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

arthwollipot said:
I still need to make more time for actual reading, but I recently made a start on Unruly, a history of the British monarchy by David Mitchell.

In tone it reads somewhat like Stephen Fry's accounting of Greek mythology. While reading it, I can imagine it in Mitchell's own voice.
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That is an excellent book.
 
Orphia Nay said:
I'm reading:

The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson, 2016.

Half-way through and I'm learning lots, having only a brief high school knowledge of the French Revolution.

I wasn't aware of (or didn't remember) the different political factions and clubs, the September massacres, the war with Prussia and Austria, the contrasts between the bourgeois revolutionaries and the Paris sans-culottes and the provinces, the intermediate period when the King still ruled, and much more.

Davidson presents the facts in a seemingly unbiased manner. Looking forward to continuing, and my thoughts on its relevance to current US politics congealing.
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What I find fascinating is the parallels with later revolutions, e.g. Russia in 1917 and Iran in 1978-9. All three had the overthrow of an incompetent and unpopular liberalising autocracy by a popular revolt, followed by that revolution being hijacked by a small, organised, group with their own agenda.
 
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, Erik Larson*

“I thought I knew everything about the Lusitania,” writes Erik Larson in the afterword to this popular history of the Cunard liner, the German submarine commander who in May 1915 torpedoed her, and the results of the sinking, personal, international, and historical.

As Larson discovered when he began his research, he actually had much to learn about the event and the personalities. He draws heavily on the memoirs and contemporary interviews of passengers, but equally on official (often formerly Most Secret) historical records. He is a talented writer, and the fascinating story reads like a novel. Larson focuses on specific individuals: the conscientious ship’s captain Turner; a pioneering architect, the first American woman in her profession; the businesslike submarine captain, whose job is destruction; and dozens of others. We get to glimpse Woodrow Wilson, elated over the prospects of marrying his sweetheart, dancing a jig and singing “Oh, You Beautiful Doll.” There is Winston Churchill, in charge of the British Navy, conniving to withhold protection from the Lusitania in hopes that it might be sunk and draw the United States into WWI.

In all, about 1200 passengers and crew (and three German stowaways who might have been spies) died in the sinking. Only 793 survived, some permanently impaired by the experience. One was Captain Turner, who literally went down with the Lusitania, only to be targeted by the British Navy for not having saved the ship. In fact, the Navy had deliberately refused Turner's requests for escort protection. Though Turner rose to the surface, buoyed by a life belt, his life was never again the same. Others suffered in different ways A shaken Wilson resisted calls from his Cabinet members to ask Congress for an immediate declaration of war, prompting Churchill later to complain that many Allied lives might have been saved had the sinking produced a knee-jerk decision for the US to join the war effort. It would take two more years before America went to war.

Larson unveils the tragedies both intensely personal and widely public of the loss of its era’s largest and most luxurious ocean liner. He involves the reader deeply, and as with every other book of Larson’s that I’ve read, I highly recommend this one.

*A dead wake is a lingering trail on the water’s surface long after the ship – or torpedo – that produced it has left.
 
Andy Buckram's Tin Men
YA novel about a farm boy who builds some tin can robots to help him out with his chores. It's really delightful. I think if I'd come across this in grade/middle school I'd probably have read it several times. I was attracted to it (in the Little Free Library kiosk) because the robots look like a little tin man figure that was passed around among my family, and has long been a running joke. The inside illustrations are excellent as well.
 
I'm a third of the way into Atkinson's Fate of the Day, the second volume of his magnificent three volume history of the American Revolution. I finished the first, The British are Coming, earlier this summer. The third volume will be published in a few years. These are wonderful books. They bring, for me, new insights into the Revolution. There is none of the usual jingoist cheering, the rebels were wonderful, always won and never did anything wrong approach usually taught in schools. In fact, for example, Washington screwed up many times, at least early in the war, and thus major battles were lost (i.e, Long Island, etc.). Not too surprising when you realize that he, and so many of the other American officers were pretty new to war. I live in the lower Hudson Valley and the legend is that the great chain that was stretched across the river to prevent the British from sailing up it was a great success. Not so. The British cut through it easily and even took it back to Britain. The backgrounds of the major players are made clear and the reactions of common people, soldiers and civilians alike, are highlighted from quotes from letters and diaries and the like. These are fascinating. This trilogy will be, for the Revolution, the equivalent of Shelby Foote's great three volume history of the Civil War.
 
thines said:
I'm a third of the way into Atkinson's Fate of the Day, the second volume of his magnificent three volume history of the American Revolution. I finished the first, The British are Coming, earlier this summer. The third volume will be published in a few years. These are wonderful books. They bring, for me, new insights into the Revolution. There is none of the usual jingoist cheering, the rebels were wonderful, always won and never did anything wrong approach usually taught in schools. In fact, for example, Washington screwed up many times, at least early in the war, and thus major battles were lost (i.e, Long Island, etc.). Not too surprising when you realize that he, and so many of the other American officers were pretty new to war. I live in the lower Hudson Valley and the legend is that the great chain that was stretched across the river to prevent the British from sailing up it was a great success. Not so. The British cut through it easily and even took it back to Britain. The backgrounds of the major players are made clear and the reactions of common people, soldiers and civilians alike, are highlighted from quotes from letters and diaries and the like. These are fascinating. This trilogy will be, for the Revolution, the equivalent of Shelby Foote's great three volume history of the Civil War.
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That came up in the "On This Day" thread yesterday.
 
catsmate said:
What I find fascinating is the parallels with later revolutions, e.g. Russia in 1917 and Iran in 1978-9. All three had the overthrow of an incompetent and unpopular liberalising autocracy by a popular revolt, followed by that revolution being hijacked by a small, organised, group with their own agenda.
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Have you read the Davidson book I'm reading?

