What Book Are You Currently Reading?

[Yelnoc]

Lord of the Rings.

[Vepres]

Foundation, Foundation and Empire, The Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, "I, Robot", The Last Question (short story)

[angus]

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.

[Storebought]

Henry James: The Golden Bowl and, later The American Scene. I have to reacquaint myself with literary English.

[J. J.]

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.

[CathKhan]

I'll still read Atlas Shrugged, but I've recently received Life by Keith Richards, so I'll be reading that too.

[Is JCL in mushy sappy love]

Ain't My America: The Long,Noble History of Anti-War Conservatism and Middle American Anti-Imperalism
Quite interesting read.

[J. J.]

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.

[phk]

Equity and Fixed Income

[feeblepizza]

The Shack by William Paul Young

[Thomas D]

At the risk of being considered a light weight:

The war for late night

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

[GeorgiaSenator]

Theadore H White, The Making of the President, 1972.

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

[feeblepizza]

America: Our Next Chapter by Chuck Hagel

[© Tweed the Younger]

Atlas Shrugged

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.

[CathKhan]

Atlas Shrugged

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...

[Hashemite]

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.

[Robespierre's Jaw]

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

[Ghyl Tarvoke]

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!

[Sibboleth]

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?

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.

[Ghyl Tarvoke]

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?

Who said I was talking about you? ,)

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.

[phk]

Excel Modelling, Building Financial Models for Tech Startups

[© Tweed the Younger]

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

[Sibboleth]

Who said I was talking about you? ,)

The magical pixies, I think.

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.

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.

[© Tweed the Younger]

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.

[The Mikado]

Well, I guess I'm not the only person that recently read E. P. Thompson. 

Fantastic book.  It took me two months.