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Green Arrow
01-15-2015, 12:31 AM
My 2015 reading list:

1) 1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies
2) 1434: The Year A Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance by Gavin Menzies
3) The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin
4) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
5) Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
6) The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope by Austen Iverleigh
7) Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life by Alison Weir
8) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9) Dracula, and Other Horror Classics by Bram Stoker
10) Beloved by Toni Morrison
11) The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins
12) How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman

And any further books will be decided.

momsapplepie
01-15-2015, 12:51 AM
One on my agenda is Killing Patton. We just watch George C. Scott as Patton the other night. The other books by O'Reiley, Killing Lincoln, and Killing Jesus, were both excellent tomes. The only regret was the Author didn't go far enough.
As for other books, they would be anything and pretty much everything. I read anywhere from 4-5 books a week.
They are like Candy. At this point, I try to read at least one, self expanding, or political book a week. I usually have two going at once.
Currently: Hubris by Isikoff, starring George Bush as the ultimate manipulator, tricking the congress into declaring war on Iraq, and The Devil's Elixer by Khoury, about pharmaceuticals discovered in remote tribal areas, and the FBI agent trying to find the Cartel leader.

Matty
01-15-2015, 01:32 AM
Killing Patton

Eleanor of Acquitaine

the land of fire and Ice. ( we will see)

iustitia
01-15-2015, 01:44 AM
Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill is next after The Vietnam Wars by Marilyn Young.

Cigar
01-15-2015, 10:25 AM
Conservatives Without Conscience

southwest88
01-15-2015, 11:10 AM
Just finished The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins. Mulling it over.

Reading Moorish Spain - Richard Fletcher (from Colins' chapter notes, above). V. interesting reading.

nathanbforrest45
01-15-2015, 11:58 AM
Anything by Rush Limbaugh and any books on sailing.

PolWatch
01-15-2015, 12:06 PM
now reading: Eleanor of Acquitaine and The Shadow over Santa Susana

listed: 1421, re-read Kon Tiki...

to quote an old friend: which ever-way the wind blows be's cool wid me

Peter1469
01-15-2015, 12:35 PM
D.J. Molles should be coming out with the next novel in his zombie series. It is at the top of the genre. He started self publishing and got picked up by a major publishing house.

southwest88
01-15-2015, 12:49 PM
D.J. Molles should be coming out with the next novel in his zombie series. It is at the top of the genre. He started self publishing and got picked up by a major publishing house.

John Ringo has a series. He's very readable.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ringo#Non-series_novels

"Series[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Ringo&action=edit&section=3&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro)]

Black Tide Rising Series[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Ringo&action=edit&section=4&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro)]

"Series based on a zombie apocalypse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_apocalypse)

Under a Graveyard Sky (September 2013) (ISBN 1-4516-3919-8 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1451639198))
To Sail a Darkling Sea (February 2014) (ISBN 1-4767-3621-9 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1476736219))
Islands of Rage and Hope (August 2014) (ISBN 1-4767-3662-4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1476736624))[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ringo#cite_note-baen.com-12)
Strands of Sorrow (January 2015) (ISBN 978-1-4767-3695-2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781476736952))[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ringo#cite_note-baen.com-12)"

Dragonborn Herald
03-18-2015, 11:44 PM
Cambridge history of Islam
Cambridge History of Israel.

GrassrootsConservative
03-19-2015, 12:15 AM
Revival (that's what I'm reading now)
Finders Keepers
Fight Club 2

Green Arrow
03-19-2015, 12:32 AM
So far, I have completed:

1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

Now I'm starting 1434: The Year A Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, also by Gavin Menzies.

Common
03-19-2015, 06:36 AM
I read for entertainment, I do not ready POLITICAL stuff, I get enough of that online. I dont read intellectual stuff, im not an intellectual and I dont read history and books of learning because Im too old and dont give a hoot anymore. So I read

Stephen King, Coontz and I reread book series like Nero Wolfe and Mike Hammer both detectives.

If you want to try reading a book for entertainment try reading one Rex Stouts, Nero Wolfe series that are unique about NYC in the 40s I would say. Nero wolfe is an obese Intellectual maybe a genius who never leaves the house, sits in a chair and can solve the most involved crimes. Really fun to read.

southwest88
03-19-2015, 08:58 AM
What the Arabs think of America, Andrew Hammond - 2007 - skimming, because it's after the Arab Spring
Embedded - a Marine Corps adviser inside the Iraqi army - Wesley Gray
Dirty little secrets of the Vietnam War - Dunnigan & Nofi - a favorite, rereading before looking @ VN in depth
George Washington's secret six - the spy ring that saved the American Revolution - Brian Kilmeade
Operation Dark Heart - Spycraft & SpOps in Afghan - Anthony Shaffer
Art of War - Sun Tzu - reread

There's not much on TV that bears watching. We're lucky that the public library has a good selection.

Mister D
03-19-2015, 09:23 AM
My 2015 reading list:

1) 1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies
2) 1434: The Year A Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance by Gavin Menzies
3) The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin
4) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
5) Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
6) The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope by Austen Iverleigh
7) Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life by Alison Weir
8) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9) Dracula, and Other Horror Classics by Bram Stoker
10) Beloved by Toni Morrison
11) The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins
12) How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman

And any further books will be decided.

Crime and Punishment and Dracula are two of my favorite novels. Let me know how #11 is. I was looking at this which is along similar lines:

http://www.amazon.com/Germanization-Early-Medieval-Christianity-Sociohistorical/dp/0195104668/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426774923&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Germanization+of+Early+Medieval+Chris tianity%3A+A+Sociohistorical+Approach+to+Religious +Transformation

Russell argues that Christianity (i.e. Catholicism) underwent a very significant transformation in its contact with European cultures.

Cigar
03-19-2015, 09:25 AM
https://encrypted.google.com/books/content/images/frontcover/l4gCH1bF5awC?fife=w300

southwest88
03-19-2015, 11:05 AM
Well, not the list for 2015. It's just what I happen to be interested in @ the moment.

Also read for entertainment - Traitor, Coontz; Strands of Sorrow, J. Ringo (conclusion to zombie apocalypse series); Brass man (reread - didn't recognize @ first, excellent story), Dark intelligence, both by Neal Asher, SF, & whatever catches my eye. I'll look for more Asher - these two are the only ones in our public library.

Reading up on preliminary to VN - I have S. Karnow's VN a history on hold, I've seen the first two episodes of the PBS TV series from the same book (I think).

Mister D
03-19-2015, 12:32 PM
Well, not the list for 2015. It's just what I happen to be interested in @ the moment.

Also read for entertainment - Traitor, Coontz; Strands of Sorrow, J. Ringo (conclusion to zombie apocalypse series); Brass man (reread - didn't recognize @ first, excellent story), Dark intelligence, both by Neal Asher, SF, & whatever catches my eye. I'll look for more Asher - these two are the only ones in our public library.

Reading up on preliminary to VN - I have S. Karnow's VN a history on hold, I've seen the first two episodes of the PBS TV series from the same book (I think).

Karnow's is supposed to be a classic. I read part of it in high school.

iustitia
03-19-2015, 01:05 PM
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997
A History of War in 100 Battles
Life in Biblical Israel
Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe
Almanac of World History
The Secret History of the World
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
The People Have Spoken (and they are wrong)
The Beauty and the Sarrow: An Intimate History of the First World War
The Classic Slave Narratives
Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
Police State USA: How Orwell's Nightmare is Becoming Our Reality
Small Acts of Resistance: How Courage, Tenacity, and Ingenuity Can Change the World
The World's Bloodiest History: Massacre, Genocide, and the Scars They Left on Civilization
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces
All The President's Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power
The World's Greatest Conspiracies: History's Biggest Mysteries, Cover-Ups, and Cabals

Mister D
03-19-2015, 01:08 PM
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997
A History of War in 100 Battles
Life in Biblical Israel
Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe
Almanac of World History
The Secret History of the World
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
The People Have Spoken (and they are wrong)
The Beauty and the Sarrow: An Intimate History of the First World War
The Classic Slave Narratives
Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
Police State USA: How Orwell's Nightmare is Becoming Our Reality
Small Acts of Resistance: How Courage, Tenacity, and Ingenuity Can Change the World
The World's Bloodiest History: Massacre, Genocide, and the Scars They Left on Civilization
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces
All The President's Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power
The World's Greatest Conspiracies: History's Biggest Mysteries, Cover-Ups, and Cabals

I would like a good history of the British Empire myself.

Common
03-19-2015, 02:09 PM
Crime and Punishment and Dracula are two of my favorite novels. Let me know how #11 is. I was looking at this which is along similar lines:

http://www.amazon.com/Germanization-Early-Medieval-Christianity-Sociohistorical/dp/0195104668/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426774923&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Germanization+of+Early+Medieval+Chris tianity%3A+A+Sociohistorical+Approach+to+Religious +Transformation

Russell argues that Christianity (i.e. Catholicism) underwent a very significant transformation in its contact with European cultures.

I did read a book on the real Dracula he was called the Impaler he would impale all those he fought and killed. He eventually out did himself, went to another kingdom to make a pact and the king locked him in a room in the ground till his death. Seems the king was afraid of him and didnt trust him either. Thats how the legend began

Mister D
03-19-2015, 02:26 PM
I did read a book on the real Dracula he was called the Impaler he would impale all those he fought and killed. He eventually out did himself, went to another kingdom to make a pact and the king locked him in a room in the ground till his death. Seems the king was afraid of him and didnt trust him either. Thats how the legend began

The real story of his life is as exciting as the novel. It really gives you some insight into the politics of the day and the precarious position of a lesser prince like Dracula. BTW, he was killed in battle. He was imprisoned for a while in what is now Hungary or Austria.

Common
03-19-2015, 03:04 PM
The real story of his life is as exciting as the novel. It really gives you some insight into the politics of the day and the precarious position of a lesser prince like Dracula. BTW, he was killed in battle. He was imprisoned for a while in what is now Hungary or Austria.

