Alternatively, what have you been reading lately and what did you think of it?
Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880 It's hard, and terrible, and impenetrable, and lyrical, and moving, and heartbreaking, and grinding, and long, and bleak. And vital. Thomas Ezekiel Miller was an American educator, lawyer and politician. After being elected as a state legislator in South Carolina, he was one of only five African Americans elected to Congress from the South in the Jim Crow era of the last decade of the nineteenth century, as disfranchisement reduced black voting. After that, no African Americans were elected from the South until 1972. You start the book wondering why something as beautifully powerful as this monster tome isn't taught, because the chapters leading up to Reconstruction absolutely glitter. W.E.B. Du Bois was an absolutely incredible writer. Then you get into the meat of the book, which is organized by chapter, and which is W.E.B. Du Bois serving witness. The man basically built a Vietnam War Memorial for every injustice in every state, one name and dollar figure at a time. Before too long, though, you recognize that his initial argument that no man will be free so long as he is a slave to labor dovetails nicely with his framing of the American Civil War as a battle between Northern capital and Southern capital and that fundamentally, African Americans in the American South did best when they strove towards Marxism, that W. E. B. Du Bois recognized Marxism as the best solution to oligarchy, and that the Socialist leanings of every underclass in the United States are a demonstrable consequence of every conflict being the poor dying for the ideals of the wealthy. Some takeaways, some synthesis: - The only reason the North cared about slavery is an economy based on labor can't compete against an economy based on labor being free - The only reason Northern capital cared about slavery at all is freeholders weren't interested in competing against plantations and a frontier full of plantations was seen as weak against Native Americans and foreign invasion - The North barely won the Civil War and wouldn't have won at all if they hadn't emancipated the South's slaves (slaves in Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia weren't freed by the Emancipation Proclamation) - The South knew the North barely won the Civil War, and only won by freeing the South's slaves, so as soon as white people from the North stopped shooting white people from the South, white people from the South proceeded to recreate de facto slavery - The North knew the North barely won the Civil War, so let the South carry on, confident that the Southern plantation model would be limited to the South while garden-variety serfdom spread West - The United States persists in being a tribe of rich white people who could care less what color you are so long as you do what you're fucking told, and a tribe of rich white people who hate you extra-special hard if you aren't white - The United States persists in painting minorities as Marxists not just because anyone who isn't a Republican is obviously a Communist, but because fuckin' hell man the biggest social successes in the United States have been brought to you by - wait for it - socialism - The whole of "reconstruction" was black people under siege with the deck stacked against them overperforming heroically but with not quite enough superhuman excellence to deal with chronic underfunding and massacres by the KKK and other less organized forces of inhuman malfeasance so it's taught in the US as a failure of graft and corruption we never should have trusted those poor darkies to govern. You know Star Trek? Basic post-scarcity economy, a buncha aspiring normies who are doing the jobs they love without ever truly encountering any of the first four levels of Mazlow's hierarchy? Frickin' hippie dippie dream wherein sci fi writers don't bother to come up with a functional economy? Fuckin' everything old is new again. This book taught me that every few generations America has to have a knock-down, drag-out fight between the people who think everyone should be equal and the people who think everyone shouldn't. And we have been pretending for so long that good wins that we believe it.“We were eight years in power. We had built schoolhouses, established charitable institutions, built and maintained the penitentiary system, provided education for the deaf and dumb, rebuilt the ferries. In short, we had reconstructed the State and placed it on the road to prosperity.”
