What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)

[Dr. MB]

As many of you know, I'm a big Whitney Ryan fan. If you're just getting into her of course check out Black Future. But, until today, I hadn't gotten around to reading Smothered by My BBW Sister's Cheeks. And oh my god I am just taken away. The prose is just so...enthralling.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

[afleitch]

I've had a bad lockdown in that I've read little.

But just finished re-reading Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller. Last time I rushed it. It's interesting to read a woman's pov when writing about gay romance and sex but she does a good job without veering too far into slash fanfic territory.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

V.S. Naipaul's The Enigma of Arrival and Alan Garner's Where Shall We Run To? - two books that have certain thematic similarities for all that they are very different.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Two books at the moment. One fiction, Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward and one nonfiction, Hazem Kandil's The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change

The latter sounds fascinating (no offense to Solzhenitsyn), and I'd been doing a fair amount of thinking in that area without having any real reference text, so hearing about this may be fortunate. How you like it so far?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I've had a bad lockdown in that I've read little.

But just finished re-reading Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller. Last time I rushed it. It's interesting to read a woman's pov when writing about gay romance and sex but she does a good job without veering too far into slash fanfic territory.

Would you recommend it to me? I've heard mixed things about it, all from women; I've never heard another gay or bisexual man's take on it.

[Mr. Smith]

The Water Dancer - Ta Nehisi-Coates

[afleitch]

I've had a bad lockdown in that I've read little.

But just finished re-reading Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller. Last time I rushed it. It's interesting to read a woman's pov when writing about gay romance and sex but she does a good job without veering too far into slash fanfic territory.

Would you recommend it to me? I've heard mixed things about it, all from women; I've never heard another gay or bisexual man's take on it.

It's a good read. It's very light and it plays with mythology in a way that you can get away with. There is rampant misogyny because it's bloody Ancient Greece and that's written about very candidly. There's some revision of Briseis which some don't like which shifts how Achilles outwardly spoke about her to how he 'really feels' from Patroclus' perspective, but that's actually in line with how Briseis saw Patroclus (sort of intervening on her behalf anyway)

In short in order to elevate a same sex relationship historically whether real or imagined you have to 'negotiate' on page how you deal with the women that were used passively or intentionally by them as cover or deflection. I've seen criticisms of that with this book, but also a lot of praise for it. But I'm not in a position to dismiss the criticisms even though I think from my perspective they handle it well

It's very visual in it's world building which I like and she take time to ponder slow moments; silence, emptiness which is very effective.

I read it again so I could get started on Circe so it'll be interesting to see how her style has developed.

[Benjamin Frank]

I just finished reading Sylvia Nasar's "Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius."

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

In short in order to elevate a same sex relationship historically whether real or imagined you have to 'negotiate' on page how you deal with the women that were used passively or intentionally by them as cover or deflection. I've seen criticisms of that with this book, but also a lot of praise for it. But I'm not in a position to dismiss the criticisms even though I think from my perspective they handle it well

Interesting. I wonder how I'll feel about that as someone who's interested in both women and men; it's something I've noticed in other gay literature and generally disliked (although I of course understand why it's done), but maybe I'll feel differently about it here. If I do end up reading it I'll definitely get back to you.

[Brother Jonathan]

Two books at the moment. One fiction, Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward and one nonfiction, Hazem Kandil's The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change

The latter sounds fascinating (no offense to Solzhenitsyn), and I'd been doing a fair amount of thinking in that area without having any real reference text, so hearing about this may be fortunate. How you like it so far?

I've found it interesting. It is almost entirely centered on coups in the Middle East/Turkey though, so if you are looking for a broader description of coups or regime change around the world it won't be of much help. It focuses in Egypt, Turkey, and Iran and examines why each took a different path following their respective coups, which Kandil attributes to differences in the interplay between the major players in the coup (military, political, and security apparatus).It is very interesting for what it is.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Two books at the moment. One fiction, Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward and one nonfiction, Hazem Kandil's The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change

The latter sounds fascinating (no offense to Solzhenitsyn), and I'd been doing a fair amount of thinking in that area without having any real reference text, so hearing about this may be fortunate. How you like it so far?

I've found it interesting. It is almost entirely centered on coups in the Middle East/Turkey though, so if you are looking for a broader description of coups or regime change around the world it won't be of much help. It focuses in Egypt, Turkey, and Iran and examines why each took a different path following their respective coups, which Kandil attributes to differences in the interplay between the major players in the coup (military, political, and security apparatus).It is very interesting for what it is.

