What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)

[John Dule]

I got Michael Lewis's The Fifth Risk for Christmas and read it yesterday. Good book; kind of an antimatter version of Atlas Shrugged. I thought it was educational, and it was interesting to see the interlocking parts of government bureaucracy close-up. Ultimately though, I think I'm unsympathetic to its central argument. I don't think non-ideological bureaucrats are an inherently good thing, and the implication that they ought to be able to do their work with no political influence just strikes me as naive.

I'm now reading Bad Blood. Honestly, I think I've done more reading in the past two days than in my entire semester at school.

[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.

[John Dule]

Nothing. My last book was What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver. The eponymous story was really moving to me.

You seen Birdman?

[John Dule]

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

[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.

[John Dule]

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.

[John Dule]

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.

[John Dule]

I've almost finished Stephen King's first Dark Tower book, as part of my effort to read more fiction. I also finally finished reading Dune, which I had stopped about halfway through some years ago. Both are somewhat enjoyable, but they're not really rekindling my interest in fiction. The Dark Tower is too miserable and weird for my taste, and Dune-- while fantastically creative-- is really a slog to get through. The terminology alone is enough to induce a headache.

[John Dule]

I've almost finished Stephen King's first Dark Tower book, as part of my effort to read more fiction. I also finally finished reading Dune, which I had stopped about halfway through some years ago. Both are somewhat enjoyable, but they're not really rekindling my interest in fiction. The Dark Tower is too miserable and weird for my taste, and Dune-- while fantastically creative-- is really a slog to get through. The terminology alone is enough to induce a headache.

I swear I am the only person I've met who found "Dune" to be a surprisingly easy read given its length. I was obsessed and raced through it.

Towards the end I got much more into it. I think it might be the single most imaginative book I've ever read, and that carried me through.

[John Dule]

I've been reading The Count of Monte Cristo this summer. It's spectacular so far. After two years spent in the doldrums of legal language, I have been craving flowery romantic prose and adventure.

[John Dule]

I've been reading The Count of Monte Cristo this summer. It's spectacular so far. After two years spent in the doldrums of legal language, I have been craving flowery romantic prose and adventure.

Just finished it last night. Might be my new favorite book of all time.

[John Dule]

Reading Moby Dick right now. The descriptions of Ishmael and Queequeg's friendship are so sweet. They remind me of my experience living with roommates from foreign countries in undergrad-- there's a line in it where Ishmael says that in "savages," there "lurk no civilized hypocrisies or bland deceits." This is an 18th Century way of saying something I've thought for a long time: that it's easier to befriend and speak candidly with people from other cultures, because they speak more bluntly in their adopted languages.