What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)
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  What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)
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Author Topic: What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)  (Read 43284 times)
Middle-aged Europe
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« Reply #100 on: November 07, 2020, 07:49:19 PM »

Finished The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth today.
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« Reply #101 on: November 07, 2020, 08:35:45 PM »

Currently in the middle of reading The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. A little confused about the plot.
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Middle-aged Europe
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« Reply #102 on: November 11, 2020, 06:23:27 PM »

Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling
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Storebought
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« Reply #103 on: November 30, 2020, 01:53:17 PM »

Henry James The American Scene.

There are some astute observations in it (America is a cultural bleach that strips the color off every nationality immigrating to it) but James is every inch the reactionary expatriate.
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #104 on: November 30, 2020, 03:59:54 PM »

Henry James The American Scene.

There are some astute observations in it (America is a cultural bleach that strips the color off every nationality immigrating to it) but James is every inch the reactionary expatriate.

Henry James's body of work is what made me realize that being simultaneously gay and homophobic is the core of the Western cultural tradition.
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Paul Weller
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« Reply #105 on: December 01, 2020, 10:47:30 PM »

Right now I am reading The Forty Five Guardsmen by Dumas, the third of the Valois Romances. I just finished a chapter where Henry of Navarre gave an amazing monologue refusing an offer from Philip II to seize the French throne with Spanish support, which would have amounted to a great betrayal of his country and religion. Being both a Francophile and Huguenot sympathizer I might put it in my signature if it weren't so long, but for now I'll transcribe it here for you reading pleasure:

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An incomparable piece of good fortune, monsieur, I know; but I will never buy it with the blood and honor of my future subjects. What! monsieur. I draw the sword against the king of France, my brother-in-law, for the Spaniards; I arrest the standard of France in its career of glory; I kill brothers by brothers' hands; I bring the stranger into my country! No, monsieur; I asked the king of Spain for aid against the Guises, who wish to rob me of my inheritance, but not against the Duc d'Anjou, my brother-in-law; not against Henri III., my friend; not against my wife, sister of my king. You will aid the Guises, you will say, and lend them your support. Do so, and I will let loose on you and on them all the Protestants of Germany and France. The king of Spain wishes to reconquer Flanders, which is slipping from him; let him do what his father, Charles V., did, and ask a free passage to go and claim his title of first bourgeois of Ghent, and Henri III., I am certain, will grant it to him, as Francois I. did. I wish for the throne of France, says his Catholic majesty; it is possible, but I do not need him to aid me in getting it; I will do that for myself, once it is vacant, in spite of all the kings in the world. Adieu, then, monsieur. Tell my brother Philippe that I am grateful for his offers, but cannot believe for a moment that he thought me capable of accepting them. Adieu, monsieur.
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Astatine
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« Reply #106 on: December 02, 2020, 03:45:35 PM »

Organic Chemistry (Second Edition) by Jonathan Clayden, Nick Greeves and Stuart Warren.
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JacksonHitchcock
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« Reply #107 on: December 25, 2020, 02:10:43 AM »

Recently finished Gamechange: Doubledown 2012. Now I’m reading Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. Next up is A Promised Land by Barack Obama.
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Middle-aged Europe
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« Reply #108 on: December 25, 2020, 06:28:54 AM »

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein.
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John Dule
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« Reply #109 on: December 28, 2020, 03:49:16 AM »

Anybody here like Sherlock Holmes? I've been trying to get better at reading fiction for fun (I usually only read non-fiction), and Doyle's short stories are a nice way to ease back into the genre. I bought a massive hardcover Holmes collection for only $5 at a used bookstore and I'm going to read a story every night before bed.
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Battista Minola 1616
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« Reply #110 on: December 28, 2020, 09:13:23 AM »

Anybody here like Sherlock Holmes? I've been trying to get better at reading fiction for fun (I usually only read non-fiction), and Doyle's short stories are a nice way to ease back into the genre. I bought a massive hardcover Holmes collection for only $5 at a used bookstore and I'm going to read a story every night before bed.