Thats right he did finally gain release, I read that years ago. It always amazed me how they had no value life through out history.

kilgram
03-22-2015, 05:15 PM
My reading list of 2015 in no particular order:

- Fiction

Read:

The Wheel of the Time (15 books)
The Kingkiller Chronicle (2 books - read again)

Reading:

- Earthsea

To read:

- Joe Abercrombie - Trilogy: The First Law (Finally decided to read those books - I have them from long time ago)
- Lev Grossman - Mages
- Steven Erikson - Malazan Book of the Fallen
- Andrzej Sapkowski - The Witcher (read again)
- Robin Hobb - The Farseer Trilogy and Liveship Traders Trilogy
- Brandon Sanderson - Infinity Sword

And I think that with this I am going to be pretty busy

Non-Fiction:

To-Do-List (not decided yet)

- Any recommendation of fiction (books with good feeling and science fiction or fantasy related) and non-fiction?

kilgram
03-22-2015, 05:22 PM
The real story of his life is as exciting as the novel. It really gives you some insight into the politics of the day and the precarious position of a lesser prince like Dracula. BTW, he was killed in battle. He was imprisoned for a while in what is now Hungary or Austria.
A Prince in the Slavic nobility did not have the same category as it would have in the other European countries.

I don't know very well about this topic, but I am sure that however they were the highest rank of nobility before the Tsar, they were relatively precarious.

Mister D
03-22-2015, 05:26 PM
A Prince in the Slavic nobility did not have the same category as it would have in the other European countries.

I don't know very well about this topic, but I am sure that however they were the highest rank of nobility before the Tsar, they were relatively precarious.

Wallachia (present day Romania) was a petty state right on the border of the Ottoman Empire. It was indeed a very precarious situation. All these little princedoms were sandwiched between the Ottomans and the Holy Roman Empire.

Captain Obvious
03-22-2015, 08:02 PM
Mister D - didn't read the LoTR yet?

:(

Mister D
03-22-2015, 08:05 PM
@Mister D (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=4) - didn't read the LoTR yet?

:(

Oh crap. lol No, I haven't. I did say I wanted to do that. I just ordered some books too. It just never occurs to me to order fiction. I have to order some tea tomorrow so I'll throw that set in. I'm sure I can get a cheap paperback.

Captain Obvious
03-22-2015, 08:06 PM
Oh crap. lol No, I haven't. I did say I wanted to do that. I just ordered some books too. It just never occurs to me to order fiction. I have to order some tea tomorrow so I'll throw that set in. I'm sure I can get a cheap paperback.

I would be surprised if you don't find it engaging.

Mister D
03-22-2015, 08:08 PM
I would be surprised if you don't find it engaging.

I'm sure I will. I liked The Hobbit.

Captain Obvious
03-22-2015, 08:12 PM
I'm sure I will. I liked The Hobbit.

LoTR is eons beyond the Hobbit though, the Hobbit was written as a child's book.

But many of the folksy themes as were in the Hobbit are in LoTR, enough to keep it interesting but it's far, far more complicated and dark at times.

Captain Obvious
03-22-2015, 08:12 PM
If you haven't seen the movies, don't until you read the books, trust me on that.

Mister D
03-22-2015, 08:13 PM
If you haven't seen the movies, don't until you read the books, trust me on that.

I saw part of one of them but I don't remember much about it except for that cute blond chick.

Mister D
03-22-2015, 08:15 PM
LoTR is eons beyond the Hobbit though, the Hobbit was written as a child's book.

But many of the folksy themes as were in the Hobbit are in LoTR, enough to keep it interesting but it's far, far more complicated and dark at times.

I read the Hobbit a long time ago. Sometime between 1989-1991.

Bob
03-22-2015, 08:20 PM
Wallachia (present day Romania) was a petty state right on the border of the Ottoman Empire. It was indeed a very precarious situation. All these little princedoms were sandwiched between the Ottomans and the Holy Roman Empire.

I have a Romanian Tailor. He and I chat when we have time. He told me they speak the closest version to the Roman language being used.

Mister D
03-22-2015, 08:21 PM
I have a Romanian Tailor. He and I chat when we have time. He told me they speak the closest version to the Roman language being used.

Yes, Romanian is a Romance language like French, Spanish, and Italian.

Bob
03-22-2015, 08:23 PM
Yes, Romanian is a Romance language like French, Spanish, and Italian.

I can ask him if that is what he means. I took it to mean the language is very close to the same language the romans used to speak. I have yet to hear that French is like the old Roman language.

Fact is, i believe modern Italian is not very close to the language of the Romans.

Mister D
03-22-2015, 08:28 PM
I can ask him if that is what he means. I took it to mean the language is very close to the same language the romans used to speak. I have yet to hear that French is like the old Roman language.

Fact is, i believe modern Italian is not very close to the language of the Romans.

Romance means it was derived from Latin. It may be closer to ancient Latin than the other Romance languages. I really don't know.

Bob
03-22-2015, 08:29 PM
English How are you

Latin Quomodo vos


Romanian .. ce mai faci

Well on second thought .... LOL

Bob
03-22-2015, 08:35 PM
I posted translations showing Latin vs English vs Romanian. Where are the posts?

Anyway, this is French for how are you

comment allez-vous

OK, they showed up ... no problem

Captain Obvious
03-22-2015, 08:37 PM
Donde esta casa de pe pe

Bob
03-22-2015, 08:37 PM
What I wonder is if Green Arrow read any of those books on his list?????????

Green Arrow
03-22-2015, 10:31 PM
What I wonder is if Green Arrow read any of those books on his list?????????

I've read 1421 and have started 1434, but I read the LotR series in between.

Bob
03-22-2015, 10:37 PM
I've read 1421 and have started 1434, but I read the LotR series in between.

Take a look at your list one more time. It looks like a lot of heavy reading. I plan to check out your list of books. I have a lot yet to read here at my place.

Bob
03-22-2015, 10:42 PM
Green Arrow's book

1421

From Amazon.com review

Gavin Menzies is a charming, seductive, inventive story teller, but his book is just an elaborate literary hoax, and belongs on the fiction list.
Gavin claims he has real, tangible evidence. Not true. Just check out for yourself some of the sources he cites. His own sources do not support the claims he makes.
For example, at pp 201-2(hardcover) Gavin writes of a pulley "for hoisting sails" found on the beach at Neahkahnie, Oregon, about 60 miles south of me. I drove down there and spoke with the curator of the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. He had talked with Gavin in 2002 and Wayne told Gavin the pulley had already been carbon dated (in 1993) to 1590; and, the wax was beeswax for candles, prized and common cargo for the Spanish trade galleons that traveled between the Philippines and the west coast of North America, on a regular basis, between 1564 and 1815. The pulley was from one of those Manila galleons. In his book (page520) Gavin lists as a source "Tales of the Neahkahnie Treasure", prepared by the Nehalem Valley Historical Society Treasure Committee, 1991, published by the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. It clearly states (p5) the beeswax, not as Gavin states "paraffin wax" a hydrocarbon product, had been carbon dated to 1681. Further, a pollen study of the beeswax had revealed its source was northern Luzon in the Philippines where there was a certain variety of shrub the bees visited for pollen.
Gavin ignores the inconvenient facts, hides them from the reader, and writes as if he is just waiting for the lab to confirm the finding of some possible real Chinese evidence. It's not possible, as Gavin well knows, the lab work has long since been done and it does not fit his time frame.
For another example consider the Bimini road story.Read more › (http://www.amazon.com/1421-Year-China-Discovered-America/product-reviews/0061564893/ref=cm_cr_dp_text?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=byRankDescending#R30AK5OOWC9FZ8)

del
03-22-2015, 10:50 PM
truly pathetic

Green Arrow
03-22-2015, 10:58 PM
Take a look at your list one more time. It looks like a lot of heavy reading. I plan to check out your list of books. I have a lot yet to read here at my place.

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/5a/5af1800dbd18b30ced7a98fd63f0fe1f411091a0da880f6bf4 dcdd967cce8270.jpg

I said at the end of the list that any thing else is yet to be decided. I decided to push some of them back and read LotR.

Bob
03-22-2015, 11:16 PM
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/5a/5af1800dbd18b30ced7a98fd63f0fe1f411091a0da880f6bf4 dcdd967cce8270.jpg

I said at the end of the list that any thing else is yet to be decided. I decided to push some of them back and read LotR.

I don't mind what you do. No reason for you to get testy.

Green Arrow
03-22-2015, 11:19 PM
I don't mind what you do. No reason for you to get testy.

I'm not testy. I have caffeine and a Hobbit hunter on hand.

Bob
03-22-2015, 11:21 PM
I'm not testy. I have caffeine and a Hobbit hunter on hand.
Cool

southwest88
03-24-2015, 07:44 PM
Finished Embedded : a Marine Corps adviser inside the Iraqi army / by Wesley R. Gray. 956.7044 Gray c2009 Naval Institute Press
Subjects


Gray, Wesley R. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States. -- Marine Corps -- Officers -- Biography. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States. -- Marine Corps -- Iraq. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Military assistance, American -- Iraq. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Internal security -- Iraq. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Iraq War, 2003- -- Personal narratives, American. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Iraq -- Armed Forces -- Training of. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Notes


PART 1. BECOMING AN EMBEDDED MILITARY ADVISER: 1. Guess what? You are going to Iraq ; 2. Culture shock ; 3. Preparing for Combat Adviser duty ; 4. Meeting the Iraqi Army -- PART 2. LEARNING IRAQI ARMY SYSTEMS AND CULTURE: 5. The first fight with the Iraqi Army ; 6. Vacationing with the Iraqi Army ; 7. Jamal in the Swahuts ; 8. Simple things made difficult ; 9. Iraqi payday operations ; 10. Insights on Iraqi culture ; 11. Death operations ; 12. The Iraqi Officer and Enlisted relationship ; 13. Iraqis speak on the nation, region, and military -- PART 3. COMBAT OPERATIONS WITH THE IRAQI ARMY: 14. Operation Nimer ; 15. Mo' leave, mo' problem ; 16. Transitioning to independent operations ; 17. The Combat Operations Center is launched and the mission changes ; 18. Chasing Egyptian insurgents -- PART 4. BETWEEN IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE: 19. Contending with Iraqi culture ; 20. Violence spikes ; 21. Wayn Jundi? (Where are the soldiers") ; 22. Disaster strikes ; 23. Light at the end of the tunnel? -- PART 5. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END: 24. Civil War and democracy in Iraq ; 25. America never looked so good ; 26. An assessment -- Appendix: U.S. Marine Corps rank structure -- Glossary -- Index.
Includes index.

[B]Lengthviii, 257 p., [16] p. of plates : maps, photos

An excellent primer on operations with the Iraqi Army - v. pessimistic on the likely outcomes for US military intervention. The cultures are too far apart, Iraq too fragmented. We never pursued rebuilding Iraq's economy, reforming their political establishment, rebuilding infrastructure. Their religious & tribal factionalism may have doomed those efforts in any event. But we should have considered that before invading with conventional forces.

