Finished off Children of Time which Huehuecoyotl posted about here. Enjoyed it quite a bit - wild idea that could have easily been a completely dud, but worked.
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Iâm about 70% through Wisdom of Crowds, so far it is A+ and one of his best I canât wait to see what the end brings.
This is one of my favorite books Iâve read, it was suggested by someone at the old site (Iâm sorry I forget who, it may have been huehue). Really thoughtful sci fi/evolutionary bio stuff, somehow makes you more emotionally attached to the spiders than the people, and the action scene at the end was just really well done, I can still visualize it all. The ending also caught me by surprise and at the same time really delighted me.
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I read Billy Summers by Stephen King, thought it was great but its basically crime fiction FYI and the ending is good.
I put Ghost wars on hold for now but I started Where Men Win Glory, the odyssey of Pat Tillman. Its covering a lot of the leadup to 9/11 and after as well but much more overhead view. Iâm enjoying it alot.
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Been re reading Steinbeck shorter books this year. Canary row and sequel and stuff like that
Just started grapes of wrath. Itâs been at least 20 years. I really like his style.
Few years ago I read âThe girl with all the giftsâ from M.R. Carey and found out recently that there was a sequel called âThe boy on the bridgeâ. Read it in 2days during my vacation. Some books always pull me in that I cant lay them down. Overall its about a fungus plague that turns humans into mindless zombies but there are some children who still have some human traits. World has broken down, desperate search for a cure. Since there are hints in the epilog I hope there will be a 3rd book.
I also currently read âHow Europe underdeveloped Africaâ from Walter Rodney and holy shit I am getting really distressed. I think if the next person tells me we shouldnt sent money to other parts of the world and rather use if for our own people or that socialism has failed and capitalism hasnt I will lose my shit. Unfortunately I think most people are to dumb to understand the consquences of our ancestors in the past or think thats not their problem. I am not finished yet and I think my criticism so far is that he sees the developments of the Soviet Union a little to rosy. Unfortunately the author got assassinated in 1980 so he cant update his work anymore. It still leaves the question what should/could we actually do to even the playing field and what is the alternative to capitalism.
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If you havenât already read it, this might be a very interesting follow up to that book about Europeâs treatment of Africa.
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Thanks I will look into it once I am done with the other one.
I have a weak constitution. After reading a book like that (my most recent was âThe New Jim Crowâ) I have to take a break and read mindless fiction for a while.
Finished the audiobook of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump
A great history of the War on Terror until the present day. I really like non fiction audiobooks where the author does the reading because the author adds passion that an otherwise random voice actor might not have.
There isnât anything in the book that would be called revelatory or new information for an avid news follower but non access journalismâs real value add is providing a through line, creating a narrative through events that you can follow and Ackerman does a great job of providing a narrative how the War on Terrorâs lack of clear objectives, and its amorphous character fueled nativist desires and gifted them a large state apparatus to focus onto their pet projects.
The New York Times took offense at the book as its written from a âleftistâ perspective, and I picked up on the fact that it wasnât written with the default liberal assumptions as well. But itâs not written as a Chapo style polemic or a Marxist âitâs really all capitalismâs faultâ. In reality itâs written in a way that I realized a lot of liberal journalism isnât in that it doesnât give Democrats (or liberals) a pass. It made me reflect that a lot of âobjectiveâ liberal journalism is written in the style that Democrats are just doing the best that they can do so you canât really fault them for doing what they have to. For instance in the New York Times review
Sticking almost entirely to narrative also means that âReign of Terrorâ fails to address some crucial analytical points. Most important, it lacks a discussion of how the United States should have responded to Al Qaeda, the attacks of 9/11 and the threat of violent extremism. Moreover, while Ackerman occasionally hints at what he wants to happen now â he calls for the War on Terror to be âabolishedâ â he gives readers no sense of how to get there, or how the United States could better protect itself from the dangers that do exist.
This failure to engage with hard policy questions points to another problem with the book: Ackerman seems to have little interest in persuasion. His tone throughout is snarky and scornful; he depicts most of the players in his drama as gutless, scheming or simply stupid. So Joe Biden, as a senator, suffers âdelusionsâ; Bill Keller, when editor of The Times, displays âstunning historical ignoranceâ; Obama comes across as an unprincipled opportunist and so on. Ackerman spends almost as much time attacking âliberalsâ (by which he means moderate center-lefties) as he does Trump and his enablers: He sneers, for example, at the coastal elites who were appalled by Trumpâs rise, calling them âthe sophisticatedâ â as though Ackerman, who lives in Brooklyn and has worked for first-tier publications throughout his career, is not part of this same social and professional demographic.
Rage and derision are appropriate, or at least understandable, responses to Trump and his depredations. Iâm not sure moderate Democrats or the mainstream media deserve the same treatment. While the tenor of the book may satisfy readers who already feel exactly the same way as Ackerman, itâs likely to alienate those who donât.
All the contempt only distracts attention from the bookâs many important points. And it turns âReign of Terrorâ into a left-wing instantiation of both the meanness and the polarization that characterized the Trump era, rather than the refutation of that era that a less vituperative account might have offered.
Itâs not written like that at all, it was well researched and not at all âvituperativeâ (unless you count not assuming that Democrats should get a pass). Also lol at sour grapes at the why doesnât Ackerman say what he would have done better and why is he spending half his time attacking liberals (who presided over half the War on Terror?). The intro is about the most it gets but itâs an extremely good intro into how terrorism was seen differently when it was white conservatives doing it (and I guess doing it again).
Edited when I realized that I had quoted the wrong NYT review that didnât have the long tut tuting.
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https://www.amazon.com/Married-Legend-Henrietta-Boggs-MacGuire/dp/1435719735
I just finished this really good book by Henrietta Boggs, the wife of âDon Pepeâ Figures, the Costa Rican leader who abolished the army in 1948 and set the country on its course to become the most stable, prosperous country in Latin America.
I went to check wikipedia to see what she was up to now:
Boggs was born during the influenza pandemic of 1918 and died at her home in Montgomery, Alabama on September 9, 2020, from COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Alabama at the age of 102.
Crazy.
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The sequel, Children of Ruin, is also great
Iâm planning to read it over the winter some time. Wanted to let the first one breathe a bit in my mind before diving in to the sequel. Thanks for the rec!
Recently finished Quichotte, Salman Rushdieâs retelling of Don Quixote. I really enjoyed it; maybe not 5 stars but 4.3 or so. Enough to make me want to finally get around to Midnightâs Children.
Iâm a fairly avid reader of literary criticism and book reviews, so Iâve read a bunch of considerations of Rushdieâs work. One thing that never gets mentioned is how really, really fucking funny the guy is.
Jaguar Smile was a good read.
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Den of Thieves
A book about the insider trading sandal in the 1980s. The book is 600 pages and extremely well documented and goes into a lot of detail. Itâs a bit dry because these guys arenât Jordan Belfort with hookers everywhere, and insider trader is a bit of a boring crime.
The two interesting parts is that the whole web of insider trading and parking gets brought down because of an anonymous letter written to the SEC that detailed out some insider trading by some guys like 4 steps away from the heavy hitters. The letter was written in English by someone whose first language wasnât English but knew enough information about trading to include the important details. No one knows who sent that letter and they never found out who.
The second part is a bit of a laugh out loud moment when the prosecutors are trying to chase down leads and they found some guy in some 3rd tier firm. They try and pressure him and he doesnât break, so on a lark they subpoena to testify in front of a grand jury. Nothing much is happening in the testimony until they asked him why he was let go.
He says âI wasnât let go I was firedâ
The prosecutor is a bit surprised by him being so frank so he asked âWhy did you get fired?â
The guy responds back âI wouldnât go along with all the crimes they were doing there.â
The prosecutor does a spit take keeps him asking questions and the guy starts spilling the beans about how the no name firm was really just a shell company to do parking and illegal trades.
Everyone in the book comes away somewhat humanized with various shades of remorse for what they did, except for Michael Milken.
But looking him up to put a face to a name and ugh
On February 18, 2020, Trump granted a full pardon to Milken
Grunching this thread, but Iâm about halfway through The Overstory and I am thoroughly enjoying it.
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Overstory is a book everyone should read. Just astounding
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About 500 pages into Ritchie Robertsonâs 1000 page history âThe Enlightenment 1690-1790,â which came out in like 2019. Itâs a pretty amazing work of scholarship, drawing from thousands of sources. Itâs well written, readable, and decently brisk, but above all is an amazing work of historical synthesis. Will probably gift a couple of copies to reader friends for Christmas.
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