that an academic paper on the fan culture of Eintracht Frankfurt? That sounds pretty cool. Didn't know anyone wrote about things like that.
No, it's a fullscale nonfiction book. And not particularly academic. (And not as well put together as the same publishers' books on, say, Eintracht Frankfurt's 59-60 European run. Or the quite academic one on the club's pre-45 history. Both of which I own, while I checked this one out of the city library.)

But such academic papers exist as well, of course.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on February 05, 2012, 11:39:58 AM
Lord of Discipline by Pat Conroy


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on February 09, 2012, 03:32:14 PM
()

I'm feeling sorta open-minded today, so.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on February 12, 2012, 07:04:11 AM
Finished The Corrections, which was good but a bit depressing. Then I read The Imperfectionists.

Now, it is time for Heidegger if the plan holds up.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: You kip if you want to... on February 14, 2012, 12:09:52 PM
1984


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on February 14, 2012, 03:56:16 PM
just picked up Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont.  they reputedly go through and tear Lacan, Kristeva, etc. a new asshole.  I don't plan to read the whole thing, just to amuse myself.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on February 15, 2012, 01:13:28 AM
The Hunger Games


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on February 15, 2012, 10:26:40 AM
The Satanic Verses


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on February 15, 2012, 10:45:38 AM

How do you like it? It's been a while since I read it, but I still have quite good memories of it. Might be my favourite Rushdie novel (for some reason I can't finish Midnight's Children, I still liked Shalimar the Clown a lot, though.

I'm currently on a bit of a Louis Paul Boon binge. Tremendous writer and great man, even if he might accurately be described, in the words of a friend of mine, as a bit of an 'outdated Flemish socialist'. Just finished his war memoir Mijn Kleine Oorlog (which *google google* is availabe in English as My Little War). Next up is semi-historical work Het Geuzenboek which deals with the Eighty Year's War, but rather than looking at the birth of the Republic in the north, Boon focuses on the end of the uprising in the South, with all the doom and gloom that should accompany such a theme.
Maybe afterwards I'll have a go at his magnum opus: the diptych De Kapellekensbaan-Zomer te Ter-Muren. Both of which are mainly concerned with the rise of socialism in Flanders from the late 19th century onwards.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on February 15, 2012, 01:11:39 PM
Very short book then?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on February 15, 2012, 03:15:50 PM

My Little War?

Yes, very. About a hundred pages*, depending in what version the translation uses: the slightly shorter and 'harsher' 1946 version, or the slightly longer and 'cleaner' 1960s version. (Main difference would be the tidying up of the language though, as the early Boon is much more radical in choosing an undeniably Flemish language, which is an important part of Boon's greatness. You wouldn't notice that in translation, I suppose. In fact I'm having some doubts about the possibility of a good translation of any Boon novel, but I'm not going to criticize what I haven't read.)

*: Descibing it as a 'memoir' might be a bit misleading. 'Impressions' would be a better fit.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on February 15, 2012, 07:47:04 PM
No, it were a little (unfunny) joke. You mentioned two books dealing with the rise of Socialism in Flanders. Thus the joke.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on February 16, 2012, 08:34:52 AM
Game Change


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on February 17, 2012, 07:21:44 AM
No, it were a little (unfunny) joke. You mentioned two books dealing with the rise of Socialism in Flanders. Thus the joke.
The rise of socialism in Flanders from the late 19th century onwards has been and will continue to be slow but inexorable. The book deals with the entire period from humble beginnings in the 19th century to unanimous socialist victories - in free and fair elections - in the 74th century, and deals with every episode in painstaking detail. It has 374,597,816 pages.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on February 18, 2012, 11:10:40 AM
How do you like it? It's been a while since I read it, but I still have quite good memories of it. Might be my favourite Rushdie novel (for some reason I can't finish Midnight's Children, I still liked Shalimar the Clown a lot, though.

I'm enjoying it immensely. Rushdie's writing is beautiful, and there's a fantastic magic realist element to the plot. I can see why it would offend certain Muslims, though...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on March 02, 2012, 03:24:23 PM
Currently reading 'The Coup' by John Updike. Not what I was expecting, to be honest.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Taft Republican on March 06, 2012, 09:20:10 AM
The collected Poems and Plays of T.S. Eliot, love The Hollow Men.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on March 08, 2012, 09:23:07 PM
Atlas Shrugged--Ayn Rand


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on March 09, 2012, 06:42:26 AM
The Stand by Stephen King


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on March 09, 2012, 03:30:30 PM
Liu Shaoqi and the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Lowell Dittmer


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on March 09, 2012, 03:42:23 PM
recently read 'The Inspector General' by Gogol and 'A Very Brief Intoduction to Socialism' by Michael Newman.  currently working on 'From Ritual to Record' by Allen Guttman and Susan Brownell's 'Beijing's Games: What the Olympics Mean to China'.


significantly cutting back on / ceasing alcohol use has made reading much more enjoyable/possible


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 15, 2012, 08:18:19 AM
I'm reading War With the Newts by Capek.

Fascinating and pretty funny book. Also read his play, R.U.R.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on March 21, 2012, 04:01:50 PM
Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman by Patricia Bosworth


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on March 21, 2012, 04:19:21 PM
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on March 21, 2012, 04:34:29 PM
Katrin Himmler: The Himmler Brothers. Fascinating insight story of a seemingly fairly typical catholic German upper middle class family that produced one of the worlds worst mass murderers (who couldn't stand the sight of blood).
She is married to an Israeli by the way! Divine irony.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on March 26, 2012, 04:26:53 PM
I finished The Brothers Karamazov earlier this week, in terms of pleasure reading.

In terms of not-so-pleasure reading, I'm working my way through Dagmar Herzog's Sex After Fascism, which examines the myths and perceptions arising re: sexuality in the Nazi era and how they affected the development of sexuality in both West and East Germany postwar.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on March 26, 2012, 06:31:11 PM
I am nearing the end of The Just War Myth by Andrew Fiala. He is an engaging writer but I do not recommend the book for anyone who has a lot of interest in war theory. It is pretty much another book attacking the Bush Administration and the War on Terror (a good thing in my opinion) but at times it strays from critiquing the Christian theories of a just war.

I am also reading a bunch of special education books as I labor towards my doctorate in education and you would have no interest in those (unless you love IDEA 2004 and the Larry P decision!).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on March 26, 2012, 06:45:51 PM
I finished The Brothers Karamazov earlier this week, in terms of pleasure reading.

thoughts?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on March 27, 2012, 07:40:22 PM
Read The Kite Runner in one day - I enjoyed it, but it was profoundly depressing.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on March 27, 2012, 07:50:51 PM
I've been assigned The Catcher in the Rye for school, so let's see where that one goes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on March 27, 2012, 09:44:34 PM
I finished The Brothers Karamazov earlier this week, in terms of pleasure reading.

thoughts?

Short version is that it's one of the most powerful books I've ever read and that Dostoyevsky's insight into the human mind is really only matched by Shakespeare and Goethe among authors I've read.  Long version would be full of spoilers.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on March 28, 2012, 06:32:59 AM
Spoiler alert: Alyosha is the killer.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on March 28, 2012, 09:27:11 AM
A History of Saudi Arabia, because I got bored of Niall Ferguson's Colossus.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Purch on March 28, 2012, 09:29:27 AM
End the Fed

-Ron Paul



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on March 28, 2012, 10:15:24 AM
Just finished "To kill a mockingbird."  We have a bunch a books coming due on Sunday (borrowing is for three weeks at the local public library), so I'll pick something else up.  I read a nice review of Leon Uris' "Armageddon" and I see that it's in stock, so maybe I'll get that one.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on March 28, 2012, 10:58:54 AM

Ah, I see that you are a man of taste and distinction.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on March 28, 2012, 11:04:12 AM
Focussing on One Hundred Years of Solitude, it's not good. Wool is pretty good though, reading that on my tellingphone.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on March 28, 2012, 05:11:17 PM
Does anyone have any good suggestions that I could bring up for the next meeting of my international book club? The last book we read was a looping polemic that turned out to have been chosen solely so that the libertarians in the club could use it as a jumping off point to spread their gospel. The next book is Niall Ferguson's "The West and the Rest", and I can already tell that I won't like it. I desperately need to be equipped with a good suggestion the next time around. We want some more women to attend the book club so ideally it would be a book that would attract some more women. I am thinking of Nicholas Kristoff's 'Half the Sky' but I wonder if that is too explicitly feminist. Another book that I like is Mara Hvistendahl's 'Unnatural Selection'.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 28, 2012, 06:14:33 PM
Does anyone have any good suggestions that I could bring up for the next meeting of my international book club? The last book we read was a looping polemic that turned out to have been chosen solely so that the libertarians in the club could use it as a jumping off point to spread their gospel. The next book is Niall Ferguson's "The West and the Rest", and I can already tell that I won't like it. I desperately need to be equipped with a good suggestion the next time around. We want some more women to attend the book club so ideally it would be a book that would attract some more women. I am thinking of Nicholas Kristoff's 'Half the Sky' but I wonder if that is too explicitly feminist. Another book that I like is Mara Hvistendahl's 'Unnatural Selection'.

8 women on a train was in our book club once. Horrible book, yes, but international and feminist. ;)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Queen Mum Inks.LWC on March 29, 2012, 12:11:51 AM
Khrushchev Remembers


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: CatoMinor on March 29, 2012, 11:03:37 AM
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Taft Republican on March 29, 2012, 08:31:48 PM
As I Lay Dying, on a Faulkner binge. Next up, Absalom Absalom!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on March 29, 2012, 08:47:26 PM
Does anyone have any good suggestions that I could bring up for the next meeting of my international book club? The last book we read was a looping polemic that turned out to have been chosen solely so that the libertarians in the club could use it as a jumping off point to spread their gospel. The next book is Niall Ferguson's "The West and the Rest", and I can already tell that I won't like it. I desperately need to be equipped with a good suggestion the next time around. We want some more women to attend the book club so ideally it would be a book that would attract some more women. I am thinking of Nicholas Kristoff's 'Half the Sky' but I wonder if that is too explicitly feminist. Another book that I like is Mara Hvistendahl's 'Unnatural Selection'.

Markus Zusak: The Book Thief.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on March 30, 2012, 10:45:37 AM
Geert Mak, Jorwerd: the Death of the Village in the Late 20th Century (in German translation, of course, not in either English or the Dutch original) and Michael Thumann, der Islam-Irrtum.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 30, 2012, 12:08:26 PM
Does anyone have any good suggestions that I could bring up for the next meeting of my international book club? The last book we read was a looping polemic that turned out to have been chosen solely so that the libertarians in the club could use it as a jumping off point to spread their gospel. The next book is Niall Ferguson's "The West and the Rest", and I can already tell that I won't like it. I desperately need to be equipped with a good suggestion the next time around. We want some more women to attend the book club so ideally it would be a book that would attract some more women. I am thinking of Nicholas Kristoff's 'Half the Sky' but I wonder if that is too explicitly feminist. Another book that I like is Mara Hvistendahl's 'Unnatural Selection'.

Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, The Makioka Sisters. Though I'm biased towards this book and author.

Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing. Same problem as Kristoff?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Purch on April 02, 2012, 08:30:28 AM
Reading : A history of IRAN -Empire of the mind

Anyone ever read?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on April 02, 2012, 09:27:46 AM
Just finished Discipline and Punish - Foucault was a genius.

Now, on to some Edgar Allan Poe. It's not quite as good as I thought it would be.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on April 02, 2012, 10:23:45 AM
re-read the opening parts of David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism; picked up Civilization and Its Discontents from an (awesome) used bookstore on Saturday night.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on April 08, 2012, 06:46:42 PM
The Double by Dostoevsky

One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Kessey



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Frozen Sky Ever Why on April 08, 2012, 08:00:52 PM
I didn't know OFOTCN was a book. It disgusts me no one comes with great films themselves.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on April 08, 2012, 08:46:39 PM

insufferable in parts.  still worth reading, to see where he came from.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on April 09, 2012, 04:10:11 AM
I didn't know OFOTCN was a book. It disgusts me no one comes with great films themselves.
And as ever, the book is even better than the film. Though the film is very good, too.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on April 09, 2012, 07:50:53 PM

Meant to add this a while ago: it's actually very, very good. My Nan's from that corner of the world as well, which gives a degree of added meaning or something.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on April 09, 2012, 08:01:01 PM
Thanks for the suggestions guys.

It looks like we're going with the Great Transformation by Polyani, which I am looking forward to.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on April 09, 2012, 08:29:40 PM
Thanks for the suggestions guys.

It looks like we're going with the Great Transformation by Polyani, which I am looking forward to.

I didn't like it as a reading-book but I suppose it's something that you 'should' read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on April 11, 2012, 08:28:38 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on April 12, 2012, 06:51:44 AM
bought my first Eric Hobsbawm book yesterday, his most recent.  though I had pirated .pdfs of about three others.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on April 12, 2012, 11:08:52 AM
bought my first Eric Hobsbawm book yesterday, his most recent.  though I had pirated .pdfs of about three others.
You naughty boy...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on April 12, 2012, 12:10:58 PM
bought my first Eric Hobsbawm book yesterday, his most recent.  though I had pirated .pdfs of about three others.
You naughty boy...

ah, I was just about to tell you how that sounded creepy, and I only like it when women talk to me like that, and in clicking through to your profile I discovered that you were a woman.  keep it up!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on April 12, 2012, 04:50:48 PM
Which Hobsbawm book?  I'm quite fond of Nations and Nationalism Since 1780.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on April 12, 2012, 08:01:12 PM
How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on April 14, 2012, 11:51:38 PM
Just finished Atlas Shrugged. Amazing book :)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on April 15, 2012, 09:57:01 AM
()

Really nice romance novel that I enjoy reading around this time of the year.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on April 15, 2012, 10:04:30 AM
Just finished Atlas Shrugged. Amazing book :)

no.  say whatever you want about the 'theme', she is a formally terrible writer.  read some real literature.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on April 15, 2012, 10:21:21 AM
Beyond terrible, really. Some bleak netherworld of antiliterature.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on April 15, 2012, 12:12:39 PM
The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung Sang Suu Kyi


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on April 16, 2012, 05:13:42 PM
Just finished Atlas Shrugged. Amazing book :)

no.  say whatever you want about the 'theme', she is a formally terrible writer.  read some real literature.
I thought her writing was "ok". Keep in mind, I am only a 9th grader who has not read anything really amazing besides a few Orwell books and a bunch of Ron Paul/Barry Goldwater books.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on April 16, 2012, 05:16:31 PM
Just finished Atlas Shrugged. Amazing book :)

no.  say whatever you want about the 'theme', she is a formally terrible writer.  read some real literature.
I thought her writing was "ok". Keep in mind, I am only a 9th grader who has not read anything really amazing besides a few Orwell books and a bunch of Ron Paul/Barry Goldwater books.

Seriously, my friend, read some George Eliot or Alexander Pushkin and you'll realize that Atlas Shrugged is an egregious waste of paper. Take my word for it: I've read Atlas Shrugged three times.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Yelnoc on April 16, 2012, 07:01:19 PM
bought my first Eric Hobsbawm book yesterday, his most recent.  though I had pirated .pdfs of about three others.
You naughty boy...

ah, I was just about to tell you how that sounded creepy, and I only like it when women talk to me like that, and in clicking through to your profile I discovered that you were a woman.  keep it up!
Way to not come off as creepy, Bro Tweed.

And I'm reading Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett, though I'm supposed to be reading The Importance of Being Earnest.  School; bleh.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on April 17, 2012, 05:07:11 AM
Beyond the Pleasure Principle


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on April 17, 2012, 07:16:51 AM
The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung Sang Suu Kyi

I was thinking of getting that, is it worthwhile?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on April 17, 2012, 10:40:30 AM

atta boy!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on April 19, 2012, 11:42:39 AM
The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung Sang Suu Kyi

I was thinking of getting that, is it worthwhile?

For me who had absolutely no clue who this woman was, absolutely. It's a bit light on the history of Burma 1947-1988, however.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Donerail on April 20, 2012, 08:46:55 PM
Managed to get my hands on a signed copy of The Speech by Bernie Sanders at some book store over in Vero Beach, FL. It's actually pretty good; some bits I do disagree with, but the man can write, or speak, as it is.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on April 23, 2012, 10:20:11 PM
As of right now I am reading The Big Book of Porn: A Penetrating Look at the World of Dirty Movies by Seth Grahame-Smith. It is the only book I do not feel comfortable reading at work. Not that it has any "dirty pictures" but I do not want the looks it would attract.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on April 24, 2012, 05:32:56 PM
Finished "The Godfather" at like 12:30 this morning.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on May 05, 2012, 04:13:06 PM
coming soon!

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on May 05, 2012, 06:02:14 PM
Just finished Atlas Shrugged. Amazing book :)

no.  say whatever you want about the 'theme', she is a formally terrible writer.  read some real literature.
I thought her writing was "ok". Keep in mind, I am only a 9th grader who has not read anything really amazing besides a few Orwell books and a bunch of Ron Paul/Barry Goldwater books.

Seriously, my friend, read some George Eliot or Alexander Pushkin and you'll realize that Atlas Shrugged is an egregious waste of paper. Take my word for it: I've read Atlas Shrugged three times.
I will consider it ;) I just read Ayn Rands Anthem in a day, and it was pretty good. Its only 90 something pages, and of course, the rest of my English class is complaining about it. I can't wait to see them try and read Atlas Shrugged :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on May 05, 2012, 07:49:34 PM
Or you could read something good.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on May 05, 2012, 08:18:26 PM
Just finished Atlas Shrugged. Amazing book :)

no.  say whatever you want about the 'theme', she is a formally terrible writer.  read some real literature.
I thought her writing was "ok". Keep in mind, I am only a 9th grader who has not read anything really amazing besides a few Orwell books and a bunch of Ron Paul/Barry Goldwater books.

Seriously, my friend, read some George Eliot or Alexander Pushkin and you'll realize that Atlas Shrugged is an egregious waste of paper. Take my word for it: I've read Atlas Shrugged three times.
I will consider it ;) I just read Ayn Rands Anthem in a day, and it was pretty good. Its only 90 something pages, and of course, the rest of my English class is complaining about it. I can't wait to see them try and read Atlas Shrugged :P

Sanchez, you're a smart guy; you really do need to get some good literature into you. If you were able to get through Atlas Shrugged you should be able to get through at least some of the shorter Dostoevsky, for one thing, or Tanizaki. You also might like Ayako Miura, particularly Freezing Point.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on May 07, 2012, 06:08:36 PM
Rajaa al-Sanea, Girls of Riyadh


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Napoleon on May 07, 2012, 06:35:00 PM
The Iron Heel by Jack London. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Heel) I highly recommend it to all of you as there are many parallels to what is going on right now in spite of its being published over a century ago.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on May 10, 2012, 08:39:34 AM
been binging on New Left Review.  so good.

http://newleftreview.org/


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on May 10, 2012, 02:07:56 PM
()

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on May 10, 2012, 09:41:11 PM
chill w/ the bourgeois sh**t.  you're a good kid.  read some real sh**t.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on May 10, 2012, 11:04:28 PM
chill w/ the bourgeois sh**t.  you're a good kid.  read some real sh**t.

What would you suggest? Also, what's wrong with Krugman? He's the most the prominent anti-third way pundit out there at the moment and he also happens to be a brilliant economist.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Marokai Backbeat on May 10, 2012, 11:06:39 PM
You have to be a "radical."


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on May 11, 2012, 04:42:35 AM
To be honest, though, there's really no excuse for reading Fuckuyama.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on May 11, 2012, 06:26:33 AM
Not true; you need to read him to get a piece of paper.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on May 11, 2012, 10:34:44 AM
To be honest, though, there's really no excuse for reading Fuckuyama.

I forgot my kindle before a long flight so I picked it up on a whim to see what was so horrible about him. Surprisingly it wasn't that bad. At least a few of his assertions are somewhat interesting even if they're mostly based on pseudo-history and weak arguments.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on May 11, 2012, 05:28:02 PM
there's nothing wrong with Krugman, except that he is limited.  it is without argument a good thing that he and Stiglitz (among others) emerged as a neo-Keynesian counterweight during the neoliberal grand slam era of the 90s.  but he basically beats concepts into the ground, ruing the fact that policymakers don't listen... and herein lies the limitation: he has no serious understanding of why neoliberal policies persist, no functioning theory of state power is deployed in his work.  this is likely a product of the absolute taboo on Marxian thought within economics in academia.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on May 11, 2012, 09:07:06 PM
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: tmthforu94 on May 11, 2012, 10:07:54 PM
The Russian Revolution - Richard Pipes

I'm really starting to get into it - our school library had it in stock so I'm rushing to get it read before the end of the semester.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on May 11, 2012, 10:10:46 PM
Naguib Mahfouz, al-Karnak


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on May 11, 2012, 10:27:29 PM
Romeo and Juliet


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Queen Mum Inks.LWC on May 12, 2012, 12:42:04 AM

School assignment?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Хahar 🤔 on May 12, 2012, 01:50:45 AM
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power

I'm also reading this at the moment, although I haven't gotten far yet.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on May 13, 2012, 08:10:14 AM
there's nothing wrong with Krugman, except that he is limited.  it is without argument a good thing that he and Stiglitz (among others) emerged as a neo-Keynesian counterweight during the neoliberal grand slam era of the 90s.  but he basically beats concepts into the ground, ruing the fact that policymakers don't listen... and herein lies the limitation: he has no serious understanding of why neoliberal policies persist, no functioning theory of state power is deployed in his work.  this is likely a product of the absolute taboo on Marxian thought within economics in academia.

Saying there's a taboo on Marxian thought in economics is like saying there is a taboo on Ptolemy thought in astronomy.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Miles on May 17, 2012, 06:00:27 PM
The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine by staffers at Media Matters.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on May 29, 2012, 01:47:55 AM
Fifty Shades of Grey


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on May 29, 2012, 05:47:54 AM

Indeed it was.

I'm currently reading The Obama Nation by Jerome Corsi. Interesting read, but I don't have much time to read it as I'm juggling a sudden barrage of schoolwork and loads of band practice.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on May 29, 2012, 01:32:39 PM
I just finished The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco. It was exactly as terrifying, disgusting, and evil as everybody (including Eco) told me it would be. A work of genius that I couldn't in good conscience recommend to anybody and will never read again.

I'm starting on The Violent Bear It Away, the only Flannery O'Connor book I haven't yet read. I also have to reread St Augustine's Confessions over the summer, and want to try to parse Yoshiya Nobuko's Hana monogatari and Onibi.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on May 29, 2012, 02:11:23 PM
Lord Jim


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on May 29, 2012, 03:42:51 PM
Just finished Atlas Shrugged. Amazing book :)

no.  say whatever you want about the 'theme', she is a formally terrible writer.  read some real literature.
I thought her writing was "ok". Keep in mind, I am only a 9th grader who has not read anything really amazing besides a few Orwell books and a bunch of Ron Paul/Barry Goldwater books.

Seriously, my friend, read some George Eliot or Alexander Pushkin and you'll realize that Atlas Shrugged is an egregious waste of paper. Take my word for it: I've read Atlas Shrugged three times.
I will consider it ;) I just read Ayn Rands Anthem in a day, and it was pretty good. Its only 90 something pages, and of course, the rest of my English class is complaining about it. I can't wait to see them try and read Atlas Shrugged :P

Sanchez, you're a smart guy; you really do need to get some good literature into you. If you were able to get through Atlas Shrugged you should be able to get through at least some of the shorter Dostoevsky, for one thing, or Tanizaki. You also might like Ayako Miura, particularly Freezing Point.
Thank You :) I am reading a Russian book....by Ayn Rand. But I intend to read War and Peace sometime soon. But to fill the time in between, I think I will rent one of Pat Buchanans many books from the library.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Donerail on May 29, 2012, 07:42:57 PM
The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America by Kenneth Pollack. Pretty in-depth history of US-Iran/Persia relations.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on May 29, 2012, 08:06:58 PM
But to fill the time in between, I think I will rent one of Pat Buchanans many books from the library.

Or you could, you know, read something good.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Simpsons Cinematic Universe on May 29, 2012, 09:15:32 PM
One of the classic, most socially conscious works of our time.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71610F1MDNL._SL500_AA300_.gif (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71610F1MDNL._SL500_AA300_.gif)

I have Crime and Punishment and The Secret History as summer reading for AP Literature. Thoughts on these?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on May 29, 2012, 10:13:18 PM

I have Crime and Punishment and The Secret History as summer reading for AP Literature. Thoughts on these?

Crime and Punishment is one of the most amazing books I've ever had the pleasure to read (though, now that I've read The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment needed a bit of a demotion).  IMO, Dostoyevsky ranks with Goethe and Shakespeare on my very short list of authors who truly understand and can vividly depict the inner workings of the human mind.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Free Palestine on May 29, 2012, 10:21:37 PM
The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis

The European Union: A Very Short Introduction by John Pinder and Simon Usherwood


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on May 30, 2012, 08:54:55 AM

I have Crime and Punishment and The Secret History as summer reading for AP Literature. Thoughts on these?

Crime and Punishment is one of the most amazing books I've ever had the pleasure to read (though, now that I've read The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment needed a bit of a demotion).  IMO, Dostoyevsky ranks with Goethe and Shakespeare on my very short list of authors who truly understand and can vividly depict the inner workings of the human mind.

Yes. I aim to finish my Tolstoy short stories and then move to Pynchon.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on May 30, 2012, 09:31:48 PM
Stephen Fry in America.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lasitten on June 02, 2012, 07:13:52 AM
Rebel cities by David Harvey.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Redalgo on June 02, 2012, 12:23:05 PM
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on June 02, 2012, 11:16:49 PM

Thoughts? I've read a few of Harvey's short pieces for class, and A Brief History of Neoliberalism has been on my reading list for a while.

good man


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on June 04, 2012, 12:26:58 PM
'Serious:' The Last Great Senate by Ira Shapiro

Fiction: Women by Charles Bukowski


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: k-onmmunist on June 04, 2012, 01:22:59 PM
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on June 04, 2012, 02:33:02 PM
"I Want My Hat Back"


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Vote UKIP! on June 04, 2012, 02:38:15 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on June 04, 2012, 02:42:38 PM
But to fill the time in between, I think I will rent one of Pat Buchanans many books from the library.

Or you could, you know, read something good.
I could always read 50 Shades of Gray when my mom is done with it. :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on June 04, 2012, 03:21:19 PM
But to fill the time in between, I think I will rent one of Pat Buchanans many books from the library.

Or you could, you know, read something good.
I could always read 50 Shades of Gray when my mom is done with it. :P

"Don't knock Fifty shades," I said, as I cocked my head to the right and bit my lip. I was turning eighteen shades of blush. I took a sip of my favorite English Twinnings tea and thought about my next flight to Seattle.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Miles on June 06, 2012, 12:58:12 PM
I'm listening to Tom Delay's autobiography on audiobook. As much as I detest what he did politically, he had a pretty interesting life.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 06, 2012, 05:09:36 PM
My history teacher gave me an extra copy of a Jefferson biography that he was given. One I'm done with "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" I guess I'll start it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on June 06, 2012, 10:02:42 PM
"Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72"

+1


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lasitten on June 07, 2012, 06:57:20 AM

Thoughts? I've read a few of Harvey's short pieces for class, and A Brief History of Neoliberalism has been on my reading list for a while.

I have read Harvey's Brief history of Neoliberalism and older Social Justice and the City (1975) and now I'm reading that Rebel cities to get ideas for campaign for city council. I just started rebel cities and I have liked so far. I like Harvey's books much and one thing that has something to do with is that I study human geography in the university.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 14, 2012, 11:48:26 PM
Hana monogatari by Yoshiya Nobuko, the first whole text in Japanese I've attempted to read. I'm understanding about a third to half of it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on June 15, 2012, 09:06:51 AM
()

My favourite graphic novel.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 16, 2012, 08:05:48 AM

Great Choice! ;D

As for me, I just finished Dr. Thompson's "Fear & Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72". Now I'm on to a huge book on Thomas Jefferson.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Incipimus iterum on June 16, 2012, 10:21:25 AM
im reading: A national party No more The Conscious of a Conservative Democrat by Former Senator Zell Miller of Georgia


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Donerail on June 16, 2012, 02:04:23 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 16, 2012, 10:53:29 PM

Looks awesome.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Donerail on June 17, 2012, 08:28:55 AM

It's pretty good; I have a whole box of Middle East books I'm reading this summer and it was the first I picked up.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on June 18, 2012, 02:45:19 PM
Just finished Revolutionary Road and The Easter Parade (both by Richard Yates).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Negusa Nagast 🚀 on June 18, 2012, 06:50:24 PM
Just finished the following two books:

()

()

Currently reading through the Fountainhead and the Satanic Verses. I also picked up The Road and Fast Food Nation today and will likely read one of them while I'm away.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on June 19, 2012, 01:36:32 PM
I'm starting Dumas Malone's six volume biography of Jefferson.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on June 19, 2012, 04:46:54 PM
Serjeant Musgrave's Dance


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: CatoMinor on June 19, 2012, 07:59:44 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on June 19, 2012, 08:25:39 PM
The Nyāyasūtrabhāśya (Illumination of the Aphorisms on Logic), a 4th century commentary on the original treatise outlining ancient Hindu logic and epistemology.  Its authorship is attributed to Vātsyāyana, who is, according to legend, the same man who wrote the Kāmasūtra.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: technical support on June 24, 2012, 09:35:30 PM
the hunger games by suzanne collins


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tender Branson on June 27, 2012, 01:54:13 AM
I started the 6000 page series of "Game of Thrones" yesterday, in ENGLISH.

Have read about 50 so far. So, if current trends hold, I'll finish the series in about 4 months.

;)

(I somehow read the English Harry Potter books much faster when they came out, took me only 1 or 2 nights to read them)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: BritishDixie on June 27, 2012, 03:47:02 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Miles on June 27, 2012, 03:50:28 PM
The other day I got More Davids Than Goliaths, Harold Ford Jr.'s autobiography.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on June 27, 2012, 04:03:27 PM
You people make me sick.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on June 27, 2012, 05:31:48 PM
I, the Jury by Mickey Spillane.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: CLARENCE 2015! on June 27, 2012, 11:43:03 PM
In the Garden of Beasts- Erik Larson

Highly recommended book with insight from the perspective of Ambassador Dodd and his family into the early Third Reich...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on June 27, 2012, 11:47:30 PM
In the Garden of Beasts- Erik Larson

Highly recommended book with insight from the perspective of Ambassador Dodd and his family into the early Third Reich...

I had that book recommended to me elsewhere recently, will consider checking that out.

I've read many, many, many books lately, but at the moment I'm almost done with Tim Blanning's 700-page The Pursuit of Glory, a history of Europe 1648-1815.  It's...amazingly detailed, to the point of having a 30 page chapter on changes in gardening and hunting.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: CLARENCE 2015! on June 27, 2012, 11:49:30 PM
In the Garden of Beasts- Erik Larson

Highly recommended book with insight from the perspective of Ambassador Dodd and his family into the early Third Reich...

I had that book recommended to me elsewhere recently, will consider checking that out.

I've read many, many, many books lately, but at the moment I'm almost done with Tim Blanning's 700-page The Pursuit of Glory, a history of Europe 1648-1815.  It's...amazingly detailed, to the point of having a 30 page chapter on changes in gardening and hunting.
You'd love it, Mikado-


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on June 28, 2012, 06:50:59 AM
In the Garden of Beasts- Erik Larson

Highly recommended book with insight from the perspective of Ambassador Dodd and his family into the early Third Reich...

I had that book recommended to me elsewhere recently, will consider checking that out.

I've read many, many, many books lately, but at the moment I'm almost done with Tim Blanning's 700-page The Pursuit of Glory, a history of Europe 1648-1815.  It's...amazingly detailed, to the point of having a 30 page chapter on changes in gardening and hunting.

Great book. Ages since I read it though.

I'm currently reading Homosexuality and Civilization by Louis Crompton.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Donerail on June 28, 2012, 07:59:08 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lasitten on June 28, 2012, 08:30:50 AM
I just finished to read Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine and Ellroy's The Big Nowhere and I loved them. Especially Vonnegut's book which I read third time. It made just the same impact than last time when I read it when I was 15.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dereich on June 28, 2012, 02:19:43 PM
Rereading one of my favorite books: Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty by Karl Shaw. Its hilarious and you all should read it if you need a good laugh/want to be horrified at Europe over the past few centuries.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on June 28, 2012, 03:19:20 PM
I just finished to read Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine and Ellroy's The Big Nowhere and I loved them. Especially Vonnegut's book which I read third time. It made just the same impact than last time when I read it when I was 15.


Quite a fun one, that, eh?

I'm finishing the Collected Works of Willem Elsschot right now, for completeness' sake.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on June 28, 2012, 10:30:05 PM
Currently I am reading Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West by Steven E. Woodworth. It is an older work but it is one of the few treatments of President Davis and his handling of the Western Theater of the War Between the States.

Off and on when I have a spare moment I also am reading One Man's America by George Will.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on June 29, 2012, 12:46:02 PM
American Insurgents
A Brief History of American Anti-Imperialism
by Richard Seymour



http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/American-Insurgents


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on June 30, 2012, 02:02:10 PM
A biography of Muddy Waters.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on June 30, 2012, 08:24:45 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on July 06, 2012, 01:20:27 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 06, 2012, 03:27:49 AM
I finished my Tolstoy short stories and now I'm about to finish a book called In Praise of Older Women. I made a deal with a female friend that we would recommend and lend each other a book and read until our next encounter. She gave me that, which is a strange Hungarian book chronicling a man's sexual adventures with older women, basically. A fun read but a bit weird.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on July 06, 2012, 11:27:16 AM
I read my first fiction in half a year, Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on July 06, 2012, 01:24:08 PM
I just finished Michael Barone's "Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America's Founding Fathers".

Took only four days to read it. I was previously familiar with the Glorious Revolution thanks to watching Simon Schama's History of Britain series a few years back and from playing EUII. This book provided some interesting details, though.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on July 06, 2012, 10:31:22 PM
Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God is Within You


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lasitten on July 08, 2012, 11:37:21 AM
Conn Iggulden's Emperor: Gates of the Rome. It was entertaining and a quick-read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on July 08, 2012, 09:45:12 PM

wow.  there's a book?  That's disturbing.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 09, 2012, 08:58:22 AM
Just began Shame by Salman Rushdie. Very entertaining read so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on July 09, 2012, 12:16:35 PM

Yes.  The movie was made afterwards. :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: CatoMinor on July 09, 2012, 04:42:23 PM
Just picked up Brave New World


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on July 09, 2012, 05:47:15 PM
()

For school.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on July 10, 2012, 03:38:00 AM
Just began Shame by Salman Rushdie. Very entertaining read so far.
Oh yes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on July 10, 2012, 06:51:50 PM
Chris Ealham - Anarchism and the City


Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace (translated by Constance Garnett :()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HagridOfTheDeep on July 11, 2012, 04:02:37 AM
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. It's no Pillars, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a fun read. Just quick and simple, but I like it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on July 11, 2012, 12:20:24 PM
Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace (translated by Constance Garnett :()

No access to Pevear and Volokhonsky? Or are you feeling masochistic?

I would have to buy it


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: opebo on July 12, 2012, 01:25:46 PM
I finished my Tolstoy short stories and now I'm about to finish a book called In Praise of Older Women. I made a deal with a female friend that we would recommend and lend each other a book and read until our next encounter. She gave me that, which is a strange Hungarian book chronicling a man's sexual adventures with older women, basically. A fun read but a bit weird.

That sounds right up my alley.  Is your friend an Older Woman?  Perhaps she's sending you a not-so-subtle hint.

I'm currently reading one of Somerset Maugham's lesser works - The Magician.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 14, 2012, 04:59:42 AM
I finished my Tolstoy short stories and now I'm about to finish a book called In Praise of Older Women. I made a deal with a female friend that we would recommend and lend each other a book and read until our next encounter. She gave me that, which is a strange Hungarian book chronicling a man's sexual adventures with older women, basically. A fun read but a bit weird.

That sounds right up my alley.  Is your friend an Older Woman?  Perhaps she's sending you a not-so-subtle hint.

I'm currently reading one of Somerset Maugham's lesser works - The Magician.

Yeah, I think it safe to say that you'd like it. It's not misogynistic though, which is what made is possible for me to enjoy it.

She is an older woman, yes. :P She is a quite strange person though. She invited me to come visit her at some point when I happened to be nearby (we normally live in different cities) and as we were having tea together she asked me if I had had expected to sleep with her upon coming there. I was very awkward and taken aback and sort of just muttered things and then she said that she would have but currently was in a too complicated situation to allow for an extra lover. :P

But that was 6 months ago, so I guess things might have changed.
Just began Shame by Salman Rushdie. Very entertaining read so far.
Oh yes.

So, I've finished it and thought it was pretty awesome. I happened to be in a book store yesterday to buy a gift for my dad and stumbled upon several Rushdie books that I very spontaneously bought. What did you think of it and how do you interpret it?

As a side note having had a taste of his sarcasm (this was my first Rushdie) I totally understand that he would get a fatwa against him. The man is a total asshole. And I mean that in the good way.

------------------

Latest is that I'm reading Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene. Awesome read so far, highly entertaining.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 14, 2012, 06:51:07 AM
Our Man in Havana is DONE. Now on to something else, haven't decided what yet though.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on July 14, 2012, 07:31:58 AM
It's his earliest IIRC, and certainly one of his angrier books. I've read quite a few of his, but not everything, and I didn't like everything I've read. (Also, Rushdie's German translations are horrid and unreadable. Though I don't think I checked the later books' German versions as I could get those in English at the library. I think some of the early ones were translated in a rush during the Fatwa controversy, and rushed translations always suck royal circumsized balls. That I never got far with Midnight's Children is at least partly due to the translation. They don't stock it in English.) But I liked this one a lot when I read it. Been a few years though.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 14, 2012, 08:46:17 AM
It's his earliest IIRC, and certainly one of his angrier books. I've read quite a few of his, but not everything, and I didn't like everything I've read. (Also, Rushdie's German translations are horrid and unreadable. Though I don't think I checked the later books' German versions as I could get those in English at the library. I think some of the early ones were translated in a rush during the Fatwa controversy, and rushed translations always suck royal circumsized balls. That I never got far with Midnight's Children is at least partly due to the translation. They don't stock it in English.) But I liked this one a lot when I read it. Been a few years though.

Don't you mean Rushdied? :P

Ok, sorry about that. Anyway, it isn't the earliest but it's certainly early. I think it is the second after Midnight's Children, because the cover of my copy references that.

I agree on translations. Ever since my English became good enough I make a point out of reading all English novels in English.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on July 15, 2012, 07:14:07 AM
It's his earliest IIRC, and certainly one of his angrier books. I've read quite a few of his, but not everything, and I didn't like everything I've read. (Also, Rushdie's German translations are horrid and unreadable. Though I don't think I checked the later books' German versions as I could get those in English at the library. I think some of the early ones were translated in a rush during the Fatwa controversy, and rushed translations always suck royal circumsized balls. That I never got far with Midnight's Children is at least partly due to the translation. They don't stock it in English.) But I liked this one a lot when I read it. Been a few years though.

Don't you mean Rushdied? :P

Ok, sorry about that. Anyway, it isn't the earliest but it's certainly early. I think it is the second after Midnight's Children, because the cover of my copy references that.

I agree on translations. Ever since my English became good enough I make a point out of reading all English novels in English.
(wikies) apparently Children is second and Shame is third.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hatman 🍁 on July 15, 2012, 01:34:49 PM
Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore :D

Bought it used from the library yesterday (used) for $2. Already half way done. Turns out my Mom had bought it for my birthday as well, and was a little upset, but I had no idea :/


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on July 15, 2012, 03:49:23 PM
The Massie trilogy, currently partway through Nicholas and Alexandra having finished the other 2.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 16, 2012, 06:25:24 AM
Letter from the Earth by Mark Twain. It's pretty hilarious!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on July 18, 2012, 12:48:36 PM
Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace (translated by Constance Garnett :()

No access to Pevear and Volokhonsky? Or are you feeling masochistic?

I would have to buy it

I shelled out the $22 for the P/V today after reading the clumsy Garnett for 2 books.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on July 18, 2012, 03:06:57 PM
Currently I am reading The Siege of Washington: The Untold Story of the Twelve Days that Shook the Union by John and Charles Lockwood. The two brothers are wonderful story tellers and give a fine tour of Washington City in spring 1861.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on July 18, 2012, 09:48:20 PM
Jean-Paul Sartre's "The Age of Reason."

At first it was toilet seat reading, but the Cable Guy came over this morning--connected the internet, finally, and gave us 300+ channels of garbage.  I suppose this will cost an arm and a leg, but it's good to be back in touch.  Anyway, he noticed the book splayed, spine down, on a box in the basement and commented on it.  Apparently he'd read it because he was very well versed on it and had a detailed analysis regarding the development of characters.  We discussed it somewhat, but I felt a bit guilty that I was only on page 42 at the time.  Since then I've read another 30 pages.  I relate to Mathieu.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on July 19, 2012, 12:08:44 AM
Jean-Paul Sartre's "The Age of Reason."

At first it was toilet seat reading, but the Cable Guy came over this morning--connected the internet, finally, and gave us 300+ channels of garbage.  I suppose this will cost an arm and a leg, but it's good to be back in touch.  Anyway, he noticed the book splayed, spine down, on a box in the basement and commented on it.  Apparently he'd read it because he was very well versed on it and had a detailed analysis regarding the development of characters.  We discussed it somewhat, but I felt a bit guilty that I was only on page 42 at the time.  Since then I've read another 30 pages.  I relate to Mathieu.

yeah read that.  good book.  you would suffer from clinical depression without red wine, much like Sartre, read it, relate, and become a Communist


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on July 22, 2012, 03:25:22 PM
Joanna Bourke: What it means to be human: Reflections since 1791. Excellent even if a bit too poststructuralist for my liking. But very readable.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on July 22, 2012, 06:39:32 PM
Can't stand her myself, though perhaps that goes without saying...

...actually there are other reasons as well, but it's more fun to be a crusader or something.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on July 23, 2012, 04:18:35 AM
Currently reading The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: You kip if you want to... on July 23, 2012, 08:22:48 AM
Read The Communist Manifesto last week as a short flight/airport read, about to start A Very British Coup.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 23, 2012, 02:25:53 PM
Kitchen by the greatly named Banana Yoshimoto.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Vosem on July 25, 2012, 11:00:39 PM
David Harvey is really awful. Neoliberalism is pretty awesome, though. It's amazing how 'awful' and 'awesome' started out as meaning the same thing but diverged into two totally different words.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: John Dibble on July 26, 2012, 09:08:29 AM
I'm reading the Sword Art Online light novels. Just finished the first one this morning.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on July 30, 2012, 11:45:18 AM
There is No Freedom Without Bread!: 1989 and the Civil War That Brought Down Communism by Constantine Pleshakov

Just got this last week and started reading it on Saturday and I am expecting to finish it by Wednesday at the latest.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on July 30, 2012, 01:04:40 PM
Ces français qui votent Le Pen, the 2002 re-edition of an older book (but still good some 15 years later) by Nonna Mayer

Afterwards, I'll finally read the quite well-known (in elitist bobo leftie academia) Le Front national a découvert, from 1995.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: You kip if you want to... on August 01, 2012, 05:51:01 PM
Caught my eye in Waterstones. :P
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Prime-Minister-Boris-Things-Happened/dp/1849541000


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Free Palestine on August 01, 2012, 09:13:58 PM
Reading an ebook of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Psychic Octopus on August 03, 2012, 12:25:38 AM
()

Just got it today. Been on my reading list for a while.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on August 03, 2012, 10:23:10 PM
Receding Tide: Vicksburg and Gettysburg- The Campaigns That Changed the Civil War by Edwin C. Bearss and J. Parker Hills. Bearss is my favorite Civil War historian because he is a natural storyteller and this work is no exception to this rule.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 03, 2012, 10:44:07 PM
I'm reading the Sword Art Online light novels. Just finished the first one this morning.

Oh! How are they? I've been meaning to pick up the anime, since it has my favorite soundtrack composer.

I'm meaning to start a reread of St Augustine's Confessions some time soon.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on August 09, 2012, 10:06:49 PM
The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy by Dani Rodrik

http://www.amazon.com/The-Globalization-Paradox-Democracy-Economy/dp/0393071618

"From the mercantile monopolies of seventeenth-century empires to the modern-day authority of the WTO, IMF, and World Bank, the nations of the world have struggled to effectively harness globalization's promise. The economic narratives that underpinned these eras—the gold standard, the Bretton Woods regime, the "Washington Consensus"—brought great success and great failure. In this eloquent challenge to the reigning wisdom on globalization, Dani Rodrik offers a new narrative, one that embraces an ineluctable tension: we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national self-determination, and economic globalization. When the social arrangements of democracies inevitably clash with the international demands of globalization, national priorities should take precedence. Combining history with insight, humor with good-natured critique, Rodrik's case for a customizable globalization supported by a light frame of international rules shows the way to a balanced prosperity as we confront today's global challenges in trade, finance, and labor markets."


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on August 10, 2012, 08:20:58 PM
Medieval Civilization: 400-1500 by Jacques Le Goff

Been reading this since last week and it should be finished by tomorrow.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Supersonic on August 10, 2012, 08:47:24 PM
Decision Points by George W. Bush


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on August 11, 2012, 05:35:22 PM
Three new books to start:

"Lodgers", about the Bosnian civil war. Cousin told me it's both informative and hilarious, which is always a good mix.

"My Brilliant Career", which I've been vaguely meaning to read for years.

