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What book is everyone reading at the moment?

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Bloodlands by Tim Snyder

Pretty horrific stuff.

Also SS - A new history by Adrian Weale which ties in quite nicely with the above.

The former is my train reading, the latter my on-the-bog book. :)
 
Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present by Brendan Simms.

It takes about half the book to get from 1453 to Napoleon, so there is a lot more concentration on the last 150-years.

He argues strongly about the importance of the German region (either as Holy Roman Empire or the subsequent states) to politics in the Americas and Europe (plus Russia and the Ottomans).

His other central idea is that security considerations have driven most of the players over that period.

I'm not sure I agree with all his examples and analyses, but they are well argued and he makes you think.

Accurate review in the Torygraph
 
Kings of Nowhere by Patrick de Moss.

This is a volume of short stories, sci-fi/horror/paranormal/shades of Stephen King/Poe, most (all?) of which are interconnected, very unique. It only cost $2.99 for Kindle and is a pretty lengthy tome. Very strange, memorable, much left to your imagination. There's a short screenplay in the middle that fell flat, but otherwise, this is a book that will stick with me.
 
Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald. Stunningly good. Sebald was the real thing. Until his untimely death in a car accident at the age of 57, many thought he was headed for a Nobel Prize. I agree with them.
 
The Fleet That Had To Die by Richard Hough
The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War by Denis Ashton Warner
Strategy and Power in Russia 1600-1914 by William C. Fuller Jr.

Some research on the Russo-Japanese war, the Dogger Bank incident, the Anglo-Japanese alliance, pre-WW1 politics and advanced non-nuclear submarines for my plan to start WW1 a decade early...
 
Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel

Recommended by multiple people. Good but I only just started.
 
Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel

Recommended by multiple people. Good but I only just started.
 
I tend to read multiple books, and the one that takes center stage at the moment is Seamus Heaney's recent translation of Beowulf. The translation is on a page opposite the Old English original, which helps give an idea of how the original sounded, even if nearly none of the words make sense.

This is a free verse translation, trying to adhere within reason to the beat of the original, and it works quite well. Within the story itself, bards occasionally sing older work, and this is rendered in the strict meter of the whole epic, which is unusual to modern sensibilities, with a drumlike insistence, each line a pair of phrases.

If you just need to get through Beowulf because you have to, it's probably the best way to do it anyway. But of course Heaney is a formidable poet in his own right, and as a result, this is an enjoyable read if you like that sort of thing. Every once in a while the whole thing just starts to rock, and it's a toss up how much is owing to the original, and how much to Heaney, but so what?
 
bruto said:
I tend to read multiple books, and the one that takes center stage at the moment is Seamus Heaney's recent translation of Beowulf. The translation is on a page opposite the Old English original, which helps give an idea of how the original sounded, even if nearly none of the words make sense.

This is a free verse translation, trying to adhere within reason to the beat of the original, and it works quite well. Within the story itself, bards occasionally sing older work, and this is rendered in the strict meter of the whole epic, which is unusual to modern sensibilities, with a drumlike insistence, each line a pair of phrases.

If you just need to get through Beowulf because you have to, it's probably the best way to do it anyway. But of course Heaney is a formidable poet in his own right, and as a result, this is an enjoyable read if you like that sort of thing. Every once in a while the whole thing just starts to rock, and it's a toss up how much is owing to the original, and how much to Heaney, but so what?
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Thank you for reminding me of this; I should read it again. I first read it about a decade ago, and I remember being knocked out by how good it was. Great big-boned storytelling poetry that just grabs you and doesn't let go. (I'm a fan of Heaney's own poetry too.)

Around the same time I read W.S. Merwin's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - also quite impressive.

Just found this, by the way: Heaney himself reading his translation of Beowulf. What a lovely voice he had.
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaB0trCztM0
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsxxg5P-DnY
 
Charlie Stross's The Rhesus Chart has skipped to the top of my list; the fifth of the Laundry novels.
 
Half way through Kurt Vonnegut's 'Galapagos'. Charles Darwin, furry babies, cannibals - what more would you need?!
 
Steven Erickson. Malazan Book of the Fallen. As good as epic fantasy gets. G R R Martin, Robert Jordan, even Tolkein fall below this guy. Educated as both an anthropologist and archaeologist. Creative, imaginative, original. Not the greatest writer in the world....but when everything is said and done, he's probably at the top of his craft. If anyone can suggest anything equivalent or better I'd be happy to hear it.
 
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Danger UXB, James Owen. Detailing the efforts of bomb disposal teams during WWII.

Some may remember the TV series of the same name from the late-70s, but this is not a novelisation of that show.

