Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Smellincoffee]

I just finished History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume II: The New World by Winston Churchill, which charts the transformation of England from the Tudor monarchy to a constitutional monarchy dominated by Parliament. His account is lively, if traditional, with a great deal of cheerfully unguarded opinions thrown in. He was very kind to France, much moreso than I'd expect from a British author, but considering that the book was written in 1938, he may have been downplaying any Anglo-French animosity on purpose.

Next up is Alison Weir's latest novel, set in Tudor England, which will complete my series of readings in celebration of England, at least until next St. George's day.

 

[Cutlass]

Recently finished The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M Banks. Quite the weird book, with just a hint of Douglas Adams in it.
Shadow of Freedom by David Weber. Which I'm not sure why I keep reading that series, except just out of habit.
And currently reading Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff. Which makes me wonder what this steampunk fad really has to have gotten so many devoted followers.

 

[Dachs]

Edward Drea - Japan's Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945

Good impressions so far. Concise, presents a lot of relevant information, but with plenty of sections also on operations and tactics that, it seems to me, a lot of other institutional histories of the IJA miss.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I just finished Burning City by Larry Niven and Jerry Purnelle. It was ok, not great. I stayed up later than normal last night to finish it just because I had already renewed it twice and definitely have to return it to the library today to avoid a fine.

I was planning on reading Nassim Nichalas Taleb's Antfragile next. It is due tomorrow, but as I had not yet renewed it I assumed I could have a few more weeks. Unfortunately, I just fund that I am not allowed to renew it because other people have hold requests on it. I guess I should have predicted it, as I had to wait a few months to get it after I requested it. I doubt I'll be able to read the whole thing tonight, so I guess I'll just have to return it and request it again.


I've gotten one chapter into Terry Goodkind's Blood of the Fold. That and Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational are not due back for a couple weeks.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I was planning on reading Nassim Nichalas Taleb's Antfragile next. It is due tomorrow, but as I had not yet renewed it I assumed I could have a few more weeks. Unfortunately, I just fund that I am not allowed to renew it because other people have hold requests on it. I guess I should have predicted it, as I had to wait a few months to get it after I requested it. I doubt I'll be able to read the whole thing tonight, so I guess I'll just have to return it and request it again.

It's a book with teeth. Why not look for a used copy to buy for yourself?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I have no income and not a whole lot of spare cash right now. I don't intend to spend money on things like books at least until I get a job.

I went ahead and returned and re-requested Antifragil today. I am now 8th in line, but they have 7 copies of the book now so the wait shouldn't be too long. I still have 2 library books at home to read first, and I just requested 2 others which no one else has reserved.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Ah, I've been there. I used to buy one used book per quarter, and I had to wait until it went below $5 to justify even paying that much.

I just started Crunchy Cons, which is about the conservative counterculture, which is similar to the other counterculture except they talk about Jesus instead of Vishnu, and don't like sexual libertines. It's refreshing to see conservatives railing against consumerism. I usually only get that perspective from anarchists and hippies.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I just finished First as Tragedy, Then as Farce by Slavoj Zizek. What a great and insightful book! Very pertinent to my thoughts lately, and it confirmed many of them (while making me question many others!). Because of a topic this book brought up, I'm going to deviate my reading "course" and instead of finishing The Glorious Cause, I'm going to pick up The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James, a book about the San Domingo Revolution.

 

[Dachs]

Because of a topic this book brought up, I'm going to deviate my reading "course" and instead of finishing The Glorious Cause, I'm going to pick up The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James, a book about the San Domingo Revolution.

The Black Jacobins is extremely good and you will enjoy it

well, you especially, because of lolol ideology, but even I thought it was excellent

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

The Black Jacobins is extremely good and you will enjoy it

well, you especially, because of lolol ideology, but even I thought it was excellent

Excellent.