"Persuasion", cos I'm on a chick--lit-kick, but only the good stuff. I used to hate Austen, but now I'm really enjoying her.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on August 12, 2012, 12:10:04 AM
()

Just got it today. Been on my reading list for a while.

isn't this a Nazi book?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dereich on August 12, 2012, 12:43:46 AM
Theodore Rex, which is an amazing book and The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Camus.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 12, 2012, 12:56:47 AM

Imperial-style conservative German, not Nazi.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on August 12, 2012, 01:05:47 AM
^^ I will always remember that book for its mention in 'The Great Gatsby.'

The Virginian, by Owen Wister.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on August 12, 2012, 07:20:49 AM

Also known as 'Nazi-enabling.'


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 13, 2012, 07:27:26 PM

After a certain point, certainly. I'm not familiar enough with Spengler's life story to know if and when he got to that point, and I've only read parts of the actual book, which is massive.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on August 14, 2012, 08:34:22 PM
I am going to start on Confessions of an Economic Hitman as soon as I finish this post.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rhodie on August 15, 2012, 02:10:17 AM
Fatherland, by Robert Harris.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 15, 2012, 02:53:41 AM
Rereading both Floating Clouds and Augustine's Confessions. Both excellent in different ways. It's a testament to what a great writer Hayashi was that I love Floating Clouds despite hating every major character, some of them on a deeply personal level.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: #CriminalizeSobriety on August 15, 2012, 03:45:37 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Vosem on August 15, 2012, 04:11:36 PM
Survival of the Sickest, a popular science book written Sharon Moalem of the University of Toronto, who has a Ph.D. in neurogenetics, and Jonathan Prince, who worked for the Clinton Administration.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on August 15, 2012, 04:50:59 PM

I think I tried to do that, didn't work


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on August 15, 2012, 05:40:46 PM
The Odyssey for college. I had all summer to read it and with six days left I've read about 60 pages.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: patrick1 on August 15, 2012, 06:15:56 PM
The Odyssey for college. I had all summer to read it and with six days left I've read about 60 pages.

Wait, what?  You have summer reading in college?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on August 16, 2012, 09:19:03 AM
The Odyssey for college. I had all summer to read it and with six days left I've read about 60 pages.

if it's for orientation or whatever it's totally ok not to do it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on August 16, 2012, 08:56:03 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on August 17, 2012, 10:46:18 AM
The Captain and The Enemy by Graham Greene.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 17, 2012, 02:09:01 PM
The Captain and The Enemy by Graham Greene.

How is it? I'm rather fond of Greene but I've not read that one.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tricky Dickie on August 17, 2012, 02:33:28 PM
The Presidents Club.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on August 18, 2012, 04:22:19 AM
The Odyssey for college. I had all summer to read it and with six days left I've read about 60 pages.

Wait, what?  You have summer reading in college?

I'm about to attend one of the most difficult colleges in the country where it is mandatory to write a thorough and original thesis for you undergrad. I can't believe I used to be proud of myself for receiving an acceptance letter from this den of academic sadism...

@Tweed it's for a class (which is basically Reed's signature as an institution) that all freshman are required to take so I can't get out of it. I'd much rather be reading Crime and Punishment or the latest Yanis Varoufakis book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on August 18, 2012, 06:31:49 AM
I'm about to attend one of the most difficult colleges in the country where it is mandatory to write a thorough and original thesis for you undergrad.

Are undergrad dissertations that rare in the U.S?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on August 18, 2012, 10:01:04 PM
Anna Karenina in the P/V translation.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on August 18, 2012, 10:23:20 PM
I'm about to attend one of the most difficult colleges in the country where it is mandatory to write a thorough and original thesis for you undergrad.

Are undergrad dissertations that rare in the U.S?

I think Princeton and Bates are the only other two schools that require an undergrad dissertation for graduation but I could be missing a few.

Based off what I've heard, the undergraduate education at most public universities and a large percentage of liberal arts schools is a joke for the average student. The caveat is that I've heard this from people who would be characterized as elitists.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: patrick1 on August 18, 2012, 10:40:20 PM
The Odyssey for college. I had all summer to read it and with six days left I've read about 60 pages.

Wait, what?  You have summer reading in college?

I'm about to attend one of the most difficult colleges in the country where it is mandatory to write a thorough and original thesis for you undergrad. I can't believe I used to be proud of myself for receiving an acceptance letter from this den of academic sadism...

@Tweed it's for a class (which is basically Reed's signature as an institution) that all freshman are required to take so I can't get out of it. I'd much rather be reading Crime and Punishment or the latest Yanis Varoufakis book.

Interesting.  I had a mandatory 20 credits of Development of Western Civ. They had us read Iliad and Odyssey and C&P but it was more of read this by X date when they gave you the syllabus.

Best of luck and enjoy yourself.  It does seem stressful at the time but looking back you will likely miss it immensely.

Oh, I dusted off an old collection of the Harvard Classics.  Jumped into The Imitation of Christ. I don't think its working.....


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on August 19, 2012, 03:14:40 AM
The Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang, a memoir of a child growing up during China's Cultural Revolution between 1966-76.

EDIT:  I finished this book today.  I read it because I am going to teach a contemporary Chinese culture course soon, and am starting my coverage in the Cultural Revolution.  The book is mostly representative of the "scar literature" gene of the period.  But for those who have not read personal memoirs of the CR, I would highly recommend this book.  It is terribly depressing, especially because it comes from the perspective of someone who was a child at the time, but it has very, very valuable lessons.  It's not a hard read, but it's a difficult one; you will not want to find out what happens at the beginning of the next chapter as you make your way through it, but, if interested in 20th century China, please read it.  It puts a lot about China today, and our own blown-out-of-purportion political experience, very much in perspective.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: patrick1 on August 19, 2012, 06:20:53 PM
The Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang, a memoir of a child growing up during China's Cultural Revolution between 1966-76.

EDIT:  I finished this book today.  I read it because I am going to teach a contemporary Chinese culture course soon, and am starting my coverage in the Cultural Revolution.  The book is mostly representative of the "scar literature" gene of the period.  But for those who have not read personal memoirs of the CR, I would highly recommend this book.  It is terribly depressing, especially because it comes from the perspective of someone who was a child at the time, but it has very, very valuable lessons.  It's not a hard read, but it's a difficult one; you will not want to find out what happens at the beginning of the next chapter as you make your way through it, but, if interested in 20th century China, please read it.  It puts a lot about China today, and our own blown-out-of-purportion political experience, very much in perspective.

Thanks for the recommendation.  For such an important event, I realize that I know almost nothing about the cultural revolution.  My only real exposure is from the incredibly depressing Xiu Xiu: The Sent down girl and the snippets from The Red Violin.   Maybe I'll audit your class ;)

Just started reading some Cavalli-Sforza books on human population genetics.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on August 19, 2012, 07:33:18 PM
"Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl" is pretty depressing but a good film to watch for that period, as is "The Blue Kite," which is perhaps even more unnerving.  (It's pretty hard to find anything remotely realistic about the Cultural Revolution that's not thoroughly depressing, though).  Another film worth checking out might be Zhang Yimou's "To Live" (Huo Zhe, which follows a small family's fortunes and misfortunes through a greater scope of 20th century China but has a lot of interesting depictions from the Cultural Revolution.  That ten years in Chinese history has to have been one of the most tragic decades in their entire forty-five hundred some years of civilization, entirely self-inflicted, entirely unnecessary and unbelievably redolent of the perils of both political society and human nature.  It all grew out of internal party power struggles between Mao and his perceived (often not even actual) enemies, and resulting in a coercion of the population to completely turn on one another over and over again, and shows what an almost indescribably inept, aimless and cruel leader Mao became after the mid '50's.  Living in China in the late '60's compared to what it's like to live there now was almost like being entirely on another world--the current one is far from perfect, surely, but the former one was so much more horrible.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on August 19, 2012, 08:09:53 PM
anvi, have you heard of the book 'Mao's Last Revolution' by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on August 19, 2012, 09:24:54 PM
I haven't read that one yet, Beet, but the authors are fine scholars and critics, as far as I understand it, praise it even though they find the authors' conclusions a little elusive.  I will read it when I get the chance.  Have you?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on August 20, 2012, 12:10:26 AM
It's rather long and detailed, but I've found it to be the definitive account of what happened, with a good mix of gut-wrenching personal stories as well as the national politics / personalities that drove everything. The biggest mysteries to me were 'why did Mao have to start this when he was already the paramount leader- what was his motivation?' and 'why did people blindly worship this man so much?' and 'didn't they realize what was happening?' and this book helped me answer these questions and more. At the end it is self-evident why China turned away from communism already immediately after Mao's death. As a supplement I have 'Liu Shaoqi and the Chinese Cultural Revolution' by Lowell Dittmer.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on August 20, 2012, 01:10:09 AM
I'll definitely check it out, Beet, thanks!  I have lots of friends who were Cultural Revolution survivors, and my ex-wife was one as well, who was briefly "sent-down" for not being from a "red-enough" background and so on...and they say to a person that, while Mao was certainly at fault, the citizenry was too, for falling so easily for it all.  But, yeah, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping both knew very well what the "Great Leap Forward" policies were doing to the countryside even in the early '60's, and Deng wasted no time completely reversing everything when he finally came to power in the late '70's.  When I visited Tiananmen Square in Beijing for the first time, the words of one of my above-mentioned friends rang in my ear: "If it were up to me, we'd take Mao's picture down from that square and put Deng's picture in his place, because he is the reason people can have hope in a 'new China.'"  My friend said this, mind you, having also been an eye-witness to the events in Tiananmen in 1989, so even considering that, he was prepared to pay much greater reverence to Deng in view of what Mao did to China for two decades.  How anyone could possibly think that the way to build up his country was to have its entire citizenry brutally torment one another just so he could target his perceived enemies is, even when all the political pieces are found on their proper squares, still dumbfounding to me, really.  Anyway, thanks for the recommendation!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on August 20, 2012, 06:51:22 AM
I just read The Captain and the Enemy by Graham Greene as well as Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck.

Now I'm going to do Heart of Darkness.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on August 20, 2012, 06:17:49 PM
I picked up a copy of Age of Extremes for $3, having enjoyed his long 19th century trilogy already. I will hopefully fit it in between my Legal Methods textbook readings.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on August 23, 2012, 07:36:15 PM
Byzantium: The Apogee by John Julius Norwich


Shame I don't have the other two books to cover the entirety of the Empire's existance. I will probably finish this one by tomorrow.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on August 23, 2012, 08:12:19 PM
I picked up a copy of Age of Extremes for $3,

how?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on August 23, 2012, 08:40:06 PM
Found it in a thrift store on the Upper East Side while I was shopping for cups and plates for my apartment. I also bought The Age of Empire, but they didn't have the other two for whatever reason, even though it looked like this edition of the four books had been printed together as a set.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on August 24, 2012, 12:36:58 PM

My deepest condolences


---

V. S. Naipaul - Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on August 24, 2012, 03:18:13 PM
I just read The Captain and the Enemy by Graham Greene as well as Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck.

Now I'm going to do Heart of Darkness.

The amazing thing about Heart of Darkness is that Conrad's English really isn't all that good and the book can get a bit tough despite being barely 60 pages long, but it's still one of the most compelling stories you'll ever read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on August 24, 2012, 04:38:56 PM
I just read The Captain and the Enemy by Graham Greene as well as Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck.

Now I'm going to do Heart of Darkness.

The amazing thing about Heart of Darkness is that Conrad's English really isn't all that good and the book can get a bit tough despite being barely 60 pages long, but it's still one of the most compelling stories you'll ever read.

+1


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 24, 2012, 04:50:39 PM

My deepest condolences.

Still working on my reread of Floating Clouds, and have added a concurrent reread of Kawabata's Snow Country.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: homelycooking on August 24, 2012, 05:03:58 PM

I'll ignore your opinions on Tolstoy, thank you very much, Mr. "that's the end of North American literature".


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on August 24, 2012, 05:50:59 PM
I just finished Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Really, really, really good. Thoughts on the book?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on August 24, 2012, 06:02:32 PM

My deepest condolences.

Still working on my reread of Floating Clouds, and have added a concurrent reread of Kawabata's Snow Country.

Have you ever actually read Naipaul?

EDIT: Incidentally am reading Guerrillas right now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Donerail on August 26, 2012, 05:59:28 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on August 27, 2012, 11:39:58 AM
Just finished "Pornography" by Witold Gombrowicz.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 27, 2012, 12:03:58 PM

My deepest condolences.

Still working on my reread of Floating Clouds, and have added a concurrent reread of Kawabata's Snow Country.

Have you ever actually read Naipaul?

I have.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on August 27, 2012, 12:48:04 PM
And you didn't like him? How strange!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 27, 2012, 01:01:36 PM

He's a formally talented writer, obviously, but I don't like the perspective from which he approaches his (themselves at times quite admirable) themes very much at all because I think his famed personal nastiness, unlike that of some other writers, does come across in his work.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on August 27, 2012, 01:25:09 PM
But the perspective is so vital to Naipaul's prose! I think one of the main objections to him is that so many people seem to be under the impression that's he's just another colonial apologist, the Trinidad wing of the Tory party, if you like. But it's important to keep in mind Naipaul's own comment that he doesn't care for politics. He is very much his own man, and his fiction is determined completely by that profound individuality.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 27, 2012, 02:39:37 PM
Right; no, I understand and agree with a lot of the political criticisms of Naipaul but it's not really why I don't like him. I suppose I'm just not especially fond of Naipaul's particular individuality; it's a particular kind of critical, vaguely antisocial individualism that I don't respond well to, even though there are other kinds in literature that I do.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on August 27, 2012, 03:51:28 PM
I think one of the main objections to him is that so many people seem to be under the impression that's he's just another colonial apologist, the Trinidad wing of the Tory party, if you like. But it's important to keep in mind Naipaul's own comment that he doesn't care for politics.

That just proves that he is, indeed, a colonial apologist from the Trinidad wing of the Tory party.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 27, 2012, 04:12:02 PM
I think one of the main objections to him is that so many people seem to be under the impression that's he's just another colonial apologist, the Trinidad wing of the Tory party, if you like. But it's important to keep in mind Naipaul's own comment that he doesn't care for politics.

That just proves that he is, indeed, a colonial apologist from the Trinidad wing of the Tory party.

This too. It's impossible to take a comment about not caring for politics from someone in Naipaul's position at all seriously.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on August 27, 2012, 04:29:01 PM
To be fair, the actual quote is about himself as a young man. The scholarship boy wishing to be Somerset Maugham who is one of his great recurrent topics. Obviously Naipaul doesn't exist in a political vacuum. I'd go as far as to say that he's one of the most perceptive observers of (post)colonial mores of our time.* But he's not 'political' in that banal way that many people seem eager to jump on so as to be able to dismiss him out of hand. Naipaul isn't nailed to one position or the other in West European intellectual and political disputes.


*:And obviously sometimes his way of seeing the world can be profoundly problematic, even borderline unacceptable.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on August 28, 2012, 01:03:02 PM
Complete bull. Naipaul is the Trinidad wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on August 28, 2012, 07:53:18 PM
That was a good one for a campaign book ;)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on August 28, 2012, 09:54:58 PM

I should read it someday. Apparently it's at my library.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on August 29, 2012, 07:34:08 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: J. J. on August 29, 2012, 07:50:18 PM
I just read The Captain and the Enemy by Graham Greene as well as Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck.

Now I'm going to do Heart of Darkness.

The amazing thing about Heart of Darkness is that Conrad's English really isn't all that good and the book can get a bit tough despite being barely 60 pages long, but it's still one of the most compelling stories you'll ever read.

Heart of Darkness is probably my favorite novella.  What get's me is that it is based on a real person.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on August 30, 2012, 04:36:57 PM
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on September 01, 2012, 07:25:09 AM
Why is the penis shaped like that? ... and other reflections on being human, by someone by the name of Jesse Bering.

Quote
With a keen enough eye, presumably one could master the art of "reading" testicle alignment, using the scrotum as a room thermometer.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on September 04, 2012, 04:56:26 AM

Didn't know you were an emo girl.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on September 04, 2012, 04:58:45 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on September 04, 2012, 02:02:14 PM
()

Just got this in the mail, starting it today.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on September 04, 2012, 02:48:48 PM

Neverwhere is actually a good book, Mr North American Literature.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on September 04, 2012, 11:26:33 PM

lol, read more Morrison or Moore and less Gaiman.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: 後援会 on September 04, 2012, 11:50:25 PM
()

It's very good so far. I've always been a fan of Minxin Pei.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on September 05, 2012, 12:39:42 AM

You don't want to start an argument with me about this type of writing. You seriously don't.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on September 18, 2012, 03:48:52 PM
Finally, finally, finally got round to Austerlitz (by W.G. Sebald, that is)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on September 18, 2012, 05:20:49 PM
Burma by Benedict Rogers.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on September 20, 2012, 08:17:07 PM
Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson. I have enjoyed this so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on September 21, 2012, 07:46:05 PM
Finally started reading The English Patient, but I don't like it much.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Vosem on September 21, 2012, 10:56:36 PM
Going Bovine by Libba Bray...very different from what I usually read, and I like it very much.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on September 22, 2012, 04:16:59 AM
C.P. Snow, Corridors of Power. The things you find at fleamarkets... first Penguin imprint, 1966. Prize marked as 6 Shillings on the backcover.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on September 22, 2012, 03:23:05 PM
C.P. Snow, Corridors of Power. The things you find at fleamarkets... first Penguin imprint, 1966. Prize marked as 6 Shillings on the backcover.

I have found that the likes of Snow and Anthony Powell make great escapist reading.

EDIT: Where did you find the picture in your sig? I believe it's from a Flemish Television show (Man Bijt Hond), no?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: 後援会 on September 22, 2012, 05:36:30 PM
Bah, I've got you guys beat. The book I'm reading right now is quite literally the epitome of escapism/wish fulfillment. I don't even know why I'm reading it.

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on September 22, 2012, 05:40:21 PM
Currently reading The Odyssey (Fagles), Parallel Lives (Dryden), A History of Our Time (Chafe, Sitkoff, Bailey)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on September 23, 2012, 04:52:42 AM
C.P. Snow, Corridors of Power. The things you find at fleamarkets... first Penguin imprint, 1966. Prize marked as 6 Shillings on the backcover.

I have found that the likes of Snow and Anthony Powell make great escapist reading.

EDIT: Where did you find the picture in your sig? I believe it's from a Flemish Television show (Man Bijt Hond), no?
Slinkachu (http://www.google.de/search?q=slinkachu&hl=de&client=firefox-a&hs=xk4&rls=org.mozilla:de:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=NtteUKeiI4eB4gSa7oHIAQ&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=937).

Been aware of his work for a while, but got the idea of sigging him from... uh... some noob (now who was that? Red avatar IIRC) ... having another one of his in their sig.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on September 24, 2012, 06:03:15 AM
Ouch, just noticed whose sig that is. Tik's. Not a noob by any stretch of the imagination.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on September 24, 2012, 08:19:44 AM
White Power: the Rise and Fall of the National Party by Christi van der Westhuizen.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Хahar 🤔 on September 24, 2012, 10:26:04 AM
Frondizi and the Politics of Developmentalism in Argentina, 1955-62 by Celia Szusterman


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on September 25, 2012, 11:10:16 PM
Frondizi and the Politics of Developmentalism in Argentina, 1955-62 by Celia Szusterman

Dear god why? Argentinean politics in the 1950s is probably the least accessible subject ever.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on September 28, 2012, 04:49:42 AM
in an attempt to simultaneously display the best and worst of tastes, I'm approaching 50% done with War & Peace (P/V translation) and poking around a pdf of Fifty Shades of Grey.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Хahar 🤔 on September 28, 2012, 02:10:35 PM
Frondizi and the Politics of Developmentalism in Argentina, 1955-62 by Celia Szusterman

Dear god why? Argentinean politics in the 1950s is probably the least accessible subject ever.

That's what makes it fascinating! I don't understand Peronism even a little bit.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: 後援会 on September 28, 2012, 05:12:55 PM
Frondizi and the Politics of Developmentalism in Argentina, 1955-62 by Celia Szusterman

Dear god why? Argentinean politics in the 1950s is probably the least accessible subject ever.

That's what makes it fascinating! I don't understand Peronism even a little bit.

Argentina is also a wonderful example of everything not to do with a developed nation.

Anyways, I'm going through this.

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on October 02, 2012, 10:29:31 AM
in an attempt to simultaneously display the best and worst of tastes, I'm approaching 50% done with War & Peace (P/V translation) and poking around a pdf of Fifty Shades of Grey.

gave up on 50 Shades after 3 chapters, up to the 1812 war in W&P, and re-starting my January-downloaded pdf of Age of Revolution in honour of the late Eric Hobsbawm.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dr. Cynic on October 02, 2012, 10:33:47 PM
I'm absolutely immersed in the book Team of Rivals right now. One of the most fascinating historical books I've ever read. There's great insight into not only the personality and thought process of Lincoln, but also Seward, Chase, Bates, Stanton, Welles and Blair. One thing I actually wasn't aware of... Edwin Stanton suffered severe vertigo and a fear of heights just like me.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on October 02, 2012, 10:48:10 PM
Can anyone recommend any good books on modern Latin American history? The Venezuelan election has piqued my interest and it's one of the areas of the world I never really learned a great deal about in school.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on October 03, 2012, 12:43:49 PM
Can anyone recommend any good books on modern Latin American history? The Venezuelan election has piqued my interest and it's one of the areas of the world I never really learned a great deal about in school.

as for Venezuela itself, a Marxist-Leninist professor buddy of mine recommends the following.

Greg Wilpert, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, Verso, 2007.
Steve Ellner, Rethinking Venezuelan Politics, 2008.
Michael Lebowitz, Build it Now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on October 08, 2012, 10:42:30 PM
Give me reccomendations, I have a week long break and want to indulge my brain with leisurely reads. History (specifically latin american) , philosophy, econ or literature is welcomed


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on October 08, 2012, 10:51:24 PM
well you can take a look at the post above you for some Chavez stuff.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on October 08, 2012, 11:14:23 PM
well you can take a look at the post above you for some Chavez stuff.

I want to read up on Mexico though. Have you read any good books on my motherland?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: courts on October 09, 2012, 02:48:58 AM
way too many. i'm pouring through choice and coercion, sexual reckonings, and a bunch of other books related to a research project on eugenics. on the non assigned end of things i'm finally reading the great divergence. somewhat embarrassing given how frequently this thing is name dropped these days but i had a lot of other things on my plate.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on October 09, 2012, 04:06:25 AM
Books? This is some other obscure internet term for "Journal articles", correct?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on October 12, 2012, 11:37:22 AM
an abridged version of Leon Trotsky - History of the Russian Revolution that I've been meaning to read for some time.  he's so much the better writer vs. Stalin that it hurts.  no wonder Stalin was a bit jealous.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Incipimus iterum on October 12, 2012, 12:14:12 PM
River of Darkness, Francisco Orellana's Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon, by Buddy Levy
good reading about the Spanish Expedition to Find El Dorado I liked it alot


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on October 13, 2012, 05:07:53 AM
A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on October 15, 2012, 06:06:22 PM
The Course of Mexican History

A very light read that hasn't taught me much, this is the time for you wise college graduates to pass your knowledge onto me via reccomendations.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on October 15, 2012, 07:54:20 PM
Watergate: A Novel by Thomas Mallon. Historical fiction is probably my favorite genre and Mallon, a master of the art of historical fiction, does not fail to deliver a wonderful, thought provoking literary work.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Simpsons Cinematic Universe on November 13, 2012, 06:17:06 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_the_King

Not really a novel, but whatever.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 14, 2012, 03:04:01 PM
Going over Tale of the Heike again. I'd also really like to read A Tale of Flowering Fortunes some time soon if I can.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on November 14, 2012, 03:32:38 PM
A Good Fall, a collection of fictional short stories about the Chinese immigrant experience in Flushing, New York.  Actually read it before, but have assigned it for a class so I'm going back through it.

I'm also finishing writing my own book, my second.  About 20 more pages or so and it will be done.  :)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on November 16, 2012, 07:00:10 PM
Quite a bit of Thomas Bernhard. (Frost, Old Masters, Wittgenstein's Nephew)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on November 16, 2012, 07:52:40 PM
An English translation of Mother Courage.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on November 16, 2012, 09:58:34 PM
I am reading Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail of '72, by Hunter Thompson, and Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead." I have not gotten farther than 30 pages into the Fountainhead, but I am loving Fear and Loathing.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: k-onmmunist on November 17, 2012, 10:28:56 AM
nicolas nickleby - charles dickens
the wind-up bird chronicle - haruki murakami


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on November 17, 2012, 02:09:56 PM
John Quincy Adams by Harlow Giles Unger. This has been a fair treatment of a fairly eccentric historic character. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oak Hills on November 19, 2012, 09:19:07 PM
David Brinkley's autobiography.  There's a lot of interesting stuff in it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on November 20, 2012, 06:21:58 AM
Just finished The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Before that I read Fiesta by Hemingway. Before that A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on November 28, 2012, 06:03:58 PM
http://www.amazon.com/The-Law-Torts-Examples-Explanations/dp/0735588740/ref=pd_sim_b_1


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Simfan34 on November 29, 2012, 05:49:43 PM
I'm sure such a thread already exists.. but currently just starting Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on December 01, 2012, 04:49:11 PM
Jameson's a pretty cool guy, I'll grant you that.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on December 02, 2012, 08:39:46 AM
Titus Groan

I have read it before, but that was ages ago.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on December 02, 2012, 01:28:02 PM
Titus Groan

I have read it before, but that was ages ago.

I have to say I didn't quite 'get' it. There were bits, especially at the beginning, which were brilliant (The Scene where the library is burnt down is almost cinematically placed in my mind). But the book as a whole... meh..


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 02, 2012, 03:43:39 PM
Titus Groan

I have read it before, but that was ages ago.

Oh, I love Peake. Especially--not 'even'--the endless description.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SPC on December 02, 2012, 04:31:20 PM
The Machinery of Freedom by David D. Friedman


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on December 02, 2012, 05:30:04 PM
I have to say I didn't quite 'get' it. There were bits, especially at the beginning, which were brilliant (The Scene where the library is burnt down is almost cinematically placed in my mind). But the book as a whole... meh..

I like it a lot, but that it isn't likely to be everyone's cup of camomile is... quite clear, yes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on December 02, 2012, 05:31:49 PM
Titus Groan

I have read it before, but that was ages ago.

Oh, I love Peake. Especially--not 'even'--the endless description.

This may well be the single least surprising thing ever posted in this thread.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: k-onmmunist on December 03, 2012, 05:36:51 PM
The Machinery of Freedom by David D. Friedman

probably one of the best written arguments for libertarianism.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on December 06, 2012, 06:36:17 AM
Does nobody else ever read for pleasure? I reckon about 80% of the books in here are academic, intellectual, or technical. What's so bad about sayng you're reading Twilight?

Well, OK, bad example. But maybe some Tom Clancy? Bridget Jones' Diary? Jeffrey Archer?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on December 06, 2012, 09:25:22 AM

See above!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on December 06, 2012, 09:27:03 AM
Does nobody else ever read for pleasure? I reckon about 80% of the books in here are academic, intellectual, or technical. What's so bad about sayng you're reading Twilight?

Well, OK, bad example. But maybe some Tom Clancy? Bridget Jones' Diary? Jeffrey Archer?

Too busy to do so right now. But do often.

As for what I'm reading - a variety of books for papers but at the moment: Transatlantic Encounters: Americans Indians in Britain, 1500-1776 by Alden Vaughan.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on December 06, 2012, 09:31:19 AM
Does nobody else ever read for pleasure? I reckon about 80% of the books in here are academic, intellectual, or technical.

Ah, but those are the books I read for pleasure.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on December 15, 2012, 02:46:37 PM
Infinite Jest


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on December 15, 2012, 02:49:13 PM
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois

Does nobody else ever read for pleasure? I reckon about 80% of the books in here are academic, intellectual, or technical. What's so bad about sayng you're reading Twilight?

Well, OK, bad example. But maybe some Tom Clancy? Bridget Jones' Diary? Jeffrey Archer?

Well I read Wolverine #5, #6-9: Wolverine vs. the X-Men last night.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on December 15, 2012, 02:57:44 PM
The Odyssey for college. I had all summer to read it and with six days left I've read about 60 pages.

Little did I know what I was about to experience. What a naive little twat I was.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on December 17, 2012, 11:10:17 AM
()

Birthday gift! :D


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on December 17, 2012, 04:45:56 PM
In the week and half prior to last Tuesday, I read two books:

Taking Heat: The President, The Press and My Years in the White House by Ari Fleischer
The New American Story by Bill Bradley

Since then I have picked up the pace because I want to be free to read what I get for Christmas.

Since Tuesday I have read:
Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down by Kaylene Johnson
Legerdemain: The President's Secret Plan, The Bomb, and What the French Never Knew by James J. Heaphey - a great book about some US Cold War medling in the Arab World.
A Night of Long Knives: A Hannah Vogel Story by Rebecca Cantrell
Biography of the Dollar: How the Mighty Buck Conquered the World and Why It's Under Siege by Craig Karmin



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oldiesfreak1854 on December 17, 2012, 06:27:25 PM
None right now; I'm a skimmer and don't usually read books from cover to cover.  But if I do read one, I'll have to let you know.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on December 17, 2012, 06:46:10 PM
Finally finished "Thomas Jefferson: A Life" by Willard Sterne Randall! Wonder what my next reading project will be.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on December 17, 2012, 08:12:12 PM
Does nobody else ever read for pleasure? I reckon about 80% of the books in here are academic, intellectual, or technical. What's so bad about sayng you're reading Twilight?

Well, OK, bad example. But maybe some Tom Clancy? Bridget Jones' Diary? Jeffrey Archer?

I stopped reading those type of books when I turned...16? Something like that. I honestly don't enjoy poor literature all that much. I get a lot more out of good books so I mostly read those.

Last book I read was The Satanic Verses. Brilliant. Now I'm reading Dead Souls by Gogol.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 17, 2012, 08:19:26 PM
Now I'm reading Dead Souls by Gogol.

took you long enough


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on December 20, 2012, 04:47:33 PM
Yesterday I completed All the Tea In China: How to Buy, Sell and Make Money on the Mainland by Jeremy Haft

Today, I read Imperial Cities and the Reformation: Three Essays by Bernd Moeller. Translated into English of course.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on December 20, 2012, 05:18:05 PM
Finished The Fountainhead the other day, now I am reading Fear and Loathing on the Trail of '72.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Donerail on December 20, 2012, 05:24:51 PM
The Chosen, by Chaim Potok.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Taft Republican on December 31, 2012, 08:28:48 PM
Humpty Dumpty in Oakland by Philip K. Dick. NEver read any of his non scifi stuff before, so here's hoping.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on January 01, 2013, 09:34:34 AM
I just read Meta Maus.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Donerail on January 01, 2013, 10:09:36 AM
The Unmaking of Israel, Gershom Gorenberg.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on January 01, 2013, 03:18:34 PM
I've started writing my novel again, so I usually read fiction books during the process just to get my writing in the correct rhythm.  Recently, I started A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway and The Bridges of Madison County again by Robert James Waller.  Throw in the Kissing Fish book, and I'm working on reading three books at once right now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on January 01, 2013, 05:32:45 PM
don't usually read books from cover to cover.

I wish I could say I was surprised.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on January 06, 2013, 01:39:15 AM
The Prague Cemetery, Umberto Eco


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 06, 2013, 11:48:25 AM
Infinite Jest


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on January 06, 2013, 11:54:47 AM

*terrorist fist-bump*

I'm about 200 pages deep and only have two weeks to finish it before the next semester begins. Challenge accepted.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 06, 2013, 12:02:10 PM
How did you know I was interested in Byzantine erotica?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 06, 2013, 01:58:25 PM

Good luck.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on January 06, 2013, 02:17:39 PM

I've read probably a dozen other books of Eco's already- he's probably my single favorite author.  I can't imagine it being difficult to get through in any way, except possibly in the way the subject matter shines a light on some of the darkest aspects of our history and human nature.

But I knew that going in.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on January 06, 2013, 02:21:05 PM

*terrorist fist-bump*

I'm about 200 pages deep and only have two weeks to finish it before the next semester begins. Challenge accepted.

I spent four months reading this last year- could have finished it faster if I was really dedicated, but I can't imagine reading 80% of it in two weeks.  Yikes.

I fully expect to reread it again someday, to catch everything I missed the first time around.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on January 07, 2013, 08:57:54 PM
Just got done with Levon Helm's autobiography-"This Wheels on Fire."


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on January 08, 2013, 12:28:22 AM
The last book I ready before Christmas was "Warriors of Christendom: Charlemagne, El Cid, Barbarossa, Richard Lionheart" by John Matthews and Bob Stewart.

It had been my desire to read "Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot" by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard, starting on Christmas, but I had to delay it for the sake of another, much more "extensive" gift until the 2nd of January. I finished it within three days.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Paul Kemp on January 08, 2013, 12:52:05 PM
I just finished The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer. It was a decent espionage thriller. The second half was a lot better than the first half. Sometimes Steinhauer had a tendency to overdo it with mentioning American pop-culture.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on January 08, 2013, 02:42:20 PM
()

Added this to my 'currently reading' list last night.  It's a fairly short book, so I thought, why not?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Joe Republic on January 08, 2013, 03:15:40 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on January 14, 2013, 02:44:57 PM
Just finished The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Paul Kemp on January 14, 2013, 03:21:02 PM
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I'm about halfway through it and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. A lot of exposition so far. I'm considering moving on to another book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DemPGH on January 14, 2013, 04:48:15 PM
Sam Kean is a great popular science writer. A couple of years ago I was regaled and also educated by The Disappearing Spoon, which tells the story of the history of the development of the periodic chart of the elements. Wow, does THAT sound boring. Nope. Not at all. He relates anecdotes about the discovery of the elements, the politics surrounding the Nobel Prize, and personal histories of folks who made a splash in the discovery of the elements that had me page-turning.

Getting ready to start his The Violinist's Thumb concerning the genetic code. Looking forward to it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on January 16, 2013, 01:31:24 AM
"Speechless", James Button's account of his time as Kevin Rudd's departmental speech writer and a bit of a memoir of being a son of the ALP. A good read, and particularly good for people who were in Canberra at the time, either on the firnges of the mess, like I was, or more centrally, like Polnut.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on January 16, 2013, 02:19:03 PM
I finished South Africa's Brave New World over break, started on Nudge (pop behavioral economics) and You Just Don't Understand (pop linguistics/psychology). I'm on page 750 of Infinite Jest.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Donerail on January 17, 2013, 08:04:48 PM
The Unmaking of Israel, by Gershom Gorenberg.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on January 17, 2013, 08:37:30 PM
"The Letters of Ayn Rand" has been interesting so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on January 18, 2013, 11:05:04 PM
Public Policy by Kraft and Furlong; This Fiery Trial by Gienapp; American Government by Sabato, O'Connor, and Yanus; Thinking in Time by Neustadt and May; The Infinite Cosmos by Silk; Before the Beginning by Rees, The Mind of God by Davies, and The Universe in a Nutshell by Hawking.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lasitten on January 20, 2013, 05:13:23 PM
American Gods by Neil Gaiman and Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. Like them both a lot.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Taft Republican on January 20, 2013, 08:09:49 PM
Robert Penn Warren All The King's Men. I like it's description of the time period. Plus the correlation between it and Huey Long is well done.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: wan on January 20, 2013, 08:37:35 PM
Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on January 25, 2013, 01:35:54 AM
Hobsbawm's Industry and Empire


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on January 31, 2013, 03:26:00 PM
picked up a copy of Kolakowski's Main Currents of Marxism (all three volumes in one) the other day from the library.  some of the best sh**t I've ever read, particularly those parts that I'm naturally interest in (reading it front to back proved impossible for me).  may have to splurge and buy it for $24 on Amazon


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 31, 2013, 05:38:32 PM
It's a fantastic thing, yes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 31, 2013, 05:50:22 PM

I've read probably a dozen other books of Eco's already- he's probably my single favorite author.  I can't imagine it being difficult to get through in any way, except possibly in the way the subject matter shines a light on some of the darkest aspects of our history and human nature.

But I knew that going in.

That's what I meant. I love Eco too, and I'm glad I read The Prague Cemetery, but it took me weeks and weeks and I never want to read it again.

Anyway, I'm rereading The Silmarillion, out of order this time. I skipped ahead from the Flight of the Noldor to Beren and Lúthien and am now going back to the Dagor Bragollach.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on February 01, 2013, 01:28:51 PM
The Republic
Poor Economics
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Velasco on February 04, 2013, 12:29:47 PM
Mikhail Lermontov: A Hero of Our Time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hero_of_Our_Time

Also, last weekend, besides Lermontov, I purchased Ernesto Sabato's On Heroes and Tombs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Heroes_and_Tombs

Notice the heroic coincidence. It was random, unintentional.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on February 06, 2013, 08:00:20 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on February 06, 2013, 10:48:09 PM
I decided to learn more about the Spanish Civil War, so I just read Franco by Paul Preston (good analysis on Franco's propaganda), Every inch a King: Alfonso XIII by Princess Pilar of Bavaria (obviously biased, but good), Count Ciano's Diary (a work of narcissism) and España bajo el sable, by Rodrigo Soriano (good). I guess that will give me the viewpoint of foreign diplomats, monarchists, republicans and Franco.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Velasco on February 07, 2013, 08:08:56 AM
I decided to learn more about the Spanish Civil War, so I just read Franco by Paul Preston (good analysis on Franco's propaganda), Every inch a King: Alfonso XIII by Princess Pilar of Bavaria (obviously biased, but good), Count Ciano's Diary (a work of narcissism) and España bajo el sable, by Rodrigo Soriano (good). I guess that will give me the viewpoint of foreign diplomats, monarchists, republicans and Franco.

Interesting. I need to read Preston's biography of Franco. Probably I'd take it in lending at the public library or at the university student's. I think that the last book on the Spanish Civil War that I read was one by Antony Beevor, but I found it a bit disappointing (probably Preston is better on this subject).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on February 07, 2013, 12:09:48 PM
I decided to learn more about the Spanish Civil War, so I just read Franco by Paul Preston (good analysis on Franco's propaganda), Every inch a King: Alfonso XIII by Princess Pilar of Bavaria (obviously biased, but good), Count Ciano's Diary (a work of narcissism) and España bajo el sable, by Rodrigo Soriano (good). I guess that will give me the viewpoint of foreign diplomats, monarchists, republicans and Franco.

Interesting. I need to read Preston's biography of Franco. Probably I'd take it in lending at the public library or at the university student's. I think that the last book on the Spanish Civil War that I read was one by Antony Beevor, but I found it a bit disappointing (probably Preston is better on this subject).

I really enjoyed reading Preston's book, but apparently the one I got was not the main biography of Franco, it was more of his life in the view of his own propaganda (Franco, el Gran Manipulador was the full title of this one), so I think I'll have to search for Preston's full book on Franco. I am really surprised that so many british historians wrote books about the subject, and I'm struggling to find an objective book from a spanish historian.

Spain during the 1920' and 1930' looks more and more fascinating, and I think I will need more material on both the Republican Leadership and Sanjurjo, Mola and Queipo de Llano. Could you please recommend some books about them?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Velasco on February 07, 2013, 04:50:01 PM
It's difficult for a Spanish historian avoiding an emotional identification with the topic, as you can imagine. However, there are fine works written in this country. As for the Republican leadership, Santos-Juliá (ideologically is a centrist) is an expert in the figure of Azaña, which is indispensable to understand the period. Here's an article about one of his books: Vida y Tiempo de Manuel Azaña.

http://elpais.com/diario/2008/12/08/cultura/1228690807_850215.html

Another figure on the Republican side, a very controversial one, is Juan Negrin, the last PM who tried desperately to support the resistance until the end. Negrin has been very ill-treated by Francoist historians (normal) and also from left-wingers. In recent times there has been an attempt of researching more thoroughly in his figure. Though Ángel Viñas cannot be considered impartial (he tekes sides with the Republican and Negrín causes), he's a serious historian and his efforts have been notable. Another historian in a similar way is Julián Casanova. In the Foundation of Juan Negrín there's bibliography. In favour of this institution talks that La gran Estafa: Negrín, Prieto y el Patrimonio Español by Francisco Olaya Morales is in the list. 

http://www.fundacionjuannegrin.com/bibliografia.php?actual=2&id=11

Personally I think that Ricardo Miralles' Juan Negrín. La República en Guerra is a good book. Here's a review:
http://www.historiacontemporanea.ehu.es/s0021-con/es/contenidos/boletin_revista/00021_revista_hc27/es_revista/adjuntos/27_35.pdf

I'm not very familiar with bibliography treating specifically the figures of Sanjurjo, Mola or Queipo de Llano. There's a book written by Gabriel Cardona, a person with a military background but opposed to Franco, with an interesting title: A Golpes de Sable. Los grandes militares que han marcado la Historia de España. Also I've found a brief article about Mola by the same historian:

http://www.laaventuradelahistoria.es/2002/03/29/mola-el-general-que-pudo-mandar.html

On a footnote, Juan Vigón (minister with Franco) wrote a book called El general Mola: el conspirador.

If you are interested in battles and military questions, I found interesting the books written by Jorge Martínez-Reverte: La Batalla del Ebro, La Batalla de Madrid and La Caída de Cataluña. Martínez-Reverte has not an academic background (he's journalist) but his researches are serious and well regarded by historians, also his books on these battles are exhaustive but entertaining. As for the Battle of Madrid, he discovered some documentation that threw some light on the controversial events of Paracuellos del Jarama.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on February 07, 2013, 08:41:11 PM
It's difficult for a Spanish historian avoiding an emotional identification with the topic, as you can imagine. However, there are fine works written in this country. As for the Republican leadership, Santos-Juliá (ideologically is a centrist) is an expert in the figure of Azaña, which is indispensable to understand the period. Here's an article about one of his books: Vida y Tiempo de Manuel Azaña.

http://elpais.com/diario/2008/12/08/cultura/1228690807_850215.html

Another figure on the Republican side, a very controversial one, is Juan Negrin, the last PM who tried desperately to support the resistance until the end. Negrin has been very ill-treated by Francoist historians (normal) and also from left-wingers. In recent times there has been an attempt of researching more thoroughly in his figure. Though Ángel Viñas cannot be considered impartial (he tekes sides with the Republican and Negrín causes), he's a serious historian and his efforts have been notable. Another historian in a similar way is Julián Casanova. In the Foundation of Juan Negrín there's bibliography. In favour of this institution talks that La gran Estafa: Negrín, Prieto y el Patrimonio Español by Francisco Olaya Morales is in the list. 

http://www.fundacionjuannegrin.com/bibliografia.php?actual=2&id=11

Personally I think that Ricardo Miralles' Juan Negrín. La República en Guerra is a good book. Here's a review:
http://www.historiacontemporanea.ehu.es/s0021-con/es/contenidos/boletin_revista/00021_revista_hc27/es_revista/adjuntos/27_35.pdf

I'm not very familiar with bibliography treating specifically the figures of Sanjurjo, Mola or Queipo de Llano. There's a book written by Gabriel Cardona, a person with a military background but opposed to Franco, with an interesting title: A Golpes de Sable. Los grandes militares que han marcado la Historia de España. Also I've found a brief article about Mola by the same historian:

http://www.laaventuradelahistoria.es/2002/03/29/mola-el-general-que-pudo-mandar.html

On a footnote, Juan Vigón (minister with Franco) wrote a book called El general Mola: el conspirador.

If you are interested in battles and military questions, I found interesting the books written by Jorge Martínez-Reverte: La Batalla del Ebro, La Batalla de Madrid and La Caída de Cataluña. Martínez-Reverte has not an academic background (he's journalist) but his researches are serious and well regarded by historians, also his books on these battles are exhaustive but entertaining. As for the Battle of Madrid, he discovered some documentation that threw some light on the controversial events of Paracuellos del Jarama.

Thank you very much! I've already started to search those books, and I managed to get the full works of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera to have the view of the Falange. I think I can relate to the emotional identification of historians, since most of the works here about moments such as Allende government and Pinochet's regime are incredibly biased due to the division of the country.

Despite the fact that most of my attention goes to the monarchists, the Republican leaders seem very engaging (especially Azaña, who seems more moderate than what I suspected). The whole period is complex and full of irony and interesting characters (I was surprised at how young Azaña, Franco, Gil Robles and Calvo Sotelo were for the times), so I think I will be reading about it for a while.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on February 13, 2013, 09:21:16 PM
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles, a biography grand enough to fit the ego and importance of the Commodore. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on February 13, 2013, 09:38:09 PM
Just finished The Rage against God by Peter Hitchens. A convincing argument for God's existance.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Paul Kemp on February 14, 2013, 11:36:16 AM
Just finished Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis.

I thought it was OK. Nothing left me too affected. I didn't particularly care for the way it was written and I thought at times it tried too hard to go over the top.

I think I'll be reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises next.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on February 19, 2013, 05:51:22 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: justfollowingtheelections on February 19, 2013, 06:11:32 PM
I've been reading The World in 2050: Four forces shaping civilization's northern future by Lawrence C. Smith.  It's a rather interesting book about how climate change is changing the Arctic, the difficulties, the new opportunities, and the role indigenous populations will play in this new world.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Nhoj on February 19, 2013, 06:11:39 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on March 06, 2013, 02:54:38 PM
()

Got it yesterday, started it today.