I've been reading comics, mostly. Beastars volume 2 It's rare that a manga manages to keep my attention, but I've kinda fallen in love with this one. I'm pretty sure the writer got inspired by Zootopia, but because of the different format, she has much more room to really explore and develop the concept. Volume 2 focuses on the high school drama club, and we learn more about its members, especially the charismatic lead actor Louis. But it's not really about highschool drama, it's more about the relationship between predators and prey in anthropomorphic society. I'm planning to watch the anime at some point, it's also supposed to be very good too, but I want to read far enough first that the anime won't spoil anything. Billionaire Island Meant as a biting satire of our late stage capitalistic society, but while there are some good ideas here, the writing and art both feel kinda lazy. Also, I have a feeling I'd enjoy this more if I was better at recognising faces. I recognise a few; Kid Rock (president of the USA in the comic), C. K. Lewis, and Harvey Weinstein, but I think there are many more characters inspired by real-life villains, and I think the jokes would land better if I knew who. And the satire is very heavy-handed, so if you enjoy subtlety, stay away. Bone volume 5 A small publisher has made a new Norwegian translation. It's a classic, which I've read before, but that was in English, and in black and white. The colours are nice, and the translation is pretty good. No extras, just the comics, which is fine with me, straight to the point. I wish the format was a bit bigger; this edition is somewhere between pocket book and trade paperback in size. Chew volume 2 The world has been hit hard by a bird flu pandemic, resulting in a world-wide ban of chicken. The comic follows a psychic FDA agent solving food-related crimes, usually by eating parts of murder victims to get visions of what happened to them. For me, that's just the right amount of bonkers. Volume 2 seems like a side-story in the bigger picture, but a minor character from volume 1 shows up in a bigger role, and is played up to be the big villain of volume 3, so who knows. Y The Last Man volume 1 Every male on Earth suddenly dies, both human and animal, except the protagonist and his pet monkey. The comic follows his attempt to travel from the east coast of the USA to meet up with his girlfriend in the Australian Outback. Spoiler: He doesn't get very far. I think this comic does a better job of social commentary than Billionaire Island (though this too a bit heavy-handed at times), plus it's more exciting and fun. Volume 1 is 240 pages, but it felt like a breeze to read. I'm also reading a book-book, which I'm hoping to finish this summer: The Dresden Files - Fool Moon The second book about wizard/private investigator Harry Dresden. This time, he's up against a band of werewolves. Or maybe several? In any case, it turns out Chicago has a surprising amount of werewolves. This book has some pretty brutal fight scenes compared to the first in the series, but the same pulpy noir style, and I love it. Not exactly high-brow literature, I guess.
I love the Dresden Files!! Been an avid reader since high school, own all the books and several of the graphic novels. It's definitely pulp, not highbrow anything but its tasty pulp at least, excellent beach reading. Without spoiling anything, the series really picks up around books 3-4 and then takes off like a rocket quality wise. If you enjoy the first few at all you should love the rest of them. Other than Harry who is standing out to you from the pack of supporting characters? Any favorite moments?
In what way would you say they 'pick up'? Also in high school, I remember enjoying the hell out of vol 1 and associated with the series FATE-based RPG, but didn't manage to finish vol 2. I vaguely remember going "we get it, protagonist is at his lowest, get on with it!" for too long for it to be enjoyable, but don't take it too seriously.
I would say the quality of the writing, especially character moments improves. There is also obvious progress with pacing as Butcher develops as an author. That "get on with it" sensation you're talking about basically goes away by book 4. The Dresden-verse grows rapidly with each book and short story.
Good to hear! Bob the skull and Toot-Toot the faerie are the standout supporting characters for me so far. For some reason, the potion-brewing scenes are my favourite moments, and the moments much later in each book when he drinks the potions. Probably an odd pick, but it's among the more concrete descriptions of how magic works in the universe, and very creative. Plus, Bob is involved. Are the graphic novels good? As you can probably tell, I'm very into comics. Are they original stories, or comic versions of the books?
The graphic novels are mostly unique stories that get referenced either directly or obliquely in the novels, i enjoy them a lot. I think a few of them are re-tellings of parts of the books, and Storm Front might be a full length graphic novel somewhere. There's also short stories that have been published in some major anthologies that are plot relevant AND a companion mini-trilogy of short stories called "Working for Bigfoot" that are great world building and color on top of being hilarious. Toot Toot and Bob are great fun and are some of my favorites and the Fandom favorites in general. In an interview when Jim was asked about the inspiration for Bob he says that he was directly a insult to a former writing teacher who said you can't have a character just be a talking head who delivers exposition. So Jim made a talking head that mostly delivers exposition and ribald remarks.
If you enjoy Chew, you may also like Outer Darkness. The reason I'm reading Chew is that I loved Outer Darkness so much, I wanted to check out what else Layman had written. It's kind of what Star Trek would be if everyone was an asshole, and there's some very cool world building. Like, how do you make a starship go faster than light? You trap a god and channel its reality-bending powers into the engine. What do you do when a crew member dies? You chase down their soul, capture it, and force it into a cloned body. Good stuff.