I had initially looked over the Haitian Revolution and figured "oh well, just another failed Republican revolt like the Irish one, et al), it wasn't until Zizek talked about in the last book I read, and how the Haitian Republicans related to European Republicans (by turning their idea that the Republic was really only intended for white educated Europeans on its head, and becoming more Jacobin than the Jacobins!) that I really became interested in the event. Fortunately, I have this book on hand!

 

[JohannaK]

I just finished an essay on Spain's infrastructure policy and its historical roots, and now that I was going to move on to ADWD (in Spanish, though, if I start a series of books I will always read it all in the same language when possible), when my mother showed me these Penguin books she had from when she studied English.

So I'm going to read Catcher In The Rye or The Great Gatsby instead.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I just finished Crunchy Cons, which I would have loved were it not for the fact that the author is so anti-individualistic and worships orthodoxy. The book was about people living out values contrary to the mainstream: think hippies who dig gender roles and are devout Catholics. I also read The Jane Austen Book Club, which does not compare favorably to the movie, I'm sad to say. It's a rare movie that can measure up to a novel, let alone surpass it, but Grigg's character was manifestly superior in the movie. I also recently finished off eaarth by Bill McKibben, which points out that the earth's climate has already changed in dangerously unstable ways because of global warming, notes that we're almost out of energy to make changes, and that our governments are too pathetic to make changes if we HAD energy. He then argues for a revival of localism to provide food and energy as we ride out our downfall.

I am now halfway into Folks, This Ain't Normal by Joel Salatin, whom you've encountered if you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma or watched Food, Inc. So far it's rivaling The Plain Reader for book-of-the-year for me.

 

[Phrossack]

Just finished Lithuania Ascending by S.C. Rowell. It does a decent job of describing the politics and international relations of the Grand Duchy in its pagan days, especially under Gediminas. It really dispelled the misconception that the Lithuanians were a backwards and alien people who were isolated from the rest of the world. But while it's advertised as explaining the rise of said duchy, and it does an alright job of this, I was hoping for a bit more. Also, I skipped most of the part on the politics of the Orthodox Church in the duchy since my eyes were glazing over. But that's just me. And Rowell has the common but obnoxious habit of quoting sources in Latin and other languages without bothering to translate them, making a small part of the book unreadable to anyone who doesn't know Latin. Borrow it if you're curious about pagan Lithuania; it's decent but at least $100.

Getting started on The Baltic Crusade by William Urban. It focuses on the Catholic factions in this setting; can't really say anything else so far.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

Monte Cassino by Sven Hassel - So far a great book, the book doesn't mind using unknown terms to many readers....for example Gurka is used instead of Nepalese British Soldier, tiny things such as those make the book much more interesting and you learn a lot. Im currently half way through it and I plan on picking up some other Sven books when I can.

 

[Flying Pig]

'Gurkha' is far more common in British writing than 'Nepalese British soldier'; you more rarely see 'sepoy' for an Indian soldier

 

[NedimNapoleon]

Well to anyone not accustomed to WW2 military "speak" it would've been much easier just to write Nepalese, but I like him using original terms because you learn that way. I for one had no idea who the Gurkha were or that any of them were stationed in Europe.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, I've only ever heard them referred to as Gurkhas. It's probably a British thing.

 

[Masada]

Ten Days that Shook the World - John Reed
Fluid Iron - Tony Day
Little Emperors - Alfred Leo Duggan
The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
Global Security Governance: Competing Perceptions of Security in the 21st Century - Emil Kirchner and James Sperling (eds)
Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity: David Campbell

 

[Azale]

The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea - the first few hundred pages are so dry, but the subject matter (bureaucracy and political intrigue minutiae) does not lend itself to much dramatization. I have high hopes for some of the more creative sounding essays later in the book.

The Modern Middle East - Good survey with a few primary documents thrown in. A good foundation to finally getting around to my bigger tomes on da middle east.

 

[Masada]

'Modern' and Middle East do not belong in a sentence together, tovarishch.