I do (or did) but I haven't read a Sherlock Holmes story in years. I remember reading A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and various short stories. But I think the only crime stories I have read anytime recently are Leonardo Sciascia books.
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Sol
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« Reply #111 on: January 02, 2021, 03:48:54 AM »

I've been reading decently large amounts of detective fiction actually, might post a thread on it tomorrow. But yes, I'm a moderate Sherlockian.
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Big Abraham
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« Reply #112 on: January 02, 2021, 04:05:01 AM »

Overshoot by William R. Catton. A highly important and lucid read which I recommend to everyone
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PSOL
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« Reply #113 on: January 05, 2021, 01:16:55 PM »

Finished Iran:Between two Revolutions by Ervand Abrahamian.

By far one of the best books out there on why Iran is the way it is.
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💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)
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« Reply #114 on: January 09, 2021, 01:17:23 PM »
« Edited: January 09, 2021, 01:28:11 PM by money printer go brrr »

Currently at various stages of the following:

Jane Mayer - Dark Money
Robert Putnam - Bowling Alone
Shane Hamilton - Trucking Country

will probably not finish Dark Money before my library loan expires and I'm moving very slowly through Trucking Country so at some point I'll probably give up on that. I also have two texts I'm skimming for some work projects.

Also in the fall I got about 100 pages into William Least Heat-Moon's PrairyErth, which I enjoyed and hope to return to later in the spring.

---

edit: actually, because I've always wanted to see it in writing and am trying to avoid work, here are the audiobooks I listened to (and finished) since April 2020. I starred ones that I particularly enjoyed.

Lawrence Wright - The Looming Tower *
James Baldwin - The Fire Next Time
Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States
Sebastian Junger - Tribe
Bob Woodward - Fear
Stephen Hawking - Brief Answers to the Big Questions
Patrick Radden Keefe - Say Nothing *
Robert Wright - Why Buddhism is True
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio - The Undocumented Americans *
Anna Wiener - Uncanny Valley *
Greg Grandin - The End of the Myth
David Brooks - The Second Mountain *
Michelle Alexander - The New Jim Crow
Stephanie Land - Maid
Nancy Isenberg - White Trash *
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn - Tightrope
Mary Bears - SPQR
Jared Sexton - The Man They Wanted Me To Be *

I also managed to get my hands on a physical (library) copy of Daniel Markovitz's "The Meritocracy Trap" right before everything shut down in March. That was also an outstanding read.
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anthonyjg
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« Reply #115 on: January 09, 2021, 01:35:46 PM »

Anybody here like Sherlock Holmes? I've been trying to get better at reading fiction for fun (I usually only read non-fiction), and Doyle's short stories are a nice way to ease back into the genre. I bought a massive hardcover Holmes collection for only $5 at a used bookstore and I'm going to read a story every night before bed.

I love Sherlock Holmes, I got into it after watching Sherlock on BBC. Really good stuff.

I am nearly done with everything published in A Song of Ice and Fire, the first thing I've read for fun in years. I may need to start watching the show now in case the rest of it never gets published. I think I'm going to read either Dune or All the King's Men next, the fictional politics stuff has kept me a more engaged and active reader than I think I've ever been.
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Statilius the Epicurean
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« Reply #116 on: January 15, 2021, 12:22:58 AM »
« Edited: January 15, 2021, 12:57:31 AM by Statilius the Epicurean »

Cicero's letters to Atticus.

Absolutely fascinating reading but I'm not quite sure what to make of their author. Cicero is equal parts charming, witty, delightfully eloquent, and equal parts eye-rollingly blinkered and self-absorbed to an unbelievable degree. I'm almost swept along by the genial, easygoing style but that in almost every letter there's a passage of sheer pomposity that makes me pause to slap my head and laugh out loud. It's unbelievable really.

