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What book is everyone reading at the moment? Part 2.

Deciline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Gibbon. Got it for $1. It takes a bit. The facinating part isn't the history; Rome is too late (in as much as it's not fossils) and too early (in as much as it's not Medieval) for my taste. Rather, the difference in what was considered acceptable in an academic publication is facinating. If a historian wrote a work with as many divergences and as much moralising as Gibbon engaged in he'd be laughed out of academia, even if he was retired! Still, I enjoy that aspect. For example, Gibbon points out that humans praise our destroyers over our benifactors, which is why soldiers dominate history (his exact words are more pointed and poetic, but I can't remember them off-hand).

I need to re-read Tacitus' Travels in Germania. I'm thinking of basing my SCA personna off his description (a very, very early-period Goth/Ostregoth/Vandel/Whatever). Not sure how that'll go over, though--one part of such an attempt would involve going to court armed with a spear and shield, which tends to not go over well with some of the late-period nobles. But if I can reference it, I could probably get away with it...
 
Iain Banks "The Quarry"

This is Banks's final book as he died of cancer shortly before it was published, and had been diagnosed with the terminal disease shortly after finishing writing it. It is a dark irony about the book, then, that it is a story of a man dying of terminal cancer as related by his son who has Asperger's, and a group of his friends from his university days set in a house set to be torn down to make room for the expansion of a nearby quarry.

This is the type of book that any Banks fan will enjoy because as with many of his books you get the impression the author is talking to you about things that either make him irritated or amused in the world in general, but he uses the characters to discuss these themes in a variety of tones from the cynical and bitter Guy, to his son who often fixates on fairly trivial observations, to the more radical left-wing Hol and her right-wing foil Rob, the go-getter and opportunistically New Labour Paul and the rather pathetic druggy slacker known, appropriately enough, as Haze.

If you're not a fan of Banks, you may not be that interested in the book because...

ultimately, the plot never really goes anywhere although it is driven by the search for a MacGuffin in the shape of a video cassette that the university graduates made long ago and which features something "extremely embarrassing" but
we never get to see what is actually on the video tape even though it is suggested that it is a big sex tape that could ruin everyone's careers, and there is a further mystery in the book in that the narrator does not know who his mother is and
never finds out.
 
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England Expects by Charles S. Jackson.
I am, as some of you might have noticed, a fan of alternate history/time travel sci-fi and this was an impulse acquisition that's paid off. It's in the mould of Birmingham's World War 2.0 or William' The Foresight Wat though more resembling Hogan's The Proteus Operation with two groups meddling with World War 2 to achieve their favoured world. Given that one of them is a bunch of Neo-Nazis this might not be too desirable...
It tackles some of the often glossed-over details, like convincing the locals you are in fact from the future and want to help them, logistics and production difficulties.
 
xterra said:
Super subsumed spoilers, angrysoba.

(I've read one of Banks's books, didn't care for it, and thanks to your spoilers can definitely pass on this one.)
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Even Iain Banks remarked that this one was not really his best and he had hoped to go out on some great sci-fi Culture novel. I've enjoyed a number of his books in the past, and I liked this one too, but I doubt it is a novel that will appeal beyond his fanbase.

I think that the plot...

or rather lack of it, with its
pointless red herrings, are paradoxically,
the point of the novel.
I read somewhere after writing this that actually it was only the first draft that he had completed when he got his diagnosis and that he had presumably worked on the book after that. I wonder actually if some of the bleak philosophical ideas here about life being about pursuing illusory goals is Banks making his parting existential sermon. i.e sure you would like everything to wrap up neatly, but life isn't like that.
 
turingtest said:
Sorry, didn't see this the other day. I'll look for that book; I'm a big fan of Tuchman's, and I think that's the only one of hers I haven't read. History has always been an interest of mine, and Tuchman (as well as other writers like David McCullough, Robert Massie, Antonia Fraser, and Margaret Leech) writes such rich history.
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I read Tuchman's "Guns of August" and Massie's "Dreadnought" a few months ago in honor of the centennial of the start of World War One.

