So, What Are You Freakin' Well Reading Now?

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie...Alan Bradley

And just finished the first 3 of the  Irish Country [3] series by Canadian author Patrick Taylor, which I found were an excellent reminder of how  sexist society used to be. And reminder of "community" that once was too. They are very deep in their simplicity.

People can have community without the sexism, and one hopes that the right wing nutters who long for a utopian past that never was, would realize this.

"Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World" by Trevor Paglen. Plus some other stuff. 

Just finished the same three Remind. I would not have found them (I read the first one a year or so ago) without Shelfari's new series feature which told me I only had the 1st out of four  so I rushed out and got the next 2.

Just finished an excellant book on Africa "The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence" by Martin Meredith and now Im reading "Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief: Inside the World of Indian Moviemaking" by

Stephen Alter

Just finished The Authenticity Hoax by Andrew Potter. Much of it covers familiar ground if you’ve read any of his other books, but it’s sharply observed and amusing. I winced more than once as I recognized myself among his targets. His thesis is that the authenticity that we have made a fetish of is what economists call a positional good. That is, the more I have, the less you do. If you buy organic food, I buy hundred-mile organic and you lose. The quest for authenticity is nothing more than the status-seeking of the 50’s repackaged for the counter-culture. Potter demolishes the yearning for a pre-modern idyllic past when our lives were more meaningful, and suggests we remedy the worst excesses of modernity rather than revolt against it.

Any short, popular book that tries to cover this much ground is going to have moments of oversell and weaselling. And while Potter has an eye for the telling anecdote, he really doesn’t amass much supporting evidence for his claims. He seems to feel that if he can situate a particular idea in Western intellectual history, he has either discredited or supported it, as he chooses. And the book is a bit diffuse. (You wonder whether Obama’s right about the effects of electronic devices. There are so many books, even by bright, academically accredited guys like Potter, that hang together at paragraph or at most chapter level, but lose steam over the long haul, to use a pre-electronic metaphor.)

Potter comes across as a supporter of traditional liberal optimism, which I guess would cast him as right-wing in this forum. Thomas Frank makes much the same points in a lot of his work but from a more leftish perspective. And he makes me laugh out loud. But Potter’s book has undermined some of my own beliefs with cool irony and encouraged me to come up with better arguments for some others. A quick, enjoyable read.

I was going to say that this sounds like "the rebel sell" but it is the same person!

It really sounds like a reworking of Veblen's model of Conspicuous Consumption.

You can get his book "Theory of the Leisure Class" here

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/833

I stopped reading Ken Knabb's self-indulgent quasi-situ autobiography, Public Secrets,  and reached for With Every Mistake, a collection of Gwynn Dyer's articles from 2000-2005ish. 

I don't know if he's been such an influence on my own thought since the TV programme War (I saw him speak just before the US attacked the Iraqis in 1992, and I went through basic training in part to see if Dyer was right about its process) that his thoughts are mine, or if we merely agree on a lot, but I found what he wrote about Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine is pretty much what I thought then, and still think today.

Thanks for the link, j.m. I must admit I've always been going to read Veblen. Anytime somebody quotes him he sounds both witty and wised-up. Potter refers to him copiously. He says we've misunderstood him if we think "conspicuous consumption" is just 12-course dinners and gold-plated faucets. Nowadays it's as likely to be a hiking holiday in Bhutan or a restaurant that serves a single over-priced tangerine as a dessert. (Mind you, I live in the sticks, so these examples may be staples of middle-class urban life by now.) And here's my beef with Potter. No doubt the holiday in Bhutan establishes your boho cred, but isn't it possible that some people are doing it because they like it? I know some people go to the opera, of all things, and give, as Jeeves would say, every evidence of enjoyment.

One thing that's interesting now is the phenomena of household servants, nannies, cooks, maids, etc. I believe these are more conspicuous than trekking the Inca Trail or buying a tangerine for dessert. Conspicuous consumption is ever-changing, however, so it is no surprise that these mutations will continue.

I know (vaguely) that Pierre Bourdieu speaks of habitus, which might explain (theoretically) what you've just stated. Someone else might have to wade into that conversation. But I agree: I have a bit of beef with Potter/Veblen on this issue, too.

