You flew through the book! I think it took me about two weeks, but I read at a fairly slow pace, admittedly.
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What are you reading? (January 2015)
- Thread starter Maklershed
- Start date
You flew through the book! I think it took me about two weeks, but I read at a fairly slow pace, admittedly.
420 Blaze It
Banned
Just read Silver Screen Fiend by Patton Oswalt.
Very short but a very cozy read.
Very short but a very cozy read.
I was tempted to make a snarky comment about how surely the improved production came from the slaveowners being just ever-so-nice.
Of those reviews, this is probably my favorite bit:
How do you read a book like this and then manage to regurgitate that tired bullshit?
To borrow a phrase from another book I read on a different subject, it's a kaleidoscope of horror.
Ideological blinders. The world must fit into preconceived notions. If they don't, disregard them. I know that everyone has blinders, but it seems most pronounced on the extreme right and left.
My favorite is that one. American Nationalism blinders ftw.
That William Percy 1 star review on Amazon does make some good points though.
teruterubozu
Member
I'm reading Mutiny on the Globe: The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock by Thomas Heffernan.
Very gruesome. Comstock was a monster.
Very gruesome. Comstock was a monster.
I love Shallan her chapter in Book 1 were the most fun to read for me. Which is why Book 2 was such a great book to me.One of these days someone is going to say Shallan and I am going to be entertained by people's reactions.
But today isn't that day.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
Finished Fast Food Nation. The book's content grows more and more horrifying as it progresses. Hard to not walk away with some unsavory information gained and an appreciation for the incredible scale of the fast food industry.
Got sick so I figured a quick thriller was in order: A Clean Kill In Tokyo by Barry Eisler. Inoffensive, well written, but obviously a debut novel. I might read another in the John Rain series. It was an easy 3.5 hour snack.
I think I'm going to read HG Wells' The Time Machine next. Maybe more Vorkosigan.
Got sick so I figured a quick thriller was in order: A Clean Kill In Tokyo by Barry Eisler. Inoffensive, well written, but obviously a debut novel. I might read another in the John Rain series. It was an easy 3.5 hour snack.
I think I'm going to read HG Wells' The Time Machine next. Maybe more Vorkosigan.
So, does anyone know a good history on the world/American monetary/finanacial and/or banking system?
I find the topic quite interesting, but the only books that I have found on the topic are written by libertarians. I'd prefer a 'popular' version as well since if it gets too technical I imagine it would probably lose me and/or bore me to tears.
I find the topic quite interesting, but the only books that I have found on the topic are written by libertarians. I'd prefer a 'popular' version as well since if it gets too technical I imagine it would probably lose me and/or bore me to tears.
Decided to read Solaris by Lem as a short break from some other stuff:
I've had some good luck with sci fi lately. As a first contact story, or sci fi in general that's involved in extraterrestrial life, this is the most interesting representation of the other side. That can be expanded to the interaction between humanity and it, at least on an intimate level. I really can't readily recall anything better. Over all, it probably falls short of spectacular, but the premise is so good and it's executed well(even elegantly). Add it to a long list of great books anyone should absolutely try if they're into sci fi.
I've had some good luck with sci fi lately. As a first contact story, or sci fi in general that's involved in extraterrestrial life, this is the most interesting representation of the other side. That can be expanded to the interaction between humanity and it, at least on an intimate level. I really can't readily recall anything better. Over all, it probably falls short of spectacular, but the premise is so good and it's executed well(even elegantly). Add it to a long list of great books anyone should absolutely try if they're into sci fi.
Magnificent decision.
Grenouille
Member
In a book store today I came across a book by Nabokov about Russian literature. Man, I didn't know his opinion on dostoyevsky was so negative!
Grenouille, it's true. I don't find his arguments very compelling. And I find it especially odd that he's so obsessed with the fact that Dostoevsky's work is so imbued with a philosophical standpoint and isn't "pure" art - but in the next breath he's holding up Tolstoy, whose biggest work is so obviously a vehicle for expressing his philosophical and political attitudes that he spends about a quarter of the 1300 page novel stating them directly to the reader, as the greatest writer of Russian prose literature.
I don't get it.
I haven't, but I do have a couple history books on unrelated topics that I think you'd enjoy, since you enjoy history so much. Interested~?
I don't get it.
I haven't, but I do have a couple history books on unrelated topics that I think you'd enjoy, since you enjoy history so much. Interested~?
Sure! I am always open to recommendations
Well, then!
- Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890 - 1940, by George Chauncey
- The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, by Robert Darnton
- Global Crisis: War, Climate Change, and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century, by Geoffrey Parker
- Largesse (Parti Pris (Reunion des Musees Nationaux), by Jean Starobinsky
I actually cut my list from sixteen books to four. I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts about these!
Give me all of them! Honestly, I am not too sure when I will get to any of them since I listen to most of my history books, and only The Great Cat Massacre has the audio book option available. I am a bit worried about that one as well, since it seems like it might be a bit abstract? That would make it harder to follow along while listening
Gay New York and Global Crisis seem especially interesting though.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
Since my last post two hours ago, I finished The Time Machine by HG Wells. Not a bad read. Some unexpected twists and turns. I would have preferred to come by the time traveller's conclusions myself, as opposed to having them spoken so plainly, but the end result isn't bad.
I'm glad I read it digitally; Wells likes to drop some extremely 1890's era language on your face, more so than a lot of other authors of the era I've read. The opening two chapters are the trickiest, but they're also the dullest.
I'm glad I read it digitally; Wells likes to drop some extremely 1890's era language on your face, more so than a lot of other authors of the era I've read. The opening two chapters are the trickiest, but they're also the dullest.
<3
I notice you didn't mention Largesse! It might not sound as interesting, but it's a book I read for a mixed undergraduate / graduate (which I took as an undergraduate) course on the history of philanthropy, which was a requirement for philanthropy majors. It's really stuck with me since then, and it's definitely much more interesting than it might sound at first glance.
The Great Cat Massacre is a great place to start, though - it's a series of essays about the French Enlightenment. They're all great, though the chapter on the tree of knowledge is particularly good. It explains how nonempirical knowledge lost its seat during the Enlightenment:
This is the culmination of the essay, it really builds the case for this brilliantly. The book was also an inspiration for the version of Little Red Riding Hood told in Sandman, one of the "original" versions, which I learned long after having read both of them. The rhymes also do something to capture life at the time, like this old Tudor-Stuart rhyme:
There was an old woman had three sons
Jerry and James and John.
Jerry was hung and James was drowned,
John was lost and never was found,
So there was an end of her three sons,
Jerry and James and John.
Jerry and James and John.
Jerry was hung and James was drowned,
John was lost and never was found,
So there was an end of her three sons,
Jerry and James and John.
Or this:
There was an old woman
And nothing she had,
And so this old woman
Was said to be mad.
Shed nothing to eat,
Shed nothing to wear,
Shed nothing to lose,
Shed nothing to fear,
Shed nothing to ask,
And nothing to give,
And when she did die
Shed nothing to leave.
And nothing she had,
And so this old woman
Was said to be mad.
Shed nothing to eat,
Shed nothing to wear,
Shed nothing to lose,
Shed nothing to fear,
Shed nothing to ask,
And nothing to give,
And when she did die
Shed nothing to leave.
"All is not jollity in Mother Goose. The older rhymes belong to an older world of poverty, despair, and death."
Ooof, that looks like a tough audio book listen since it seems like something you really need to devote 100% of your concentration to, something that I can't do when listening to audio books (I listen to them at work).
As for largesse, one of the reasons that it did not pop out at me was that I much prefer the concrete to the abstract. I am not a huge fan of cultural history, and even less of a fan of intellectual history. Largesse seems to be at least one or both (it seems that Cat Massacre is one or both as well now!). I put it on my to-read list, but, well, its a very long list.
Tell me your other recommendations
Ooof, that looks like a tough audio book listen since it seems like something you really need to devote 100% of your concentration to, something that I can't do when listening to audio books (I listen to them at work).
As for largesse, one of the reasons that it did not pop out at me was that I much prefer the concrete to the abstract. I am not a huge fan of cultural history, and even less of a fan of intellectual history. Largesse seems to be at least one or both (it seems that Cat Massacre is one or both as well now!). I put it on my to-read list, but, well, its a very long list.
Tell me your other recommendations
Ah, yeah. I'd actually say that they all have some elements of cultural history to them. For instance, this is from the introduction of Gay New York:
This book argues that in important respects the hetero-homosexual binarism, the sexual regime now hegemonic in American culture, is a stunningly recent creation. Particularly in working-class culture, homosexual behavior per se became the primary basis for the labeling and self-identification of men as "queer" only around the middle of the twentieth century; before then, most men were so labeled only if they displayed a much broader inversion of their ascribed gender status by assuming the sexual and other cultural roles ascribed to women. The abnormality (or "queerness") of the "fairy," that is, was defined as much by his "woman-like" character or "effeminacy" as his solicitations of male sexual partners; the "man" who responded to his solicitations - no matter how often - was not considered abnormal, a "homosexual," so long as he abided by masculine gender conventions. Indeed, the centrality of effeminacy to the representation of the "fairy" allowed many conventionally masculine men, especially unmarried men living in sex-segregated immigrant communities, to engage in extensive sexual activity with other men without risking stigmatization and the loss of their status as "normal men."