I'm up to the summer of 59, with Clodius menacing our protagonist with chilling threats and no-one willing to defend him other than a few dubious private promises from Pompey. It's been like watching a slow motion trainwreck the letters slowly changing in tone from blithe complacency basking in the afterglow of a heroic consulship where he singlehandedly saved the Republic, to studied apathy for politics in Rome as the triumvirate shuts him out of power, now to alarm and eventually full-blown panic at realising the import of Clodius' manoeuvres, that Pompey isn't his friend and protector after all and he's about to be f***ing f***ed. Beyond fascinating reading though, and so artfully written.

Oh Cicero, what am I going to do with you?
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« Reply #117 on: January 15, 2021, 09:07:19 PM »

I've started 1688: The First Modern Revolution by Steven Pincus, partly because I think it will help me in writing my timeline.
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
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« Reply #118 on: January 28, 2021, 05:11:12 PM »

Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber.

Gory, hypersexual, overwritten, fabulous.

And, yes, I'm a Holmes fan as well. I particularly like "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" for its moody, gothic atmosphere and "The Adventure of the Yellow Face" for the great-for-its-time social commentary.
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Mexican Wolf
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« Reply #119 on: January 30, 2021, 07:30:28 PM »

Spirit Run by Noé Álvarez. It's a memoir about the author growing up as a second-generation Mexican immigrant in Yakima, Washington, and his experience joining an annual Native American/First Nations-organized run across western North and Central America.

It's been a brisk read so far, but it's a fascinating personal and cultural story.
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Orwell
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« Reply #120 on: February 23, 2021, 09:53:20 AM »

I have finished Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington, a good book, though some of Washington's views are controversial from a modern view, and his stewardship of Tuskegee definitely wasn't the best. A Promised Land was excellent as well, I'm looking forward to the 2nd volume in the next few years. I've begun reading Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs, I'm about halfway done with it at this point. I'm not entirely sure what I'll read next, and I'm looking for suggestions.
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« Reply #121 on: March 01, 2021, 07:22:31 AM »

Francis Trollope Domestic Manners of the Americans. One part deep social commentary, many parts ethnocentrism and cultural imperialism.
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Velasco
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« Reply #122 on: March 01, 2021, 09:33:12 AM »
« Edited: March 01, 2021, 10:40:24 AM by Velasco »

The Greenlanders  by Jane Smiley. It is a novel in the genre of historical fiction that tells about the lives of the Norse settlers in Medieval Greenland, from circa 1345 to circa 1415. There is an account of births, weddings and harvests, as well as some liaisons, enmity between rival families and many dead. Death is present in multiple ways: it's caused by violence, accident, illness,  hunger or cold. The Norse settlements in SW Greenland established by Erik Thorvaldsson (aka Eric the Red) un late X century are facing their final decline due to multiple factors,  such as the coming of the Little Ice Age in late XIII century and the progressive loss of contact with Europe. The life in that edge of the world was always determined by the harsh environment and the freezing winters, but the living conditions worsened in such degree from XIV century onwards that the Norse settlers couldn't resist anymore and they vanished sometime during the XV century, although the exact circumstances of their demise remain a mystery. The novel is written in the style of a Nordic saga, a choice that creates distance for some readers. Anyway there is a staggering effort of imagination in the recreation of that lost society and I'm trapped by the fascinating ambience. Possibly this is one of the most underrated historical novels  even though the author is apparently famous and a Pulitzer Prize winner
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Beet
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« Reply #123 on: March 06, 2021, 10:41:41 PM »

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. Not a bad novel at all. Basically about a person who tries to reject Christianity, was my interpretation. It was a little too dour and depressing for my tastes. There is not one character in there who is not utterly pathetic. Then again, maybe that is the point. A good example of how one does not have to agree with an author's politics to appreciate her work.

The General's Daughter by Nelson DeMille. I remember seeing the 1999 movie as a kid, but the novel is far better. I love these detective procedurals- even though this one rather unrealistically occurs through a series of interviews, it is like layers of an onion peeling away.
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John Dule
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« Reply #124 on: March 07, 2021, 02:57:26 AM »

Has anyone here read the Amie Parnes book about the Biden campaign yet? I'm trying to decide whether to order it from Amazon or to wait until it appears in one of the Free Library boxes around my town.
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