 On Victoria Day, I picked up a copy of Ten Thousand Roses by Judy Rebick for free at a RC rummage sale. I have read the chapter on Sunera Thobani's election and then returned to the front. Have made it through the sixties and I am now in the early seventies. One thing I never knew was that in 1970, there was only one female MP. Looking forward to the ret of the book and learning about an area of Canadian History that is not one of my strong points.

Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer. As he describes it, "a feel-good novel about interracial murder".

I'm reading Nuremberg Diary again.  I first read it about this time of the year (we were seeding) in 1976.  That reading sticks out for me because I had my first run-in with the law (and the law won) at that time. The case didn't go to trial.

Bacchus, am now reading  Irish Country Girl, the 4th book in the series, love, love, love it.

Just finished reading the 2nd in the Alan Bradley Flavia de Luce series linked to above, it is an excellent read too and really it strikes me that it is a wonderful series for empowering young girls, and indicating a way that is not "sexy", am going to read them with my granddaughter this summer.

They are short, quick flowing, funny and compelling..

Motorcycles & Sweetgrass, It's an interesting take of Nanabush in the form of a good novel. Meegwitch, Drew Hayden Taylor.

Its on my list   I read a lot of teen fiction ( a lot of the fantasy stuff is very well written) and they have a plethora of female protaganists who are very well defined

al-Qa'bong, do you know if Tariq Ali has released the last book in the quintet?  I've only read four - Shadow of the Pomegranate Tree, The Stone Woman, A Sultan in Palermo, and The Book of Saladin.

Hi Ripple.  No, I don't know off-hand if the quintet is complete.  I believe I heard Ali say that his other activities are keeping him from finishing.

Regarding Nuremberg Diary, here's the film on concentration camps that was shown in the trial.

Nazi Concentration Camps (Nuremberg Trial Film)

Thanks for that.

Bacchus;

Finished it, extremely good, neither of these series are my usual configerations in reading, as I tend to read non-fiction, classics,  sci-fi/fantasy like Pillars of the Earth, or anthropology fiction.

Occasionally, when I want to know what BS is being fed women, about every 2 years or 3, I will read a differing selection of romance novels. do this when I start hearing the same commentary about things from differing female demographics, where one would not think to hear the same things.

It works well to debunk the shit, when one hears it, as one is prepared ahead of time with a response that is at the same level of discourse that it was fed to them on.

The romance industry is a interesting one. More romance novels are sold than any other genre. In fact 80% of books sold are romances. And almost exclusively written by women. In fact any written by men have to be done with a woman's pseudonym.

Was once dominated by female editors, publishers etc by since Harlequin was bought by Torstar, less so.

I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay by John Lanchester. Lanchester is a witty and perceptive novelist. For the last few years, he's also been following business for the London Review of Books. This is his attempt to explain the Crash of 2008. Because his background is in literature, he's very good at explaining things to a lay audience, and gives you a brief course on double-entry bookkeeping, how to read a balance sheet, and eventually, how Credit Default Swaps work. The pace is brisk but never daunting.

According to Lanchester, the crash was a result of four things: a climate, a problem, a mistake, and a failure.

The climate was post-1989 capitalist triumphalism: "The population of the West benefited from the existence, the policies, and the example of the socialist bloc. For decades there was the equivalent of an ideological beauty contest between the capitalist West and the Communist East, both of them vying to look as if they offered their citizens the better, fairer way of life. The result in the East was oppression; the result in the West was free schooling, universal health care, weeks of paid holiday and a consistent, across-the-board rise in opportunities and rights....And then the good guys won, the beauty contest came to an end, and decades of Western progress in relation to equality and individual rights came to an end." Governments now genuflected at the altar of finance capitalism, and allowed the financial sector to write its own rules. Laissez-faire capitalism was no longer an option to be criticized and defended rationally: it was an article of faith.

The problem was sub-prime mortgages. As Lanchester explains, risk is not a bad thing for a financier. The higher the risk, the higher the return on investments. The trick is to find the right balance. Through the use of CDO's, bankers were able to take formerly high-risk mortgages, securitize them, and sell them on to other investors as if they were AAA-rated bonds. The risk had evaporated, but the rewards remained. Money flooded into the mortgage market, and canny speculators developed "ninja loans" (no income, no job, no assets), "liar loans" (applicants could state their own income), and "no doc loans" (the borrower produced no paperwork). By 2006, 60 percent of sub-prime applicants were exaggerating their income by more than 50 percent.