[...]
Heterosexuality had not become a precondition of gender normativity in early-twentieth-century working-class culture. Men had to be many things in order to achieve the status of "normal" men, but being "heterosexual" was not one of them.
[...]
In a culture in which becoming a fairy meant assuming the status of a woman or even a prostitute, many men, like the clerk, simply refused to do so. Some of them restricted themselves to the role of "trade," becoming the nominally "normal" partners of "queers" (although this did not account for most such men). Many others simply "did it," without naming it, freed from having to label themselves by the certainty that, at least, they were not fairies. But many men aware of sexual desires for other men, like the clerk, struggled to forge an alternative identity and cultural stance, one that would distinguish them from fairies and "normal" men alike. Even their efforts, however, were profoundly shaped by the cultural presumption that sexual desire for men was inherently a feminine desire. That presumption made the identity they sought to construct a queer one indeed: unwilling to become virtual women, they sought to remain men who nonetheless loved other men.
The efforts of such men marked the growing differentiation and isolation of sexuality from gender in middle-class American culture. Whereas fairies' desire for men was thought to follow inevitably from their gender persona, queers maintained that their desire for men revealed only their "sexuality" (their "homosexuality), a distinct domain of personality independent of gender. Their homosexuality, they argued, revealed nothing abnormal in their gender persona. The effort to forge a new kind of homosexual identity was predominantly a middle-class phenomenon, and the emergence of "homosexuals" in middle-class culture was inextricably linked to the emergence of "heterosexuals" in that culture as well. If many workingmen thought they demonstrated sexual virility by playing the "man's part" in sexual encounters with either women or men, normal middle-class men increasingly believed that their virility depended on their exclusive sexual interest in women. Even as queer men began to define their difference from other men on the basis of their homosexuality, "normal" men began to define their difference from queers on the basis of their renunciation of any sentiments or behavior that might be marked as homosexual. Only when they did so did "normal men" become "heterosexual men." As Jonathan Katz has suggested, heterosexuality was an invention of the late nineteenth century. The "heterosexual" and "homosexual" emerged in tandem at the turn of the century as powerful new ways of conceptualizing human sexual practices."
[...]
Heterosexuality had not become a precondition of gender normativity in early-twentieth-century working-class culture. Men had to be many things in order to achieve the status of "normal" men, but being "heterosexual" was not one of them.
[...]
In a culture in which becoming a fairy meant assuming the status of a woman or even a prostitute, many men, like the clerk, simply refused to do so. Some of them restricted themselves to the role of "trade," becoming the nominally "normal" partners of "queers" (although this did not account for most such men). Many others simply "did it," without naming it, freed from having to label themselves by the certainty that, at least, they were not fairies. But many men aware of sexual desires for other men, like the clerk, struggled to forge an alternative identity and cultural stance, one that would distinguish them from fairies and "normal" men alike. Even their efforts, however, were profoundly shaped by the cultural presumption that sexual desire for men was inherently a feminine desire. That presumption made the identity they sought to construct a queer one indeed: unwilling to become virtual women, they sought to remain men who nonetheless loved other men.
The efforts of such men marked the growing differentiation and isolation of sexuality from gender in middle-class American culture. Whereas fairies' desire for men was thought to follow inevitably from their gender persona, queers maintained that their desire for men revealed only their "sexuality" (their "homosexuality), a distinct domain of personality independent of gender. Their homosexuality, they argued, revealed nothing abnormal in their gender persona. The effort to forge a new kind of homosexual identity was predominantly a middle-class phenomenon, and the emergence of "homosexuals" in middle-class culture was inextricably linked to the emergence of "heterosexuals" in that culture as well. If many workingmen thought they demonstrated sexual virility by playing the "man's part" in sexual encounters with either women or men, normal middle-class men increasingly believed that their virility depended on their exclusive sexual interest in women. Even as queer men began to define their difference from other men on the basis of their homosexuality, "normal" men began to define their difference from queers on the basis of their renunciation of any sentiments or behavior that might be marked as homosexual. Only when they did so did "normal men" become "heterosexual men." As Jonathan Katz has suggested, heterosexuality was an invention of the late nineteenth century. The "heterosexual" and "homosexual" emerged in tandem at the turn of the century as powerful new ways of conceptualizing human sexual practices."
Clearly cultural history! Still, you should read it anyway.
