Favorite books / What are you reading?

[DexterMorgan]

Robert Fisk: Pity the Nation

 

[UniversalWolf]

I'm finally back to PKD. This time it's Now Wait for Last Year, which I'm enjoying more than either Martian Time Slip or Dr. Bloodmoney. These are his early novels in the chronological order of their writing, and I really notice his development as an author. Now Wait for Last Year is a classic example of what I think of as PKD. It's slightly less hung up on the psychological analysis (although that's still a strong element), and ephasizes an unconventional situation where it's difficult to tell for sure what's real and what's imaginary or hallucinatory - although I expect the ending may reveal the truth to some degree.

 

[Eyenixon]

Your whole post made me feel like I was in a Philip K. Dick novel. PDK? Now Wait For Next Year?

Philip K. Dick is one of my greatest influences as a writer, and VALIS was my absolute favorite, simply because the narrative was very Joycean in its unrestrained flow of consciousness that would come along during Fat's more reflective rants, and its inability to adhere to what a reader would find interesting or comprehensible, it's surreal realism and that made it absolutely fantastic to me.

It's depressing that his genius late in his life seemed to have the trade off of losing his sanity.

 

[welsh]

Reading Alan Furst- Dark Star- about a soviet journalist turned spy prior to World War 2. Kind of interesting.

Also reading a lot on US foreign policy to Africa.

Recently read Eric Ambler's COffin for Demitrios- which was quite good as a spy yarn.

Oh, and been reading a lot about mountain men in the American west. Some great stories, but man, there are a lot of Indian fights.

 

[UniversalWolf]

Your whole post made me feel like I was in a Philip K. Dick novel. PDK? Now Wait For Next Year?

Yep, I was out to lunch on that post (fixed), no question about it!

I could claim I did it on purpose, but the truth is I was short on sleep. There has to be some excuse, right?

Frankly it doesn't help that I'd just been reading a PKD novel full of people constantly jumping ahead, backward, and side-to-side in time and dimension.

One of my favorite things about that novel is how Dick constantly refernces "robants" without ever telling you exactly what they are. You just have to try and figure it out for yourself based on some brief and varied descriptions and the different things they do.

 

[Casey fucking Ryback]

My favorite books, or book series to be more precise are:

Stephen King's Dark Tower series

Conn Iggulden's Emperor series

I especially like the dark tower series because of the post-apocalyptic setting (surprise) and the way Stephen King writes his books. But the Emperor book series is just pure orgasmic ownage, about the life and death (and everything in between) of Julius Caesar. VERY interesting, I suggest you read it.

 

[gregor_y]

Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged

 

[UniversalWolf]

But the Emperor book series is just pure orgasmic ownage, about the life and death (and everything in between) of Julius Caesar. VERY interesting, I suggest you read it.

You ought to read Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar.

Speaking of which, I was reading the Life of Cornelius Sylla, who was an arbitrary, mass-murdering tyrant who seized the dictatorship of Rome a generation before Caesar. This is Plutarch's account of what lead to his death:

By these courses he encouraged a disease which had begun from unimportant cause; and for a long time he failed to observe that his bowels were ulcerated, till at length the corrupted flesh broke out into lice. Many were employed day and night in destroying them, but the work so multiplied under their hands, that not only his clothes, baths, basins, but his very meat was polluted with that flux and contagion, they came swarming out in such numbers. He went frequently by day to the bath to scour and cleanse his body, but all in vain; the evil generated too rapidly and too abundantly for any ablutions to overcome it.

I thought you guys might enjoy that.

 

[Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude]

Burning through 'everything's eventual' by stephen king. I'm a sucker for short story compilations.

 

[Zaij]

The Big Fella - The Rise and Rise of BHP Billiton. It's a history of the world's largest mining company and the wheeling and dealing, power struggles and so forth that went on in the back room.

 

[welsh]

Finally read George Stewart's classic 1949 post-apocalyptic novel Earth Abides

A disease sweeps out almost all of humanity leaving a scattered few. Many of those who survive die from the shock of so many deaths, and their inability to adapt. Those few who survive the second death, continue, living off the ruins of civilization. But life among the ruins has its own risks, and, over the years, civilization slowly slides.

Told from the vantage of one survivor, a young ecologist observer, the story deals with how society changes over time. It reminded me, in part, of a more subtle Lord of the Flies and The Lottery.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

Currently reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. As a quote on the backside says, 'she writes brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly'.