You might also be interested in this thread I bumped recently.

angrysoba

Thread 'Who was right about the French Revolution? Burke, Paine or someone else?'

I was quite ignorant about the French Revolution so I decided to do a bit of reading on the subject. First of all I read a simple history called “The French Revolution” by Christopher Hibbert in which he states clearly, at the beginning that he has no interest in examining the ideas of the revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries but rather concentrating on the people themselves.

Although I had known about the storming of the Bastille, the flight to Varennes and of course, the Terror, I hadn’t known about the September Massacres or even that much about many of the protagonists of the...
 
Orphia Nay said:
Have you read the Davidson book I'm reading?

You might also be interested in this thread I bumped recently.

angrysoba

Thread 'Who was right about the French Revolution? Burke, Paine or someone else?'

I was quite ignorant about the French Revolution so I decided to do a bit of reading on the subject. First of all I read a simple history called “The French Revolution” by Christopher Hibbert in which he states clearly, at the beginning that he has no interest in examining the ideas of the revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries but rather concentrating on the people themselves.

Although I had known about the storming of the Bastille, the flight to Varennes and of course, the Terror, I hadn’t known about the September Massacres or even that much about many of the protagonists of the...
Click to expand...
No I haven't tried Davidson on the FR. I'll add it to the slush pile.


Currently starting Alice Roberts' Domination a cynically excellent history of xianity.
 
Nineteen ways of looking at consciousness by neuroscientist Patrick House, an overview of modern research on consciousness. Perfect, I find, for someone with very sketchy knowledge, but endless curiousity. It's the kind of book I talk to; it invites you in, and makes, as in forces, you to think. It hasn't answered back yet, which is probably just as well; not sure what that would say about my own consciousness...

I have no idea how up to date it is, it's a few years old, and things are happening fast in this field, and I suspect that it is perhaps aimed at people like me, who are not in any way, shape or form, qualified to have their own opinions on the matter. I really enjoy it, though.
 
This one! I got a proof copy of the book available on Amazon (also on Kindle, free for Prime members). First published about 14 years ago, I finally got around to revising and improving it. Of course, the second I got it republished I found a typo that I must have gone over a thousand times. ("than" for "that".) I'll review the proof and see if I can find any others.
AlphaTapp book proof photo.jpg
 
Spektator said:
A Wodehouse Bestiary, P.G. Wodehouse, edited and with a preface by G.K. Bensen, Foreword by Howard Phipps, Jr.

As well as being a talented novelist and lyricist, P.G. Wodehouse created memorable characters—Jeeves and Wooster, Psmith, Mr. Mulliner, and the zany inhabitants of Blandings—and humor that still provokes laughter. And in addition to all that, he was an animal lover, especially fond of dogs.

This collection selects fourteen short stories, each of which features some species and tons of graceful prose and hilarious situations, people, and critters. Jeeves and Wooster appear in “Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch” (a salmon from Harrods and a small herd or flock of cats), “Comrade Bingo” (Ocean Breeze, a racehorse so slow that he might come in first in the race after the one he’s in), “Jeeves and the Impending Doom” (a fiendish swan whose eyebrows meet in the center), and “Jeeves and the Old School Chum” (More race horses, thought this one presses the outer limit of “bestiary” rather far). All are wonderful, and “Jeeves and the Impending Doom” is splendid.

Blandings Castle is represented by “Pig Hoo-o-o-o-ey!” (the splendidly obese Empress of Blandings, Lord Emsworth’s prize-winning and much-beloved sow), the quintessential tale of man and pig. Freddy Threepwood of Blandings gets involved with a woman who keeps fourteen dogs in “The Go-Getter.’ The loquacious raconteur Mr. Mulliner narrates ‘The Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court’ (the Peke Reginald, plus -rabbits and ex-rabbits), ‘Something Squishy’ (a snake), “Monkey Business” (a fearsome but talented and quite personable gorilla, once you get to know him), “Open House” (cats, canaries, and other dumb chums), and ‘The Story of Webster” (the cat Webster). Ukridge the entrepreneur starts a college for dogs in, rather naturally, “Ukridge’s Dog College.”

I won’t go through every story, but all are amusing and some are treasures. I must mention “Uncle Fred Flits By,” a glorious tale of confusion in which a gray parrot plays a significant role, and “The Mixer,” narrated by a charming young but inexperienced watchdog.

