Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Masada]

That's about what I thought of the excerpt I read online. Was so unimpressed I didn't bother to pick up the full book.

If I wanted a free-market screed, I'd read Friedman. At least he can write.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I read Anthem a few years ago. I didn't think much of it. I hear she's insane,though.

I mention her because her two big novels consist of a lot of speechifying. I'm told the length of the speeches are incredible, but I've never gone near them myself. I heard her once on the radio and her ideas were as wretched as I could imagine.

 

[Darth Caesar]

I've heard "This is John Galt" in Atlas Shrugged is 33,000 words long.

 

[Mango Elephant]

I mention her because her two big novels consist of a lot of speechifying. I'm told the length of the speeches are incredible, but I've never gone near them myself. I heard her once on the radio and her ideas were as wretched as I could imagine.

I read Atlas Shrugged on Sparknotes, so I don't know anything about the speeches but I couldn't believe what I was reading. Apparently this dude raped a girl named Dominique, put a naked statue of her in a building (w/o her consent), and then almost killed her by blowing up a building right next to where she was and Dominique fell in love with this psychopath because he has an "ego" or he's an individualist or some dumb thing, which apparently makes rape and attempted murder okay. He literally RAPED her! Awful.

 

[JohannaK]

Isn't that The Fountainhead?

 

[Mango Elephant]

Yeah, it is. My bad.

 

[Kozmos]

I read Atlas Shrugged on Sparknotes, so I don't know anything about the speeches but I couldn't believe what I was reading. Apparently this dude raped a girl named Dominique, put a naked statue of her in a building (w/o her consent), and then almost killed her by blowing up a building right next to where she was and Dominique fell in love with this psychopath because he has an "ego" or he's an individualist or some dumb thing, which apparently makes rape and attempted murder okay. He literally RAPED her! Awful.

That's makes it even worse than what I heard/thought about it.

 

[Cutlass]

Makes me glad I never took a chance on reading her. Back when I used to browse the bookstore shelves a lot I always saw the books. But the sheer size of them was daunting enough.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I'm currently halfway into I'll Take my Stand: the South and the Agrarian Tradition. It's a collection of essays done by southern intellectuals, writing against the inroads industrialism was making in to the South. They write in favor of an agrarian, settled, cultured, organic, and conservative life as opposed to an industrial, restless, progressive, planned life. They express an unusual kind of conservatism; it's definitely not pro-business, because they hate the centralization of power (despite advocating a civilization once utterly dominated by a few plantation lords), and despite their attacks on 'the tariff' I doubt they'd be free marketeers. They're religious in one sense- - they favor established religion as a way of cultivating morality and keeping society together -- but not in the Palineseque way. They frequently refer to the past when the South was more deistic and the North was the weirdly puritanical, superstitiously religious region of America. Although it has flaws (the authors' take on slavery as evil in theory, but humane in practice, for instance), I'm enjoying it.

 

[Traitorfish]

Sounds a bit like High Toryism in the United Kingdom. Same paternalism, same hostility towards urbanism, same combination of religiosity and suspicion of "hot" Protestantism. Can't think it's coincidence, either, given how much of a role aristocratic exiles and second-sons played in the formation of the Souther planter economy.

 

[Kyriakos]

Wasn't there a movie adapted from that 'novel' (Atlas etc)? I recall we had a thread on it a couple of years ago. I am pretty sure the movie was a huge failure..

 

[JohannaK]

No. There is a full trilogy, last installment yet to be released.

 

[Tahuti]

Sounds a bit like High Toryism in the United Kingdom. Same paternalism, same hostility towards urbanism, same combination of religiosity and suspicion of "hot" Protestantism. Can't think it's coincidence, either, given how much of a role aristocratic exiles and second-sons played in the formation of the Souther planter economy.

Their anti-urbanism and religiousity keeps me away from them, though I'm somewhat sympathetic towards their economic ideology and their opposition to hubristic urban planning (which has ruined plenty of towns, cities and villages, IMO).

 

[Glassfan]

The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present, Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, 2005. A nice little (250 pages) historiography of WWI, emphasizing French titles.

 

[danjuno]

Just finished E.W. Brands' FDR Biography Traitor to His Class.

 

[Masada]

The Hot Zone - Richard Preston: Fan-freaking-tastic.
No Bone Left Unturned - Jeff Benedict: Also fan-freaking-tastic.

 

[Josu]

Rebels and Traitors by Lindsay Davis.

I want to read Orson Scott Card's The tales of Alvin Maker, which apparently has as change-point Cromwell's Commonwealth. I did not know too much about this period in Brittain so I decided to take some background.

 

[Pegasus_77]

I do not read books because most of my spare time is used on the Internet. I find it hard to read books because i do not have people to share my thoughts of them. I want to interact with people.

 

[carmen510]

Currently finishing up Manhood in America: A Cultural History by Michael Kimmel, as per Luckymoose's (excellent) recommendation.

I've started reading Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict by John B. Judis.

After I finish that one, I'll be starting How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace by Charles A. Kupchan

 

[Paul in Saudi]

Year Zero, a history of 1945 after the German/Japanese defeats.