I've been reading a lot of Nietzsche last semester, and although she didn't admit it, she is heavily influenced by Nietzsche's philosophy, which only makes it all the more stunning and refreshing for me to read. I'm damn glad the book has around 1200 pages, at least I won't have to hold myself back for reading through brilliance in too short a time.

Apart from that, more study-related, I've just finished Homeros' Histories. Nice to read if you're interested in (ancient) history. Gonna follow that one up with Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War.

 

[UniversalWolf]

Apart from that, more study-related, I've just finished Homeros' Histories. Nice to read if you're interested in (ancient) history. Gonna follow that one up with Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War.

Plutarch would be great to read alongside Thucydides. He wrote lives of Pericles, Themistocles, Aristides, Nicias, and Alcibiades, among others.

 

[UniversalWolf]

I just started rereading Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander novels. I've got the complete set, but I'm going to limit myself to five or six of them in one chunk.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

Finished Atlas Shrugged.

Also, finished this week:
- Mary Fulbrook, Historical methodology
- Ruth Mazo Karras, Sexuality in medieval Europe
- Norman Housley, Religious warfare in Europe 1400-1536

Have to finish by/during next week:
- John W. Baldwin, The language of sex
- Katherine Crawford, European sexualities, 1400-1800
- Barbara B. Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris

Finally my history study is starting to get somewhat more challenging. I'm pretty much reading as much in 2 weeks as I used to in one semester. The fact that it's possible says a hell of a lot about the level of difficulty of the bachelor degree. I guess they had to dumb that down the drain to keep up with our ministry of education's goal to have '50% of people with a higher education degree'. I wonder when they find out that giving more people a piece of paper that becomes increasingly worthless by doing so is not a good policy.

Plutarch would be great to read alongside Thucydides. He wrote lives of Pericles, Themistocles, Aristides, Nicias, and Alcibiades, among others.

Nice. I hope I can find the time to get around to that. The focus of my study lies on the medieval periods, but that's never kept me away from strolling through antiquity. It does seem to do so now though, as 'spare time' has sort of become things like eating, or riding back home on my bike.

 

[Flop]

Finished Atlas Shrugged.

This reminds me of a quote from South Park:

"Yes, at first I was happy to be learning how to read. It seemed exciting and magical. But, then, I read this: Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I read every last word of this garbage, and because of this piece of shit, I will never read again!"

I've never read it myself, though.

Plutarch would be great to read alongside Thucydides. He wrote lives of Pericles, Themistocles, Aristides, Nicias, and Alcibiades, among others.

Nice. I hope I can find the time to get around to that. The focus of my study lies on the medieval periods, but that's never kept me away from strolling through antiquity. It does seem to do so now though, as 'spare time' has sort of become things like eating, or riding back home on my bike.

I'd recommend Polybius, rather than Plutarch, as a source for ancient Greek history. Both would be even better, of course, if you have time.

Finally my history study is starting to get somewhat more challenging. I'm pretty much reading as much in 2 weeks as I used to in one semester. The fact that it's possible says a hell of a lot about the level of difficulty of the bachelor degree. I guess they had to dumb that down the drain to keep up with our ministry of education's goal to have '50% of people with a higher education degree'. I wonder when they find out that giving more people a piece of paper that becomes increasingly worthless by doing so is not a good policy.

It's the same here in Denmark. I'm glad to see that we're not the only ones dumbing down our education system.

 

[rcorporon]

Rand was brutal, and her philosophy of Objectivism was horrible (altruism is a bad thing?).

I read "Atlas Shrugged" and wanted to throw the book against the wall. So much tripe.

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[UniversalWolf]

I can't recommend Patrick O'Brian's novels strongly enough. I'd forgotten how good they really are. Few authors can immerse the reader so fully in the world the books are describing (Bethesda and people who worship their games could learn a few things about "immersion" from O'Brian ). Every crewman of Lucky Jack Aubrey's ships has a distinct personality. Amazing detail.

 

[rcorporon]

I'm just about done 'World War Z" and I'd recommend it to anybody who enjoys zombies.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

Rand was brutal, and her philosophy of Objectivism was horrible (altruism is a bad thing?).

I read "Atlas Shrugged" and wanted to throw the book against the wall. So much tripe.

[/quote]

There's some stuff in [i]Atlas Shrugged[/i] I really couldn't life with, especially the nonexistence of tax, which would mean pretty much the eradication of the entire state. And after around half-way through I became somewhat annoyed that every conversation pretty much consisted of either an enormous diatribe against anything resembling socialism, or, the other side of the book, a eulogy of the happy feast that pure capitalism is supposed to be. That just doesn't work with me.

