Which Book Are You Reading Now? Volume XII

[warpus]

I'm on page 747 (out of 981 I think) of Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star. I hope to finish it in the next 3 weeks, after which I depart to Nepal. Which is very doable, but my reading schedule can be unpredictable.

My upcoming dilemma is that there will be a lot of downtime on my 16 day long hike. Even though the sequel to the book I'm reading has 700+ pages, I will probably end up finishing it before the hike is complete. So I need another book, and maybe even more. At the same time I don't want to add a lot of weight, since we're hiking in high altitudes, so I am pretty sure I am going to borrow my dad's KOBO ebook reader.

It's probably the right decision even though I have a tradition of always having a paperback sci-fi novel with me on my trip. I end up associating the trip with the book or the author, such as New Zealand being when I first read a Iain M. Banks novel. On my Bruce peninsula hike the current book I'm reading got really beat up. Each time I pick it up I think back to that hike. So I really enjoy this aspect of my tradition, but in this case I might have to bring an ebook reader... but also bring a thin sci-fi paperback, so that my tradition can continue.

Which brings me to two questions.. What's the best way to buy books to put on my dad's Kobo? He's got 30+ free classics on there somehow, like Tom Sawyer, Moby Dick, etc. and I like having that there. But I'm not sure yet if it's on his account or whatever. I'm assuming I'm going to have to make my own account if I want to buy books and put them on the reader? Remember that I'm in Canada, so it might be different here, but the American way of doing things (or the European) might be a good start anyway.

I own a couple short paperbacks I could bring, but I wonder if anyone would recommend one. Currently I'm looking at Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradybury, or the Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon. But only because I own them and they are thinner than the books around them.. not necessarily because I might enjoy reading them. That has yet to be determined, but if anyone wants to recommend anything short, go ahead!

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I had a Kobo tablet reader, didn't make much use of the Indigo store. Wouldn't that be the most integrated way to put books on there?

 

[Virote_Considon]

Dionysus: Myth an Cult by Walter Otto.

I've been reading it on/off since the summer.

It's a good read for anyone interested in ancient theology.

 

[tjs282]

I'm on page 747 (out of 981 I think) of Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star. I hope to finish it in the next 3 weeks, after which I depart to Nepal. Which is very doable, but my reading schedule can be unpredictable.

My upcoming dilemma is that there will be a lot of downtime on my 16 day long hike. Even though the sequel to the book I'm reading has 700+ pages, I will probably end up finishing it before the hike is complete. So I need another book, and maybe even more.

Which of PFH's other books have you read? If you can do Judas Unchained in <16 days, then any one of the (unconnected) Greg Mandel series (Mindstar Rising, A Quantum Murder, The Nano Flower) could make up the balance; although the last one is about the same length as JU, the first two are both considerably shorter. Fallen Dragon is also shorter, and a standalone.

At the same time I don't want to add a lot of weight

Oh well, maybe not a PFH book then...

, since we're hiking in high altitudes, so I am pretty sure I am going to borrow my dad's KOBO ebook reader.

Which brings me to two questions.. What's the best way to buy books to put on my dad's Kobo? He's got 30+ free classics on there somehow, like Tom Sawyer, Moby Dick, etc. and I like having that there. But I'm not sure yet if it's on his account or whatever. I'm assuming I'm going to have to make my own account if I want to buy books and put them on the reader?

Don't know about buying eBooks, but ProjectGutenberg has a whole bunch of no-longer-in-copyright classics for DL, free of charge -- might even be where the classic stuff on your dad's Kobo came from: I got all the above, plus a whole raft of HG Wells' books, from there. I DL'd the PG ebook-files to our [WinXP] laptop, then USB-cabled them across to my Sony eReader.

(The eReader installed its library-management software the first time I connected it to the laptop, and did it again later without protest when I connected it to my [Win8.1] desktop; I would assume that the Kobo does the same.)