So most of my reading has centered around "revolution" as such, but getting a better view on the choices made by the security services would be fascinating. This was in part stimulated by a lot of reading on Armenia, where you had reports of troops in uniform protesting, and where the internal security services appear to go about its new tasks rather enthusiastically upon Pashinyan's election, which included the arrest and prosecution of corrupt military officials. This got me wondering about when and under what circumstances siloviki and the like decide to go over to the side of the opposition.

[Brother Jonathan]

Two books at the moment. One fiction, Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward and one nonfiction, Hazem Kandil's The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change

The latter sounds fascinating (no offense to Solzhenitsyn), and I'd been doing a fair amount of thinking in that area without having any real reference text, so hearing about this may be fortunate. How you like it so far?

I've found it interesting. It is almost entirely centered on coups in the Middle East/Turkey though, so if you are looking for a broader description of coups or regime change around the world it won't be of much help. It focuses in Egypt, Turkey, and Iran and examines why each took a different path following their respective coups, which Kandil attributes to differences in the interplay between the major players in the coup (military, political, and security apparatus).It is very interesting for what it is.

So most of my reading has centered around "revolution" as such, but getting a better view on the choices made by the security services would be fascinating. This was in part stimulated by a lot of reading on Armenia, where you had reports of troops in uniform protesting, and where the internal security services appear to go about its new tasks rather enthusiastically upon Pashinyan's election, which included the arrest and prosecution of corrupt military officials. This got me wondering about when and under what circumstances siloviki and the like decide to go over to the side of the opposition.

Well I would say it is worth a read. It does focus more on what happens after a revolution/coup, but it does inform some on coups/revolutions and security services in general. It's also a good book when it comes to history in the middle east, which is really more why I read it.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I am currently reading The Old Man and the Sea. Actually once I started a scrappy copy in English I had found in some dark corner of my school, but I never finished. Now I am reading it in Italian.
There is a passage where the main characters dine with rice, beans, fried plantains and stew which I found pretty funny because it's exactly what I ate at a Cuban restaurant in St. Augustine while on vacation this February.

[1978 New Wave skinny trousers]

Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650-1668 by Steven Pincus.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650-1668 by Steven Pincus.

Lol this is peak HenryWallaceVP.

How many negative references to popery does the book contain? I'm assuming many.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson and The Tigers of Mompracem by Emilio Salgari.

[Enduro]

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

[John Dule]

I'm having a look at Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. Anyone here a stoic?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I'm having a look at Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. Anyone here a stoic?

Not a stoic myself, but fascinating school of thought. Let us know what you make of it!

[Middle-aged Europe]

On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming.

[Enduro]

Revival by Stephen King

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Now reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, rereading parts of Philosophy as Metanoetics by Hajime Tanabe, and about to start a reread of In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu because 'tis the season.

[John Dule]

Currently about 100 pages into The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's a surprisingly easy read; I'm trying to highlight all the names and key details since I often get those things turned around in my head. This book ought to be made into a miniseries. I'd be very interested to see an English-speaking actor play Hitler as a serious role and to give some of his speeches word-for-word. I've always wanted to understand what made his oratory so powerful, but the language barrier makes that difficult.

After a long hiatus on this book, I've cracked it open once more. Now I'm 600 pages in. I have to say, while the "rise" portion of the book was absolutely riveting, the portion on the road to war has been astonishingly dull. A great deal of emphasis is placed on painstakingly laying out the contents of every German/Italian/British/French/Russian communique, and there has been very little attention paid to what these events looked like on the ground for the soldiers and civilians who were actually involved in them. Whereas the story of Hitler's rise incorporated a great deal of information about life in the streets of Berlin and Munich, once he's in office the book becomes increasingly detached from the goings-on of everyday life in Germany. Some of the best chapters detail things like the Hitler Youth and the VW "car for everyone" scheme, but the intrigue of war and annexation has sapped the book of this very human element, which I think was necessary for telling the story well.

Anyway, I'm hoping things get a little more fleshed out once the war starts and the book can focus on the experiences of soldiers in, say, Stalingrad. Right now everything is bogged down in bureaucratic behind-the-scenes intrigue, and I've given up on keeping all the German names straight.

[Enduro]

Legion by Brandon Sanderson

It's actually three novellas collected in a paperback. Currently on the third one.