This one? 1.330 pages or so. The ones I'm reading now look puny by comparison, but they are a bit more practical. Ah yes, back when Telltale was pumping out games for any IP they could get their hands on, with varying degrees of success. According to Wikipedia they only finished 2 out of 5 planned episodes, and they got mediocre reviews. Huh, that one I wasn't aware of. Novels, apparently. Guess I'll have to see how conclusive the ending feels now when I reread the comics, and if I feel the want to continue reading.I have a paperback one volume
Telltale video game
a spin off novel trilogy
Interesting. I just checked mine, and it says copyright 2004, but doesn't specify a date of printing. I do remember buying it because I didn't want to wait for the later collections to be translated to Norwegian, so mid-aughts sounds about right. Someone's selling it on eBay as a "rare variant cover", but I can't find anything backing up that claim. Maybe they just use a new cover with every reprint.
I'm trying to compile some beach reads for when that time comes, but also just plugging along. I've started two of these (Living Hell and Salvation), the rest are on deck. Nonfiction - Living Hell. Seeks to de-glorify the Civil War by showing how horrible it was for all involved. - Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution. This was recommended by my new academic advisor as a good general history of the period. Fiction - The Algebraist by Iain Banks - Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton - A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
I was talking with a friend about books we read in our young adult times that had an impact and found out that we shared one "wake-up" moment. We both read The Windsinger when we were young. I remember it being very different from what I have read before. I was angry while reading it. Not because it was a bad book, but because it was the first time I got confronted with a political/social system that was unfair to the people living in it and it had parallels with the system I/we lived in. I remember it being the trigger for me to get involved in politics early on and joining the political part of the communist youth movement in Israel. We also found out that it was only the first book of a trilogy! Yesterday, this friend showed up and dropped the trilogy at my doorstep (still in Quarantine). Soיף that's what I am reading the next few days!
I was reluctant to start The Mind of a Murderer by Richard Taylor. So far, I'm pleasantly surprised, but it's mildly annoying how author's delivery can't always decide between wanting to be scholarly and clinical vs trying to shock or disgust the reader. Somewhat plugging holes that Durant and similar efforts didn't touch anywhere near exhaustively with translations of African History. From earliest times to independence by P. Curtin et al., and The Cambridge Illustrated History of China by P.B. Ebrey. Currently checking out more like those in Polish. Planning to get my ass through the Oxford's Balliol college list for classics, at least some of them, along with following four recommendations. - A Very Short Introduction to Classics Beard, Henderson -- that one I finished already. Kinda meh overall, but it put classical studies in general in an interesting light. - The Greeks. A Portrait of Self and Others P. Cartledge - The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian R. Lane Fox. - Roman Social History S. Treggiari I think I told about starting one of those (Roman Social History?) some months ago, but I've been too all over the place to finish it. And there are a few "if I get to it"-s that are less driven by personal motivation or clear goal and more because they balance off something else or piqued my interest on their own. I'll try to add them sometime later today. EDIT: And here are those books: - The Modern Researcher, J. Barzum, H.F. Graff - Adventures of Ideas, A.N. Whitehead - How to lie with statistics, D. Huff (yup, it's almost embarassing it took me this long to even approach it) - The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent and Other Essays, J. Erskine - The Meaning of History: Reflections on Spengler, Toynbee and Kant, H. Kissinger (more of a curiosity than anything else -- it's his thesis) /EDIT Audiobooks are so much better for fiction than reading.
I've been powering through Patrick O'Brian for almost a year now, and am on book 14 of the Aubrey–Maturin series, so I'll probably be keeping up with that.
This stuffy old classic turned out to be a great story, and I considered indulging in my first Loeb Classic, but was already well along with Gutenberg so I just picked up the Classical Library Reader which is crammed with great stories and little filler. Aware of my acute ignorance of history, I turned to Winston Churchill and his History of the English-Speaking Peoples because the first two volumes were free on Prime. The Birth of Britain might have been subtitled How Kings Die with vivid (if poorly substantiated) accounts of assassinations and mishaps. The City & The City made for good vacation reading on the first beach visit in recent memory. It wasn't as bizarre and mysterious as the first time through, but I was able to enjoy how smoothly and gradually China Miéville works the gimmick into the narrative.