And I suppose I'll just list a bunch of history books that I really liked, even ones that are like "A History of Opera" (spoilers, it's the first one on the list) or whatever that you probably won't find interesting!
- A History of Opera, by Carolyn Abbate
- A Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman
- A Nation Among Nations: America's Place in World History, by Thomas Bender
- Marriage, a History: from Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage, by Stephanie Coontz
- Homosexuality and Civilization, by Louis Crompton
- Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights, by Pete Daniel
- No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women, by Estelle B. Freedman
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750 - 1925, by Herbert George Gutman
- Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent, by Dan Healey
- The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps, by Heinz Heger
- How the Irish Became White, by Noel Ignatiev
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, by Tony Judt
- When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America, by Ira Katznelson
- All the Shah's Men, by Stephen Kinzer
- Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Football in Europe During the Second World War, by Simon Kuper
- The Reformation, by Diarmaid MacCulloch
- 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann
- 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, by Charles C. Mann
- Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, by Neil Miller
- Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America, by Beryl Satter
- Bloodlands: Europe Betwen Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy Snyder
- Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy, by James Stark
- The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, by Adam Tooze
- Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities, by Craig Steven Wilder
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson
- Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, by Jonathan Wilson
I don't vouch for all of these equally, but I did like them all.
Ah, yeah. I'd actually say that they all have some elements of cultural history to them. For instance, this is from the introduction of Gay New York:
This book argues that in important respects the hetero-homosexual binarism, the sexual regime now hegemonic in American culture, is a stunningly recent creation. Particularly in working-class culture, homosexual behavior per se became the primary basis for the labeling and self-identification of men as "queer" only around the middle of the twentieth century; before then, most men were so labeled only if they displayed a much broader inversion of their ascribed gender status by assuming the sexual and other cultural roles ascribed to women. The abnormality (or "queerness") of the "fairy," that is, was defined as much by his "woman-like" character or "effeminacy" as his solicitations of male sexual partners; the "man" who responded to his solicitations - no matter how often - was not considered abnormal, a "homosexual," so long as he abided by masculine gender conventions. Indeed, the centrality of effeminacy to the representation of the "fairy" allowed many conventionally masculine men, especially unmarried men living in sex-segregated immigrant communities, to engage in extensive sexual activity with other men without risking stigmatization and the loss of their status as "normal men."
[...]
Heterosexuality had not become a precondition of gender normativity in early-twentieth-century working-class culture. Men had to be many things in order to achieve the status of "normal" men, but being "heterosexual" was not one of them.
[...]
In a culture in which becoming a fairy meant assuming the status of a woman or even a prostitute, many men, like the clerk, simply refused to do so. Some of them restricted themselves to the role of "trade," becoming the nominally "normal" partners of "queers" (although this did not account for most such men). Many others simply "did it," without naming it, freed from having to label themselves by the certainty that, at least, they were not fairies. But many men aware of sexual desires for other men, like the clerk, struggled to forge an alternative identity and cultural stance, one that would distinguish them from fairies and "normal" men alike. Even their efforts, however, were profoundly shaped by the cultural presumption that sexual desire for men was inherently a feminine desire. That presumption made the identity they sought to construct a queer one indeed: unwilling to become virtual women, they sought to remain men who nonetheless loved other men.
The efforts of such men marked the growing differentiation and isolation of sexuality from gender in middle-class American culture. Whereas fairies' desire for men was thought to follow inevitably from their gender persona, queers maintained that their desire for men revealed only their "sexuality" (their "homosexuality), a distinct domain of personality independent of gender. Their homosexuality, they argued, revealed nothing abnormal in their gender persona. The effort to forge a new kind of homosexual identity was predominantly a middle-class phenomenon, and the emergence of "homosexuals" in middle-class culture was inextricably linked to the emergence of "heterosexuals" in that culture as well. If many workingmen thought they demonstrated sexual virility by playing the "man's part" in sexual encounters with either women or men, normal middle-class men increasingly believed that their virility depended on their exclusive sexual interest in women. Even as queer men began to define their difference from other men on the basis of their homosexuality, "normal" men began to define their difference from queers on the basis of their renunciation of any sentiments or behavior that might be marked as homosexual. Only when they did so did "normal men" become "heterosexual men." As Jonathan Katz has suggested, heterosexuality was an invention of the late nineteenth century. The "heterosexual" and "homosexual" emerged in tandem at the turn of the century as powerful new ways of conceptualizing human sexual practices."
Clearly cultural history! Still, you should read it anyway.
And I suppose I'll just list a bunch of history books that I really liked, even ones that are like "A History of Opera" (spoilers, it's the first one on the list) or whatever that you probably won't find interesting!