Please note that links don't work - for illustrative purposes only. Gray is a gifted writer.

southwest88
03-24-2015, 07:55 PM
George Washington's secret six : the spy ring that saved the American Revolution / Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger. 973.4109 KILM 2013
Subjects


Washington, George, -- 1732-1799 -- Friends and associates. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Townsend, Robert, -- 1753-1838. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Spies -- United States. -- History -- 18th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Spies -- New York (State) -- History -- 18th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Secret service. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
New York (State) -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Secret service. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Notes


Hold New York, win the war -- The need for a spy ring -- Launching the ring -- Crossing the Sound -- The ring springs into action -- Townsend joins the fight -- Creating a code -- Mounting tensions and double-dealings -- Washington demands more -- The French connection -- Benedict and Peggy -- Negotiations and treachery -- The deal is done -- Another spy at the gallows -- The ring in peril -- The beginning of the end -- Retaking New York at last -- Life after the ring.

Summary


When General George Washington beat a hasty retreat from New York City in August 1776, many thought the American Revolution might soon be over. Instead, Washington rallied--thanks in large part to a little-known, top-secret group called the Culper Spy Ring. Washington realized that he couldn't beat the British with military might, so he recruited a sophisticated and deeply secretive intelligence network to infiltrate New York. So carefully guarded were the members' identities that one spy's name was not uncovered until the twentieth century, and one remains unknown today. But by now, historians have discovered enough information about the ring's activities to piece together evidence that these six individuals turned the tide of the war. Here, these spies finally take their place among the pantheon of heroes of the American Revolution.--From publisher description.

Length xviii, 235 pages : maps, photos, illustrations

Excellent on early spy tradecraft. A good primer, & something to bear in mind the next time we face the possibility of entering an ill-considered little war. Links are illustrative only.

Prex Lincoln was also supposed to have been good @ intel - I'll have to see what's out there.

del
03-24-2015, 09:31 PM
recently finished the guns at last light which is the third and final book in rick atkinson's wwii trilogy and i'm starting carlo d'este's book about operation husky (bitter victory)

reread a bunch of lecarre this year plus some hammett and chandler

i'll probably read bernard cornwell's book on waterloo next

Mister D
03-24-2015, 09:39 PM
recently finished the guns at last light which is the third and final book in rick atkinson's wwii trilogy and i'm starting carlo d'este's book about operation husky (bitter victory)

reread a bunch of lecarre this year plus some hammett and chandler

i'll probably read bernard cornwell's book on waterloo next

http://www.bernardcornwell.net/waterloo-the-true-story-of-four-days-three-armies-and-three-battles/
@del (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=770) this looks good. It's been a long while since I delved into some Napoleonic history. That period was a favorite of mine in my early teens. I think it was the uniforms. Do you have the book now? Let me know when you get close to starting it. I'll read it too. We can BS about it.

del
03-24-2015, 09:56 PM
http://www.bernardcornwell.net/waterloo-the-true-story-of-four-days-three-armies-and-three-battles/
@del (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=770) this looks good. It's been a long while since I delved into some Napoleonic history. That period was a favorite of mine in my early teens. I think it was the uniforms. Do you have the book now? Let me know when you get close to starting it. I'll read it too. We can BS about it.

not yet. i'm just getting started on the d'este book, but maybe i'll pick up the cornwell sooner rather than later

i might need to take a little time off from monty, patton et al.

i like cornwell's historical fiction a lot, especially the saxon stories.

worth a look if you've never read them.

i'll let you know when i start

Common
03-24-2015, 10:15 PM
Stop wasting your time on that unfun reading stuff

Read the dirty dozen far better than the movie. Heres a good book based on truth.

King Rat about ww2 japanese pow camp.

Green Arrow
03-24-2015, 10:28 PM
Mister D, I'm only four chapters in, but so far 1434 is much less interesting than 1421​.

del
03-24-2015, 10:37 PM
Stop wasting your time on that unfun reading stuff

Read the dirty dozen far better than the movie. Heres a good book based on truth.

King Rat about ww2 japanese pow camp.

i agree king rat is a great book.

especially the ending

Mister D
03-25-2015, 08:02 AM
@Mister D (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=4), I'm only four chapters in, but so far 1434 is much less interesting than 1421​.

Just not written as well? Or is the material less interesting to you?

Mister D
03-25-2015, 08:05 AM
not yet. i'm just getting started on the d'este book, but maybe i'll pick up the cornwell sooner rather than later

i might need to take a little time off from monty, patton et al.

i like cornwell's historical fiction a lot, especially the saxon stories.

worth a look if you've never read them.

i'll let you know when i start

I read that this was apparently his first foray into non-fiction.

del
03-25-2015, 09:05 AM
I read that this was apparently his first foray into non-fiction.

i believe it is, but his historical fiction is well researched.

Green Arrow
03-25-2015, 01:36 PM
Just not written as well? Or is the material less interesting to you?

It's less interesting thus far. It may just be because all he's talking about right now is how they calculated latitude and longitude though.

Mister D
03-25-2015, 01:39 PM
It's less interesting thus far. It may just be because all he's talking about right now is how they calculated latitude and longitude though.

Ugh...I can see how that would be boring as fuck

Mister D
03-25-2015, 01:40 PM
i believe it is, but his historical fiction is well researched.

So far I think I've only read one of the Sharpe's Eagle books. The TV version was cheesy, IMO.

Green Arrow
03-25-2015, 01:57 PM
Ugh...I can see how that would be boring as fuck

It really is. I almost want to skip ahead to the start of the voyage :tongue:

Mister D
03-25-2015, 02:06 PM
It really is. I almost want to skip ahead to the start of the voyage :tongue:

I know the feeling. Sometimes good books have a really boring, technical chapter you have to suffer through.

Bob
03-25-2015, 02:08 PM
I know the feeling. Sometimes good books have a really boring, technical chapter you have to suffer through.

What cracks me up is the records per the books were destroyed. No record exists.

Wait,then we are supposed to accept at face value said author is accurate?

At least in Egypt we can see the pyramids.

Green Arrow
03-25-2015, 02:09 PM
What cracks me up is the records per the books were destroyed. No record exists.

Wait,then we are supposed to accept at face value said author is accurate?

At least in Egypt we can see the pyramids.

Stop trolling, Bob. You're really not cut out for it.

Bob
03-25-2015, 02:11 PM
Stop trolling, Bob. You're really not cut out for it.

There you go again. Will you stop with the insults and taunts?

My comments were directed to the books.

Cigar
03-25-2015, 02:13 PM
http://www.fumadero.com/wp-content/uploads/Laurence-670x935.jpg

Mister D
03-25-2015, 02:17 PM
What cracks me up is the records per the books were destroyed. No record exists.

Wait,then we are supposed to accept at face value said author is accurate?

At least in Egypt we can see the pyramids.

huh?

Bob
03-25-2015, 02:28 PM
huh?



http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Bob http://thepoliticalforums.com/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://thepoliticalforums.com/showthread.php?p=1014361#post1014361)
What cracks me up is the records per the books were destroyed. No record exists.

Wait,then we are supposed to accept at face value said author is accurate?

At least in Egypt we can see the pyramids.


I posted the book reviews of the book 1421 yesterday by the same author.

A big hoax by a charming liar (http://www.amazon.com/review/R30AK5OOWC9FZ8/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0061564893&nodeID=283155&store=books)
By Diogenes (http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3RGHM3BQ40BYN/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp) on March 21, 2004
Format: PaperbackGavin Menzies is a charming, seductive, inventive story teller, but his book is just an elaborate literary hoax, and belongs on the fiction list.
Gavin claims he has real, tangible evidence. Not true. Just check out for yourself some of the sources he cites. His own sources do not support the claims he makes.
For example, at pp 201-2(hardcover) Gavin writes of a pulley "for hoisting sails" found on the beach at Neahkahnie, Oregon, about 60 miles south of me. I drove down there and spoke with the curator of the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. He had talked with Gavin in 2002 and Wayne told Gavin the pulley had already been carbon dated (in 1993) to 1590; and, the wax was beeswax for candles, prized and common cargo for the Spanish trade galleons that traveled between the Philippines and the west coast of North America, on a regular basis, between 1564 and 1815. The pulley was from one of those Manila galleons. In his book (page520) Gavin lists as a source "Tales of the Neahkahnie Treasure", prepared by the Nehalem Valley Historical Society Treasure Committee, 1991, published by the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. It clearly states (p5) the beeswax, not as Gavin states "paraffin wax" a hydrocarbon product, had been carbon dated to 1681. Further, a pollen study of the beeswax had revealed its source was northern Luzon in the Philippines where there was a certain variety of shrub the bees visited for pollen.
Gavin ignores the inconvenient facts, hides them from the reader, and writes as if he is just waiting for the lab to confirm the finding of some possible real Chinese evidence. It's not possible, as Gavin well knows, the lab work has long since been done and it does not fit his time frame.
For another example consider the Bimini road story.Read more › (http://www.amazon.com/1421-Year-China-Discovered-America/product-reviews/0061564893/ref=cm_cr_dp_text?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=byRankDescending#R30AK5OOWC9FZ8)

Adelaide
03-28-2015, 09:57 PM
I usually pick a handful of non-fiction topics and then peruse the book stores in person and online for proper texts as I go along. So far this year is general natural history, German verb drills (I know - so exciting), French studies, English and Scottish history, and documents from the time period of the French revolution (currently on Thomas Paine). I'll probably also keep doing research into epigenetics and stem cell research. I may also expand my collection on constitutional law (Canadian) merely because I think I ought to know it better than I do.

In terms of fiction, I'd like to collect the works of James Joyce and read them all. I've only read parts of Dubliners and would like to know the rest of his work better. Also, I may do a Jane Austen marathon as I bought a vintage set of her main works. I will of course consume an undetermined amount of mind-numbing romance novels since they help me sleep when I can't, lol.

What I am currently reading other than Thomas Paine and a discourse on his "Rights of Man," is the book "Here on Earth" by Tim Flannery.

Guerilla
03-28-2015, 10:04 PM
I still need to finish reading the Art of War. I'm going to read this Celtic encyclopedia. I'm going to read more into Taoism. And I'm going to read this book about wild plants in the NorthWest and probably other plant stuff.

I'll probably get distracted by a lot of side stuff though, so we'll see if I finish that list.

