Putting a hold on them at the library for next available copyđ¤
The second book is probably my favorite sci fi book despite how bad the first half is
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They are perfect books. But I was intrigued the entire time. I usually space my books out so Iâll read part 1 of this series and then read 3-4 other books and come back to part 2
They just hooked me in. Great hard sci fi
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I found the writing to be incredibly poor. Characterization, plot, and especially the dialog is among the worst of any books Iâve ever read. The world building, while cool, is fairly derivative for sci-fi and doesnât even make sense half the time. I couldnât make it far into the third book before I finally gave up. Basically the Dan Brown of sci-fi, but worse.
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He actually accurately describes the problems in California, but only for the first chapter. After that California becomes a boogy man that emblematic of all disfunction in America. He does the annoying thing where everyone on the left is a blue haired open borders Marxist which lets him be as hyperbolic as he wants.
Itâs telling that the only section that he actually lays out an argument is the chapter on immigration, the rest are just the normal right wing clap trap minus the absolutist odes to the free market. The immigration argument was interesting because I hadnât heard anyone ever actually lay out a point by point argument why immigration itself is bad. As arguments go itâs an actual argument but weak. As far immigration solving low birth rates his response is that maybe one day natives will want to have more kids. All and all middle of the road
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Thank you for your service. Got an audible book by another Claremont institute alum who was wrapped up in the right wing journalism mill, who worked for the daily caller and eventually escaped to mainstream journalism. The MAGA Diaries by Tina Nguyen.
Itâs meant as something of a gonzo autobiography, but itâs mainly just kind of dumb and superficial though it sheds some light on how that world operates. She tries to write breezy, but I suspect thatâs mainly to cover for her breesiness. As Iâm sure you know, Anton is a serious intellectual to these people.
Latest thing Iâm âreadingâ is various Yale history courses on YouTube. (I love my ad free YouTube subscription). Currently watching/listening to
Some of the profs/courses are better than others. Liked the 400-1000 AD middle ages course. The world history one has very meandering/discursive lectures but was mostly decent.
I also recently imbibed Eric Hofferâs The True Believers, Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, from the late 40s. Itâs interesting in places and has some definite insights, but itâs unfocused and undisciplined, a lot liked delivered lecture notes with various observations and aphorisms. Itâs kinda like a school of cultural critique that didnât really go anywhere, but interesting and influential in its way.
I guess I continue to try to understand Trump using the various tools available. Someone needs to do A Profiles In Cowardice book on politicians selling their souls for Trumpism.
Pretty good old blog post on Hoffer. Intentionally obscurantist, but thought-provoking:
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Read most of that essay. Itâs quite good.
Iâve realized that for political books I can listen to the audiobook at 2x speed because, unlike fiction or historical books they donât really depend on the tone and timber of the words used, itâs more straight reporting.
So I burned through Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward. The picture that emerges from the book is what has been obvious. Trumpâs not really an ideologue. In fact, he knew almost nothing about politics. Heâd switch position on a dime if itâd give him political advantage. If heâs not an ideologue, then what are his beliefs? He believes heâs never wrong, heâs always been right, heâs always misquoted if shown to be wrong, and heâs always richer and better than everyone else. Reince Priebus also said that Trump doesnât have the ability to empathize or pity anyone, it just doesnât come to him. Those attitudes though pull him to the extreme right, even if he doesnât care about the far right.
For instance, Trump wanted to do a border deal, money for a wall for amnesty for Dreamers because he wanted his wall. He was set to do it until the anti-immigrationists staged an intervention. Someone in the book mentioned that, with Trump, you get 100 points. You can never get more than 100 points. Every time you do something Trump doesnât like you lose points, and itâs hard to get points back. Eventually Trump will turn on you and kick you out. Bannon, who stuck with Trump and helped him out a lot got booted out because he said Trumpâs strategy of North Korea was more of the same and that there wasnât an actual military solution. Normally someone would recognize that difference of opinion on something as small bore as South Korean policy wouldnât be worth jettisoning, but Bannonâs imaginary points slipped below that invisible threshold and he got kicked out. Subsequently and ironically, the people that Trump listens to the most are not the people closest to him, those people get his ire, itâs the second layer of people who arenât actually at the table that Trump wants to hear from the most. Theyâre the people that didnât quite make the cut and heâs got FOMO on their opinion or those who were kicked out and Trumpâs wondering what they would have said.
A Trump second presidency is going to be a pure sideshow.
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I thought the 3rd book was the best.
I finished Richard Powerâs The Overstory, I think I added it to my list because of this thread. Loved it, one of the best books Iâve read in years.
A while back I finished Tim OâBrienâs new novel America Fantastica - I thought it was decent. He had a very fun plot device which Iâll spoiler
The main character robs a bank that was crooked, so they donât want to report the robbery
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I love OâBrien a lot. Wasnât a fan of this new one. Very scattered
The overstory is boring. Sometimes. But itâs also one of those books. 20 years from now Iâll remember it. Just a great book.