Just finished Massie's Biography of Catherine the Great. Highly Recommended.
 
I'm currently reading "Tales from Failed Anatomies", the latest Delta Green short story anthology.
Combination of spy thriller/conspiracy story/Cthulhu Mythos. The stories run in chronological order from 1928 (just after the Innsmouth raid) to 2015, and then a "20xx" story after the Old Ones have started to wake up.
 
The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad.

It might have been more interesting to have read it when it had just came out (and without prior knowledge of the concept behind it), but alas, I was born way too late for that.

Still, it's an interesting read so far, very clichéd (intentionally so, afaik).

Beginning in chapter 3 after finishing this post.
 
dudalb said:
I read Tuchman's "Guns of August" and Massie's "Dreadnought" a few months ago in honor of the centennial of the start of World War One.

Just finished Massie's Biography of Catherine the Great. Highly Recommended.
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I borrowed Massie's Catherine The Great from our local library not long ago, but that's the kind of book I need to own. It's definitely on my "to buy" list. I also need another copy of Dreadnought; I read my first one to tatters.

Also, if you haven't read them (you probably have, but for anyone who hasn't) David McCullough's The Great Bridge and The Path Between The Seas are great; on the building of (respectively) the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama Canal, the books are as good on the social/political histories of their respective times (and places) as the technical aspects of the two projects.
 
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turingtest said:
I borrowed Massie's Catherine The Great from our local library not long ago, but that's the kind of book I need to own. It's definitely on my "to buy" list. I also need another copy of Dreadnought; I read my first one to tatters.

Also, if you haven't read them (you probably have, but for anyone who hasn't) David McCullough's The Great Bridge and The Path Between The Seas are great; on the building of (respectively) the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama Canal, the books are as good on the social/political histories of their respective times (and places) as the technical aspects of the two projects.
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Big McCullough fan.
The books you mention are good,but his biographies of Truman and John Adams are even better.
 
Long Day's Journey Into War, by Stanley Weintraub. Covers Dec. 7th, 1941 from beginning to end. It has introduced me to several situations I was either only peripherally aware of, or unaware completely. Nice cherry on top of my prior reading regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor.
 
A Magnificent Fight: The Battle for Wake Island, Cressman, Robert J., 1995
I am reading the digital edition on my tablet; the only problem with this is trying to see the maps.

Hispanic Folk Music of New Mexico and the Southwest: Self-portrait of A People, Robb, J. D. [John Donald, not the mystery writer], 1980
 
xterra said:
A Magnificent Fight: The Battle for Wake Island, Cressman, Robert J., 1995
I am reading the digital edition on my tablet; the only problem with this is trying to see the maps.
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I don't know if it'd interest you but over at AH.com there are a number of alternate histories focussing on different actions and events on/around Wake; one in particular I rather like. A True and Better Alamo
 
Gawdzilla said:
Is that a glitch or just the size of your screen? If it's a glitch I'll pass a note to Robert.
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Neither. It appears to be a function of the software.

I am reading the book through the OverDrive app on a 10" tablet. The usual touch-screen swipe-to-enlarge gestures do not work in OverDrive, so there is no way to make the graphics larger. I can set the font size, but that does nothing to the graphics.

I might try to download the book in a different format to use with a different reader, and see if the graphics can be made bigger.
 
xterra said:
Neither. It appears to be a function of the software.

I am reading the book through the OverDrive app on a 10" tablet. The usual touch-screen swipe-to-enlarge gestures do not work in OverDrive, so there is no way to make the graphics larger. I can set the font size, but that does nothing to the graphics.

I might try to download the book in a different format to use with a different reader, and see if the graphics can be made bigger.
Click to expand...

Had that problem with Kobe tablet. Also annoying when a graphic is on its side, you cannot rotate the picture
 
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