So far this summer I've only read books in Swedish, which has been a nice and relaxing change since I usually end up reading in English because it's easier to find pirate copies. Skymningstid (Dusk) is a political thriller set in 1970s Sweden written by Henrik Bromander. Like many other western European countries after WW2, "neutral" Sweden also had a Stay Behind movement, a network of cells training and preparing for armed resistance in case of a Soviet invasion. Unlike other countries like Norway and Italy, Sweden haven't had any official investigations or acknowledgements of this movement, even though it was very much a real thing. One of the few things we do know about the movement is that one of their bases of operation was Skandiahuset, where Stig Engström worked, the man pointed out by investigators last year as the likely murderer of prime minister Olof Palme. If that isn't fodder for some great conspiracy theories, or in this case a fictional account of a conspiracy, I don't know what is. Svarta bär (Black berries (but actually it's blueberries?)) follows a group of Ukrainian berry pickers working in Lappland in 2020. The days are long, the working conditions horrible and the translated swearing very colorful. The book I'm currently reading is about the terrorist attack on Utøya and is called You can flee from a madman but you can't hide from a society. It's really good, but I've had to put it down so many times because it really gets to me. Might have more to say about it when I've finished it.
I've been slowly getting back into reading again over the past months. Didn't quite have the mental space for it this winter. Sourdough by Robin Sloan I read on a whim, which is a whimsical lovely little book of magical realism. Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday was an easy bite to get me back into the habit of reading nonfiction. I got something out of it, but wouldn't recommend it per sé, there are far better books that accomplish similar goals. Nomadland I read because it won Oscars and because there was a discussion here on how much the movie sucked compared to the book. It's a fantastic but depressing look into people thoroughly screwed by late-stage capitalism making whatever they can out of it, which is not a lot. The Monster of Florence is a wonderful book on the failings of the Italian justice system and the most abhorrent serial killer Europe has ever seen, written by one of the best thriller novel writers. A bit on the long side, but it's written so well that I didn't mind it. Read two Dutch books, one a wonderfully written autobiographical account of the (sex) life of a queer person, the other an eye-opening book on the Dutch real estate market and the nuanced ways in which normal folx are absolutely fucked and how we've built our financial system on an eroding base. Almost through Fully Automated Luxury Communism, which I found meh. He uses all the stories I've already heard in sustainability consultancy circles as examples for most of his points, and then just moves on. This horse dung story? I've heard it a dozen times. Hell, I've presented it three times myself. It shouldn't make the story less useful, but it does make it a lot more annoying to get through the book when there's little to no diamonds in the rough to begin with. Currently reading Lies My Teacher Told Me, which KB recommended as a good entry into US history. I quite like it so far, although it could do with slightly less minutiae. I'm also reading The Captain Class by Sam Walker which had been on my reading list for years. The book actually does a good job of being open and transparent about the methodology that led to the main thesis of the book, which is something I almost never see. "Here's what I noticed, here's the best counterarguments I then analysed, and the reasons I think they're invalid." More books should do that!
J.L. Collin's "The Simple Path to Wealth". It's meant as an introduction to stocks and investing. At heart, it's a love letter to Vanguard. Facts-in-brief: - More-or-less walks through r/personalfinance's 'prime directive' with a couple modifications for Step 4 and onward. Invest solely in index funds (preferably VTSAX) - Overall, easy to consume financial literature Likely skimming through the last 40 pages and get onto James Clavell's "Shogun". The later chapters are more personal opinions on Collin's preferences which track with his anecdotals. Went through Gaiman's run of "Eternals" in anticipation of the movie release. Not my favorite of Neil's, but enjoyable nonetheless. I tried getting into Elmore Leonard after finishing Justified on Hulu (highly recommend if you like dramas). Man... the literary style of Leonard is a feat to be more grueling than regular financial lit. Not recommended.... TV show was great, though! And on that note, I'm running into more folx that found Obama's "A Promised Land" much slower than anticipated. J. M. DeMatteis's "Moonshadow" is still on the list... along with half my recent amazon orders.
- Outlines difference among stocks, bonds, and their derivatives in a simplistic manner. (and when to leverage them - if ever) Save/invest 50% of your income
Ron Chernow's Grant I really knew very little of him, but hadn't heard much positive. Thus far (up to the end of the Civil War), Chernow paints a redeeming picture. He seemed a person perfectly suited for military action. I can see the problems in his presidency coming, however. Chernow is a talented writer of history. I am reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to my daughter atm. She can't stand it. I don't blame her much. We are about 60% through. Tom, Huck, and Joe just returned from camping on the island to their own funeral. I don't see the book entertaining her as much as educating her. It's a slice of time, America, and literature that is worth having some grasp of, however it pales to Mr. Wizard's World at bedtime (we switch every other night).