The mistake was the mathematical models that were developed to predict the likelihood of default or other upheaval in the credit markets. The formulae, elaborated over forty years by some of the bulgiest foreheads in the academy and the banking houses, were infinitely subtle, persuasive, and completely unmoored from reality. Bankers came to rely on abstract equations to assess risk rather than investigating borrowers' means and intentions. The results were predictable, if not to bankers: "The 1998 [Russian bond] default [which destroyed the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund] was a 7-sigma event. That means it should statistically have happened only once every 3 billion years. And it wasn't the only one. The last decades have seen numerous 5-, 6-, and 7-sigma events. These are supposed to happen, respectively, one day in every 13,932 years, one day in every 4,039,906 years, and one day in every 3,105,395,365 years. Yet no one concluded for this that the statistical models in use were wrong." The CFO of Goldman Sachs, David Viniar, claimed that the crisis was brought on by several days of 25-sigma events. "Twenty sigma is ten times the number of all the particles in the known universe. 25 sigma is the same, but with the decimal place moved fifty-two places to the right. It's equivalent to winning the UK national lottery twenty-one times in a row... Remember, what we're talking about here is a drop in house prices, which caused people with bad credit to have trouble paying their mortgages. That was turned into something that was literally the most unlikely thing to have happened in the history of the universe."

The failure was that of regulators and politicians: blinded by the apparent invincibility of the markets and their dazzling upward trajectory, they loosened restrictions and failed to heed the inevitable warning signs of collapse. Even the upper management of investment firms seemed to lose sight of the dangers ahead, not always because of their short-term greed, but because they genuinely couldn't comprehend the nature of the beast they had created.

We all know the result: as of mid-2009, the cost of the market bailout in the US had reached somewhere between 5 and 7 trillion dollars. "That number is bigger than the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the Apollo moon landings, the 1980's savings and loan crisis, the Korean War, the New Deal, the invasion of Iraq, the Vietnam War, and the total cost of NASA's space flights, all added together ---repeat, added together (and yes, the old figures are adjusted upwards for inflation)." Lanchester closes with a plea for a more reflective mode of life: "We have to start thinking about when we have sufficient --sufficient money, sufficient stuff --and whether we really need the things we think we do, beyond what we already have. In a world running out of resources, the most important ethical, political, and ecological idea can be summed up in one simple word: enough."

This is a book to read quickly the first time, then slowly and carefully. The writing is generally elegant and often funny, though the shifts in tone are sometimes a bit jarring. It's not an insider book, nor does it contain the sort of you-are-there prose that marks a lot of journalistic accounts: "Nigel ‘Chips' Carruthers watched the Nikkei ticker in disbelief, his Charvet cravat slowly losing its immaculate half-Windsor as the news seeped into his 24th-floor, rosewood-panelled office at Canary Wharf." It is a carefully argued, angrily funny account of the genesis of a classic bubble and bust. It also abounds in startling insights, like the similarity between value in finance and meaning in Derrida, or the difference between the tribes of business and industry, and why they are locked in mutual mistrust. I borrowed this book from our public library, but plan to buy my own copy so I can mark it up and shamelessly commit the best bits to memory for use in argument later.

Ripple, the final book in Tariq Ali's quintet, Night of the Golden Butterfly, is now out -- you can pick it up in Vancouver at People's Coop Bookstore.

I've just started reading the new translation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Demons" (formerly translated as "The Posessed". It is his ficitonalized account of the murder of activist Ivan Ivanov by the young anarchist Sergei Nechaev in the 1869. It is a brilliantly witty and gripping book and his portrayal of the intellectual/activist scene in mid 19th century Russia bears striking similarities to the current movement in Canada. Wonder what that means...

It means that one country can and should learn from another.