You need to create a user-account at the PG-site, but that doesn't put any obligation on you to contribute to the Project yourself (e.g. transcribing new texts, or editing uploaded texts), or even use it on a regular basis. Nor have I had (much) spam as a result of signing up, as far as I can tell (in ~5 years, I've only had one spam-mail referring directly to my PG-nickname).

If you're a member of your local library, you might also be able to borrow ebooks from them -- ever since she got her eReader, my wife has done this prior to every major vacation. She connects it directly to the library's website over our home WLAN (it has a built-in browser, and I would assume the Kobo does as well), DL's an ebook(s) with an expiry-date, and when that date is reached, the file wipes itself (or at least, becomes inaccessible).

Remember that I'm in Canada, so it might be different here, but the American way of doing things (or the European) might be a good start anyway. I own a couple short paperbacks I could bring, but I wonder if anyone would recommend one. Currently I'm looking at Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradybury, or the Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon. But only because I own them and they are thinner than the books around them.. not necessarily because I might enjoy reading them. That has yet to be determined, but if anyone wants to recommend anything short, go ahead!

I read Dandelion Wine, and remember enjoying it. It's very Bradburyish, though, if you know what I mean -- not so much sci-fi, more kinda whimsical small-town American fantasy (Stephen King without the cuss-words and gruesome?).

 

[Quintillus]

I haven't read Gibbon, but know of the very negative comment about him by Napoleon. Apparently many current historian also dislike him.
Napoleon noted that Gibbon is "barking".

I don't know what "barking" is supposed to mean; the tone of the work thus far is quite steady and level. Perhaps it would make more sense after I read more, in greater context, or in French. Then again, as a person who was building the largest empire in Europe ruled by a single person since the time of Rome, I could also see Napoleon seeing some of Gibbon's citations of why Rome fell being applicable to his empire as well, and thus not exactly being the most neutral commentator.

To be sure, we have learned a lot about Rome, particularly through archaeology, since the late 1700s. But the edition I am reading does have corrections of errors, as well of notes of where subsequent discoveries have rendered the knowledge of Gibbon's time obsolete, in the footnotes. Gibbon himself also has extensive bibliographies and more detailed explanations of events in the footnotes.

So while there may be more modern and complete histories of Rome, it still will be by far the most detailed history I've read on the Imperial period, and I would have to read many, many more primary sources to formulate an informed alternative opinion on the causes of the decline and fall (which the bibliography would make a great starting point for).

I welcome suggestions of a widely-accepted-as-superior alternative, with the disclaimer that with over 1500 pages to go I'm not likely to get around to another general history of the Imperial period soon (but this one's also been on the list a long time, so maybe someday).

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Which brings me to two questions.. What's the best way to buy books to put on my dad's Kobo? He's got 30+ free classics on there somehow, like Tom Sawyer, Moby Dick, etc. and I like having that there. But I'm not sure yet if it's on his account or whatever. I'm assuming I'm going to have to make my own account if I want to buy books and put them on the reader? Remember that I'm in Canada, so it might be different here, but the American way of doing things (or the European) might be a good start anyway.

In Canada, Kobo has an app for your PC and you can download books to it and connect your Kobo and it will sync them with your Kobo. It's probably best to use your dad's account to load books, because I think the Kobos are locked to the machine the app is first installed on. Some stupid DRM thing, like Adobe Digital Editions, which I'm pretty sure can also be used to load a book on a Kobo. ADE is definitely locked to the device. I know this because I use it to load books on my tablet. Pretty sure it does Kobos too, but I think the Kobo app was easier (when I had a Kobo).

 

[Paul in Saudi]

(All in all, I am stalled on a travelogue. I wanted something lighter, but the recent news has just been too upsetting.)

 

[warpus]

Which of PFH's other books have you read? If you can do Judas Unchained in <16 days, then any one of the (unconnected) Greg Mandel series (Mindstar Rising, A Quantum Murder, The Nano Flower) could make up the balance; although the last one is about the same length as JU, the first two are both considerably shorter. Fallen Dragon is also shorter, and a standalone.Oh well, maybe not a PFH book then...

I will look into all of those, thanks!

