Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[madviking]

If I withhold medicine from a sick person, am I in any way responsible for his death?

yes, you are.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

What did you people do to this thread?

Anyway, A Concise History of Poland by Jerzy Lukowski and Huber Zawadzki. Delivers what it promises, even taught me the rudiments of Polish phonetics. I finally see the reason for the need to fully express their identity, and it seems to indicate that mistaken Russian identities (as opposed to German ones) are the best way to troll Poles.

 

[Borachio]

Denying them the right to read my book. Which, if applied to only the citizens of a particular country for no good reason, becomes bigoted.

You overstate it, imo. Banks refused to allow publication of his books in Israel. It was just a token gesture, I think. There's absolutely nothing to prevent any Israeli reading his books. I imagine that when you, personally, go into a book shop you're practically having to break your neck refusing to even look at his books.

You've said (or certainly implied) yourself that you're only not reading Banks because of his refusal to allow publication in Israel.

Biting your nose off to spite your face, much?

As for "no good reason", he does give his reasons in the link I supplied above.

 

[peter grimes]

Moderator Action: I've split off the Boycott discussion into it's own thread, here.

 

[Cutlass]

The Wreck of the River of Stars by Michael Flynn. Quite an odd book. Kind of difficult to read. What makes it odd is that it's really about how 14 dysfunctional people and a dysfunctional AI fail to work together to solve a mutual problem. What makes it hard to read is that the point of view character is constantly jumping around. And so there's a lot of discontinuity to what is being said.

 

[Antilogic]

Just started on Jared Diamond's The World Until Yesterday. I've flipped through it looking at the colour plates. And already I don't like it.

He shows a picture of a fat American tucking into a chicken mcnugget bucket. He claims that a high fat diet causes obesity. According to the best of my understanding, it's carbohydrates which are responsible for weight gain. Not dietary fat.

We have had some discussion on good ol' Jerry Diamond over in WH. But I would not be surprised if a Diamond claim turns out to be oversimplified or plum wrong.

I have had very little time to read, but I've been working on Carthage Must Be Destroyed. It was on my shelf and highly recommended by the crew here.

 

[Glassfan]

Th

I've been working on Carthage Must Be Destroyed. It was on my shelf and highly recommended by the crew here.

That's a fine book. The Carthaginians were not themselves great historians, so the author employs a lot of parallel history and archaelogy from related cultures.

Amazoned Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August - a Pulitzer Prize winner. It's combined with another fine book, The Proud Tower. I originally read these back in college but they still hold up pretty well.

 

[Mouthwash]

The Phoenicians: Purple Empire of the Ancient World by Gerhard Herm is the only ancient history book I've found that was actually fun to read. Although I'm willing to give Carthage Must be Destroyed a try based on the reviews here.

 

[Azale]

Major Problems in the Gilded Age and the Progressive Age by Leon Fink
The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi
The Aztecs: An Interpretation by Inga Clendinnen

I really only wanted to read the top two for right now, but the third one is so good I can't resist.

 

[Dachs]

Amazoned Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August - a Pulitzer Prize winner. It's combined with another fine book, The Proud Tower. I originally read these back in college but they still hold up pretty well.

They only hold up well if they're hardcover. Paperback copies won't work very well at all as stands.

...Ohhhhhhhh, you mean the history.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, supposed to mention some reading too? A short while ago i finished reading a biography of Borges. It was a strange book cause the author seemed quite keen to label Borges as a degenerate/crippled (not due to his failing eyesight) and pretty much some sort of freak.

I suppose that might not be that far off from 'reality', but why write a biography when you mostly aim to put the person down?

Anyway, the actual info on his early years was useful, but nowhere near as good as in other biographies i have read.

 

[Glassfan]

Hey Dachs, you need to get back on your meds, pal...

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi

Excellent taste, old boy! You'll enjoy this one.

 

[Darth Caesar]

Reading a Game of Thrones.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I'm almost done with Sex, Community, Economics, and Freedom; a collection of essays by Wendell Berry. My 'serious' read is Toward a Truly Free Market. A Distributist Perspective on the Role of Government, Taxes, Health Care, Deficits, and More by John C. Medaille.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

On Friday night I finished Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Last night I finished the cast couple chapters of The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexandr Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty by William Hogeland. (I would have finsihed sooner, but I took a break in read the other book before it was due back the the library, as it had many other hold requests and so could not be renewed.)

Last night I also started The Reason I Jump written by Naoki Higashida (a 13 year old severely Autistic boy) and translated by KA Yoshida and David Mitchell.

Next I plan to read David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and The Art of Battling Giants by Malcomb Gladwell.

After that I'll read one of the 8 other library books I have checked out of the library, which don't have other hold requests on them and so can be renewed.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed by Martin Evans and John Phillips, since it has been a while the last time I read about the Muslim world. I appreciate the examination of various opposing narratives of Algerian and foreign (especially French) groups on historical issues. Also, I find it interesting that one of the most influential Christian thinkers originated in what would later be among the strongholds of Islam.

 

[Traitorfish]

The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland South-East Asia by James C. Scott. Masada recommended this to me about a billion years ago and I've just got round to it, very interesting stuff so far.

Also juggling Spain's Road to Empire by Henry Kamen and Before the Revolution: America's Ancient Past by Daniel K. Richter for uni. Also interesting.

 

[Crime Doesn't Pay]

Zen Living.

 

[sophie]

Just finished A Concise History of Germany, by Mary Fulbrook.

Picked it up mostly out of boredom and because there's [copulation]-all of any quality at the local library. I was pretty disappointed, especially for an Oxbridge book. Only 260 pages, with a mere 100 covering the entire Imperial period. It's clear Fulbrook's interest is in post-Weimar/modern Germany, and that section is very good. I especially appreciated the post-1945 section, which I knew little about. Very well written though. Source mining has been more fruitful than I expected (originally written in 1990, with an update in 2004), so I'll have stuff to read for at least another couple months.