Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Smellincoffee]

I am within 70 pages of finishing Emma, which will complete a reading challenge I accepted in January.

It feels like a school assignment. I just want it to be over so I can go back to reading about things that interest me, like plumbing, zoning, and cows.

 

[Glassfan]

As a manly man I was delightedly surprised at the quality of Jane Austin's works. Be sure to read Pride and Prejudice, but only at leisure, not when it's required.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Oh, I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice! Emma, though, seems to be mostly....talking. Talking about people, talking about pianos, talking about baked apples, talking about the poor dear destined to catch cold..

 

[Takhisis]

SS-18 ICBM, I really can't understand why you've bought a book on typewriters.

 

[JohannaK]

You are both missing out on Jane Austen's comedy masterpiece Love & Freindship (sic). It is a parody of the typical epistolary novels of sensibility predominant since Richardson's (I think?) Pamela in the 1750s.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

SS-18 ICBM, I really can't understand why you've bought a book on typewriters.

Well I bought a book called The Furniture Doctor (George Grotz), so you really shouldn't be surprised.

Anyway, got said book from a vending machine. It's about antique furniture and is written in a breezy style. Certainly quite interesting.

 

[Borachio]

You are both missing out on Jane Austen's comedy masterpiece Love & Freindship (sic). It is a parody of the typical epistolary novels of sensibility predominant since Richardson's (I think?) Pamela in the 1750s.

Eh?

I'd forgotten all about that!

Northanger Abbey is a comedy parody, though. Isn't it?

Then, almost irrelevantly, there's this.

 

[sophie]

Oh, I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice! Emma, though, seems to be mostly....talking. Talking about people, talking about pianos, talking about baked apples, talking about the poor dear destined to catch cold..

Emma is straight up my favorite Austin novel.

 

[JohannaK]

Eh?

I'd forgotten all about that!

Northanger Abbey is a comedy parody, though. Isn't it?

Then, almost irrelevantly, there's this.

Boh. Love &Freindship is second to none. It is comedy gold.

 

[Takhisis]

Well I bought a book called The Furniture Doctor (George Grotz), so you really shouldn't be surprised.

Anyway, got said book from a vending machine. It's about antique furniture and is written in a breezy style. Certainly quite interesting.

Erm, I meant the Chicago style of typewriters.

Emma is straight up my favorite Austin novel.

What about Clueless?

 

[Arakhor]

I've been reading the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, the story of a boy and his wolf in a magical Mesolithic Norway.

 

[Antilogic]

I'm finishing up John Charles Chasteen's Americanos, mostly because I don't know jack about Central and South American history and decided to do something about it. The book covers the wars of independence in Latin America over the period of 1800 to around 1824 or so, and is structured to follow particular historical dramatis personae: first Alexander Humboldt's trip through the colonies before the revolution, then the generals Bolívar and San Martin, João VI fleeing to Brazil and then returning to Portugal, etc.

It's relatively short (188 pg.) and thus I imagine I am missing a lot. For example, while it details the politics in the colonies, particularly the struggle between American-born and European-born whites, their changing identity, and their relationships with the various natives, the detail on the military marches, battles, and economies are more sporadic. If anything, I want more than I got out of it, but it still strikes me as a good starting place--an excellent primer text, but not an ultimate authority.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Eh?

I'd forgotten all about that!

Northanger Abbey is a comedy parody, though. Isn't it?

Then, almost irrelevantly, there's this.

If I recall, it's a parody of gothic novels.

Having finished Emma, I am moving on to the utterly delightful How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had it Coming.

 

[Ajidica]

Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy and when I'm done with that; The Day of the Jackal.

I'm liking The Wages of Destruction but it has made me drag out my old monetary policy textbook. I was never that great at monetary policy and the first chapter is all about the Weimar Republic and international monetary policy.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Finished Diplomacy and the Making of World Politics, edited by Ole Jacob Sending, Vincent Pouliot, and Iver B. Neumann. The thesis of the book is that while states create diplomacy, it is also true that diplomacy creates states. The latter is not recognized by most International Relations scholarship. It explores this thesis by exploring the interactions of diplomacy with and within international law, war, governance, permanent representation, Christian actors, economic consultancy, and US military relations.

Started Using Antibodies: A Laboratory Manual by Edward Harlow. Self-explanatory.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I recommend Ready Player One if I haven't already.

 

[Takhisis]

I'm reading through James Clavells' Whirlwind. Wowee, this is a fast book.

 

[JohannaK]

It's in the name, isn't it?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation - by Sylvia Federici.

Really incredible book that ties together the formation of capitalist patriarchy (that is, patriarchy in the specific form it takes under capitalism) and primitive accumulation (the influx of new capital gained through Enclosures, enslavement, and property seizures in the hinterland) during the formation and rise of the capitalist mode of production in the 15-17th centuries. Absolutely necessary reading for historians of this period as well as anyone interested in feminism or LGBT history.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Finishing off Facing East: A Pilgrim's Journey into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy, the chronicle of a year in the life of a small Antiochian mission. Along the way, the author describes her conversion to Orthodoxy, and delves into its beliefs and practices.

After this it will be Demonic Males.