- A History of Opera, by Carolyn Abbate
- A Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman
- A Nation Among Nations: America's Place in World History, by Thomas Bender
- Marriage, a History: from Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage, by Stephanie Coontz
- Homosexuality and Civilization, by Louis Crompton
- Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights, by Pete Daniel
- No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women, by Estelle B. Freedman
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750 - 1925, by Herbert George Gutman
- Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent, by Dan Healey
- The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps, by Heinz Heger
- How the Irish Became White, by Noel Ignatiev
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, by Tony Judt
- When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America, by Ira Katznelson
- All the Shah's Men, by Stephen Kinzer
- Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Football in Europe During the Second World War, by Simon Kuper
- The Reformation, by Diarmaid MacCulloch
- 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann
- 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, by Charles C. Mann
- Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, by Neil Miller
- Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America, by Beryl Satter
- Bloodlands: Europe Betwen Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy Snyder
- Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy, by James Stark
- The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, by Adam Tooze
- Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities, by Craig Steven Wilder
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson
- Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, by Jonathan Wilson
I don't vouch for all of these equally, but I did like them all.
I would consider those Gay New York excepts social history, which I find fascinating, since it deals with people and groups rather than the ideas and things they create. What I consider cultural history is beliefs, practices, etc. Granted, there is a good deal of overlap between the two, but I find cultural history interesting when it is grounded in people/social groups and their interactions, not divorced from that and discussed in the abstract.
So yea, Gay New York still looks interesting to me! I will definitely look into the other books soon to see if they spark my interest.
Since you have been so kind to recommend me some, I'll go ahead and recommend you a few on Chinese history
- Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China by Matthew Sommer
- Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding by Dorothy Ko
- The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China by Martin Elvin
- Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 by Philip Khun
- The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China by Timothy Brook
- History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth by Paul Cohen
- Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century China by William t Rowe
- God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan By Jonathan Spence
- Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China by Fransceca Bray
- Rickshaw Beijing: City People and Politics in the 1920s by Philip Strande
- Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century by Susan Mann
Been a while since I read any of those, but I do remember at least learning quite a bit. No guarantees how entertaining any of them are. I tried to tailor the list a bit to your thematic interests.
Mackenzie 92
Member
Finished up The Accidental Time Machine. It was OK, nothing great. Enjoyed the ending.
Started this up tonight at work. Kinda interesting.
The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
Started this up tonight at work. Kinda interesting.
The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
Kyleripman
Member
Just finished A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time) and have a few questions (heavy spoilers). Hopefully some gaffers remember this stuff and can shed some Light (pun intended) on them:
Overall enjoyed the series. Finished it in a 6 month marathon. I found reports of braid-pulling to be exaggerated (Nynaeve is one of my favorites, actually). I think the series developed from a fairly derivative beginning into its own unique story and setting.
What was the origin of Rand and Moridin's link? What significance did they have to each other than being old friends/enemies throughout the ages and fighting a few times in the books? How did they switch bodies?
At the end, Rand can't channel anymore, but he can will things into existence (his pipe lighting)?
When Rand first enters the tunnel to confront the Dark One, is the voice he hears (that tells him it is time) supposed to be the Creator? I say this because Rand has been "hoping" to hear that voice, and then he says "thank you" before he enters.
Memories from the Age of Legends appear to describe things like planes and skyscrapers; is this intended actually intended to be "our" world in the past/future (time being a Wheel) or is it just drawing a parallel?
What actual act was Logain's "glory" as seen by Min? Abandoning power to save children, or his future leadership of the Black Tower?
Also, less a question and more a reaction: I don't 100% buy Rand's reason for not killing the Dark One (that it would remove the choice between good and evil for everyone). I agree that the choice is important, but that means that ALL evil in the WoT universe is a direct product of the Dark One - when the first vision Rand creates in his fight appears to show that it is inherent in people anyway. I don't mind this ending, but would have preferred one where he destroys the Dark One (he's clearly capable of it) and then has to reconcile the fact that evil will still exist in the world (wars, politics, Seanchan slavery, etc.).
At the end, Rand can't channel anymore, but he can will things into existence (his pipe lighting)?
When Rand first enters the tunnel to confront the Dark One, is the voice he hears (that tells him it is time) supposed to be the Creator? I say this because Rand has been "hoping" to hear that voice, and then he says "thank you" before he enters.
Memories from the Age of Legends appear to describe things like planes and skyscrapers; is this intended actually intended to be "our" world in the past/future (time being a Wheel) or is it just drawing a parallel?
What actual act was Logain's "glory" as seen by Min? Abandoning power to save children, or his future leadership of the Black Tower?