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
Talks about the rise of Putin. While seemingly a biography of Putin and itâs talk about Putinâs life, the book makes it clear that Putin is a creature of his institution, the FSB, and after the fall of the USSR the FSB was the only institution that was organized. Because it was organized it could tentacle its way into every governance organization be it the political process or the law.
Putin himself, in this biography is wholly ordinary except for his ambition and his thuggery. He could see what was the power structure and ingratiate himself to it and often got picked for promotion precisely because he was so middle of the road.
The author is a journalist and democracy activist in exile so she does hype up the attempts a democracy and dissidents who attempt to change the system (Garry Kasparov gets a whole chapter) and she diagnoses the failure of activists who did too much democracy and not enough improving the material interests of their constituents. To my mind though thatâs always the complaint when a strong man comes to power. We see echos of it when Donald Trump. I really think it was that the FSB was just too organized.
Anyways the book documents the shift to authoritarianism. It talks about first destroying democracy by bureaucratic warfare. Politicians were originally directly elected by district, the law was then changed to elect political parties who would then appoint the legislature. Then the political party registrations were messed with, sometimes forcing political parties to âreregisterâ and upping the amount of signatures to be registered until there were only one or two political parties. Election laws were ignored. For instance, there was a law that said all candidates need equal time on television. The judges decided though that only one event that Putin did that was broadcasted for a few hours counted as âelection relatedâ so the other candidates were only allowed a couple of hours on TV. In reality Putin was giving hours long presentations about how terrible his opponents were and what they were going to do to the country, but these rants were âassociated with his position as Presidentâ so didnât count. There were also a lot of vote rigging, ballot stuffing, bureaucratic stuff like plan tickets for opposition candidates suddenly being canceled last minute, permits for demonstrations for opposition candidates not being granted, but granted for state demonstrations, etc.
Concurrent with this was the dismantling of any independent media. Media not associated with the state had their licenses revoked, got raided for âtax relatedâ reasons, were sued by fictitious shell corporations with judges on the take issuing liens against the owners forcing them to give their shares to these shell companies who would then instantly turn around and sell them to the state oil and gas company. What runs though this is these owners not quite grasping that the system has been completely rigged against them. They thought that after the fall of the Soviet Union that there was some pretense of the rule of law and had hope that these things were misunderstandings. After a few of them had their lives destroyed or were killed in prisons, it quickly became understood that fleeing Russia was the only way out.
Lastly came the dismantling of even the economic system. A couple of people had become rich during privatization / free market period and even they were put under Putinâs thumb. My understanding was a lot of these people were rapacious, but the author only talks about two who seems like your normal free market entrepreneur types Their wealth couldnât help them though as their corporations got raided for âtax reasonsâ, their business shut down for âregulatory abusesâ etc, until they were forced to sell their businesses to shell corporations who, of course, turned around and sold them to the state oil and gas company.
The book does talk about the couple of horrific terrorist attacks and the state response to them, which were also used by the state to consolidate power.
The book ends in 2012 so it doesnât cover the last 10 years, but any conservative who admires Putin just loves authoritarianism. Thereâs no justice, no rule of law, no fairness in Russia. Itâs just a big mafioso state where everything is ceded to Putin.
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Quoting for this blast-from-the-past name.
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Was reading another Pulitzer winner. Dragonâs Teeth by US. Itâs part 3 of an 11 novel story. Not reading the other 10. Itâs like Forrest Gump but in Nazi germany.
I like that it was written in 1942 published in 1943 and the main character interacts with most of the baddies in Nazi land. It wasnât amazing but I enjoyed it. A little long
While I was reading that I saw zone of interest. Had 0 idea what is was about just knew it was best picture nom and at the theater. So it was a nice tie in of sorts
I read a blurb somewhere that Sophieâs choice and ZOI have some crossover plot points so decided itâs a good time to finally read that
Read Styronâs confessions of Nat Turner earlier this year and enjoyed it (Pulitzer winner in the 1960s)
SC though. What a book. It usually takes me some time to get through a 600 page book with tiny words but I stopped reading my other two books and just could not put it down
I can see some not liking his style but the unreliable narrator(s) and the blooming of this plot. Just really really good and a must read for any book lovers.
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Any Neil Stephenson fans around?
His latest work, Termination Shock: A Novel, is available for free through Kindle Unlimited right now.
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Finished Fairy Tale. Damn was that good. And I donât usually enjoy Stephen King novels these days.
Yes, though some of his latest stuff has been rough for me. Excited to check this out.
Agree. Couldnât finish his previous novel, but this oneâs started off well, at least. Weâll see how it goes.
Damnit! I thought it was a new Stephenson. That came out in 2021, I liked it but it is pretty clicheâ Neal Stephenson; Rugged individuals who do cool things and have weirdly niche backgrounds is the biggest one I remember.
He has the first book in a new trilogy coming out in September of this year.
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