What book is everyone reading at the moment?

[pnerd]

'The Blind Watchmaker' by Richard Dawkins.

 

[Nonpareil]

I just started The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.

 

[bruto]

I just started The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.

Start looking for his other books.

 

[Nonpareil]

Start looking for his other books.

Can do!

 

[Sceptic Realist]

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Phenominal writing. Really, I've rarely seen an author use language so effectively.

Oh, also The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams.

 

[Mister Agenda]

Climbing Mount Improbable, by Richard Dawkins. Just saw him speak last week and felt compelled to pick one up at higher-than-retail.

 

[sackett]

The Swordbearers. Correlli Barnett, 1963. About commanders in WW1, specifically but not exclusively von Moltke, Jellicoe, Petain, and Ludendorff. Fascinating and beautifully written.

 

[jenspen]

China: a history by John Keay. http://www.amazon.com/China-History-John-Keay/dp/0465015808.

Never having known much about China, I am entranced. Such a fascinating culture. Up to p159 of an almost 600p history and have just reached AD 1. Keay is detached and wry. A couple of passages to give the flavour:

"Though by no means a godless people, the ancient Chinese were reluctant to credit their gods - or God - with anything so manifestly implausible as the act of creation. In the beginning, therefore, God did not create heaven and earth; they happened."

and

[Writing of explorer Zhang's report of his intrepid years of travel beyond the desert that bounded China to the West] "...nothing would be more challenging than discoveries with a shock value comparable to those that awaited Columbus . For according to explorer Zhang, Han China was not alone in the world: out there, there were other 'great states', as he called them. Their people lived in cities; and they too 'kept records by writing', an extraordinary revelation. They 'made their living in much the same way as the Chinese'; and shockingly, they were quite unaware that zhongguo, now taken to mean 'the Middle Kingdom', was anywhere near the middle [of the world]."

 

[SezMe]

I just finished I Will Fear No Evil by Heinlein. What an awful book. It is not only one of the worst SciFi books I've read, it is one of the worst of ALL categories of books I have read.

What makes this frustrating is that Heinlein was once on of my favorite authors.

 

[bobdroege7]

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane is good, one of the best I've read in a while. A historical novel set in Boston before the police strike of 1919.

Shutter Island is also good, not quite the epic The Given Day is.

 

[pakeha]

Creation by Gore Vidal.
An old favourite.

 

[sackett]

Murder on the Verandah, John Lawlor, 1999. About Malaya under the British, using the Proudlock murder of 1911 as a starting point. A bit disjointed, giving rather the feeling of a lot of packing material around a pretty slender story. But interesting enough, although you can predict his take on any question that comes up.

 

[BTMO]

I just finished I Will Fear No Evil by Heinlein. What an awful book. It is not only one of the worst SciFi books I've read, it is one of the worst of ALL categories of books I have read.

What makes this frustrating is that Heinlein was once on of my favorite authors.

It was stand-out rubbish.

It is the only book I can recall feeling glad (rather than regret) at throwing away. Actually, I may have burnt it one cold winter night.

Unfortunately, there are other stories of his from the same era that are almost as bad.

And yes, he is one of my favourite authors too.

 

[rsaavedra]

The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

 

[sackett]

The Traitors, Alan Moorehead, 1963 edition (orig. pub. 1952). About Allan Nunn May, Klaus Fuchs, and Bruno Pontecorvo, three physicists who sold or gave atomic secrets to the Russians. His point is that a man's conscience is not necessarily his best guide to conduct. Interesting, and not at all dated. It's about "...the new type of traitor -- the man who is not a professional spy, nor a turncoat politician, nor a man out essentially for personal gain, but a self-appointed idealist who possesses the sort of power that formerly only belonged to government, and is determined to use it."

 

[epeos76]

Nudge By Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein and

 

[CptColumbo]

The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

Here is a paper I wrote about it back in college, where I set out to prove that there was no ghost and the that it wasn't all in the Governess' mind.