Also, for our Christian users here, I highly recommend the Kissing Fish (http://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Fish-Christianity-People-Dont/dp/1456839403) book.  Even if it doesn't resonate with you entirely (I have found myself disagreeing with Wolsey at times), I consider it pretty transformative.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on March 06, 2013, 10:29:36 PM
somewhat continuing on the theme, I picked up CS Lewis' Mere Christianity a few days ago.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on March 08, 2013, 11:00:48 PM
Colbert's "Rebcoming the Greatness we never were not" or whatever it is called is amazing. Funniest book ever.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blackacre on March 10, 2013, 05:06:59 PM
Chris Mooney's The Republican Brain. Great book on political psychology, takes a couple stabs at both sides but explains how fallacies in science and economics is mostly on the Republican side, and why that is. More objective than the title suggests


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on March 11, 2013, 07:14:36 PM
Started Six Days of War. I picked it up for fifty cents at the local Catholic Churches annual fair/rummage sale. My friends grandpa sold it to me, and said it was a good read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on March 12, 2013, 03:00:40 PM
Die Interkulturalitätsdebatte: Leit-und-Streitbegriffe edited by Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach et. al.  I agreed to review this collection of German and English essays for a friend last year, but, now than I'm reading it, am finding it the most mind-numbingly boring book in the history of the universe.  A phone book would make for far superior reading.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on March 12, 2013, 03:06:41 PM
Two days ago I finished No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight by Tom Delay

One of the biggest bunch of lies and CYA I have ever seen compiled into 180 pages.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on March 18, 2013, 05:37:21 PM
Having finished "Return of the King", I've moved onto another great trilogy, "The Divine Comedy" starting with "The Inferno". "The Purgatorio" is located in my room, though I haven't seen "The Paridisio" for a good number of years...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on March 18, 2013, 07:25:08 PM
About two days ago I finished a book called "The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History" by Jason Vuic.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on March 18, 2013, 07:30:58 PM
(Re)reading Arthur Schopenhauer's 1836 essay On the Will in Nature,, as I'm teaching it over the next two weeks in a graduate seminar.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: tmthforu94 on March 19, 2013, 12:12:18 AM
As Strong as the Mountains: A Kurdish cultural journey by Robert L. Brenneman. Good start.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on March 22, 2013, 11:48:47 PM
Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition, 1742-2004 by Tracy Campbell. I like how it pinpoints the errors of both the vote buyer and the vote seller. It also goes into the funny corrupt history of the Gateway Arch. I advise all libertarians to read this work.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on March 23, 2013, 06:29:53 AM
Suzy Zeus Gets Organized

Very, very funny and rather touching.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on March 23, 2013, 06:33:26 PM
Red Alert by Peter Bryant. A magnificent and chilling novel, but having seen Dr. Strangelove before gives me some troubles to take the novel seriously... (I keep thinking of the insane General Jack Ripper instead of the disturbed General Quinten)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on March 23, 2013, 06:48:09 PM
Finished "The Inferno". Hoping to get through at least "The Purgatorio" before Easter, given the holiday around which the entire Comedy happens...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: JerryArkansas on March 23, 2013, 06:49:30 PM
The Fountainhead


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on March 23, 2013, 06:59:29 PM
...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 24, 2013, 07:50:37 AM
So, after Dead Souls I read Dead-Eye Dick by Vonnegut. It was a funny little book. Then I read The Road which I absolutely loved. It really shook me and moved me to tears at times. I think I read something else but cannot for the life of me recall what right now. :P

Then there has been a stretch of limited time for reading for me, but I've been trying to get through Midnight's Children. Hope to finish it on my flight today. So far it's weaker than the other two Rushdies I've read. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: opebo on March 24, 2013, 01:16:08 PM
No time for books - I just reread Saki's "On Approval" (http://haytom.us/on-approval/)

I love short stories, usually the shorter the better.  Feels like taking a pill.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on March 25, 2013, 04:28:53 PM

What are you surprised at? Surely an Arkansas republican can't be expected to spend his days with much different fare.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: JerryArkansas on March 25, 2013, 04:31:14 PM

What are you surprised at? Surely an Arkansas republican can't be expected to spend his days with much different fare.
I take insult to that, just because I am a republican from arkansas does not mean I just read conservative books. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on March 25, 2013, 05:12:49 PM
Still, you'll agree it's hardly a surprising book to read for anyone with that specific profile.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on March 25, 2013, 05:53:26 PM
I was registering yawning contempt rather than surprise.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on March 25, 2013, 06:15:18 PM
My Aunt gave me her copy of the Oddessa File.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: JerryArkansas on March 25, 2013, 06:47:38 PM
Still, you'll agree it's hardly a surprising book to read for anyone with that specific profile.
I'll give you that, but i am not like that


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: CLARENCE 2015! on March 25, 2013, 09:56:16 PM
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on March 25, 2013, 09:59:48 PM
Just finished up Sam Pizzigati's excellent The Rich Don't Always Win. Highly recommend it. It's like Zinn's People's History but less boring and more for a general audience. A lot of surprising stuff in it, too. I was kind of surprised to learn that FDR actually proposed capping income during WWII, taking another page from Huey Long's book. And that progressives were so successful during the Great Depression and World War II.

And now I'm about halfway through Josh Freeman's American Empire, which is good, but not as good as the book I just finished. It covers 1945 to 2000 and the changes in American society within and abroad. I just hit the Nixon administration, so I've got a ways to go. It's mind-blowing how much society was democratized by the New Deal, the Great Society, and the Civil Rights Revolution. Simply mind-blowing, and kind of awesome. Gives me hope for the future of the progressive movement in this country, while also providing a cautionary tale on how not to let things get too out of hand and allow reaction to creep in.

After that, I've got a lot of things I'm probably going to try and read in the next few weeks. The Noir Forties just came in the mail and my girlfriend lent me Bob Dylan's autobiography, which I kind of want to read before we see him in concert next month. Oh, and I finally got around to buying Grapes of Wrath, Main Street, and Babbitt. No idea where to begin there. Any suggestions?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Donerail on March 27, 2013, 08:39:50 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on March 27, 2013, 09:14:31 AM
Victor Hugo "Les Miserables"

I'd read that Hugo Chavez was influenced by Victor Hugo and his thinking, and that he urged Venezuelans to read Les Miserables.  Apparently his government even printed and gave away a million copies of the book to its citizens, so I figured I'd give it a go.  Man, it's long.  Jean Valjean doesn't get introduced till page 78 or so.  I read a bit when I take a dump or when I'm waiting for someone.  I'm on page 193 (out of 1432.) 



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cincinnatus on March 27, 2013, 09:22:47 AM

If you want to read in interesting book, see Inside the Third Reich, by Speer.

Currently I'm reading Achebe's, A Man of The People 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on March 27, 2013, 09:28:53 AM

If you want to read in interesting book, see Inside the Third Reich, by Speer.

Currently I'm reading Achebe's, A Man of The People 

"In the Garden of the Beasts" by Erik Larson if you want a the perspective of an American Werewolf in Berlin.  Well, not a werewolf, actually, but William E. Dodd, Roosevelt's ambassador to Germany 1933-37.  A good read.  Tense, gritty, non-fiction. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on March 27, 2013, 01:44:49 PM
Fustel de Coulanges, the Ancient City


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: k-onmmunist on March 27, 2013, 01:48:35 PM
i've got altogether too many on the go at the moment:

23 things they don't tell you about capitalism by ha-joon chang
the sublime object of ideology - slavoj zizek
being and time - martin heidegger
philosophy of history - g.w.f. hegel
science of logic - g.w.f. hegel
ecrits - jacques lacan
interpretation of dreams - sigmund freud
discipline and punish - michel foucault


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on March 28, 2013, 05:35:42 AM
i've got altogether too many on the go at the moment:

23 things they don't tell you about capitalism by ha-joon chang
Bit lightweight. I lent this back to my mother who gave it to me as a Christmas gift (after reading it, of course). Unlike me she can actually learn something from it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 28, 2013, 01:43:45 PM
氷点 (Freezing Point), by Miura Ayako. Reading for the second time overall, attempting to read for the first time in Japanese. I'm also reading a translation of her 塩狩峠 (Shiokari Pass) and looking for ones of her 道ありき (The Wind is Howling) and 細川ガラシャ夫人 (Lady Gracia).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: k-onmmunist on March 28, 2013, 05:37:10 PM
i've got altogether too many on the go at the moment:

23 things they don't tell you about capitalism by ha-joon chang
Bit lightweight. I lent this back to my mother who gave it to me as a Christmas gift (after reading it, of course). Unlike me she can actually learn something from it.

intriguing tho


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on March 30, 2013, 07:38:02 PM
Finished the Oddessa File in a couple of days. My Uncle is a trucker and we ended up at the Tropicana Plant in Bradenton for four hours on Thursday, abd six hours on Friday, so I got through it fast.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: You kip if you want to... on March 31, 2013, 07:11:40 PM
()

Already seen the film though.

Going for this next:
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: JerryArkansas on April 01, 2013, 10:16:04 PM
I will starting tomorrow be reading the Great Gatsby, Huck Finn, and The Crucible for my summer A.P. Work.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on April 03, 2013, 07:58:18 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on April 03, 2013, 08:05:13 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dave from Michigan on April 05, 2013, 09:43:00 PM
Richard Nixon, a life in full

by Conrad Black


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on April 07, 2013, 12:21:27 PM
I'm reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. It's a 2002 translation that actually reads very beautifully.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on April 11, 2013, 09:38:00 AM
I just finished "Two Treatise on Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration" by John Locke.

This version is part of the "Rethinking the Western Tradtion" series, and contains essays at the end by John Dunn, Ruth Grant and Ian Shapiro concerning different aspects of Locke's legacy and perspectives on his views.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Paul Kemp on April 11, 2013, 09:23:49 PM
Just started reading American Dream Machine by Matthew Specktor. Didn't know much about it but I saw someone mention it on Twitter and it seemed interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/American-Dream-Machine-Matthew-Specktor/dp/1935639447


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on April 13, 2013, 12:11:17 PM
Nations and Nationalist Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality by Hobsbawm


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on April 13, 2013, 12:47:38 PM
Nations and Nationalist Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality by Hobsbawm
Good one.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on April 13, 2013, 08:40:24 PM
Nations and Nationalist Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality by Hobsbawm
Good one.

yeah, he reads cooler sh**t than I did as a second semester freshman.  tracking maybe 12-18 months ahead of me.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on April 26, 2013, 01:10:06 PM
I just started Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom." So far so good. Just finished Escape from Camp 14 about a guy who escaped North Korea's worst gulag.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mopsus on April 26, 2013, 05:10:07 PM
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. I was hoping to compare what de Tocqueville had to write about early 19th-century American government and society with contemporary perceptions, but it unfortunately hasn't been as insightful as I had hoped. Before that, I read 1491, which argues that pre-Colombian American societies were far more developed than most believe.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on April 26, 2013, 08:19:51 PM
I'm reading again "The First Man in Rome", by Colleen McCullough. I want to reread the whole saga again (the only one I'm missing is "Antony and Cleopatra"), since I have been discovering several details I missed the first time, and because I enjoy the way she solves the lack of information on several characters by merely improvising an explanation that is both reasonable and plausible (most of the time).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on April 26, 2013, 08:41:40 PM
Finished "The Purgatorio" a while ago. I'm in the midst of "The Aeneid" and am struggling to read "The Paradiso".


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: JerryArkansas on April 26, 2013, 08:42:30 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Paul Kemp on April 26, 2013, 10:52:59 PM
Most of you read too much nonfiction.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on April 27, 2013, 08:19:20 AM
... and terrible non-fiction at that.

Anyway,

Richard Eaton, The Social History of the Deccan 1300-1761: Eight Indian Lives (2008)
John Eliot, A Further Accompt of the progresse of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England (1659)
John Eliot, A Further Account of the progress of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England (1660)
Daniel Gookin, Historical Collections of the Indians in New England (1674)
Colin Calloway and Neil Salisbury (ed), Reinterpreting New England Indians and the colonial experience (2003)
Sidney Rooy, The Theology of Missions in the Puritan Tradition (1965)

All but the first are thesis stuff of course. I currently have 36 books out of my Uni library. I haven't finished any of them - and haven't started the majority of them.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on May 09, 2013, 07:01:38 PM
About fifteen days ago, I finished reading the Harvard Classics Edition of a Collection of works by Edmund Burke that included his following works:

"On Taste"
"On the Sublime and Beautiful"
"Reflections on the French Revolution"
"A Letter to a Noble Lord"

Since then I have been reading the signet classics edition of "The Federalist Papers", which includes the Articles of Confederation, Constitution and Declaration of Independence.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on May 09, 2013, 08:32:52 PM
Taking a break from The Road to Serfdom (very repetitive book) to read the 48 Laws of Power.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on May 10, 2013, 01:42:46 PM
()

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on May 12, 2013, 09:45:12 PM
I'm trying to balance Stanley Hauerwas, Henry James, and Diane Duane, and have been for some time. I'm also thinking of rereading the Quixote.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on May 14, 2013, 03:13:38 PM
Audio version:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on May 24, 2013, 02:48:49 AM
So, after Dead Souls I read Dead-Eye Dick by Vonnegut. It was a funny little book. Then I read The Road which I absolutely loved. It really shook me and moved me to tears at times. I think I read something else but cannot for the life of me recall what right now. :P

Then there has been a stretch of limited time for reading for me, but I've been trying to get through Midnight's Children. Hope to finish it on my flight today. So far it's weaker than the other two Rushdies I've read. 

I think this was my last post.

Finished Midnight's Children. It was nice but I liked it less than the other Rushdies I've read.

Since then:

White Nights early Dostoevsky, nice but a bit too romantic for my tastes.

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Vargas Llosa, awesome entertainment, lots of fun.

The Pearl fantastically moving. I love Steinbeck.

The Great Gatsby slightly underwhelming to be honest, but still a good read.

The Western Lit Survival Kit very funny take on Western literary history. Highly recommended.

Cat's Cradle fun yet depressing. Typical Vonnegut. Very enjoyable.

The Red Pony less interesting Steinbeck, but my copy contained a gem of an even shorter story called Julius M...something. And that was fantastic.

England Made Me not Greene's best work, but set in Sweden so points for that. And, well, I love Graham Greene so I liked it a lot.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on May 24, 2013, 02:49:33 AM
Oh, and currently I'm supposed to be reading Orlando. But I've been slacking off the reading a bit. :/


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: JerryArkansas on May 24, 2013, 04:44:35 PM
Mocking Jay/Huck Finn


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TJ in Oregon on May 27, 2013, 03:26:45 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on May 28, 2013, 08:11:42 PM
Signet Classics, "The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates: the Clashes and Compromises that Gave Birth to Our Government", edited by Ralph Ketcham.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on May 28, 2013, 08:38:04 PM
Just finished Joshua Freeman's American Empire, about to the third chapter of Richard Lingeman's The Noir Forties.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on May 29, 2013, 09:55:33 AM
Currently reading The Walking Dead graphic novels. Excellent read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on May 31, 2013, 04:22:34 PM
Just started reading The Race for What's Left: The Global Scramble for the World's Last Resources by Michael T. Klare.  It's the kind of book that gives me the not-so-indistinct urge to commit suicide.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on June 02, 2013, 06:23:03 PM
The Triumph of Christianity by Rodney Stark. Let's see... there's a bizarre chapter in the middle of the book where he goes off on an extended polemic against Islam and insisting the the Crusades were "justified", and that "no apologies are necessary" even though he acknowledges that the population of Jerusalem was massacred after its fall. The chapter is literally subtitled "the case for the Crusades."

Then there's the fact that by use of scare quotes, he implies that he thinks the Spanish Inquisitors were more enlightened than Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire.

There's the part where Stark states that, if you take all of the world's Christians and except that you assume there are no Christians in China, then Christians are about 33 percent of the world's population. Later, he calculates the number of Christians in China at about 65 million. However, in the next section, he asserts that Christians are 40 percent of the world's population. By his own account, this cannot be correct. The flap of the book also asserts that Christians are "40 percent" of the world's population, without mentioning that this figure can only be arrived at by excluding China's 1.3 billion people from the world population.

Much of the book is spent on angrily denouncing and seemingly settling old scores with academic opponents, some of whom died over 100 years ago.

One person is accused of having said something wrong during the French Revolution, even though the parentheses that appear next to his name in the same paragraph indicated that he died in 1784.

Social scientists' propensity to occasionally jump to conclusions in the face of poor historical evidence is singled out for denunciation repeatedly; Stark then proceeds to jump to conclusions in the face of poor historical evidence repeatedly.

Nonetheless, the book is highly recommended. Hidden behind the offensive parts, the obvious political agenda, poor reasoning and juvenile language is the bringing together of a number of actually quite well researched arguments, presenting convincingly. Stark, of course, is a distinguished professor who at least is familiar with an impressive array of experts and studies which he cites copiously. The book tackles central topics in the history of Christianity and through its citations and tables produces convincing and non-obvious arguments about each one. Stark thoroughly attacks the secularization theory, which asserts that the trend towards greater secularization is inevitable.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Paul Kemp on June 02, 2013, 08:11:53 PM
Gustaf wins this thread. Excellent taste.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: You kip if you want to... on June 10, 2013, 03:01:30 PM
Just finished this:
()

A good read and it has firmed up the more positive perception of Ed I've developed over the last few months. Definitely one of the cleverest politicians, who've had a chance at Number 10, in a long time and much more deserving of the top spot than his brother.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on June 12, 2013, 09:51:41 AM
Gustaf wins this thread. Excellent taste.

Thank you! :)

I finished Orlando on the plane to Lisbon. A bit out there, as Woolf herself admitted. And I don't mean the transexuality or whatever you'd call it, but the lack of proper character development and weird digresses at times. Still, surprisingly funny and makes important points about gender roles. I'd say those points are a bit too obvious to a modern reader, but then I think of Atlas and I drop that comment. :P

Also had time to read Timequake on the way. Fantastic read. Then again, I'm a Vonnegut fan.

Now I'm reading The Plague by Camus. Liking it more than the Stranger so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on June 15, 2013, 02:53:31 PM
Seriously overrated, like all Melville.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 17, 2013, 10:33:10 PM
Sonnets from the Portuguese. I'm exactly halfway through.

Seriously overrated, like all Melville.

I'd like to register my disagreement here.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on June 18, 2013, 08:10:39 AM
I liked Moby Dick but it's not the greatest American novel I've read, for sure.

Really liked The Plague. Didn't know Camus could feel like some kind of atheist Victor Hugo. :P

Followed up with To Kill A Mockingbird. I sense that one ought to disapprove of it but I'm a sappy romantic so I just loved it.

Now I'm returning to Graham Greene!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on June 18, 2013, 10:44:23 AM


Followed up with To Kill A Mockingbird. I sense that one ought to disapprove of it but I'm a sappy romantic so I just loved it.


Would you be surprised if I told you that I don't like To Kill A Mockingbird?

It's a very long time now since I read fiction.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on June 18, 2013, 10:57:18 AM
Socialism: Past and Future by Michael Harrington.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on June 18, 2013, 11:23:16 AM


Followed up with To Kill A Mockingbird. I sense that one ought to disapprove of it but I'm a sappy romantic so I just loved it.


Would you be surprised if I told you that I don't like To Kill A Mockingbird?

It's a very long time now since I read fiction.

HP.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 18, 2013, 11:43:39 AM
I liked Moby Dick but it's not the greatest American novel I've read, for sure.

Really liked The Plague. Didn't know Camus could feel like some kind of atheist Victor Hugo. :P

Followed up with To Kill A Mockingbird. I sense that one ought to disapprove of it but I'm a sappy romantic so I just loved it.

Now I'm returning to Graham Greene!

I don't think one is supposed to disapprove of To Kill a Mockingbird. At least if one's American one's not.

What Graham Greene are you reading?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on June 18, 2013, 12:38:30 PM
It's a very long time now since I read fiction.

You should do something to rectify this sorry state of affairs as soon as theoretically possible.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on June 18, 2013, 01:33:40 PM
Yeah. Reread Moby Dick. Now. :P

Reading through Edgar Hilsenrath's lesser works atm, interrupted by a short book on the Bikini and Eniwetok Islanders' plight and cultural reactions to it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on June 18, 2013, 02:56:26 PM
It's a very long time now since I read fiction.

You should do something to rectify this sorry state of affairs as soon as theoretically possible.

Yes but Thesis, etc.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on June 19, 2013, 10:11:29 AM
Rereading the His Dark Materials trilogy for the first time in ten years.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on June 20, 2013, 05:01:59 AM
I liked Moby Dick but it's not the greatest American novel I've read, for sure.

Really liked The Plague. Didn't know Camus could feel like some kind of atheist Victor Hugo. :P

Followed up with To Kill A Mockingbird. I sense that one ought to disapprove of it but I'm a sappy romantic so I just loved it.

Now I'm returning to Graham Greene!

I don't think one is supposed to disapprove of To Kill a Mockingbird. At least if one's American one's not.

What Graham Greene are you reading?

The Power and the Glory. Though after having drunk myself into a stupour at a bar called Oliver Twist I forgot it there. :P

So I'll have to pick it up today.

Then I may be mistaken. Then again, see Gully's post above. I think he's a decent indicator of these things, at least from a non-American perspective. :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on June 20, 2013, 11:33:43 AM
Gide's Les Faux-Monnayeurs. I'm very taken by it. I will try to obtain a copy of Les Caves du Vatican, which I'm told is quite delightfully grotesque, next.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dr. Cynic on June 21, 2013, 07:33:43 PM
I'm on page 397 of Game of Thrones, the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire trilogy. I just recently bought the first four books and am awaiting delivery of the fifth. I plan on reading them while waiting for the next season of the TV show.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on June 23, 2013, 12:04:55 PM
started Tolstoy's Resurrection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_(novel)) last night to end an eight-week hiatus from fiction.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 24, 2013, 04:06:24 PM
I read the first two books of "The Iliad" last night. Picked it up at the library today. Among other books I picked out are "The Paradiso" by Dante which I still have yet to finish, "Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription" by William F. Bucklkey, Jr., and "The Last Temptation of Christ" by Nikos Kazantzakis. I intent on at least finishing "The Paradiso" and the Buckley book before I have to return them.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 24, 2013, 04:49:04 PM
I've finished Sonnets from the Portuguese. The next thing I read is likelier than not to be either Steinbeck's The Red Pony or Herrick's Hesperides, but there are other possibilities as well.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on June 24, 2013, 05:56:19 PM
Don DeLillo- Mao II

'Bout two-thirds through.  It's a pretty easy read but I keep getting distracted.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on June 28, 2013, 04:12:31 AM
I've finished Sonnets from the Portuguese. The next thing I read is likelier than not to be either Steinbeck's The Red Pony or Herrick's Hesperides, but there are other possibilities as well.

Didn't like the Red Pony much but if you can find a copy which includes the short story Julius M....something, can never remember that last name, I really enjoyed that.

I finished The Power and the Glory and really liked it. Now I'm toning down and settling for a lighted read - A History of the World in 10½ Chapters by Julian Barnes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on June 28, 2013, 06:19:23 AM
World War Z by Max Brooks


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Del Tachi on July 01, 2013, 09:54:33 PM
Physics for Future Presidents by Richard Mueller


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: bore on July 03, 2013, 06:57:10 AM
American Caesars by Neil Hamilton - I've done FDR Truman and Eisenhower.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on July 04, 2013, 11:07:15 AM
"My Family and Other Animals" by Gerald Durrell. Entertaining enough, but I won't read the sequels.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on July 04, 2013, 11:21:32 AM
I just finished Tolstoy's The Law of Love and The Law of Violence, one of the lesser examples of his elucidation of his own anarcho-pacifist Christianity.  still reading his last full length novel Resurrection, about 3/5 of the way through that.  I checked out from the local library his 'translation' of the Gospels, as well the three volumes of Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology, but haven't really started either.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on July 04, 2013, 01:07:58 PM
Finally reading A Game of Thrones.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on July 04, 2013, 09:44:09 PM
I finished George W. Bush's book "Decision Points", about two weeks ago. I started a biography about Laura Bush, but I have not had time to complete it as of yet.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 04, 2013, 09:52:03 PM
I ended up on Miguel de Unamuno's Tragic Sense of Life, of all things. So far, I've found a lot in it that I really like and some that I really don't.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on July 04, 2013, 09:59:19 PM
Finished Quiverfull by Kathryn Joyce, Unorthodox, by Deborah Feldman, and Doomsday Cult by John Lofland.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on July 04, 2013, 10:47:19 PM
I finished George W. Bush's book "Decision Points", about two weeks ago. I started a biography about Laura Bush, but I have not had time to complete it as of yet.

I literally have no idea how you could stand to do this.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 05, 2013, 03:55:12 AM
I finished George W. Bush's book "Decision Points", about two weeks ago. I started a biography about Laura Bush, but I have not had time to complete it as of yet.

I literally have no idea how you could stand to do this.

Rare moment of agreement from me.

I finished the Barnes which I ended up quite liking. Now I'm reading Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. Really liking it so far but I'm only like 10% in. It's looooong.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on July 07, 2013, 05:23:07 AM
Crossreading Karl Kraus essays (god, that man could write. Why am I only reading him now?) and the Godfather.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on July 08, 2013, 10:37:50 PM
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on July 09, 2013, 09:04:51 PM
Down the Highway-The Life of Bob Dylan-Howard Sounes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on July 20, 2013, 07:59:34 AM
Just finished "The Paradiso", meaning I've completed the entire Divine Comedy.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Velasco on July 20, 2013, 09:58:40 AM
I'm dealing with Paul Preston's "The coming of the Spanish Civil War: reform, reaction, and revolution in the Second Republic". Basically it's focused on the parallel evolution of the Spanish socialism (PSOE-UGT) and the catholic right (CEDA) during the II Republic (1931-1936).

http://books1.scholarsportal.info/viewdoc.html?id=552134


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Consciously Unconscious on July 20, 2013, 09:32:43 PM
I'm reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  It's fairly interesting so far, and I need to read it before American Lit starts in the fall, so hopefully it will stay interesting. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on July 23, 2013, 12:21:13 PM
it may come as a surprise to comrades here that I am reading Whittaker Chambers' Witness, and enjoying it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on July 23, 2013, 12:26:42 PM
Marx: A Brief Insight by Peter Singer.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on July 25, 2013, 11:14:55 AM
()

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on July 31, 2013, 05:28:22 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mopsus on August 02, 2013, 07:46:16 AM
I finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn yesterday. I had it in my head that it was a children's book (probably because I was a child when I first read it), but it turned out to be a quite enjoyable (and, at times, quite mature) novel. I was also thrilled to be able to familiarize myself with some authentic Missouri dialect.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on August 02, 2013, 08:19:21 AM
I have to say, the more I read into this Zealot book, the less confidence I have in it.  It's not because of the author himself, who was given unfair treatment by Fox News (though he apparently has inflated his academic credentials somewhat), but his misinterpretations of scripture and the frequent errors he's apparently making make me question whether I should continue reading it.  I've been struggling to find a book about the historical Jesus that doesn't have all these 'ifs' and 'buts' attached to it, but this doesn't appear to be that book.  I ordered John Dominic Crossan's The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, which is viewed more favorably by the progressive Christian community, yet even that book has caused quite a stir and I'm left wondering if there is any text, other than the New Testament, that can give me a clear picture of Jesus' life.

Then again, I haven't delved much into Karen Armstrong's book yet, which I hope will give me some information about Jesus that the Bible does not.  But it probably won't.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on August 03, 2013, 05:08:02 AM
I'm left wondering if there is any text, other than the New Testament, that can give me a clear picture of Jesus' life.
How could there possibly be? He lived a life of perfect obscurity. (And you can quite leave the supplementary clause out. It is and must remain our primary source, but it's hardly an unbiased account or one that was written with modern audience's knowledge horizon in mind.)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on August 03, 2013, 09:07:23 AM
Scott maybe you'd like to try http://www.amazon.com/Familiar-Stranger-Introduction-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0802826806


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on August 03, 2013, 01:07:48 PM
Just finished this:

()

It might be fun to talk about what sorts of political lessons one can draw from a rather breezy, "local interest" read chronicling 100 years of a smoked-fish store on the Lower East Side, that has become an institution by being the only one of its kind still around.  I'd start with the rather strong pro-immigration message, of course. :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on August 07, 2013, 05:57:46 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on August 07, 2013, 11:38:36 AM
good selection man.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 13, 2013, 08:18:07 AM
Working my way through the Hesperides.

Cathcon, congratulations! What did you think?

Scott, the problem is that the New Testament is really the only place where Jesus as a fleshed-out figure exists at all. Historical Jesus scholarship is basically just guessing half the time, placing Jesus into a social context that can has been established on mostly non-Jesus-related bases the other half, and ideological axe-grinding either way.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on August 13, 2013, 08:52:51 AM
Currently, I'm hoping to complete "The Last Temptation of Christ" before I leave for school on the 20th, which I think is likely. The prospect of also getting through "Paradise Lost" in that time is, however, less likely. I recently finished "The Screwtape Letters", which included in it "Screwtape Proposes a Toast", both of which were fine satires. Makes me want to investigate some of Lewis' more serious works, as well as make a brief return to Narnia for a spell.


A fantastic work. Naturally, "The Inferno" was the most entertaining and was read the quickest. However, I was determined to press on, and "The Purgatorio" was pretty interesting and arriving in the Earthly Paradise was pretty cool. "The Paradiso" dragged on for quite a bit, and at what point I think I returned it to the library before eventually completing it. When I went at it a second time, it was a much easier read, and some of the sights in it--the massive crucifix in Mars, for examples--were amazing. As I neared the end I was reading it more manically. Quite the read, in all.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on August 13, 2013, 03:14:33 PM
I was at a family friend's house. They're a senior couple who had a bunch of old books including some future dystopia books such as "A Canticle for Liebowitz" (think that's the title) and "Brave New World".


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Platypus on August 25, 2013, 02:05:17 AM
I've read (well, read bits of) the Karen Armstrong book, I found it very informative but also very dull. But I find religion off-putting at the best of times.

I'm currently reading (very slowly) through this:

()

Most notable for it's incredible ability to ignore that everyone ignores international law.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 25, 2013, 02:42:55 AM
I've read The Red Pony. Pretty good. The second story was probably my favorite; I have a weakness for characters in situations like Gitano's for some reason.

Cathcon, A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of my favorite novels ever.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on August 25, 2013, 03:28:09 AM
Almost through Infinite Jest


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on August 27, 2013, 11:02:03 AM
What dost thou make of it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DC Al Fine on August 27, 2013, 11:52:56 AM
I've read The Red Pony. Pretty good. The second story was probably my favorite; I have a weakness for characters in situations like Gitano's for some reason.

Catchon, A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of my favorite novels ever.

+1 sic transit mundi


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on August 27, 2013, 01:17:31 PM
Well the part after I posted this was pretty wtf... as in, "wait, this is the end? So what ended up happening?"


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on August 27, 2013, 06:40:58 PM
Well the part after I posted this was pretty wtf... as in, "wait, this is the end? So what ended up happening?"

The first chapter of the book is the ending. Of course, this is difficult to remember after slogging through the whole thing.


()

Also, Robinson Crusoe for summer reading for a class dedicated to "modern man/the modern world". I am a liberal arts stereotype.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DC Al Fine on August 27, 2013, 06:58:46 PM
Currently reading "Age of Revolution & Reaction; 1789-1848" Good stuff.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on August 27, 2013, 10:50:46 PM
This is a little late, but thanks to everyone who gave me advice and offered some literature for me to look into.  I suppose getting the complete picture of Jesus' life is rather futile, and all we have are opinions and speculations.  Pretty much anything about Jesus outside of the New Testament is biased in some fashion, and with that we question the integrity of the NT itself simply because we don't know which aspects of Jesus' life are factually true and which things were ascribed to His life afterwards.  However, I ended up purchasing the books for their scholarly opinions.  At the end of the day, of course, I suppose Jesus is meant to remain an object of faith.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on August 28, 2013, 12:04:37 AM
1491 by Charles Mann

So good. Can't recommend it enough, even if you don't really care about pre-Columbian American history.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mopsus on August 28, 2013, 12:03:59 PM
1491 by Charles Mann

So good. Can't recommend it enough, even if you don't really care about pre-Columbian American history.

Bought that book on a whim last year. I echo your endorsement; very eye-opening.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on August 28, 2013, 12:31:26 PM
Well the part after I posted this was pretty wtf... as in, "wait, this is the end? So what ended up happening?"

The first chapter of the book is the ending. Of course, this is difficult to remember after slogging through the whole thing.
Not exactly. That's more than a year after, and all additional info I deduced from rereading it after was an unexplained absence of John Wayne at that year's Whataburger and an oblique reference to him "in a Donald Gately mask". Obviously... the crisis Hal's slithering into at the end of the book lead to Hal as we see him at the beginning, but there's rather a lot more loose ends lying around at the end.
Unless I'm missing something way, way obvious here. :)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on August 28, 2013, 02:51:41 PM
Regrettably, it's pretty clear that Orin doesn't die.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on August 28, 2013, 03:00:23 PM
1491 by Charles Mann

So good. Can't recommend it enough, even if you don't really care about pre-Columbian American history.

Bought that book on a whim last year. I echo your endorsement; very eye-opening.

I concur. Read 1493 next.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on August 28, 2013, 03:42:29 PM
it's pretty clear that Orin doesn't die.
Yep, forgot that but it's also in the intro.

However he got out of that tumbler.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on August 28, 2013, 05:12:02 PM
1491 by Charles Mann

So good. Can't recommend it enough, even if you don't really care about pre-Columbian American history.

It's a bit too sensationalist at times... but hey, pop history.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on August 31, 2013, 05:04:45 PM
Nabokov - Lolita; Whittaker Chambers' autobiography Witness; Trotsky - The Revolution Betrayed.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on September 05, 2013, 03:23:19 PM
Rereading Dubliners in its entirety for the first time in five or six years for a class. There's some...stuff going on in this book that I am honestly thankful I didn't notice when I was in high school and am glad is more obvious to me now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on September 09, 2013, 01:40:07 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lasitten on September 15, 2013, 11:37:43 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on September 16, 2013, 05:02:15 AM
I finished Blonde, which was great although a bit depressing. And a bit long.

Then I read Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Totally amazing and had me in tears.

Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck, excellent read and lots of fun.

Torrents of Spring by Hemingway. I enjoyed it a lot, really funny. Doesn't seem to be generally liked though, but I'm a sucker for parodies.

The Moon and Sixpence by Maugham. Supposed to be great, but while well-written didn't really get to me.

Dracula Ugh. I'm not a fan of that genre. Too much fainting.

Currently I'm reading Röde Orm a classic Swedish viking tale.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on September 18, 2013, 02:52:13 PM
I've been meaning to pick up Idylls of the King. Is it worthwhile?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on September 18, 2013, 04:21:20 PM
I just finished the Aquariums of Pyongyang. A very detailed insight into the dark world of the North Korean concentration camps.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on September 18, 2013, 06:56:52 PM
I've been meaning to pick up Idylls of the King. Is it worthwhile?

Only if you have a thing for turgidity.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on September 18, 2013, 07:01:56 PM
Dracula Ugh. I'm not a fan of that genre. Too much fainting.

It's absolutely atrocious, isn't it? You have the obvious issues with that genre, you have the almost Bulwer-Lyttonesque prose, and random displays of grotesque racism.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on September 18, 2013, 07:09:43 PM
Anyways, I'm reading Red or Dead, David Peace's latest work. It's excellent.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on September 18, 2013, 07:24:00 PM
I've been meaning to pick up Idylls of the King. Is it worthwhile?

Only if you have a thing for turgidity.

It's funny. Tennyson's the kind of poet who should by most sober measures be completely irrelevant to my interests and if asked to argue that his verse is overwrought, ponderous, and in general dubious both aesthetically and politically I would be more than able to, but for some reason that I really don't understand I on some visceral level like some of his works (not all!) a lot. The development of Arthuriana is also something I've been interested in for a very long time.

Anyway, on further consideration I'm not sure he's the sort of turgidity I'm looking for right now, but I'll probably read it at some point. Down the list Idylls of the King goes for the time being. In that case I'm not sure what's up next.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on September 22, 2013, 03:29:03 AM
Dracula Ugh. I'm not a fan of that genre. Too much fainting.

It's absolutely atrocious, isn't it? You have the obvious issues with that genre, you have the almost Bulwer-Lyttonesque prose, and random displays of grotesque racism.

Yes, yes, yes and yes.

"That good, good, sweet, sweet woman"

What sort of sentence is that? :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on September 28, 2013, 12:01:30 PM
I just finished reading "MEDUSA: A Kurt Austin Adventure" by Clive Cussler w/ Paul Kemprecos.

I had borrowed "The Serpent" from one of my teachers and read it back in 2009, so when I saw this real cheap, I snagged it.

It haven't any books since June really, when I started and didn't finish a book on Laura Bush. Just had other things to be doing over that period.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on September 28, 2013, 06:04:48 PM
After coming across a quote from it that piqued my interest, I went to the library today and got a copy of The Problem of Pain by C.S.Lewis.  Fairly straightforward so far, with me being pretty much in agreement, but not finding anything especially profound, just reasonably well-written.  I'll reserve judgement until I've finished reading it to decide whether I'd recommend it.

Still I'll share with you a quote I found interesting:
"We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven — a senile benevolence [...] whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be said at the end of each day 'a good time was had by all.'"


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Flake on October 05, 2013, 07:06:17 PM
They poured fire on us from the sky


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mopsus on October 09, 2013, 05:39:45 PM
So far, I've found "Book VII" of Paradise Lost to be the most enjoyable to read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on October 14, 2013, 02:16:12 PM
Local history:
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on October 14, 2013, 03:33:44 PM
Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne Heller. A critical and detailed look into the life of a very secretive woman.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on October 16, 2013, 01:04:05 PM
Anyways, I'm reading Red or Dead, David Peace's latest work. It's excellent.

Finished it a couple of weeks ago and, yeah, excellent. Would recommend it strongly to anyone that likes football.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on October 16, 2013, 01:05:14 PM
Started reading The Luminaries the other day and like it a lot. Agreeing with the Booker judges is always a little concerning, but stopped clocks and all that.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on October 16, 2013, 01:12:42 PM
I finished Blonde, which was great although a bit depressing. And a bit long.

Then I read Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Totally amazing and had me in tears.

Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck, excellent read and lots of fun.

Torrents of Spring by Hemingway. I enjoyed it a lot, really funny. Doesn't seem to be generally liked though, but I'm a sucker for parodies.

The Moon and Sixpence by Maugham. Supposed to be great, but while well-written didn't really get to me.

Dracula Ugh. I'm not a fan of that genre. Too much fainting.

Currently I'm reading Röde Orm a classic Swedish viking tale.

So, the first part of Röde Orm was nice enough. Left the second volume until later.

Then I read The Secret Garden. Cute little book but a bit underwhelming.

Short story by Vonnegut called 2BR02B which was all right but far from his capacity.

My main project at the moment is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Murakami. Which is the best by him I've read so far. However. What is UP with this man and women who can't orgasm? It's like a dominant theme of his (at least in the ones I've read). Crazy stuff.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on October 18, 2013, 09:05:54 PM
Quote
My main project at the moment is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Murakami. Which is the best by him I've read so far. However. What is UP with this man and women who can't orgasm? It's like a dominant theme of his (at least in the ones I've read). Crazy stuff.

Great book. Don't expect explanations though. It's Murakami (spoiler?).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on October 18, 2013, 09:48:27 PM
City of God by Augustine of Hippo.

I'm currently in the middle of the second of the twenty two essays, and so far I'm not impressed.  He's coming across as more sanctimonious than sanctified so far.  I think I see why the preface suggested a first time reader might want to skip over the first ten essays and come back to them later.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on October 22, 2013, 04:37:37 AM
Quote
My main project at the moment is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Murakami. Which is the best by him I've read so far. However. What is UP with this man and women who can't orgasm? It's like a dominant theme of his (at least in the ones I've read). Crazy stuff.

Great book. Don't expect explanations though. It's Murakami (spoiler?).

Yes, I'm enjoying it. And I sort of saw that aspect coming. :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on October 23, 2013, 11:46:32 AM
Does God Exist? - Hans Kung has been taking up much of my time.  my mom is going to give me the P/V translation of Dostoevsky - The Idiot for my birthday come Sunday.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on October 23, 2013, 08:22:16 PM
Murakami's always felt a little same-y to me, in that he's more influenced than influential and cosmopolitan in a way that seems (for me, and this is entirely subjective) bland rather than cultured. He also can't write women to save his life. He's got really good instincts for imagery and mood, though.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on October 23, 2013, 09:11:21 PM
I went ahead and returned City of God to the library after finishing only the first three essays. Maybe I'll some day read the rest (or at least the eleventh and later essays), but neither his style nor his theology were all that appealing to me. More than a trace of Augustine's former Manichaean beliefs are fairly evident, which likely contributed to that assessment.  I fully believe there is such a thing as evil, but I don't need a dualistic theology to explain how there an be both evil in the world and a God who is good. To paraphrase Shakespeare, "The fault, dear Augustine, is not in our devils, but in ourselves."


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on October 25, 2013, 12:26:07 PM
Morrisey


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on October 25, 2013, 12:33:10 PM
I decided to put down A Theology for the Social Gospel for a little while and focus on books that are more academic, though I certainly got a lot out of what I read of that book.  Next is Foundations of Wesleyan-Arminian Theology by Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, along with a couple other books on Methodist belief that came to my mailbox today.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on October 26, 2013, 05:05:26 AM
()

(in German, though.)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on October 26, 2013, 05:14:56 PM
Just got The Private Life of Chairman Mao and The Power Broker-Robert Moses and the fall of New York from the library.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dave from Michigan on October 27, 2013, 02:32:24 PM
Currently  rereading A Farewell to Arms

I also got The Great Gatsby which I have read before. I actually wished I had reread it before I saw the movie. I didn't think the movie was all that good but I haven't read the book in over 5 years.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on October 29, 2013, 07:52:55 AM
Murakami's always felt a little same-y to me, in that he's more influenced than influential and cosmopolitan in a way that seems (for me, and this is entirely subjective) bland rather than cultured. He also can't write women to save his life. He's got really good instincts for imagery and mood, though.

I mostly agree with this. What's weird though is this: why do women love him so much?

Most women I know who are into literature like Murakami. Most men don't. But to me that's odd.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Peeperkorn on October 30, 2013, 07:03:50 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on November 03, 2013, 07:26:22 PM
Finished Wind-Up Bird. Good read actually!

Now I guess I will move on to that Penguin book by Anatole France if I can find it again.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 04, 2013, 04:43:42 AM
Murakami's always felt a little same-y to me, in that he's more influenced than influential and cosmopolitan in a way that seems (for me, and this is entirely subjective) bland rather than cultured. He also can't write women to save his life. He's got really good instincts for imagery and mood, though.

I mostly agree with this. What's weird though is this: why do women love him so much?

Most women I know who are into literature like Murakami. Most men don't. But to me that's odd.

Now that you mention it, this is true among people who I know as well. I don't know why that might be and I don't particularly feel qualified to theorize about it. It's definitely strange. Murakami's women have always struck me as very female-as-baffling-other-as-seen-by-self-absorbed-straight-male, especially in Sputnik Sweetheart, which one might think wouldn't have this problem but which, if it was intended not to, backfired horribly.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Јas on November 04, 2013, 06:51:05 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on November 04, 2013, 04:23:38 PM

Really? It seemed rather dated to me.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on November 04, 2013, 05:21:30 PM
Murakami's always felt a little same-y to me, in that he's more influenced than influential and cosmopolitan in a way that seems (for me, and this is entirely subjective) bland rather than cultured. He also can't write women to save his life. He's got really good instincts for imagery and mood, though.

I mostly agree with this. What's weird though is this: why do women love him so much?

Most women I know who are into literature like Murakami. Most men don't. But to me that's odd.

Now that you mention it, this is true among people who I know as well. I don't know why that might be and I don't particularly feel qualified to theorize about it. It's definitely strange. Murakami's women have always struck me as very female-as-baffling-other-as-seen-by-self-absorbed-straight-male, especially in Sputnik Sweetheart, which one might think wouldn't have this problem but which, if it was intended not to, backfired horribly.

Yeah, I agree totally on all of that.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lurker on November 05, 2013, 03:34:58 PM
Now that you mention it, this is true among people who I know as well. I don't know why that might be and I don't particularly feel qualified to theorize about it. It's definitely strange. Murakami's women have always struck me as very female-as-baffling-other-as-seen-by-self-absorbed-straight-male, especially in Sputnik Sweetheart, which one might think wouldn't have this problem but which, if it was intended not to, backfired horribly.

I haven't read Murakami myself, but I also know many women who love his books. Could the answer be that Murakami actually understands women better than you think (or, understand them better than you do?)? Obviously, that may be totally wrong - and not having read his books I can't tell - but I kind of doubt that a writer with such a poor understanding of women could have such a large female fan base.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 05, 2013, 04:54:22 PM
I guess it's conceivably possible that Murakami Haruki understands women better than I do but that implies unsettling enough things about my relationships with the women in my life that I'd prefer to look for other explanations. I'd be willing to concede the notion that perhaps most of the women Murakami spends time with think and behave way different to most of the women I spend time with for whatever reason.

Thinking that he has problems handling female characters isn't just a quixotic opinion of mine; it's a frequent criticism of his work. I should point out that the majority of people in the circles I run in who are familiar with Murakami admit, regardless of gender, that this is a problem with his writing, even people who like it otherwise.

(The other issue that I have with Murakami is that, to paraphrase Flannery O'Connor, his writing doesn't feel like it's from anywhere; this isn't meant to echo the pat criticism in his own country's literary establishment that his writing is not 'purely Japanese' enough; it's a broader issue than that. Even when images and moods are arresting and well-communicated, I've never felt like a had a good understanding of the general intended milieu of any of his fiction, except maybe Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which is probably my favorite of his novels that I've read but which still didn't make as much of an impression on me as, I [Inks] you not, an experimental fantasy anime that's strongly derivative of it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haibane_Renmei). His nonfiction is better about this, as indeed it is about most things. Underground is a genuinely great and important book.)

(Anyway there's really no reason to focus on Murakami when Takahashi Gen'ichirō is still alive, except that far more of Murakami's work has been translated.)

Also I'm thinking of starting Mann's Doctor Faustus at some point, probably after I manage to work my way through Yukiguni and Nijūshi no hitomi in the original.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lurker on November 05, 2013, 05:38:21 PM
Interesting. I really should read some Murakami.

