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

Armitage72 said:
I'm about half-way through Tales of Alternate Earths Vol. 3, the latest in a series of alternate history short story anthologies.

Stories so far:
Guy Fawkes succeeded in blowing up Parliament.
Alfred Hitchcock directed a Titanic movie in 1940 instead of "Rebecca".
A Jane Austen-style story in which a lonely widow lost her husband when the Peninsular War was interrupted by alien invaders.
Paleontologists in a world where "Jurassic Park" was never written and people have stopped caring about dinosaurs, with Indiana Jones taking its place as a global franchise.
A young woman stalks the streets of London hunting Jack the Ripper, who never stopped killing.
Louis Bonaparte didn't die in Africa, returned to France, and was crowned Emperor.
Neanderthals were more advanced when they first encountered humans, resulting a world where Homo Sapiens are an oppressed minority.
Vasil Levski didn't die in 1872 and continued to participate in Bulgaria's government for decades, including preventing the coup that removed Alexander of Battenberg from power.
A noir-style detective story in which the PI is a human/chimp hybrid created by the US military using Japanese research and scientists from Unit 731 claimed after WWII. (The author may have confused Unit 731 with a Russian scientist's attempts to create human/chimp hybrids in the 1920s or the reported Chinese experiments in the 1960s.)
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I don't get it, Louis didn't die in Africa anyways, he died in Livorno in 1846.
 
Lennart Hyland said:
I don't get it, Louis didn't die in Africa anyways, he died in Livorno in 1846.
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This one. The story called him Louis Bonaparte, but it looks like he was more commonly called Louis-Napoléon.

In England, he trained as a soldier. Keen to see action, he persuaded the British to allow him to participate in the Anglo-Zulu War. In 1879, serving with British forces, he was killed in a skirmish with a group of Zulus. His early death caused an international sensation and sent shockwaves throughout Europe, as he was the last serious dynastic hope for the restoration of the House of Bonaparte to the throne of France.
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dann said:
I loved it! But after the first three or four chapters, I had to go back and start all over again from the beginning. I needed the context to understand what I had been reading. The sequel is great, too, but not as great as the The Peripheral, in my opinion, and you wlll probably ...
... hate the many allusions to Trump.
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The basic premise provides a solid platform for a whole series of novels, with an anchoring point in Wilf and associates in their future, and a variety of stubs with broad potential for varying situations and characters.

There's a screen adaptation of The Peripheral coming to Amazon soon in the form of a mini-series. Hopefully it will do justice to the book.
 
Finished Ready Player Two.

Now, I liked Ready Player One. A lot. (The movie, not so much). I thought it was an interesting if improbable plotline, compelling, and lots of nostalgia.

This one was, well, kinda bad. Simply a rehash of Volume 1, but not nearly as engaging, more totally random. "Oh, that was her favorite song, which I just happen to be an expert on." Same with all the egregious fan service references. I mean, they didn't flow from the story at all. It's just a random glut of references. It must be easy to write a book when you can just borrow other characters, likenesses, and songs. OK, the songs part might seem weird, but the protagonist narrated every "needle-drop" of every Prince track that played while they were in PrinceLand. If you're familiar with the tunes (and other references), it works. If not (like all the Silmarillion stuff), it doesn't.

The author seems to have forgotten one basic outcome of the first book, in that
The Oasis was supposed to be shut off for two days each week, to force people to actually live in the real world for a while.
That's not even mentioned here.

Still, it's an easy read, and it has taken on a certain perspective since I recently got a VR gaming headset. It did make me want to watch Brainstorm again, though (referenced I think, once in the book.)
 
So I finished Napoleon by swedish historian Herman Lindqvist. What a fascinating story! Didnt know much of L'Empereur when I first started and the book contained some spoilers here there but it was no biggie. I really rooted for Napoleon to have a long and prosperous reign with a quiet and peaceful ending... as I said.. I didnt know much of this man. The books was very detailed on everything except for the battles. Which was OK for me, I guess the book would triple in size then.