How to Create an Elaborate Hoax
The back cover of our edition of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw states that it is “Widely recognized as one of literature’s most gripping ghost stories,” but actually it is the story of the most fantastic con job ever perpetrated upon a person. Mrs. Grose and Miles are the two con artists, and the mark is the Governess. They prey upon her naiveté, and succeed in driving her mad with their hoax. It’s easy for things to be going on outside of our view since the story is told from the perspective of the Governess, who not only is unaware of hidden things, but also is only too willing to rationalize the extraordinary things that happen in full view.
Mrs. Grose is the chief conspirator, and as some have speculated a previous conquest of the Master’s (gradesaver.com). When the Governess arrives, she believed Mrs. Grose was so happy to see her that she was “on her guard against showing it to much” (7). Mrs. Grose wasn’t happy at all to see the latest in a long line of pretty young women to come to the house. She told the Governess, “You’re not the first - and you won’t be the last” (9). The elder woman might even be the “great awkwardness” that followed, or caused the death of the previous governess (5). As the only adult that the Governess felt she could talk to, Mrs. Grose was able to be the sole source of information on the past of Bly. It is from her that we learn how Miss Jessel and Quint died (of which she tells little), what they looked like, and that Quint even existed (let alone what he did to Miles), leaving the Governess to fill in the rest on her own.
The appearances of the ghosts themselves would have been easy to pull off, with help. The only logical and visible help that Mrs. Grose could get was Miles, who was just kicked out of school for being “an injury to others” (11). Mrs. Grose defends Miles, convinces the Governess to trust him, and says she’ll “stand by” her decision to not tell the Master or write to the school (14). Peter Quint the first ghost to physically manifest doesn’t appear until Miles arrives from school. When he makes himself known it is at dusk, and at a great distance. It could have very easily been Miles, dressed as Quint. This is also true of the second appearance of Quint, through the window in the dining room. The Governess claimed that “He appeared thus again with what I won’t say greater distinctness” (20). In the time it took her to go outside and around to the window, he could have gone the opposite direction and disappeared into the house.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Grose had begun appearing as Miss Jessel, on the other side of large lakes, far enough away to not be recognized, but close enough to be seen by the Governess. By this time the Governess regarded these figures as ghosts, because Mrs. Grose had identified the man as Peter Quint and told her that he was dead.
On the staircase, two methods were used to spook the Governess. When Quint appeared, it was light enough so she could see him without a candle, but dark enough for him to go “straight down the staircase and into the darkness in which the next bend was lost” (40). The Governess then accommodated them by not following him and going back to her room. This allowed Miles to sneak back upstairs to his room. The other method, used to make Miss Jessel disappear, involved an object that James (through the Governess) went out of his way to mention, the long glass mirror, which the Governess admitted a unfamiliarity with, “for the first time, I could see myself from head to foot” (7). Miss Jessel’s appearance on the stairs was the only time she appeared at night, and this allowed Mrs. Grose and Miles to hide the mechanics of the illusion. They were not always so lucky however when the Governess saw Miles outside one night they were caught red-handed. The excuse he came up with even the Governess found hard to believe, but she still had no reason, at that point, to suspect he was manufacturing the ghosts.
Miss Jessel’s second appearance at the lake required cracker-jack timing, and proved that the two were working together. First Miles distracted the Governess with his music; meanwhile Mrs. Grose took Flora and the boat to the other side of the lake. Mrs. Grose then returned in time to help the Governess search for Flora, leaving Miles alone and forgotten. When they found Flora it is hinted that even she was in on the scheme, the Governess says, “[she] stood before us on the grass and smiled as if her performance was now complete” (68). Now it was a matter of erecting a dressmaker’s dummy wearing Miss Jessel’s clothes, which the reader can assume because it was “exactly as she stood the other time,” and it was also “without movement” so it would match her previous appearance (70,71). Then all that was required to drive the Governess further over the brink was for Mrs. Grose to simply deny seeing the figure.
With the state of mind that the Governess was in, we can assume that the last appearance of Quint must have been a hysterical hallucination. It was just after dinner, in November and in England, which makes it either dark outside or near dark, and therefore the Governess and Miles were using candles. With a light on the inside and darkness outside, the reflection would make it impossible to see out the window (whether there is a real ghost there or not).
The stopping of Miles’s heart is more metaphorical than literal; it represented Miles telling the Governess the truth and her finally losing faith in him. It is also harder to believe that Miles died, because she goes on to another job and I find it hard to believe that another couple would trust a governess, with their children, who had a child die of a heart attack. The humiliation that the Governess felt after the incident, being tricked by a young boy and a housekeeper, is probably why she suppressed the story for so long.
Since the story ends before we can see the aftermath, we only have the Governess’s commentary to base our opinions of what really went on. It’s also possible that Douglas, who held the manuscript for many years, took it upon himself to remove the most embarrassing part of the story by simply omitting it. Thus proving to the prologue’s narrator Douglas’s true feelings for her.