Hal Jordan
03-28-2015, 10:11 PM
I still need to finish reading the Art of War. I'm going to read this Celtic encyclopedia. I'm going to read more into Taoism. And I'm going to read this book about wild plants in the NorthWest and probably other plant stuff.

I'll probably get distracted by a lot of side stuff though, so we'll see if I finish that list.

I need to get The Art of War so I can finish it. I returned it to Green Arrow when I last saw him...

I'm currently reading On the Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin. I don't plan what I am going to read too much. I typically look through my books and decide what is next when I finish a book. However, I think it is likely that what is next will be NPH's Choose Your Own Autobiography.

Peter1469
03-28-2015, 10:32 PM
I read the Art of War a long time ago. I may still have it. Or it may be in Brussels. I enjoyed Caesars Commentaries, and a book that explains its place in history- Caesar Against the Celts. I also have the Landmark Herodotus and Thucydides although I have only gotten 1/2 through each.

CreepyOldDude
04-14-2015, 02:57 PM
My 2015 reading list:

1) 1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies
2) 1434: The Year A Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance by Gavin Menzies
3) The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin
4) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
5) Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
6) The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope by Austen Iverleigh
7) Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life by Alison Weir
8) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9) Dracula, and Other Horror Classics by Bram Stoker
10) Beloved by Toni Morrison
11) The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins
12) How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman

And any further books will be decided.

Re-reading some old books.

Around the World in 80 Days.
The Prisoner of Zenda.
Gulliver's Travels
The Divine Comedy.
The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,
The Swiss Family Robinson.
The Time Machine.
Treasure Island.
The Count of Monte Cristo.
The Three Musketeers.
David Copperfield.

Mister D
04-14-2015, 03:45 PM
I'm reading Karl Polyani's The Great Transformation right now. I don't often delve into economic history but I was interested in the anthropological perspective offered in Polanyi's work which is more or less a critcism of the Austrian School. Oddly enough, both Hayek and Polyani had fled Austria in the 1930s and The Great Transformation was published the same year (i.e. 1944) as The Road to Serfdom.

Chloe
04-14-2015, 09:12 PM
My younger sister just finished reading a book called "the perks of being a wallflower" by stephen chbosky and she really liked it and asked me to read it too so that will be my nighttime stress relief for a little bit.

southwest88
04-15-2015, 03:14 PM
Reading Flint/Drake Belisarius I - thunder at dawn - a compilation of An Oblique Approach & In the Heart of Darkness. An excellent read, & good info on the Byzantines, Emperor Justinian, the World circa 528CE, etc. Lots of background, historical militaria, tactics, current tech, political machinations. Military SF - Drake is famous for the Hammer's Slammers series.

Belisarius as craftsman - an interesting take, & excellent writing. Ave!

knight
04-17-2015, 02:00 PM
Killing Patton

Eleanor of Acquitaine

the land of fire and Ice. ( we will see)

I want someone to write "Killing O'Reilly".

Matty
04-17-2015, 02:04 PM
I want someone to write "Killing O'Reilly".



Of of course you do. Hater.

PolWatch
04-17-2015, 03:05 PM
Eleanor of Acquitaine is a good book. The author, Alison Weir also writes fictionalized historical novels. She takes the facts and blends it into an interesting novel. She does note where she has changed any facts.

Mister D
04-17-2015, 03:28 PM
Eleanor of Acquitaine is a good book. The author, Alison Weir also writes fictionalized historical novels. She takes the facts and blends it into an interesting novel. She does note where she has changed any facts.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, women played a much larger role in the politics of the Medieval period than we have been led to believe. Eleanor of Acquitaine was one among several prominent women whose machinations (romantic or otherwise) impacted policy and ultimately the fate of the Latin states in Syria, for example. This state of affairs caused one Arab to remark that it simply doesn't occur among his own people.

knight
04-17-2015, 04:04 PM
Of of course you do. Hater.

Yes, I can't stand the son of a bitch.

Matty
04-17-2015, 04:06 PM
Yes, I can't stand the son of a bitch.





I can't stand you either.

knight
04-17-2015, 04:20 PM
I can't stand you either.

Are you Bill O'Reilly? Because I didn't say anything about you, personally.........damn you con's are angry.

knight
04-18-2015, 05:07 AM
I can't stand you either.

This is interesting. For years I have been saying that con's are, generally, more angry and bitter than libs. This post supports my theory.

I expressed an opinion that I have about Bill O'Reilly. I don't like the man. That is based on a known; I have seen him in TV, and I don't care for him. Its that simple.

Now, I get on here and express my opinion of Bill, and this Matty person says "I can't stand you either." Matty doesn't know me, I am an unknown, but still Matty doesn't like me. I find that strange, how can you instantly not like someone you've never met?

Does it bother me? No, I don't really give an airborne formication what most people think of me.

I just found it strange to get that reaction.

PolWatch
04-18-2015, 05:20 AM
Eleanor of Acquitaine was a fascinating person. She was educated and raised to be royalty. She married the King of France, divorced and married the future King of England. If there was such a thing as a liberated woman in that era, she was. Acting as regent for both her husband & son, 16 years in exile for encouraging her sons to claim their rights, mother of Richard the Lionheart....just about every part of her life was interesting.

Green Arrow
04-18-2015, 10:36 AM
I want someone to write "Killing O'Reilly".

Bill O'Reilly is a serial killer!

Mister D
04-19-2015, 07:33 PM
Has anyone read a good account of the Russian Revolution?

Matty
04-19-2015, 07:35 PM
Has anyone read a good account of the Russian Revolution?


One of of the best I have ever read is Nicholas and Alexandra. I forgot the author's name.




Robert K. Massie

southwest88
04-20-2015, 10:39 AM
Reading this, by Kim Zetter. On the Stuxnet software weapon launched @ Iran's U centrifuges. V. interesting, lots of detail, but a good narrative carries the story along. Zetter has published a lot on cyber topics, including the electronic voting issues in the US. A handy reference on cyberwarfare, too. She's broken stories on WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, NSA surveillance & the hacker underground. Also a standard (?) on the Kabbalah - she may be Jewish, she's published in Israel & apparently speaks Hebrew.

CreepyOldDude
04-24-2015, 04:52 PM
I finished "Around the World in 80 Days" on Sunday, and then did a quick read of "Guards! Guards!" by Terry Pratchett. Now I'll be picking up "Gulliver's Travels".

But I doubt I'll get to it this weekend. My Viking Queen and I are driving to Old Forge, PA. Apparently, they have to-die-for pizza there. We'll drive there, check it out, eat some pizza, get busy in our hotel room, eat some more pizza, get busy again, eat more pizza, then head home. :)

(There, that should embarrass the hell out of my daughter, if she comes snooping. :))

southwest88
06-08-2015, 01:23 PM
Our Vietnam : the war, 1954-1975 [book] / A.J. Langguth, 1933 -,
Simon & Schuster, c 2000


Subjects


Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- United States. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Vietnam -- Politics and government -- 1945-1975. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- History -- 1945- (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Length 766 p. : index, maps, photos, notes, chronology, bibliography

An excellent history, focusing on the US/Vietnamese. None of the US presidents nor high officials, nor VN officials comes off well, except for sr. NVN cadre. From the content here, we should have abandoned France & VN immediately in 1945. Or given it a year or two of full-fledged effort, & then abandoned them both. Neither SVN gov. nor US gov. ever gave more than lip service to making sure the civilian populations in SVN - the Buddhists, Montagnard, Meo, Confucians, etc. were represented & felt any loyalty to the SVN gov. or their military.

(Links are illustrative only)

Green Arrow
06-08-2015, 05:45 PM
I'm up to Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism​ by Doris Kearns Goodwin

PolWatch
06-08-2015, 05:49 PM
I lucked up on a large box of books last week....everything bios on people from Marilyn Monroe, Truman Capote to The Fitzgeralds & Kennedys by Doris K. Goodwin. I'm looking forward to a lot of reading!

Green Arrow
06-08-2015, 06:15 PM
I lucked up on a large box of books last week....everything bios on people from Marilyn Monroe, Truman Capote to The Fitzgeralds & Kennedys by Doris K. Goodwin. I'm looking forward to a lot of reading!

Goodwin is good at biographies and other historical writing. The only real problem with her works is she tends to meander a bit. Like in Bully Pulpit, for example, her chapters on Nellie Heron Taft (Taft's wife) and Edith Carow Roosevelt (Teddy Roosevelt's wife) were about half the lives of the women and half the lives of their husbands and she alternated, so you'd have a few paragraphs on the wife and a few paragraphs on the husband, then back to a few more paragraphs on the wife :tongue:

But the meandering is fairly easy to get passed and it's all good information, so all in all it doesn't detract from the greater work.

Mister D
06-08-2015, 07:21 PM
I'm all about imperial Spain this month. The Spanish Seaborne Empire and Peter1469 Henry Kamen's The Spanish Inquisition: A Revision just came. Kamen digs into the records and explodes the Protestant myths and propaganda.

Seriously, they should kick kilgram out of the country and give me a villa.

PolWatch
06-12-2015, 06:23 PM
I started a new biography about Elizabeth I by David Starkey. Instead of dealing with her life as queen, this one concentrates on the first 25 years of her life.

One opening statement really catches the attention....its a quote from 1567 by Elizabeth: "I thank God that I am indeed endowed with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat, I were able to live in any place of Christendom".

She was one of the few royals who had lived in such varied situations she could have survived outside of a palace. She had been raised as a Princess, was disinherited as a bastard, nominated successor to the throne and accused as a traitor, she owned palaces & land and was a prisoner in the Tower awaiting execution. All of this before she was 25 too!

midcan5
07-01-2015, 02:51 PM
"Books had instant replay long before televised sports." Bernard Williams

I saw these recently and thought how relevant to the times.

Respecting Truth: Willful Ignorance in the Internet Age – June 19, 2015 by Lee McIntyre

Dark Ages: The Case for a Science of Human Behavior (Bradford Books) – February 13, 2009 by Lee C. McIntyre

Any Camus fans out there?

The Meursault Investigation' by Kamel Daoud (Author), John Cullen (Translator)

kilgram
07-01-2015, 04:05 PM
I'm all about imperial Spain this month. The Spanish Seaborne Empire and Peter1469 Henry Kamen's The Spanish Inquisition: A Revision just came. Kamen digs into the records and explodes the Protestant myths and propaganda.