Extremely impressive that you can understand the original versions of Japanese litterature, Nathan - how did you learn the language so well?

Also, I have to say this thread is quite impressive too. Seems like the Atlas is very high-brow when it comes to litterature, to put it mildly (not that I would have expected many Dan Brown or El James fans to show up here).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on November 06, 2013, 03:36:13 PM

he's a freshman in college, not everyone brushes up on economic historiography at age 12.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 06, 2013, 04:55:18 PM
Interesting. I really should read some Murakami.

I can recommend Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World without too many reservations, and Underground and after the quake with none.

Quote
Extremely impressive that you can understand the original versions of Japanese litterature, Nathan - how did you learn the language so well?

It's my major and I'm a senior! Thank you for the compliment but I actually can't read it all that well; I've read Snow Country and Twenty-four Eyes in English before and this will be my first attempt to read original 'serious literature' (junbungaku) longer than an Akutagawa story.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on November 09, 2013, 12:59:43 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TJ in Oregon on November 09, 2013, 08:47:01 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on November 09, 2013, 09:04:44 PM
()

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Miles on November 12, 2013, 04:14:16 AM
I'm just wrapping up The Syria Dilemma for a Middle East class:

()

The book itself consists of multiple news columns by professors and pundits. It was a quick and generally easy read, but the book was published before the Congressional debate on Syrian intervention, so some parts were a bit dated.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 12, 2013, 05:31:59 AM
I just finished John McGahern's The Dark. I'm not quite sure what I thought of it yet.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on November 12, 2013, 07:00:17 AM
Now that you mention it, this is true among people who I know as well. I don't know why that might be and I don't particularly feel qualified to theorize about it. It's definitely strange. Murakami's women have always struck me as very female-as-baffling-other-as-seen-by-self-absorbed-straight-male, especially in Sputnik Sweetheart, which one might think wouldn't have this problem but which, if it was intended not to, backfired horribly.

I haven't read Murakami myself, but I also know many women who love his books. Could the answer be that Murakami actually understands women better than you think (or, understand them better than you do?)? Obviously, that may be totally wrong - and not having read his books I can't tell - but I kind of doubt that a writer with such a poor understanding of women could have such a large female fan base.

That's a harsh but fair point. I should add that I do know a number of women who also criticize this aspect of Murakami, so it's not just us. But to me it's more his attitude towards them that is odd than him not getting them.

I finished Penguin Island. Weird book and poorly translated, a fair bit of fun all the same.

Now I'm reading Down and Out in Paris and London


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mopsus on November 13, 2013, 04:07:32 PM
Candide

I feel that the novella suffered for its brevity, rather than benefited from it; the rapidity with which the central characters moved from tragedy to tragedy was sometimes too much to take. Still, I found the conclusion satisfying enough, and Martin did have some great lines.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on November 14, 2013, 05:23:23 PM
()

If the views in this book form the basis for the PPE program at Oxford, I need to transfer ASAP. The approaches revealed in this work are so similar to how I approach the social sciences and I feel as if I found the reason why I feel vaguely dissatisfied with my econ/poli sci courses: they lack a foundation in philosophy, ethics and the humanities. Strange to think when I entered undergrad that I only craved classes focused on empirics and now I tend to shy away from it.

()

The discussion of the cross-influences of the sentimentalist philosophers and non-conformist protestant theologians was really great but Friedman's view of growth is a little too centrist/neo-liberal/Davos/World Bank for my tastes. That being said, he is correct in stating that economic growth engenders tolerance and strong democratic institutions but I don't think he cares about whether this growth is equally diffused which is a view I can't tolerate.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on November 14, 2013, 05:27:23 PM
PPE is basically an apprenticeship degree for aspiring political hacks.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on November 14, 2013, 05:32:51 PM
PPE is basically an apprenticeship degree for aspiring political hacks.

In the states, Economics is basically an apprenticeship degree for aspiring hedge fund managers so I'd much prefer the former. Even at my crunchy, "learning for learning's sake" college a good half of Econ majors are in the program because they're good at math and want a six-figure salary.

Maybe British political hacks are more tolerable because PPE has good required courses? I might study abroad at Oxford next year so I'll be sure to check them out.

edit: the one thing that makes me want to consistently change my major is the fact that mathematical prowess is exalted above perceptive social scientific insights in econ departments. it's hard for me to even consider it a social science at times.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on November 17, 2013, 09:03:17 PM
about to invest weeks of my life into these books:

()

()

please pray for me as my brain flexes hard and gets swoll.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on November 17, 2013, 09:11:46 PM
If it's any consolation Thompson, at least, is a good read. Weird book: in some respects not just ahead of its time, but ahead of what is written now; but he also repeats some arguments and theories that were pretty much discredited by the 1960s, even going out of his way to defend one of them. But then that's Thompson for you.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on November 17, 2013, 09:23:41 PM
If it's any consolation Thompson, at least, is a good read. Weird book: in some respects not just ahead of its time, but ahead of what is written now; but he also repeats some arguments and theories that were pretty much discredited by the 1960s, even going out of his way to defend one of them. But then that's Thompson for you.

One of my professors mentioned that social history/marxist approaches has gone the way of the dodo in favor of more cultural/anthropological approaches since the 80s, is this true? If so, my tiny interest in having History as a fallback major is out of the question.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on November 17, 2013, 09:38:47 PM
If it's any consolation Thompson, at least, is a good read. Weird book: in some respects not just ahead of its time, but ahead of what is written now; but he also repeats some arguments and theories that were pretty much discredited by the 1960s, even going out of his way to defend one of them. But then that's Thompson for you.

One of my professors mentioned that social history/marxist approaches has gone the way of the dodo in favor of more cultural/anthropological approaches since the 80s, is this true? If so, my tiny interest in having History as a fallback major is out of the question.

Basically, yes (not so basically, it's more complicated)... and no bad thing too.

Thompson's book is still great although it's greatness is partly due to its obvious bias and at times ranting nature.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lincoln Republican on November 17, 2013, 10:00:22 PM
()

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on November 17, 2013, 10:12:37 PM
If it's any consolation Thompson, at least, is a good read. Weird book: in some respects not just ahead of its time, but ahead of what is written now; but he also repeats some arguments and theories that were pretty much discredited by the 1960s, even going out of his way to defend one of them. But then that's Thompson for you.

One of my professors mentioned that social history/marxist approaches has gone the way of the dodo in favor of more cultural/anthropological approaches since the 80s, is this true? If so, my tiny interest in having History as a fallback major is out of the question.

Basically, yes (not so basically, it's more complicated)... and no bad thing too.

Thompson's book is still great although it's greatness is partly due to its obvious bias and at times ranting nature.

Why do you think it's "no bad thing"? All I see is the erosion of the left in academia at all levels and it breaks my heart.

I'm looking forward to it!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on November 18, 2013, 01:44:40 PM
Well, most work produced as part of the History from Below movement was pretty dreadful.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on November 18, 2013, 01:54:28 PM
Anyway, that brief summary isn't entirely true as it omits the influence of (grossly misunderstood and badly applied) poststructuralism in the 1980s and 1990s, out of which much of the current emphasis on culture, identity and so on emerged. Oh yes, that is indeed the original sin of the currently dominant historical 'parochialism' (i.e. excessive specialism, an over-focus on aspects of history that seem marginal to outsiders, etc). But then it's difficult to argue that it's seriously worse than the ten-a-penny crude Marxist screeds that were so characteristic of the 1970s.

Essentially what good stuff there is tends to be produced by people who are at least a little out of step with dominant trends.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on November 27, 2013, 01:04:32 AM
I'm currently slogging thru Aquinas' Summa Theologica.  Maybe it's the translation I'm reading, but I'm not impressed so far.  He makes assumptions that while doctrinally sound are still assumptions yet he casts them as self-evident truths.  He also asks some questions I don't really see the point of, such as "Is God a superior example of oneness to all other ones?"  First off, as far as I'm concerned one is one.  Something is either one or it is not and I fail to see how one one can be different from another one its quality of oneness.  Even if it were possible for there to be differing types of oneness, how would one judge one one to be superior another one?  Aquinas doesn't say, nor does he say (at least in what I've read so far) why he considered the question worth asking.  He just points out that he had previously shown that God is one and that God is superior to all else, therefore He must be the superior epitome of oneness.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on November 27, 2013, 10:10:09 AM
Finished Down and Out. Interesting read, although I did sort of mind the racism and anti-semitism. I also felt it wasn't sufficiently real for him - as far as descriptions of hunger and poverty go I've read better. Still liked it a lot, of course.

After that I did No Country for Old Men which was good but worse than the other McCarthys I've read. Also I had seen the movie so no surprises in it really.

Then a bunch of Wilde novels that were hilariously nonsensical. After that I finally got around to finishing The Quiet American which was fantastic. I really do love Greene a lot.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on November 27, 2013, 11:53:38 AM
Finished Down and Out. Interesting read, although I did sort of mind the racism and anti-semitism.

Something he was himself quite mortified by in later life.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 27, 2013, 03:32:14 PM
Continuing my survey of modern Irish poetry by mainlining MacNeice and Heaney; also revisiting some of the Heike monogatari for the first time in a while. I still have some Mann and Greene coming down the pipeline, at least in theory.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on November 27, 2013, 03:56:04 PM
I'm currently slogging thru Aquinas' Summa Theologica.  Maybe it's the translation I'm reading, but I'm not impressed so far.  He makes assumptions that while doctrinally sound are still assumptions yet he casts them as self-evident truths.  He also asks some questions I don't really see the point of, such as "Is God a superior example of oneness to all other ones?"  First off, as far as I'm concerned one is one.  Something is either one or it is not and I fail to see how one one can be different from another one its quality of oneness.  Even if it were possible for there to be differing types of oneness, how would one judge one one to be superior another one?  Aquinas doesn't say, nor does he say (at least in what I've read so far) why he considered the question worth asking.  He just points out that he had previously shown that God is one and that God is superior to all else, therefore He must be the superior epitome of oneness.

I can't really argue for or against Aquinas' position here since I don't know what he means by 'oneness' in this context, but most philosophical/hypothetical arguments are based in 'self-evident truths,' are they not?  God, for example, is superior to everything else purely by how He's defined and conceived in the realm of philosophical thought.  I don't quite understand your dilemma with the text you're reading.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on November 27, 2013, 06:44:40 PM
Continuing my survey of modern Irish poetry by mainlining MacNeice and Heaney;

What dost thou think?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 27, 2013, 07:00:39 PM
Continuing my survey of modern Irish poetry by mainlining MacNeice and Heaney;

What dost thou think?

MacNeice is a little uneven but there are parts of Autumn Journal that really shine and 'Snow', 'Autobiography', and 'The Streets of Laredo' have been haunting me for days now--it probably helps that I find the original version of 'The Streets of Laredo' haunting as well. He comes across as definitely a creature of Frayn's 'Herbivore Britain', insofar as that term is meaningful. I also definitely appreciate the moments where he recognizes how ridiculously privileged he is. Heaney I haven't read enough of yet to have a particularly strong opinion but so far I've loved 'Churning Day'. Neither is nearly as politically problematic as for example Yeats but I'm not sure either is as artistically accomplished either (although again I haven't read enough of Heaney to say for sure yet).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on November 27, 2013, 07:27:01 PM
Finished Down and Out. Interesting read, although I did sort of mind the racism and anti-semitism.

Something he was himself quite mortified by in later life.

Yes, I read anti-semitism in Britain (is that what it's called?) and I feel he's a bit rectified.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HagridOfTheDeep on November 28, 2013, 07:15:08 AM
()   ()


Right now I'm getting into some texts on the 1970 October Crisis and Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act. There is relatively little scholarship in support of Trudeau's response to the crisis, excepting a pretty interesting account from William Tetley, who was a cabinet minister under Bourassa at the time of the kidnappings. I'm getting the other side of the story from Pierre Vallières, the radical behind White N-ggers of America and, arguably, the FLQ itself. It's been an interesting pursuit (I've read a few other papers on the subject as well). To use Trudeau's words, there do seem to be a lot of "bleeding hearts" in the camp against the WMA, but the arguments from people like Tetley seem to rely more on excuses and blame than anything else ("the police were incompetent and couldn't give us the right information—we had no other choice but to use emergency powers immediately!"). It's a good topic.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on November 29, 2013, 12:03:33 AM
I can't really argue for or against Aquinas' position here since I don't know what he means by 'oneness' in this context

If he means anything by one other than one, he never states it.  Perhaps I'm stuck with a bad translation.  I could see him arguing that "God is the supreme unity" far more readily than I could see him arguing that "God is the supreme one" and I can sorta see how a bad translation from Latin might confuse the two concepts.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 29, 2013, 12:07:43 AM
I can't really argue for or against Aquinas' position here since I don't know what he means by 'oneness' in this context

If he means anything by one other than one, he never states it.  Perhaps I'm stuck with a bad translation.  I could see him arguing that "God is the supreme unity" far more readily than I could see him arguing that "God is the supreme one" and I can sorta see how a bad translation from Latin might confuse the two concepts.

Based on what I know about Aquinas I'd be surprised if that weren't the issue here.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on November 29, 2013, 12:29:10 AM
()

just finished this book

onto this one:
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on November 29, 2013, 03:52:36 PM
Selected works of Edgar Allan Poe. Feeling pretty emo today.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on November 29, 2013, 09:34:23 PM
()

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on December 01, 2013, 10:16:06 AM
Dead Souls


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: H. Ross Peron on December 06, 2013, 01:42:08 AM
Reading the Communist Manifesto online right now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 06, 2013, 07:19:16 PM
Reading the Communist Manifesto online right now.

we lost a while ago, nobody knows exactly when, but they know we lost.  much as in Genesis 1-3.  we know it happened, we know it's true but we don't know when it happened, which opens a window for all the exploiters to say "not this, but that", and run the world on these train tracks that lead to a cliff with a social fire on the other side.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TJ in Oregon on December 07, 2013, 10:01:37 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 08, 2013, 12:47:16 AM

!!!

What do you think of it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TJ in Oregon on December 08, 2013, 10:19:27 PM

I haven't quite finished yet, but I do think it is a good book with a number of places that have some really great dialogue. Unlike, say Brave New World, I don't think the general premise of society having the life cycle of a phoenix is predictive of the future really, but it's still quite intriguing. I particularly liked the Fiat Lux portion so far and wish Miller would have told us more about how that subplot turned out. I'm appreciating the struggles of the Abbot in Fiat Voluntas Tua against the regime on euthanasia as well.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on December 08, 2013, 11:34:27 PM
I particularly liked the Fiat Lux portion so far and wish Miller would have told us more about how that subplot turned out.

You may wish to read Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman then.  It's set about seventy years after Fiat Lux. Miller was working on it when he died and the estate had another author finish it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on December 09, 2013, 03:17:14 AM
Been digging through "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" for my (very off-topic) Academic Writing final. That said, when I'm done with this, there's some reading I'd like to do, some of it influenced by things I either stumbled upon or was reminded of while researching this paper. "Paradise Lost" and "The Ballad of the White Horse" could be interesting.

Solid choice, TJ. I have a copy, though I've yet to read it. Nevertheless, the back cover alone looks interesting, and with it being about a monk, seems like it would be right up your alley.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 09, 2013, 06:10:57 AM

I haven't quite finished yet, but I do think it is a good book with a number of places that have some really great dialogue. Unlike, say Brave New World, I don't think the general premise of society having the life cycle of a phoenix is predictive of the future really, but it's still quite intriguing. I particularly liked the Fiat Lux portion so far and wish Miller would have told us more about how that subplot turned out. I'm appreciating the struggles of the Abbot in Fiat Voluntas Tua against the regime on euthanasia as well.

That's Miller's interest in Buddhism and Buddhist cosmologies seeping through into his Catholicism. You see more of that in the posthumously-published (and really not as good, though still full of interesting characters and concepts) Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman. If 'Fiat Lux' was the part that you liked best then you might want to read Wild Horse Woman, since it follows up on the events of that a few generations later, mostly from the perspective of the remaining Plains Nomads and their allies in the Church. Just remember that Miller was in an even darker frame of mind writing it than he was writing Canticle, and had drifted away from orthodoxy somewhat. (EDIT: Ernest got there first.)

Overall Canticle is one of my favorite novels ever, though obviously not without some flaws.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on December 09, 2013, 08:47:56 AM

But you gave a fuller discourse, one I was not able to provide since I have not read Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman myself.  I tend to be dubious of estate-completed sequels.  They rarely are as good as the original.

As for my own reading, Christ the Eternal Tao is currently on my plate.  It's written by an Russian Orthodox hieromonk and treats Lao Tzu in a manner similar to how Greek philosophers are often treated by the Church.  It's interesting, but I need to read some undiluted Daoist works before I can reasonably hope to comment on how faithful to the Daoist perspective the work is.
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sol on December 11, 2013, 06:02:48 PM
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges in my free time, finishing up Their Eyes Were Watching God for school.

The politics of the latter are interesting, to say the least.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on December 12, 2013, 03:23:19 PM
()

More of a page-turner than I thought it would be.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dave from Michigan on December 12, 2013, 04:40:51 PM
I'm reading a book, I will give you the opening paragraph and see if you can guess it.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on December 12, 2013, 04:54:59 PM
I'm reading a book, I will give you the opening paragraph and see if you can guess it.

It was the best of times,

You could have left it at that bud.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on December 12, 2013, 05:08:21 PM
I'm reading a book, I will give you the opening paragraph and see if you can guess it.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Tale of Moderate Heroism?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on December 12, 2013, 05:48:15 PM
Finishing Les Bienveillantes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Dowager Mod on December 13, 2013, 12:13:35 PM
Midnight at the well of souls --- Jack L Chalker


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on December 13, 2013, 11:18:20 PM
I'm reading a book, I will give you the opening paragraph and see if you can guess it.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Tale of Moderate Heroism?

On an old episode of Cheers, Cliff Claven said after hearing this passage: "Boy, this Dickens guy really likes to keep his butt covered, doesn't he?"

Anyway, Ernest, if you're looking for some decent intro to Daoism, here are a couple of things that you might find useful:

--The chapters on "Lao Tzu" and "Chuang Tzu" from A.C. Graham's book Disputers of the Tao.
--Hans Georg Meoller's book The Philosophy of the Daodejing.

There are way over one hundred translations of the Dao De Jing in English.  For relative fidelity to the Chinese as well as lucidity of translation, though I'd still have some quibbles, I'd recommend the one by P.J. Ivanhoe.  But, whichever one you pick, just don't read Steven Mitchell's; he so completely distorts the meaning of the text that it makes me doubt his claims to understand classical Chinese at all.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on December 14, 2013, 01:09:50 AM
I haven't been doing too much heavy reading lately, but I just finished The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz, and it's surprisingly good and one of the easiest reads possible.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on December 15, 2013, 09:15:04 PM
Learned all I need to learn from the Power Broker, moving on to the Years of Lyndon Johnson. I also checked out "Walden And Other Writings" by Henry David Thoreau.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Deus Naturae on December 15, 2013, 09:35:19 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 15, 2013, 09:41:45 PM
I've started Le Morte d'Arthur.

It's...certainly something.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on December 16, 2013, 07:08:04 AM
I'm reading Tintin. Because it's Christmas.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on December 16, 2013, 12:18:03 PM
I'm reading Tintin. Because it's Christmas.

Nothing so wonderfully captures the Christmas spirit as Tintin in the Congo.  What better exemplifies the spirit of giving that marks the season than white men giving civilization to child-like Africans?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 19, 2013, 05:23:43 PM
Resa Aslan - Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth


I was able to get it for $13 so I took the plunge.  it's relatively well done, and written for a mass rather than an academic audience, unlike most of the reading on religion/theology I've done over the past few years, which is refreshing, in its own way.  he focuses on the 'historical Jesus' and takes great pains to place him within the context of the socio-political situation of first-century Palestine, especially vis-a-vis the relationship between the Jewish cult and the Roman occupation.

I did skip ahead and read the chapter on Paul, towards whom Aslan can barely conceal his enmity, fwiw.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 19, 2013, 05:29:26 PM
Le Morte d'Arthur is actually getting really good.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on December 19, 2013, 07:59:32 PM
intercourse by Andrea Dworkin (in honor of nathan... jk ;))


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on December 19, 2013, 08:27:28 PM
Resa Aslan - Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth


I was able to get it for $13 so I took the plunge.  it's relatively well done, and written for a mass rather than an academic audience, unlike most of the reading on religion/theology I've done over the past few years, which is refreshing, in its own way.  he focuses on the 'historical Jesus' and takes great pains to place him within the context of the socio-political situation of first-century Palestine, especially vis-a-vis the relationship between the Jewish cult and the Roman occupation.

I did skip ahead and read the chapter on Paul, towards whom Aslan can barely conceal his enmity, fwiw.

My own views on Paul have softened somewhat over the past few years.  Much of the more problematic material in the Pauline epistles appears to have not been written by him and I'm convinced that at worst Paul was deluded rather than an intentional fraud.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on December 20, 2013, 01:23:46 PM
Resa Aslan - Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth


I was able to get it for $13 so I took the plunge.  it's relatively well done, and written for a mass rather than an academic audience, unlike most of the reading on religion/theology I've done over the past few years, which is refreshing, in its own way.  he focuses on the 'historical Jesus' and takes great pains to place him within the context of the socio-political situation of first-century Palestine, especially vis-a-vis the relationship between the Jewish cult and the Roman occupation.

I did skip ahead and read the chapter on Paul, towards whom Aslan can barely conceal his enmity, fwiw.

I've heard that this book makes so many historical errors that it's barely worth picking up and it repeats 19th century German scholarship that's mostly rejected today.  As a layperson who's interested in getting the hard facts about Jesus, I tend to avoid the highly disputed stuff.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oakvale on December 20, 2013, 01:31:09 PM
intercourse by Andrea Dworkin (in honor of nathan... jk ;))

Good Lord, really?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 20, 2013, 01:46:16 PM
Resa Aslan - Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth


I was able to get it for $13 so I took the plunge.  it's relatively well done, and written for a mass rather than an academic audience, unlike most of the reading on religion/theology I've done over the past few years, which is refreshing, in its own way.  he focuses on the 'historical Jesus' and takes great pains to place him within the context of the socio-political situation of first-century Palestine, especially vis-a-vis the relationship between the Jewish cult and the Roman occupation.

I did skip ahead and read the chapter on Paul, towards whom Aslan can barely conceal his enmity, fwiw.

I've heard that this book makes so many historical errors that it's barely worth picking up and it repeats 19th century German scholarship that's mostly rejected today.  As a layperson who's interested in getting the hard facts about Jesus, I tend to avoid the highly disputed stuff.

can you point me towards where you've heard?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on December 20, 2013, 02:11:28 PM
Resa Aslan - Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth


I was able to get it for $13 so I took the plunge.  it's relatively well done, and written for a mass rather than an academic audience, unlike most of the reading on religion/theology I've done over the past few years, which is refreshing, in its own way.  he focuses on the 'historical Jesus' and takes great pains to place him within the context of the socio-political situation of first-century Palestine, especially vis-a-vis the relationship between the Jewish cult and the Roman occupation.

I did skip ahead and read the chapter on Paul, towards whom Aslan can barely conceal his enmity, fwiw.

I've heard that this book makes so many historical errors that it's barely worth picking up and it repeats 19th century German scholarship that's mostly rejected today.  As a layperson who's interested in getting the hard facts about Jesus, I tend to avoid the highly disputed stuff.

can you point me towards where you've heard?

Here's one source (http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/a-usually-happy-fellow-reviews-aslans.html) that I came across a month or two ago.  In summary, Aslan's book is accused of having a mix of contradictions, omissions, and category errors.  I don't have any fancy degrees to confirm or debunk these claims, but it's apparent that this book isn't seen very fondly by scholars.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 20, 2013, 06:06:24 PM
thanks. cool blog


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on December 21, 2013, 12:58:14 AM
intercourse by Andrea Dworkin (in honor of nathan... jk ;))

Good Lord, really?

Have you read it? I don't think I can get through it. It's tough to read literature reviews of other books that I have not read. Why do authors do that? Dworkin sees sex (as practiced) as misogynistic. Misogynistic men also see sex as misogynistic. That suggests maybe she's going too far, sure. But she brings ideas that are more complicated than the caricature and are worth examining at least once in your life if you are ever in the mood.

I'm also reading the bluest eye by Toni Morrison- well I finished it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on December 21, 2013, 05:45:43 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on December 23, 2013, 02:17:51 AM
Checked out the Canterbury Tales from the library today. I'm kind of getting into poetry.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 23, 2013, 02:53:53 AM
Checked out the Canterbury Tales from the library today. I'm kind of getting into poetry.

Which translation, and does it also have the original Middle English?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: H. Ross Peron on December 23, 2013, 04:51:41 AM
Reading Sorrows of Young Werther and I find myself identifying very strongly with the protagonist.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 23, 2013, 04:53:58 AM
Reading Sorrows of Young Werther and I find myself identifying very strongly with the protagonist.

I know the feeling but I'm compelled to advise you to check yourself before you wreck yourself anyway.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tender Branson on December 23, 2013, 05:03:52 AM
I have now ordered the book "The Pinzgau under the Swastika - Dictatorship in the Province":

()

The Pinzgau is the name for the county I'm living in (Zell am See).

Not hard to guess, the book is a documentary/chronicle about the Nazi time from ca. 1930 (or slightly before) to about 1945 (or slightly after).

That should be interesting ro read (ca. 280 pages).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on December 25, 2013, 10:09:36 PM
Checked out the Canterbury Tales from the library today. I'm kind of getting into poetry.

Which translation, and does it also have the original Middle English?
Modern English translation.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 26, 2013, 08:19:26 AM
Checked out the Canterbury Tales from the library today. I'm kind of getting into poetry.

Which translation, and does it also have the original Middle English?
Modern English translation.

Yes, but by whom?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on December 26, 2013, 01:10:37 PM
"This Perfect Day" by Ira Levin.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on December 26, 2013, 10:04:31 PM
just got these two in the mail today.  for less than $13 thanks to the good (and probably overstocked) folks @ christianbook.com

()
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oakvale on December 26, 2013, 10:16:35 PM

I hope not unless he wants a crash course in German.

Sorry, I hopee nyt unlesse the yong sonne hath wanteh a crashe ceoursye in seaxan or whatever.

(Bad memories).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on December 26, 2013, 10:33:13 PM
Translated by Joseph Glaser. Pretty good so far, but I'm still only in the prologue.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on December 26, 2013, 10:44:42 PM
For the Tales, I think my school just used the Penguin Books (or whatever) translation.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 27, 2013, 12:07:21 AM
For the Tales, I think my school just used the Penguin Books (or whatever) translation.

Coghill? Good man.

If I could find a version of the Coghill with the original on facing pages I would be all over it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on December 28, 2013, 07:35:04 PM
Alistair Horne's The Savage War of Peace is the latest book I'm reading from my Xmas haul. Been interested in the Algerian War of Independence for a few years now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on December 31, 2013, 05:21:02 PM
Umberto Eco's The Book of Legendary Lands. Beautiful book and a lot of fun as well.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on December 31, 2013, 07:46:41 PM
Native Son by Richard Wright. A surprisingly sophomoric book, but it must have been revolutionary in 1940.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: minionofmidas on January 03, 2014, 03:48:02 PM
Rereading the Third Policeman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Policeman), I also got a Glaßbrenner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Glassbrenner) edition for christmas that I'll start on after.

Oh, and the Monkey of Hartlepool (http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/review-the-hartlepool-monkey-book-may-appear-an-insult-to-some-1-6163509).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on January 06, 2014, 06:25:18 PM
()

For various reasons that I may elaborate on if I have time/others are interested, it's not quite up to her usual high standards, but I'm mostly enjoying it all the same.

One thing that sometimes gets glossed over in discussions of her work is just how deeply liberal Jacobs' thought is, more than she seems to realize at times.  

EDIT:  The last couple chapters actually improve her arguments significantly- but they still have more holes than I'm quite comfortable with, or used to from her.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on January 06, 2014, 10:28:47 PM
The Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer (1910 translation of the 1907 edition)

An interesting read on the development of the treatment of the historical Jesus during the 18th and 19th centuries and corresponding with it the development of Marcan priority.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on January 11, 2014, 01:47:42 AM
I've been getting into throwaway fiction recently.

The Crocodile by Maurizio de Giovanni
The Clinic by Jonathan Kellerman


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 11, 2014, 02:08:10 AM
The Tristram part of Le Morte d'Arthur is so long and getting frankly repetitive.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on January 11, 2014, 07:35:33 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 11, 2014, 02:51:53 PM
The Spectre of Alexander Wolf, Gaito Gazdanov.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Paul Kemp on January 11, 2014, 02:56:20 PM
I'm looking to finally get into some le Carre. Is it useful or helpful to read them in order?

I'd like to read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (love the movie) but it's le Carre's third book, which features characters from previous novels.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 11, 2014, 03:06:43 PM
I'm looking to finally get into some le Carre. Is it useful or helpful to read them in order?

Tinker Tailor should be read before Smiley's People or The Honourable Schoolboy (because otherwise they won't quite make sense), but other than that, it's not really essential. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold can certainly be read stand-alone.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Paul Kemp on January 11, 2014, 06:10:52 PM
I'm looking to finally get into some le Carre. Is it useful or helpful to read them in order?

Tinker Tailor should be read before Smiley's People or The Honourable Schoolboy (because otherwise they won't quite make sense), but other than that, it's not really essential. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold can certainly be read stand-alone.

Thanks Al, appreciate it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oldiesfreak1854 on January 11, 2014, 07:40:24 PM
Just started reading Little Women (by Louisa May Alcott).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: tmthforu94 on January 12, 2014, 11:04:55 PM
Just started reading Little Women (by Louisa May Alcott).
Let me know how that goes.

A while back I started reading The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan. I just completed the book. Egan gives various accounts from individuals who lived during the Great Depression in the Dust Bowl region. As a native Kansan who had family going through "the worst hard time", I felt I could relate to the book. The book was incredibly dry (lol), but it provided a good historical account of that time period.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on January 12, 2014, 11:12:10 PM
Just finished Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on January 12, 2014, 11:14:45 PM
The Gospel in Hymns by Albert Bailey

An old 1950 book I got from the library and much more interesting than I thought it would be.  It's not a telling of the gospel story in hymns as I thought from the title, but a history of the English-language church since the break with Rome as exemplified by the hymns written and sung in each period in history.  It's only real fault is that it is six decades out of date.  I'd love to have a new book done in the same style.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on January 15, 2014, 11:51:42 AM
Since last post I've read:

The Human Factor
The Honorary Consul
Dubliners
Brighton Rock
The White Tiger

The Human Factor was yet another fantastic Greene and one that for once dared offer some hope to us. It also helped me realize some of his key themes with a handful of truly glorious paragraphs.

The Honorary Consul was good but a notch below, imo. Classic theme of course.

Dubliners was honestly a bit underwhelming. Maybe I didn't get it, but most of the stories didn't really engage me all that much, though some were pretty good.

Brighton Rock was again good, but good God, was it depressing. Emotionally draining and bleak without even a sliver of hope to cling on to.

The White Tiger was a fun, light read. It's sort of an introduction to India and since I already know most of the stuff it wasn't that exciting for me. It's not particularly well-written nor is the story all that engaging, but if you are new to India I guess it could be fun. Got nothing on Rushdie obviously.

--------------------------

I can look back on a year where I read 35 books, so that's a decent count. Currently I'm halfway through The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Rushdie, but I'm taking a break to launch into In Search of Lost Time (I know, right?). Our stupid book club decided, in my absence, that it was a good idea to read it. They also introduced the new rule that anyone who doesn't finish it on time gets banned from getting books from the club in the future. Total stupidity but what can I do?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 15, 2014, 12:02:44 PM
Gustaf, which of the stories in Dubliners did you like?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on January 15, 2014, 02:34:15 PM
Gustaf, which of the stories in Dubliners did you like?

I liked the one with the pedophile and the one with elections (nerd am I). And the slightly longer one with the party and piano playing. The one with the prostitute was also decent.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on January 15, 2014, 03:37:36 PM
Still reading the first volume of the Years of Lyndon Johnson. Robert Caro has written a hell of a biography. I plan on reading every volume of the series after this.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 15, 2014, 05:00:38 PM
Gustaf, which of the stories in Dubliners did you like?

I liked the one with the pedophile and the one with elections (nerd am I). And the slightly longer one with the party and piano playing. The one with the prostitute was also decent.

The one with the elections and the one with the party and piano playing are the ones that people will usually call the best (John Huston's last movie was a pretty good adaptation of the latter). My favorites are those, the one with the bazaar, and the one with the streetcar accident.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on January 16, 2014, 07:41:04 PM
()
()

For Bible Study, believe it or not.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on January 16, 2014, 07:57:34 PM
()()

Picked them up from the library.  Finished the first, which was delightful, and halfway through the second which isn't as satisfying, since Hoff inserts some Eeyore-ish comments of his own into the text of his sequel.  (My impression of their relative merit appears to be generally shared by others.  On the B&N website, the first has 4.5 stars and the second but 3.5 stars.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 27, 2014, 07:42:33 PM
The Spectre of Alexander Wolf, Gaito Gazdanov.

Finished this ages ago. Anyway, it's a brilliant book and I would recommend it to anyone. Some of our more fashionably radical members might balk at first, given that the author - and so also the first-person narrator - fought for the Whites in the civil war and that the whole book is set in the White Russian émigré community in Paris, but they should look beyond that.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on February 03, 2014, 08:47:29 PM
The Man who Saved the Union: Ulysses S. Grant in War and Peace by H.W. Brands. This is a full, intriguing biography of a sorely under appreciated American original.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Хahar 🤔 on February 13, 2014, 10:05:25 PM
The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 by Richard M. Eaton. It's a fascinating book that details a lot of history about which I know embarrassingly little, but what is most personally relevant to me is its conclusion that the conversion of rural eastern Bengal to Islam in the seventeenth century took place at the same time as the province's forests were turned into arable land. The notion of Bengal (particularly its east) as a frontier region on the edge of Indian civilization is a fascinating one, and I hadn't considered it before.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 05, 2014, 07:38:13 PM
Finally finished The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Great read, like most Rushdie. Unsure on where to proceed now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SWE on March 21, 2014, 03:54:54 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: k-onmmunist on March 27, 2014, 03:57:51 PM
a mix of lenin, althusser, ilyenkov and colletti


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on March 27, 2014, 04:57:48 PM
()

()



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cassius on March 27, 2014, 05:27:48 PM
Constantine: The Emperor, by David Potter.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lasitten on March 29, 2014, 10:59:47 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on April 16, 2014, 05:47:53 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MurrayBannerman on April 16, 2014, 08:58:59 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on April 19, 2014, 03:46:12 AM
Latest novel was Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene. Pretty hilarious and at the end of it pretty touching as well!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on April 19, 2014, 04:20:22 AM
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sol on April 26, 2014, 10:44:52 AM
I'm currently (re-)reading Dancing in the Glory of Monsters.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on April 30, 2014, 01:18:29 PM
Various things (as is usual), but the important one is Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death which is brilliant and something that everyone should read but which - due to the subject matter - is not exactly easy reading. Heavily recommended.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on April 30, 2014, 01:55:08 PM
I finished Baudolino--which is charming until quite late in the going end and then rapidly becomes heartbreaking, as is so often the way with Umberto Eco--and I'm trying to decide between rereading The Brothers Karamazov and starting A Secular Age.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cassius on April 30, 2014, 02:12:55 PM
Northanger Abbey


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on May 01, 2014, 09:55:28 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on May 03, 2014, 07:00:03 PM
"The Red Room" by August Strindberg. Very well written and sharp satire from one of my favourite eras (1870s) and a lot of it is still remarkably relevant.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on May 03, 2014, 11:01:18 PM
()

The author, Jarrett Walker, is kind of a personal hero of mine/model of what I'd like to be if I ever got my sh*t together, insofar as he is not just a really smart and perceptive transit planner (with a popular blog (http://www.humantransit.org/))... but one who came to the field via a PhD in literature.

And, actually, it really shows, in a positive way.  This thing is full of examples of how being attentive to the nuances of language, and values, and other more humanities-indebted ways of thinking are actually really important to the crafting and selling of good plans and policy.

Honestly it's kind of embarrassing I hadn't read it already.  Will pepper this space with a couple choice quotes when I figure out what's most worth typing out.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hamster on May 10, 2014, 12:44:21 AM
The Old Regime and the Revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cassius on May 10, 2014, 12:26:42 PM
Diplomacy, by Henry Kissinger (kind of old, but still interesting)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on May 10, 2014, 07:15:34 PM
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Piketty. I'm a bit disappointed.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on May 19, 2014, 05:33:48 AM
Fury by Rushdie. Came off as off-putting old man stuff for quite a while but vindicated itself a fair bit towards the end. Still, I'm a little disappointed, the worst book by him that I've read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on May 19, 2014, 05:40:45 AM
A Norwegian Tragedy: Anders Behring Breivik and the Massacre on Utøya by Aage Storm Borchgrevink.

Very well written and a fascinating tale of class, race relations, politics, youth culture, internet culture, outsider dynamics and a dysfunctional family.

The sheer fact that Breivik was examined by a team of child psychiatrists when he was 4 and they basically knew that this boy had severe personality disorder and would be ruined if he wasn't removed from his mentally ill mother is scary and thought provoking.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: muon2 on May 19, 2014, 09:25:02 AM
I had a few hours on planes this weekend so I read The Pluto Files by Neil deGrasse Tyson and The Drunkards Walk by Leonard Mlodinow. Both are good choices for one who enjoys learning about science or math from a historical view written in a readable style rich in anecdotes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on May 21, 2014, 06:20:59 PM
A Norwegian Tragedy: Anders Behring Breivik and the Massacre on Utøya by Aage Storm Borchgrevink.

Very well written and a fascinating tale of class, race relations, politics, youth culture, internet culture, outsider dynamics and a dysfunctional family.

The sheer fact that Breivik was examined by a team of child psychiatrists when he was 4 and they basically knew that this boy had severe personality disorder and would be ruined if he wasn't removed from his mentally ill mother is scary and thought provoking.
That sounds like a really good read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on May 23, 2014, 12:06:15 PM
Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year by David Von Drehle. The book examines the moral, economic, millitaristic and political struggles Lincoln faced in 1862, the most important year of the War Between the States.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on May 27, 2014, 09:07:35 AM
Americanah. Really cool book about race and pretty touching as well. Takes the unusual perspective of what she terms the "Non-American Black".

Then The Wayward Bus. Depressing and not my favourite Steinbeck, though it did have its moments.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Potus on May 27, 2014, 09:08:11 AM
No Higher Honor. By Condoleezza Rice.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on May 29, 2014, 08:45:17 AM
Finally getting around to reading Team of Rivals by Kearns-Goodwin in its entirety.  Partly for the interest it holds and partly because I'm going to be chair of a fairly rancorous department that is also disliked by the school administration next year, so I need some pointers.  :)  I might well be looking in the wrong place in the latter regard.  But I'm really enjoying the book so far anyway.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on May 30, 2014, 08:23:39 AM
General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse by Joseph Glatthaar. The book is not just a millitary account but really looks into the lives of soldiers who fought in the Army of Northern Virginia. I particularly liked the chapters which covevered the reasons the men fought and also the issues in terms of feeding the army.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on May 31, 2014, 04:33:54 AM
"The Red Room" by August Strindberg. Very well written and sharp satire from one of my favourite eras (1870s) and a lot of it is still remarkably relevant.

It's a nice book. In English or Swedish?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cassius on May 31, 2014, 10:48:45 AM
Rereading Michael Dobbs' 'House of Cards'.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: CatoMinor on May 31, 2014, 12:38:14 PM
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Hands down one of the best things I have read in a while. Bonhoeffer was a truly great pastor and writer.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on May 31, 2014, 04:42:03 PM
"The Red Room" by August Strindberg. Very well written and sharp satire from one of my favourite eras (1870s) and a lot of it is still remarkably relevant.

It's a nice book. In English or Swedish?

Danish, I can only be bothered to read Swedish literature in the original if I know the Danish translation is sub-standard and Sven Lange's classic 1923 translation is excellent (which is no surprise since he was a great writer himself).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SWE on May 31, 2014, 10:34:53 PM
Animal Farm by George Orwell


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on May 31, 2014, 11:12:19 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: justfollowingtheelections on June 01, 2014, 12:03:53 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on June 02, 2014, 01:51:10 PM
Just finished

()

Highly recommended. The CIA in the 50s and 60s was even crazier than I had thought, and that's impressive.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: justfollowingtheelections on June 05, 2014, 02:31:14 PM
Just finished

()

Highly recommended. The CIA in the 50s and 60s was even crazier than I had thought, and that's impressive.

I haven't read this book, but Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" does a really good job of describing the disgusting experiments done by the CIA on unsuspecting subjects.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on June 06, 2014, 10:40:50 PM
Started working on two:

()

()

Not trying to be ironic here.  I ordered Misquoting Jesus when I started studying the New Testament in depth, and I got the second book after I read a little about the Norwegian black metal scene in the 1990s.  Now I'll actually get to read them. :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Miles on June 07, 2014, 12:04:13 AM
()
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: H. Ross Peron on June 07, 2014, 12:55:04 AM
On a Michael Lind binge lately:

()
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: JerryArkansas on June 07, 2014, 02:02:08 AM
Frankenstein and The Kite Runner.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on June 07, 2014, 07:15:31 AM
"The Red Room" by August Strindberg. Very well written and sharp satire from one of my favourite eras (1870s) and a lot of it is still remarkably relevant.

It's a nice book. In English or Swedish?

Danish, I can only be bothered to read Swedish literature in the original if I know the Danish translation is sub-standard and Sven Lange's classic 1923 translation is excellent (which is no surprise since he was a great writer himself).

Yeah, I realized after I wrote that that it might as well have been in Danish. And I guess Swedish translates well into Danish. Crazy guy that Strindberg though not my favourite Swedish author.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lurker on June 07, 2014, 04:16:58 PM
I'm always impressed/surprised how (very!) "highbrow" this forum is in its reading habits. Though of course those reading high-brow litterature are probably more likely to post about it here


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on June 08, 2014, 11:11:53 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on June 08, 2014, 11:13:45 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on June 08, 2014, 11:42:22 AM
The Valley, Richard Benson. Fantastic.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cassius on June 08, 2014, 11:50:35 AM
'All the Kings Men: The British Redcoat in the Era of Sword and Musket' - Saul David.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on June 08, 2014, 12:02:20 PM
Recently finished From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple (one of my favorite authors...the book's a travelogue through the former realms of the Byzantine Empire examining the remnants of Eastern Christendom in what was once their stronghold and is now the stronghold of Islam) and Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary (a rather surface-level intro-y book that made me mad at some points but still had new information for me, specifically about late Medieval Islamic thinkers...I didn't have as solid a grasp on Islam in the 12th and 13th century eras before reading that book).

Currently reading Crusades: A History by Jonathan Riley-Smith.  I have become very, very interested in the Crusades, and this book is amazing in its intricate detail.  I just finished a section explaining the diet on a typical day in a Hospitaller hospital.  There was another great section talking about how the various Christian sects of the east interacted with the Franks, right down to multiple tiny Armenian churches, which is a topic I hadn't really seen explored before. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on June 08, 2014, 12:34:25 PM

That's actually one of my favorite books.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Paul Kemp on June 08, 2014, 12:55:44 PM
()





...but once I'm done with that, I'll be giving Under the Volcano another shot. Have started to read it twice before but always seem to get pulled away by something else.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SWE on June 09, 2014, 07:02:10 PM
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on June 10, 2014, 08:00:02 PM
Nixonland. It's great. Perlstein's an entertaining writer (even if he writes the book more like an internet article than a book at times) and his thesis is interesting and makes a lot of sense.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on June 10, 2014, 08:43:22 PM
Nixonland. It's great. Perlstein's an entertaining writer (even if he writes the book more like an internet article than a book at times) and his thesis is interesting and makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, that was an incredible book. It is my go-to source for everything related to the 1968 election.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 13, 2014, 10:29:14 PM
I just finished The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman. I know Hoffman's work generally has a sort of soft-focus, book-clubby reputation, but I really liked this book overall. It's got a really strong premise and driving concept--an epic novel internally composed of a tightly structured anthology of novellas, each narrated by one of the women in charge of gathering pigeon guano for fertilizer during the Siege of Masada--and the positively heliotrope hue of the prose fits the subject matter and the situations described. Some of the viewpoint characters are more sympathetic than others (I found the first section difficult to get through even though the character who narrates it becomes more sympathetic in other characters' eyes later on, so the book puts its worst foot forward in that respect), but the ones I liked I loved, and several of the big set-piece scenes and monologues--particularly the endings of the second and fourth sections and the beginning of the third--really shine. About the only enduring problem I have with the book is that taking a real figure and involving them in the main plotline and romantic and sexual entanglements to the extent that Hoffman does with a certain leader of the period is one of my personal cardinal sins for historical fiction, but Hoffman could hardly be expected to know that or to write to my specifications even if she did.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on June 17, 2014, 02:17:49 PM
()

Only 20-ish pages in, and it's excellent stuff. Strongly recommended for any Francophones.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on June 17, 2014, 02:55:43 PM

Fascinating. Black Argentines made up 2 in 5 of the population at independence to near zero in 1900.
Argentines take exception in even acknowledging that their country had any black citizens at all.

Could you give a précis of that book when/if you have finished it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on June 17, 2014, 03:20:32 PM
Lectures on Quantum Mechanics, by Gordon Baym, with supplements from the Landau and Lifsh**tz series. There are *many* graduate level books written on quantum mechanics, but Baym is one is the best for self-study on the basis of its not-too-easy-not-to-difficult problem sets.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on June 20, 2014, 08:16:14 PM
Danger My Ally by British explorer F.A. Mitchell-Hedges. I have no idea how much of this autobiography is true but Mitchell-Hedges can tell a story. He rode with Pancho Villa, battled pirates in the Caribbean, treasure hunted in South Africa and even claimed to discover the fabled Crystal Skulls of the Mayan. He might be full of BS but the book is a wonderful adventure.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on June 21, 2014, 11:35:06 PM
Robert Cooper: Laos - A Work in Progress.