The quite sad ending with Napoleon being tricked and sent unlawfully to Saint Helena really stucked with me. I felt he really deserved something more. Was then pleased to read that his coffin was moved to Paris about 20 years later and greeted as he used to.

Now I really want to got to Paris and visit all the buildings and places connected to the story.

I will continue reading East of Eden and soon begin with The Stranger by Albert Camus.
 
The Cairo Affair, by Olen Steinhauer.

Outside of Le Carre, it's hard to find good espionage procedurals. Steinhauer does a pretty good job, though. His stories never involve end-of-the-world stakes. Just sordid little intelligence problems and the more or less regular human beings whose job it is to try to solve them.

In this standalone novel, a diplomat's wife cheats on her husband while they are stationed in Egypt. Later, after they are transferred to Hungary, it transpires that he himself was involved in certain other shenanigans during their time in Egypt. Not only that, but now she has returned to Egypt to get involved in yet more shenanigans related to both her and her husband's previous Egyptian shenanigans.

I like the title of this book because it follows the "The [Adjective] [Noun]" pattern of classic entries in the genre. The Osterman Weekend. The Bourne Identity. The Fourth Protocol. Not only that, but the story itself includes several affairs, romantic and otherwise, that take place in and around Cairo.

I like the rest of the book because outside of Le Carre, it's hard to find good espionage procedurals, and Steinhauer does a pretty good job.
 
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By Dava Sobel, Longitude.

Short, nontechnical, but informative, this account of the struggle to find a means of determining, well longitude, this is worth a read. The race was to aid the British Navy and merchant shipping, but also to win a £20,000 prize. The two sides in the competition were the Astronomers Royal, who sought an astronomical method, and John and William Harrison, father and son, who were self-taught clock makers working on perfecting a chronometer.

Not a treatise by any means, but with the decades-long efforts of the Harrisons undercut by two Astronomers Royal, their competitors who were rather unfairly on the judging committee, there is an element of suspense.

Short, fast read for anyone not demanding a detailed history of the science and engineering.
 
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Lennart Hyland said:
So I finished Napoleon by swedish historian Herman Lindqvist. What a fascinating story! Didnt know much of L'Empereur when I first started and the book contained some spoilers here there but it was no biggie. I really rooted for Napoleon to have a long and prosperous reign with a quiet and peaceful ending... as I said.. I didnt know much of this man. The books was very detailed on everything except for the battles. Which was OK for me, I guess the book would triple in size then.

The quite sad ending with Napoleon being tricked and sent unlawfully to Saint Helena really stucked with me. I felt he really deserved something more. Was then pleased to read that his coffin was moved to Paris about 20 years later and greeted as he used to.

Now I really want to got to Paris and visit all the buildings and places connected to the story.

I will continue reading East of Eden and soon begin with The Stranger by Albert Camus.
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I don't much like Napoleon. I have much less liking for the cult around him that began during his reign created by himself and his propagandists. It was a very modern cult of personality that deified the most holy and divine St. Napoloeon of Bonaparte. After Napoleon's death the cult continued and contines to this very day. The centerpiece of the cult is the worship of conquerers and dictators who the cultists believe are infalliable along with the worship of power along with equating conquest and mass death with greatness.

Napoleonic cultists have this worship of power in massive doses along with a desire to submit to the all wise, all powerful holy one.

The number of Historians who have and still grovel at the feet of historical figures like Napoleon is amusing. France of course has suffered a very large number of these worshippers of power. Sadly this abject hero worship is not confined to France.

So many historical figures have had this sort of treatment has vitually unblemished Gods. It is stomach turning. (Sweden has Karl XII for example.)

Napoleon was no where near has monsterous has some of the modern Dictators but he was a Dictator. His later justifications and excuses in the highly Mendacious Memories of St. Helena are largely pure crap. Napoleon tried to enforce French hegemony on Europe he failed, not a surprise he was resisted. Napoleonic cultists twist the record to make him the victim of the evil machinations of his enemies. (The "English Gold" crap.) They indeed were not innocent, but neither was he.