The Russians went through all sorts of political trends before Lenin's Bolsheviks became a dominant trend. It's a fascinating history. Check out the revolutionary democrats like Dobrolyubuv, Cheryshevsky, Belinsky and Herzen. Or my favourite, Georgi Plekhanov (aka N.Beltov). For some reason, there are writers to this day who want to re-write that history and go on to claim that the Bolsheviks sprang out of the ground or something.

Mmmm... yes. Sadly my history of this era comes more from drama and fiction than actual history (shame on me, i know). On that front i can strongly strongly (did i say strongly) reccomend the dramatic trilogy "The Coast Of Utopia" by Tom Stoppard. It includes as characters Herzen, Belinsky and Bakunin. Not to mention Pushkin, Turgenev and others.

This morning I read Hermann Goering tell his version of the Munich Pact in Nuremberg Diary, and how the Nazis read the body language of the French and English leaders and saw right away that they'd be pushovers.  Goering even imitated Daladier's posture.

This afternoon, while listening to Cross-country Checkup, I kept hearing how leaders at the G-8 meetings would benefit from being able to see each others' body language, look each other in the eye, etc. This would make the billion dollars it will cost for security at the meetings worthwhile.

I don't know if that's such a good idea.

(for Cz "H") Stoppard, who's an excellent playwright, seems to belong to those who are doing a fine job of erasing/misrepresenting radical 19th century Russian history. But, since the English have a lengthy history of Russophobia, I wouldn't make too much of it.

Edited to add: hmm. Stoppard has a Czech background. More opportunities for Russophobia.

Just read the originals, maybe some Georgi Plekhanov, and you'll be fine.

I went back for some more Tom Wolfe and started reading Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test the other day. I actually like Tom Wolfe. I posted about my experiences with 'Bonfire of the Vanities' which was an awesome read.

Last week I reread Blue Beard before lending it to a friend of my parents'. I then powered through Timequake. Love that book. Absolutely amazing. Loves me a good Vonnegut.

I think I'm going to read the Dick Winters memoirs I have sitting around. Given that I've been reading an awful lots of William Gibson lately, maybe something less cyberpunk will be a good change of pace.

Yeah, actually, funny story. When I went to the last babble get together, I showed up late. But I carried a giant man purse full of books. I got some Burroughs, which I have to read soon. I hated Naked Lunch, but people have told me that Junkie is a better read. I trust their opinion.

For my 'other reading' right now I'm rereading You Shall Know Our Velocity! by David Eggers while at work. It is such a good book, I loved it. I've read it about a dozen times by now. And I have a copy of the collected Jack London right by my porcelain throne.

"Chomsky on Anarchism" and my brain hurts.

Half way through Solar by Ian McEwan. I love all of his books and although this wouldn't be a favourite (might change my mind when finished) I am enjoying it.

Favourite book this year was 'Olive Kitteridge' and I am looking for something as easy to get through when the blood isn't as choked up in the arteries to the brain.

Loved The Woman in White and Moonstone  (Wilkie Collins).

For easy reads I would like to hear suggestions from people who have liked 'A Complicated Kindness' or anything by Jennifer Johnston (Irish) or Sue Miller, Gail Godwin...that type.  

I started reading The Audacity to Win by David Plouffe last night. Along with Rebick and a collection of short stories on Mars, I have a good reading rotation going at the moment.

PB, I haven't read Eggars since picking up "A Heartbreaking Work of [somethingorother] Genius".  Found his ability and style quite brilliant, but hated the character (which I'm remembering as autobiographical...  Could be mistaken.  Anyway, could have cheerfully kicked him in the Cassanovas by the end of the book.)  I haven't inflicted Eggars on myself since.  Let me know if it's worthwhile, I may try again.

Reading "Oliver Twist" with my kids, flipped through "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ" (love, love, love Pullman's work!) again last week while I was sick, and read "Pride and Prejudice" for the first time in a long time.  And "To Kill a Mockingbird".  Now that's an amazing novel.

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemmingway

I have a used copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls, and when I reached the end of the novel I thought a page must have been missing.  I went to the public library to see if they had a copy that I could check, whereupon I found that nothing was missing and that the ending is brilliant.

You can do that with film. Especially weak - i.e., typically American - films that are as easy to follow as a trail of crumbs.

Simply miss the first part - say 15 minutes or so - of a mystery. Then, figuring things out is more of a challenge.