Good stuff, but very heavy on facts. Cooper is a British anthropologist who has been living in Laos for the last 14 years (and owns one of only two bookshops in the country!).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 26, 2014, 11:58:01 AM
Last night I finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. I loved it--I'd say it's the best new book I've read all year, since The Idiot was a reread. The writing style is exactly what I look for in books like this and although the book has some really disturbing things to say about masculinity I'm pretty sure they're meant to be disturbing. John Updike-style dick-lit it's not.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on June 26, 2014, 12:07:33 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: PPT Spiral on June 26, 2014, 01:17:46 PM
Post Office by Charles Bukowski


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on July 07, 2014, 11:50:45 AM
Just finished up:

()

Just started:

()

Just ordered:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Maistre on July 07, 2014, 09:00:31 PM
Origins of the New South - Woodward


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 07, 2014, 09:07:53 PM
I'm reading Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic by Régine Robin. Robin appears to assume more preexisting familiarity with the subject matter than I in fact have, but it's still a pretty interesting read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on July 07, 2014, 10:07:14 PM
Charles de Gaulle by Eric Roussell. Also recently finished The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic by Henry Buckley,  A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes, and The Failure of the Action Liberale Nationale by Patricia Dirkes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Хahar 🤔 on July 08, 2014, 08:57:07 PM
It's funny that now when you mention Orlando Figes the first thing anyone thinks of is his Amazon reviews.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Phony Moderate on July 09, 2014, 02:39:26 PM
The Good, the Bad and the Unlikely by Mungo MacCallum. Say what you will about Abbott, Rudd, Gillard etc but next to some of the early Aussie PMs they are saintly.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on July 09, 2014, 08:10:34 PM
Not sure if it's become obvious from my inactivity, but I've decided to stop posting on the forum.  Not my thing anymore.  I thought, however, that my last post was quite unpleasant in the way it concluded and so wanted to end on a little better note.  So, I'm making that hopefully better note a few impressions from Kearns-Goodwin's book Team of Rivals that I just finished reading--all 760 pages of it.  I read it partly to learn more about the time and partly for some guidance in my own future.  Anyway, here are a few things I enjoyed learning about Lincoln.

From when he was young, Lincoln loved to tell raucous jokes.  One of his favorites in early life seems to have been about a man who loved Revolutionary War souvenirs.  He would travel far and wide not just to purchase them, but even just to see and touch them.  On one occasion, the man heard of a elderly woman who lived far away from him, but who owned a rare aristocratic dress from the period.  He went to visit her and begged to see the item.  She was puzzled about why he marveled at it so much, especially when he started to gently kiss the dress.  Finally, she said to him: "if you like kissing old things so much, you should kiss my behind; it's sixteen years older than the dress."

Lincoln never wore a beard before the 1860 general election campaign. He decided to grow his at the suggestion of an 11-year old girl from New Jersey, who wrote him a note saying that girls like men with beards.  Women couldn't vote at the time of course, but Lincoln was still intrigued.  Skeptical about whether it would help, Lincoln wrote the little girl back and wondered aloud in his reply if people would be suspicious of him growing a beard only now, when running for office, addressing her almost like a campaign consultant.  But he did it anyway.  After winning, during his trip from Springfield to Washington, someone pointed out the little girl in a crowd at one of the train stops, and Lincoln went up to her and gave her a fatherly kiss on the forehead.

One of Lincoln's greatest sources of pleasure during the war was giving pardons to Union soldiers who had been deserters.  He sat frequently with his Secretary of War, Stanton, to go through pardon requests.  Stanton preferred to be consistently strict with deserters and upheld many orders for them to be executed, but Lincoln frequently overrode him, looking for even the slightest excuse to let the deserter off the hook.  He told a few stories that accompanied his pardons that I found funny and touching.  One of his first, about a deserter who was to be beheaded, went roughly like this: "I thought about it for a time.  I came to the conclusion that one head was not a matter of great weight to the country.  It was quite a weighty matter to the soldier though, for it was the only head he had."  Later in the war, when signing another pardon of a deserter, Lincoln said: "I once heard of a fellow who, about to be executed for desertion, was asked by his commander why he always ran away from his post.  'Well, Captain,' the soldier replied, 'it's not my fault.  I have a heart as brave as Julius Caesar's, but when the guns start firing, these legs of mine just carry me away.'"

I guess one of the things that impressed me the most about Lincoln, what I personally have to learn the most from, is how easily he was able to win the loyalty of those around him by being in incredible control of his own feelings, so that he could be generous and magnanimous with even those who had either once competed against him or had clearly wronged him in some way.  Lincoln almost invariably waived off past rivalries and injuries by telling those involved things like: "I'm sure what you did was not done out of any malice toward me, and so I bear none toward you;" and: "whatever happened before, I don't even remember it."

Anyway, that's it for me, folks.  It's been a fun five-and-a-half years or so posting on the forum.  I'd like to kindly thank those who were generous enough to befriend and defend me occasionally here, and also would like to say sorry to those I sometimes responded very poorly to.  Cheers to all and enjoy.

Signing off,
anvi


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: badgate on July 10, 2014, 08:00:15 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on July 10, 2014, 08:17:18 PM
Just finished this:

()

Next up is this:

()

Both Xmas presents that I'm just getting around to now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mechaman on July 12, 2014, 08:03:44 PM
()

A very controversial book to be sure that shatters a bunch of assumptions even I had about the "good ole days".  A few shockers I've already read:

  • 1700's Colonial America was a haven of extreme libertinism that scared many of the Founding Fathers sh*tless.  Hell, there was a large scale gay culture emerging amongst the pirates who docked at many early American cities.
  • Slaves were more sexually liberated on their plantations than the vast majority of white Americans were in the 1800s.
  • The richest women in American society in the 19th century were Madams who ran brothels.  Prostitutes who worked for these Madams were also among the top income earners of their time, earning in some cases ten times as much in a week compared to women who worked in factories.
So far, I definitely recommend a read.

Also reading this:

()
A pretty fascinating read if you are interested in learning about the Irish military diaspora in the Civil War.  Contains some pretty badass stories, including how Abe Lincoln talked down an irate Tyrone man from a duel after insulting his manhood in a local paper. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Shields)  Also, the story of a man who got shot like eight freakin times and not only lived but walked back several miles back to his camp in the scorching heat!

()
One of John Meacham's books, I kind of started this one the other week.  Haven't really read that much of it, given my Kindle ADD.  So far it seems to be doing a real good job of depicting Jackson as a morally flawed man who was passionately and zealously devoted to his friends, his family, and his calling.  The kind of balance the author has achieved is impressive, given the subject.

()
Another Meacham book that I am about 80% done with.  In my opinion this book does a great character analysis of Jefferson that reveals Jefferson for the pragmatic power seeker that he really was.  Many myths are shattered here, like the idea that Jefferson wanted a radical agrarian republic (lol) or even that he was vehemently opposed to economic nationalism.  In my mind the book helps establish Jefferson more as an "opportunistic conservative" who took advantage of the liberal movements of his time to gain greater power for himself and other more moderate upper class Virginian planters of his time.  Basically, he used the power of government and politicking to create an order that helped retain him and his broseths Madison and Monroe in power until the Election of 1824.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on July 17, 2014, 01:51:04 AM
Read all the Game of Thrones-books during long plane rides and general vacation. Decent, entertaining reads and adds a lot of welcome complexity and nuance to the tv show.

Royal Flash. New discovery for me, fantastic fun. I certainly intend to read all of the Flashman books when I can get my hands on them!

Luka and the Fire of Life. Sequel to Haroon and the Sea of Stories. Not quite as strong but still good! Rushdie writes very touchingly about his sons.

All the Pretty Horses, by McCarthy. My least favourite book of his that I've read, but moving and gripping all the same. I enjoy his work quite a lot.

Things Fall Apart by Achebe. I was underwhelmed. I read my first Nigerian book in the form of Americanah, but grand old classic as this is, I liked it less. There was a moral ambiguity in it that I didn't really like. And the main character wasn't all that sympathetic to me. But maybe I'm too white and colonialist to get it, who knows. :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: H. Ross Peron on July 17, 2014, 04:31:59 AM
Reading God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens mostly to see what the fuss was all about. To me, they are little more than above-average blog posts in terms of quality and depth-among secularists Richard Carrier provides better arguments while Paine and Ingersoll are more readable.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 17, 2014, 04:34:13 AM
Reading God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens mostly to see what the fuss was all about.

'Nothing much' didn't recommend itself to you as an answer in the first place?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on July 19, 2014, 11:54:10 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on July 19, 2014, 12:31:04 PM
I'm reading Tony Judt's Postwar. It's okay so far, I hope it gets better. The first few chapters just seem to be endless lists of numbers and statistics. His actual analysis is interesting, but reading page after page listing the numbers of refugees from each European state is kind of exhausting.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on July 20, 2014, 04:32:37 PM
()

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Suburbia on July 20, 2014, 05:01:16 PM
I'm currently reading Bob Shrum's No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner on John Kerry's 2004 veep search. I wonder why he chose Edwards over Vilsack and Gephardt.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on July 20, 2014, 10:34:23 PM
Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction by Allen C. Guelzo. Guelzo is without a doubt the finest Ciivl War historian writing today. This book reads like a greatly updated (and far more readable) Battle Cry of Freedom. McPherson has always hit me as too heavy on data, far too light on story. Guelzo finds an incredible balance and also works a new view of Reconstruction into the treatment as well. A fine read and highly recommended. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 23, 2014, 04:25:31 AM
I just read All That's Left to You, by Ghassan Kanafani, in one sitting. Weird and wonderful--one of Kanafani's multiple first-person narrators is a completely inanimate object. Now back to Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on July 23, 2014, 06:34:31 AM

Yey! Finally a brainy book mentioned on here that I've read. Though it was ten years ago.

I have a soft spot for Socialist-Realism, though artistically it was horribly romantic (which I'm not fond of) but architecturally could be functional (which I do like). I also like Brutalism so whatever...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cassius on July 23, 2014, 06:44:55 AM
The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 23, 2014, 06:50:52 AM

Yey! Finally a brainy book mentioned on here that I've read. Though it was ten years ago.

I'm a little over halfway through. I just got through the bit on Lenin's attempt at constructing and advancing the image of a 'Red Tolstoy'.

Quote
I have a soft spot for Socialist-Realism, though artistically it was horribly romantic (which I'm not fond of) but architecturally could be functional (which I do like). I also like Brutalism so whatever...

In that case like (at least some of) the aspects of socialist realism that you don't, and don't like (at least some of) the aspects that you do. And if you like brutalism you'd love my now-former university campus. I mean that sincerely--it's the best-integrated and (for someone who doesn't like brutalism) overall least objectionable use of brutalist architecture I've ever seen. It helps that the brutalist buildings are mixed in with Colonial revival, postmodern, and in one incongruous case Gothic revival buildings in an interestingly heterogeneous way.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on July 23, 2014, 01:05:56 PM
'Socialist' 'Realism' was effectively the kitschification (for glorification of political power) of the Russian Realist tradition, which - as bad luck would have it - was actually one of the most interesting and artistically accomplished of the various 19th century Realist tendencies. Rather delightfully, the American Realist tradition was also pretty accomplished and dynamic, and it also suffered the fate of kitschification-for-politics in the 1930s... though (mercifully) to a less extreme degree.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 23, 2014, 02:32:28 PM
'Socialist' 'Realism' was effectively the kitschification (for glorification of political power) of the Russian Realist tradition, which - as bad luck would have it - was actually one of the most interesting and artistically accomplished of the various 19th century Realist tendencies.

That's exactly the process that Robin is discussing. Because of my great fondness for Russian realism I like the aspects of socialist realism that suffered less than others from the kitschification, generally because of the skill of the artist in question rather than because some fields of the arts or areas of subject matter were somehow more immune to it than others (although I have seen it noted that socialist realist paintings of Lenin tend on balance to be less atrocious than those of Stalin, which comes as not much of a surprise at all).

Robin seems to think that what Gorky seemed to mean by his preferred term 'revolutionary romanticism' would probably have been more artistically fulfilled, but that's an effect of the fact that Gorky was a better writer and more honest than a lot of the people surrounding him and a lot of the other people at the First Soviet Writers' Congress to which Robin devotes Part One of the book. (The book focuses mostly on novels. Part Two is about the 'realist obsession of the nineteenth century' and spends a lot of time on Goncharov and Turgenev as novelists--there's a particularly vivid dissection of Bazarov from Fathers and Sons--and Belinsky, Dobrolyubov, and Pisarev as critics, along with the requisite Chernyshevsky, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy.)

Robin spends the introduction talking about her personal background with Soviet film and literature and her genuine childhood love for this sort of thing. She's for the most part semi-sympathetic--more sympathetic to her former self than to the art in question--without being an apologist, although the 'insane dream' sequence at the end of Part One--which I'll type up if anybody is interested in reading it--is one of the most full-throated criticisms I've read in any book of this kind.

Quote
Rather delightfully, the American Realist tradition was also pretty accomplished and dynamic, and it also suffered the fate of kitschification-for-politics in the 1930s... though (mercifully) to a less extreme degree.

By the pre-kitschified form are you referring to (in visual art) painters like the Ashcan School, and by the post-kitschified form such as Norman Rockwell, or is my understanding of American realism constrained because I've spent so much of my life focusing on European and Asian art?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: justfollowingtheelections on July 23, 2014, 05:22:37 PM
I'm reading Tony Judt's Postwar. It's okay so far, I hope it gets better. The first few chapters just seem to be endless lists of numbers and statistics. His actual analysis is interesting, but reading page after page listing the numbers of refugees from each European state is kind of exhausting.

I've read it as well as a couple of other books by Judt.  I have read a lot of european history and I think he is a little biased on certain things.

Right now I'm reading "Globalization and its enemies" by Daniel Cohen
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on July 23, 2014, 07:38:15 PM
I still think the USSR should have made constructivism, instead of socialist 'realism', its official art style... just think of the possibilities, never mind its effect on Communism's low aesthetic reputation.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dave from Michigan on August 02, 2014, 02:15:59 PM
Just got back from the library and I got a book on former Michigan governor William Milliken, a moderate republican. He was governor from 1969 to 1983. Looks interesting and should give some good insight to Michigan politics of that era. State politics from past eras can be hard to find info on.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on August 03, 2014, 02:09:47 PM
A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred by George Will. This is a charming, informative little history of the Cubs and the great city of Chicago. Chicago has been run down so much these last few years it is nice to read a book that reminds me how much the Empire City of the Great Lakes means to America, it's culture and it's history. Also, it put forward some neat theories on Babe Ruth's famous "Called Shot" in 1932 and also the Zangara's attempted assassination of FDR. A fun read and highly recommended.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on August 03, 2014, 06:31:14 PM
Just finished "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" ten minutes ago.  Like, I mean ten minutes ago.  Long story.  Homework, sort of.  Pretty interesting read anyway. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on August 11, 2014, 06:47:48 PM
Citadel of Sin: The John Looney Story by Richard Hamer and Roger Ruthart. This is a fine work of local history. It tells the dark story of John Patrick Looney, the crime boss of Rock Island, Illinois. I visit the Quad City area monthly and it is amazing to learn about a gangster who ran his own newspaper, held a law degree and wrote a play about Irish freedom fighter Robert Emmett. If you have ever seen the film Road to Perdition you know who Looney is. He was played by Paul Newman and the charterer was named John Rooney. The film does not do a great job telling the historical truth of the John Looney story but it is still a great movie. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on August 12, 2014, 10:27:00 PM
Si l'Union Nationale m'était contée, by Mario Cardinal et al, and Memoires by Georges-Emile Lapalme. The former is an oral history by political scientists interviewing prominent politicians from the Duplessis era... nothing really new to me but I was interested in how everyone rated their colleagues. Lapalme's memoirs are boring as hell, if useful as a peek on that side of the aisle. The PLQ then, like the PCQ decades earlier, was a pathetic joke somewhat in awe of the omnipotent dynasty facing them across the aisle... though to his credit Lapalme doesn't engage in too much self-aggrandizement.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on August 13, 2014, 01:25:48 AM
Heart of the World by Hans Urs von Balthasar.  Interesting, and if I shared his premises I would share his conclusion.  But frankly, I found little in his premises that I agreed with. I don't see Human individuality as inherently incompatible with Divine unity.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Foucaulf on August 15, 2014, 02:23:16 AM
Straying away from my research project, I'm almost done with a book on economic philosophy: Alex Rosenberg's Economics - Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns? (http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo3617322.html) The easiest way to explain it is that Rosenberg, as a philosopher of science, notices that many economists believe that their study will lead to understanding about what really holds true in our economy. Progress on this criteria ought to be judged, following empiricist standards, by constant improvements in economics's quantitative predictive power. His main thesis is that we should not hope that this will ever happen in economics; i.e. economics has and cannot be a science.

There are a lot of arguments in the book. Chief ones are that the fact that economics has a formalized methodological core doesn't mean much about its status as science; the nature of preferential statements putting a stop to any reasonable idea of "improvement" in economics; faulty metaphors in evolutionary economics; the confounding effects of information and uncertainty; and the uselessness of general equilibrium theory. I think the last three has become accepted, while the first two remains opposed in looser forms.

Rosenberg tends to see economics as "applied math" - deductive reasoning in support of some institutional setup. This is a pretty pessimistic view and I hope Austrians don't get all up in my grill about it. I think his view has softened in recent years as behavioural economics has identified some psychological trends in human behaviour. It is not impossible for economics to predict what will actually happen - but circumstances for doing so are very hard to arrange.

This is not to mention the big debate over prediction of the future versus identification of causal effects going on within economics. If the discipline is split up into two camps, each of which prizing prediction or identification over the other, that will only stoke complaints that economics isn't only getting its deep variables wrong, but is also totally biased a certain way when selecting them.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: H. Ross Peron on August 17, 2014, 03:40:04 AM
http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320498352l/23231.jpg (http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320498352l/23231.jpg)

One of the most quintiessentially Atlasian novels.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: justfollowingtheelections on August 20, 2014, 08:49:21 PM
Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the 21st century".  Great book so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on August 21, 2014, 10:31:00 AM
Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the 21st century".  Great book so far.

That's a waste of time. :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on August 21, 2014, 11:05:39 AM
Simon Schama's Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations). A glorious piece of A+++ trolling.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on August 23, 2014, 06:46:48 PM
()

The third Mazower book I've read.  Drier than Dark Continent and Salonika: City of Ghosts, but a good read nonetheless.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 24, 2014, 04:41:15 PM
Spider in a Tree: A Novel of the First Great Awakening by Susan Stinson. I don't know quite what I expected when I heard that there was a historical novel about Jonathan Edwards's household by a writer previously known primarily for lesbian-themed fiction, but I know that I was not expecting this to be as incredibly good as it is so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on August 24, 2014, 05:39:37 PM
Spider in a Tree: A Novel of the First Great Awakening by Susan Stinson. I don't know quite what I expected when I heard that there was a historical novel about Jonathan Edwards's household by a writer previously known primarily for lesbian-themed fiction, but I know that I was not expecting this to be as incredibly good as it is so far.

currently on Wiki

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SWE on August 30, 2014, 12:18:17 PM
Just started A People's History of the United States


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lasitten on August 30, 2014, 05:08:28 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on August 30, 2014, 09:04:38 PM
Warlords: Borden, Mackenzie King and Canada's World Wars by Tim Cook.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: H. Ross Peron on September 04, 2014, 09:50:21 PM
()

Read an excerpt for Comparative Politics and it was absolutely fantastic. I wonder what Simfan thinks of it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Foucaulf on September 07, 2014, 04:25:10 PM
I'm taking my obscurity to the next level: I'm flipping through a Chinese book called On Modern Chinese Thought (http://item.jd.com/10273222.html) by Li Zehou. The author is a prominent Chinese philosopher, who still ended up being arrested several times in Mainland China for his moments of political critique. By "modern" he means China from the late Qing period to the Republic of China period, or nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.

At its heart it is a collection of essays, focused on that period's major thinkers and critiquing their thought. It's less a work of history as it is a reevaluation of thought, with the end goal of understanding where China must go after a century of social upheaval. But I'm only getting started.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on September 10, 2014, 03:06:46 PM
Among modern Chinese philosophers, Li Zhehou is certainly one of the most fascinating.  Interesting stuff on aesthetics, fairly provocative arguments about political theory.  Enjoy the read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DC Al Fine on September 10, 2014, 05:19:53 PM
Warlords: Borden, Mackenzie King and Canada's World Wars by Tim Cook.

I'm considering getting it for my Dad for his birthday. Is it any good?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DC Al Fine on September 10, 2014, 05:25:45 PM
Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat.

It's a pretty neat read. Very little theology though.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cassius on September 11, 2014, 08:46:07 AM
Judging Dev by Diarmaid Ferriter.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on September 11, 2014, 09:09:09 AM
Inspired by jdb (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=186106.msg4291277#msg4291277) I borrowed "Twelve Years a Slave" by Solomon Northup from the MTPL last night.  It's a 2007 edition published by Barnes & Noble (216 pages).  I've only read the timeline of Northup's life, the B&N Intro, and the editor's original 1855 preface so far, but I'll read more of it over the weekend when I have time.  It is interesting that by 1855 the American English spelling had evolved, more or less, into its modern form.  For example, the editor's spelling of words like advice and labor are not like those of Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries.  Also, the dedication page, presumably written by Northup, is to Harriet Beecher Stowe and suggests that his narrative will provide "another key to Uncle Tom's Cabin."  I suppose that Northup must have observed that the intensity of the abolitionist movement had increased greatly between the time he was kidnapped in 1841 and the time he was released in 1853. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DemPGH on September 11, 2014, 03:49:16 PM
The September 2014 issue of The Ricardian Bulletin showed up today on my doorstep, so there's some reading for this evening. :)

I have Edward IV and the Wars of the Roses by David Santiuste to get to in a while. It's about the king as a military leader and his sterling record in battle, which outshines other better known kings.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on September 13, 2014, 12:39:49 PM
Louis St. Laurent, Canadian by Dale Thomson. Excellent, breezy read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on September 13, 2014, 02:39:41 PM
Bought two books the other day and am reading them both. One is The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco), the other is The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BCE-1492 CE (Simon Schama). Having already eyed up the former, I noticed that the latter was now out in paperback. I'd been carefully avoiding buying the (rather expensive) hardback of it for a while. These things happen. I'm also occasionally skimming through a lovely edition of Pushkin short stories and poems and recently read the Very Short Introduction to Writing and Script for the sheer hell of it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on September 13, 2014, 03:15:57 PM
I've just completed Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies - a very interesting work, if overly detailed at times (my eyes - not to mention concentration - glaze over at long contextless discussions of kings, battles and genealogies... Too much information, unfortunately that is too common in Medieval history, if admittedly in part by necessity) and rather uneven work. Some of the chapters - those on the Kingdom of Strathclyde, Aragon (when he doesn't spend endless time on discussing monarchial successions), Savoy, Montenegro - are excellent while others just serve to overdo his personal obsessions: the neglect of Eastern Europe by historians and the role of royal families. Two chapters - those on Saxe Coburg-Gotha and, strangely, Ireland - basically only to exist for trolling purposes on the House of Windsor's origins and the imminent (in his view) breakup of the UK. On chapters on Poland-Lithuania, Prussia and Burgundy he goes too far into political detail and this work would have served better with much more cultural history and less political stuff. However, He's particularly good at relating these vanished kingdoms to their present day surroundings and reflecting on the roles of memory and forgetting these old states exist in modern states and the role historians have played in distorting the record in the name of presentist and nationalist biases. Recommended.

I'm about to start Mary Tregear's Chinese Art followed with China: A new Cultural History by Cho-Yun Hsu and What Have God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe. I have an extensive - and rather sinocentric - reading list for the next two months or so. Any recommendations for books on China? Tibet and Central Asia would also do.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on September 19, 2014, 09:25:03 AM
Gully, are you looking for books on Chinese history or contemporary China?  

I'm working my way through Bill Bryson's A Brief History of Nearly Everything.  It's ten years old in terms of science, but still a nicely-written book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on September 19, 2014, 10:44:20 AM
Gully, are you looking for books on Chinese history or contemporary China?  


Both.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: New_Conservative on September 19, 2014, 10:36:42 PM
I'm starting 1776 by David McCullough tomorrow, looks pretty good.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on September 20, 2014, 09:41:05 AM
Well, Gully, for starters, broad overviews of classical China are available from Patricia Buckley Ebrey, either in her Cambridge Illustrated History of China, her China: A Social, Cultural and Political History or her Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook. John Kaey has also recently written a broad-ranging history of China which is pretty accessible. 

There are really nice historical treatments of individual dynasties in Chinese history as part of a Harvard University Press series.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/collection.php?cpk=1338    (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/collection.php?cpk=1338)

For modern Chinese history, a standard work is Jonathan Spence's Search for Modern China, though it will only take you up to the early '90's. 

For more specific topics and areas, I'd have to know what you were most interested in.  I'm more conversant with Chinese philosophical history given my own research, but am familiar with more general historical and cultural areas in several fields.  Recommendations here would just depend on your specific interests.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Foucaulf on September 21, 2014, 04:52:36 PM
Fall quarter is approaching and I'm taking a full graduate course load in economics, in pursuit of a beefed up grad school application. To each class I can assign a relevant textbook:

Mas-Colell, Whinston and Green's Microeconomic Theory. The "bible" of graduate micro, a thousand-page reference on most micro ideas of interest. Probably continues to be used because no one has written anything as comprehensive in the 20 years since its publication. Not totally rigorous, but has quite a bit of notational quirks and complementary graphs. A lot of people say reading it requires a lot of mathematical preparation, but I'd like to think it's just badly written, peppered with the language of mathematical exposition.

Stokey, Lucas and Prescott's Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics. A math reference for the microfounded macro models which have become the norm. It will certainly be useful, but my lack of training in optimization makes it hard reading. Probably a worse offender in abusing jargon than MWG above.

Manski's Identification for Prediction and Decision. The author is the class instructor, a very prestigious econometrician and possible future Nobel Laureate. Apparently the class follows the book very closely and is not intensive at all, so maybe I'll enjoy reading this... Roughly, the book is about how useful statistical analysis of data are in providing conclusions and confidence for policy effectiveness.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on September 22, 2014, 08:04:44 PM
Cannery Row by Steinbeck. A cute little read, though not the best of his works that I've read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Redalgo on September 26, 2014, 12:10:04 AM
When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals, as part of an effort to better understand interspecies moral dilemmas and accordingly adjust my proposals for animal rights.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on October 02, 2014, 01:42:27 PM
I am rereading Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It was one of the few assigned texts that I did read in high school. It didn't make much sense then, and all I could recall of it before rereading it is that it somehow involved lots of cows.

Reading it this time around is trying my patience to its very core. It's so exasperating that I look forward to the milking and grass-watching scenes, if only because takes narrative focus away from paragraph-after-damned-paragraph of the inexpressible virginal goodness of Tess and her beloved milksop "Angel Clare."

"Oh, I shan't, I musn't!, I'm too fallen for his love!"

Gag.

After having read it, I'm glad I was put off by the narrator's, and Tess's, repeated assertions on how good Angel Clare is.

Now reading Balzac's Lost Illusions. Now, this is an outstanding novel. Balzac even manages to make the history of papermaking exciting.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on October 02, 2014, 02:27:56 PM
Finally finished Marx's Ecology by J.B. Foster, which was a really good read, although it was a bit hard to get into at first. Rebuts a lot of the common mischaracterizations and accusations leveled at Marxist thought so far as ecology and the environment are concerned, and connects the dots between ancient and early modern thinkers (and Marx) to build a coherent, materialist view of ecological development and the interaction between human beings and their environment.

What I'm working on now:
()

What I'm waiting for in the mail:
()
()
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sol on October 19, 2014, 01:41:27 PM
I just finished this:
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Miles on October 25, 2014, 05:13:04 PM
()
()
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on October 25, 2014, 06:46:07 PM
The Renaissance of Islam by Adam Mez and I Borgia by Roberto Gervaso.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on October 25, 2014, 10:32:27 PM
Last Month: A book by Al Franken mocking Conservative Media

This Month: The first volume of the Nixon Tapes (not sure I'll finish though, it's just so dang huge)

Next Month: Hard Choices (Hillary Clinton)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: checkers on October 30, 2014, 08:30:03 AM
Claudius the God by Robert Graves. I feel like it should be right up my alley - politics, history, intrigue, I really enjoyed the BBC adaptation et cetera - but something about the prose just stops me from really getting into it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on October 30, 2014, 09:24:19 AM
Crime and Punishment.  I'm about 3/4 finished.  Don't tell me how it ends.

I was actually inspired by Senator bore:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=200553.msg4338757#msg4338757

Well, I was inspired to pick up Brothers Karamazov, but at the library all the copies of that book were really fat and really old but right next to them was Crime and Punishment.  The book was shaped better.  Tall, and therefore thinner, with newer binding.  The Idiot was there too, but I have already read that.  I'll probably read Brothers Karamazov when I can find a more aesthetically pleasing edition.  So far, every Russian book I've ever read was very depressing--we have discussed Anna Karenina and War & Peace elsewhere.  Not as depressing as Dickens, but depressing nonetheless.

Anyway, Sonya's father has just been laid to rest.  I think I'm about to find out whether Raskolnikov has given himself away to the cops.  I imagine he has, although I'm not entirely sure what will happen to his sister and his mother.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: swl on October 31, 2014, 06:52:51 AM
I think russian novels have a tendency to shatter the naive hopeful views we have on life sometimes.

I just finished The Joke, by Milan Kundera, and it had the same effect. I could not help but relate on the things we all do sometimes, the hopes or the big plans we all have. If only we could read 1% of others have in mind, we would realize that all these plans are actually completely stupid. My personal lesson from this book is that life is an absurd joke and it's better to laugh at it.  :D


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: bore on October 31, 2014, 09:30:29 AM
Crime and Punishment.  I'm about 3/4 finished.  Don't tell me how it ends.

I was actually inspired by Senator bore:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=200553.msg4338757#msg4338757

Well, I was inspired to pick up Brothers Karamazov, but at the library all the copies of that book were really fat and really old but right next to them was Crime and Punishment.  The book was shaped better.  Tall, and therefore thinner, with newer binding.  The Idiot was there too, but I have already read that.  I'll probably read Brothers Karamazov when I can find a more aesthetically pleasing edition.  So far, every Russian book I've ever read was very depressing--we have discussed Anna Karenina and War & Peace elsewhere.  Not as depressing as Dickens, but depressing nonetheless.

Anyway, Sonya's father has just been laid to rest.  I think I'm about to find out whether Raskolnikov has given himself away to the cops.  I imagine he has, although I'm not entirely sure what will happen to his sister and his mother.



I'm glad to hear it :)

I read The Brothers Karamazov last year and am coincidentally also reading Crime and Punishment at the moment, although I'm a bit closer to the end (I have 30 pages left, so should be finished today or tomorrow).



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on November 10, 2014, 10:51:55 AM
The Russians are great.

My two most recent reads were The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera and Sweet Thursday by Steinbeck.

TULOB is undeniably a great novel, well written and lots of very insightful things in it about people (I was going to say the human condition but then I vomited in my mouth at that cliche).

At the same time he comes off as unbearable douche, so there is that. :P And the sexism in it was at times a bit too much for me. I don't mind sexism much in older books but this is modern enough that he should know better and there is a sophisticated evil to it that goes beyond mere ignorance.

Sweet Thursday is typical Steinbeck, very sweet and heartwarming.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 10, 2014, 04:12:43 PM
I've cracked open The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: justfollowingtheelections on November 18, 2014, 01:33:40 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Mikado on November 18, 2014, 01:36:44 PM
()

Margaret MacMillan is meticulously detailed and a pleasure to read, as always. Paris 1919 was one of my favorite history books ever, and this one is...not quite up to that standard, but is damned solid.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on November 22, 2014, 01:54:09 PM
Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on November 22, 2014, 02:18:46 PM
I've been diverted from literature by a bunch of technical books -- I mean you, Landau and Lifsh(i)tz Vol 8 -- but I've been reading Pride and Prejudice just to see what all the fuss is about.

EDIT: What a damn absurdity. The forum formatting actually impedes communication.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on November 22, 2014, 02:37:48 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Spamage on November 22, 2014, 04:49:25 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 26, 2014, 02:57:02 PM
Recently I've been looking (don't ask me why; it's a long story, although probably not one that would really surprise anybody here) for Christian-themed lesbian literature, that is, literature featuring lesbian characters who either are believing Christians throughout the narrative or become believing Christians in the course of the narrative and stay that way. As you might imagine, this is an exceptionally niche set of specifications, especially since I consider accidentally running across 'ex-gay' tripe a worse result than finding nothing. So far I've found and read a few recently-published young adult novels that technically fit what I'm looking for but they've tended to be of relatively low artistic quality and don't do much to rectify the generally poor reputation of both lesbian YA and contemporary Christian fiction as a whole. By rights there should probably be some sort of untapped market here.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on November 26, 2014, 03:38:57 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on December 03, 2014, 01:09:20 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on December 03, 2014, 01:30:11 PM
God Bless America: The Surprising History Of An Iconic Song by Sheryl Kaskowitz has proven to be a lovely little work that explores Irving Berlin's patriotic tune. Little did I know that it was written in 1918, was changed to an isolationist hymn and Woody Guthrie wrote "This Land is My Land" as a protest of the song. Incredible the history that lies behind things. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on December 03, 2014, 02:15:14 PM
I just finished Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping which has been on my 'to read' list since forever. It may well be the greatest thing ever set in Idaho.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on December 03, 2014, 02:36:41 PM
Maurice Druon, La Volupté d’être

Just finished: Ludwik Stomma, Krolów Francji wzloty i upadki (AFAIK never translated to English, so the title would be something like "French Kings' Ups and Downs")


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on December 03, 2014, 03:34:42 PM
I just finished Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping which has been on my 'to read' list since forever. It may well be the greatest thing ever set in Idaho.

I was born in Fingerbone (Sandpoint).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on December 03, 2014, 04:35:43 PM
Inquiry into Human Understanding by David Hume


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Miles on December 03, 2014, 10:36:30 PM
I got through most of Hard Choices on audiobook during my drive home/back for Thanksgiving.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on December 07, 2014, 08:10:11 PM
I received several books for Christmas, but won't be able to get a hold of them until then :(.

-On His Own Terms (Richard Norton Smith): The Nelson Rockefeller biography.
-The Nixon Tapes (John Dean): Transcripts of Nixon's tapes.
-The Greatest Comeback (Pat Buchanan): Buchanan's years with Tricky Dick.
-Another Side Of Bob Dylan (Victor Memedes): A biography of the Bobster.
-The Invisible Bridge (Rick Pearlstein): The latest bio of his 1965-1981 history trilogy.

Which one should I read first? I'm leaning towards The Invisible Bridge.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oldiesfreak1854 on December 07, 2014, 09:36:24 PM
Just started reading Little Women (by Louisa May Alcott).
Let me know how that goes.
I finished it at the end of August; I loved every minute of it.  I don't care if it's a "girls' book"; it's a classic for a reason.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on December 08, 2014, 07:31:46 PM
Here's my big fat current reading list - busy till at least the end of January I suspect

Currently Reading: Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold: Europe's Conquest of Indigenous People - Mark Cocker
The Mammoth Book of Native Americans - various (pretty much finished this except for a long captivity narrative which I'd rather read when I have a lot of time free)

On the list:
Debt: The First 5,000 Years - David Graeber
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat - Oliver Sacks
Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Encounter with the East - Mary Laven
Europe and the People Without History - Eric Wolf
Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche - Ethan Watters
The Race Gallery: The Return of Racial Science - Marek Kohn
Talking to the Enemy: Violent Extremism, Sacred Values, and What It Means to be Human - Scott Atran
The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914 - Robert Bickers

I'm going to have to move onto Debt soon as it is a library book, but after that I'm not sure what order I should read them in. Any suggestions/recommendations?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: checkers on December 09, 2014, 07:40:56 AM
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. After that I'll be working through a big stack of books that I accumulated as birthday presents recently.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on December 10, 2014, 08:56:19 PM
The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On by John Stauffer. A wonderful treatment of a great American song.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: H. Ross Peron on December 10, 2014, 09:58:49 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on December 15, 2014, 12:40:24 AM
Finished a few days ago:

()

Finishing up now:

()

Next up:

()

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: OSR stands with Israel on December 16, 2014, 12:24:51 AM
The NAtional Debt by Robert Kelly


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on December 20, 2014, 10:25:56 AM
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. After that I'll be working through a big stack of books that I accumulated as birthday presents recently.

What did you think? I'm a big Rushdie fan but that wasn't one of my favourites.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Murica! on December 22, 2014, 11:25:10 PM
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Earnest Hemingway. And Yes I somehow haven't read it yet.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 26, 2014, 07:45:00 AM
I've just started Froth on the Daydream by Boris Vian, one of my Christmas presents. It sure is...something. 'The kitchen mice liked to dance to the sounds made by the rays of the sun as they bounced off the taps, and then run after the little bubbles that the rays burst into when they hit the ground like sprays of golden mercury.' 'He decorated the centre of the table with a pharmaceutical jar in which a pair of embryonic chickens seemed to be dancing Nijinsky's choreography for The Spectre of the Rose.' 'But you know I never read anything but Jean Pulse Heartre.' (Biographical note: Apparently the author's wife cheated on him with Sartre.) Those sentences happened. And I'm only in the first chapter!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on December 26, 2014, 09:33:04 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Libertarian Socialist Dem on December 27, 2014, 07:49:44 PM
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on December 28, 2014, 10:37:15 AM

Good one. Do you enjoy it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on December 28, 2014, 11:23:21 AM

I loved this book too.  Hilarious and revealing.  I didn't like the follow-up 'Tis very much, but, especially given what I do for a living, really appreciated Teacher Man that came next.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: checkers on December 29, 2014, 04:00:14 AM
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. After that I'll be working through a big stack of books that I accumulated as birthday presents recently.

What did you think? I'm a big Rushdie fan but that wasn't one of my favourites.

Loved it. It was my first of his books though, so I imagine that a lot of what I liked so much about it - the prose, the imaginativeness of the magic realism and how that integrated with the politics of the region - are general Rushdie, so maybe it would have been more disappointing had I come to it after reading his other works. What didn't you like about it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mopsus on December 30, 2014, 12:07:26 PM
I recently picked up a translation of P. Boissonnade's Life and Work in Medieval Europe from a Salvation Army store (it seemed interesting enough to invest $.65 in). Has anyone here read it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on December 30, 2014, 02:27:38 PM
I bought Halperin and Heilemann's Double Down book on the 2012 election a few weeks ago, and I'm really enjoying it so far. Game Change was excellent in 2008, so I definitely wanted to read their latest one.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Libertarian Socialist Dem on December 30, 2014, 03:52:52 PM

Loving every page of it, it's a classic tragicomedy.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on December 31, 2014, 11:19:28 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on January 02, 2015, 04:44:40 PM
Just read the very short Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru by Kenji Miyazawa.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 02, 2015, 04:50:22 PM
Just read the very short Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru by Kenji Miyazawa.

!!!!!!!

What did you think? Miyazawa is one of my favorites.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: H. Ross Peron on January 02, 2015, 05:21:56 PM
Speaking of Japanese literature currently reading Botchan by Umeji Soseki.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 02, 2015, 05:37:32 PM
Speaking of Japanese literature currently reading Botchan by Umeji Soseki.

Nastume Soseki. Umeji Sasaki is the translator. (Botchan's an absolute delight. If you like it maybe also try Wagahai wa neko de aru.)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Vega on January 02, 2015, 05:40:01 PM
Thanks to Mikado, I'm reading Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain by John Darwin.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on January 02, 2015, 05:46:02 PM
Just read the very short Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru by Kenji Miyazawa.

!!!!!!!

What did you think? Miyazawa is one of my favorites.

It was lovely. I was sent it by e-mail; it's a 'good' translation as I don't know Japanese and I trust the opinion of the person who sent it to me!

I didn't read it to discern what are obviously multiple syncretic metaphors. That takes the fun out of reading the story. So I read it at face value, then read it again. I think there are a number of different  ways to look at the story and I think that's wonderful. I suppose I do get a bit of free thought and humanism from it and I suppose I should outline why.

Campanella (which must surely be a nod to the Campanella who 'inadvertently' (wink wink) made one of the greatest cases for free thought of his era) is beautifully written, even if there's very little we know about him other than his immense kindness. Given the name, we seem to be looking at two sides of the same person in Campanella and Giovanni. I see a bit of 'free thinking' within Giovanni, especially when he is awed by the fossil hunter. The 'Christians' seem to depart the train at the 'Northern Cross' and the Southern Cross which is interesting because the Southern Cross was imposed as a sign by a Christian west and Cygnus has at various times been co-opted but deep down is linked to the story of Phaethon and Cycnus; the themes of drowning and brotherly devotion coming through there. That might just be me though.

The exchange between Giovanni and Kaoru on the nature of god is very curt. I laughed as it's essentially a shortened but word for word version of what I talked about on the forum a few weeks ago. Giovanni seems more interested in the journey rather than what each stop is, but he was sorry to say goodbye to them. Campanella does not have the same ticket, but he never get's off the train. He never takes any of the stops. He's happy for the company and he vanishes, blissfully it seems in the 'nothingness' of the coal sack. Every end, every happiness, every 'duty' is on that train and it keeps going.

So it is what it is. And it was beautiful.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: H. Ross Peron on January 03, 2015, 04:20:54 AM
Speaking of Japanese literature currently reading Botchan by Umeji Soseki.

Nastume Soseki. Umeji Sasaki is the translator. (Botchan's an absolute delight. If you like it maybe also try Wagahai wa neko de aru.)

Excuse me for my gross error. I do hope to read some more East Asian literature over the next few months.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 04, 2015, 04:02:32 PM
afleitch, I think you'd enjoy some of Miyazawa's poetry. It's circumspectly spiritual in a way that can't really be called religious as such (although Miyazawa personally was devoutly Buddhist) and shows a firm and actually really beautiful grounding in an understanding of the natural sciences--particularly agricultural science, which was Miyazawa's day job.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on January 05, 2015, 09:24:01 PM
At the moment I'm reading through Seven Elements that Changed the World by John Browne.  With the exception of a few parts so far that are a little hoaky, it's an interesting read.  Unexpected to find a book by a former BP exec who believes in anthropogenic climate change and thinks multiple things should be done to address its challenges.

In coming months I'd like to get to two other books, Becoming Richard Pryor by Scott Saul, a bio of the early years of one of my favorite comedians, and Circling Around the Midnight Sun by James Raffan, which is about the peoples who live around the Arctic Circle.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Representative Joe Mad on January 05, 2015, 11:15:44 PM
Reading A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign (quite a mouthful) by Edward J. Larson.  Rooney recommended it as a good book that took place in early US history, and so far it hasn't disappointed.  It is making me realize how little I know about the early history of my nation.  Hamilton's and Adams' monarchical sympathies, Jefferson's fears of encroaching tyranny, outrage at standing armies and the Alien and Sedition Acts.  Some good stuff here.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on January 06, 2015, 10:25:38 PM
()

Reading in anticipation of a talk I'm attending on Marxism and Anarchism this weekend.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Foucaulf on January 07, 2015, 12:58:02 AM
Before I came back to school, I finally looked through Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Good book, too literary/long-winded, and in IRC I made the following points:

1) It turns out Robert Lucas, famous economist, took her idea of growth through diversity and formalized it, and the way she keeps referring to this idea of "people have their own preferences" is the most econ thing of all.

2) I thought it was amusing how she throws out discrimination against Blacks in mortgages and housing casually, and in fifty years' time that's lost, rediscovered and lights up the internet. This is news to the people on my private college, awed at long-form essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates et al., many of which, of course, grew up in homogeneous suburbs.

3) The "unslumming procedure" described by Jacobs, focused on strategic placement of services to increase diversity in depopulated poor neighbourhoods, has rarely been seen in real life. Instead, we have gentrification. Gentrification is all about entry of certain types of people, and it's too bad if urban planning bet too much of its agenda on classifying those types.


On the side I flipped through an introductory guide to Saul Kripke's philosophy, which is a trip! The organizing principles of what I read were the formalization of modal logic through possible worlds, and the existence of rigid designators across them. The results are strikingly beautiful, and I wish I had time to read on his theory of reference.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on January 07, 2015, 05:21:42 AM
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. After that I'll be working through a big stack of books that I accumulated as birthday presents recently.

What did you think? I'm a big Rushdie fan but that wasn't one of my favourites.

Loved it. It was my first of his books though, so I imagine that a lot of what I liked so much about it - the prose, the imaginativeness of the magic realism and how that integrated with the politics of the region - are general Rushdie, so maybe it would have been more disappointing had I come to it after reading his other works. What didn't you like about it?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't dislike it. But I didn't find the characters as emotionally engaging as in some of his other books. And the political theme was also a little more abstract to me, not as focused as I might have liked. Both Shame and Satanic Verses are in many ways similar but I enjoyed them more. And if you want to feel like a child and cry Haroun and the Sea of Stories is hard to beat!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on January 07, 2015, 05:24:39 AM
Speaking of Japanese literature currently reading Botchan by Umeji Soseki.

Nastume Soseki. Umeji Sasaki is the translator. (Botchan's an absolute delight. If you like it maybe also try Wagahai wa neko de aru.)

Excuse me for my gross error. I do hope to read some more East Asian literature over the next few months.

This is the cat guy right?

