What are we reading?

[FarAway Sooner]

I'm in the midst of two different books that you could loosely classify as "current events".

Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop (by Lee Drutman) is a book looking at the rise of increasingly polarized partisan politics in the U.S. and how we might all move past the toxic paartisanship that afflicts our democracy today.

Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker is a book suggesting that the world isn't nearly as horrible a place as US thinkers today believe it to be, and that it's been steadily improving on almost every imaginable front for the last 30-60 years.

Lest I lose too much Grog Street Cred, I did give my brother Zaloga's Armored Thunderbolt for Christmas.  I really just want some pulp sci-fi/fantasy right now, although The Rommel Papers does call me after I finish these two...

[Gusington]

^If you're into pulpy scifi try Richard Fox.

[fran]

I'm in the midst of two different books that you could loosely classify as "current events".

Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop (by Lee Drutman) is a book looking at the rise of increasingly polarized partisan politics in the U.S. and how we might all move past the toxic paartisanship that afflicts our democracy today.

Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker is a book suggesting that the world isn't nearly as horrible a place as US thinkers today believe it to be, and that it's been steadily improving on almost every imaginable front for the last 30-60 years.

Lest I lose too much Grog Street Cred, I did give my brother Zaloga's Armored Thunderbolt for Christmas.  I really just want some pulp sci-fi/fantasy right now, although The Rommel Papers does call me after I finish these two...

Thanks for these suggestions, looks interesting...

For Fiction, I recently finished the Wall, good end of the world tale.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07HGK1XRS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

[Gusington]

Now reading The Bounty Hunter's Code, the third book in the 4-title Star Wars set I bought last January.

Fun fact: I bought the four book set for about 48.00. There is one collector's edition left on Amazon now. Asking price: 2,862.00!!!

Pretty good investment!

https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars%C2%AE-Secrets-Galaxy-Deluxe/dp/1452159254/ref=pd_ybh_a_12?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=GKK2SESWX6RRH6TFG3MV

Putting these in my safe when I'm finished :)

[Toonces]

^ Nice!

[Toonces]

I'd be curious to hear your review of those books, FarAway.  I could certainly benefit from a book purporting a positive outlook for our country's politics.

[Toonces]

About 2/3 of the way through the final book "Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945" of Ian W. Tool's three part Pacific War series. Really interesting to read about the politics, planning and operations that happened. I especially like the sections about life on the Japanese home front. About 60% of the book is from the American side of the war.

The first two books in the series are also very good: "Pacific Crucible: War At Sea In The Pacific 1941-1942" and "The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands 1942-44".

I read this post and was wondering, "why the heck haven't I read these?"

Ironically, my brother gave me the first two volumes for my birthday!  Looking forward to giving them a read; I'm pretty well-read on Pacific WW2 but I'm always interested in new perspectives.

[Toonces]

Toonces - Good luck with Ulysses.  I was an English major in college, and I tend to like "difficult" works that make me stop and think over sentences and paragraphs, but Ulysses has just been too much every time I've attempted it.  I haven't managed to get past the first 30 or so pages. 

Well, I'm still struggling with Ulysses, pretty much the only book I'm reading at this point although I have many others I want to read.  I'm determined, at this point, to simply finish it.  Call it pride.

I can't tell if I'm enjoying it or not.  I can't tell you how many times I've said, ok I'm out, only to keep plowing through and just going simply...because?  I don't even know why.

I'm at this point where Joyce has switched to the style of a play, like Shakespeare, for just because I guess.  He does this.  And I don't know if he's describing a dream, or what's happening, or memories, or some combination of the three (I think it's the last choice, but...I'm just not sure).  And that's the thing: I never quite know what's going on, but I keep reading for some reason.

I'm 3/4 through, and because it was so hard, I feel I have to finish it at this point.  It was too hard to get to this point to give up now.  Sunk costs.

Call me crazy, but I'm thinking of giving Finnegan's Wake a try (with a reader's guide).  Kind of a long-term project, just to see if I can do it.

This is easily the hardest book I've read, though.  If you want to challenge yourself to stretch your mind and comfort zone, this would be a hard book to beat.  Volcano was easier, but if you can read half of Ulysses, Volcano will make much more sense.

[Gusington]

Now starting the Star Wars Imperial Handbook, the 4th in the set. Then I throw them all in the safe. The Bounty Hunter's Handbook was very good.

[airboy]

Toonces - Good luck with Ulysses.  I was an English major in college, and I tend to like "difficult" works that make me stop and think over sentences and paragraphs, but Ulysses has just been too much every time I've attempted it.  I haven't managed to get past the first 30 or so pages. 