Napoleon came to power in a coup, carried out admist a flurry of false promises that he wasn't aming at Dictatorship. He then proceeded to consolidate power by police repression, and of course over the course of his rule political and press liberty vanished.

Napoleon's great failing has a leader was his utterly inept diplomacy when not directed by other diplomats like Tallyrand. (Yes I know just how foul Tallyrand was.) His utterly inept attempt to seize control of Spain and install his own brother has a puppet king is an outstanding example but only one of many such idiocies. (I could mention his idiocy in Portugal in 1807 also.)

On an economic level the continental system was plain stupid and diplomatically idiotic has well.

And of course when Napoleon forced the Dutch to accept his Brother Louis has king in 1806 it was because Napoleon told the Dutch the alternative was annexation to France. When Louis showed actual independance and refused to destroy the Dutch economy in pursuit of Napoleon's objectives, Louis was removed from office and the Netherlands annexed. Interestingly Louis is a respected figure in the Netherlands today not Napoleon.

I could also mention Napoleon's idiotic attempt to restore slavery in Haiti, which failed utterly. With the French forces sent, almost completely destroyed. The Haitian leader L'Overture who Napoleon's forces captured and sent to France was both starved and frozen to death in prison pursuant to Napoleon's orders.

I could list many more examples of Napoleon's cruelty and his political ineptitude.

The last thing I will mention is Napleon's pillaging of Europe through massive indemnities, and systematic looting by various requistion costs, taxes and forced "loans". A process in which so many of Napoleon's supporters and family took part in.

If you want books about Napoleon I recomend Tulard's Napoleon: The Myth of the Savior, and Adam Schaum Napoleon: A Life.

Napoleon's fall was richly and throughly deserved.
 
Pacal said:
I don't much like Napoleon. I have much less liking for the cult around him that began during his reign created by himself and his propagandists. It was a very modern cult of personality that deified the most holy and divine St. Napoloeon of Bonaparte. After Napoleon's death the cult continued and contines to this very day. The centerpiece of the cult is the worship of conquerers and dictators who the cultists believe are infalliable along with the worship of power along with equating conquest and mass death with greatness.

Napoleonic cultists have this worship of power in massive doses along with a desire to submit to the all wise, all powerful holy one.

The number of Historians who have and still grovel at the feet of historical figures like Napoleon is amusing. France of course has suffered a very large number of these worshippers of power. Sadly this abject hero worship is not confined to France.

So many historical figures have had this sort of treatment has vitually unblemished Gods. It is stomach turning. (Sweden has Karl XII for example.)

Napoleon was no where near has monsterous has some of the modern Dictators but he was a Dictator. His later justifications and excuses in the highly Mendacious Memories of St. Helena are largely pure crap. Napoleon tried to enforce French hegemony on Europe he failed, not a surprise he was resisted. Napoleonic cultists twist the record to make him the victim of the evil machinations of his enemies. (The "English Gold" crap.) They indeed were not innocent, but neither was he.

Napoleon came to power in a coup, carried out admist a flurry of false promises that he wasn't aming at Dictatorship. He then proceeded to consolidate power by police repression, and of course over the course of his rule political and press liberty vanished.

Napoleon's great failing has a leader was his utterly inept diplomacy when not directed by other diplomats like Tallyrand. (Yes I know just how foul Tallyrand was.) His utterly inept attempt to seize control of Spain and install his own brother has a puppet king is an outstanding example but only one of many such idiocies. (I could mention his idiocy in Portugal in 1807 also.)

On an economic level the continental system was plain stupid and diplomatically idiotic has well.

And of course when Napoleon forced the Dutch to accept his Brother Louis has king in 1806 it was because Napoleon told the Dutch the alternative was annexation to France. When Louis showed actual independance and refused to destroy the Dutch economy in pursuit of Napoleon's objectives, Louis was removed from office and the Netherlands annexed. Interestingly Louis is a respected figure in the Netherlands today not Napoleon.

I could also mention Napoleon's idiotic attempt to restore slavery in Haiti, which failed utterly. With the French forces sent, almost completely destroyed. The Haitian leader L'Overture who Napoleon's forces captured and sent to France was both starved and frozen to death in prison pursuant to Napoleon's orders.

