What book is everyone reading at the moment?

[Bellatrix]

Just finsihed Ringworld, halfway through Shogun

 

[asthmatic camel]

Just finsihed Ringworld, halfway through Shogun

Just being nosey. Which do you prefer?

 

[Dermanus]

'Robot Visions' by Asimov. I've really gotten into sci-fi the last few months. Been working my way through the classics. Before that I was pure fantasy.

Once I finish this I'll actually have to read my textbooks I expect. Exams coming up.

 

[LW]

Next on line:

Veikko Karhunen, Raatteen tieltä Kostamukseen: Rajajääkäripataljoona 8 sodassa ("From Raate road to Kostamus, Border Jäger Batallion 8 in War"). Military history, written by the former commander of the batallion. Very detailed, may be mightly boring, I fear.

I was correct. It is mightily bored. I haven't managed to finish it yet, since I keep picking up more interesting books meanwhile:

Mika Kallioinen, Rutto ja rukous: tartuntatautien historia Suomessa ("Plague & Prayer: Histori of Contagious Disease in Finland"): a history of occurences of various contagious diseases in Finland during the timeframe of 1300 - 1850. Well-written and interesting book. Contains many small anecdotes taken from contemporary sources to illustrate how the old folks used to react to pestilence.

Hugh Kennedy, The Court of the Caliphs. A history of the golden age of the Abbasid caliphate (~750-950). The book is written for non-expert audience and it gives descriptions of the major political events as well as the everyday life at the caliph's court. The main weakness is that the book is quite confusingly organized at some points as in the cultural parts of the book the author often refers to caliphs who are not yet introduced in the historical narrative parts.

Artturi Leinonen, Kohtalo miestä kuljettaa ("Fate pushing a man around"). Second part of the memoirs of the author who was a Finnish right-wing politician and belonged to the "activist" movement that worked for Finnish independence during WWI. The most interesting parts are those that refer to his arrest and deportion to the Ural mountains (without any formal trial or even court hearing). Also, he gives a detailed picture on the first days of the Finnish Civil War of 1918. However, these memoirs are written with 40 years of hindsight in them and I strongly suspect that there has been some heavy-duty rationalization going through his mind during those years.

 

[Chris Haynes]

I was correct. It is mightily bored. I haven't managed to finish it yet, since I keep picking up more interesting books meanwhile:

....

That seems to be the norm for some history books. I have picked up a couple that would seem to interesting just for their subject matter, but the authors have managed to suck them dry.

One book was about the spies and underground during World War II... ugh, and presently I am about to put a second renew on this book: Cathy Williams: From Slave to Female Buffalo Soldier ... because more interesting books I placed on hole at the library come in.

 

[LW]

That seems to be the norm for some history books. I have picked up a couple that would seem to interesting just for their subject matter, but the authors have managed to suck them dry.

But luckily for only some. Thus far I've had only once to completely abandon a book on a subject that truly interest me. I don't even try to read it anymore, if I need some figures from it, I'll just guess where they might be and jump directly to there and do some quick skimming to find them. That particular book is Tapio Tiihonen's Suurhyökkäys Kannaksella[/ı], an account of Soviet Summer offensive at Karelian Isthmus in 1944. It is the only published source that draws material from Soviet archives and so it would be a very important for researcing that battle. But it is absolutely unreadable.

(My interest in that battle stems partly from the fact that my grandfather was positioned about 3 km away from the place where the Soviets made their initial breakthrough and later he and his mates got stranded behind the Soviet lines and had to live three weeks in forests before managing to come back to the own side. None of the men in that group has ever spoken about that time to anybody.)

 

[Piscivore]

I'm reading various short stories of Philip K Dick, while listening to "The Salmon of Doubt" in my car (not at the same time, obviously). Then I'm going to read H2G2 again before the movie comes out and then "Breakfast of Champions" again.

I just ordered "Selfish Gene" and "Blind Watchmaker" from Amazon because some plonker has had them out from our local library for a ridiculously long time.

 

[Bellatrix]

books

Wow. I go to work this week and forget that I have stuff I want to read and post on here.
Between Ringworld and Shogun I have to say that I perfer Shogun. Ringworld moved too slowly in the begining and I was not really gripped by story line until half way through.
side note. I almost didn't read shogun, but I saw the first half hour of the nine hour version and imediatly stole a copy from a friend. (he has two copies, he won't miss one. *at lest that's what I had and still do hope)

 

[T'ai Chi]

A Guide to Chi-Squared Testing

 

[T'ai Chi]

Edit:

So fun I had to post it twice.