I think that since last update from me here I've only read:

Invisible Cities by Calvino. Which was good but not as compelling as previous books I read by him. Maybe my disinterest in architecture made this more inaccessible.

Breakfast for Champions by Vonnegut. He is always a delight to read even if this was not as strong as other works by him I read.

The End of the Affair by Greene. This turned into one of my favourite books by him. Heartbreaking and had me in tears for long periods of time. Beuatifully written as well in my opinion.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on January 07, 2015, 09:09:07 AM
Just finished reading all the way through Gadamer's Wahrheit und Methode and Georges Poulet's L'Espace Proustien (lacking the time needed to tackle Etudes sur le Temps Humain but have been reading on and off in Metamorphoses du Cercle for the last few weeks). I'm also gearing up to perhaps have a go at Derrida's L'écriture et la différence, although I might just have to wrestle myself through Sperber & Wilson's Relevance first.

For fun, I've just finished J.G. Farrell's Troubles (which was meh) and am currently some 150 pages deep into Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, which is really quite purple and weirdly enjoyable at the same time.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 07, 2015, 02:04:56 PM
Volume one (of three; the others are not just published) of Stephen Kotkin's biography of Stalin. Very, very good. Also reading Hertha Müller's brilliant The Land of Green Plums, which is extremely (intentionally) distressing so is only really something to read when you're in the right sort of mood...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: checkers on January 08, 2015, 04:07:08 AM
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. After that I'll be working through a big stack of books that I accumulated as birthday presents recently.

What did you think? I'm a big Rushdie fan but that wasn't one of my favourites.

Loved it. It was my first of his books though, so I imagine that a lot of what I liked so much about it - the prose, the imaginativeness of the magic realism and how that integrated with the politics of the region - are general Rushdie, so maybe it would have been more disappointing had I come to it after reading his other works. What didn't you like about it?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't dislike it. But I didn't find the characters as emotionally engaging as in some of his other books. And the political theme was also a little more abstract to me, not as focused as I might have liked. Both Shame and Satanic Verses are in many ways similar but I enjoyed them more. And if you want to feel like a child and cry Haroun and the Sea of Stories is hard to beat!

With more hindsight, I see where you're coming from. I really engaged with the characters in Saleem's family, but I found the Midnight's Children - particularly Shiva (and to a lesser extent Parvati-the-Witch, though I guess she doesn't play as significant a role in the story) to be a bit underdeveloped. I felt for all the build up about Shiva as Saleem's double/antithesis, his character wasn't as vivid as some of the more peripheral characters so I found that a bit of a let down. It also meant that the political symbolism didn't quite come together as much as I expected it to. I still thought it was great, though.

I did like a lot of Rushdie's characterisation though, so if it's better in Shame and the Satanic Verses I'm really eager to read them! Haroun and the Sea of Stories looks really sweet. I haven't read a kid's book in so long, so I feel like it'd be a nice change.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: checkers on January 08, 2015, 04:11:52 AM
Anyway, I'm reading The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. Very witty, very sharp prose and very recognisable too - I had a few Jean Brodieish teachers (though they weren't actually fascists, thank God).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 08, 2015, 11:04:32 AM
Speaking of Japanese literature currently reading Botchan by Umeji Soseki.

Nastume Soseki. Umeji Sasaki is the translator. (Botchan's an absolute delight. If you like it maybe also try Wagahai wa neko de aru.)

Excuse me for my gross error. I do hope to read some more East Asian literature over the next few months.

This is the cat guy right?

Yeah. Wagahai wa neko de aru is I Am a Cat. I'm aware that it's pretentious of me to have used the Japanese title, but it's hilarious in a way that translation doesn't capture (Japanese has a variety of levels of formality for both pronouns and copulas, and the connotation of the word choice here is something like My Most Serene Highness Has the Distinct Privilege and Honor of Being a Cat; that is, exactly how you'd expect a cat to say that).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on January 08, 2015, 10:23:04 PM
()

literally one thousand pages

rip tnf



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: H. Ross Peron on January 10, 2015, 02:02:55 AM

Still a better sociopolitical work than Atlas Shrugged.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on January 10, 2015, 09:44:36 AM
Speaking of Japanese literature currently reading Botchan by Umeji Soseki.

Nastume Soseki. Umeji Sasaki is the translator. (Botchan's an absolute delight. If you like it maybe also try Wagahai wa neko de aru.)

Excuse me for my gross error. I do hope to read some more East Asian literature over the next few months.

This is the cat guy right?

Yeah. Wagahai wa neko de aru is I Am a Cat. I'm aware that it's pretentious of me to have used the Japanese title, but it's hilarious in a way that translation doesn't capture (Japanese has a variety of levels of formality for both pronouns and copulas, and the connotation of the word choice here is something like My Most Serene Highness Has the Distinct Privilege and Honor of Being a Cat; that is, exactly how you'd expect a cat to say that).

Haha that is hilarious and fits the tone of the book nicely. I guess there are still traces of that in the English translation, because it does sound a little pompous. It's probably my favourite Japanese novel, not that I've read a lot or anything. :P



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on January 10, 2015, 04:21:15 PM
George S. Patton, War as I Knew It


I'm usually rather sceptical when it comes to memories of military commanders, but Patton's diary is a damn good read


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on January 10, 2015, 04:21:59 PM

Have you read Trotsky's memories? I've recently finished it. Trosky was quite good with a pen.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on January 10, 2015, 04:22:17 PM
Before I came back to school, I finally looked through Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Good book, too literary/long-winded, and in IRC I made the following points:

1) It turns out Robert Lucas, famous economist, took her idea of growth through diversity and formalized it, and the way she keeps referring to this idea of "people have their own preferences" is the most econ thing of all.

2) I thought it was amusing how she throws out discrimination against Blacks in mortgages and housing casually, and in fifty years' time that's lost, rediscovered and lights up the internet. This is news to the people on my private college, awed at long-form essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates et al., many of which, of course, grew up in homogeneous suburbs.

3) The "unslumming procedure" described by Jacobs, focused on strategic placement of services to increase diversity in depopulated poor neighbourhoods, has rarely been seen in real life. Instead, we have gentrification. Gentrification is all about entry of certain types of people, and it's too bad if urban planning bet too much of its agenda on classifying those types.


On the side I flipped through an introductory guide to Saul Kripke's philosophy, which is a trip! The organizing principles of what I read were the formalization of modal logic through possible worlds, and the existence of rigid designators across them. The results are strikingly beautiful, and I wish I had time to read on his theory of reference.

It's been too long since I've read this one, so my memory is rusty and perhaps it's time to re-read it.

I feel like the "literary/long-winded" charge is a little odd; it felt eminently readable to me and I know that it wasn't immediately accepted by academics/the Establishment as it were because it was thought to be too conversational, not dry enough, basically.  (Well, also because Jacobs was basically an autodidact rather than ensconced in the halls of academia/power.)

The scandal that was redlining was never really forgotten; there's been more widespread publicity recently but it (and its aftereffects) have been well-known among urbanists for decades.

I also suspect the distinction you're drawing between "unslumming" and "gentrification" is kinda spurious. I'm reminded of her discussion of that issue in Dark Age Ahead, her deeply pessimistic final book, where she basically throws up her hands and says that one will just inevitably lead to the other and burn itself out.  

Or something like that- again, this might be a good impetus to revisit those books, it's been several years.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on January 10, 2015, 05:20:35 PM
()

()

Pre-history is pretty fascinating.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on January 11, 2015, 12:09:10 AM

Have you read Trotsky's memories? I've recently finished it. Trosky was quite good with a pen.

I have not, but I have to concur. As far as Marxist writers go, Trotsky was probably the most readable, which probably stems from his stint (IIRC) as a journalist. After that, I'd say the next most readable is Engels, followed by Lenin, and Marx at the absolute bottom, lol. Stalin is accessible, but vapid and has literally no grasp of theory, so I won't dignify him with a ranking. (Although that might be my Trotskyite prejudices shining through ;))


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on January 11, 2015, 12:57:35 AM
I have not, but I have to concur. As far as Marxist writers go, Trotsky was probably the most readable, which probably stems from his stint (IIRC) as a journalist. After that, I'd say the next most readable is Engels, followed by Lenin, and Marx at the absolute bottom, lol. Stalin is accessible, but vapid and has literally no grasp of theory, so I won't dignify him with a ranking. (Although that might be my Trotskyite prejudices shining through ;))

Trotsky was more than 'readable', he was a brilliant writer and brilliant man.  he was more of a complete human being than Lenin or Stalin.  Karl Kautsky is another interesting figure who wrote on diverse subjects.  he was open to ideological and personal evolution and died as something of a Tolstoyan pacifist.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on January 12, 2015, 10:52:55 AM
Just started David M. Kennedy's Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Murica! on January 12, 2015, 11:52:08 AM
I have not, but I have to concur. As far as Marxist writers go, Trotsky was probably the most readable, which probably stems from his stint (IIRC) as a journalist. After that, I'd say the next most readable is Engels, followed by Lenin, and Marx at the absolute bottom, lol. Stalin is accessible, but vapid and has literally no grasp of theory, so I won't dignify him with a ranking. (Although that might be my Trotskyite prejudices shining through ;))

Trotsky was more than 'readable', he was a brilliant writer and brilliant man.  he was more of a complete human being than Lenin or Stalin.  Karl Kautsky is another interesting figure who wrote on diverse subjects.  he was open to ideological and personal evolution and died as something of a Tolstoyan pacifist.
Stalin was human?!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Incipimus iterum on January 12, 2015, 02:20:22 PM
Justinian: The Last Roman Emperor by G. P. Baker


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on January 16, 2015, 07:19:59 PM
Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mopsus on January 20, 2015, 12:11:24 PM
()

Just finished reading Part One. All the stories were great (except The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim, which didn't seem quite up to the same level as the others), but I think that I liked The Lottery in Babylon the best.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on January 21, 2015, 08:43:21 PM
The Big Red Machine: How the Liberal Party Dominates Canadian Politics by Stephen Clarkson.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on January 22, 2015, 02:12:51 PM
Citizens, a milestone in the history of trolling (and also in the historiography of the French Revolution).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Insula Dei on January 22, 2015, 03:46:44 PM
Just finished Genette's Figures III and I.A. Richards' Practical Criticism, moved on to De Man's Allegories of Reading and re-reading some Flannery O'Connor on the side. Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Française lies waiting next to my bed.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on January 22, 2015, 08:29:25 PM
I'm about a quarter of the way through 1493 by Charles C. Mann.  Somewhat dry, but well researched and interesting.  I had started reading it at the local public library, in short bursts when I took my son to check out books, but eventually I got hooked and decided to commit:  I checked it out last Saturday.  Today we hauled off to Philadelphia, which is a one hour and ten minute train ride each way, and I polished off a big chunk of it en route.  I'm up to malaria and yellow fever in the Virginia and Carolina colonies circa 1620-1750.  It turns out that West Africans aren't so susceptible to the ravages of Plasmodium vivax as are people of British extraction.  Who knew?



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DKrol on January 23, 2015, 12:18:32 AM
George R.R. Martin's "A Dance With Dragons" is my pleasure reading, but I'm also reading "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" by Charles Mann at the behest of a teacher of mine.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on January 23, 2015, 09:05:26 PM
I may pick up 1491, if I ever finish 1493.  I am somewhat more familiar with the topics that I imagine would be covered in 1491.  For a long time I enjoyed a serious American fetish, and have read many scholarly and many not-so-scholarly volumes regarding the pre-classic, classic, and post-classic achievements of the Americans, although I have not yet read 1491.  I have visited all the countries in Central America, several in South America, and 22 of the 31 Mexican states, many of them several times.  I once spent nearly three months just backpacking around southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and El Salvador, climbing pyramids, savoring the local herbs, teas, and fragrances, inquiring about the sacbeob and the ubiquitous juegos de pelota, and of course trying desperately lay into the curvaceous and stocky dark-skinned local campesinas--with the occasional success, I might add!  (Emphasis on occasional.)  

No doubt, lots of interesting original culture exists in the Western Hemisphere, and it did not just disappear 500 years ago--although if Jay Leno took his mic out on the streets of New York I suspect that he would find few who would be aware of any of it.  In my observation most of it is overlooked in the ethnocentric curriculum taught in high-school and university history lessons.  The Eurocentrism prevailing in the curricula of US public schools seems to be changing, lately, and I regard that as a good thing.  Nowadays, Asia, the Americas, and Africa are being studied to a much greater extent than they were when I was a university student.  Not that I'm advocating that any of us should bask in the warm glow of White Man's Guilt, but we Europeans have claimed religious, racial, and moral superiority over the rest of the world for at least 700 years with disastrous results.  The fact that your instructor wants you to learn about pre-Columbian American cultures suggests that others feel the same way that I do.  I do hope that you take your reading assignment seriously.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 24, 2015, 04:45:45 AM
In a Glass Darkly, by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. I'd read 'Carmilla' before but the other stories in it are all new to me.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on January 25, 2015, 01:00:24 AM
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management

I attempted one of her chicken recipes, but discovered that I didn't have arrowroot or pounded mace at hand.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 30, 2015, 03:49:01 AM
I haven't actually started reading either of these yet, but a couple of days ago I found and bought two modern Japanese novels in a used bookstore in my town. One is The River Ki by Ariyoshi Sawako; I'm not sure what this is about, exactly, but it seems to be a family drama along roughly the same lines as The Makioka Sisters--which is probably my all-time favorite novel and definitely in the top five--and was apparently Ariyoshi's first major work. Ariyoshi, who died young in 1984, seems to have been an enormously popular and respected writer in her lifetime, at least in part because her writing was more topical than that of most of her contemporaries--many of her novels are the equivalent of 'very special episodes' on certain types of television shows, but by all accounts of vastly greater artistic merit. This seems, however, to have changed since her death, and I was never taught her in my major, nor had I even heard of her until I found this book.

The other is an interesting edition of Miyazawa's Ginga tetsudō no yoru, usually translated Night on the Galactic Railroad and occasionally Night Train to the Stars, which afleitch read recently. Miyazawa is a writer I like a lot but I'm mostly familiar with him as a poet; this is the only one of his prose works I've actually read before--efforts to find a copy of 'Kaze no Matasaburō' have met with failure. It's by far his best known work overall, with the only remotely conceivable contender being the didactic poem 'Ame ni mo makezu' ('Not Losing to the Rain'). This edition is unusual in that it's an English translation, given the non-standard title The Night of the Milky Way Train, published in Japan, with Japanese paratext even, as school study material for English learners. There are glossaries before each chapter. I'm very interested to see how if at all the choices that the translation itself makes differ from more general-audience English versions of the text.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: afleitch on January 30, 2015, 07:00:30 AM
I haven't actually started reading either of these yet, but a couple of days ago I found and bought two modern Japanese novels in a used bookstore in my town. One is The River Ki by Ariyoshi Sawako; I'm not sure what this is about, exactly, but it seems to be a family drama along roughly the same lines as The Makioka Sisters--which is probably my all-time favorite novel and definitely in the top five--and was apparently Ariyoshi's first major work. Ariyoshi, who died young in 1984, seems to have been an enormously popular and respected writer in her lifetime, at least in part because her writing was more topical than that of most of her contemporaries--many of her novels are the equivalent of 'very special episodes' on certain types of television shows, but by all accounts of vastly greater artistic merit. This seems, however, to have changed since her death, and I was never taught her in my major, nor had I even heard of her until I found this book.

The other is an interesting edition of Miyazawa's Ginga tetsudō no yoru, usually translated Night on the Galactic Railroad and occasionally Night Train to the Stars, which afleitch read recently. Miyazawa is a writer I like a lot but I'm mostly familiar with him as a poet; this is the only one of his prose works I've actually read before--efforts to find a copy of 'Kaze no Matasaburō' have met with failure. It's by far his best known work overall, with the only remotely conceivable contender being the didatic poem 'Ame ni mo makezu' ('Not Losing to the Rain'). This edition is unusual in that it's an English translation, given the non-standard title The Night of the Milky Way Train, published in Japan, with Japanese paratext even, as school study material for English learners. There are glossaries before each chapter. I'm very interested to see how if at all the choices that the translation itself makes differ from more general-audience English versions of the text.

Let me know who translated it. I've read two translations so far; Roger Pulvers and a really old library copy from John Bester.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 31, 2015, 04:17:57 PM
I haven't actually started reading either of these yet, but a couple of days ago I found and bought two modern Japanese novels in a used bookstore in my town. One is The River Ki by Ariyoshi Sawako; I'm not sure what this is about, exactly, but it seems to be a family drama along roughly the same lines as The Makioka Sisters--which is probably my all-time favorite novel and definitely in the top five--and was apparently Ariyoshi's first major work. Ariyoshi, who died young in 1984, seems to have been an enormously popular and respected writer in her lifetime, at least in part because her writing was more topical than that of most of her contemporaries--many of her novels are the equivalent of 'very special episodes' on certain types of television shows, but by all accounts of vastly greater artistic merit. This seems, however, to have changed since her death, and I was never taught her in my major, nor had I even heard of her until I found this book.

The other is an interesting edition of Miyazawa's Ginga tetsudō no yoru, usually translated Night on the Galactic Railroad and occasionally Night Train to the Stars, which afleitch read recently. Miyazawa is a writer I like a lot but I'm mostly familiar with him as a poet; this is the only one of his prose works I've actually read before--efforts to find a copy of 'Kaze no Matasaburō' have met with failure. It's by far his best known work overall, with the only remotely conceivable contender being the didatic poem 'Ame ni mo makezu' ('Not Losing to the Rain'). This edition is unusual in that it's an English translation, given the non-standard title The Night of the Milky Way Train, published in Japan, with Japanese paratext even, as school study material for English learners. There are glossaries before each chapter. I'm very interested to see how if at all the choices that the translation itself makes differ from more general-audience English versions of the text.

Let me know who translated it. I've read two translations so far; Roger Pulvers and a really old library copy from John Bester.

The publication date is 2005 and it's translated by Stuart Varnam-Atkin and Yoko Toyozaki, neither of whom I've heard of. A cursory Google search indicates that Varnam-Atkin is some sort of journalist and commentator for a couple of different English-language news outlets based in Japan and that both of them were involving in translating the manga Chihayafuru, which is about a girl who gets really into the card game karuta. (The Wikipedia article on the series uses the phrase 'overuse of CG sakura' in its discussion of the anime adaptation.)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on January 31, 2015, 04:40:41 PM
I'm almost done with my earlier list but I've managed to acquire a large selection of books since then - this will probably bring me until April.

Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt Against Out-Of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Francis
One Hundred Years of Socialism: The Western European Left in the Twentieth Century - Donald Sassoon
Madness in Late Imperial China: From Illness to Deviance - Vivien Ng
Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease - Gary Greenberg
All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World - Stuart Schwartz
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis - Edward Dolnick
Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century - Geoffrey Parker


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on February 06, 2015, 06:30:00 PM
Have you seen Michael Haneke's adaptation of The Castle?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on February 06, 2015, 07:02:37 PM
Citizens, a milestone in the history of trolling (and also in the historiography of the French Revolution).

Trolling can be an artform.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on February 07, 2015, 06:41:10 AM
What's the focus of your course Averroes? It's sort of my field. :)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: King of Kensington on February 07, 2015, 01:50:56 PM
Fiction:

Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (first book in MadAddam series)

Non-Fiction: 

Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Murica! on February 09, 2015, 03:19:41 PM
About to start reading The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
Also about to read Engeles' Anti-Dühring.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on February 09, 2015, 03:31:16 PM
About to start reading The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

One of the greatest books of all time, IMO.  Hope you enjoy it!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SWE on February 09, 2015, 08:58:33 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on February 16, 2015, 08:56:18 AM
Harold James, A German Identity 1770-1990 and Geoffrey Parker, Philip II


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on February 22, 2015, 07:07:57 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: compson III on February 23, 2015, 07:03:55 PM
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
I'm a big fan of prospect theory as opposed to mainstream assumptions of rationality, but this critique by Gigerenzer is good to read along with it:
http://library.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/ft/gg/gg_how_1991.pdf

Human behavior is so domain dependent we should be wary of any experimental studies.  

What's really interesting to me is how institutions and organizational structure can be a domain in which rationality is enhanced.  Behavioral economics needs to link up with sociology and make some headway here.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on February 26, 2015, 09:48:16 AM
The thing with prospect theory, as I recall, is that it adds a lot of complication without much extra predictive power. The classic model actually holds up pretty well when you test them against each other.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: compson III on February 26, 2015, 12:47:44 PM
The thing with prospect theory, as I recall, is that it adds a lot of complication without much extra predictive power. The classic model actually holds up pretty well when you test them against each other.
Predictive power in what sense?  Take hyperbolic discounting.  There's no good way to isolate discount rates anyways.  Ask a sell side analyst where he gets his WACC from...

But in a very indirect sense, relative utility is a great explanation for why we don't see any kind of Beta premium.  People would rather ride the highs with his neighbor than experience  a better long run risk-adjusted return.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on February 26, 2015, 02:59:57 PM
Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, The Birth of Islam


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on February 26, 2015, 04:38:51 PM
Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, The Birth of Islam

What do you think about it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on February 26, 2015, 11:55:59 PM
Technically assigned, but I just finished Little Pink House by Jeff Benedict.

Very sad sad look into the abuse of eminent domain by private corporations, specifically what happened in New London 15-10 years ago.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on February 27, 2015, 12:52:58 PM
Labor's Giant Step: The First Twenty Years of the CIO by Art Preis


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on March 01, 2015, 06:28:49 AM
The Glorious Cause by Middlekauf


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on March 03, 2015, 01:33:58 PM
Recently finished H is for Hawk. It's amazing and you should all read it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sumner 1868 on March 03, 2015, 01:58:21 PM
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years by Carl Sandburg.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on March 04, 2015, 01:24:53 PM
Maurice Druon, Alexandre le Grand


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on March 04, 2015, 08:28:41 PM
"A Canticle for Leibowitz". Loved it until Br. Francis died. Not sure what to think of the book's second part.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on March 05, 2015, 07:58:29 AM
Floating Clouds (Ukigumo) by Hayashi Fumiko, translated by Lane Dunlap.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on March 05, 2015, 09:18:55 AM
"A Canticle for Leibowitz". Loved it until Br. Francis died. Not sure what to think of the book's second part.
It's good.  It suffers from a fate common to many well-beloved SF works, heirs getting a second rate sequel written from something in the notes left behind so as to milk some extra money out of fans, but that doesn't affect the book itself.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 05, 2015, 12:24:28 PM
Floating Clouds (Ukigumo) by Hayashi Fumiko, translated by Lane Dunlap.

!!!!!!!

What do you think?

"A Canticle for Leibowitz". Loved it until Br. Francis died. Not sure what to think of the book's second part.
It's good.  It suffers from a fate common to many well-beloved SF works, heirs getting a second rate sequel written from something in the notes left behind so as to milk some extra money out of fans, but that doesn't affect the book itself.

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman isn't a bad book, and there was a lot more of it to work with than just 'notes' when Miller died, but it's definitely a major step down from Canticle. Canticle was one of the best sci-fi novels of its generation; Wild Horse Woman isn't even the best of its year.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blair on March 05, 2015, 12:39:19 PM
The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on March 05, 2015, 01:27:47 PM
Floating Clouds (Ukigumo) by Hayashi Fumiko, translated by Lane Dunlap.

!!!!!!!

What do you think?


It's beautifully written and interesting so far (I'm about a third of the way through it).  I assigned it for a class I'm teaching.  I was inclined to do so because of a book written by a friend of mine that talked about this novel in the context of the roles women played in Japan's mid-century occupations and post-war circumstances.  I can see why Hayashi's works were so popular, they're both expressive and quite realistic at the same time.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: KingCountyRepublican on March 06, 2015, 12:38:23 AM
Meets the Eye by Christopher Golden.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 06, 2015, 03:20:17 AM
Floating Clouds (Ukigumo) by Hayashi Fumiko, translated by Lane Dunlap.

!!!!!!!

What do you think?


It's beautifully written and interesting so far (I'm about a third of the way through it).  I assigned it for a class I'm teaching.  I was inclined to do so because of a book written by a friend of mine that talked about this novel in the context of the roles women played in Japan's mid-century occupations and post-war circumstances.  I can see why Hayashi's works were so popular, they're both expressive and quite realistic at the same time.

Diary of a Vagabond (Hōrōki) is also well worth reading if you can find it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Antonio the Sixth on March 06, 2015, 05:28:57 AM
I've picked up a novel from Henning Mankell's Wallander series. About halfway through.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 06, 2015, 08:53:43 PM
Anyway over the past week I've reread The Word for World Is Forest and read a terrible lesbian romance novel called Blindsided and most of the Chester Mystery Plays. I'm also working my way through The Wind from Vulture Peak: The Buddhification of Japanese Waka in the Heian Period, by an undergrad professor of mine whom I greatly admire.

The Sea of Fertility tetralogy looms before me like an inevitability in my development as a reader and I really don't know what to do with how drawn to it I feel.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on March 07, 2015, 02:30:47 PM

An excellent choice of reading material. How are they to read from an American point of view (i.e. in terms of language)?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on March 07, 2015, 03:38:18 PM
The Sea of Fertility tetralogy looms before me like an inevitability in my development as a reader and I really don't know what to do with how drawn to it I feel.

Do you plan to read them in translation or in Japanese?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 07, 2015, 03:51:29 PM

An excellent choice of reading material. How are they to read from an American point of view (i.e. in terms of language)?

I'm not entirely sure I understand the question. I went through a huge Chaucer phase in high school so I'm to some extent familiar with the general shape of English literature during the time period in question. The version that I'm reading from is the 1957 Drama Library edition, edited by Maurice Hussey; if I read this part of the introduction correctly (it was like one in the morning on a psychiatric ward when I started so I was both distracted and tired), Hussey modernizes the spelling but generally not the word choice or syntax, so parts of it are kind of confusing, but overall I don't find it all that much harder to follow than some of the earliest American poets, Anne Bradstreet for instance.

The Sea of Fertility tetralogy looms before me like an inevitability in my development as a reader and I really don't know what to do with how drawn to it I feel.

Do you plan to read them in translation or in Japanese?

My usual habit with Japanese literature is to read it mostly in English but with a Japanese copy on hand as well so that I can see how any particularly striking passages were constructed in the original. This greatly improved my experiences with Snow Country and Twenty-four Eyes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on March 07, 2015, 05:18:43 PM
The Memory of Fire trilogy by Eduardo Galeano


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on March 08, 2015, 03:08:46 PM
"A Canticle for Leibowitz". Loved it until Br. Francis died. Not sure what to think of the book's second part.
It's good.  It suffers from a fate common to many well-beloved SF works, heirs getting a second rate sequel written from something in the notes left behind so as to milk some extra money out of fans, but that doesn't affect the book itself.

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman isn't a bad book, and there was a lot more of it to work with than just 'notes' when Miller died, but it's definitely a major step down from Canticle. Canticle was one of the best sci-fi novels of its generation; Wild Horse Woman isn't even the best of its year.

I've progressed farther into "Fiat Lux" and I have to say I'm loving it. The philosophical current of debate between secular vs. religious authorities, the weird post-apocalyptic empires, etc. Great stuff, all around. Gotta love the semi-medieval level of power that the church in the 4th millennium has.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on March 08, 2015, 05:01:41 PM
Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan by Edmund Morris. What an odd treatment this memoir is. Morris spend a good deal of the time telling the reader about himself and questioning the intelligence and character of Reagan, whom hired him to write the memoir in 1985. Half the time I scoff at how pseudo-intellectual Morris is. He inserts French and Latin phrases almost as if to tell the reader, "Look at me! I am smart!" If one wants to read a good book on Reagan I do not think this is the one to go to. It is written in an engaging way, but the biographer seems more interested in himself than the subject of the biography.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 08, 2015, 06:23:51 PM
The thing with prospect theory, as I recall, is that it adds a lot of complication without much extra predictive power. The classic model actually holds up pretty well when you test them against each other.
Predictive power in what sense?  Take hyperbolic discounting.  There's no good way to isolate discount rates anyways.  Ask a sell side analyst where he gets his WACC from...

But in a very indirect sense, relative utility is a great explanation for why we don't see any kind of Beta premium.  People would rather ride the highs with his neighbor than experience  a better long run risk-adjusted return.

In the sense that if you take experimental data on people's choice in risk and calibrate parameters in a prospect theory model you don't get a better fit to the data than if you do the same thing with the standard theory.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 08, 2015, 06:26:42 PM
I've picked up a novel from Henning Mankell's Wallander series. About halfway through.

Oh, Sweden pride. :P There are better Swedish novels though, even better crime novels.

I last read Momo. German children's book from the 70s about how our traditional values are being destroyed by a sinister conspiracy of greedy bankers. We must eradicate the bankers to get away from progress because only in poverty can people be truly happy. I didn't like it that much.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Antonio the Sixth on March 09, 2015, 06:25:04 AM
I've picked up a novel from Henning Mankell's Wallander series. About halfway through.

Oh, Sweden pride. :P There are better Swedish novels though, even better crime novels.

Well, I'm still really liking it. It's The Fifth Woman FTR. The case in itself is absolutely thrilling, very emotionally gripping and keeps the right balance between what to tell and what to leave in mystery. I like that it delves into gender issues, and it's done pretty well by having some passage be told from the murderer's perspective. It's paced a bit slowly at times, but I guess that was intentional in order to make it feel more like a real police inquiry. I was pretty disappointed by the social commentary, which really seems to boil down to "everything was better back in the days", but I take it as being Wallander's specific point of view as a grumpy, frustrated, aging cop who hasn't been very successful in his personal life.

If you have recommendations, I'd like to have a look at them. :)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: bore on March 09, 2015, 03:04:09 PM
Just finished A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes (He of the Amazon fame)

It was beautifully written and incredibly informative but also, perhaps inevitably given it's subject was the russian revolution, deeply depressing. I would recommend it to anyone.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 09, 2015, 06:57:32 PM
I've picked up a novel from Henning Mankell's Wallander series. About halfway through.

Oh, Sweden pride. :P There are better Swedish novels though, even better crime novels.

Well, I'm still really liking it. It's The Fifth Woman FTR. The case in itself is absolutely thrilling, very emotionally gripping and keeps the right balance between what to tell and what to leave in mystery. I like that it delves into gender issues, and it's done pretty well by having some passage be told from the murderer's perspective. It's paced a bit slowly at times, but I guess that was intentional in order to make it feel more like a real police inquiry. I was pretty disappointed by the social commentary, which really seems to boil down to "everything was better back in the days", but I take it as being Wallander's specific point of view as a grumpy, frustrated, aging cop who hasn't been very successful in his personal life.

If you have recommendations, I'd like to have a look at them. :)

"everything was better back in the days" is the core principle of all Swedish leftism. And I'm only being very slightly hyperbolic about that.

The best for any Atlasian would of course be the books by Bo Baldersson but I sort of doubt that they're translated. They're political satire in the form of detective novels about an utterly incompetent cabinet member. They were written by a pen name and to this day it's a classic speculation on who may have written them.

I liked Åke Edwardsson's detective stuff as a kid. Sjöwall & Wahlöö are ok at least initially as are the Hamilton books. Both of those go insane at some point though.

Outside the realm of detective novels the best Swedish author is Selma Lagerlöf, but there are plenty of other good ones.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on March 09, 2015, 07:17:51 PM
Try Arne Dahl and Håkan Nesser for crime fiction, especially Dahl.

The Bo Balderson books were translated into German, Danish and Norwegian, but I am not sure they are available in French or English.

German posters should try them out.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sol on March 09, 2015, 07:40:29 PM
I've read a lot lately, but The Tokyo Zodiac Murders and Notre-Dame de Paris are my favorites.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on March 12, 2015, 02:45:10 PM
Floating Clouds (Ukigumo) by Hayashi Fumiko, translated by Lane Dunlap.

!!!!!!!

What do you think?

I finally finished Floating Clouds.  A lot in there, including people's differing roles in Japanese presence in French Indochina, the despair and meaningless people felt after the war (so moving, having lived in Tokyo, to imagine all those neighborhoods I'd spent a lot of time in destroyed), and sharp critique both of "New Religions" in Japan as well as people's own aimlessness and permanent uncertainty.  Despite her flaws, one pities Yukiko at the end of the story, and absolutely despises Tomioka and his carelessness about destroying everyone around him.  Will be interesting to discuss this book in class.  But it leaves me with feelings that I myself left Japan with after moving back to the Sates, wistfulness, ambivalence, sympathy and sadness.  A superficially simple book that is actually dense with important themes.  Hayashi was truly a great author. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on March 15, 2015, 03:00:56 PM
highly recommended for everybody, but I suspect Nathan especially would enjoy it.

Rowan Williams - "Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction" (http://www.amazon.com/Dostoevsky-Language-Fiction-Christian-Imagination/dp/1602583730)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 15, 2015, 03:39:57 PM
highly recommended for everybody, but I suspect Nathan especially would enjoy it.

Rowan Williams - "Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction" (http://www.amazon.com/Dostoevsky-Language-Fiction-Christian-Imagination/dp/1602583730)


I have it upstairs but have yet to read it. Any particular takeaways I should be on the lookout for when I do?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on March 15, 2015, 04:20:53 PM
no, though he does (implicitly) expect you to be readily able to recall scenes from the four major works (Underground Man, Idiot, C&P, Karamazov).  personally it hasn't been a problem for me though some complain about it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 15, 2015, 04:40:14 PM
no, though he does (implicitly) expect you to be readily able to recall scenes from the four major works (Underground Man, Idiot, C&P, Karamazov).  personally it hasn't been a problem for me though some complain about it.

The only one of those that might be a problem for me is C&P. Thanks for the warning.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DemPGH on March 16, 2015, 05:39:09 PM
Fatal Colours: Towton 1461 by George Goodwin.

Great, love his writing. He even includes a "dramatis personae" for the general reader where he explains who is who. I don't like historical fiction precisely because it's fiction; rather, I like real history with primary source references told like a story. Goodwin does just that. He goes into relevant matters that led up to the battle. And yeah, Edward IV dealt with those thuggish Courtenays (of Devon) in the aftermath.

15th century England is a gigantic ball of yarn, and considering that, Goodwin uses important episodes to illustrate the machinations and events behind England's bloodiest battle, Towton, or "Bloody Palm Sunday." Good read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on March 18, 2015, 12:20:38 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 18, 2015, 04:04:55 PM
A few days ago I read The Final Solution by Michael Chabon. It's far from Chabon's best, but I think a lot of the criticism of it misses the main thematic point of the story (that [SPOILERS] Sherlock Holmes represents a more genteel, kindlier era in the Western world that never actually existed and is in any case incapable of understanding or addressing the enormity of the Holocaust [/SPOILERS]). Today I reread Smith of Wootton Major as part of my ongoing project of seeing if I remembered correctly how sad Tolkien's late work is (the answer so far is 'yes' and 'crushingly so').


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Foucaulf on March 18, 2015, 05:58:36 PM
Two small books worth reading:

Alan Blinder's Central Banking in Theory and Practice. Blinder is a renowned economist and former Federal Reserve vice chair during part of the Greenspan tenure. This book is astonishingly clear - it basically lays out all the heuristics and procedures a top central banker considers in maintaining the bank's objectives. And it quite literally can be read in an hour. Since so much of monetary policy post-crisis is unconventional, Blinder's framework is worth a second look.

Albert Hirschman's National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade. Book is out of print, but a scanned copy may be available (http://www.ucpress.edu/op.php?isbn=9780520040823) on a university press website. Read the first 40-50 pages; it is an astonishingly clear explanation of how trade between nations can lead to coercion and compellence. It's unclear to me why political economists like Hirschman are less recognised against pap like Polanyi or Graeber.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on March 18, 2015, 06:16:59 PM
Two small books worth reading:

Alan Blinder's Central Banking in Theory and Practice. Blinder is a renowned economist and former Federal Reserve vice chair during part of the Greenspan tenure. This book is astonishingly clear - it basically lays out all the heuristics and procedures a top central banker considers in maintaining the bank's objectives. And it quite literally can be read in an hour. Since so much of monetary policy post-crisis is unconventional, Blinder's framework is worth a second look.


How "US-centric" is it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on March 18, 2015, 06:46:16 PM
Just started Idiot today.  My son had a piano practice at 6pm and I usually bring my NGM to read but I finished it this morning while I shat, and I don't have any other interesting magazines, so I walked over to the big library just after lunch thinking of getting a book.  I went to the sub-subbasement where the M-Z section of the general collection is kept in compact shelves was somehow drawn to the slavic (PG) book section.  Maybe it was because I had checked out Crime and Punishment a year ago and my subconscious mind was taking me to the same spot.  Man, I hate compact shelves.  Anyway, I noticed a dusty old tome, rebound forest green, with only IDIOT stamped on it and became intrigued so I borrowed it.

I'm only on page 11 yet--I get distracted listening to the music and the instruction so I never really get much reading in there--but it is very interesting so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Thunderbird is the word on March 18, 2015, 07:59:07 PM
"Divide, American injustice in the age of the wealth gap" Matt Taibbi


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Foucaulf on March 18, 2015, 08:04:41 PM

I may as well say "very." Blinder talks exclusively about his experience at the Fed, and he's very evidently working in what some will call a "neoclassical framework." It's not a book about the central bank as an institutional feature of global capitalism by any means.

I'd recommend it more to the forum libertarians than the leftists as a way to change their minds about central banking (especially lecture 3).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MalaspinaGold on March 22, 2015, 05:51:00 PM
Just finished:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 26, 2015, 08:32:48 AM
Most recent reads:

Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut. A very great novel by an American genius, according to the first sentence of the introduction, written by Vonnegut himself. :D Classic Vonnegut, mad collection of nonsense but contains a lot of moving and thought-provoking gems. I liked it a lot.

The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck. Didn't like it initially but it grew on me and I learnt that it was quite historically significant as an inspiration for resistance movements across Europe during WW2 so I ended up liking it anyway.

The Passport by Romanian Nobel Laureate Hertha Müller. I might have been too dumb for this book. Didn't quite like the style it was in, random sex scenes and I did not engage with the characters. Interesting basic theme though, so there was that.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oakvale on March 26, 2015, 08:40:13 AM
I'm reading Thinking Fast and Slow at the moment. I resent that the title sounds like something Malcolm Gladwell would write.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on April 01, 2015, 12:57:34 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blair on April 01, 2015, 08:18:51 AM
Anyone read Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: ChainsawJedis on April 11, 2015, 10:57:23 PM
Currently Reading After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family 1968- to the Present by J. Randy Taraborrelli.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MalaspinaGold on April 12, 2015, 12:30:55 AM
Just finished:
()

An excellent book, I was able to follow it even though I'm not overly familiar with the subject. I especially liked the extent Priestland explored the satellites and the third world Communist parties (I must say I was absolutely ignorant of African Marxism prior to reading this book). I wish it had spent more time going over Western communist parties; besides France and Italy, hardly any space was lent to Communist parties post WWII, though I suppose that's because they were mostly too small to be relevant.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on April 14, 2015, 09:08:55 AM
I'm still scratching my head about the last Zizek volume I read, but I decided to read another one, because even though the last one was kind of confused rambling, I still feel like I got something (though I'm not sure what) out of the last one.

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on April 17, 2015, 02:40:17 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on April 17, 2015, 06:18:56 PM
I'm still scratching my head about the last Zizek volume I read, but I decided to read another one, because even though the last one was kind of confused rambling, I still feel like I got something (though I'm not sure what) out of the last one.

()

I think it's hilarious that Zizek has his face next to Lenin, plastered repeatedly across the book's cover.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on April 17, 2015, 07:21:08 PM
A rather old version of Maurice Druon's The Poisoned Crown. I have become very interested in The Accursed Kings as of now, so I'm planning to acquire all seven as I find them.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Murica! on April 22, 2015, 11:26:19 PM
I just read The Kronstadt Rebellion by Alexander Berkman, great read that I very much recommend to my Bolshevist friends TNF and Snowstalker.


And the link:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/berkman/1922/kronstadt-rebellion/index.htm


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on April 23, 2015, 08:25:10 AM
I'll definitely look into it. At the same time, I would recommend Trotsky's Hue and Cry over Krondstadt (https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/01/kronstadt.htm), which explains that the rebellion was not a move to save the revolution from Bolshevik overreach, but actually a reactionary peasant uprising backed by the White Army.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Murica! on April 23, 2015, 09:24:49 AM
I'll definitely look into it. At the same time, I would recommend Trotsky's Hue and Cry over Krondstadt (https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/01/kronstadt.htm), which explains that the rebellion was not a move to save the revolution from Bolshevik overreach, but actually a reactionary peasant uprising backed by the White Army.
I'll definitely read it, but it sounds hilarious.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Murica! on April 23, 2015, 09:43:21 AM
I was right, it was pure propaganda against the the sailors of Kronstadt with out an actual argument other then the typical Bolshevik "Their Petty bourgeois Counter-revolutionaries!" and "If we let the Soviets be free, then they'll destroy themselves!".


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on April 28, 2015, 10:03:24 PM
Luis Francia's A History of the Philippines


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: ChainsawJedis on April 29, 2015, 02:29:18 AM
Next I am going to read Ted Kennedy's autobiography True Compass. After that I intend on starting the Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) novels, but I might read Jack Kerouac's On the Road first. My friend also suggested to me I should read a play called The History Boys by Alan Bennett. I may look into that as well before I start Game of Thrones.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: traininthedistance on April 29, 2015, 07:18:53 PM
()

Rereading this in honor of National Poetry Month.  Which, thanks to spring's late start this year, has been less cruel than usual.  The lilacs haven't bloomed yet, and they are of course the cruelest part.

Previously:

()

Which, among its many virtues, did a pretty great job of making me feel nostalgia for all the tennis I watched and played (very, very badly) in my youth.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on May 03, 2015, 01:09:02 PM
()

Started this one yesterday, after finishing Michael Parenti's Make Believe Media, which was pretty good. So far, this one is a pretty phenomenal work, breaking down the usual narrative of World War II as the sole battle between the Axis and the Allies and concentrating on the contradictions within each of the major powers and the ways that minor powers and movements within occupied territories responded to occupation and fought fascism in their own way. The author proposes that World War II was really two conflicts that intersected with one another, an imperialist war fought for imperialist aims (Allies v. Axis) and a 'people's war' fought by ordinary people against fascism who were seeking more than just a return to the 1930s and business as usual after the destruction of the Axis.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on May 04, 2015, 09:11:48 AM
Which, among its many virtues, did a pretty great job of making me feel nostalgia for all the tennis I watched and played (very, very badly) in my youth.

It's a lovely book isn't it? As someone who also grew up in the country but not to a farming family the essay on the Illinois State Fair spoke so truly to me...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on May 04, 2015, 10:37:20 PM
Michael Parenti's Make Believe Media, which was pretty good.

Parenti sure is a fun read for those with left-wing sympathies.  he doesn't hold back.  a liberal professor all but refused to let me cite him in a paper, calling him a "loaded source".  I could hardly object.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on May 04, 2015, 10:48:42 PM
I just read The Kronstadt Rebellion by Alexander Berkman, great read that I very much recommend to my Bolshevist friends TNF and Snowstalker.


And the link:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/berkman/1922/kronstadt-rebellion/index.htm

hah.  Kronsradt is the white-knuckle issue within the revolutionary left.  everyone has a life-or-death opinion on it.  anyone who criticizes the Bolsheviks is an "infantile leftist", as Our Father Lenin tagged them ca. 1919.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on May 05, 2015, 09:22:42 AM
Michael Parenti's Make Believe Media, which was pretty good.

Parenti sure is a fun read for those with left-wing sympathies.  he doesn't hold back.  a liberal professor all but refused to let me cite him in a paper, calling him a "loaded source".  I could hardly object.

He's one of my favorites. He also has a sense of humor about him, which is more than you can say for other popular left-writers, like Chomsky, for instance. Speaking of Parenti, I just started reading this by him, and am enjoying it as well.

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on May 05, 2015, 02:08:15 PM
Chomsky has a dry sense of humor, occasionally you'll pick it up.  he doesn't tell overt jokes.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on May 05, 2015, 02:42:40 PM
Finished The Assassination of Julius Caesar a few hours ago. Next up:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Yelnoc on May 06, 2015, 03:10:06 PM
The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History by Jack Ross. It is indeed complete, weighing in at 753 pages, the book chronicles the history of the Socialist Party of America, from its antecedents in the populist and trade unionist movements of the nineteenth centuries, to the fragmented landscape of successor parties which populate the modern socialist landscape.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DemPGH on May 08, 2015, 03:24:19 PM
Michael Hicks' The Wars of the Roses.

Interesting, if sprawling coverage. I've always preferred a more limited definition of what constituted the Wars of the Roses - i.e., the conflict between Queen Margaret/Henry VI and the Duke of York/Earl of Warwick. Warwick flipped sides and was killed along with Henry VI's son in 1471 at Barnet and Tewkesbury. Henry VI was killed/died shortly thereafter. And that ended it. There were residual effects, but I'm not sure that's still the Wars of the Roses.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on May 08, 2015, 07:01:49 PM
I'm working my way through The Wind from Vulture Peak: The Buddhification of Japanese Waka in the Heian Period by Stephen D. Miller (the poetry translations in the book are by Miller and Patrick Donnelly). Miller, who teaches at UMass Amherst, was my professor for several classes a couple years back and one of the best teachers I've ever had. The book is an epic, astoundingly detailed and thorough coverage of the introduction and development of Buddhist themes in the imperial poetry anthologies through the end of the twelfth century. I'm just starting the section on the Shikashū (Collection of Verbal Flowers) anthology of the early 1150s (the exact year is unknown).

Within the past week I've finished two books about women in pre-Reformation English Christianity, Empress and Handmaid: On Nature and Gender in the Cult of the Virgin Mary by Sarah Jane Boss and Margery Kempe: Genius and Mystic by Katherine Cholmeley. Empress and Handmaid relies heavily on interpretive frameworks of which I'm a little suspicious--psychoanalytic theory and Frankfurt School critical theory--but I think the specific arguments that it makes are sound. Margery Kempe is hagiographic, occasionally tedious in its author's need to make clear her own piety, but a refreshing antidote to the misogynistic 'hysterical woman' way its subject is sometimes understood.