I could list many more examples of Napoleon's cruelty and his political ineptitude.

The last thing I will mention is Napleon's pillaging of Europe through massive indemnities, and systematic looting by various requistion costs, taxes and forced "loans". A process in which so many of Napoleon's supporters and family took part in.

If you want books about Napoleon I recomend Tulard's Napoleon: The Myth of the Savior, and Adam Schaum Napoleon: A Life.

Napoleon's fall was richly and throughly deserved.
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Thanks for your input and book recommendations! I want to read this from other perspective as well. After doing some own digging and reading your post, I think Hermans book avoided the points you made.
 
Lennart Hyland said:
Thanks for your input and book recommendations! I want to read this from other perspective as well. After doing some own digging and reading your post, I think Hermans book avoided the points you made.
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I can make one more recomendation. The great Dutch Historian Pieter Geyl wrote during World War II the book Napoleon For and Against. It was translated and published in English just after the war in 1949.

The book is a a overview and review of various French writers and Historians concerning what they wrote about Napoleon. It is a fascinating read. Geyl divides the Historians into two camps - Admirers and Detractors. Geyl is overall in the camp of the Detractors, although he gets rather exasperated with the tendency of some of the Detractors to really overdo the detracting. Geyl is even more exasperated by the seemingly bottomless suck up of some of the Admirers. Geyl also makes it very clear that to compare Napoleon to Hitler has somehow alike is very much an insult to Napoleon and any reasoable historical sense.

It is from reading Geyl more than 50 years ago that I found out about the very curious history of Napoleon's brother Louis has King of Holland from 1806 to 1810 when Napoleon had him removed. It encouraged me to read up about Louis and this weird period of Dutch history. I found out that Geyl's generally positive view of Louis has a ruler is the one held by the great majority of Dutch Historians and further there are even memorials to him in the Netherlands! Napoleon on the other hand is generally regarded by Dutch Historians etc., has a man who tried to destroy the Dutch economy etc.
 
Taking a break from the Orwell essays (man, he was prolific) to read Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths, by Natalie Haynes.

Very readable, she writes in a similar way to the way she speaks in Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. And she certainly does her research - a lady I know who lectured on Ancient Greek Drama has respect for her.
 
SteveAitch said:
Taking a break from the Orwell essays (man, he was prolific) to read Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths, by Natalie Haynes.

Very readable, she writes in a similar way to the way she speaks in Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. And she certainly does her research - a lady I know who lectured on Ancient Greek Drama has respect for her.
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His thoughts on bookshops are fascinating.
 
I'm not responding to anyone else, just saying what books I've read in the last couple of weeks. After months of continual fiction, the nonfiction bug bit me again. Right now I'm well into Who Killed Jane Stanford (Leland Jr's wife). Don't know the answer yet, but it seems like pretty much everyone hated her and found her to be in their way. A lot of history of Stanford Univ. which I had no idea about. I hope the end of the book will explain how it got from a laughingstock to the respected place it is today.

Last week was The Betrayal of Anne Frank, another "true mystery" type that I gather is a little controversial. I did find the author's explanation of why Otto Frank hid the name of the betrayer a little hard to believe, but maybe he was just that compassionate.

I might look up Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson next, it's the only one of his I haven't read (except for the new novel).
 
"The Third Reichs' Celluloid War"

It's dryer than the title implies.
 
I just finished reading "Beyond" by Mercedes Lackey, the first book in a new series detailing the founding of the Kingdom of Valdemar. I've seen people claim that nobody who isn't a 12 year old girl should be reading Valdemar novels but Shut Up.

The novel is about Duke Valdemar and his efforts to arrange a secret mass exodus of his people away from the Eastern Empire, a decaying and authoritarian nation. When the Emperor appears, he seems very ... familiar. Overweight, narcissistic, using multiple superlatives when speaking, short attention span, playing power games with his underlings, having parades held in his honor, insisting everyone fawn over him, gold plating everything to show off his wealth and power.
 
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