Currently I'm reading "Dracula-the Un Dead" by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. Supposedly based on note left behind by Dacre's great-grand uncle Bram Stoker. It is billed as a "Sequel" to the original book. It takes place 25 years later, with the focus on Quincey Harker (son of Mina and Jonathon Harker). It is written from the third person perspective rather than epistolary, which I think is a mistake if you want to have the feel of the original. I'm about half-way through it and most of the characters from the previous book have been killed off and Dracula hasn't made his presence known yet (but I have a suspicion that he has been there the whole time).

 

[rsaavedra]

Here is a paper I wrote about it back in college, where I set out to prove that there was no ghost and the that it wasn't all in the Governess' mind.

[WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE TURN OF THE SCREW]

Interesting take, but I think a 10-year old boy can hardly pass as a man even in the distance, or an old lady as a young beautiful woman. Also, the fact that the governess saw Quint while holding the boy; your explanation of that just being a hallucination seriously weakens your whole hoax take. ALL of them could have been hallucinations after all, why just the final vision? Just to fit your hoax explanation. Hmm... not so convincing.

Henry James used in this story what is called an unreliable narrator, and it is a story of hearsay after all. For all we know, she, the author of the letter, could have written her version of the truth, but she could have been crazy; or she could have written just plain lies. Either way, her account is not reliable. What is more, the gentleman reading the letter could have invented the whole thing and could have written that account himself just to tell it to his friends, or could have omitted sections or modified what the letter said, I agree with that part.

Instead of a hoax, and in spite of the claims of the father and Mrs. Gobbler, for all we know maybe Quint and the former governess had not died; maybe they had been fired or dissapeared for some unknown reason, but were very much alive and kicking (how could the governess know for sure they had indeed died?) After all, the so called ghostly apparitions never did anything that can be described as supernatural. Maybe they were living beings still checking out the premises looking for opportunities to keep abusing those children. This wouldn't fit the "fact" that the little girl and the old lady allegedly didn't see the woman on the other side of the lake, but that is not really a fact after all, because it comes from an unreliable narrator, remember. And if it was a fact, the old lady and the little girl could have been accomplices with the former still living governess wanting to scare the new one or drive her mad; we can´t tell. But I think the idea of a living Quint does fit the story even more easily, without such stretchings.

In any case, more than a story of ghosts, after reading it I actually think The Turn of the Screw is a story of insanity and child abuse, framed in such a way that a number of different interpretations are possible for skeptics as well as for ghost-believing readers.

Excellent read in spite of all the ambiguity.

 

[shadron]

I'm working my way, once again, through Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Not just technical, but an in-depth treatment of the personalities involved, their motivations, with good insights into the physics of the 20th century thrown in for free.

 

[whatthebutlersaw]

Always having at least three books on the go, and an audiobook in the iPod. At the moment they are:

1. Pride and Predjudice and Zombies. (Bus and loo book)
2. The Atheist's Guide to Christmas. (Pleasure reading book)
3. The Greatest Show on Earth. (This month's educational read)
4. Jingo (While-working-and-walking-book)