Books - What are you reading?
Discussion
‘AstralCodexTen’ is running a book review competition at the moment, some very in-depth reviews (you almost don’t have to read the book...!) and an eclectic range in subject matter (from all of American history to why did we throw away books in order to ‘preserve’ them; from fictional starships to contract law)
Anyway, some inspiration perhaps:
Part1:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xexFJ7h0vULMDE...
Part 2:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M1m8o1HInGYJR3...
And the original link (see point 3) if mobile/laptop unfriendly - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/open-thread-...
Anyway, some inspiration perhaps:
Part1:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xexFJ7h0vULMDE...
Part 2:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M1m8o1HInGYJR3...
And the original link (see point 3) if mobile/laptop unfriendly - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/open-thread-...
IanA2 said:
easytiger123 said:
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope.
An absolutely brilliant novel, possibly the most entertaining and engrossing I've ever read. Highly recommended.
Yes, and 150 years later, Augustus Melmottes walk amongst us still....An absolutely brilliant novel, possibly the most entertaining and engrossing I've ever read. Highly recommended.
andy_s said:
IanA2 said:
easytiger123 said:
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope.
An absolutely brilliant novel, possibly the most entertaining and engrossing I've ever read. Highly recommended.
Yes, and 150 years later, Augustus Melmottes walk amongst us still....An absolutely brilliant novel, possibly the most entertaining and engrossing I've ever read. Highly recommended.
Desiderata said:
Re-reading Primo Levi's "The Periodic Table". I read it when I was younger and didn't think much of it, but am enjoying it this time. I think it's because I've got a bit slower and more patient with old age, it seemed that everything was getting dragged out and unnecessarily embellished with irrelevant details when I was younger but now think it's like having a conversation with an interesting old man. Lots of thought provoking stuff if you take the time to listen to what he's saying.
Having recently read If This Is A Man and The Truce, I’ve got this on the To Read list.As a bit of light interlude, I’ve just gone through A Promised Land by Barack Obama. I do like reading his stuff, it’s simultaneously easy going and candid, yet full of information and educational. How did the US go from this to what followed??
Also, Billy Connolly’s collection of Tall Tales and Wee Stories is basically the stuff he’s been performing for decades, yet is still funny and written as dictated. Must be read with his voice in your head for full effect.
Lastly, just finishing Lenny Henry’s autobiography Who Am I, Again. Can’t figure this one out - it’s easy reading, and he’s trying to tell us stuff but it seems a bit scattered and loses focus. I used to like watching him in the 80s and his Live and Unleashed video was a regular on the screen in the post-pub hours. But this seems a bit untidy.
I , too , enjoyed Obama's book - he writes beautifully , if not as well as he speaks . Watching the Trump car crash has piqued my interest in US politics , and I can highly recommend Jim Naughtie's On the Road , from Nixon to Trump and I am currently reading Jon Sopel's diary form Unpresidented - Politics , Pandemics and the Race that Trumped all others. It is very funny , and he doesn't hold back - and his targets aren't just in the GOP either.
coppice said:
I , too , enjoyed Obama's book - he writes beautifully , if not as well as he speaks . Watching the Trump car crash has piqued my interest in US politics , and I can highly recommend Jim Naughtie's On the Road , from Nixon to Trump and I am currently reading Jon Sopel's diary form Unpresidented - Politics , Pandemics and the Race that Trumped all others. It is very funny , and he doesn't hold back - and his targets aren't just in the GOP either.
I listened to the audiobook version of Obama’s book. Even better as he reads it himself. Recommended.The Darren Humphries stuff is very different to Rivers of London. Both are extremely readable. I must admit though, this latest Ward book isn’t quite grabbing me as his previous ones did.
The Smith Novellas are well written and a bit of a departure from his normal stuff. I’m not a huge steampunk fan, so don’t compare them against anything. It’s more the Who/what Dunnit story writing that appeals.
For what it’s worth his Jessica Blackwood FBI series is excellent, as are the two Miami based Underwater Investigations books. Some great characters.
The Smith Novellas are well written and a bit of a departure from his normal stuff. I’m not a huge steampunk fan, so don’t compare them against anything. It’s more the Who/what Dunnit story writing that appeals.
For what it’s worth his Jessica Blackwood FBI series is excellent, as are the two Miami based Underwater Investigations books. Some great characters.
Working my way slowly through a few military ebooks.
Duncan Falconer: First Into Action
Rusty Firmin: Go Go Go & The Regiment
^^^^ Pretty good, I’ve just downloaded Falconers novels to try.
And some books on the Falklands war:
Martin Middlebrook: The Falklands War and Argentine Fight for the Falklands. The Argentine book is well worth a read, tells the story from their perspective (started to feel a little sorry for the conscripts!!) most had no idea where they were going and had a pretty horrific time. Sad all round really.
Mike Norman: The Falklands War There & Back Again. The story of NP 8901 who held off the initial invasion.
Cedric Delves: Across an Angry Sea. SAS ops in the FW. Not bad but not great either.
Sir Lawrence Freedman: Vol 1 & 2 The Official history of the Falklands Campaign. Superb, both books! Easily the best books I’ve read on the conflict, hard going at times but if anyone’s interested in the Falklands war these are the ones to read.
Had to take a break from the Freedman book, vol2 is huge, but incredibly in depth. So started Blind Mans Bluff last week and I’m half way through. Submarine/Cold War book. Balls of steel this lot!!! Excellent read!!
Duncan Falconer: First Into Action
Rusty Firmin: Go Go Go & The Regiment
^^^^ Pretty good, I’ve just downloaded Falconers novels to try.