Seriously, they should kick kilgram out of the country and give me a villa.
We can exchange homes for a while😃

Mister D
07-01-2015, 04:09 PM
We can exchange homes for a while

For a while? You should be expelled! :angry:

southwest88
07-01-2015, 04:51 PM
Just finished: The age of American unreason / Susan Jacoby. c2008, Pantheon Books,





Subjects

Mass media -- Social aspects -- United States. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Popular culture -- United States. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Reason -- Social aspects -- United States. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Social values -- United States. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Social psychology -- United States. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
National characteristics, American. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- Civilization -- 1945- (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- Social conditions -- 1945- (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Notes

The way we live now : just us folks -- The way we lived then : intellect and ignorance in a young nation -- Social pseudoscience in the morning of America's culture wars -- Reds, pinkos, fellow travelers -- Middlebrow culture from noon to twilight -- Blaming it on the sixties -- Legacies : youth culture and celebrity culture -- The new old-time religion -- Junk thought -- The culture of distraction -- Public life : defining dumbness downward -- Conclusion: Cultural conservation.

Summary

Traces the current of anti-intellectualism from post-WWII to the present and argues that the nation's cult of unreason is both deadly and destructive.

[B]Length xx, 356 p. ; index, bibliography, chapter notes

An excellent book, echoes of Richard Hofstadter's work. Literate, easy to read. Links are illustrative only.

McCool
07-04-2015, 10:28 AM
I was in an interview recently, and was asked which book I had read last. This completely caught me off guard, as I am normally not a big reader. Rather embarrassed, I rattled off some book I read 2 years ago; a sci-fi/fantasy novel written by my favorite author in that genre. The interviewer mentioned something about reading self improvement books, and I thought that might be a good idea. Still the most important message I took from that interview is that I need to get my nose back into some books: Though it's going to be very short, here is my list for the rest of 2015:

1. Jesus the Christ by James E Talmage
2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
3. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

southwest88
07-05-2015, 01:09 PM
Just read Snow crash / Neal Stephenson , c1992, SF, Bantam
Length 440 p. :

Lengthy, but great fun. Stephenson's plots are intricate, & ya gotta love Hiro Protagonist, pizza-delivery [B]extraordinaire, hacker & katana-wielder. Besides, Don't you want to know the truth about Sumerian, Babel, language, magic, the practical side of samurai sword tactics, ...?

Chris
07-05-2015, 02:43 PM
Hayek's 3 volume Law, Legislation and Liberty on social orders, distinguishing especially between natural, undesigned orders and posited, designed ones.

Oliver's The new Libertarian: Anarcho-Capitalism. Written in the 70s as attempt to bridge Ayn Rand's philosophy and Rothbard's Anarcho-Capitalism.

Peter Singer's The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution and Moral progress. Interested here in what he has to say about group selection.

Mister D
07-05-2015, 06:26 PM
I'm enjoying Henry Kamen's The Spanish Inquisition: A Revision.

southwest88
07-05-2015, 06:37 PM
I'm enjoying Henry Kamen's The Spanish Inquisition: A Revision.

Our public library has that. I'll give it a look - & they also have Captain of Castile - the 1947 movie. I'll have to take a look @ it, too. (I don't remember seeing it - maybe clips here & there.)

Mister D
07-05-2015, 06:38 PM
Our public library has that. I'll give it a look - & they also have Captain of Castile - the 1947 movie. I'll have to take a look @ it, too. (I don't remember seeing it - maybe clips here & there.)

I'm fascinated by Golden Age Spain and the era of discovery. If you happen to pick it up let me know.

southwest88
07-12-2015, 10:40 AM
Just finished
A disease in the public mind : a new understanding of why we fought the Civil War / Thomas Fleming, c2013, Da Capo Press
Subjects


Slavery -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Antislavery movements -- United States -- History -- 19th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Political culture -- United States -- History -- 19th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Causes. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
New England -- Relations -- Southern States. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Southern States -- Relations -- New England. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- History -- 1815-1861 -- Biography. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Notes


Prologue: John Brown's raid -- Slavery comes to America -- Slavery's great foe -- and unintended friend -- The first Emancipation Proclamation -- One head turning into thirteen -- The forgotten emancipator -- Thomas Jefferson's nightmare -- New England preaches -- and almost practices -- secession -- How not to abolish slavery -- New England rediscovers the sacred Union -- Another Thomas Jefferson urges Virginia to abolish slavery -- The abolitionist who lost his faith -- Abolitionism divides and conquers itself -- Enter Old Man Eloquent -- The slave patrols -- The trouble with Texas -- Slave power paranoia -- From Uncle Tom to John Brown -- The real Uncle Tom and the unknown South he helped create -- Free soil for free (white) men -- The whole world is watching -- An ex-president tries to save the Union -- The anguish of Robert E. Lee -- The end of illusions -- The third Emancipation Proclamation -- Hunt after the captain -- Epilogue: Lincoln's visitor.

Summary Fleming looks at the reasons of why the Civil War was fought.
Length xiv, 354 pages, 16 unnumbered pages : photos, maps, index, chapter notes

An excellent read, surprising information: the wealth of the South, skilled Black slaves & freemen, plantation administration

(Links are illustrative only)

whatukno
07-17-2015, 09:03 PM
I'm currently reading "The instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the instruction of Ke'Gemni"

I think I'll read "Apology, Crito And Phædo Of Socrates" next

Then, maybe "The Works Of Aristotle"

In between I want to re read the entire "Foundation" series for my Science Fiction fix.

southwest88
07-26-2015, 03:08 PM
Just finished


Tara revisited : women, war & the plantation legend / Catherine Clinton, 1952-. [book], c 1997, Abbeville Press


Subjects


Women -- Confederate States of America. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Plantation life -- Southern States -- History -- 19th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Women -- Southern States -- History -- 19th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Women. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Notes


Map on lining papers.

Length 240 p. : photos, illustrations, references, index

A good overview of Southern women in the Civil War, & Plantation women in particular. V. interesting reading.

(Links are informational only)

Mister D
07-26-2015, 08:08 PM
I'm currently reading the memoir of a Waffen SS enlisted man who served in the 6th SS Mountain Division. It's really quite good and what's particularly interesting in that he wrote this while a POW in American custody so there is a minimal temporal gap between his experiences and his recollection of them. Moreover, the author did not seek to publish his account until long after the war (published 2002) but he decided it was important for him to leave his impressions as they were at the age of 20 unaltered. It's fascinating.

southwest88
07-27-2015, 01:42 PM
I'm enjoying Henry Kamen's The Spanish Inquisition: A Revision.

I've read it through p. 180. Very detailed, maybe too much so. I may finish reading bits of it, just out of curiousity about the nuts & bolts of the process on the ground. The internal Church/city/province/fuero politics are interesting.

& I see there a foreshadowing of the Spanish Civil War - the battle to the death to purify the Spanish state, protect the Church, the Old Christians, etc. A lot of needless blood spilling, I think.

Along these lines, I prefer For the glory of God : how monotheism led to reformations, science, witch-hunts, and the end of slavery [book] by Stark, Rodney.
Subjects

Monotheism -- History. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Reformation. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Religion and science -- History. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Witchcraft -- History. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Slavery -- Religious aspects -- History. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Notes


Introduction: dimensions of the supernatural -- God's truth: inevitable sects and reformations -- God's handiwork: the religious origins of science -- God's enemies: explaining the European witch-hunts -- God's justice: the sin of slavery -- Postscript: gods, ritual and social science.

Length x, 488 p. : photos
Very good, statistical analysis, lots of data. His theory is that political chaos (plus religious questioning, plus poor gov. admin) spawned Inquisitions, witch-craft trials, etc. & he points to the low number of persecutions in the Spanish Inquisition, despite the bad press & reputation of the agency.

(Links are illustrative only)

Mister D
07-27-2015, 02:19 PM
I've read it through p. 180. Very detailed, maybe too much so. I may finish reading bits of it, just out of curiousity about the nuts & bolts of the process on the ground. The internal Church/city/province/fuero politics are interesting.

& I see there a foreshadowing of the Spanish Civil War - the battle to the death to purify the Spanish state, protect the Church, the Old Christians, etc. A lot of needless blood spilling, I think.

Along these lines, I prefer For the glory of God : how monotheism led to reformations, science, witch-hunts, and the end of slavery [book] by Stark, Rodney.
Subjects

Monotheism -- History. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Reformation. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Religion and science -- History. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Witchcraft -- History. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Slavery -- Religious aspects -- History. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Notes

Introduction: dimensions of the supernatural -- God's truth: inevitable sects and reformations -- God's handiwork: the religious origins of science -- God's enemies: explaining the European witch-hunts -- God's justice: the sin of slavery -- Postscript: gods, ritual and social science.
Length x, 488 p. : photos
Very good, statistical analysis, lots of data. His theory is that political chaos (plus religious questioning, plus poor gov. admin) spawned Inquisitions, witch-craft trials, etc. & he points to the low number of persecutions in the Spanish Inquisition, despite the bad press & reputation of the agency.

(Links are illustrative only)

I agree. The book, while very informative, did drag at a certain point.

southwest88
08-04-2015, 06:39 PM
Just finished The myth of the lost cause and Civil War history / Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, editors. c2000, Indiana U. Press,
Subjects


Confederate States of America -- Historiography. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Historiography. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Confederate States of America -- History. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Notes


The anatomy of the myth / Alan T. Nolan -- Jubal A. Early, the lost cause, and Civil War history: a persistent legacy / Gary W. Gallagher -- "Is our love for Wade Hampton foolishness?": South Carolina and the lost cause / Charles J. Holden -- "These few gray-haired, battle-scarred veterans": Confederate Army reunions in Georgia, 1885-95 / Keith S. Bohannon -- New South visionaries: Virginia's last generation of slaveholders, the gospel of progress, and the lost cause / Peter S. Carmichael -- James Longstreet and the lost cause / Jeffry D. Wert -- Continuous hammering and mere attrition: lost cause critics and the military reputation of Ulysses S. Grant / Brooks D. Simpson -- "Let the people see the old life as it was": LaSalle Corbell Pickett and the myth of the lost cause / Lesley J. Gordon -- The immortal Confederacy: another look at lost cause religion / Lloyd A. Hunter.

Length v, 231 p. ;

V. interesting on the L[B]ost Cause - history, purposes, utility, writers, organizations. History as revenge.

(Links are illustrative only.)

PolWatch
08-04-2015, 06:46 PM
Just finished


Tara revisited : women, war & the plantation legend / Catherine Clinton, 1952-. [book], c 1997, Abbeville Press


Subjects


Women -- Confederate States of America. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Plantation life -- Southern States -- History -- 19th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Women -- Southern States -- History -- 19th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Women. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Notes


Map on lining papers.