Also, less a question and more a reaction: I don't 100% buy Rand's reason for not killing the Dark One (that it would remove the choice between good and evil for everyone). I agree that the choice is important, but that means that ALL evil in the WoT universe is a direct product of the Dark One - when the first vision Rand creates in his fight appears to show that it is inherent in people anyway. I don't mind this ending, but would have preferred one where he destroys the Dark One (he's clearly capable of it) and then has to reconcile the fact that evil will still exist in the world (wars, politics, Seanchan slavery, etc.).
Overall enjoyed the series. Finished it in a 6 month marathon. I found reports of braid-pulling to be exaggerated (Nynaeve is one of my favorites, actually). I think the series developed from a fairly derivative beginning into its own unique story and setting.
Wanted something lighter and a bit of adventure, and I've been wanting to start watching Star Wars Rebels, so I figure it makes sense I read this. First Star Wars book I've read as well, figure that's something to finally cross off the list too with the new canon and all that.
A New Dawn (Star Wars) by John Jackson Miller
A New Dawn (Star Wars) by John Jackson Miller
Christoff Yurievich
Member
I just finished "A Once Crowded Sky" for the second time. It's not as good as I remember, but then almost everything is better in your memory. The story itself is pretty well written, it's just that the characters are presented in such a hodgepodge manner that you, the omniscient reader, can't really figure out the story until it's spelled out for you. And it is literally spelled out for you in exposition and monologue. Well, monologue is being nice because the quality takes a sharp nosedive when people start talking. There are entire conversations where characters are talking but they're not talking to each other because no one acknowledges that anyone else is talking. Person A is talking about this, Person B is trying to talk about that, and poor Person C is confused because neither are talking to him. Hmm, maybe it is a monologue, it's just that everyone does it at the same time? The dialogue really pulls this book down.
As for reading speed comments a few pages ago, I finished the book in two days.
As for reading speed comments a few pages ago, I finished the book in two days.
Answers in bold, under your spoilers
Any Questions
Member
It's a free pdf from the author. It's called "the issue at hand".it's a buddhist intro book and am enjoying. Makes a change from all the usual. Recommended
Kyleripman
Member
Thanks a lot, that helps! I completely missed the
Mercedes-Benz
Indeed.
I know i missed every single one until i read that the books have such.
There was this site... Thirteenthdepository or some such that had a lot of WoT theories, analysis about various things like channeling, notes about characters and their inspirations... eh, a lot of stuff. I used to read it a lot... then i noticed i had read everything there.
nakedsushi
Member
I've finally finished:
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
This is my favorite Atwood so far. It's so different from her other works. I wouldn't even consider it sci-fi, except for the pulpy sci-fi story inside the other story. The framing took a little to get used to, but once it took off, it really took off.
I would have given this 5/5 stars instead of 4/5 stars, but I was just really annoyed by the women in this book. I know her thing is to write feminist novels where women have no agency as a way of showing how much it sucks to be a woman in a male-dominated world, but it also is so draining on me as a reader.
When I got to the end, I realized how much the gist of this book resembled a bad soap opera.
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
This is my favorite Atwood so far. It's so different from her other works. I wouldn't even consider it sci-fi, except for the pulpy sci-fi story inside the other story. The framing took a little to get used to, but once it took off, it really took off.
I would have given this 5/5 stars instead of 4/5 stars, but I was just really annoyed by the women in this book. I know her thing is to write feminist novels where women have no agency as a way of showing how much it sucks to be a woman in a male-dominated world, but it also is so draining on me as a reader.
When I got to the end, I realized how much the gist of this book resembled a bad soap opera.
Kyleripman
Member
I wonder if that upcoming encyclopedia will address any of that. I think I'd prefer that aspect of the mythology to remain somewhat obscure and not over-explained, though.
Finished up Judas Unchained. Overall I really liked it. Hamilton reminds me a lot of GRRM. Great world builders, interesting characters, but fucking awful at actually writing any of them. Hamilton is completely unable to write a scene including a female without making it about sex (or just often having them sleep with whoever is in the scene with them at the time). It's pretty obnoxious after awhile.
That said, I thought it was a really good two book series overall. Definitely worth reading. The tech stuff was well done and the universe is fantastic. Wrapped it up very nicely as well.
Not sure if I want to jump right into the Void series or read some non-fiction next, probably a short NF before getting back into it. Really I just want to get to the latest, The Abyss Beyond Dreams, because I want to see what Shelton is up to!
That said, I thought it was a really good two book series overall. Definitely worth reading. The tech stuff was well done and the universe is fantastic. Wrapped it up very nicely as well.