I'm not really sure how much reading I'll do, but from everyone is telling me, there is a lot of downtime when walking uphill, so for the first 12 days of the hike. And a bunch of that will be spent socializing.. but it seems it will not be hard to find 2-4 hours of reading time each day. There's also acclimatization days, during which I will have even more free time, and a week of vacation time left after the hike is complete. If it rains, that's a lot of reading time right there. So I should come prepared and not just bring 1 book or even just 2 books. Thus the e-book reader, etc.

Pandora's Star is the first PFH book I've ever read. So far I am into his style, but there are a couple things about it which might make me want to switch to a different author after I'm done with JU. We'll see though, overall I like the characters in PS, even if the dialogue seems lacking at times, and I really like the setting and where the story is currently going.

If you're a member of your local library, you might also be able to borrow ebooks from them -- ever since she got her eReader, my wife has done this prior to every major vacation. She connects it directly to the library's website over our home WLAN (it has a built-in browser, and I would assume the Kobo does as well), DL's an ebook(s) with an expiry-date, and when that date is reached, the file wipes itself (or at least, becomes inaccessible).I read Dandelion Wine, and remember enjoying it. It's very Bradburyish, though, if you know what I mean -- not so much sci-fi, more kinda whimsical small-town American fantasy (Stephen King without the cuss-words and gruesome?).

I checked out what sort of sci-fi my city's library has available for ebook readers, and there really isn't much. A mix of predictable classics and franchise spinoffs, for the most part. Not very impressive.

Dandelion Wine doesn't sound like my sort of thing, but maybe it's time to mix things up a bit.. I will pull it off my bookshelf and read the back at least and see if it feels right or not

In Canada, Kobo has an app for your PC and you can download books to it and connect your Kobo and it will sync them with your Kobo. It's probably best to use your dad's account to load books, because I think the Kobos are locked to the machine the app is first installed on. Some stupid DRM thing, like Adobe Digital Editions, which I'm pretty sure can also be used to load a book on a Kobo. ADE is definitely locked to the device. I know this because I use it to load books on my tablet. Pretty sure it does Kobos too, but I think the Kobo app was easier (when I had a Kobo).

Interesting, thanks for all the details. I am hanging out with the parents this weekend for Thanksgiving, giving me the perfect opportunity to play around with the device

 

[tjs282]

Pandora's Star is the first PFH book I've ever read. So far I am into his style, but there are a couple things about it which might make me want to switch to a different author after I'm done with JU. We'll see though, overall I like the characters in PS, even if the dialogue seems lacking at times, and I really like the setting and where the story is currently going.

I know what you mean: I like his style and vision, but his (apparent) politics not so much (I mean, he's not quite as overt as Pournelle or Heinlein, but he does sometimes come close; particularly noticeable in the GM books).

If you're enjoying PS/JU, then I'd recommend the Night's Dawn trilogy as well -- not for the hike though, each volume is a ~1200 page brick! (Well, the UK editions were -- in the original US editions, each volume was further subdivided into 2 books; not sure how it was/is published in Canada). But if that sounds like too much to bite off in one go, then he also wrote various short stories set in the Night's Dawn universe, collected and published under the title of the novella A Second Chance at Eden.

Dandelion Wine doesn't sound like my sort of thing, but maybe it's time to mix things up a bit.. I will pull it off my bookshelf and read the back at least and see if it feels right or not

I notice I failed to mention that it's also a set of short stories. Not sure whether that makes it more appropriate for the hike or less, though: you could skip any story that doesn't grab you, but doing so would effectively mean carrying surplus weight...

On topic:
Currently finishing off re-reading my old Arthur Ransome books (now about halfway through Great Northern?), prior to handing custody over to my older son. (I read Swallows and Amazons as the boys' bedtime book a couple of months back, and they both enjoyed it, but reading all 10 books aloud -- I don't have Peter Duck or Missee Lee -- isn't really a practical option; besides, he can read them faster on his own).

Next up: Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks (again).