But there are some elements that are quite convincing and, to be fair, make valid points; and this is something I would like to give more consideration than I can currently do (for reasons explained in the 'I have to read these books this/next week'-list above, I'm still reading them). For example, just now on the television there is a debate between the ministers of my country (Netherlands) where one complaint was that, for all the money the state has pumped into our banking system, they ought to give it back in the form of loans, and if they cannot or do not, than perhaps a law should be made that they should. Granted, the person making this statement is professionally stupid (Rita Verdonk), but it is right up the alley of the idiots portrayed in [i]Atlas Shrugged[/i], a position usually being taken not for its rational background but simply for demagogic reasons. The extend of government control is, to some degree, validly being brought into question by [i]Atlas Shrugged[/i].

Perhaps my reading of the book has been somewhat different because I've been heavily invested into Nietzsche lately (who also can be read in a highly negative fashion). Rand and Nietzsche have one message in common that I'm quite attracted to. Nietzsche in his [i]Beyond Good and Evil[/i] and [i]On the Genealogy of Morality[/i] portrays the same kind of analysis Rand uses with regard to Christianity, which Nietzsche calls the 'slave revolt in morality'. The wiki article isn't all that bad in explaining this. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_morality[/url]

Now I couldn't say whether this has any basis in society as a whole as Nietzsche states (with Christianity, Democracy, and even Plato and his philosophy as examples), but I do believe that Nietzsche's 'ressentiment' certainly has had some moments of surfacing in society. When I was in VWO (secondary education) there was this morality abound that basically devalued being a good student. You weren't supposed to get a 10 (the highest), rather, you were supposed to get a 6, or even better, a 5,5 which is just .1 above failing, while doing as little as possible. The same with university on a bachelor or first-years level, but somewhat diminished and it pretty much disappeared after that. As a way of living it is a mechanism of protection to make the lazy person, in his own eyes and in the communities' eyes, more worthy than the hardworking one.

It's the same reason we say people 'have talent'. We diminish the amount of work and time someone has put into whatever he's so ridiculously good at and simply say that he had been given such and such; we basically place a talented person outside the realm of human comparison to make such a person a non-danger to our own capability. If Mozart had enormous talent, than it's alright to suck at what you do because you don't have talent. This kind of complacency is something I've come to hate furiously. Anything that takes away, diminishes or devalues elements of human capability I abhor.

What makes Rand somewhat impossible at times is the way she takes things to an extreme. Altruism as such is being portrayed as a way of living, where everybody else can make claims on you if their position is worse, and you can make claims on everyone else whose position is better than yours. This is enforced in the book not so much through laws but rather through what has become the dominant morality of what she calls 'looters'. Altruism in [i]Atlas Shrugged[/i] has little to do with kindness in that regard, because it is basically enforced, like our own political-correct way of speaking in public enforces certain ways of behaviour and thinking. As such, altruism takes on the form of a moral imperative, where you can make a moral claim on persons in better situations, simply because they are in a better position, regardless of your own efforts. Altruism is more or less identified with a kind of communism, which then again is connected with the Nietzschean idea of a slave revolt of morality. Altruism and need become weapons in the hands of those jealous of Rand's 'capitalists', and are thus fleeced for the 'public good' or 'need'.

This is also where Rand brakes down. She never, ever considers the fact that there are people who truly require state-help to in fact simply stay alive. In her ideal happy capitalist world I'm quite afraid as to what would happen to handicapped people, or as a matter of fact, people who are, bluntly said, stupid. But the book does help to bring into question the claims that people can make with regard to the position of other people, and if we let them legitimately make these claims, to what degree these claims remain legit. A society with a strong social security system will invariably have to deal with 'looters' while supporting the legit people, whereas a society without or with less of such a system might very well have more homeless and troubled people as in America right now, but this might also stimulate competition and counter complacency. It's a dichotomy worth thinking about, and Rand's position, while extreme, delivers an interesting hypothetical thought experiment.

Ps: Bugger, I didn't want to go [i]this[/i] in-depth, especially because this usually means I'll be drawn into some hopelessly long discussion. Seriously, I don't have time, I didn't even have time to write this stuff, I could've read 20-40 pages while writing this. I have to finish reading 260 pages before tomorrow, another 200 the day after, and I have to write a review of another book. If someone replies, I'll probably have some time again in the weekend.