And some books on the Falklands war:
Martin Middlebrook: The Falklands War and Argentine Fight for the Falklands. The Argentine book is well worth a read, tells the story from their perspective (started to feel a little sorry for the conscripts!!) most had no idea where they were going and had a pretty horrific time. Sad all round really.
Mike Norman: The Falklands War There & Back Again. The story of NP 8901 who held off the initial invasion.
Cedric Delves: Across an Angry Sea. SAS ops in the FW. Not bad but not great either.
Sir Lawrence Freedman: Vol 1 & 2 The Official history of the Falklands Campaign. Superb, both books! Easily the best books I’ve read on the conflict, hard going at times but if anyone’s interested in the Falklands war these are the ones to read.
Had to take a break from the Freedman book, vol2 is huge, but incredibly in depth. So started Blind Mans Bluff last week and I’m half way through. Submarine/Cold War book. Balls of steel this lot!!! Excellent read!!
I have just finished "Repentance", the first novel of Eloisa Diaz. A very strange first book, telling the story of a police inspector of police and his life under the Juntas of 1981 and 2001. Translated into english rather well, but still using so many spanish expressions which either you guess or take time to look up. I chose the former. The book never mentions uncle or aunt, just tio and tia for example. It is an annoying book, one where at the beginning of each chapter it gives the date and time, and I was a few chapters in before realizing that one was 1981 and another 2001. To sum op, a good first effort, but she needs to improve.
Wild Swans, by Jung Chang.
The true story of her Grandmother's, her Mother's, and her own lives in China over the last 100 or so years. From the Grandmother growing up under warlords and empirical rule, through Japanese occupation then WW2 then through the various stages of communism up to the recent past.
A genuinely terrifying insight into the cruelty which human beings are capable of and the corruption that even the noblest of ideals can turn to as greed, hate and ego take over.
I can see where the our current regime's use of fear and pseudo science to control the population could possibly lead to and it's scary.
The true story of her Grandmother's, her Mother's, and her own lives in China over the last 100 or so years. From the Grandmother growing up under warlords and empirical rule, through Japanese occupation then WW2 then through the various stages of communism up to the recent past.
A genuinely terrifying insight into the cruelty which human beings are capable of and the corruption that even the noblest of ideals can turn to as greed, hate and ego take over.
I can see where the our current regime's use of fear and pseudo science to control the population could possibly lead to and it's scary.
Edited by Desiderata on Saturday 15th May 23:06
griffin dai said:
Slaughterhouse 5
WTH?? Can’t get into this at all
I read it earlier this year - found it funny. A good take on futility, especially the futility of war (it’s only certainty is death) and the futility of religion (specifically Christianity) where life after death is promised - but is clearly not certain. WTH?? Can’t get into this at all
I didn’t mind the sci-fi elements or the postmodern self referencing (the former is a genre I normally avoid and the latter is something we’ve all become very jaded with).
I've just finished "Pirate" by Clive Cussler and Robin Purcell, a tale about the Fargos, a treasure-hunting rich couple. This time, like most others, they've got a lead to the lost treasure of King John, and they're trying to find it before some baddies get to it first. In that regard it's very similar to most of the other stories featuring them, but it's a decent enough read if you like that kind of thing.
But, I'm unreasonably annoyed by the lack of fact-checking / proof reading. They're in the UK, talking to British characters, and those characters are using terms like "fire department" and "parking lot", and "blighters". And one of the characters towards the end suddenly changes his surname, for no reason - so it must just be a mistake, but shouldn't have made it to the published version. There's no excuse with the resources available to the authors and publisher - if I knocked up a novel and self-published it, I could probably get away with the odd error like that.
Apart from that, though, it was a decent enough story. I've actually read it before - this is a hardback that I bought ages ago, put on my "to read" pile, then later found a cheap paperback forgetting that I already had it on the pile. Not the first time, won't be the last.
But, I'm unreasonably annoyed by the lack of fact-checking / proof reading. They're in the UK, talking to British characters, and those characters are using terms like "fire department" and "parking lot", and "blighters". And one of the characters towards the end suddenly changes his surname, for no reason - so it must just be a mistake, but shouldn't have made it to the published version. There's no excuse with the resources available to the authors and publisher - if I knocked up a novel and self-published it, I could probably get away with the odd error like that.
Apart from that, though, it was a decent enough story. I've actually read it before - this is a hardback that I bought ages ago, put on my "to read" pile, then later found a cheap paperback forgetting that I already had it on the pile. Not the first time, won't be the last.
An excellent read, from many points of view - insight into SF operations, adaptive command/leadership, illustrative anecdotes from history and eventually the realizing of a different methodology from the conventional 'hierarchical-silos-method' to a 'team of teams' with open comms and decentralised leadership and a mission rather than method approach. It sort of ties in with the Boyd OODA in that McChrystal had to carve a tighter loop than the already decentralised and highly communicative AQ - to out agile them.
The story is nicely paced, great illustrations/anecdotes of the various techniques and team issues and all put in a way that makes it equally relevant for business/orgs in an ever increasingly complex civilian environment. It also shows how leadership isn't necessarily about being in charge, but letting competent people be in charge of themselves.
Enjoyed it.
andy_s said:
I got these as a mine for short takes on authors for when I'm travelling, seemed like a good idea but as on another thread - 'Why Penguin WHY?!', you'd think it'd be easy to make them line up at least 
It can be done really well as well:
Wow, that’s a lot of books!It can be done really well as well:
I couldn’t have that on my bookshelf like that, it would really make my teeth itch.
Were they released as the box set or was it a case that they published a few without the long-term vision and thus didn’t format it to look neat?
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