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Thread: What Are You Reading?

  1. Reese Witherspoon fucking like a savage makes up for a lot, though.
    Quote Originally Posted by C.S. Lewis
    Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

  2. I just picked up a book called "Arkwright" by an author I've never heard of named Allen Steele. It's supposedly about a multi-generational spacecraft that takes humans to another Earth-like planet. I'll be interested to see how similar it is to other things I've read with the premise.

    I'm also reading "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

  3. That first premise sounds like Orphans in the Sky.
    Quote Originally Posted by Razor Ramon View Post
    I don't even the rage I mean )#@($@IU_+FJ$(U#()IRFK)_#
    Quote Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name View Post
    I'm sure whatever Yeller wrote is fascinating!

  4. Quote Originally Posted by YellerDog View Post
    That first premise sounds like Orphans in the Sky.
    Yeah - going by the blurb, the fictional, titular Nathan Arkwright was a contemporary of Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. I'm almost done with Coates so I'll be starting it soon. Did a quick search and found this: http://io9.gizmodo.com/allen-m-steel...the-1761531434

  5. "Question the world man... I know the meaning of everything right now... it's like I can touch god." - bbobb the ggreatt

  6. #2386
    Just completed Jeffrey Herf's Reactionary modernism after about 1.5 years of reading it while I do my laundry.

    It's a worthy read to anyone that wants to understand WW2, the great depression's impact on Europe, the Holocaust, etc.

    Since it's a pretty dry book, I'll summarize it. Nazi Germany was a product of more than racism and ww1. Germany did not go through the industrial revolution or the enlightenment to the same degree as the US, UK or France. In the mid to late 20s, there was serious concern among conservatives about the impact technology would have on German culture, as if it would destroy the very soul of the country. And as always, conservatives also hated the social progress that came with the enlightenment and new technology. There was also a growing distrust (or maybe it was always there) of banking, international business, and non "creative" capital. The depression emboldened these fears and concerns. Conservative leaders ascribed all these nasty attributes to the US, UK, and the (international) Jew.

    As the national socialist party gained power, it would make bed fellows of German Industrialists and the Military. As a result party leaders would distance themselves from a few of their previous key principles and people that strained these new relationships. The most obvious being the Night of the Long Knives. Less obvious was more focus on the (international) Jew and less on the evils of capitalism and technology. The narrative took a minor shift to creative capital and technology being good (and the way of German industry) and investment / interest seeking capital being bad (and of the jews).

    There is a lot more in the book than just that, but thats the gist of it. Some other tidbits is that there were a lot of independent "fanzines" as we might call them, circulating these ideas in Germany. There was also a growing dislike of liberals in Germany because of WW1 and perceived poor performance of the Weimar Republic. There was also a growing fear of Communist, both as internal terrorists and as conquerors from Russia.


    I really wish something like this was required reading in high school, as it blows the common narrative out of the water. We are often told that the nazi party was a bunch of opportunists that took advantage of the depression and hatred of the treaty of versailles. WW2 could have probably happened even without those two triggers. The makings of WW2 go back the 1700s with the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. It also blows the common Russian narrative away. They are taught that nazi Germany was the product of greedy capitalist. But Germany was also in a revolt against the bourgeois. They just idolized functional capitalists while hating rentier capitalists.

    The real tragedy is that we are probably doomed to have a repeat of the Nazi party because they have become a myth far removed from what they really were.

    We're all on the look out for opportunist racists when we should be watching out for the economic and social conditions that allowed them to gain power.

  7. I have a little free time this summer and am trying to get through a few of the more celebrated novels of the past decade or so. The first, All the Light We Cannot See, is not good. It's embarrassingly earnest and strains to earn its place on the Literary Fiction shelf at every turn. Its prose is adjective-and-adverb-clogged and its metaphors mixed into livejournal poetry territory. Here's a passage that made me actually grumble out loud:

    But the fastest boys are greyhounds, harvested from all over the nation for their speed and eagerness to obey, and they seem to Werner to be running more fervently, more conclusively, than they have before.
    Can any of you fitness guys give me tips on how to make my running more conclusive than it is now? And when's the best time to harvest one's greyhounds? August too late?

    Maybe the novel's time really is up. The 400-page, three-act chunk of super earnest historical fiction feels out of place. Then I thought I'd try some new poetry. I turned to Rupi Kaur, who has been getting a lot of attention:

    rupi kaur 6.jpg

    .......................................So, does anyone have any suggestions for new fiction?

  8. read the border trilogy.
    look here, upon a sig graveyard.

  9. #2389
    don't read fiction

  10. Quote Originally Posted by sedition View Post
    read the border trilogy.
    I have and it rules.
    Quote Originally Posted by Fe 26 View Post
    don't read fiction
    HEH.

    I'm reading Bleak House, which is awesome and contains a review of All the Light We Cannot See:

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