Not sure if I want to jump right into the Void series or read some non-fiction next, probably a short NF before getting back into it. Really I just want to get to the latest, The Abyss Beyond Dreams, because I want to see what Shelton is up to!
Tragicomedy
Member
Finished The Last Policeman trilogy this afternoon. They are solid reads, but they are so firmly planted in such a bleak world that I have trouble making a general recommendation. I really dig the main character, and his dedication (obsession?) to finding closure to his cases despite the world around him going to hell.
Oh. Then I suppose that The Great Cat Massacre would be a mix of social and cultural history depending on the essay, and Largesse is more straightforwardly cultural history at least I remember it.
Thanks! I'd like to read a general Chinese history book before reading something more focused, though. What do you think of this?
Marauder Shields
Member
Dunno why I keep reading these books. I don't think they're particularly good. Guilty pleasure I guess.
When you do get back to the Commonwealth, you will want to read the Void Trilogy first, as The Abyss spoils a lot of stuff from it pretty early actually.
I read an older version and I liked it. Jonathan Spence is a fantastic writer, though I am not sure if his narrative style history writing stands out in that book considering that it is a general survey and not a compact story.
Another option would be to check out this series
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674066243/?tag=neogaf0e-20
I linked the Qing version (you can find the others on the suggested books), but basically its a series of books on each of the Chinese dynasties. I haven't read them, but they are written by historians who do work in that period (I recommended a Willaim T Rowe book to you, for example) and incorporate the latest scholarship. Also a whole lot shorter if you are only interested in a specific period or dynasty.
My Guess is that the Newest version of The Search of Modern China does not incorporate the newest scholarship into the book, and Jonathan Spence seems to be more of a Late Qing early modern CHinese scholar than anything (kinda does a bit of everything in the whole Ming + period though)
Conkersbadfurday
Member
I thought the same in regards to your spoiler bit. I figure it was maybe more an accident than anything else, or just King tying up a loose end. Either way, I enjoyed that bit, so I'll overlook the problems it causes
Well, as long as it is good. I can always compensate its shortcomings by reading more in-depth books later. I actually have the second edition - I bought it from Borders when they were closing however many years ago it was and I've never gotten around to reading it!
Oh yea, it is good. You will definitely get a good understanding of Chinese history from the Ming to, well, sometime in the Communist era, which will definitely be enough background info to read a more in-depth work and understand it.
I just finished this book. Simply fantastic. I thought that one amazon reviewer might have a point about better soil and different cotton seed strains, but I think he successfully proved that a significant amount of efficiency and productivity per slave was due to the pushing system, thanks to certain specific examples and the overall production of the Sea islands and then the whole south before and after slavery
I think he also mentioned somewhere in the beginning that thanks to the cotton gin, the bottleneck was not on how much cotton could be processed or how much land was available, but how much Cotton could be picked. To me, this implies that a lot of the cotton was left unpicked due to insufficient labor to pick all of the cotton that was planted. The pushing system, he contends started to change that.
I am interested on how he came to that conclusion and what evidence backs that up. I feel that that sort of claim needs a bit more conclusive evidence than the evidence in the first paragraph, even though they say similar things.
Head of Vengarl
Banned
The Count of Monte Cristo
I took a break for a while, but seriously I've been reading this goddamn book for like 6+ months. It's soooo long. But so good. I'm about 3/4 of the way through.
I took a break for a while, but seriously I've been reading this goddamn book for like 6+ months. It's soooo long. But so good. I'm about 3/4 of the way through.
Try waiting for the next damn book.
That's coming maybe next year.
Then another two years... 5th book is probably about 7 years away. Probably more. And then there's another 5 books, though apparently Sanderson's plan is to have a break from Stormlight) between the first 5 and the second 5 books of the Stormlight Archive.
Luap: Great book! Edmond Dantés is one of my favorite characters and an expert on Tolkien.
With regards to the argument that the difference was soil and different cotton seed strains, he does mention this:
And this after their great-grandparents were picking 200 pounds a day, with more difficult to pick bolls. Even if the bolls were improving during slavery - and I could believe that - it doesn't account for the improvement in production. If it did, we wouldn't have seen a massive drop-off in the production of pickers.
You listened to the audiobook, right? You should pick up the physical copy and look at the charts and tables. For instance, he indexes cotton production in 1820 at 100, and then shows the increase in production:
1790 - 54
1800 - 66
1810 - 81
1820 - 100
1830 - 123
1845 - 168
1850 - 187
1860 - 230
And during those same years, the price of cotton dropped from 191 in 1790 to 172 in 1800 to 100 in 1810 to 48 by 1860.