 

[tim]

"Malice Aforthought" - a history of booby traps. I'm studying the subject for my next meeting with the Skepchicks............

 

[crimresearch]

Reading an auotbiography of Gene LeBell.

The Toughest Man Alive
True and incredible story of a sadistic bastard.

ISBN: 0953176673

Seems to be an apt sub-title

 

[LW]

Artturi Leinonen, Kohtalo miestä kuljettaa ("Fate pushing a man around"). ... However, these memoirs are written with 40 years of hindsight in them and I strongly suspect that there has been some heavy-duty rationalization going through his mind during those years.

I checked what other history books (most importantly, Heikki Ylikangas, Väkivallasta sanan valtaan) tell of the Spring 1918, and I have to admit that my suspicions were at least a bit unfounded. It seems that Leinonen actually was a voice of reason during the Civil War and its aftermath as he portrayed himself, and at least some of the worst atrocities
(such as execution of E. Näsi) tha men in his command did were actually done during his trip to front and without his knowledge. (For example, Näsi's arrest warrant was signed by Leinonen, but it was not written by him: both the language and handwriting differ from his, and the warrant was dated to a day when he was about 350 km away. It seems that he had left some signed empty papers behind and his two chief assistants used the opportunity to exact their vengeance over Näsi.)

As for other stuff, just finished rereading Boccacio's Decamerone.

 

[Terry]

I'm trying to read "Gravity's Rainbow", but it seems heavy going to me. I'll stick with it though. I got fed up with paragraph-long sentences and read "Pattern Recognition", the newish William Gibson novel, but it's back to G.R. now...

--Terry.

 

[hgc]

Oracle Night by Paul Auster

 

[FFed]

Gracie: A Love Story
by George Burns

Excellent book about the life of Gracie Allen.

 

[asthmatic camel]

Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear. Excellent so far.

 

[Cleopatra]

Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness.

Once I stop crying while I am reading it since it's about the Israel I grew up and it describes so well the little things that I adore and I hate in Israel, I intend to start a thread on this book.

Amos Oz is the Israeli Philip Roth if you exclude the needless sex scenes that Roth includes in his books and the fact that Oz loves his compatriots that's why he criticizes them that much.Roth's books don't give me that idea. More once I finish the book.

But it's amazing to observe the things that torture two different societies. You start appreciating peace.

 

[hgc]

...
Amos Oz is the Israeli Philip Roth if you exclude the needless sex scenes that Roth includes in his books and the fact that Oz loves his compatriots that's why he criticizes them that much.Roth's books don't give me that idea. More once I finish the book.
..

Feh. Women have never really understood Roth, especially Claire Bloom. Cleo, I would bet you didn't really appreciate "the monkey" in Portnoy. Right?

 

[LW]

Henricus Lettus, Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae (or rather its Finnish translation). An eyewitness chronicle on how the Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia became Christian, covering years 1181-1227. That period can't really be classified as "Sword-and-Bible" mission since the "Bible" part was quite lacking and a better classification would be "Sword, Crossbow, and Trebuchet" missionary work as the Biblical studies part didn't usually follow until several years after the forced babtism, if even then. The book is quite depressing to read as it contains mostly a list of campaigns and atrocities committed by both sides. The main difference in warfare between the opponents was that the pagan raids were "horrible crimes" and the Christian ones were "vengeances blessed by God" (The author Heinrich was a Christian priest who apparently was (despite his name indicating otherwise) a German by birth.)

Heikki Roiko-Jokela (editor), Vihollisen armoilla ("On the Mercy of the Enemy"). A collection of articles about Finnish POW camps in 1941-44. The book is a collection of recent studies in the matter and it doesn't try to hide the shameful condition of the camps in Winter 1941-2. This too was quite depressing read at parts.

Marta Hirn, Oolannin sota 1854-55 ("The Aland War"). A facsimile of a 1955-published account of the Northern campaigns of the Crimean War. The book has excellent illustrations, containing both original photos and pictures made by war artists. The actual text is not as good since it more or less consists of elaborate captions of the pictures and that causes some severe discontinuities in the text.

Reread of Sun Tzu, The Art of War. A timeless classic. Most of its teachings are still valid (well, excepting the chapter about warfare using fire), a rather remarkable situation considering that the book is well over 2000 years old. In particular, the following quote is pretty impressive for the time:

Thus, what enables the wise commander to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge. Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from experience, nor by any deductive calculation. Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men.