 

[yung.carl.jung]

="Owen Glyndwr, post: 14878525, member: 144573"
Jürgen Habermas, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish

If you will, please tell me what you thought about the Foucault and Habermas. Via PM or ITT I dont care. Im hella impressed with your reading speed, I can read like ~200-400 pages a week tops (for pleasure) and something between 2000 and 3000 pages if Im under big pressure (for a paper or something)

 

[JohannaK]

I managed to half-read Habermas before I gave up. It's so dense. But it's really good too, and offers very interesting great insights.

 

[schlaufuchs]

If you will, please tell me what you thought about the Foucault and Habermas. Via PM or ITT I dont care. Im hella impressed with your reading speed, I can read like ~200-400 pages a week tops (for pleasure) and something between 2000 and 3000 pages if Im under big pressure (for a paper or something)

Hoo boy, maybe I'll get around to doing this in detail at some point. We spent literally three hours discussing precisely this this in our class meeting yesterday.

But the tl;dr is that I liked both enormously. I found Habermas's argument to be a bit causally linear for my tastes, but the nuance of the sorts of spheres of publicity that he draws are extraordinarily fascinating and compelling. I absolutely adore Foucault, and I prefer the structure of his argument more - he sketches out a number of different structural spheres that were emerging and coalescing the the same time", as opposed to Habermas's "this happened, then this happened, which caused this to happen", sort of structure. However I can also recognize that from a historical perspective Foucault tends to play rather too fast and loose with his sources to pass a more scrutinized muster in his history qua academic history as a discipline.

 

[JollyRoger]

 

[Dachs]

I haven't read Gibbon, but know of the very negative comment about him by Napoleon. Apparently many current historian also dislike him.
Napoleon noted that Gibbon is "barking".

I don't know what "barking" is supposed to mean; the tone of the work thus far is quite steady and level. Perhaps it would make more sense after I read more, in greater context, or in French. Then again, as a person who was building the largest empire in Europe ruled by a single person since the time of Rome, I could also see Napoleon seeing some of Gibbon's citations of why Rome fell being applicable to his empire as well, and thus not exactly being the most neutral commentator.

To be sure, we have learned a lot about Rome, particularly through archaeology, since the late 1700s. But the edition I am reading does have corrections of errors, as well of notes of where subsequent discoveries have rendered the knowledge of Gibbon's time obsolete, in the footnotes. Gibbon himself also has extensive bibliographies and more detailed explanations of events in the footnotes.

So while there may be more modern and complete histories of Rome, it still will be by far the most detailed history I've read on the Imperial period, and I would have to read many, many more primary sources to formulate an informed alternative opinion on the causes of the decline and fall (which the bibliography would make a great starting point for).

I welcome suggestions of a widely-accepted-as-superior alternative, with the disclaimer that with over 1500 pages to go I'm not likely to get around to another general history of the Imperial period soon (but this one's also been on the list a long time, so maybe someday).

Gibbon wasn't "barking", and it's not that modern historians dislike him. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was a work, from long ago, written by somebody with much less information than is available today, erratic analytical skills, and a fairly large fund of obvious bias. None of that makes it something that one should not read.

It's not the optimal way for a neophyte to get into late antique history. There are many more recent works, with much better information, whose writers often employ far more logical arguments, and which are, blessedly, much shorter. A reader is much more likely to learn something valuable about late antique history from a more modern book. Even a footnoted and annotated modern edition is unlikely to take the tack of directly and repeatedly contradicting Gibbon's less cogent claims; it certainly won't contain an adequate discussion of the archaeological data on the period and the various interpretations thereof, or a decent primer to the historiography of late antiquity since Gibbon.

There are probably three main groups of people who read Gibbon. There are the people who want to be known as having Read Gibbon: they want to be able to bring up the fact that they have mastered a massive, stuffy text that is justly famous for its difficulty. There are the people who read it because it is academically valuable to them: they know the modern understanding, and they want to move forward by engaging with the historiography and the primary sources. And then there are the people who read it because they don't know any better: they're unaware that history has moved on since the eighteenth century, and that Gibbon has not been current for a very long time.

As always, I recommend that a modern reader is best served by looking at modern works. You can read the older stuff if you wish, but you'll be missing important information. It's not that only historians ought to read the older texts and primary sources - far from it. I think it's incredibly important to be able to engage with the foundation of writing on any historical subject, for anyone who is interested. The fact of the matter is, though, that tenured historians possess tools of analysis of which the casual reader is totally unaware. An example: one of the biggest divisions in the study of late antiquity in the last generation has been the so-called hospitalitas debate, which is crucially important for understanding the fifth and sixth centuries: it's about how the "barbarians" were actually settled in Roman territory. It addresses the most fundamental part of late antiquity: how did any of this happen? Different positions on the issue can lead to extremely different interpretations of the entirety of the later Empire. And yet those positions hinge on finely tuned distinctions in the usage of Latin vocabulary, abstruse late-Roman legal definitions, and an ability to engage with primary sources in the original languages. (The part about "the original languages" is important. Many of the older classical translations, especially the commercially available ones, are not very good. The Loeb English translations of most late antique works are atrocious and sometimes badly misleading - Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks comes to mind.) Almost nobody possesses these skills. Even an interested reader doesn't. The sorts of effort required to develop an informed position on the matter would effectively be the same as getting an MA in late antiquity anyway.

And this debate, for what it's worth, is basically invisible in Gibbon: he doesn't really address it at all, mainly because the issue was first raised by German and French scholars about 130 years ago.

So the most likely way for a modern reader to come to a reasonably full understanding would be to read the sorts of modern history books that cover the issue - and then work backward from there, depending on interest and ability. That's the best choice, in my opinion, and it's the one I always suggest to anybody who's interested.

But there's nothing wrong with taking a different route to the same place. If you want to read Gibbon, by all means, go ahead. If you want a good understanding of late antiquity, you should follow Gibbon up with other authors - ones who haven't been dead for two centuries.

 

[schlaufuchs]

New week, new mountain of readings to get through:

Robert Tucker ed., The Marx Engels Reader
Jon Elster, "Classes," in Making Sense of Marx
Nancy Fraser, "Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics," in Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition?
G.A. Cohen, "Fetishism," in Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence
Michael Taussig, "History as Commodity: In Some Recent American (Anthropological Literature"
Turgot, "Memorandum on Local Government"
Keith M. Baker, Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to SOcial Mathematics
Reinhart Koselleck, "'Neuzeit': Remarks on the Semantics of Historical Time"
E.J. Hundert, The Enlightenment's Fable: Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society
Keith M. Baker, "Enlightenment and the Institution of Society: Notes for a Conceptual History
Catherine A. Brekus, Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity
Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture
David Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England
Kevin Kruse, One Nation Under God

 

[JollyRoger]

 

[schlaufuchs]

Émile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society
Émile Durkheim, Suicide: A Study in Society
Arthur Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive Society
Talcott Parsons, "The Kinship System of the Contemporary United States"
Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees and Other Writings
Montesquieu, Persian Letters
Albert Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph
Modris Eksteins, Solar Dance: Van Gogh, Forgery, and the Eclipse of Certainty
Daniel Rodgers, Age of Fracture
Carl Schorske, Fin-De-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

The Routledge Companion to Alternative Organization is a series of essays about alternative approaches to societal organization other than market-oriented capitalism. Two important points made by the book are the importance of creating alternatives and that alternatives already exist alongside the orthodox structures. Some of the essays suffer from a lack of concrete detail, preferring to focus on semantics and theoreticals.

 

[Zkribbler]

I'm re-reading "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."

I'd remembered Dorothy's ruby slippers were silver, but I'd forgotten the Wicked Witch of the West was not encountered until Dorothy got to her castle, and that she had but one eye, which could act as a telescope, and that her castle was yellow.

 

[Cutlass]

Spoiler :

While I've liked this series, my feeling here is that the author makes the mistakes others have in raising the stakes of each story too far and too fast. So there's eventually no place further up to go.