Dogs, and Pekes in particular, often appear. The foreword, by the President of the New York Zoological Society, recalls Plum’s warmth toward animals and provokes a smile when he mentions that the author is memorialized in the name of the P.G. Wodehouse Shelter in Westhampton, Long Island. Wodehouse and his wife were seldom without a dog—one comfortable dachshund, and many Pekes—and if a man who likes dogs can’t be all bad, a man whom dogs like must be quite good indeed. Recommended.
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I just read this after finishing Kindred by Octavia Butler. That was excellent, but got me down. A spot of Wodehouse was just the thing, at the moment! Thanks.
Currently starting the Molly Murphy series by Rhys Bowen, a favorite author at the moment.
 
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I went to the library yesterday with no idea what book(s) to get, so I asked a website to generate a random letter and number (it was H and 19), and literally picked the 19th book after the H divider in the fiction section. It was The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett. A very odd story but compelling; the blurb says
Edith Twyford was once a world-famous children's author, but now her only legacy is the rumoured existence of the Twyford Code: a series of clues hidden in her books leading to... what? No one knows - but that hasn't stopped the speculation.

Steve Smith can trace nearly all the bad things in his life back to Edith Twyford. As a child he found one of her books, covered in strange symbols. He showed it to his teacher, Miss Iles, who was convinced it held the key to the code. Within weeks Miss Iles had disappeared, and Steve has no idea if she is dead or alive - or if she was right. Now he's determined to find out.
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The entire story is told in transcripts of audio files which Steve Smith (now a missing person himself) has recorded on an old phone that his estranged son passed to him; the automatic transcription isn't always accurate so for example Miss Isles gets transcribed as missiles, must have gets transcribed as mustard and gonna gets transcribed as gun a. I found this a bit difficult at first but soon got used to it.
A plot point turns on these transcription errors


The files explain Steve's personal history as well as his attempts to find out what happened to his teacher and to solve the code, and the final twist was completely unexpected. I enjoyed it and may seek out other books by this author.
 
Agatha said:
I went to the library yesterday with no idea what book(s) to get, so I asked a website to generate a random letter and number (it was H and 19), and literally picked the 19th book after the H divider in the fiction section. It was The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett. A very odd story but compelling; the blurb says

The entire story is told in transcripts of audio files which Steve Smith (now a missing person himself) has recorded on an old phone that his estranged son passed to him; the automatic transcription isn't always accurate so for example Miss Isles gets transcribed as missiles, must have gets transcribed as mustard and gonna gets transcribed as gun a. I found this a bit difficult at first but soon got used to it.
A plot point turns on these transcription errors


The files explain Steve's personal history as well as his attempts to find out what happened to his teacher and to solve the code, and the final twist was completely unexpected. I enjoyed it and may seek out other books by this author.
Click to expand...

I've read The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by her, sort of similar, I think, but different - a couple of true crime-writers are chasing down the last members of a cult, and nothing is what it seems to be. I enjoyed it; nicely twisty, original, and well-written.
 
120 Days of Sodom, by The Marquis de Sade

A DNF, of course.

I wanted to see what the fuss was all about.

I think this is essentially a philosophical work. The author, by way of his main characters, sets out to explore the entire depth and breadth of sexual depravity. Most authors of pornography either write what turns them on, or write what turns their readers on. De Sade is not interested in such base motives. In this book, he wants to get after everything that might be a turn-on for anyone. His goal is to examine every depraved fetish, every obscene kink, ever invented by man.

As a result, there's a lot of material in this book that will not be a turn-on for hardly anyone. A lot that would turn the stomach of almost everyone who reads it. The author's courage, in unflinchingly detailing perversions that must have disgusted even him, is to be admired.

But, having once understood the premise of the book, and its nature of cataloguing every disgusting act anyone might ever have found personally titillating, there's really no point in reading to the end. Or am I mistaken? Has anyone here read this book to the end? Is there some further insight, that can only be grasped once the reader has internalized the entire text? Is it worth the trouble? I doubt it.

I think the main thing this book has in its favor is that it exists. That someone actually sat down and wrote it. That others have bothered to keep it in publication, in one way or another, ever since. That tells us something interesting about humanity.

I think the book also serves as a good boundary-defining work. You may not want to ban books from middle-school libraries, but surely you'd want to ban this one, right? Right?
 
Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill

One thing I like about Joe Hill's novels (so far) is that he gets into it right away. A lot of horror writers start with a few chapters of mundane world-building, before bringing the horror elements into the story. Stephen King is a good example of this. He often goes to great lengths to establish just how normal and pleasant the people are, the town is, so that it hits harder when something arrives to destroy all that.

Joe Hill just gets started on the destruction. Chapter one, here's a character, and here's a messed-up thing that's happening to them. We get to know the characters and the world as we go along, but we just keep going along. It's the difference between getting to know your fellow passengers while waiting for the train, and getting to know them while the train is in motion. "Now you know these people, let's take a trip with them" versus "you're on a trip with these people, here's what you need to know".

This has been my experience with Hill so far. I quite like it.

Yes, I know Joe Hill is Stephen King's son. He's tried very hard to establish himself as a distinct person and writer, and I try to respect that.
 
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