Length 240 p. : photos, illustrations, references, index

A good overview of Southern women in the Civil War, & Plantation women in particular. V. interesting reading.

(Links are informational only)


I just picked up Civil War Stories by Catherine Clinton....barely started but its an interesting perspective of the Civil War. more later...

Mister D
08-05-2015, 08:58 PM
A Modern Maistre: the Social and Political Thought of Joseph de Maistre

Just ordered off Amazon with my reward point. Cost me $1.97. I'm actually excited. Can't wait until this comes.

Green Arrow
08-05-2015, 09:19 PM
Still working on Bully Pulpit, but I've also started Discourse on the Origin of Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

southwest88
08-09-2015, 11:48 AM
Just finished with

Patriotic gore : studies in the literature of the American Civil War / by Edmund Wilson 1895-1972. , c 1962, Norton (pub.) Subjects


American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
War in literature. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Literature and the war. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
United States -- Intellectual life -- 19th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Notes


Harriet Beecher Stowe -- Calvin Stowe; Francis Grierson; The battle hymn of the republic; The union as religious mysticism -- Abraham Lincoln -- Northern soldiers: Ulysses S. Grant -- Northern soldiers: William T. Sherman -- Northerners in the South: Frederick L. Olmsted, John T. Trowbridge -- Northerners in the South: Charlotte Forten and Colonel Higginson -- Three Confederate ladies: Kate Stone, Sarah Morgan, Mary Chesnut -- Southern soldiers: Richard Taylor, John S. Mosby, Robert E. Lee -- Diversity of opinion in the South: William J. Grayson, George Fitzhugh, Hilton R. Helper -- Alexander H. Stephens -- The myth of the old South; Sidney Lanier; Poetry of the Civil War; Sut Lovingood -- Novelists of the post-war South: Albion Tourgée, George W. Cable, Kate Chopin, Thomas Nelson -- Ambrose Bierce on the Owl Creek Bridge -- The chastening of American prose style; John W. De Forest -- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

[B]Length xxxii, 816 p. ; index
v. interesting, sketches & biographies & critical reviews, snippets of writing by/on the various topics above. I read here & there, not straight through. Good to PU sources & authors.

(Links are illustrative only)

Mister D
08-09-2015, 08:53 PM
A Modern Maistre: the Social and Political Thought of Joseph de Maistre

Just ordered off Amazon with my reward point. Cost me $1.97. I'm actually excited. Can't wait until this comes.

Apparently, they are shipping my book from Compton, CA. IOW, Joseph de Maistre is comin' straight outta Compton, bitches. :afro:

Mister D
08-10-2015, 03:15 PM
The French Counter-Enlightenment tradition will be getting much of my attention over the next few months. Ordering this shortly:

http://www.amazon.com/Critics-Enlightenment-Counter-Revolutionary-Tradition-Crosscurrents/dp/1932236252/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439237675&sr=8-1&keywords=Critics+of+the+Enlightenment%3A+Readings+ in+the+French+Counter-Revolutionary+Tradition

southwest88
08-10-2015, 03:22 PM
Just reread Gone for soldiers, Jeff Shaara, on the Mexican War - the kinda warm-up for the Civil War. Good writing, lots of research, excellent maps. c 2000, Ballantine Publishing Group, 424pp.

Reading lots on the Civil War & related.

Private Pickle
08-10-2015, 03:26 PM
Just picked up Call of the Wild again for kicks. Its a quick read. I also want to read the Lone Survivor book, haven't read that one yet. Saw the movie though...pretty good.

Mister D
08-12-2015, 09:06 PM
Just reread Gone for soldiers, Jeff Shaara, on the Mexican War - the kinda warm-up for the Civil War. Good writing, lots of research, excellent maps. c 2000, Ballantine Publishing Group, 424pp.

Reading lots on the Civil War & related.

Have you read Shelby Foote's trilogy? Excellent. Took me a few months but it was great.

southwest88
08-12-2015, 09:23 PM
Have you read Shelby Foote's trilogy? Excellent. Took me a few months but it was great.

I know the name - from the PBS documentary on the Civil War. I'll add him to the reading list. Thanks.

del
08-12-2015, 10:45 PM
just finished 4 days, 3 armies, 3 battles

well written, some interesting insights on well trod ground

Gypsy
11-05-2015, 01:04 AM
So far I have read:


American Sniper - Chris Kyle
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
War - Sebastian Junger
Seal Target Geronimo - Chuck Pfarrer
Team of Rivals - Doris Kearns Goodwin


To be read:
Grey Mountain - John Grisham
Rouge Lawyer - John Grisham
See Me - Nicholas Sparks
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto - Mitch Albom
Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand
Notorious RBG - Carmon & Knizhnik
The Interrogators - Mackey & Miller
Handbook of Denomination s - Frank S Mead

Captain Obvious
11-07-2015, 12:09 AM
Medicare 340b regulations

Mister D
11-26-2015, 08:39 PM
I started reading The Great Transformation: the Political and Economic Origins of Our Time by Karl Polyani. I wouldn't reduce it to that but if I had to give a quick description I would say it's an indictment of free market capitalism. It's a "deep" read and I've found that reading such works multiple times helps me better understand the argument and helps me gain a better understanding of the nuances of that argument.

I also ordered a 5 or 6 books from Amazon. My focus has once again shifted to religion with two works by philosopher Alvin Platinga and one by Chris Dawson although Dawson is really a historian. Couldn't resist a couple of works by Joseph de Maistre. While i wait for those I'll finish Polyani.

Bob
11-26-2015, 08:41 PM
I started reading The Great Transformation: the Political and Economic Origins of Our Time by Karl Polyani. I wouldn't reduce it to that but if I had to give a quick description I would say it's an indictment of free market capitalism. It's a "deep" read and I've found that reading such works multiple times helps me understand reinforces the argument and helps me gain a better understanding of the nuances of that argument.

I also ordered a 5 or 6 books from Amazon. My focus has once again shifted to religion with two works by philosopher Alvin Platinga and one by Chris Dawson although Dawson is really a historian. Couldn't resist a couple of works by Joseph de Maistre. While i wait for those I'll finish Polyani.

This is a very good book to counter the book by Polyani.

13627

Green Arrow
11-26-2015, 08:45 PM
I'm still working on The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin, but I'm also working on Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (first of the James Bond books) and The Eye of the World​ by Robert Jordan (book 1 of his The Wheel of Time series).

Mister D
11-26-2015, 08:47 PM
I'm still working on The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin, but I'm also working on Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (first of the James Bond books) and The Eye of the World​ by Robert Jordan (book 1 of his The Wheel of Time series).

I did want to get some fiction. I have wanted to read House of the Dead by Dostoevsky for some time. Maybe I'll do one small additional order.

Green Arrow
11-26-2015, 08:52 PM
I did want to get some fiction. I have wanted to read House of the Dead by Dostoevsky for some time. Maybe I'll do one small additional order.

Have you ever read Jordan's Wheel of Time series?

Mister D
11-26-2015, 08:54 PM
Have you ever read Jordan's Wheel of Time series?

Never heard of it, actually.

Who's that in your avatar?

Green Arrow
11-26-2015, 10:17 PM
Never heard of it, actually.

I HIGHLY recommend it if you want to get into fantasy. The first book has a very Lord of the Rings feel to it, but after that it gets an identity all its own. The series is a bit long, 16 books if you read the prequel (and I recommend the prequel). Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy is also a great read if you want something shorter. Sanderson also has a great standalone fantasy novel, Warbreaker.


Who's that in your avatar?

Eugene V. Debs.

Standing Wolf
11-26-2015, 11:07 PM
Just finished the latest James Bond novel, 'Trigger Mortis' by Anthony Horowitz. Probably the closest thing to one of Ian Fleming's classic 007 novels written in quite a long time, and set in the '50s so the author is not faced with the reality that the original Bond would be 93 years old at this point. If you're a fan of the Bond books, don't miss this one.

Green Arrow
11-26-2015, 11:14 PM
Just finished the latest James Bond novel, 'Trigger Mortis' by Anthony Horowitz. Probably the closest thing to one of Ian Fleming's classic 007 novels written in quite a long time, and set in the '50s so the author is not faced with the reality that the original Bond would be 93 years old at this point. If you're a fan of the Bond books, don't miss this one.

Are the rest of Horowitz's Bond novels pretty true to Fleming and the character? I get nervous when authors take over another author's work.

Standing Wolf
11-27-2015, 10:37 AM
'Trigger Mortis' is Horowitz's only Bond novel so far...although its reception has been so universally positive that the Fleming people may very well ask him to do more, and I hope that happens. Horowitz has also written a couple of Sherlock Holmes books, 'The House of Silk' and 'Moriarity', and I'm going to have to check those out soon. Since Raymond Benson's very uneven series starting in the late '90s, four writers - Sebastian Faulks, Jeffrey Deaver, William Boyd and Horowitz - have done one novel each, and Horowitz's is by far the best.

The Bond copyright has expired in Canada, at least temporarily, and a small publisher up there just last week came out with an anthology of 007 short stories that I'd like to get my hands on, but I can't find anyone to send me a copy - not even Amazon.ca.

Chris
11-27-2015, 10:49 AM
Latest read is Stringham's Private Governance: Creating Order in Economic and Social Life, on how anarchist social order not only fills the gap of public governance but often does much better. The section I'm reading now is how the government is too incompetent and too far behind technologically to even be able to adequately investigate and prosecute already committed online fraud, and how online companies like PayPal led the way to predicting and preventing it to a great degree. Other sectiions read chronicled how stock exchanges emerged from private clubs with private rules and private enforcement in coffeehouses, often despite the government's attempts to shut them down. Admittedly kind of dry economic history, but invaluable information.

Common Sense
11-27-2015, 11:07 AM
I'm just about to start Endurance by Alfred Lansing, about the Shackleton voyage.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PTExXeL7L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Standing Wolf
11-28-2015, 09:52 AM
The Bond copyright has expired in Canada, at least temporarily, and a small publisher up there just last week came out with an anthology of 007 short stories that I'd like to get my hands on, but I can't find anyone to send me a copy - not even Amazon.ca.

Found a bookseller in B.C., through the ABE Books site, who will sell and send me a copy of 'License Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond'.

JDubya
11-28-2015, 10:14 AM
Right now I'm in the process of reading....

http://www.busybeeblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Alan_Paul_One_way_out_allman_brothers_band_biograp hy.jpg

Pretty interesting if you're a lifelong fan.

Mister D
11-29-2015, 08:05 PM
Amazon is pretty damn quick sometimes. The books were on my stoop when I took the recycling out this morning. I get so excited when I have a delivery of books. I'm such a dork. Anyway, not sure where to begin. Alvin Platinga? Or my man de Maistre? I have to finish Polyani first though.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 08:11 PM
@Mister D (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=4) - didn't read the LoTR yet?

:(
Lord of the Rings is a very hard read. It is dull, ponderous, and wordy. The ten hour movie is reasonably good. :-)

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 08:13 PM
I read the Hobbit a long time ago. Sometime between 1989-1991.
I first read the Hobbit in the 70s. I finished Lord of the Rings and Bored of the Rings in the 80s.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 08:20 PM
I usually pick a handful of non-fiction topics and then peruse the book stores in person and online for proper texts as I go along. So far this year is general natural history, German verb drills (I know - so exciting), French studies, English and Scottish history, and documents from the time period of the French revolution (currently on Thomas Paine). I'll probably also keep doing research into epigenetics and stem cell research. I may also expand my collection on constitutional law (Canadian) merely because I think I ought to know it better than I do.

In terms of fiction, I'd like to collect the works of James Joyce and read them all. I've only read parts of Dubliners and would like to know the rest of his work better. Also, I may do a Jane Austen marathon as I bought a vintage set of her main works. I will of course consume an undetermined amount of mind-numbing romance novels since they help me sleep when I can't, lol.

What I am currently reading other than Thomas Paine and a discourse on his "Rights of Man," is the book "Here on Earth" by Tim Flannery.
I love T. Paine.
I read most of the short stories in Dubliners. Dubliners was okay. I have his other books as well, unread. I have several Austin books.

I understand about sleep. When I worked, before retirement, I hated that I would finally fall asleep, for real, around 4:30 AM. Now that is less a problem. I sleep until 9 AM and feel fine.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 08:23 PM
I still need to finish reading the Art of War. I'm going to read this Celtic encyclopedia. I'm going to read more into Taoism. And I'm going to read this book about wild plants in the NorthWest and probably other plant stuff.

I'll probably get distracted by a lot of side stuff though, so we'll see if I finish that list.
Art of War. Sun-Tzu? Or Machiavelli? I suspect Sun-Tzu.

I just started reading about medicinal plants. Interesting stuff. No books so far beyond one on disasters.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 08:42 PM
I'm reading Karl Polyani's The Great Transformation right now. I don't often delve into economic history but I was interested in the anthropological perspective offered in Polanyi's work which is more or less a critcism of the Austrian School. Oddly enough, both Hayek and Polyani had fled Austria in the 1930s and The Great Transformation was published the same year (i.e. 1944) as The Road to Serfdom.
I thought Serfdom was pretty good. Wartime socialism can be so seductive. We never gave ours up after WWII.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 08:47 PM
Eleanor of Acquitaine is a good book. The author, Alison Weir also writes fictionalized historical novels. She takes the facts and blends it into an interesting novel. She does note where she has changed any facts.
I started, really, with historical fiction. I could not get enough. Then I moved to the next best thing, history. By the time I started delving deep into history, primarily through honors courses in militarism and military history, I had a thorough grounding in the back story. I am shedding hundreds, okay, really my intention is thousands, of hardbound books. I have been steadily buying and downloading epubs (primarily Kindle formatted) to replace hard and paper books.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 08:53 PM
One of the best I have ever read is Nicholas and Alexandra. I forgot the author's name.
Robert K. Massie
I just pulled my copy off the shelf. I read it in 1974. That was before I used colored markers for highlighting and there are almost no notes in margins. Things have sure changed. I will set it out to re-read it.

While thumbing through the book I found a small bit of artwork my youngest daughter did as a very young child. It is very colorful. :-)

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 08:59 PM
I was in an interview recently, and was asked which book I had read last. This completely caught me off guard, as I am normally not a big reader. Rather embarrassed, I rattled off some book I read 2 years ago; a sci-fi/fantasy novel written by my favorite author in that genre. The interviewer mentioned something about reading self improvement books, and I thought that might be a good idea. Still the most important message I took from that interview is that I need to get my nose back into some books: Though it's going to be very short, here is my list for the rest of 2015:

1. Jesus the Christ by James E Talmage
2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
3. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
During an interview for a mid-level engineer, I asked the candidate if he could recall the last non-technical book he had read. After a long pause, he said, "The Bible." I responded, "Terrific! What was it about?"

It took him a moment and then he laughed. He told me it was about everything. I asked him to give me brief sketches of the protagonist and antagonist plus his favorite supporting characters.

Oh, he did get the job.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 09:07 PM
I'm currently reading "The instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the instruction of Ke'Gemni"

I think I'll read "Apology, Crito And Phædo Of Socrates" next

Then, maybe "The Works Of Aristotle"

In between I want to re read the entire "Foundation" series for my Science Fiction fix.
The Works of Aristotle is huge! Actually I have "The Works" and something else, "Aristotle's Collection" which is 29 volumes.

I did not finish Foundation. I read Prelude. I am pretty sure I read the series out of order. I stopped about 3/4ths of the way through Second Foundation. Maybe I should read them in order.

Peter1469
11-29-2015, 09:12 PM
I moved to Kindle. For reading for pleasure I prefer it.

For travel books where I have to move all over and read maps, I get the paper version.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 09:12 PM
Just reread Gone for soldiers, Jeff Shaara, on the Mexican War - the kinda warm-up for the Civil War. Good writing, lots of research, excellent maps. c 2000, Ballantine Publishing Group, 424pp.

Reading lots on the Civil War & related.
I threw away my copy of Killer Angels. I bought it in electronic format. It was required reading at some point in my life. I cannot remember if it was in my final year of college as part of an honors series of courses in militarism and military history, or possibly in my first or second year as a lieutenant in the Army.

Peter1469
11-29-2015, 09:13 PM
Caesar's Commentaries (http://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Commentaries-The-Gallic-Civil/dp/0976072610) were very good.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 09:17 PM
Have you ever read Jordan's Wheel of Time series?
$68.00 for the complete set! Wow.

Peter1469
11-29-2015, 09:22 PM
Have you ever read Jordan's Wheel of Time series?I stopped reading around book 7 or so. It started out good.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 09:24 PM
I'm just about to start Endurance by Alfred Lansing, about the Shackleton voyage.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PTExXeL7L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
This is a good book. It is worth reading for a variety of reasons.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 09:30 PM
I moved to Kindle. For reading for pleasure I prefer it.

For travel books where I have to move all over and read maps, I get the paper version.
I still have my West Point Civil War and WWII Europe and the Mediterranean volumes. I will keep the printed versions. The maps tell the story. I watched WWII from Space last night on Netflix or Amazon Prime. It pulled everything together. I did agree that Roosevelt, whom I despise, made the right choice, against the advice of his generals, to invade North Africa.

MisterVeritis
11-29-2015, 09:34 PM
Caesar's Commentaries (http://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Commentaries-The-Gallic-Civil/dp/0976072610) were very good.
I have a hard bound around here somewhere. It is included in at least one of my strategy anthologies. I would like it electronically when it is less expensive.

JDubya
11-29-2015, 10:17 PM
Lord of the Rings is a very hard read. It is dull, ponderous, and wordy. The ten hour movie is reasonably good. :-)

Same here.

I attempted to read it once.

Too boring.

I like Frederick Forsyth, Ken Follet... that kind of thing.

Pillars of the Earth was great.

Standing Wolf
11-30-2015, 07:58 AM
I remember reading 'The Hobbit' and part of the first book of the trilogy many years ago, and was not impressed. It may certainly be some folks' cup of tea, but not for everyone. On the other hand, "wordy" is not always a bad thing - if the author has chosen the right words and employs them wisely; I'm thinking of Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy - the man could go on for a whole chapter describing a room and make you wish he'd gone on longer. Incomparably beautiful and fascinating webs of language.

Knocking Tolkien seems to be frowned upon by fantasy aficionados in about the same way that saying that Asimov's 'Foundation Trilogy' is almost unreadable today will displease sci-fi fans. It's perfectly true, but not polite.

MisterVeritis
11-30-2015, 07:57 PM
Same here.

I attempted to read it once.

Too boring.

I like Frederick Forsyth, Ken Follet... that kind of thing.

Pillars of the Earth was great.
I read Pillars as well. I liked the way the book felt. :-)

MisterVeritis
11-30-2015, 07:58 PM
I remember reading 'The Hobbit' and part of the first book of the trilogy many years ago, and was not impressed. It may certainly be some folks' cup of tea, but not for everyone. On the other hand, "wordy" is not always a bad thing - if the author has chosen the right words and employs them wisely; I'm thinking of Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy - the man could go on for a whole chapter describing a room and make you wish he'd gone on longer. Incomparably beautiful and fascinating webs of language.

Knocking Tolkien seems to be frowned upon by fantasy aficionados in about the same way that saying that Asimov's 'Foundation Trilogy' is almost unreadable today will displease sci-fi fans. It's perfectly true, but not polite.
I started Prelude last night. I like it again. I stalled out in the second book.

JDubya
12-01-2015, 02:54 AM
I read Pillars as well. I liked the way the book felt. :-)

Absolutely.

He wrote another good period novel titled "A Place called Freedom", which was set in the early American colonies. Or at least that's where it ended up. Started out in the coal mines of 18th century Scotland, moved to England then on to the slave plantations of America.

Rollicking good read.

MisterVeritis
12-01-2015, 02:21 PM
Absolutely.

He wrote another good period novel titled "A Place called Freedom", which was set in the early American colonies. Or at least that's where it ended up. Started out in the coal mines of 18th century Scotland, moved to England then on to the slave plantations of America.

Rollicking good read.
I shall have to read it. Thank you.

Tahuyaman
12-10-2015, 09:26 PM
I moved to Kindle. For reading for pleasure I prefer it.

For travel books where I have to move all over and read maps, I get the paper version.

Absolutely! When the kindle was first introduced, I resisted buying one. I was a purist. Books were the way to go.

Once I broke down a bought a kindle, I wondered why I waited. I read twice as much as I used to. Many of the free books written by the obscure struggling authors are quite good.

Standing Wolf
12-11-2015, 05:24 AM
For many years, I've heard and read about Donald E. Westlake, but never got around to actually reading one of his books. I came across a copy of 'The Hot Rock' the other day and began reading it a couple of days ago; it was published in 1970, and many say that in it Westlake created a new sub-genre of fiction: the comedic crime novel. Very, very funny. Apparently it was filmed, at some point, with Robert Redford in the lead, so now I'm going to have to pick up that dvd. (Weird casting, if you read the book, but oh well.)

Also, I just received in the mail yesterday a copy of the new James Bond short story collection, newly published in Canada where the copyright on Bond has expired, and I'm looking forward to reading that. Among some Bond purists, anything post-Fleming is garbage and not to be taken seriously, but there have been some excellent Bond "continuation novels" - notably Kingsley Amis' 'Colonel Sun', John Gardner's 'License Renewed', and one that came out just this year - 'Trigger Mortis' by Anthony Horowitz.

Green Arrow
12-11-2015, 12:26 PM
I finished Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World, book one of his Wheel of Time series, and have started book two, The Great Hunt.

FindersKeepers
01-28-2016, 10:17 AM
I just finished The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, and just started The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

southwest88
01-28-2016, 02:34 PM
Just finished
The orphaned land : New Mexico's environment since the Manhattan Project / Vincent Barrett Price ; photographs by Nell Farrell, c2011, U. NM Press

Subjects


Environmental degradation -- New Mexico. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Hazardous wastes -- Environmental aspects -- New Mexico. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
New Mexico -- Environmental conditions -- Case studies. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Length


xix, 362 pages : photos, index, select bibliography


Disturbing reading. NM is a sacrifice zone, since 1942 - the Manhattan Project - got going. (& before & after that, extractive mining, grazing & oversubscription of surface water, & pumping out aquifers.) Water, air, soil - lots of contamination - nuclear, chemical, heavy metals. NM may overcome the buried past, it would be a useful set of skills for this century & beyond, in the US & the World. A map of NM would be handy.

Hal Jordan
01-28-2016, 06:52 PM
I've been going through the Myth-adventures of Skeeve and Aahz series by Robert Asprin. I'm on M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link now.

southwest88
02-10-2016, 04:05 PM
On to
The Spanish holocaust : inquisition and extermination in twentieth-century Spain .
Authors



Preston, Paul, 1946- author. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)

Subjects



Political persecution -- Spain -- History -- 20th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Political atrocities -- Spain -- History -- 20th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Spain -- History -- Civil War, 1936-1939 -- Atrocities. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Spain -- History -- 1939-1975. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)


700 pp & photos. It looks like a useful corrective to Gmo. Franco's whitewash of the Spanish Civil War.

Chris
02-10-2016, 04:08 PM
2016?

Mister D
02-10-2016, 04:08 PM
On to
The Spanish holocaust : inquisition and extermination in twentieth-century Spain .
Authors

Preston, Paul, 1946- author. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Subjects

Political persecution -- Spain -- History -- 20th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Political atrocities -- Spain -- History -- 20th century. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Spain -- History -- Civil War, 1936-1939 -- Atrocities. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
Spain -- History -- 1939-1975. (http://javascript<strong></strong>:;)
700 pp & photos. It looks like a useful corrective to Gmo. Franco's whitewash of the Spanish Civil War.

I didn't realize there was any such need. Leftist history seems predominant.

southwest88
02-10-2016, 04:20 PM
I didn't realize there was any such need. Leftist history seems predominant.

Yah, I'm in a discussion about the need to replace Franco during WWII. I don't see the point, myself - the damage to Spain had already been done. I have a fair general understanding of the Spanish Civil War, but this seems to have a lot of detail. Unpleasant reading, I'm sure.

Ah, the things one does for God & country.

Mister D
02-10-2016, 04:28 PM
It's a topic I always enjoy reading about but it's hard to find an "objective" history.

southwest88
02-10-2016, 04:51 PM
It's a topic I always enjoy reading about but it's hard to find an "objective" history.

Yah, history can be written from various POVs. & in the Spanish Civil War, there was no lack of factions. Still, the author has a rep - he's spent his career studying, writing, teaching, lecturing about Spain, especially the Spanish CW. He has a slew of publications, speaks Spanish & Catalan fluently, resides in UK academia, has various literary honors from the Spanish-speaking world (& English-, especially about Spain). He's written a definitive (albeit dull, per Kirkus) biography of Franco.

So I'm prepared to read him, to see what he has to say on the topic.

Mister D
02-10-2016, 04:54 PM
Yah, history can be written from various POVs. & in the Spanish Civil War, there was no lack of factions. Still, the author has a rep - he's spent his career studying, writing, teaching, lecturing about Spain, especially the Spanish CW. He has a slew of publications, speaks Spanish & Catalan fluently, resides in UK academia, has various literary honors from the Spanish-speaking world (& English-, especially about Spain). He's written a definitive (albeit dull, per Kirkus) biography of Franco.

So I'm prepared to read him, to see what he has to say on the topic.

I have what I thought was a pretty balanced narrative. I will link to it later tonight. The Spanish Civil war pushes a lot of ideological buttons.

southwest88
02-21-2016, 11:03 PM
I skimmed through Preston on the Spanish Civil War. Depressing reading - it seems balanced. But clearly the Republican government & the Left in Spain generally was fractured & ill-prepared to fight a civil war. The Left's leadership seems to have been relatively clumsy politically, & helpless, & the Rightists in general were much better @ plotting for a civil war, prepping their partisans & foot soldiers, amassing arms, training, etc.

Gmo. Franco & his forces & associates committed a lot of atrocities along the way. The Republicans & their partisans did too, although the numbers & the relative restraint of the Left leadership indicate that the Left parties mostly contained their fanatics. The Right essentially plotted to blow up the government, & bring on a slaughter of Freemasons, Jews, Communists. The Right won the civil war, & Franco managed to hang on until the Cold War brought the West around to anti-Communist caudillos.

Standing Wolf
02-22-2016, 03:30 AM
Stephen King, Coontz and I reread book series like Nero Wolfe and Mike Hammer both detectives.

I gave up on King years ago, after 'Gerald's Game', and didn't read any of his stuff for years. Then he came out with the huge 'The Dome' and I gave it a try - best thing he's published since 'The Stand'. (Don't let that stupid t.v. series put you off...the book is golden.) I actually want to go back and read some of the King novels I didn't read, like '11/22/63', just to see if I missed any good ones.

Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer is a must read, and I've recently discovered Max Allen Collins' novels continuing the series, including some posthumous collaborations with Spillane (Mickey gave instructions for all his unfinished stuff to be given to Collins, saying "He'll know what to do with it.") One of those collaborations, 'Lady, Go Die!', is pure Mike Hammer and a pleasure. I want to dig out my old Spillane paperbacks and reread those for the first time in almost thirty years.


If you want to try reading a book for entertainment try reading one Rex Stouts, Nero Wolfe series that are unique about NYC in the 40s I would say. Nero wolfe is an obese Intellectual maybe a genius who never leaves the house, sits in a chair and can solve the most involved crimes. Really fun to read.

And as Stout revealed at some point, and most Sherlockians will acknowledge, Nero Wolfe is the son of famous Baker Street Detective and "The Woman". Speaking of which, I purchased an entire small shelf of Holmes continuation stories and pastiches, both novels and short story collections, from E.R.Hamiltion last year and I want to read as many of them as I can this year, including 'The House of Silk' by Anthony Horowitz. (His James Bond novel, 'Trigger Mortis', was first rate.)

I'm currently reading the ninth in the Hap and Leonard series by one of America's greatest, funniest, most versatile and unpredictable writers, Joe R. Lansdale, 'Honky Tonk Samurai'. He has other works "in the process", but he told me that a sequel to last year's spectacular 'Paradise Sky' is a possibility at some point. If you love good writing, this big novel about a former slave who becomes a legend of the old West will become one of your favorite books. I want to go back and read as much Lansdale as I can get my hands on.

Craig Johnson has two Longmire books coming out this year - a novella in the Spring, and a full-sized novel in the Fall. This is one of the few long book series that I have not fallen behind on reading. If Craig does a signing in your area, get there by whatever means possible. You'll thank me.

For anyone who has yet to read the late Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy about Lisbeth Salander, first do that; Larsson was a genius. This year, when I'm through with the latest Hap and Leonard book in a few days, I'm going to start on the much-anticipated and critically acclaimed sequel, 'The Girl in the Spider's Web' by David Lagencrantz. To truly deserve a place beside the amazing 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' and it's sequels, this book would have to be remarkable, and by all accounts it is that.

Standing Wolf
02-22-2016, 03:43 AM
I know the feeling. Sometimes good books have a really boring, technical chapter you have to suffer through.

That brings to mind Carl Sagan's 'The Dragons of Eden'. The first few chapter consist of some pretty deep, intense tutorials on how the human brain works, but you have to get through and absorb what's in them to enjoy and appreciate the rest of the book - and of course you do. One of the half-dozen most enjoyable and enlightening science books I've ever read.

Standing Wolf
02-22-2016, 04:03 AM
In between I want to re read the entire "Foundation" series for my Science Fiction fix.

I tried doing that about ten years ago, and didn't get very far. For a book series about future times, it certainly takes on board and incorporates a lot of misogynistic elements from the '40s and '50s in which it was written.

If you like the kind of adventurous sci-fi that E. R. Burroughs used to do, check out The Gandalara Cycle by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron. I've just finished re-reading the first three (of 7) books. Swordplay, alien worlds, wizards.

I'd like to make time, sometime this year, to tackle all the Robert E. Howard 'Conan' stories, as he wrote them, before they were edited and changed around an added to by writers like de Camp and Carter.

Mister D
03-02-2016, 09:56 PM
I have to buy a plane ticket tomorrow to visit my brother et al in Louisiana. I have a gift card one of our clients gave me for Christmas that I haven't used yet. I will spend it all on Amazon. I need some new books. I have one de Maistre title left: The Pope, Considered In His Relations With the Church. :cool2: I sometimes search for translations of New Right articles, essays etc. but I'm almost out of lengthy material. Oh, and I need some more pu-erh.

Green Arrow
03-02-2016, 10:02 PM
I have to buy a plane ticket tomorrow to visit my brother et al in Louisiana. I have a gift card one of our clients gave me for Christmas that I haven't used yet. I will spend it all on Amazon. I need some new books. I have one de Maistre title left: The Pope, Considered In His Relations With the Church. :cool2: I sometimes search for translations of New Right articles, essays etc. but I'm almost out of lengthy material. Oh, and I need some more pu-erh.

Where at in Louisiana?

Mister D
03-02-2016, 10:18 PM
Where at in Louisiana?

I will PM.