I've also read My Year of Meats, the first novel by Ruth Ozeki, author of the dark-horse highlight of my 2014 reading list, A Tale for the Time Being. You can tell My Year of Meats is a first novel--themes, conceits, narrative structures, and occasionally plot points and characterizations from A Tale for the Time Being are already present in it but in clearly larval form--but I'm still glad I read it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MalaspinaGold on May 10, 2015, 02:10:06 AM
Some goodies I've finished reading:
()
()
()
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on May 13, 2015, 11:15:47 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on May 13, 2015, 01:06:47 PM
Re-reading All the Wrong Questions in Lemony Snicket's newest series while I wait to get the chance to get the next two books.

Also re-read Skin Game from The Dresden Files series.

Hopefully once I get back to my hometown, I'll be able to check out something new.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on May 15, 2015, 06:47:24 PM
Thomas, the Other Gospel by Nicolas Perrin (http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Other-Gospel-Nicholas-Perrin/dp/0664232116)

Reading John by Christopher Skinner (http://wipfandstock.com/reading-john.html)


the latter is more or less aimed at undergrads, but it's still something worth picking up, IMO.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Deus Naturae on May 15, 2015, 06:58:55 PM
Currently reading through the works of former Stanford Professor Antony C. Sutton, often maligned as a "conspiracy theorist", if he's mentioned at all. He was kicked out of the Hoover Institution for exposing how the USSR and Nazi Germany were actually funded and supported by the U.S. government, as well as by financial and corporate interests from the beginning. His assertions are pretty crazy but he backs up his claims and is pretty convincing. Very eye-opening stuff.

()

()

()



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on May 15, 2015, 10:00:42 PM
Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography by Charles Moore.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SingingAnalyst on May 16, 2015, 09:57:41 AM
1. The Giver
2. Dog Whistle Politics


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on May 16, 2015, 07:29:58 PM
East and West, by Chris Patten. Patten's term as Governor of Hong Kong is rather fascinating (specially considering the reaction of the Chinese government to some of his actions), and his analysis of China and the Asian Tigers is interesting as well.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on May 20, 2015, 10:05:28 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on May 22, 2015, 06:25:56 AM
Started and finished In Defense of October by Leon Trotsky yesterday, and then started this last night:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sol on May 22, 2015, 08:51:36 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: VPH on May 22, 2015, 09:22:48 AM
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72-Hunter S. Thompson
The Speech-Bernie Sanders


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on May 22, 2015, 11:15:48 AM
Amongst other things, I recently finished Lila. Marilynne Robinson can really write, can't she? A remarkable work that everyone should read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on May 22, 2015, 11:20:52 AM
Most recently read Happy Birthday, Wanda June a play by Vonnegut. Pretty fun read.

On a bit of a reading break right now sadly. :(


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: BaconBacon96 on May 22, 2015, 05:25:43 PM
Triumph and Demise: The Broken Promise of a Labor Generation by Paul Kelly.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Snowstalker Mk. II on May 27, 2015, 03:23:21 PM
Just picked up The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. Would like to expand my horizons within the realm of Marxist-inspired thought.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on May 27, 2015, 03:45:55 PM
Finished Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder by Lenin the other day, and now I'm reading A Short History of Reconstruction by Eric Foner.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MalaspinaGold on May 29, 2015, 12:20:43 AM
()
()
()

In retrospect, reading the first two in quick succession was a good idea, given that they dealt with similar subjects and characters, but set in two different locations (Judea v. Rome). Of course the third book was by far the most depressing.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Ebsy on May 29, 2015, 03:45:49 AM
Amongst other things, I recently finished Lila. Marilynne Robinson can really write, can't she? A remarkable work that everyone should read.
Fantastic novel.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on May 31, 2015, 01:01:31 PM
Took a break from nonfiction to read Fight Club the other day. Now firmly back in the nonfiction genre with The Revolution Betrayed by Trotsky.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SWE on June 01, 2015, 03:08:48 PM
A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russel


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 07, 2015, 09:22:01 AM
I finished The Wind from Vulture Peak and then read The River Ki by Ariyoshi Sawako. The River Ki is a stranger novel than it looks at first glance; if The Makioka Sisters is a woman-oriented Japanese Seinfeld, then The River Ki is surely a Japanese Gilmore Girls (with eerily similar family politics, the only real difference--admittedly a major one--being that everybody involved has their children in wedlock), crossed with a feminist reworking of the premise of Buddenbrooks. The writing style is lucid but there were some sentences that I had to read several times to understand purely by dint of the fact that I was mostly reading it in bed very late at night.

I'm currently reading Yoshimoto Banana's Kitchen, and I'm next going to start two well-known (and dense) series of books, one fiction and one nonfiction: The Sea of Fertility and Jan Morris's Pax Britannica trilogy. I'm not expecting to like Pax Britannica's politics, and I know for a fact that I'll dislike The Sea of Fertility's, but I'm perversely drawn to Mishima's body of work much as a rubbernecker is to the oddly beautiful flames of a bad car crash, and I've resolved to read more Morris partially since I find her writing style endlessly entertaining and partially because she was one of the first openly transgender public figures.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blair on June 07, 2015, 11:33:13 AM
I'm on page 200 of this tome-it's really interesting just a pain to read around exams

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on June 07, 2015, 01:24:10 PM
America in Our Time


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MalaspinaGold on June 07, 2015, 07:22:47 PM
()()
()
()
The first three I read as a mix of leisure and as background for a paper I was writing. Reds or Rackets? (on the split between the corrupt East Coast and radical West Coast longshoremen) is excellently written, and, more importantly, gives a convincing answer. Highly recommended.
The Ethnic Factor was pretty good, with a lot of details and figures, but was ultimately a little forgettable. Emerging Democratic Majority was a borderline DLC  hackjob. Making's of Modern Zionism is also a must-read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Ebsy on June 08, 2015, 03:46:31 AM
The Emerging Democratic Majority is seen as predicting the Obama Coalition a decade before it formed. It's an important work and not at all a "DLC" hackjob.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MalaspinaGold on June 09, 2015, 11:45:16 PM
Well, among other things, they argued that West Virginia would lean Democratic, and that Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas would be Lean GOP/competitive. On the other hand, these predictions just ended up being incorrect; what they argue that is harder for me to swallow is the that the Emerging Democratic Majority is almost entirely the work of the DLC and Clinton.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: © tweed on June 12, 2015, 01:43:31 AM
a good read for anyone on the Left: Class, Culture and Conflict in Barcelona, 1898-1937

https://www.academia.edu/7379675/Class_Culture_and_Conflict_in_Barcelona_1898-1937_London_Routledge_2005


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: bore on June 12, 2015, 03:43:19 PM
Well, since I finished university for the year I've had a lot of spare time for reading so I've already finished 4 books:

The Fall of the House of Dixie by Bruce Levine - This was a very interesting look at the collapse of slavery in the south. Especially depressing was the point that even comparatively benign slave owners were still utterly brutal, and correspondingly amusing, was the shocked revelation to them that even (and often especially) their favoured slaves were the first to run off. Also entertaining was the hypocrisy of the planter elite when it came to actually fighting the war they started, not so much not fighting in the army as refusing to use their money and slaves for the war effort.

Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves - A very interesting memoir of the years around and including the first world war. I gathered after reading it that some of the facts were somewhat dodgy but even so. Mainly it further emphasised to me that public schools are utterly bizarre and the first world war was both horrific and incredibly bloody, the amount of characters in the book who died was pretty shocking.

The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - A brilliant satire on Stalinism, among other things. In parts very funny and very moving. I especially enjoyed the seance and (if enjoyed is the right word) the interrogation dream, but probably liked the pontius pilate's the most.

The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J Evans - A very capable and well done history of how the nazis came to power and their very early days in control. Obviously given the subject matter it's pretty depressing, especially knowing what came next, but it's especially interesting just how quickly every potential opponent of the nazis gave up (making the rare counter examples given like Otto Wels in his speech on the enabling act)  all the more inspiring. Obviously those of us who live in easier times can't make a sweeping judgement of people who didn't speak out, knowing the consequences, but it does seem that Bulgakov was right that cowardice is the most terrible of all vices.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 14, 2015, 06:32:51 PM
I've finally started The Sea of Fertility. I'm a little more than halfway through Spring Snow.

What is there to say about a story as absolutely gorgeous yet morally repelling as this?

I will say that Mishima made me root for Kiyoaki and Satoko even though I knew from the get-go that their relationship was doomed (as in the back cover of my copy of the book calls it 'doomed'); that he kind of screwed this up with the way he narrated their first time having sex, which is one example among several so far of the way he makes Kiyoaki break character in an attempt to have him conform to a sexually dominant gender role that the rest of his personality doesn't justify (particularly in light of the 'tumor of arrogance' line earlier on); that Honda is an interesting character of whom I look forward to seeing more in subsequent books; and that 'undoubtedly authentic and totally unpredictable', from the courtroom scene two chapters after the sex scene, is a wonderful turn of phrase and I think I'm going to be using it as a variant of GUBU. Also I've been underlining every single simile in the book because they're all absolutely incredible.

I also read Kitchen and liked it, and might have more to say about it later than I feel like saying right now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on June 18, 2015, 10:26:59 PM
A book called Scar Night, looked decent enough for a library check out.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 25, 2015, 01:32:38 AM
So why, exactly, did I like The River Ki better than Spring Snow, despite recognizing that Spring Snow is by most 'objective' (ha!) measures the better book? Is it because I preferred The River Ki's focus on women, or because I have a formal preference for traditional straightforward generational sagas? Is it because the characters in The River Ki are presented in a more sympathetic and, frankly, more humane manner than those in Spring Snow, even when they're behaving in comparably repulsive ways? It's probably all of the above. They're both books that are going to stick with me for a long time, but I know which one I'd rather reread.

I'm committed to The Sea of Fertility for the long haul, though. I'll be starting Runaway Horses some time soon.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on June 25, 2015, 07:31:52 AM
Antony Beevor's The Battle for Spain and Max Boot's Invisible Armies. Enjoying Beevor so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 25, 2015, 10:28:01 PM
Picked up "Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship" by Barrington Moore Jr. a few weeks ago. More than halfway through, but I've been distracted, and it's due back about July 7th, I think. If I wanted, I could probably plow through it by then, but I'm not predicting it'll be so easy.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on June 25, 2015, 11:13:59 PM
Taking a break from Scar Night to browse As You Wish, which is Cary Elwes experience in the making of The Princess Bride


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blair on June 26, 2015, 03:17:59 AM
No idea how I haven't read this-absolutely loved it purely because I didn't realize the GOP establishment  begged Christie, Daniels, Barbour and Bush to enter the race just to push Romney off.

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MalaspinaGold on June 27, 2015, 12:43:23 AM
()
()
Binge read both of these over the last two weeks. Both were very well written, even if Agulhon has a habit of overusing exclamation marks. Of course they overlapped quite a bit in discussing French socialism and communism post 1900. :)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on June 27, 2015, 07:50:24 AM
Ah, yes. The Sassoon book is really very, very good.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Hash on June 27, 2015, 10:26:49 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: All Along The Watchtower on June 27, 2015, 11:57:53 AM
Reading Rick Perlstein's The Invisible Bridge.

Entertaining.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on June 27, 2015, 12:01:47 PM
Problems of Everyday Life by Leon Trotsky


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on June 27, 2015, 02:26:49 PM
Friday Night Lights


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 28, 2015, 06:19:44 PM
I'm giving Spring Snow some time to sink in before I start Runaway Horses so right now I'm reading one of Noor Inayat Khan's Jataka stories every night before I go to sleep. They're very very short and very light. Khan was a children's book writer and artist and the daughter of a Sufi leader who during World War II became an Allied spy and was eventually captured and executed in Dachau; she's a personal hero of mine.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on June 29, 2015, 01:57:06 AM
Just One More Thing, which is Peter Falk's (aka Columbo) memoir


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MalaspinaGold on July 01, 2015, 07:23:04 PM
()
()
Both good; the second one was particularly insightful as to the roadblocks set up by mixed mining centers (spoiler alert: businesses being businesses were more of an issue, especially in the early years).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Classic Conservative on July 14, 2015, 09:50:11 PM
A Time for Truth: by Senator Ted Cruz
Great read for all conservatives, libertarians and small government folks.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on July 14, 2015, 10:09:17 PM
Nixon: An Oliver Stone Film

Has little articles here and there on one part, an annotated script on the other


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 14, 2015, 10:41:47 PM
The Lake, by Yoshimoto Banana. I'm also two chapters into Runaway Horses, the second Sea of Fertility novel, but I'd like to finish The Lake before I go further.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MalaspinaGold on July 16, 2015, 05:12:09 AM
()
()
()
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 25, 2015, 09:43:14 PM
I started Runaway Horses. I'm in the middle of an absolute bear of a chapter, forty-nine pages in my edition (the book is four hundred and twenty-one pages, and has forty chapters), that reproduces in its entirety an in-universe political/religious pamphlet. One definitely gets the sense that Mishima was way too into this, but it actually makes for pretty interesting reading.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on July 25, 2015, 10:35:42 PM
()A good read so far, and the first of Spong's books I've ever opened. I think he overstates his premise, but there do seem to be some genuine nuggets of golden insight.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on August 02, 2015, 11:22:48 PM
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

In spite of perhaps a pessimistic edge regarding the outcome of abolition and obliteration of the old Jim Crow laws, it's still a chilling, eerie, but compelling read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: VPH on August 07, 2015, 05:33:07 PM
Rural Radicals: Righteous Rage in the American Grain

A bit over halfway into this book that I found in an adorable used bookstore in Canada. It's fantastic and a very good read about why extremism on the left and right tends to flare up in rural areas. The author presents a balanced viewpoint and examines a wide range of years.

The Liberals' Moment

Awesome read about George McGovern that I'm using as a source for me extended essay. An in depth analysis of his botched campaign along with what it spells out for liberals nowadays.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Classic Conservative on August 21, 2015, 01:29:49 PM
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DemPGH on August 26, 2015, 03:19:23 PM
It Started With Copernicus by Howard Margolis from about 2002 or 2003. It's a very good read. He destroys the argument that there was no such thing as the scientific revolution and then takes most of the book to cite examples and show how around 1600 both method and knowledge started to make sudden and quick leaps forward.

One of my heroes is Francis Bacon, who argued in Novum Organum that what's needed is an entirely new method for the creation of knowledge. With that came really a new way of thinking about and interacting with the world. To me that's why there were such sudden leaps in discovery and technology. The idea that everything was revealed in antiquity had to go.

Also the latest edition of The Ricardian has a couple of very interesting essays, one on the development and use of field guns during the Wars of the Roses, and one on the diet of Richard III. There's also some interesting insight into the "court of chivalry" where one person was offended by another person, a duel was scheduled, weapons were selected, letters exchanged, but because of Henry VI's inability to administrate (due to mental illness), the duel appears never to have taken place. The Bulletin features some beautiful pictures from the funeral back in March.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on September 04, 2015, 03:58:59 PM
I finished Runaway Horses.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: / on September 07, 2015, 07:18:28 PM
A Lesson Before Dying for English class


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on September 09, 2015, 01:26:04 PM
Of my own choosing: Nothing

For classes: Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, The Sound of Fury by William Faulkner, and W.J. Cash's The Mind of the South


Cash is easily the most interesting, and frankly I wish I knew such a book to describe the Northeast.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on September 20, 2015, 09:31:43 AM
The Radicalism of the American Revolution and Les Miserables.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: / on September 20, 2015, 09:39:14 AM
The Rise and Fall of Tender Branson by Kalwejt


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DemPGH on September 23, 2015, 03:38:57 PM
Reading Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi as my bedtime reading right now. Very good, well written true crime story. It was of course made into Goodfellas, one of my very favorite movies of all time. It's very close to the movie, and most of Henry Hill's voiceovers in the movie are right from the book. The best adaptations are the ones that stick close to the source material, and this does.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Miles on September 27, 2015, 03:52:28 PM
()

And I just finished this one:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lief 🗽 on September 30, 2015, 07:03:40 PM

wtf


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: politicus on September 30, 2015, 07:16:48 PM
@Miles: Why do you read that thrash?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Miles on September 30, 2015, 07:31:45 PM
^ 'Best to keep an open mind. I don't agree with everything I read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: VPH on September 30, 2015, 10:19:10 PM
Losers and Looking Forward to It


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: bedstuy on October 01, 2015, 05:47:54 PM
^ 'Best to keep an open mind. I don't agree with everything I read.

"If you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on October 01, 2015, 06:02:41 PM

Speaking of the Beats, I just read (most of) The Dharma Bums. As always, I'm not thrilled with what Kerouac has to say (it's a profoundly sexist book, among other things), but I really like how he says it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oakvale on October 01, 2015, 06:04:12 PM
So Miles is a Nazi now?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on October 01, 2015, 06:15:32 PM

Yeah that's...really worrying, 'open mind' or no.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on October 01, 2015, 06:17:57 PM
Open minds tend to fill up with rubbish, which probably explains your support for fascism.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DavidB. on October 01, 2015, 07:20:56 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oakvale on October 02, 2015, 07:51:53 AM
Reading this atm

()


I don't agree with everything it suggests, but I like to keep an open mind


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Yelnoc on October 02, 2015, 05:02:53 PM

Pretty boring, yeah?

I'm underwater with readings. Here's my list:

The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update by Dennis Meadows et al

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter planet by Mark Lynas

After Capitalism by David Schweickart

A History of The Cuban Revolution by Aviva Chomsky

An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Power by John Gordon Steele

A Most Magnificent Machine: America Adopts the Railroad, 1825-1862 by Craig Miner

American Railroads by John F. Stover

Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business by Harold C. Livesay

Acts by Luke

Galatians by Paul

I recently finished:

The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle Against Atlantic Slavery by Matt Childs

Biography of a Runaway Slave by Miguel Barnet

The Gospel of Mark by John Mark


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sol on October 04, 2015, 04:24:50 PM
Does anyone have any recommendations for books about Suharto's purges in the 60s/Indonesian politics in general? I've realized recently that I know very little about Indonesia and I want to rectify that.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Intell on October 04, 2015, 06:30:32 PM
Hindu Kingship, Ethnic Revival, and the Maoist Rebellion in Nepal

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on October 15, 2015, 10:32:48 AM

Ugh, hated, hated that.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on October 15, 2015, 10:33:51 AM
Latest book I read was Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

Also read East, West by Salman Rushdie.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 02, 2015, 09:34:48 PM
I finished my Victorian Gothic feminist YA fantasy series and am now reading (parts of) Brain Dead Person by Morioka Masahiro.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rooney on December 07, 2015, 12:02:35 PM
Jack Kemp: The Bleeding Heart Conservative who Changed America by Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke. This has been pretty good so far. It goes into a lot of Congressional inside baseball and does a pretty competent job teaching what supply side economics is and is not. A great read for the political historians and Republicans on the forum.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TNF on December 11, 2015, 04:50:24 PM
the origin of the family, private property, and the state by f. engels


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on December 18, 2015, 08:45:45 PM
Picked up "Lineages of the Absolutist State" by some dude named Perry Anderson, as well as "The Third Wave" by Samuel Huntington.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Classic Conservative on December 25, 2015, 11:04:05 AM
The Jefferson Lies by David Barton


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on December 25, 2015, 01:21:11 PM

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on December 25, 2015, 06:40:48 PM
Just finished Genesis:  Memory of fire, volume I, by Eduardo Galeano.  Good stuff.

That's probably why I'm so keen on the concept of "forced conversion to monotheism" 

I still have volumes II and III to go, sitting on the dresser, so I'll probably get even more obnoxious before I get more mellow.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DemPGH on December 26, 2015, 05:06:26 PM
Books for Christmas!

The very recently published and released Richard III: A Ruler and His Reputation. I've leafed through it, and so far very good. I'm always interested in a writer's take on Bosworth, and he does provide some interesting thoughts. Looking forward to the whole thing. Of course these books now are after some of the recent archaeological finds at Bosworth (confirming gunfire, for one thing) and the analysis of Richard's skeleton, so I'm keenly interested in any new insights.

Also Keith Dockray's recent book about Edward IV where he offers up snippets of letters and chronicles that he finds important from the time and sort of comments on them. He starts out by comparing Edward to Henry VIII for some odd reason (it would be a good upper level undergraduate book, so maybe to get people thinking comparatively), whereas I see nothing similar between the two except that they both got fat. So did Queen Anne, for that matter. Anyway, the meat of it looks interesting. Looking forward to it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sol on December 28, 2015, 01:53:44 PM
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Enduro on December 28, 2015, 03:24:19 PM
I have a stack of books next to my bed, I read one main book while occasionally reading a chapter or two of another book.

My main book right now is Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheDeadFlagBlues on December 28, 2015, 06:12:06 PM
The Fall of the Roman Empire - Peter Heather
Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs - Lauren A. Rivera
Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses - Richard Arum


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 12, 2016, 02:35:39 AM
I read Lost Horizon. Realizing that Mallinson had a point will set you free. Wikipedia suggests we see also 'middlebrow' for this novel's author.

Now rereading We Have Always Lived in the Castle.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Virginiá on January 27, 2016, 02:34:53 PM
Current books I'm reading (or planning):

1. America Ascendant (http://www.amazon.com/America-Ascendant-Revolutionary-Addressing-Problems-ebook/dp/B00VPXAEWK) (Stanley Greenberg) Currently reading

2. The New Jim Crow (http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431) (Michelle Alexander) Partially read

3. The Emerging Democratic Majority (http://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Democratic-Majority-John-Judis/dp/0743254783) (John B. Judis / Ruy Teixeira)

4. Republic, Lost (http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/dp/0446576433) (Lawrence Lessig) Partially read - I love this guy!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on January 31, 2016, 08:36:35 PM
I am halfway through Rick Perlstein's The Invisible Bridge. Really a great book, but I always stay up too late reading (cause I can't put it down!).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Virginiá on January 31, 2016, 08:49:31 PM
I am halfway through Rick Perlstein's The Invisible Bridge. Really a great book, but I always stay up too late reading (cause I can't put it down!).

Would you say the book is non-biased/neutral? If so, I may get get this myself.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on January 31, 2016, 08:51:06 PM
I am halfway through Rick Perlstein's The Invisible Bridge. Really a great book, but I always stay up too late reading (cause I can't put it down!).

Would you say the book is non-biased and at least mostly politically neutral? If so, I may get get this myself.

Dude doesn't like Reagan much, but I doubt you'll have qualms with that ;). As political books go, it's palatable.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Virginiá on January 31, 2016, 08:55:17 PM
Dude doesn't like Reagan much, but I doubt you'll have qualms with that ;). As political books go, it's palatable.

goooddeee! I just wanted to make sure I won't be subjected to very subtle conservative reprogramming.

Thanks mr Bessell! :-*


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on January 31, 2016, 09:02:25 PM
Big fan of Perlstein. Even though you get the idea that he's liberal (which he is), he does very well at illustrating the competing social movements that resulted in things going as they did (in my opinion). It's also fun to read how the liberal consensus was torn asunder. Only read "Before the Storm" and "Nixonland", but I greatly enjoyed both.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Virginiá on January 31, 2016, 09:14:41 PM
Big fan of Perlstein. Even though you get the idea that he's liberal (which he is), he does very well at illustrating the competing social movements that resulted in things going as they did (in my opinion). It's also fun to read how the liberal consensus was torn asunder. Only read "Before the Storm" and "Nixonland", but I greatly enjoyed both.

He is? I went over his wiki, I assumed he was more conservative than liberal as all his work seems to be about conservative-related stuff.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on January 31, 2016, 09:23:21 PM
Dude doesn't like Reagan much, but I doubt you'll have qualms with that ;). As political books go, it's palatable.

goooddeee! I just wanted to make sure I won't be subjected to very subtle conservative reprogramming.

Thanks mr Bessell! :-*

No prob, glad you're interested!

Big fan of Perlstein. Even though you get the idea that he's liberal (which he is), he does very well at illustrating the competing social movements that resulted in things going as they did (in my opinion). It's also fun to read how the liberal consensus was torn asunder. Only read "Before the Storm" and "Nixonland", but I greatly enjoyed both.

100% agree, from what I've read so far.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on January 31, 2016, 09:30:48 PM
Big fan of Perlstein. Even though you get the idea that he's liberal (which he is), he does very well at illustrating the competing social movements that resulted in things going as they did (in my opinion). It's also fun to read how the liberal consensus was torn asunder. Only read "Before the Storm" and "Nixonland", but I greatly enjoyed both.

He is? I went over his wiki, I assumed he was more conservative than liberal as all his work seems to be about conservative-related stuff.

One of the quotes on the back of the paperback "Before the Storm" from Irving Kristol or one of his compatriots refers to Perlstein, a man from the left, being great at telling the story of the right. He's definitely interested in it, but I could be interested in socialism and still be a conservatism, especially if my goal is to serve as a critique to it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on February 13, 2016, 12:04:25 PM
I just started Jack Kemp: The Bleeding-Heart Conservative Who Changed America by Morton Kondracke and Fred Barnes. I thought the guy was an FF before, but I really do now. Not the best-written book, but engaging for a conservative like yours truly.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SWE on February 21, 2016, 07:11:19 PM
Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Classic Conservative on February 21, 2016, 08:16:42 PM
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and It is about Islam by Glenn Beck


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Ban my account ffs! on February 21, 2016, 11:35:17 PM
The Almost Nearly Perfect People:  The Myth Behind the Scandinavian Utopia

http://www.amazon.com/The-Almost-Nearly-Perfect-People/dp/0224089625

I mean... Minnesota is not Scandinavia... but many of hte cultural tendrils are still guiding the culture in MN so I kinda know a lot of what is already being said... but it's a good read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on February 22, 2016, 04:56:44 AM
Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West by Don Lopez. Great read by who's apparently a great guy.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sir Mohamed on February 22, 2016, 08:19:57 AM
Richard Nixon's Memoires.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Ban my account ffs! on February 22, 2016, 07:08:05 PM
Are you related to Xahar?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on February 26, 2016, 05:22:36 AM
Władysław Szpilman, "The Pianist"

It became a basis for Polański's movie, as you probably might have guessed.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Sir Mohamed on February 26, 2016, 06:48:42 AM

No, who ever that is.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on February 26, 2016, 06:57:39 AM

It's a nom de guerre of a notorious Bangladeshi insurgent, aiming at violently overthrowing Sheikh Hasina's government.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on February 27, 2016, 09:23:08 AM
Kurt Vonnegut's "Jailbird"


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: muon2 on February 28, 2016, 05:42:36 AM
I had two two and a half hour flights and Inferno by Dan Brown fit in nicely.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on March 03, 2016, 09:32:12 PM
Picked up "The Roots of Evil" by Christopher Hibbert. Any good?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on March 11, 2016, 05:46:39 PM
Joseph Heller, Good as Gold


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: NeverAgain on March 11, 2016, 09:44:27 PM
Robert Reich's Saving Capitalism


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on March 11, 2016, 10:05:53 PM
I just finished up Why the Right Went Wrong by E.J. Dionne. It's an ideologically slanted but comprehensive overview of how the Republican Party got where they are today.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on March 11, 2016, 10:11:11 PM
I just finished up Why the Right Went Wrong by E.J. Dionne. It's an ideologically slanted but comprehensive overview of how the Republican Party got where they are today.

"Where the Right Went Wrong" by Pat Buchanan wasn't enough!? :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on March 11, 2016, 10:36:59 PM
I just finished up Why the Right Went Wrong by E.J. Dionne. It's an ideologically slanted but comprehensive overview of how the Republican Party got where they are today.

"Where the Right Went Wrong" by Pat Buchanan wasn't enough!? :P

I might have to try "how," "when," and "what" next.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on March 19, 2016, 03:48:45 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on March 23, 2016, 06:24:53 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 24, 2016, 10:09:56 AM
Karl Barth, The Humanity of God. 'The HUMANITY of God?!' one of my floormates cried at one point earlier this semester. 'That's a strange title for a book!' She is in her fourth semester of seminary. You'd think she'd grok the Incarnation by now.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on March 25, 2016, 05:54:16 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 27, 2016, 10:30:42 PM
Doing a partial reread of The Birth of Tragedy for a paper.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Simfan34 on April 15, 2016, 09:28:44 AM
()A good read so far, and the first of Spong's books I've ever opened. I think he overstates his premise, but there do seem to be some genuine nuggets of golden insight.

Heretic!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on April 16, 2016, 07:56:39 AM
Just finished:

()

Now I started this:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on April 25, 2016, 10:57:30 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Tetro Kornbluth on May 01, 2016, 07:42:25 AM

Read that ages ago. Thoughts?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Oldiesfreak1854 on May 01, 2016, 10:42:00 AM
The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz.  It's a great book about the flimsy scientific data used to prop up the idea that saturated fat causes obesity and heart disease, which is now accepted as gospel truth.  I'm reading it to kill time on the Sabbath just because I can.  If SDAs can present its pro-vegetarian health info on the Sabbath, then there's no reason they can't read health books during that time.

I'm also trying to spend the Sabbath hours reading Did God Kill Jesus, which is supposedly a critique of penal substitution, but I currently have that on hold until I finish with Teicholz.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on May 07, 2016, 04:14:17 PM
"Constructing Cassandra: Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947-2001" by Milo Jones & Philippe Silberzahn and "The Cold War: A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis. Both are for a graduate class in the fall for the school's M.S. in Intelligence Analysis program titled "The Roots of 21st Century Conflict". Had to get it as a directed study since it's scheduled the same time as "Introduction to Digital Forensics". :P


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on May 08, 2016, 05:58:54 AM

I liked the concept (both scientific, that is a total transformation of a man, and political, that is everything depending on just putting a man on Mars). I was a bit disappointed that the protagonist simply decided to remain there, which was much more than was expected of him.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: / on May 08, 2016, 11:49:41 AM
I'm about to finish the Audacity of Hope and then plan to start Atlas Shrugged, which will take a while.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on May 08, 2016, 03:17:59 PM
I'm about to finish the Audacity of Hope

It's rather bland.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on May 08, 2016, 09:53:50 PM
"Constructing Cassandra: Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947-2001" by Milo Jones & Philippe Silberzahn and "The Cold War: A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis. Both are for a graduate class in the fall for the school's M.S. in Intelligence Analysis program titled "The Roots of 21st Century Conflict". Had to get it as a directed study since it's scheduled the same time as "Introduction to Digital Forensics". :P

Finished. Library better be effing open tomorrow. I have a textbook or two borrowed, but I'd rather keep with "actual reading" until I need to switch it up. Two possibilities are books I rented out over Christmas break but never finished--"The Third Wave" by Samuel Huntington, and "Lineages of the Absolutist State" by Perry Anderson. Probably gonna go there after work.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on May 10, 2016, 04:49:13 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on May 10, 2016, 01:38:17 PM
The Kingdom of the Wind by Itsuki Hiroyuki. It has the [insert negative but not outright insulting adjective here: Sententious, overdone, faintly turgid] prose characteristic both of modern Japanese literary fiction and of Meredith McKinney's translation style, and the main characters aren't especially appealing, but I love the concept and the descriptions of places and history.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on May 15, 2016, 06:40:55 PM
Re-reading "Fahrenheit 451".


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: VPH on May 19, 2016, 12:44:05 PM
Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: NeverAgain on May 19, 2016, 03:18:53 PM
Just finished Reason and Saving Capitalism both by Robert Reich, I plan on reading A Lesson Before Dying and then also a couple Friedman books soon.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on May 19, 2016, 05:04:09 PM
Not sure if this counts as a book, but I'm on Act IV of Romeo and Juliet. Very nice play.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blair on May 22, 2016, 04:24:35 PM
Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank.

Am unsure about starting this, is it any good? I've almost finished What's Wrong with Kansas, and for a
book widely talked about as being revolutionary within political circles I've found it very underwhelming.

This is my current post exam treat- I'm trying to furnish my British Politics berfore 1997 (My US political History for the 20th century is much better than my british)

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on May 25, 2016, 01:57:31 AM
Rereading Brideshead Revisited. It holds up to an extent.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on May 25, 2016, 05:04:05 AM
A collection of Jaroslav Hasek's articles.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on June 10, 2016, 02:18:34 PM
Finished Nomination by Alexander Bek.

Now reading

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RFayette on June 10, 2016, 08:05:04 PM
Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank.

Am unsure about starting this, is it any good? I've almost finished What's Wrong with Kansas, and for a
book widely talked about as being revolutionary within political circles I've found it very underwhelming.

I read about 1/2 of Listen, Liberal in the bookstore and I thought it was a pretty good analysis of how much the Democratic Party changed with Clinton and the DLC, but it wasn't anything to write home about.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on June 10, 2016, 10:35:40 PM
Bob Gates' book, A Passion for Leadership. Good stuff.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: / on June 11, 2016, 02:12:05 PM
Currently reading Dave Leip's US Election Atlas Shrugged.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 11, 2016, 05:32:43 PM
A combination collection from my school's library, my professor, and from myself was drawn together to begin work on what I hope may be my honors thesis:
"The Third Wave" by Samuel Huntington
"Social Origins of Dictatorship & Democracy" by Barrington Moore, Jr.
"The War of the World" by Niall Ferguson
"History of Russia" by Walter Kirchner (very out of date, 1970's, selected form among Russian histories a few weeks ago for quasi-related reading; had the coolest-looking cover and looked the shortest)
"The Cold War" by John Lewis Gaddis
"The Russian Revolution" by Robert Foldston (typo in the book's publication--should read "Goldston")

Not all of these are being used as I've begun writing my hackneyed and dogsh#t quality introduction that I plan on showing to my academic adviser on Monday. Some were taken out as a "just in case", and others I already had. This is just the group that I took "back home" to Davisburg for the weekend to get a writing start.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on June 12, 2016, 07:28:51 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Velasco on June 12, 2016, 10:49:16 AM
Right now Less Than One,  a fascinating collection of essays by Joseph Brodsky

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/11/less-than-one-joseph-brodsky-review


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on June 15, 2016, 01:15:30 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: anvi on June 18, 2016, 11:14:01 AM
Most Wanted Particle, which is about the search for the Higgs boson, by Jon Butterworth.

I've taken to reading about astrophysics, physics and evolutionary biology this summer again.  Astronomy was my first love as a kid.  Actually, I probably would find being a scientist more intellectually satisfying than being a philosopher.  Until college though, my math skills were very poor.  Plus, what happens when half-blind high school kids try to do biology experiments usually doesn't work out.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on June 18, 2016, 02:21:26 PM
Reading Perlstein's Before The Storm once again. Awesome, of course. Can't wait for what wil apparently be the final book in the series, whenever it comes out.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on June 19, 2016, 01:32:55 PM
Bought an Italian copy of my favorite book, 1984, and an Italian-English dictionary. Learn the language or die (of boredom) trying, I suppose


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on June 19, 2016, 04:54:39 PM
()

(Eleanor of Aquitaine, to be precise)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on June 20, 2016, 02:17:01 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on June 21, 2016, 03:30:43 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Green Line on June 21, 2016, 03:43:44 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blair on June 21, 2016, 04:00:12 PM
()

Enjoying this- a bit of a brief overview of his early life, and a bit too pseudo psychology at parts. Trying to cover most of American Political History for my second year at uni; which has a course solely on that


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on June 23, 2016, 07:20:32 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on June 28, 2016, 04:18:38 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 28, 2016, 04:32:56 PM
Rereading Northanger Abbey.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on June 28, 2016, 04:45:52 PM

I need to refrest my Austen too.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 28, 2016, 07:12:17 PM
Picked up more library books on Friday, but I've barely cracked 'em. Spent all weekend writing, though. Drew up a second "proposal" of sorts, but it's rooted mainly in readings as opposed to "data" (what there is). This thesis is gonna be a feat. (Long story short: I'm supposed to do an "honors thesis" started, oh, last semester which is to be "original research". Someone in my areas of interest probably doesn't have a lot of wiggle room there without, say, y'know, travel or surveys, or something like that, so I'm working with extant statistics that have probably used on subject matter that's already been touched. No idea if I'll get through this and I don't have the most attentive guidance)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 30, 2016, 11:57:08 PM
I finished Northanger Abbey. I [Inks]ing love Isabella, I don't give a [Inks]. Life's too short to hate such a brazen manipulative asshole. She's so bad but she does it so well.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DC Al Fine on July 01, 2016, 07:35:39 AM
()

Very good book about the the non-Chalcedonian churches.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 01, 2016, 11:18:39 AM
()

Very good book about the the non-Chalcedonian churches.

Tell me how it is when you're done? This seems right up my alley.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on July 05, 2016, 11:42:23 PM
Just finished Stefan Zweig's "Fouche" and "Marie Antoinette", and I'll probably be moving onto Napoleonic-related works. I need to read more historical works of Zweig (I had read his Magellan years ago as well), but he could easily be among my favourite authors very soon.

I'm not yet sure why, but I find his psychological insight into the people he writes about utterly fascinating (and hilarious at times).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on July 05, 2016, 11:43:43 PM
Just finished Stefan Zweig's "Fouche" and "Marie Antoinette", and I'll probably be moving onto Napoleonic-related works. I need to read more historical works of Zweig (I had read his Magellan years ago as well), but he could easily be among my favourite authors very soon.

I'm not yet sure why, but I find his psychological insight into the people he writes about utterly fascinating (and hilarious at times).

Read Marie Antoinette, but haven't read Fouche.

Have you read Maria Stuart by him? Very fascinating.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on July 06, 2016, 02:28:17 PM
Finished:

()

Started:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on July 06, 2016, 03:04:48 PM
Just finished Stefan Zweig's "Fouche" and "Marie Antoinette", and I'll probably be moving onto Napoleonic-related works. I need to read more historical works of Zweig (I had read his Magellan years ago as well), but he could easily be among my favourite authors very soon.

I'm not yet sure why, but I find his psychological insight into the people he writes about utterly fascinating (and hilarious at times).

Read Marie Antoinette, but haven't read Fouche.

Have you read Maria Stuart by him? Very fascinating.

Fouche is probably one of the best works I've ever read, partly because of how well he gets in the mind of such an enigmatic character, and also because he paints a different picture of Fouche's actual relevance (I think he's way underestimated in comparison to Talleyrand). Maria Stuart I haven't, but it will probably go into my reading list soon...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Anna Komnene on July 06, 2016, 05:29:53 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on July 07, 2016, 03:50:46 AM
Maria Stuart I haven't, but it will probably go into my reading list soon...

()

They cut off her head


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on July 09, 2016, 11:59:19 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on July 17, 2016, 06:19:05 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on July 17, 2016, 12:26:19 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on July 25, 2016, 11:44:08 PM
Where the Buck Stops, which is one of Truman's autobiographies.

Really changes perspective on Andrew Johnson, Jackson, Polk, and Wilson... or at least differs greatly from the Atlas left. Pretty much confirms Teddy's underwhelming trust-busting.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RFayette on July 25, 2016, 11:46:19 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 28, 2016, 07:57:46 AM
After a year and change, I finished The Sea of Fertility.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DINGO Joe on July 28, 2016, 09:36:34 AM
()

No, it doesn't have a separate section or chapter on WV.  Oh man, the slurs, I've learned from this book.  Much of the historical attitudes/history I was aware, at least in passing, before reading the book,  but having them rolled out, one after the other, makes one realize what a constant it's been in US (and English) history.  It does roll all the way up to the present and segways into more of a cultural history,  though it could have been a little more fleshed out (without giving WV racist hicks their own chapter).  All the big outlets have written reviews on the book, so they'd probably give you a better feel than I on whether you'd want to read the book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on July 29, 2016, 06:53:58 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: muon2 on July 29, 2016, 06:59:08 AM
I finished The Fractured Republic while I was on vacation this week.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on July 29, 2016, 11:50:07 AM

Didn't know the world of computers had "classics".


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RFayette on July 29, 2016, 03:50:49 PM

They're called discrete math and combinatorics books. :P  But the original for that book was written in the 1970's and it is more about mathematical foundations than anything. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on July 30, 2016, 11:03:47 AM
An online copy of Buddenbrooks. That was the only one of Mann's novels I could read in the original. German


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on July 30, 2016, 02:08:46 PM
An online copy of Buddenbrooks. That was the only one of Mann's novels I could read in the original. German

I've been meaning to read it (in English) for a while; how is it?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on July 30, 2016, 06:54:22 PM
An online copy of Buddenbrooks. That was the only one of Mann's novels I could read in the original. German

I've been meaning to read it (in English) for a while; how is it?

Young and ambitious, stately, and deeply Wagnerian.

I admit that Buddenbrooks is not the pure adventure that is the Magic Mountain (I don't care what people say, that novel is fantastic, and I regret not reading it earlier in life), since it really does live up to its subtitle as a chronicle of a rich north German family in terminal decline.

But it is more than just another 19th century family saga: The themes that Mann develops in his later novels all come to maturity in this one book -- the third and fourth "acts," when the decline is manifest, are in particular superb. Even at age 26, Mann was just better at describing physical decay and spiritual lassitude than he was vigor and optimism. I can see how Faulkner and Toni Morrison both loved this book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blair on August 08, 2016, 06:16:44 PM
Standard read for a Kennedy fanboy like me- skips the tropey, and boring stuff about early life, and 80 pages in seems very sharp


()



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on August 08, 2016, 08:59:10 PM
Emil Ludwig's Cleopatra. Usually I'm a fan of his biographies (Bismarck, Lincoln and Hindenburg are amongst the best books I've read, Wilhelm II not so much), but even it this one is written well it annoys me that he gets so many details wrong.

Granted, it's from 1937, but still...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Incipimus iterum on August 13, 2016, 09:15:17 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RFayette on August 15, 2016, 04:30:33 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DINGO Joe on August 17, 2016, 12:54:37 PM

I would like to read some Vargas Llosa sometime, any opinion on the best one to pick up?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on August 20, 2016, 03:40:02 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on August 22, 2016, 10:30:35 AM
()


Hard question, actually. Given how diffrent his work can be, I'd start with the first novel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_of_the_Hero) (the English title is silly).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Enduro on August 22, 2016, 12:28:21 PM
Recently started the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, and later Brandon Sanderson.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: !@#$%^&* on August 25, 2016, 05:30:15 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cassius on August 25, 2016, 05:37:33 AM
Sense and Sensibility (again).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mike Thick on August 29, 2016, 12:27:02 AM
Put a hold on my reading of Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger to go through the Harry Potter series for the first time in six years. I have odd taste in books.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: seb_pard on September 07, 2016, 08:38:32 PM
Money Changes Everything

Nice book to everyone that is interest in a mix of economy and anthropology.

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10662.html


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on September 17, 2016, 11:00:54 AM
()

About this guy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Józef_Unrug).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on September 17, 2016, 11:56:45 AM
Experience and the Creation of Meaning by Eugene Gendlin.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on September 18, 2016, 11:36:59 PM
Temeraire

Book 1: His Majesty's Dragon


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on September 21, 2016, 07:39:46 AM
I just started reading Disordered World by Amin Maalouf.  I'm only in chapter 2, but so far it is very depressing.  

There's something for everyone:  Confusion in Europe; the Arab world "sinking deeper into a pit of rage" from which it seems incapable of extricating itself, Sub-Saharan Africa "plagued by civil war, epidemics, sordid trafficking, widespread corruption, disintegrating institutions, mass unemployment, and despair"; Russia struggling to recover from seventy years of communism and the chaotic way it ended; and the United States, "having defeated its principal global adversary, finding itself engaged in a titanic enterprise which is wearing it down and leading it off course."

I think perennially melancholy Beet would love it.  


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: PresidentSamTilden on September 24, 2016, 12:59:07 PM
I just started reading Disordered World by Amin Maalouf.  I'm only in chapter 2, but so far it is very depressing.  

There's something for everyone:  Confusion in Europe; the Arab world "sinking deeper into a pit of rage" from which it seems incapable of extricating itself, Sub-Saharan Africa "plagued by civil war, epidemics, sordid trafficking, widespread corruption, disintegrating institutions, mass unemployment, and despair"; Russia struggling to recover from seventy years of communism and the chaotic way it ended; and the United States, "having defeated its principal global adversary, finding itself engaged in a titanic enterprise which is wearing it down and leading it off course."

I think perennially melancholy Beet would love it.  

Is this a novel or non fiction?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: PresidentSamTilden on September 24, 2016, 01:01:41 PM
()

I'm about halfway through. It's a worthwhile read, kind of depressing at times.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: OSR stands with Israel on September 24, 2016, 01:50:02 PM
Just finished reading Revan


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DINGO Joe on October 05, 2016, 12:07:24 AM
()

So, after a long stretch of work that didn't allow any reading for pleasure, I got to pick up something off of my neverending stack of unread books. 

Set in the German city of Breslau before either World War, it gave a great feel for the time and place and I think I may have gotten gout from the food descriptions.  The characters are all flawed and the mystery is solid.  It was translated from the original Polish.  If your wondering why a Polish writer is writing a German mystery, well, Google Breslau like I did, because I didn't know where Breslau was.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on October 05, 2016, 11:43:24 AM

It is non-fiction.  Analysis, op/ed sort of stuff.  Basically, the rantings of a middle eastern writer living in Paris for 20 years.  I think it was originally written French because there's a long English translator's preface in the front.  Finished it last week and returned it.  It's not particularly challenging, but a decent read because of the fresh perspective. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on October 05, 2016, 12:32:25 PM
If your wondering why a Polish writer is writing a German mystery, well, Google Breslau like I did, because I didn't know where Breslau was.

Fun fact: some residents of Wrocław still reefers it to Breslau, mostly as a joke.