Tens of thousands of bombs were dropped on Britain during the war and bomb disposers had to deal with monster-sized parachute mines with a tonne of explosive, down to the butterfly bombs - small enough to get stuck in trees, on roofs or in gardens and still deadly to the unwary.

A battle of wits between British and German experts developed: as one side gained knowledge on how to safely disarm, the other was developing more sophisticated fuzes with booby traps.

The book goes into a fair amount of technical detail, but I wouldn't say it gets bogged down. It's not gratuitous in describing what happens to those affected, but doesn't pull punches either.

For those working directly on a bomb, there was perhaps the consolation that if things went wrong, they wouldn't know anything about it. Despite the best efforts to perfect a methodical approach to bomb disposal, many, many died in the attempt.
 
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commandlinegamer said:
Danger UXB, James Owen. Detailing the efforts of bomb disposal teams during WWII.

Some may remember the TV series of the same name from the late-70s, but this is not a novelisation of that show.

Tens of thousands of bombs were dropped on Britain during the war and bomb disposers had to deal with monster-sized parachute mines with a tonne of explosive, down to the butterfly bombs - small enough to get stuck in trees, on roofs or in gardens and still deadly to the unwary.

A battle of wits between British and German experts developed: as one side gained knowledge on how to safely disarm, the other was developing more sophisticated fuzes with booby traps.

The book goes into a fair amount of technical detail, but I wouldn't say it gets bogged down. It's not gratuitous in describing what happens to those affected, but doesn't pull punches either.

For those working directly on a bomb, there was perhaps the consolation that if things went wrong, they wouldn't know anything about it. Despite the best efforts to perfect a methodical approach to bomb disposal, many, many died in the attempt.
Click to expand...
Sounds interesting. A couple of anecdotes.

Back in the 50's or 60's there was a pretty nicely detailed Popular Science article on this, and I remember one anecdote about a bomb expert in England who discovered that the quickest way to disarm a particular German bomb was to take his revolver and shoot it in a particular place, which caused, needless to say, a great deal of consternation.

Back also long ago I worked for a while with a person who had grown up shortly after the war in London, where there were still occasional bombs found, and a bounty for their discovery. He and some friends, all small boys, found one, but being poor and really needing the money, they feared someone else would steal it if they went and reported it. So they picked it up and carted it to the police station. The authorities were not amused, but he did get his share of the bounty.
 
commandlinegamer said:
Danger UXB, James Owen. Detailing the efforts of bomb disposal teams during WWII.

Some may remember the TV series of the same name from the late-70s, but this is not a novelisation of that show.

Tens of thousands of bombs were dropped on Britain during the war and bomb disposers had to deal with monster-sized parachute mines with a tonne of explosive, down to the butterfly bombs - small enough to get stuck in trees, on roofs or in gardens and still deadly to the unwary.

A battle of wits between British and German experts developed: as one side gained knowledge on how to safely disarm, the other was developing more sophisticated fuzes with booby traps.

The book goes into a fair amount of technical detail, but I wouldn't say it gets bogged down. It's not gratuitous in describing what happens to those affected, but doesn't pull punches either.

For those working directly on a bomb, there was perhaps the consolation that if things went wrong, they wouldn't know anything about it. Despite the best efforts to perfect a methodical approach to bomb disposal, many, many died in the attempt.
Click to expand...

Did that spend a fair bit of time on Naval teams? I recall reading one (from the library) that did. It was a good book.
 
Re-reading an older one, Greg Bear's Eon. Boy, it's been a while; I had totally forgotten all the Cold War stuff.... Major nuclear war, Soviet CW-era politics... All revolving around the BDU (Big Dumb Object) story.
 
_The Master of Confessions: The Making of a Khmer Rouge Torturer_ by Thierry Cruvellier


I had to read this quickly, skimming some parts, because it was so appalling. It wasn't that it dwelled on the horrors of the torture camps, but what was revealed was more than enough to make me want to stop reading.

It's well-written but opinionated, with some contempt for the international tribunal.

I hold what might seem like a contradictory view: The man who ran these camps is in most ways an ordinary man, but he should be given the harshest of punishments, or at least the longest of sentences.

It seems everyone struggles to understand. Some want to call Duch a psychopath, but that completely misses the point.

My mind boggles. I wish I knew more history, so I could compare the reign of terror in Cambodia with others -- say Bosnia, Rwanda, Nazi Germany, the French Revolution.

Probably in each of these cases, we could find people like Duch who began as ordinary citizens, were motivated by ideology and a need to survive, then became good administrators of death. Their ordinariness doesn't excuse them.
 
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