Well, I'm still struggling with Ulysses, pretty much the only book I'm reading at this point although I have many others I want to read.  I'm determined, at this point, to simply finish it.  Call it pride.

I can't tell if I'm enjoying it or not.  I can't tell you how many times I've said, ok I'm out, only to keep plowing through and just going simply...because?  I don't even know why.

I'm at this point where Joyce has switched to the style of a play, like Shakespeare, for just because I guess.  He does this.  And I don't know if he's describing a dream, or what's happening, or memories, or some combination of the three (I think it's the last choice, but...I'm just not sure).  And that's the thing: I never quite know what's going on, but I keep reading for some reason.

I'm 3/4 through, and because it was so hard, I feel I have to finish it at this point.  It was too hard to get to this point to give up now.  Sunk costs.

Call me crazy, but I'm thinking of giving Finnegan's Wake a try (with a reader's guide).  Kind of a long-term project, just to see if I can do it.

This is easily the hardest book I've read, though.  If you want to challenge yourself to stretch your mind and comfort zone, this would be a hard book to beat.  Volcano was easier, but if you can read half of Ulysses, Volcano will make much more sense.

I think you got sucked in by the English Majors.  Ulysses violates almost all tenants of good writing.  It is so obtuse, English majors can feel superior.  Falkner is another one who became more and more difficult to interpret in his books.  Clear writing with clear themes is hard and worthwhile.  Writing something difficult to interpret is not something I would spend my time doing.  Confession: I read about 100 pages and dropped it like hot iron.  I finished a couple of Faulkner novels assigned to me, and got angered when people who only read the Cliff notes tested out better.  Decided I had gotten sucked in by the English Professors.

But if it makes you happy and feel like you have accomplished something worthwhile, by all means keep beating your head against the Ulysses wall.

[al_infierno]

^ I get the frustration there, but I can't help feeling like you had some pretty crappy literature professors if CliffNotes managed to teach the text better than them.  I think Joyce and Faulkner were geniuses, but..... yeah, their writing gets rather "masturbatory" for lack of a better word, especially in their later years.

The thing that makes literature "difficult" or "obtuse," especially with Joyce, is that the text is absolutely decked out with layers upon layers of allusions and references, and you have to be ABSURDLY well read to understand all the subtext without a reading guide off-hand.  Even very well read people tend to read texts like Ulysses supplemented by reading guides or explanatory text, because otherwise they know they're just banging their head against a bunch of obtuse references to stuff they've never read.

[nelmsm]

Working my way through Red Victory, A History of the Russian Civil War by W.Bruce Lincoln. I think I may need a flowchart and a whiteboard to keep up with all the factions that were involved.

[Gusington]

About to start Thrawn by Timothy Zahn, the first of the three most recent books.

[ArizonaTank]

Currently reading and enjoying:

Japanese Destroyer Captain, the memoir of Tameichi Hara who captained Japanese destroyers and a cruiser in WWII. It is one of the relatively few such books in English. It is interesting that he heaps blame for the early major defeats on Yamamoto. The book is well written, interesting and I don't get a sense of any smugness that sometimes comes over in German officer memoirs...the old: 'we could have easily beaten the Russians for you, if you had just let us.'

also reading

The Immortal Irishman, the biography of Thomas Francis Meagher, who became a brigadier general in the Union Army and led the Irish Brigade. Interesting guy...he was a Irish revolutionary, who was tried by the British and sentenced to life internment on Tasmania. He escaped Tasmania, and found himself in New York, eventually to become a larger than life figure in the Civil War. After the war he became Governor of the Montana Territory.

Recently finished:

Embracing Defeat, an excellent book on Japan during the US Occupation. I'll put down some impressions later, since I thought it was a very eye-opening book.
https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Defeat-Japan-Wake-World/dp/0393320278/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2T731NAX66WAN&dchild=1&keywords=embracing+defeat&qid=1609863671&sprefix=embracing+d%2Caps%2C213&sr=8-1

also recently finished:

The People Who Eat Darkness, a completely different kind of book for me. It was recommended by a friend, and I enjoyed it. Basically it is about famous serial rape / murder case in Japan from twenty years ago. A young British girl in her 20s, was drugged, raped and killed by a guy who can only be described as truly evil. The book is a great window into the modern Japanese police force, the judicial system, and the Japanese underworld.

Finally, just because I decided to go for something completely different, I am just starting:

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty

[ArizonaTank]

oops, double post