Many of Wrocław residents are actually descendants of those expelled from the Kresy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kresy) (mostly Lwów, now Lviv) after Uncle Joe changed the border. Due to this, some reefer to Wrocław as relocated Lwów.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on October 05, 2016, 03:02:41 PM
some residents of Wrocław still reefers it to Breslau
...
some reefer to Wrocław

reefer madness, Polish-style.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on October 06, 2016, 05:08:11 AM
I just finished rereading The Tao of Pooh. It's an enjoyable little primer on Daoism; and I'm thinking of giving a little talk on Daoism based on it at my UU church. I recommend it, but don't recommend the author's sequel, The Te of Piglet. In fact, rereading Pooh I see hints of what I didn't care for in Piglet. (The author comes across as an environmentalist Eeyore in Piglet.)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on October 07, 2016, 06:55:28 PM
This is my third time borrowing "Russian Economic Development from Peter the Great to Stalin" from my school's library. The first time was to try to get some knowledge on Russia; the second time was an abortive attempt to use it as a source; now I'm actually taking notes on it. It's a collection of articles, arranged semi-chronologically. The book was printed in 1974. Yesterday I took out "States & Social Revolutions" by Theda Skocpol. Similar story with this; second time taking it out. I've got an array of other books on loan from the library that are due back around October 28th. Better churn through these effers.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on October 14, 2016, 01:51:20 AM
Taking a break from the Temeraire series with The Godfather.

Yeah Francis Ford Coppola's movie is far better, but the book is still pretty good when it comes to background characters and the initial establishing bits.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on October 14, 2016, 07:51:15 PM
Continuing my series on reading the high school literature that I should have read but never did, I've just finished Mansfield Park. I honestly don't know what to think about this book -- I have words to say about it, unlike Pride and Prejudice, which was mostly just a colossal bore.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on October 21, 2016, 05:01:44 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: AuH2O Republican on October 21, 2016, 06:23:17 AM
Reading this absolutely superb biography, though I hear the accompanying TV series on the BBC was dreadful.

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on October 21, 2016, 03:36:59 PM
I'm usually reading two books simultaneously

Finished:

()

Started:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kingpoleon on October 21, 2016, 09:06:14 PM
Put a hold on my reading of Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger to go through the Harry Potter series for the first time in six years. I have odd taste in books.
Once, in a row, I read one of the Hardy Boys, then The Prince, then Armageddon 2419 A. D., then a Hercule Poirot story, and then an Oliver North book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on October 22, 2016, 05:19:15 PM
Started Dreams from My Father.

I hope it won't be boring like The Audacity of Hope.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on October 26, 2016, 02:02:55 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on November 10, 2016, 06:22:00 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on November 14, 2016, 02:45:18 PM
Villette. I really need to start reading books with a male protagonist.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 15, 2016, 03:20:13 PM
I really need to start reading books with a male protagonist.

Why?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on November 15, 2016, 04:15:05 PM

I've been reading Austen and Bronte books for weeks now and I need a change of perspective. In retrospect what I wrote was sexist but that wasn't its intention.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Atlas Has Shrugged on November 15, 2016, 05:02:20 PM
I'm about to finish Barbara Branden's "The Passion of Ayn Rand" and am about to start reading "Judgement Day: My Years with Ayn Rand" by her ex-husband. I also read "Goddess of the Market" a few years back in High School.

This is going to sound lame, but I've been doing a lot of writing and am working on a project right now (and no, it isn't a Atlas Shrugged ripoff philosophical tract, it's just a story. I'm not that pretentious) and have a side concept for a possible play about Rand's life that shows the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'm not going to publish it or anything, I just want to see if I'm capable of it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: AuH2O Republican on November 23, 2016, 04:23:39 AM
()

Almost finished this fantastic book tracing European military history from 1453. Simms' argument is that a battle for supremacy in Europe has always centred on the control of the Holy Roman Empire/Germany.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on November 23, 2016, 06:10:43 AM
Leonid Grossman, Death of a Poet (about Pushkin's duel)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on November 24, 2016, 05:20:53 PM
()

Interesting piece of sexuality in the Arab world.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on November 24, 2016, 05:57:38 PM
()

Interesting piece of sexuality in the Arab world.

Useless without hands-on experience.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on November 24, 2016, 06:22:04 PM
A commentary on the Shōbōgenzō by Francis H. Cook. Cook tries to cram Dōgen into this Rudolf Bultmann-y 'demythologization' framework, which runs counter to my understanding of the history of Japanese Buddhism and of Dōgen's liberal use of the techniques of anecdote and parable, but read with that in mind it's useful for other purposes and has clarified my understanding of various concepts.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on November 25, 2016, 01:16:56 PM
()

Interesting piece of sexuality in the Arab world.

Useless without hands-on experience.

Given that one old Arabic text, discussed in the book, recommended a method involving a warm pitch, a parchment and your own little Anthony I think some experiences are better to avoid.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Confused Democrat on January 02, 2017, 05:43:55 PM
I just started reading Elizabeth Warren's memoir "A Fighting Chance."  Pretty par for the course so far, but I'm definitely enjoying it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Small L on January 04, 2017, 10:31:55 PM
I just finished Silence by Shūsaku Endō in preparation for watching the film. It was very good and I highly recommend it. Didn't take more than a day or so to read.

Now I'm trying to get through something by Maritain that has befuddled me for a while.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on January 06, 2017, 12:20:34 PM
J. RAMSAY MACDONALD: LABOR'S* MAN OF DESTINY.

Publication date MCMXXIX.

*(sic)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lumine on January 06, 2017, 12:28:05 PM
Adios al Septimo de Linea, a classic (and rather long) Chilean war novel regarding the War of the Pacific.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Potus on January 06, 2017, 01:56:41 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: justfollowingtheelections on January 06, 2017, 04:19:34 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on February 01, 2017, 02:52:27 AM
The 4th Volume of Robert Caro's Lyndon Johnson series.

I also checked out a biography of Lady Bird, and one on The Obama's.

I recently browsed one about Hoover...that'll be next on the list.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Middle-aged Europe on February 01, 2017, 04:27:31 AM
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on February 13, 2017, 02:46:17 AM
Now that I've finished Caro's 4th LBJ Volume.


Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage
by Christopher Andersen.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on February 17, 2017, 02:27:08 AM
Now I'm onto Michael Gillette's Compilation of Oral Interviews recorded called, well.... Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on February 19, 2017, 02:28:11 PM
Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity.

I'm trying to do a general survey of World War II literature in preparation for a massive World War II-focused writing project of my own and this is supposed to be one of the better recent English-language novels about the war (despite being YA). It seemed much more accessible than Herman Wouk or Sword of Honor or Every Man Dies Alone, and I don't have access to either of my copies of Twenty-four Eyes right now.

Just finished a reread of Lord of the Rings.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RogueBeaver on March 01, 2017, 06:16:39 PM
Halberstam's (yuge fan of his) The Powers That Be.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: CatoMinor on March 01, 2017, 09:18:37 PM
Christ of the Indian Road, by E. Stanley Jones

A great work from a missionary in India nearly a century ago.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 01, 2017, 09:48:35 PM
The Beginning of Heaven and Earth, the Kakure Kirishitan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakure_Kirish**tan) Bible.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: BuckeyeNut on March 01, 2017, 11:40:02 PM
Slowly making my way through John Glenn: A Memoir.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blair on March 02, 2017, 02:05:26 PM
Arguably, by Christoper Hitchens.

Which is a set of his essays throughout his life; some of them are very good such as the one on JFK, but some are god awful. As the review said if you take 30 years of someone's public writing you'll see them at their best and worst.

I picked up Fatherland for free today, from a stall handing out books at uni and am looking forward to reading fiction for once


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: GoTfan on March 02, 2017, 06:04:58 PM
Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders. A great glimpse at what might have been.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Crumpets on March 03, 2017, 03:23:54 AM
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. An interesting look at clinical psychology, and how subjective the notion of "reality" can sometimes be.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on March 04, 2017, 06:18:18 PM
My biases, professors' backgrounds, and school library have somehow led me into some materialist trap. I'm rereading "States & Social Revolutions" (which I only read a part of over the summer) for my senior seminar in a project where I plan to compare it to "Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy", and my mind keeps trying to draw lines between their observations and those of Marvin Harris.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Enduro on March 07, 2017, 07:43:33 PM

I love that book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on March 22, 2017, 12:56:34 PM
I'm reading the Neapolitan books by Elena Ferrante.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on March 22, 2017, 01:39:12 PM
Finishing:

()

Up next:

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on March 22, 2017, 05:10:51 PM
Another one of Robert Caro's LNJ books, Vol. 2 methinks.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rob Bloom on March 27, 2017, 04:00:57 PM
Just finished Antony Beevor's Ardennes 1944.

It is basically a sequel to D-Day by the same author, giving an overview of the operations on the western front between August and December 1944 (Antwerp/Scheldt, Market Garden, Battle of Huertgenwald), but of course focusing on the events in the Ardennes from December 16th to 25th, with one chapter for each day.

As it turns out, the battle, Hitler's last big attack, was one hell of a quagmire. Both sides fought very grimly in bad weather conditions. Also there was a lot of bickering going on in the Allied headquarters, especially between Montgomery and Bradley.

Beevor has gone deeply into the archives to present the whole picture but at some point the reader might feel overwhelmed.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: President of the civil service full of trans activists on March 28, 2017, 10:43:18 AM
The Art of Racing in the Rain. Apparently, my teachers don't understand the principle behind not reading a book where the dog dies.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on March 28, 2017, 12:38:10 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 28, 2017, 12:39:37 PM

Is this the one where Balaguer is a sympathetic character?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on March 28, 2017, 12:58:51 PM
Baudolino :)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on March 28, 2017, 01:51:47 PM

Not sure I'd describe him a sympathetic character so far (being in the middle of a book).


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Enduro on March 28, 2017, 04:32:15 PM
My inability to read one book at a time means that I take significantly longer to read books. Here's the list of books I'm currently reading:

It by Stephen King
Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
No Safe Place by Richard North Patterson
Firing Point by George Wallace and Don Keith
Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
Desperation by Stephen King
Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Enduro on March 28, 2017, 09:32:19 PM
My inability to read one book at a time means that I take significantly longer to read books. Here's the list of books I'm currently reading:

It by Stephen King
Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
No Safe Place by Richard North Patterson
Firing Point by George Wallace and Don Keith
Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
Desperation by Stephen King
Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

Forgot about The Dunwhich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft, but I don't really think that counts as a book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rainbowland on March 28, 2017, 09:39:12 PM
Triangle, about the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire of 1911...its very good but sad.  I haven't even gotten to the fire yet.
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Technocracy Timmy on March 29, 2017, 03:16:19 PM
()

It's exciting but simultaneously terrifying. I can't wait to read the Fourth Turning after this.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: pikachu on March 29, 2017, 10:33:56 PM
Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang
Botchan by Natsume Soseki
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
The Other One Percent: Indians in America by Devesh Kapur, Nirvikar Singh, and Sanjoy Chakravorty




Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: fhtagn on March 30, 2017, 12:50:09 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: chemistry lad on March 30, 2017, 05:10:29 AM
Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry
Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry, Third Edition
5 Steps to a 5 AP Chemistry, 2008-2009 Edition
Chemistry for Dummies


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 30, 2017, 11:06:47 AM

:)

Quote
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

:(


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: RFayette on March 30, 2017, 12:07:31 PM
The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
Agile Software Development by Robert Martin


Kind of focused on internship interviews right now...hopefully will have  time for some more "fun" reading in a couple of months.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: pikachu on March 30, 2017, 01:38:13 PM

Fwiw, I'm finding Botchan to be far superior, and I would've ditched Norwegian Wood by now if I wasn't a completionist. I liked I Am A Cat more than either though...


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on March 30, 2017, 02:09:20 PM
A collection of Mark Twain's pamphlets.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Anna Komnene on March 30, 2017, 05:06:38 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Cashew on March 30, 2017, 10:40:58 PM
The Sino-Soviet Rift by William E. Griffith


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on April 12, 2017, 04:38:41 PM
The President's Club - Nancy Gibbs & Michael Duffy


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on April 30, 2017, 03:44:07 PM
"Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt", Barrington Moore, Jr.
"Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II", Joseph E. Persico

I'm hoping to plow through reading this summer, as I'll have no other obligations outside of work and hoping to spend my weekends engaged in outdoor recreation. Reading list includes two Arendt books I bought last summer but have only partially read ("Totalitarianism", and "On Revolution"), actually reading the entirety of "Social Origins of Dictatorship & Democracy" (Moore, again) and "States & Social Revolutions" (Skocpol). Among books I haven't touched would be a few in my library about World War II and the Cold War, along with hunting through the library for books on Iran and the Soviet Union/Russia.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: CMB222 on May 04, 2017, 11:16:34 PM
A novel/comedy called "The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson.

It explores the title character's strange past including having no political opinion whatsoever that I'm sure many people on this forum would find interesting.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: angus on May 08, 2017, 08:14:19 PM

I just finished that one as well.  I enjoyed especially the irreverent and, at times, bawdy sense of humor.  Also, I found myself researching the the details of the third crusade and of Barbarossa's life. Excellent read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on May 09, 2017, 01:32:39 AM
Death Comes for the Archbishop. I always wanted to read something by Willa Cather.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: vanguard96 on June 16, 2017, 03:05:58 PM
Just finished Liberalism by Ludwig von Mises - his proposals on what classical liberalism should be - very good for 1927 I think - aside from having the League of Nations control the newly independent African colonies!!

Now just over halfway through Atlas Shrugged - Rearden has signed the gift certificate giving his Rearden Metal up to the common good and has met Ragnar Danneskjold in the forest. Not my first Rand but I understand why it is called her 'magnum opus' compared to the straightforward novella Anthem or the semi-autobiographical We the Living. It is a larger than life version of the absurdities from The Fountainhead which are in a mostly realistic late 20's and early 30's in America. Atlas Shrugged has a much better female lead in Dagny Taggart than Dominique Francon.

In that people talk now of deliberately breaking up Apple or Amazon and giving patents to the public like the old AT&T in the 1950's we can understand where Rand was coming from with her imagination of the world of Atlas Shrugged. While the characters are hit or miss as an ultra-capitalist individualist myself this is a book I am wondering why I never read it till now.

I definitely am interested in We the Living and the Capitalism collection.

One interesting thing is Rand is a devoted follower of Hugo and Dostoevsky though neither's politics are anything like Rand's. I have seen Les Miserables several times and read the Hunchback of Notre Dame. However, I am definitely interested in reading Dostoevsky - any recommendations - Brothers Karamazov first or Crime & Punishment? She cites his plotting as an inspiration.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on June 16, 2017, 04:05:44 PM
I recently finished Sword of Honour by Evelyn Waugh. I liked the characters and the prose was gorgeous but holy sh**t what a gelid, despairing book.

Now finishing up a reread of Endō's Silence that I started earlier in the year and after that either a reread of We Have Always Lived in the Castle (which is objectively about as downbeat as Sword of Honour but which I find a ton of fun to read because it has one of the best narrative voices I've ever read) or the new Beren and Lúthien book that I pre-ordered months ago and that really should have arrived by ow.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Alabama_Indy10 on June 16, 2017, 04:43:47 PM
Have any of y'all read Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 16, 2017, 06:29:13 PM
Have any of y'all read Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero?

My family owns it. Never read it. I read half of the Matthews book on Kennedy and Nixon. 


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: vanguard96 on June 21, 2017, 09:09:37 PM
Finishing up Atlas Shrugged for the first time through.

Next is a choice - Gulag Archipelago or Brothers Karamazov


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 21, 2017, 09:47:58 PM
Quote
Next is a choice - Gulag Archipelago or Brothers Karamazov

Both sound like great goals; neither have I read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: vanguard96 on June 22, 2017, 05:26:30 PM
Quote
Next is a choice - Gulag Archipelago or Brothers Karamazov

Both sound like great goals; neither have I read.

Yes, I've been partisan for a good time recently. Stepping back from time to time is good.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Gustaf on June 26, 2017, 10:34:16 AM
I'm currently reading the 4th part of Ferrante's Neapolitan series. Excellent and moving read.

----------------------------

To comment on stuff:

Also loved Feast of the Goat and I don't think it portrays Balaguer as very sympathetic.

Agree with Nathan that Soseki>Murakami

When it comes to Dostoevsky I'd recommend Crime and Punishment or the Idiot as the first read I think. Brothers Karamazov is amazing but it's longer and I think I benefitted from having read some Dostoevsky beforehand.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: SingingAnalyst on July 15, 2017, 06:05:48 PM
The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: JA on July 15, 2017, 07:02:28 PM
'Foundations of Christianity (https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1908/christ/index.htm),' by Karl Kaufsky (1908)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on July 16, 2017, 02:33:38 PM
The Old Testament. Simply the greatest crime/gore novel of all times.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TheSaint250 on July 16, 2017, 04:11:53 PM
Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis


Title: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Kamala on July 19, 2017, 09:18:03 PM
Seeing as there is a "What are you are listening to" thread, I was also wondering what kind of novels, comic books, nonfiction, etc. you are all reading right now.

I'm currently reading or planning to read:
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Ali and Nino by Kurban Said


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on July 19, 2017, 09:35:53 PM
()


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Mr. Smith on July 20, 2017, 04:56:59 PM
robert caro's 3rd volume of LBJ.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: dead0man on July 20, 2017, 05:00:17 PM
the third Game of Thrones book, whatever it's called


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on July 20, 2017, 05:09:47 PM
In no particular order, these are the books I have started or re-started reading this summer:

The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt
On Revolution, Hannah Arendt
The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, Bryan Crozier
Injustice: The Social Origins of Democracy & Dictatorship, Barrington Moore, Jr.
The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention, Richard H. Immerman
Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II, Joseph E. Persico
Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century, Jerome Blume

I doubt I will finish most of these.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: KingSweden on July 20, 2017, 05:14:24 PM
"The Witchwood Crown" by Tad Williams


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Kamala on July 20, 2017, 05:18:26 PM
In no particular order, these are the books I have started or re-started reading this summer:

The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt
On Revolution, Hannah Arendt
The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, Bryan Crozier
Injustice: The Social Origins of Democracy & Dictatorship, Barrington Moore, Jr.
The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention, Richard H. Immerman
Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II, Joseph E. Persico
Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century, Jerome Blume

I doubt I will finish most of these.

Arendt is great - I really like Benhabib, who builds off and is influenced by her.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on July 20, 2017, 06:55:07 PM
After spending some time working on a dozen books at a time, I've realized it wasn't working and calmed down on the number of books I read.

It by Stephen King
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Also found The New Avengers omnibus at my local library, so I guess that's my main project in terms of comics.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on July 21, 2017, 06:13:51 AM
In no particular order, these are the books I have started or re-started reading this summer:

The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt
On Revolution, Hannah Arendt
The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, Bryan Crozier
Injustice: The Social Origins of Democracy & Dictatorship, Barrington Moore, Jr.
The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention, Richard H. Immerman
Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II, Joseph E. Persico
Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century, Jerome Blume

I doubt I will finish most of these.

Arendt is great - I really like Benhabib, who builds off and is influenced by her.

I was introduced to her in a political theory class my junior year, where we read parts of "Totalitarianism" and "On Violence" (an article which I read in full this summer). She was the one that most gripped me--outside of perhaps Hegel--out of those we reviewed, and her choice of subject matter was right up my alley. Most of what I read seemed to be either things I had thought but never put into words, or observations that made sense when articulated--others might disagree. I picked up both of the books I have by her from a used bookstore in Seattle last summer, and I'd like to finish at least one this summer. :P I also have a printed version of an article she wrote in the wake of the Hungarian Revolution.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy on July 23, 2017, 07:34:20 PM
Neon Genesis Evangelion, vol 1


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Mr. Smith on July 23, 2017, 10:18:29 PM
LBJ: Master of the Senate -Robert Caro


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blair on July 28, 2017, 03:12:01 PM
()

Citizen Clem. I'd be lying if I said that I've loved it, or that it's been an effortless read, but it's been rather interesting even if the pre-wars years were a bit dull.

The funny thing is that Attlee comes out of the book as rather average; a steady chairman, who was underestimated by everyone, but was really a quiet revolutionary.

Am hoping to move onto some lighter novels for August; am a bit sick of political books


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Lord Halifax on July 28, 2017, 08:55:29 PM

The funny thing is that Attlee comes out of the book as rather average; a steady chairman, who was underestimated by everyone, but was really a quiet revolutionary.

That doesn't sound average to me.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on August 05, 2017, 12:06:46 AM
Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World

Kirsten Gillibrand


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on August 06, 2017, 08:45:49 AM
Started Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Enduro on August 06, 2017, 08:46:26 AM
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The Govanah Jake on August 09, 2017, 06:51:59 PM
The French Quarter by Herbert Asbury.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Kingpoleon on August 09, 2017, 09:43:09 PM
()

Almost finished this fantastic book tracing European military history from 1453. Simms' argument is that a battle for supremacy in Europe has always centred on the control of the Holy Roman Empire/Germany.
Reading this absolutely superb biography, though I hear the accompanying TV series on the BBC was dreadful.

()

That's interesting. Two of my ten books I keep on my desk are Napoleon: A Life and The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848-1918. It's interesting that you mention Simms's adoption of Taylor's theory in 1848-1918 - that Germany was so aggressive because, in a Europe wide war, no matter what the alliances were, Germany would always be fighting a two front war, taking the brunt of the assault twice or thrice that of any of their potential allies.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: vanguard96 on August 17, 2017, 12:45:07 PM
Since I am going to follow along in the weekly discussion of Atlas Shrugged on FB live with two guys from the Ayn Rand Institute - to better understand an interesting but overdone book - I am for background reading We the Living now - the first of the 4 fiction novels she wrote - and the last one for me to get to. This was a substitute for Gulag Archipelago which I will get to soon. I suspect I will finish We the Living after the weekly chapter by chapter discussions for Atlas Shrugged start next month given my upcoming travel schedule.

I re-watched Exorcist III recently - and was interested in the book behind it - Legion and how it differs from the well-done 1990 movie. So far I am just over half-way through the book - a lot of the elements from the movie are there- and George C Scott really gives the Detective Kinderman in Blatty's novel/screenplay life. Blatty is very well-cultured and has a lot of cool references to literature and philosophy/psychiatry/religion sprinkled throughout the book along with the mystery/detective story aspects.

I am still strongly interested in Brothers Karamazov as well - that is still on the list after I finish the Blatty, Rand and soon to get Solzhenitsyn books unless something else comes up in the interim.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on August 17, 2017, 06:45:33 PM
The Twilight Zone Companion


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Mr. Smith on August 22, 2017, 07:45:36 PM
Re-reading The Chronicles of Narnia. Currently on Voyage of the Dawn Treader



Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Spamage on August 22, 2017, 08:26:03 PM
()

Super long, reading the work in its entirety (chapter 49 of 71). Gibbon goes off on alot of tangents and gets pretty racist at times, but it is easy to see why in general this is viewed as one of the core works of literature, even with any inaccuracies.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on August 25, 2017, 10:12:34 AM
The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

Very very weird book so far.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on September 02, 2017, 10:10:10 AM
Decided to finish Words of Radiance.

Ever start clapping excitedly while reading a book. Because I just did that.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on September 03, 2017, 03:55:45 PM
()


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on September 08, 2017, 08:11:04 PM
Finishing It by Stephen King


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: TPIG on September 15, 2017, 09:47:19 PM
Friedman's Free To Choose


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rob Bloom on September 27, 2017, 12:32:30 PM
The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan.
An incredibly detailed and gripping account of the disaster that occured in Hartford, Connecticut in July 1944, leaving 167 people, among them 60 children, dead.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on September 27, 2017, 02:07:37 PM
Joachim C. Fest, The Face Of The Third Reich. Portraits Of The Nazi Leadership.

Some sources/conclusions were proven incorrect since, but it's still a great read.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on October 05, 2017, 03:31:51 PM
American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Also, I'm gonna start reading screenplays. Mostly unproduced and early versions of movies.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on October 06, 2017, 01:39:32 PM
First screenplay: Superman: Flyby written by J.J. Abrams


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on October 07, 2017, 06:34:26 PM
First screenplay: Superman: Flyby written by J.J. Abrams

After trying to read several times only for my phone to turn off before, I've decided to put a stay on the whole reading screenplays thing for now.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on October 16, 2017, 09:18:26 PM
First screenplay: Superman: Flyby written by J.J. Abrams

After trying to read several times only for my phone to turn off before, I've decided to put a stay on the whole reading screenplays thing for now.

Ha! Got it to work, and now onto the first attempt at a Batman Vs Superman movie


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: pbrower2a on October 22, 2017, 03:40:46 PM
()

So why is the Age Without Scarcity not the glorious dream that many of us expected?


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on November 13, 2017, 01:33:50 PM
The Stand by Stephen King


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: AuH2O Republican on November 15, 2017, 04:31:52 PM
()

Re-reading my favourite piece of fiction. My favourite, I think, because of how normal the story is and how it could happen to anybody.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Rainbowland on November 16, 2017, 07:37:46 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Blair on November 19, 2017, 06:50:49 AM
I tried reading a novel based on a film I loved, but it seems that the only books I can sit down for hours and enjoy are political books, so got this out of the library.

()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Enduro on November 20, 2017, 01:41:33 PM
I'm never sure which "what book" thread I should post in. I will do both.

The Stand by Stephen King.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Storebought on November 22, 2017, 12:43:42 AM
Die Welt von Gestern (http://www.literaturdownload.at/pdf/Stefan%20Zweig%20-%20Die%20Welt%20von%20gestern.pdf).

I've read very mixed reviews about it, saying it's mediocre compared to Ein Mann ohne Eigenschaften, but who has the lifetime to try to read that thing?


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗 on November 22, 2017, 12:52:14 AM
The Big Butt Book by Dian Hanson.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Statilius the Epicurean on November 26, 2017, 07:56:39 AM
Die Welt von Gestern (http://www.literaturdownload.at/pdf/Stefan%20Zweig%20-%20Die%20Welt%20von%20gestern.pdf).

I've read very mixed reviews about it, saying it's mediocre compared to Ein Mann ohne Eigenschaften, but who has the lifetime to try to read that thing?

Me! :P The Man Without Qualities is utterly fantastic and one of my favourite novels.

As for what I'm currently reading, I've been on a bit of a Chaucer binge: Re-reading the Parliament of Fowls (which is so lovely) and right now The Knight's Tale. He's probably underrated today due to the distance of his language (which I admittedly have some trouble scanning, particularly whether to pronounce the Es on the ends of words), which is a shame considering how fluent and musical it can be, and how witty, expansive and humane Chaucer is.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: President of the civil service full of trans activists on December 02, 2017, 07:59:11 PM
Dreadnought (April Daniels, 2017). Danny really hits close to home.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on December 03, 2017, 11:13:32 PM
The ownerless ruin had, before World War Terminus, been tended and maintained. Here had been the suburbs of San Francisco, a short ride by monorail rapid transit; the entire peninsula had been chattered like a bird tree with life and opinions and complaints, and now the watchful owners had either died or migrated to a colony world. Mostly the former; it had been a costly war despite the valiant predictions of the Pentagon and its smug scientific vassal, the Rand Corporation--which had, in fact, existed not far from this spot. Like the apartment owners, the corporation had departed, evidently for good. No one missed it.
In addition, no one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won. The dust which had contaminated most of the planet's surface had originated in no country, and no one, even the wartime enemy, had planned on it. First, the owls had died. At the time it had seemed almost funny, the fat, fluffy white birds lying here and there, in yards and on streets; coming out no earlier than twilight, as they had while alive, the owls escaped notice. Medieval plagues had manifested themselves in a similar way, in the form of many dead rats. This plague, however, had descended from above.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HillGoose on December 04, 2017, 05:33:10 PM
The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy.

I loved Family Happiness and The Death of Ivan Ilyich, so I'm reading this one now.



Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Mr. Smith on December 25, 2017, 11:17:37 PM
William Shakespeare's The Jedi Doth Return

Aka, Return of the Jedi converted to Shakespearean pentameter.  I wanted to get the entire OT, but alas I was allowed one, so I went with my favorite.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on December 25, 2017, 11:19:05 PM
William Shakespeare's The Jedi Doth Return

Aka, Return of the Jedi converted to Shakespearean pentameter.  I wanted to get the entire OT, but alas I was allowed one, so I went with my favorite.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Mr. Smith on December 30, 2017, 02:02:33 AM
Our Kind of Traitor by John LeCarre


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on December 30, 2017, 02:03:12 AM


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on January 05, 2018, 06:09:21 PM

I read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in December and have been meaning to pick up the other two books of the "Smiley" trilogy. How you like?

I just used my Amazon Christmas money to order the following:
Democracy, Charles Tilly;
Social Origins of Dictatorship & Democracy, Barrington Moore, Jr.;
The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century, Vladimir Tismaneanu;
The Soviet Century, Moshe Lewin;
Fascism: Comparison and Definition, Stanley G. Payne

I've already read the Moore book, but the copy that my school's library has I most recently saw split in two halves, so I figured I'd better get my own copy. All of the books can, in some sense, be rationalized as feeding into my thesis work. The Tismaneanu book is the one exception; a political theory professor of mine introduced me to his work--or rather, his Amazon author's page--so I'd been meaning to read something by him for a while. As I'm not in the business at this point of comparing Nazism and Communism, I guess that would be my only specifically "pleasure" order. The rest are to be used, to some extent or another, as "background material".

I had to dump some books on Central Asia and the Transcaucasus into my "save for later" bin; I'll grab them eventually in my search for sources for my master's thesis.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on January 06, 2018, 05:21:51 AM
()


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Enduro on January 15, 2018, 04:53:31 PM
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Enduro on January 16, 2018, 07:24:46 AM
Brandon Sanderson's Oathbringer (Book 3 of The Stormlight Archive)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on January 16, 2018, 08:31:01 AM
I’ve been reading Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game at a pace of 30 pages per day for about two weeks now. At that pace I should be done around Friday.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on January 18, 2018, 05:50:09 PM
()

John Adams by David McCullough.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on January 18, 2018, 05:50:31 PM


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: bagelman on January 21, 2018, 02:07:21 PM
Use of Weapons by Ian M. Banks. Read the previous two culture novels. Also continuing on Dune Messiah.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: bagelman on February 10, 2018, 09:26:49 PM
Finished American Gods recently. Mostly done with the Syndic, which can be read for free online. Will move on to book 1 of CS Lewis's space trilogy.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on February 10, 2018, 10:00:50 PM

I read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in December and have been meaning to pick up the other two books of the "Smiley" trilogy. How you like?

I just used my Amazon Christmas money to order the following:
Democracy, Charles Tilly;
Social Origins of Dictatorship & Democracy, Barrington Moore, Jr.;
The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century, Vladimir Tismaneanu;
The Soviet Century, Moshe Lewin;
Fascism: Comparison and Definition, Stanley G. Payne

I've already read the Moore book, but the copy that my school's library has I most recently saw split in two halves, so I figured I'd better get my own copy. All of the books can, in some sense, be rationalized as feeding into my thesis work. The Tismaneanu book is the one exception; a political theory professor of mine introduced me to his work--or rather, his Amazon author's page--so I'd been meaning to read something by him for a while. As I'm not in the business at this point of comparing Nazism and Communism, I guess that would be my only specifically "pleasure" order. The rest are to be used, to some extent or another, as "background material".

I had to dump some books on Central Asia and the Transcaucasus into my "save for later" bin; I'll grab them eventually in my search for sources for my master's thesis.

I enjoyed the beginning, but then I lost it.

I'm actually working on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy now.

It's not the same exactly, but BBC's adaptations with Alec Guinness are pretty enjoyable [and a very very young Patrick Stewart as a silent cameo as Karla]. Well, at least the final part is covered 


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Mr. Smith on February 10, 2018, 10:02:05 PM

FInished: Watsons Go To Birmingham-1963

Current:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DKrol on February 12, 2018, 04:45:39 PM
Theresa May: The Enigmatic Prime Minister by Rosa Prince. It's a bit of a May-love-fest but pretty interesting to see her rise through the Torie ranks over the decades through the eyes, and words, of the people near her.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: President of the civil service full of trans activists on February 26, 2018, 09:21:14 AM
The Disappearing Spoon (Sam Kean, 2010), for school.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on February 26, 2018, 09:59:44 AM
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on March 03, 2018, 03:04:11 PM

Nice! Been meaning to borrow a Le Carre book from my library for a while. Drowning myself in non-fiction.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on March 09, 2018, 04:44:14 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: junior chįmp on March 12, 2018, 07:14:08 PM
Power vs. Force by David R Hawkins (https://www.amazon.com/Power-Force-David-Hawkins-Ph-D/dp/1401945074)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on April 07, 2018, 10:08:20 PM

Nice! Been meaning to borrow a Le Carre book from my library for a while. Drowning myself in non-fiction.

Picked up “The Honourable Schoolboy”. 140 pages in since Wednesday.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Spark on April 07, 2018, 10:12:56 PM
The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder by Vincent T. Bugliosi among others.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on April 25, 2018, 09:33:27 PM
()

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I've already read another one of her books, A Place of Greater Safety, and since it was so amazing I decided to pick up this one.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on April 25, 2018, 09:34:23 PM
()

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I've already read another one of her books, A Place of Greater Safety, and since it was so amazing I decided to pick up this one.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on April 26, 2018, 05:57:05 AM

FInished: Watsons Go To Birmingham-1963

Current:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle


Just finished The Honourable Schoolboy. Very interesting setting and enjoyable characters, but with an ending nowhere near as satisfying as TTSS.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: gottsu on April 26, 2018, 06:05:46 AM
()

The title in English would be "High-rise America" - it's a Polish then-journalist' (the author became later a politician) diary from a brief visit to US in 1960s. Good read to me, lots of facts and things I haven't known, such as when the author visited San Francisco, and talked to some peoples who had liberal/left-wing views, but haven't voted for Kennedy in 1960, because they thought JFK would start a war with USSR or something, and due to his confidence and large support from intellectuals, academics, trade unions or middle-class, large parts of Americans trusted him. These SF peoples voted for Nixon, but he hadn't been supported as much from these groups as Kennedy was, so they thought if Nixon will be elected, he will be more cautious about US politics abroad.

In the meantime I read also this, but not English edition:
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on April 29, 2018, 02:50:35 PM
Finished up M.T. Anderson's Feed...scariest dystopia book...ever.



Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on May 24, 2018, 08:08:14 PM
I got “Armageddon Averted” by Stephen Kotkin and “Great Games, Local Rules” by Alexander Cooley in the mail the past few days. Almost done with an early edition of “The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism?” by Ahmed Rashid. I also ordered a compilation of Mike Allred’s “Madman” comic.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: DC Al Fine on May 24, 2018, 09:00:45 PM
I'm finally reading To Kill A Mockingbird


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on June 04, 2018, 11:27:19 PM
()

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on June 04, 2018, 11:28:16 PM
()

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Orthogonian Society Treasurer on June 05, 2018, 10:59:35 PM
On a bit of a presidential history tear right now. I just finished Ted White’s Making of the President 1960 and 1964 and now I’m reading Jules Witcover’s Marathon


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 14, 2018, 08:19:35 AM
“Perelandra” by C.S. Lewis. Old paperback edition my dad used to own; includes some barely legible notes written on the margins. Decided to give it a try after hearing it twice-references within a few days on various media. Over halfway through “Great Games, Local Rules”. Recently started reading a compilation book on Tajikistan published in 1997. Some interesting chapters.

Finished “Madman”, “Armageddon Averted”, and “The Resurgence of Central Asia”.

Probably ordering another book on the Caucasus and maybe some more comics soon. Maybe a Skocpol or stilly book.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on June 20, 2018, 08:18:28 PM
Started reading “The Bourne Ultimatum” last night because I was tired of non-fiction and I own incredibly little fiction these days (that being one example). Finished Perelandra pretty easily earlier in the week.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: SingingAnalyst on June 21, 2018, 05:34:52 PM
Only Ever Yours, by Louise O'Neill.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Orthogonian Society Treasurer on June 28, 2018, 06:47:57 PM
I began and finished The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima last night. It's a very charming and enjoyable novella.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filinovich on July 09, 2018, 01:02:49 PM
A Higher Loyalty by James Comey

(hides)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on July 19, 2018, 11:03:08 PM
()

Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe
by John Julius Norwich.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on July 19, 2018, 11:03:30 PM
()

Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe
by John Julius Norwich.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on July 25, 2018, 09:50:47 AM
()

Cavaliers and Roundheads: The English Civil War, 1642-1649 by Christopher Hibbert.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on July 25, 2018, 09:51:38 AM
()

Cavaliers and Roundheads: The English Civil War, 1642-1649 by Christopher Hibbert.



Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Hammy on July 25, 2018, 11:45:42 PM
Assorted slice of life manga.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on July 27, 2018, 03:54:57 PM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on July 27, 2018, 04:49:56 PM
()


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Spark on July 28, 2018, 07:35:17 PM
Finished up Alan Lichtman's 13 Keys to the White House two weeks ago.

Been reading Decision Points by George W. Bush and Killing England by Bill O'Reilly since Summer 2017. I'm almost finished those.

Also, The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder since February simultaneously. I will also be reading a book on housing policy once I return to school this semester.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TJ in Oregon on July 28, 2018, 10:05:03 PM
()


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: RFayette on July 28, 2018, 10:06:33 PM
Just finished reading Real Education by Charles Murray and am working on Human Accomplishment.  Plan to read some fiction after this, though I'm not sure what yet.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on August 18, 2018, 12:41:46 PM
()

The Thirty Years War by C.V. Wedgwood.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on August 18, 2018, 12:43:05 PM
()

The Thirty Years War by C.V. Wedgwood.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on October 06, 2018, 10:10:26 PM
()

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire by Roger Crowley.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on October 06, 2018, 10:11:50 PM
()

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire by Roger Crowley.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: President Punxsutawney Phil on October 06, 2018, 10:21:41 PM
()

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire by Roger Crowley.
looks like something up your ally!


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on November 03, 2018, 05:31:18 PM
()

A Great and Glorious Adventure: A History of the Hundred Years War and the Birth of Renaissance England by Gordon Corrigan.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on November 03, 2018, 05:32:19 PM
()

A Great and Glorious Adventure: A History of the Hundred Years War and the Birth of Renaissance England by Gordon Corrigan.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on November 12, 2018, 09:46:44 AM
()

Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris by Eric Jager.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on November 12, 2018, 09:47:21 AM
()

Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris by Eric Jager.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Lumine on November 12, 2018, 01:13:53 PM
As part of my extensive research for Dynasties and Empires I'm finishing Francis Hackett's Francis the First and I'm on a highly enjoyable re-read of Stefan Zweig's Magellan, easily one of the best books I've ever had the pleasure to read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on November 23, 2018, 04:51:37 PM
()

Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648 by Mark Greengrass.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on November 23, 2018, 04:52:24 PM
()

Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648 by Mark Greengrass.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on December 26, 2018, 04:13:54 PM
()

Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven by John Eliot Gardner


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on December 26, 2018, 04:14:24 PM
()

Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven by John Eliot Gardner


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: Peanut on December 26, 2018, 05:38:50 PM
I just recently started a reread of Russian literature marathon. I started Crime and Punishment yesterday, and plan to reread Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, and War and Peace in that order. Among my favorite books, especially Crime and Punishment and War and Peace.


Title: Re: What are you reading right now?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on December 28, 2018, 06:43:54 AM
Dr. Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
Kim, Rudyard Kipling
The Russian Revolution, Sheila Fitzpatrick

There are other non-fiction books lying around my bed that I’ve started but are essentially on pause.

I just recently started a reread of Russian literature marathon. I started Crime and Punishment yesterday, and plan to reread Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, and War and Peace in that order. Among my favorite books, especially Crime and Punishment and War and Peace.

I’ve been meaning to break into some Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, but figured the twentieth century would be an easier entry into Russian literature. This summer I read The Master & Margarita.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on January 30, 2019, 08:31:45 PM
Previously: Dresden Files


Currently:Raspberry Danish Murder

Apparently, it's like Book 26 out of 28...but eh, I needed a book to read, and I was hungry at the time. And hey the author's surname is Fluke.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: TJ in Oregon on March 09, 2019, 05:13:07 AM
()


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on March 09, 2019, 11:21:53 PM
Working my way through Don Quixote; currently about 2/9 of the way in.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Anna Komnene on April 10, 2019, 06:50:53 PM
Working my way through Don Quixote; currently about 2/9 of the way in.

I hope you have better luck than I did. I loved Man of La Mancha, but when I tried to read Don Quixote, I got about as far as you did before giving up!

At the moment I'm reading Valperga: The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca, which is Mary Shelley's take on the life of that medieval Italian politician that Machiavelli so loved. I'm reading it mostly for my love of Mary Shelley.

Before that, I read My Dear Hamilton, which I definitely recommend to anyone interested in learning more about Eliza Schuyler Hamilton or the revolution and American founding from a female perspective.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on April 10, 2019, 09:11:56 PM
Strawberry Shortcake Murder

Not high art, but a little Columbo mixed with a recipe book isn't that bad of a time-passer.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on April 13, 2019, 06:58:08 PM
Working my way through Don Quixote; currently about 2/9 of the way in.

I hope you have better luck than I did. I loved Man of La Mancha, but when I tried to read Don Quixote, I got about as far as you did before giving up!

I'm now more than 2/3 of the way through! I'm actually enjoying it a lot.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on April 21, 2019, 06:31:09 PM
Working my way through Don Quixote; currently about 2/9 of the way in.

Best book I've ever read.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on May 02, 2019, 01:45:25 AM
I finished the Quixote a couple of days ago.

I'm the converted. GOAT-tier novel. Fully deserves its reputation.

Currently reading the seminal (pun intended since there's lots of weird psychosexual stuff) cyberpunk novel Neuromancer.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on May 02, 2019, 01:50:31 AM
Finished up: Crazy Rich Asians

Current: Apple Turnover Murder


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Mr. Smith on May 12, 2019, 12:10:28 AM
Finished Up: Apple Turnover Murder

Current: Lemon Meringue Pie Murder, The Apprentice: Trump, Russia, and the Subversion of American Democracy

Coming Up: China Rich Girlfriend (part 2 in the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: AtorBoltox on May 12, 2019, 12:15:51 AM
Currently reading The Black Dog of Fate by Peter Balakian. Moving personal portrait of the Armenian-American experience and the authors discovery of his familys terrible fate during the genocide


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Dr. MB on May 12, 2019, 01:31:41 AM
Che Guevara - The Motorcycle Diaries


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: President Johnson on May 12, 2019, 05:21:18 AM
I bought James Patterson's & Bill Clinton's "The President is missing" and will read it on vacation later this month.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: HenryWallaceVP on May 31, 2019, 12:33:49 PM
()

International Politics and Warfare in the Age of Louis XIV and Peter the Great, by William Young.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Continential on June 14, 2019, 09:18:02 PM
Playing With Fire by Lawrence O'Donnell, this makes me wonder what if Rocky didn't run or if Reagan ran earlier and if Bobby ran earlier.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Spark on June 14, 2019, 11:42:42 PM
Presidents of War


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Small L on June 15, 2019, 08:08:45 PM
I've been trying to slog through Moby Dick for a few months. I enjoy it, but it's very long and I've been busy. Featured moment: A Spanish sailor says something incredibly racist to a black harpooner and follows it up with "no offense." (https://americanliterature.com/author/herman-melville/book/moby-dick-or-the-whale/chapter-40-midnight-forecastle)


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: The world will shine with light in our nightmare on August 06, 2019, 09:20:26 PM
Finished Up:
The Case for God by Karen Armstrong (reread)
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Currently Reading: The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy

Coming Up: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on August 07, 2019, 12:07:27 AM
I've found myself in the position of reading no fewer than seven books at once:

Some medieval Japanese biwa player or other, The Tale of the Heike
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters
Rachel Held Evans (RIP), Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again
Oscar Romero, A Shepherd's Diary
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing Around Your Neck
Yukio Mishima, Death in Midsummer

I'm enjoying all of these books a lot so far, although Evans's persistent inability to grok why the Old Testament is the way it is has been getting on my nerves for a while now. A close friend informs me that I am probably not the intended audience for a book about the Bible by a WASPy ex-Evangelical with no known Jewish ancestry, even a really bighearted and perceptive one like RHE.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Filuwaúrdjan on August 07, 2019, 04:07:04 AM
I have recently finished reading Solovyov and Larionov (Eugene Vodolazkin) and re-reading The Mimic Men (V.S. Naipaul). The latter is a classic, the former doubtless will be in time. I cannot recommend either highly enough. The books complement each other nicely, and in more ways than one.

I have just started reading Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad, the publication of the English translation of which has been, of course, one of the literary highlights of the year. I usually have more than one novel on the go at any given time, so doubtless this will soon be accompanied by something else.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: John Dule on August 08, 2019, 01:05:04 AM
I'm trying to read Frank Herbert's Dune, but it's reminding me why I don't read sci-fi. So many proper nouns to remember... my poor brain can't handle it.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on August 08, 2019, 03:01:22 AM
All the Kremlin's Men, Mikhail Zygar;
A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin;
The Global Cold War, Odd Arne Westad;
Anatomy of Revolution, Crane Brinton.

Thinking of ordering some Marvel Omnibus collections for Spider-Man, Daredevil, or X-Force when the post-vacation paycheck comes in.


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: parochial boy on October 04, 2019, 04:58:16 PM
()

Came in the post today. Excited. And also a little bit nostalgic as the originals were my absolutel favourite books as a kid


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Co-Chair Bagel23 on October 16, 2019, 02:19:40 AM
Remnants of Partition: 21 Objects from a Continent Divided by Aanchal Malhotra

I had known about its making for like a couple years now and I read the chapter (somehow my grandmother's younger brother got his own chapter in it) that most peaked my interest like a few weeks ago, but now the whole thing is in so I can read it.

and I usually hate books and reading, and only do it for school almost always exclusively


Title: Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading?
Post by: Beet on October 16, 2019, 04:55:52 PM
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino.