*looks up from book* Oh, it’s you. *frowns slightly, returns to reading*
SugarFree
Finished Mira Grant‘s Newsflesh trilogy–Feed, Deadline, Blackout–and the various in-universe short stories collected in Rise. All the novels and a few of the shorter pieces in Rise were nominated for Hugo awards so there has been quite a bit of buzz about this series since Feed came out in 2010, but they are set in a post-zombie apocalypse and I have been suffering rather severe zombie-fatigue. Set 20 years or so after a viral zombie outbreak that killed around a 1/3 of Americans, crusading bloggers are chosen to be in the press pool for a charismatic young Senator running for President of the United States. The CDC basically runs the country through strict containment laws and thick layers of security theater. Complications on the campaign trail ensue, as they always do.
The set-up is a bit derivative, stealing a bit of Bug Jack Barron via Transmetropolitan, but Grant does a pretty good job convincing even a cynic that such a thing as a honest reporter can exist. And that a public who is trying to survive in a much more deadly world would actually care what a reporter had to say. But in a literary universe where the dead walk, some suspension of belief is required up front. And the general anti-government and individualist outlook of the work will be pleasing to the libertarian mindset.
Grant is a pseudonym for Seanan McGuire, who also publishes under her real name. The Newsflesh material is her one big hit and the in-universe short stories show her milking it for all it’s worth, and as a result the stories are generally-enjoyable-shading-to-disposable. But, overall, I look forward to reading more of her work.
jesse.in.mb
Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day: Always looking to up my baking game a bit, especially since the doctor I work for (a former professional chef) was convinced by his partner to get back into baking. I was actually led to Reinhart by Warty suggesting I make a struan. That shit’s tasty, yo. Artisan Breads Every Day does a solid job of simplifying some of the techniques he presented in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice although I’d like more details on prepping a wet sourdough starter into a stiffer biga or pâte fermentée. It’s times like this I was working with a paper book so I could math in the margins.
Ender’s Game Alive: A solid full-cast recording of Ender’s Game, I listened to this while frittering time in a Tucson hotel. It’s been a long-ass time since I read Ender’s Game and it made me want to try reading Speaker for the Dead again, but I remember picking it up getting bored as fuck and putting it back down almost immediately last time, so maybe not. Bonus points for it being under Audible’s gratis options.
Beach Lawyer by Avery Duff: This ended up being my Kindle Firsts choice and it was ideal airplane reading. The two attractive male alpha lawyers jockeying for position plot was a bit tired, but it’s always fun reading a novel that’s set in your stomping grounds and Duff’s descriptions of locale are vivid and right on.
JW
JW is currently reading his palm…wait, that’s not reading! Jesus, dude, get a room.
Old Man With Candy
SP gifted me with a copy of Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of our Nature, which has been reviewed and discussed so many times… wait a minute, it looks like she’s talking about it below. Damn, I can’t step on her toes or I’ll be catbutted.
And I am plowing into a couple of sci fi books that SugarFree gave me, starting with Up the Line by Robert Silverberg, a time travel novel which, unlike Heinlein’s later efforts, does not involve sex with the protagonist’s mother and daughters. But there IS plenty of sex because, after all, Robert Silverberg. The writing is slick and vivid.
Riven
In our last installment, I mentioned that I was still working on cracking the cover of Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison, recommended to me by SugarFree. I have since read every book and short story in “The Hollows” series except the lately published prequel, The Turn, which I only just started yesterday morning. It was a fun and satisfying series: fantasy elements made modern, tastefully written smut scenes that only occasionally take place in bedrooms, and a bit of a who-dun-it feel. I haven’t been able to put them down since I started–even the short stories are compelling. The characters don’t always act in predictable ways (to the reader or to other characters) and wacky hijinks abound from misunderstandings, magical anomalies, and the like. You could argue that the books tend to be a little formulaic as time goes on: trouble rears its ugly head, tension builds, our plucky protagonist Rachel finds that the trouble is actually worse than we’d previously thought, but somehow, someway… everything ends up being alright. Or, y’know, especially difficult problems get carried over into the next book. Ongoing issues don’t just fade away; Harrison neatly wraps them up, sometimes in a book or three, sometimes spanning the entire series. Overall, this was a grand adventure of a series, full of capers and intrigue, a principled protagonist who stuck to her guns, and I’m sorry to see it end–even though I know it can’t go on forever, which is a lasting message from the series, itself.
Brett L.
I slogged my way through The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland and — how can I put this… Take the least interesting parts of The Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle and all of the knowledge dumping of Seveneves without the cool final two chapter payoff and that’s this book. If you have the rest of the summer to kill and don’t mind wandering through poor staging/narrator choices and far too many nerd jokes, this is a two-star effort from a five-star writer. The short, non-spoilerish version is that magic waned until a bright MIT guy invented a chamber where the quantum wave function can’t collapse (for those of you who know quantum mechanics, just stick with me here) like the Schroedinger Gedankenerfahrung that everyone has heard enough about to use as a plot device. Anyhow, time travel, not nearly enough adventure, and quasi-immortal German bankers. Its actually worse than it sounds. Seriously, don’t read it.
On the other hand, I just picked up Mark Lawrence’s latest work Red Sister, which is already better. If you’re not familiar with his post-apocalyptic, semi-magical Europe double trilogy (two trilogies telling two complete, but overlapping stories), I highly recommend them. Look for a more complete review next month.
SP
This month I’m deep into The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker. I’ve followed Pinker for many years on edge.org and he’s always fascinating.
Also reading The Haywire Heart by Chris Case, John Mandrola MD (an electrophysiologist I follow online), and Lennard Zinn. This is a very interesting look at how intense physical training can bring on arrhythmias in endurance athletes as they age. (I don’t personally need to worry about this particular problem.)
And, YEA!, the new Scot Harvath novel, Use of Force, from Brad Thor arrived. You should get it.
sloopyinca
Sloop is reading The Neverending Story and contemplating Xeno’s paradox.
Gojira
Gojira gets enough fiction from movies, and is currently re-reading one of his top 3 favorite non-fiction books, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia.
Heroic Mulatto
Summer reading for an upcoming project:
Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems and Natural Language Processing with Python: Analyzing Text with the Natural Language Toolkit.
WebDominatrix
I am currently re-reading The Dictator’s Handbook, which has shifted the way I approach business and marketing, as I’ve seen a lot similarities in the business world.
I’m also reading Hit Makers about how trends happen.
Comments
240 responses to “What are we reading? June 2017”
No ‘Handmaiden’s Tale’? Get woke, you guys
Honestly, all the hype surrounding it has kept me from reading OR watching it…
Handmaiden’s Tale? Read it many, many years ago when it first came out. I’ve always thought Atwood was over-rated, and this book (the last one of hers I’ve ever read) confirmed it for me.
On the other hand, there are some books from the “canon” of Canadian authors that I still think are wildly under-rated, such as W. O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen The Wind. Apparently they don’t study that novel in Canadian schools any more, and that’s a huge shame.
I jest.
I don’t need to read it. I live it every time I go outside in DRUMPFS MURRIKKKA. Women used as chattel breeding stock, fundamentalist shitlord men raping everything in sight (the chattel women, mother Gaia, minorities). Public executions of harlots and fags. Who needs fiction when reality is so much worse?
You forgot “blacks getting shot over things that white people do every day with impunity, and also hatred of poor people because in the American mind poor=black.” You also forgot “still segregated education system but now it’s called Charter Schools”.
Conversation I witnessed yesterday evening…
I’m sorry you had to experience that.
Why read that when you can read this amazing takedown about how the author is a self-righteous elitist?
Dayum!
Yeah, that’s a good ‘un. Doin’ God’s work, that guy is.
Meh, just read “If This Goes On.”
I’ve read “The Handmaid’s Tale” is it anything like that?
Continuing to slowly digest a series of Randy Wayne White pulp guilty pleasure novels to decompress. Just finished Everglades and Tampa Burn….the latter even uses the term “libertarian” once in the book, and some members of a marina community get together to sink a police boat because the municipality wasn’t paying its marina fees. Starting Dead of Night over the holiday weekend.
I’m Poppy.
I am Ms. Horseshoe.
Webdominatrix just became my favorite Glibertarian Overlord. “Dictators” is great.
Riven’s gonna have to step up if she wants to regain the laurel wreath.
Well, she’s one of my favorites, too… I’d let her overlord over me, if you nomsayin
Also, I’m just generally more inclined to use this as a reference guide before I’d go for that. Just a personal preference.
I actually experienced an “If you sit by the bank of a river, you will see the body of your enemy float by” moment earlier this month when our head of HR was canned.
I have a quite large library of *those* kinds of books that I have found helpful. Just to soften my image, I am also a user of Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies on Android (and iPhone, I guess).
That must have been sooooo satisfying. I’m glad you’ve been freed from someone who was a pain in the ass–especially since you didn’t have to do it, yourself.
And you don’t have to soften your image for my sake. You know what they say… Take it easy; if it’s hard, take it twice. 😉
…. I’ll be in my bunk…
*sigh*
I remember, an album by The Nice I think it was “The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack”. Good album, notable for its idiosyncratic vocalist. There was a ‘bridge’ between two tracks, of the following spoken sentence.
“If you think sex is a pain in the ass, you must be doing it wrong”.
It always seemed so subversive and outrageously rude to me then. Now, I wonder what a listener’s reflexive response to it would be.
“You need to toss his salad first”
or
“Needs more lube. Footage at 10.00”
I absolutely loved The Nice- saw them on a US tour. Their take on the Intermezzo from the Karelia Suite still gives me goosebumps. I think that album had Cry of Eugene on it, a great song.
You must be ooooooold.
I do, in fact!
I’m flattered! The bar is high.
Hop on Pop is not as good as I remembered it being. It was one of my favorites as a wee lad.
I think I saw that one last night on SpiceTV.
I prefer Fox in Sox
One of the simplest of life’s pleasures was watching my wife try to read Fox in Socks to our then 2 year old daughter while sloppy drunk.
“Buns on Nuns” was curiously appropriate for Thicc Thursday.
I’m reading Shattered. It’s the book about Hillary’s 2016 campaign and let me tell you, that shit is hilarious. Whatever you think about Trump, this book sort of confirms whether that was the author’s intentions or not, that Clinton should not be anywhere close to power.
I concur with Ed on Shattered. I read it in May and enjoyed it immensely. As bad as DT might prove to be over his term in office Shattered confirms that the US just escaped the nightmare of Clinton in power. The schadenfreude comes easily with this book since the authors were and are HRC (PBUH) supporters and even they can’t answer the simple question “Why did Clinton want to be President?”
The answer is simple to anyone who’s been paying attention – ego. She wanted to be the first woman president. She wanted a statue on the Mall, a place in the herstory books, and to be worshiped and adored. The difference between her and the others that have statues on the Mall is that they wanted to accomplish things and the statue was an outcome of that. For her, it was the endgame.
She had money and she had fame.
Reading “Reflections on the Revolution in France”, since Burke’s sentiments are now subversive. What strange times we live in
Yeah, never thought I’d live long enough to be considered a subversive. And all this time, all I had to do was move to the Lower Rainland™ and express my usual opinions in public!
Today, the radical reads National Review and defends orthodoxy. The conformist reads Rolling Stones and ascribes to relativism. Madness
For every pendulum swing, a counterswing.
Well, you hang out here with a bunch of antisocial reprobates rather than posting overlong half-literate screeds under Salon or Politico articles, so… subversive seems to be baked in.
Cradle to Stage. The book Dave Grohl’s mom wrote about mothers of famous musicians.
Any MILFs?
Just finished “Men Without Women” by Haruki Murakami. It’s ok, though I continue to be rather disappointed with his more recent stuff. 1Q84 was, IMO, a total failure. It was desperately in need of an editor with an actual set of balls. It struck as though the editors were cowed by “He’s legendary! We can’t cut this stuff because it’s obviously so good we don’t understand its value!” Colorless Tsukuru was pretty good though.
Just started “The Kite Runner”. So far, so good.
I’ve been reading reviews of Democracy in Chains
http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2017/06/nancy-maclean-either-grossly-incompetent-liar/
They’re hilarious. Here are a couple more for you:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/06/28/does-democracy-in-chains-paint-an-accurate-picture-of-james-buchanan/?utm_term=.a92c71ade0f1
https://medium.com/@russroberts/nancy-maclean-owes-tyler-cowen-an-apology-e6277ee75eb3
Munger’s review is book-length in itself. Longer than her endnotes, anyway xD
this was the most comprehensive IMO
http://www.libertylawsite.org/2017/06/27/six-degrees-of-jim-buchanan/
its not unusual for people to write horseshit, exaggerated/hyperbolic claims about libertarians/libertarianism; i think what’s insulting about this particular example of the form is that it doesn’t really even try to hide its blatant dishonesty. its so assured of a generous reception by the usual suspects, that they don’t even bother to be subtle in their mendacity.
she literally takes quotes and removes words to make them mean the opposite of what was obviously intended in context. and the core claim of the book – that buchanan was influenced by Calhoun – has literally no evidence at all. Its basically made up out of thin air.
As was said in the previous thread, if someone in academia had written anything like this about mainstream republicans or democrats, they’d likely have their careers ruined overnight.
Because its about libertarians, academic fraud isn’t just excused, its celebrated as ‘fresh and exciting scholarship’.
Random sentence in the Slate post that caught my eye:
Just wow
“We applied science and found that libertarians are in fact Hitler”
This may be off-topic, but this is a reason why I’m sympathetic to the Austrian’s praxeology methodology. We can use ‘studies’ to prove any result that we want it to. Logic alone proves assertions. Buchanan’s assertion is logical, whereas Slate’s contention is nonsensical, but backed-up by ‘studies’.
No, its not off topic. I agree and that’s the point i was making.
the assertion that “this data says” X is not an argument. Of course “some other people” exist who will try to claim the opposite and bring tortured stats to their cause. that doesn’t amount to any rebuttal.
Based on the reviews I’ve read, she’s really fallen into the confirmation bias trap. Even her selective editing of quotes suggests, to me, that she knew what her conclusions would be and read everything through that lens.
too-generous. she’s a 2-bit liar and an academic fraud.
And she’s still safe in her job. Tenured full professor with an endowed chair.
On the other hand, I just picked up Mark Lawrence’s latest work Red Sister, which is already better. If you’re not familiar with his post-apocalyptic, semi-magical Europe double trilogy (two trilogies telling two complete, but overlapping stories), I highly recommend them.
Same here. The second trilogy shows a flair for humor – the protagonist is clearly inspired by Flashman, and at one point (accurately) describes the protagonist of the first trilogy as “Five feet, six inches of pure murder.” Enjoyed Red Sister, as well.
HM, I will be very interested in your appraisal of the Python book. I have an NLP project coming up and am looking for good tools.
Just finished Shadowrealm.
Now back to making my way through Spencer’s Faerie Queen.
For a few seconds I imagined a youtube interview on Folsom Street between an Alt-Right guy and one of the locals.
Awww. I kind of miss that kind of conservative scandal journalism. Although 1950s Congressional testimony is always my favorite.
BE AFRAID, SQUARE, OR YOU MIGHT END UP AT A RUG AND FAIRY PARTY WITH A BULL-DICKER.
The Pink Scare eh?
Lavender Menace
Although now I can’t remember if that was just the lesbian invasion of feminism that was happening in the late ’50s and early ’60s.
I guarantee Mr. Miller of Nebraska went home and masturbated furiously onto the chest of a young boy after he got done with his speech.
They have lay Jesuits in Nebraska?
Dark. Funny, but dark.
I don’t know Jesse, would you say that government has gotten better or worse than the 60’s? Huh? Huh?
What did you think?
I really gotta get on that Bodanis book that was released many moons ago.
“Sloop is […] contemplating Zeno’s paradox.”
Just because there are an infinite number of steps to count, doesn’t mean we have to sit there and actually count them.
if you count each half step twice as fast as the prvious, you still complete.
If by twice as fast, you mean in half the time, then I don’t see how that works.
Shadow Boy, Tai-Pan and the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Tai-Pan
*’spergs out*
Noble House and Shogun weren’t bad either. Gai Jin was substandard, I thought.
I was also quite impressed with Whirlwind, because elements of it are more documentary than fiction.
I read Sho-gun last month. I’m reading the Asian saga in internal chronological order instead of release date.
Oh, and King Rat which is slightly autobiographical.
Spot-on about Gai-Jin. Even as a Clavell fanboy teenager I was pretty disappointed. Whirlwind is my favorite, all things considered. Maybe it’s just more applicable due to recent history, maybe because helicopters are just cooler than junks and cutters.
NO SPOILERS!!! Just kidding. By the time I get to it, I’ll have forgotten what you’ve said.
Not a spoiler as such (unless you’re incapable of reading Amazon blurbs) but I worked with people who had to get out of Iran in ’79. If the story looks truthy, it’s because it is.
One guy who was a Schlumberger engineer when I knew him had been about an hour ahead of the Revolutionary Guard and managed to bribe his way out of of the country – via the Soviet Union. Many of the events depicted in the story were loosely based on real incidents. I also like books with strict ‘timestamps’ (which is odd, because I thought ’24’ was a snooze)
Makes sense. John Blackthorne was based on William Adams, I think.
And Struans’ in Noble House is a combination of a number of European hongs, most prominantly Swires.
No doubt Dirk Struan is based on someone.
Pretty much everyone in Shogun has a historical equivalent of some kind, to the point where I wonder why he didn’t just say it was historical fiction.
I read this stuff in high school and liked it, as an adult I am not so sure
Well, it’s not high art. But it’s somewhat better than “Flowers in the Attic” or 50 Shades.
Halfway through re-reading Otherland, four door-stoppers about a nefarious plot to trap folks in VR. Afterwards I may venture into Uncivil’s twisted world.
If you like the concept of being trapped in a VR world, check out ‘Sword Art Online’
Yup, just finished season 2. I thought season 1 was much better.
Thank you, same here.
Recommending Sword Art Online has been deemed a crime against humanity by the Hague.
*cast fairy spell against JT*
You people are what’s wrong with anime, and why we’ve gone from mechas and badass chicks with guns to harems and moe.
Tenchi Muyo would like a word.
Muyo existed in a healthy, balanced market. Now the market is flooded with shitty self-insert fan fiction about multi-talented nerd Marty Sues who get all the chicks because all the good writers work on video games where they actually get paid now.
Modern anime even managed to make Berserk shitty, I don’t even know how that’s possible.
Only good harem anime is Ranma 1/2 because everyone is a douchebag making everyone else miserable.
Yes, young one, let the hate flow through you! Embrace your destiny!
You were supposed to save the anime, not destroy it!
Always two there are, a seme and an uke.
The first and third storylines are pure gold. The second and fourth…. well we can just ignore those.
I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Child AIDS. That is all.
I would recommend to Jessie.in.mb to read the Enders Shadow books if he wants more like Enders Game. The books staring Ender are largeky just Sci Fi books made marketable by having the Ender character. The Enders Shadow books continue the plot with all the other battle school kids. I had an Orson Scott card faze in high school so I read most of the Ender stuff. It’s been awhile but I remember those being better than the official sequels. I’ve been reading Splinter of the Minds Eye an old Star Wars novel recently.
The books with Bean as the protagonist were far more satisfying and less preachy.
Yeah. I’ve had other people tell me the same. I really like the concept of Speaker for the Dead, but I just don’t love Card’s writing enough for it to hook me. If I didn’t jump back into the Enderverse again it’d be fine, which is disappointing because I did really enjoy Ender’s Game when I first read it.
That is an excellent observation, that jives with my personal experience quite well. I absolutely loved Ender’s Game, and devoured it in 2 days. Then I moved on to Speaker for the Dead, which took a couple of weeks to go through, with a much less satisfying plot, and effectively killed my desire to continue in the series. I haven’t read anything else in that series since.
Exactly the same here. Then I tried another series and realized it’s a thinly-veiled Mormon historical and revolted.
That would be the Alvin Maker series? Yeah, every time he tries to make money off of being a Mormon, he writes dreck. I read Seventh Son in high school, and barely got through it. Years later, I tried his Memory of Earth and was surprised the church didn’t sue him for copyright infringement. The plot is a direct lift from the Book of Mormon, moved from 600BC Jerusalem to a space colony.
I read Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, just to give the series a chance, and I just wanted to identify as a Deus in Machina, fly in, and drop a thermobaric bomb on Ender’s pointy, annoying head. I’m sure if I’d dreamed it, Ender would have ben played by Tom Cruise.
Friends don’t let friends read the whole Ender Cycle – unless they’re drunk, stoned, or somehow biologically ‘enhanced’ to avoid wanting to commit seppuku.
The Shadow series is pretty good but it’s not quite the same as Ender’s Game (then again, what is?). My only real complaint about the Shadow series is Card pushing his anti-gay attitudes (apparently, gay men yearn for the satisfaction of being with a woman, they just don’t know it yet).
Card’s short fiction comes up a bit on a few of the Audible podcasts I follow and I enjoy the shit out of his short work.
Have you ever read his reviews? He may actually be UnCivilServant.
It does sound good, but yeah, I don’t wanna get burned by another mediocre NS book. My problem with him is I like his good books sooo much that the rest can’t possibly measure up.
King of the Vagabonds: The Adventures of Half-Cocked Jack would be must watch on Netflix or HBO.
quasi-immortal German bankers
So… does Enoch pop his head up?
I agree. I think part of the problem is that Stephenson has gotten to that success level where his editors don’t bother to tell him how to tighten up his writing. He’s always been bad about infodumps, but there have been several points where several pages or chapters could have been cut and it wouldn’t have affected the story in any way.
I’m also reading Hands On Machine Learning. The tools currently available for that blow my mind.
Although I’m loosing interest since it is increasingly looking like I’ll not be taking on any machine learning projects for the foreseeable future. Guess I should finish it off, but anything programming related is hard for me without a motivating example.
Oooo, I’ll look for that. Love Silverberg. And I’ve only read maybe a dozen out of however many hundreds he’s written.
Yeah, re-reading Tom O’Bedlam put me on a Silverberg kick again.
If you haven’t tried anything out of Silverburg’s Majipoor series, do. Fine stuff.
I’ve read the first one only. Been meaning to continue it!
Thorns
Tower of Glass
The Comglomeroid Cocktail Party
Nightwings
Downward to the Earth
Gilgamesh
Roma Eterna
I could go on and on with Silverberg
Actually reading Atlas Shrugged…. for the first time
I’ve started it many times. never finished it, but I’ve done an unabridged audiobook of it twice.
IT HAD THE WHOLE SPEECH (you’ll understand)
Ignore the comments below, with one exception (reference by #6), it reads fine.
But, WHEN YOU GET TO THE SPEECH, read about 10 pages then skip ahead 50 or so to the end.
You will know when you get to THE SPEECH.
Cliff’s Notes on “The Speech”:
A IS A
OK?
The speech isn’t that bad, shorter than what everbody portrays it as. From what people have said I expected something as mindnumblingly boring as the journey through Mordor in LOTR. It’s fine. Really.
Get back to us in a few months and tell us how it was.
Next month you can tell us “It was good, but every time I saw and open quote I just started flipping until I found the close quote.”
I got about a hundred pages in some years ago and gave up.
I didn’t even try to read it. Listened to it instead as an unabridged audiobook. It was years ago, my car GPS at the time supported audible, so it was even convenient.
Sounds ghastly. I am a Bastiat libertarian not an Ayn Rand one so I will probably never read that.
I should probably read that at some point.
I was leafing through Alarms and Diversions by James Thurber the other night.
I was going to re-read Hell’s Angels by Hunter S Thompson, but I cannot find the damn thing. I thought I knew where it was. Still looking.
Snort some ether – maybe that’ll jolt your memory.
I can hear Benchley’s My Ten Years in a Quandary, and How They Grew calling to me from the shelf over there.
I’m reading “The World That Never Was”.
I’m not reading anything I haven’t read before (I like to re-read my favorites periodically) so I’ll just say that I’m starting to understand why you Texas people here hate Dallas so much
I’ve been reading Mecca: the Sacred City by Ziauddin Sardar. One of the main impressions I got is that by and large, some of the more prominent negative characteristics placed upon Muslims by others — hypocrisy, anti-intellectualism, ignorance — have generally held true for Meccan residents for most of their history.
The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith
Great inside dope on the absurdity of the vegan world, by a woman who gave it up after 20 years and now eats meat. Argues that farming is a much greater ecological devastation when it leads to a sole nutritional approach, rather than allowing grazing of meat animals. Some of her ideas about saving the world are a bit silly, but overall the book is a real eye-opener, especially if you are sick of your holier-than-thou vegetarian/vegan friends.
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli
Recommended by someone on this site, it’s a bit outdated now, but a really fascinating trip around the world showing everything that goes on around the making, selling and repurposing of a simple t-shirt. The tales about how the cotton industry has influenced US international relations and trade deals are worth the price of the book alone.
Wealth, Poverty and Politics by Thomas Sowell
In what might be his last book, Sowell compares the reasons why some regions and cultures become more economically healthy than others. It’s not in the same league with The Vision of the Anointed and some of his other best work, but for crying out loud, the guy wrote this in his mid-80s! He still has a formidable grasp of the truths of economics that seem to escape so many other noteworthy types, especially a certain NY Times columnist Nobel laureate, for example.
I find it annoying that the whole save the animals or save the planet are starting to influence what should be medical questions of how healthy is meat. There is already to much bias in medical research to introduce even more.
Just finished Lem’s Solaris on a loooong flight. Reading 1) McPhee’s Annals of a Former World and 2) Carthage Must be Destroyed by Miles and 3) Anne Hillerman’s Spider Woman’s Daughter. McPhee writes about the geology, history and series of geologists transecting I-80 from coast to coast. It starts in NYC and ends along the San Andreas fault. It deservedly won the Pulitzer and can be read in chaunks for your favorite parts of the continent. Miles writes of the history of Carthage and the wars with Rome from a Carthaginian perspective. It would help if the Carthaginians used more than 4 names for everybody. Hillerman is the first book by Tony Hillerman’s daughter with her dad’s cast of characters. The book is set in the 4-Corners area and she did well with the 2d book so now I am catching up.
I read “Carthage Must be Destroyed”. I liked it, and yes, the names got to be a pain.
Mc Phee is a fantastic writer, try Suspect Terraine, yes the spelling is correct
Is “Starting strength” by Rippetoe worth buying?
Short answer: yes.
Seconded.
Ordered from Amazon. Thanks.
Meh people either love or hate Rippetoe, but I think starting strength is worth a read.
Yes.
It’s way more info than you will want, but the lift instructions are good and it has some common mistakes people make and how to correct them.
He gives great advice, just don’t fall into the cult. Their message boards can be almost as derpy as DU but for different reasons. Someone posts that they have a chronic knee or back injury and can’t do squats; is there an alternative? Responses range from “You wouldn’t get injured if your form didn’t suck you worthless newb!” to “IF YOU DON’T DO SQUATS YOU ARE NOT ONE OF US! YOU ARE NOTHING!”
It’s like anything else, take works for you and ignore the rest.
Absolutely, yes. … But I’d probably say that about anything Rippetoe wrote /swoon
Wish I had the time to read. I mostly read history. I was reading Snow and Steel by Peter Caddick-Adams. It’s a heavily in depth read on the battle of the bulge. But then I decided I don’t enjoy free time, so I became a dad. I was 1/4 into the book but what I read so far was interesting.
Read on the toilet. Everybody poops. In fact, that should be the first book you read.
That and at bed-down time when they won’t get to sleep without you in the room, but don’t want to be entertained.
If they do want to be entertained, just read the book. It’s not like they’ll try and contradict you.
Ha! I hate to even admit this but I’ve been revisiting the “Little House on the Prairie” books. Sure it’s made for adolescents with easy writing, but it is about self-sufficiency and is quite libertarian-ish in place. Also I like to read something calm before I hit the sack.
Also reading the third book in the “Omega Series” – Ship of the Dead – by John Campbell. It’s pretty much popcorn writing – easy to read and a little predictable – and yes zombie books are getting stale, But again, with my latest levels of stress with work and the whole adoption thing, I don’t need anything with a lot of twists and turns.
So, anything by Ellroy is totes out, brah.
quite libertarian-ish
Since Rose Wilder Lane either ghost wrote them or heavily edited them, you can probably drop the “quite” and “ish”.
well yeah… but I don’t want to start arguing the point.
Doherty has a good section on both of them in Radicals for Capitalism.
correction – second book. I bought books 1-3 but wasn’t interested enough to continue the series after finishing the third. Just Found book 2 under the sofa last week 🙂 so started re-reading it.
It was too bad that they made the Little House TV show, because that became the way many people thought about the book series, and dismissed them without ever reading them. I read the first few books of the series while in elementary school (long before there was a TV show) and really loved them, especially the first, Little House in the Big Woods (coincidentally, we’re about to head off to Wisconsin today for the long weekend, to an area not far from where this book is set). What was so cool reading these, what still sticks with me 50 or so years later, were the descriptions of homesteading, how every day was a constant labor to ensure the house was safe and intact, and to store food and supplies for the always-coming winter. The descriptions of making salt pork and other storage foods, in a time long before refrigeration or supermarkets, was always interesting, as was the father’s relentless struggle to find work. There was one book where they lived in a house made of mud, which definitely inspired backyard fort-makers like me.
Now you’re making me want to read them again. I like the idea of something calming before bed.
I loved those books in middle school. Also the Louisa May Alcott Little Women series.
Hey! I recently read the safety instructions seat pamphlet for an Airbus A320!
*pats JW on head, smiles condescendingly*
It’s not outside the realm of possibility that you’re the only person in the Western world who has read the AirBus safety instructions. Good on ya, mate.
I thought the EU labor rules meant it was written by sixteen people in eastern france.
*raises hand sheepishly*
Yeah, not the the only one. I read the instructions cards and listen to safety brief/video.
Not the airbus, but when I used to fly a LOT in the 90’s, some of the long-haul flights had me reading the ingredients on toothpaste boxes.
I’m sure with a little thought, I’d be able to remember who printed the Boeing evac instructions.
Was it like this?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tyler-Durden-Fight-Club-Airplane-Project-Mayhem-Safety-Postcard-Business-Card-/350578513205
I finished the Legacy of Gird omnibus by Elizabeth Moon. It’s pretty good, but I didn’t have the boner with Paksenarion trilogy most people did (women in fantasy army? great, gods made the differences between sexes smaller than in our world – done, go hack), so seeing the ancient history of the same world was cool.
Read Shadowrealm, so now I’m rereading starting with Shadowboy, I know I missed a bunch of references to previous books. It was good, but damn, Doctor Omicron makes every other villain look like a pathetic worm. Nothing like old school, I guess.
And still working my way through Russia’s Last Gasp, I highly recommend the series so far, and I’m unreasonably stoked for the final book coming next year (East Europe 1917-1921? Yes, please!)
OT: Any comments from the Canuckistanis about NHL not participating in 2018 Olympics?
Meh. Didn’t care when they were in, don’t care now they’re out.
I’m continuing my quest to read the classics in 2017. I’m currently about 4/5ths of the way through Crime and Punishment, recommended to me by someone who knew Crimes and Misdemeanors was one of my favorite movies. The murder scene at the beginning is as exciting and suspenseful as any scene from a Hitchcock or Coen Brothers movie.
Since the last time we had one of these posts I’ve also read Lolita, apparently I’m sticking with the Russian authors for the time being. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it really just left me feeling sad, which I think is what he was going for. He made some comment about being inspired by an article about a Gorilla who was taught to draw, and the first thing he drew was the bars of his cage. By the time I finished, I think understood the connection. Both stories just made me really sad.
Up next I have a few Faulkner novels, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. I think that should last me through the summer.
Gaah, Sons & Lovers. I had to read that as a 17 yo hs student. Our teacher was an exchange teacher from Canada who loved DHL. She had us read a second book by him but which one escapes me for now. I’ve never touched one of his books since. Anyway, sorry for the downer on your reading list.
I read The Moor’s Last Sigh and thought, meh. One post-colonial books I loved was VS Naipaul’s Enigma of Arrival
It’s only on my reading list because it was already in the house and on a list of classics. It’s probably the one I’m least looking forward to reading.
Can I just smug-out on my latest achievement?
I’m now a fully qualified Range Safety Officer for my local club.
* Free and unlimited use of the range at any time, subject to posted schedule
* All membership fees waived
* Unlimited guests
* Now eligible for PPC classes (basically mentoring and training for IDPA etc)
* As much coffee as I want
* Personal discounts on firearms at selected local stores
And all I have to do is RO for 4 hours a month, at least 8 months a year.
Awesome. Congratulations.
Reverse Osmosis?
Guessing… Range Officer
Yep. Sorry – fell into cant over that one.
My son, #6.2 nailed it. He said “So, really, the club is only there for the benefit of the Inner Party. The Outer Party are allowed in once or twice a week, so you can get them to pay all the bills”
In short, “tax cattle”.
Smart kid.
Cool.
So!
Who’s near Connecticut?
I’m a couple hours away…
Long way to travel for a couple hours shooting followed by beer and BBQ
The people on New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
*of
Way to ruin a stupid joke with an even stupider typo.
S’ok, you’re among friends.
OK, I lied. HAARR! HAAARR!
well shit i hope you’re diligent. maybe this is just a symptom of the increased interest in firearms the past decade but the two public ranges near me are scary. maybe 10% of the people there should be either pulled aside and tightened up or banned outright.
On public and normal club nights, we have 3 ROs on at any one time. One is on the line, one’s in the chair. Nobody gets in a port alone without having had a range checkout.
But some of the commercial ranges around here are really scary. One range was completely refurbished with new acoustic baffles etc. Within a year, all the ceiling baffles had been shot out, sidewalls chopped up. Dog knows how many NDs into the concrete floor and the port walls. I won’t even go to the shop when those ranges are open.
Congrats, dude!
Can you start compiling stories and anecdotes about things that happen while you’re RO?
I’ve heard some stories that are pretty unbelievable.
I’m thinking about picking up Jack Vance’s Green Pearl trilogy again. Vance has a gift like no other writer for creating atmosphere and mood, and that’s one of my favorites of his.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00CJL58BO/kindle/ref=sr_bookseries_null_B00CJL58BO
Interesting. In the UK it’s known as the Lyonesse Trilogy. It has some great quotes. i can’t remember the names, but it went something like this:
Duke Faude Carfilhiot: “What must I do for you to desire me?”
Princess Suldrun: “Change utterly!”
That book does wonders for a mid-teen’s vocabulary by the way. Whole D&D campaigns are enlivened by the ideas in those books, and NPCs explode into three dimensions.
Worth reading too – the companion “Dying Earth” books like Cugel’s Saga. Vance was one weird dude.
Dying Earth is great stuff. If you want more of a space travel setting, Demon Princes is excellent. Really, you can hardly go wrong with Vance. Some of his very oldest stuff maybe hasn’t aged as well, but he has a huge ouevre that is consistently good.
Gotta say, without a spoiler, Cugel is one frickin’ awesome protagonist.
Especially the way that book ends.
Vance is one of my favorite authors, ever. I love how he invents cultures that are both bizarre and utterly convincing at the same time.
The thing I like about Vance (and incidentally, Ellroy) is that they’ll develop these really well-finished characters, and then kill ’em off without any compunction if it serves the plot.
Mighty king on the edge of a amassing a great empire? One slip. Dead meat. So Sad. Next!
I dated a girl who I introduced the stories to, went to her apt, she’s in tears. What’s up? I think it was one of the magicians’ familiars was flayed alive. Unexpectedly.
Oh. Honorable mention in the Vancean tradition. John Brunner’s “The Traveller in Black”
Reading “The Color of Law” about how government aided and abetted segregation in the US going all the way back to Reconstruction, but most ardently in the ’30’s.
Also just watched “Sausage Party”. Great movie for when you are high. Lots of sophomoric dick jokes and a sappy ending.
I had the opposite reaction to sausage party. It watched like “hey, instead of being clever and funny, let’s just try for absurdity and shallowness”
By “sappy ending” you mean a twisted food orgy that will haunt your nightmares until the sweet release of death.
Depends on what kind of “sap” you’re talking about.
Rule 34.
Just started “The Mandibles” by Lionel Shriver, since I saw it came out in paperback. So far interesting, different in the ‘literary apocalypse’ subgenre — that’s not a thing, but it’s sort of Handmaid’s Tale-ish, in the sense that it definitely feels more ‘lit-fic’ than SF, even though it’s a post-apocalypse scenario. Here, though, the apocalypse is a rather basic economic crash, which makes things less exciting than zombie attacks, but also therefore feels more possible than aliens or fucking global warming. But I’m only ten pages in, so we’ll see.
I also have Shattered on the table, but haven’t cracked it yet.
I’ve been revisiting the “Little House on the Prairie” books.
If you’re interested in prairie history, you might like Old Jules by Mari Sandoz, who also wrote a biography old Crazy Horse which is well worth reading.
Also on the topic of frontier life- A Majority of Scoundrels, about the early fur trade. Most excellent.
oldofI’ve read something called Lud-in-the-mist which was not bad really. Also A Planet for Texans (also published as Lone Star Planet) by Henry Beam Piper which is silly.
Currently on book 9 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, Dust of Dream.
Really enjoying it and looking forward to rereading it because I might actually understand what the hell is going on next time.
I remember stopped reading those books when the character called Felisin died before having the chance to stab her sister or something like that. For some reason that annoyed me, although I was getting bored with the setting, although I must admit the world building ain’t bad. Don’t remember which book. The books were decent overall but a bit dense on the lore.
Yeah I made it to book 6 the first time and stopped. Rereading them and moving on really helped.
If that annoyed you it’s good you stopped, it only gets worse. But in a good way.
I think you missed out on Tehol and Bugg. They might be the greatest duo in modern literature.
Big fan of the Malazan series – it can be dense and get a little dry, but I really enjoyed it. There are some spinoffs (the Bauchelain and Korbal Brooch stories are fun), and the prequel Kharkanas series that’s underway now, that explores the backstory of the elven races is very consistent with Malazan. The sentient Hust armor and weapons . . . well, no spoilers, but it was truly chilling to see what it requires of, and does to, its bearers.
Currently on book 9 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, Dust of Dreams.
Ah yes, the Bonehunters Legion continues to both bumble along and slaughter its way across the landscape. Love those guys. Can’t remember if its that one or the one before that has the [spoiler redacted].
“What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They’re allowed to think.”
–Duiker
Love that arguably the most efficient sergeant is only good when she is drunk off her ass.
I spent some time reading this strictly for research purposes. Does that count?
https://e-hentai.org/g/262213/02aac4ff1a/
Very, very NSFW.
tearing through the Dresden Files. Butcher’s writing is good. funny too. i really connect with that gangly misfit improbable ladykiller.
Gets kinda old after a while but that is true of most long series of sf and fantasy book.
know the feeling. 15 books in a series is pushing it.
Really enjoyed the last book, which was more about the other characters in the series.
Kind of refreshed things for me.
Try his latest, “The Aeronaut’s Windlass”; steampunk, Horatio Hornblower and tons of swagger and action. Very good read.
I read through Turtledove’s whole Southern Victory/Timeline-191 series. It was interesting and creative but got very repetitive – especially some of the character’s traits – and I can’t imagine reading it again.
I prefer his one offs to his series.
I did enjoy his two book series on the Japanese conquest of Hawaii in 1941/2.
Am just finishing up my reread of the Captain and Commander series (Books 1-20). Not sure what I’ll tackle next. I’ve preordered the latest MHI book which should be out soon.
As far as non-fiction, I’m reading an epidemiology textbook for school right now and constantly read medical journals for work.
You mean Master and Commander? I cant find number 21
Yes, Master and Commander… it’s been a long day!
Book 21 is available on Amazon: 21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (Vol. Book 21)
I don’t think it’s a whole book though. O’Brian passed away while writing it so I believe it’s only the first three chapters and some author notes.
Those looking for high quality libertarian theory, check out “Anarchy, State and Utopia” by Robert Nozick. One of the best IMO.
Just bought it, thanks for the recommendation!
I’m finally reading ‘The Great Santini’ by Pat Conroy.
I read almost all his stuff years ago, but somehow missed that one. Probably because I saw the movie and then my brother handed me ‘The Lords of Discipline’ which made laugh out loud at a number of parts.
He’s a pretty great story teller.
OT: This guy does pretty good stuff
I’m still working through James Parr’s A Line in the Sand, about the Anglo-French bickering over Palestine and the Middle East from WWI through 1948. Really enjoying it so far, ties in pretty well with Power, Faith, and Fantasy.
Also read Moscow 2042 by Vladimir Voinovich while in Montana. Enjoyable dystopian satire where the protagonist, a writer living in 1980’s Germany, travels through time to Moscow in the year 2042, and the Soviets have reduced Stalin’s “One Country Communism” mantra down to just one city, but where they’ve actually sort of made it work, except of course it actually doesn’t work. Recommended for anyone who likes cynical Russian satire about communism.
Me:
Modernist Cuisine. I’m going cover to cover on all 6 volumes.
I’m reading Post-Modernist Cuisine. Where we, through intersectional paradigms (cooking), explore the “real” meaning of the recipes. Unconstrained of the late-stage Capitalist privilege of food, take the theory “pancakes” cut them into pieces mixed with batter, then (re)cooked to make deconstructed pancakes. Freeing them from the heteronormative cisgender pairing with syrup, invite human/sugar relations.
I don’t recall if anyone posted about Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch series yet. There are two groups of Others – light and dark. The Light are supposedly are meant to help the weak and powerless, while the Dark are amoral and do whatever they want. It seems as though light=good and dark==bad. But, over the series, Lukyanenko slowly subverts that narrative. Light begins to represent collectivism and dark individualism and you become less and less sure of which is good and which is bad.
Urgh! – that should be Night Watch bad and Day Watch good is subverted. Day Watch=Collectivism/Night Watch=Individualism. It’s been a while since I read them.
Wait really? Was going to check them out, but they looked pretty bog-standard. Might have to give them a second look.
I read all of them that I know of. I had mixed feelings about them.
Jesse,
Back in the early 50s, my mother taught elementary school in France. This is her landlady’s bread recipe:
1/2 c scalded milk
1 c water
1 1/2 T sugar
1/4 c warm water
1pkg yeast
4 c flour
2 tsp salt
1/2 T sugar
Add 1c water, butter and sugar to scalded milk. Cool to lukewarm. Add 1/4 c water and yeast. Rest 10 minutes. Add flour salt and sugar. Beat 100 strokes with wooden spoon. Let rise 2hours. Cut into 2 and shape into loaves. Put loaves on greased sheet and sprinkle with cornmeal. Slash tops and let rise 30 minutes or more. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes then at 350 for 30 minutes more.
It is not as good as what you get with a poolish, but adding steam during the bake gets the flaky crust. It is also easy easy easy, so worth it. I use it as a canvas _ so easy to change to a honey wheat or oatmeal etc.
I also think of it as truly authentic. This no fuss recipe is what a french housewife actually made.
Oh neat. I’ve got some commercial yeast in the fridge. Maybe I’ll give it a shot this weekend.
I’ve been doing a lot of sourdough muffins just to cycle through my starter. King Arthur Flour has a sourdough bread recipe with a fridge retard that has turned out really well.
My mother swears by King Arthur Flour. It is the one product she always bought even when more expensive. I’ve always gotten a kick out Gold Medal Flour sponsoring hard rock. I used to to listen to the Gold Medal Flour Hour of Power on the radio. Interviews with Axl Rose and so on.
To make the recipe even easier,my mother,who is in her 80s, uses a food processor to mix the dough. Just be careful not to over work it.
I get better results with the spoon. If you over work it,you don’t get the air pockets.
I’ve had Last Watch sitting on my shelf for a loooong time. I’ll get to it sometime.
Weird that the movies of Night Watch and Day Watch are just the first two segments of the very first Night Watch book.
Currently reading the “Game of Thrones” series. A couple of months ago I decided that I should read the books before the next season starts, so I’ll have more background.
So far, I think I am more impressed with the show than the books, which may be a first. Well…. maybe “Stand By Me”. Still one book to go, so we’ll see how doing the show first impacts the story as the facts start getting more divergent.
Oh…. also reading the “Encyclopedia Brown” books with my 7 year old. And some Disney princess drek with my 4 year old. You think novelizations of movies are bad… dang, son…. you should try the kiddie book version of a kiddie movie. Painful.
I liked the books more than the show, but I started with them first, so that may have something to do with it. Martin can get a little lost in his own worldbuilding sometimes, and the show does a good job of staying pretty concise, even if I prefer his more sprawling interconnected plotlines.
Currently reading about three: “Egg”, by Michael Ruhlman, which goes into everything from raw eggs to fantastic desserts (gotta try making brioche!); “Man’s Search for Meaning”, Viktor Frankl; and “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” as rereading, because it’s good libertarian stuff and also in homage to a friend who recently died.
Just finished “The Return of Lanny Budd” — My goodness does Sinclair beat the anti-Stalin drum hard in that one (written in 1953, events occur 1948). The first book in the Iron Druid series (Hounded) is sitting on the tray next to my armchair waiting for me.
Just read-
Starman Jones
The Family Fang
Cry Havoc
God’s Demon
reading–
The Girl with All the Gifts
I enjoyed The Family Rang. I love the merchants honoring the coupons and ruining their “art”.
Argh Fang