I don't think he was arguing that there were vast tracts of unpicked cotton (though presumably it happened from time to time that not all the cotton was picked for whatever reason), but simply that picking represented the part of cotton production that required the most labor and was therefore the place where cotton production was limited. It wasn't land; the land available was far larger than you could possibly have workers to pick. It wasn't the the processing; the processing had been removed as a bottleneck thanks to the invention of the cotton gin. I assume over the course of the sixty or so years that the pushing system was in effect, as slaves were tortured into greater efficiency, more and more cotton was produced. Baptist says at one point that in 1800, the slaves produced 1.4 million pounds of cotton - and in 1860 they harvested almost 2 billion pounds of it. This is obviously a combination of more cotton being planted, more slaves, and much better production.
I thought he demonstrated pretty well that the pushing system was key. Take out the pushing system and what happens to production? Well, we know that per worker production falls by at least half and that's assuming that there were no improvements in the cotton boll. And it probably means that less cotton is planted, since there's no reason to plant more than can be picked. Just compare the 66 in 1800 to the 230 in 1860, and ask what happens to the 2 billion pounds if the slaves in 1860 were picking like the slaves in 1800. Even if you generously assume that improvements in the cotton boll would have gotten them improvements in and of themselves, it couldn't account for a 3.5 times better production per person.
With regards to the argument that the difference was soil and different cotton seed strains, he does mention this:
And this after their great-grandparents were picking 200 pounds a day, with more difficult to pick bolls. Even if the bolls were improving during slavery - and I could believe that - it doesn't account for the improvement in production. If it did, we wouldn't have seen a massive drop-off in the production of pickers.
You listened to the audiobook, right? You should pick up the physical copy and look at the charts and tables. For instance, he indexes cotton production in 1820 at 100, and then shows the increase in production:
1790 - 54
1800 - 66
1810 - 81
1820 - 100
1830 - 123
1845 - 168
1850 - 187
1860 - 230
And during those same years, the price of cotton dropped from 191 in 1790 to 172 in 1800 to 100 in 1810 to 48 by 1860.
I don't think he was arguing that there were vast tracts of unpicked cotton (though presumably it happened from time to time that not all the cotton was picked for whatever reason), but simply that picking represented the part of cotton production that required the most labor and was therefore the place where cotton production was limited. It wasn't land; the land available was far larger than you could possibly have workers to pick. It wasn't the the processing; the processing had been removed as a bottleneck thanks to the invention of the cotton gin. I assume over the course of the sixty or so years that the pushing system was in effect, as slaves were tortured into greater efficiency, more and more cotton was produced. Baptist says at one point that in 1800, the slaves produced 1.4 million pounds of cotton - and in 1860 they harvested almost 2 billion pounds of it. This is obviously a combination of more cotton being planted, more slaves, and much better production.
I thought he demonstrated pretty well that the pushing system was key. Take out the pushing system and what happens to production? Well, we know that per worker production falls by at least half and that's assuming that there were no improvements in the cotton boll. And it probably means that less cotton is planted, since there's no reason to plant more than can be picked. Just compare the 66 in 1800 to the 230 in 1860, and ask what happens to the 2 billion pounds if the slaves in 1860 were picking like the slaves in 1800. Even if you generously assume that improvements in the cotton boll would have gotten them improvements in and of themselves, it couldn't account for a 3.5 times better production per person.
I feel like I'm talking in circles, tell me if you agree or if I'm missing your point
Completed Player Piano over the weekend. An excellent tale on a future we seem to be approaching!
Currently I am about to begin reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, particularly the Richard Pevar and Larissa Volokhonsky translation, as my English teacher as well as many critics feel that it captures the language of Dostoevsky more accurately than the traditional Constance Garnett translation.
However, before I dive into this, I feel I'll read over the weekend Timequake by Vonnegut.
Currently I am about to begin reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, particularly the Richard Pevar and Larissa Volokhonsky translation, as my English teacher as well as many critics feel that it captures the language of Dostoevsky more accurately than the traditional Constance Garnett translation.
However, before I dive into this, I feel I'll read over the weekend Timequake by Vonnegut.
I think I'll be okay. I'll have Mistborn novels in the middle to fill in the gaps.
What, one book every two years?
You may be OK but i certainly ain't.
I think i once read the final book of the trilogy in a day... There's a limit to how many times i can re-read books, unless it is Dune (i read it every year).
I can't even find any good fantasy series to read while waiting. I've read WoT (and can't bring myself to re-read it yet again), ASOAIF and... well i can't remember any other good long series.