What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)

[Mexican Wolf]

I haven't been reading too much lately, but I'm about 32,000 words into the novel I've been writing for Nanowrimo and I'm aiming for at least 55,000 by the end of the month.

[retromike22]

American Prometheus: OPPENHEIMER
by Kai Bird (Author), Martin J. Sherwin (Author)

This was very good, deeply fascinating.

[GoTfan]

Songbirds and Snakes right now. Tossing up between Dune or The Avoidable War next.

[Mexican Wolf]

Finished Nanowrimo last night after writing 59,445 words in my novel, which is probably only about halfway through what I planned for it.

[Brother Jonathan]

Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok

[Pericles]

Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok

That was a very insightful one, and I feel Western historians are too quick to label the collapse inevitable. In particular, he's right to focus on the role of Russian elites in dissolving the union.

[Babeuf]

Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok

Reading this as well right now. Excellent and very informative so far.

[First1There]

Finished Nanowrimo last night after writing 59,445 words in my novel, which is probably only about halfway through what I planned for it.

Congratulations. I want that patience to write so much at once. Keep doing it.\

Also I'm reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

[PSOL]

Finished a collection by James Cooper and thinking of reading Little House on the Prairie

[Mexican Wolf]

I'm currently reading Voices of the Winds: Native American Legends, compiled and edited by Margot Edmonds and Ella Clark.

[diptheriadan]

Finished Blood Meridian about a week ago. Now that was some sh**t.

[Schiff for Senate]

Just finished John Ferling's Adams vs Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800. Truly captivating and spectacular.

Coming in, I had some misconceptions/confusions regarding 1800, but this book shed light on all that transpired in an engaging manner and provided good background knowledge of historical events during the 1790s.

Nor did Ferling display much bias towards one side or another. The only thing pointing toward any kind of bias is that it's really made me think less of Alexander Hamilton...certainly he's portrayed far less favorably than he is by Lin Manuel-Miranda 

[beaver2.0]

Is anyone aware of a good biography of Hannibal Hamlin?

[Mexican Wolf]

I finished Voices of the Winds and am currently on Chapter 3 of Paradise of the Blind, a semi-autobiographical novel by Dương Thu Hương. Hương used to be a member of the Vietnamese Communist Party but was later arrested and then exiled and forbidden to return to Vietnam after speaking out strongly against and publishing several novels highly critical of the party and its leadership of Vietnam. The novel remains banned and the author remains exiled from Vietnam to this day. The novel so far has focused on the protagonist Hang's memories of the land reform policies that sharply divided her family along economic and political lines.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Here are the books I finished in 2023. Asterisks for books I particularly enjoyed. Double asterisk for the book I've enjoyed most in a very long time.

Stephen Jay Gould - The Mismeasure of Man (*)
Donovan Ramsey - When Crack was King (*)
Alejandra Oliva - Rivermouth
Will Bunch - After the Ivory Tower Falls
James Clear - Atomic Habits
Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now (*)
Terry Tempest Williams - Refuge (**)
Marion Turner - The Wife of Bath
Barbara Tuchman - A Distant Mirror
John McPhee - Rising from the Plains (*)
Oliver Sacks - The River of Consciousness
Ashley C. Ford - Somebody's Daughter (*)
Oprah Winfrey - The Path Made Clear
Anne Proulx - Fen, Bog, and Swamp
Garrett Graft - The Only Plane in the Sky (*)
Matthew Desmond - Poverty by America
Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz - Red Dirt
Cal Newport - Digital Minimalism
bell hooks - The Will to Change
Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing - The Big Sort
Jill Levoy - Ghettoside (*)
Charlotte Weber - Tell Me What You Want
Sebastian Junger - Freedom
Erika Sanchez - Crying in the Bathroom
Jennette McCurdy - I'm Glad My Mom Died
Rachel Aviv - Strangers to Ourselves
CJ Hauser - the Crane Wife (*)
bell hooks - Ain't I a Woman (*)
Joshua Prager - The Family Roe (*)
Katie Worth - Miseducation
Richard Reeves - Of Boys and Men
Deborah Copaken - Ladyparts
Isaac Fitzgerald - Dirtbag, Massachusetts (*)
Lawrence Wright - God Save Texas

Right now I'm reading:

Tom Holland - Rubicon
Jordan Ellenberg - Shape

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Currently reading Red Victory: A History Of The Russian Civil War, 1918-1921 by W Bruce Lincoln.
https://www.amazon.ca/Red-Victory-History-Russian-1918-1921/dp/0306809095

There are many books on the Russian Revolution but there are very few books on either the Russian civil war or the Kronstadt Uprising.

[King of Kensington]

I finished reading Ed Broadbent, Seeking Social Democracy just before he died.

A really important figure in Canadian politics and someone I respected enormously.

[retromike22]

James Madison: A Life Reconsidered Paperback by Lynne Cheney (yes that Lynne Cheney)

It was a bit dry, and the portion on his presidency was remarkably short (only two chapters!). Still, I liked the parts about his youth and also on the War of 1812. But overall this was an average read. It felt very, unintrospective, like it was a history about his life rather than a biography.

[retromike22]

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf

A lovely read, I love the topic of 1800s science.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I just finished Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery, a book part of a series edited by William Irwin (not the comedian) that explores serious philosophy through pop culture, in this case Metallica songs. Quite the wild ride.

[beaver2.0]

Reread Night of Camp David by Fletcher Knebel in which the president goes mad and is taken down by the junior senator from Iowa. Not a deep read but entertaining. I recommend it to all.

[PSOL]

I would rather be a member of conservacord and read their s•••posts than ever deal with reading National Socialist literature. This is an even greater waste of my time than perhaps the past four years of my life.

[afleitch]

Currently reading Babel by R.F. Kuang. It's very dense, so it'll be a long read!

[retromike22]

Spare
Prince Harry

It was mostly better than I expected, but the first 10% and last 20% are very whiny. It took a while to get used to his style, since instead of lengthy chapters of an average number, there are very short chapters but many of them. At some parts it's almost as though I'm reading a diary. The middle portion (his training and Afghanistan adventures) is the best and most interesting part.

A chunk of the non-press drama is caused by Kate and Meghan repeatedly misunderstanding each other and considering each other to be insensitive, which causes their respective husbands to stand up to protect them.

[Mr. Smith]

Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer, duh!

Such wonderful prose, how did I miss this!