What BOOK(s) are you reading? ARCHIVE

They adapted Club Dumas into a movie featuring Johnny Depp, The Ninth Gate I think.

30 Years War by CV Wedgewood from like 1940. Yeah baby!

I finished Blackheards: The Omnibus by Nathan Long last week. There are a number of things I didn't like about it: the adolescent sexual norms (either madonna or whore, quaint chivalry), how the author rehashed the same plot structure a few times (nobody believes the true warnings from the falsely accused good guys), and especially how the author cut corners of description by resorting to physiognomy (the reduction of personality to facial features: the elf had the "eyes" of someone "who is confident but kind, and who never backs down from a righteous fight, and who prefers his eggs over easy though he used to like them scrambled" --that's not a direct quote, but it's close). Still, I'm glad I read it. The action in the final storyline was pretty exciting. And I now know much more about the Warhammer fantasy world, and Chaos in the Old World is looking all the more vivid.

To get into Warriors of God, I've started reading Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, which is on the history of the period. It's extremely interesting. The paladin knights romanticized in fantasy novels were extreme bastards in real life, to put it mildly.

i'm reading World War Z and LOVING IT

I just finished up the 4 book series Night Watch by Serge1 Lukyanenko.
I had noticed this series around for a couple of years but blew it off
as just another Vampire Tales thing.

Then on the Literature Board of a Flying Frog Fan Site (go figure)
the series was mentioned & I got interested,so I purchase the series.

Good Read.

OD

I finished "Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell" last week. I liked it quite a bit. Even if it takes a while for things to get going, by the end of the book things are really moving.

It also has me interested in traditional English fairy lore.

After that I reread "A Night in the Lonesome October" like I do every October. I love that book, and I really wish somebody would make a board game based on it.

Any recommendations for some good Halloween reads for the rest of the month?

Almost finished Goldsworthy's biography of Caesar. Good balance between readability and historical thoroughness. Prevents following Caesar's own writings too much. Puts a lot of his actions in a broader perspective, but also shows that he was the maker of his environment as much as a product of it.

I am halfway finished with The Book of Skulls, by Robert Silverberg. It's really great. I was lucky to find it, because I haven't really given Silverberg much of a chance after finding myself bored by the Majipoor setting. But the title was catchy, and the book cover was oddly similar to the cover of one of my favorite CDs, which even has a similar name:





Anyway, I'm enjoying The Book of Skulls. Published in 1972, this book does capture the feel of that time period, but also has a certain timeless quality to it. The story is about four college roommates who go on a spring break road trip across America to undertake an occult ritual that will result in death for two of them and eternal life for the other two.

Silverberg apparently inserts himself in the story as the scholarly Eli, but each chapter is written from the viewpoint of one of the four roommates. So Silverberg stretches his writing style to present the viewpoints of three other distinct individuals, a wealthy WASP, an edgy bisexual, and a really intense pre-med student who grew up on a farm. The road trip reminded me a bit of Kerouac's On the Road, only this book is frankly better in every respect. The characters have actual personalities and motivations, and there is an actual story, not just random vignettes of wandering young men. To hell with Kerouac. The Book of Skulls is a horror story, but works on other levels, questioning the meaning of life and death and what lies beyond.

I'm reading SIX MONTHS IN SUDAN, by this MSF doctor who was there during the Darfur stuff. It's SOOOO good.

I'm reading Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and her husband. It is one of the worst histories I've ever read because I do not trust the authors.

It feels like they frequently take quotes out of context and when they don't I frequently I wonder about the credibility of their sources. They draw conclusions about intentions and plans based on very flimsy evidence. By their account, Mao was essentially the luckiest man in the entire world and Chiang Kai-Shek was just a kindly old warlord who wasn't tough enough on the communists.

It's the worst thing when you lose credibility as a historian. It casts even the things you got perfectly right and are uncontroversial in doubt, which is a terrible thing. I can't believe this book was a best seller and hailed by critics.

ugh, gary, that does sound awful. The book I read before this one was on Ayn Rand and was written by a historian, Jennifer Burns (I think). Anyway, she was really careful to be precise and did tons of research and talked about a bunch of other books on Ayn rand and why they are not accurate. One guy even changed direct quotes and stuff like that. UGH.

Anyway, you're right that it sort of turns your world upside down for a sec when you realize that poorly research historical books are spreading misinformation

Halfway through Jeff Vandermeer's Finch, where he revisits Ambergris once again, however this time the city has been completely overtaken by the gray caps (mushroom men) and every human lives in absolute fear of the new regime. Great mystery, vivid descriptions of weirdness, and I'm ashamed I left this book in the pile since last November when it was released.

I just read a book called 'Last Flag Down.' It's an account of a Confederate raiding ship whose crew didn't know the civil war had ended till more than a year later, when they were being hunted for piracy. Really interesting subject matter, but the author's a distant nephew of one of the lesser main figures whom he let overshadow the actions and deeds of much more pivotal characters through his hero worship. Kinda like your Mao book Gary, but on a lesser scale.

Right now I'm slogging through China Mieville's 'Kraken.' I think this guys writing's just not for me. I had to put down both 'Perdido Street Station' and 'The City & the City,' and I thought the Lovecraftian aspects to this one would grab me, but 140 pages in and I'm scanning the shelves for the next book. Maybe it's the cheesy ass pictures of him on the covers that don't let me get into it, or the fact that he didn't name Lovecraft in his list of inspirations for the book, I don't know. I feel like I should like this guys stuff, but I just don't.

Picked up all six Thomas Covenent books by Stehen Donaldson for .48 each at the Strand. I haven't read these since middle school or so, and I think Lord Fouls Bane is on deck. I hope I still like it as much as I did when I was younger.

I've started reading The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer. It's a fictional tale about the early childhood years of Hitler that is tracked by a demon that goes by "Dieter" and how he was to mold Hitler into a tool of Satan. I've just started reading it so not very far along. Sounded like an interesting premise. Even though a strange book from the like of Norman Mailer.

The Norman Invasion of Ireland by Richard Roche. Entertaining read about how an Irish warlord sold out to the Normans in England/Wales to recover his lands and the Normans then took the place over. Not all of it in one go of course. Took centuries.

Bought it on holiday in Ireland because there were so many Norman castles in the place you couldn't lie down.

Now finish the book by Mike McNally on the Battle of Aughrim. Another Irish defeat (they fought a lot, but never got good at it), this time settling the English dominance and finally sorting the demise of organised catholicism.