Just finished "Emma Goldman, Still Dangerous" from Black Rose Press ISBN 978-1-55164-326-7. This was a very well researched and written book. It contains some interesting insights into the way women write autobiographies compared to men.  It also starts with a 20 page summary of the main anarchist strains during the first part of the last century.  Well worth the read.

Also I like local history so I am reading "The Quadra Story" by Jeanette Taylor.  

I also like some trashy novels and if you like mysteries set locally then I would recommend the Gwendolyn Southin, series of Margaret Spencer Mysteries.  They are set in late 50's Vancouver and other parts of BC. Some very interesting insights into society because the character of Margaret tries to get beyond the social norms that restricted women then. Also decent mysteries.

I just finished Nuremberg Diary.  Keitel, Ribbentropp and Jodl were hanged for crimes similar to those committed by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle and Powel.  Goering was right about victors' justice.

Now I'm into Enemy at the Gates, by William Craig.  The history isn't bad, but the book isn't terribly well-written. 

I started reading Fordlandia last night.  It's a  book that Heph had recommended on En Masse. Excellent read on a little known episode in American Imperial history.

I had a similar experience watching The Sopranos.

"The Story of Stuff" by Annie Leonard.

  We have heard this story since the 1950's, but it needs to be re-written for every era, and Annie has done a great job for the 2010s describing how we make ourselves crazy pursuing possessions.

  As an activist, she can recount tales of chasing loads of toxic ash around the world, and the heartless, criminal, inhumane activities of certain corporate types. Juicy, real.

  She writes: [pg 28] Coltan - a mineral used in electronics... PS2 launch caused a rush on Coltan, the price went way up, and in the Congo where there are Coltan deposits "kids in the Congo were sent down mine shafts to labour and often die so that kids in developed nations could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms".

  The waste stream is unnessessary. There are better ways. We are up to our armpits in junk, and most of it is broken.

  Annie also has positive suggestions for change in this book, and gives examples of corporations who are "doing it right"

Eve's Bible

http://www.sarahforth.com/home/

I'd be curious to know if the author thinks that parts of The Song of Solomon were written by a female author. Others do.

I'll let you know when I reached that chapter. Yesterday i finished Fordlandia, a book recommended by heph.

I'm into book two of Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy.  It's good.  Probably the best thriller I've read in decades.

Last week I read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. I've been scattering Raymond Chandler short stories among my reading lately.

I'm currently into chapter five of a collection of Chomsky's essays called Middle East Illusions. In this essay, written around 1973, Chomsky looks at how the left is accused of antisemitism and extremism for supporting the human rights of Palestinians.

Plus ça change...

The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel. Heard him speak at a union convention a couple of weeks ago in Vancouver. Got my copy of the book signed. 

Jose Saramago's Baltasar and Blimunda is like nothing I've read before in the detailed description of the cruelties of the Inquisition, the public spectacles.   This was apparently the first book that brought him to a world readership in the late 1980s, and the library here has just about all of his later novels...Cambridge has a large Portuguese population. 

Fortunately, the reader can look forward to the lovers' exploits, like finding  "the countryside is covered with white daisies and mallows, where they cover the path the travellers cut through them,and the firm heads of the flowers are crushed beneath the bare feet of Baltasar and Blimunda, who both have shoes or boots but prefer to carry them in the knapsacks until the road becomes stone, and a pungent odour rises from the ground, it is the sap of the daisies, the perfume of the world on the day of its inception, before God invented the rose.  It is a perfect day for their trip to inspect the flying machine..."

How did you find Nickled and Dimed? Its what got me started on a progressive path and led me here after I lectured a friend on the book and he suggested this place (a enviromentalist friend of mine who edits a trade magazine for the power industry oddly enough)

Just going through some John Le Carre books that my dad bought back in the 80s. Little Drummer Girl is actually a neat read. I like spy novels and all of that quite a lot.

I also picked up some more Joe Haldeman. I still haven't read his seminal work, The Forever War, but I did just re-read All My Sins Remembered and started reading Marsbound (I've been hankering for some some Kim Stanley Robinson, I must have read Red Mars like 20 times by now - so this book seems like an apt substitute by an author I love). I'm still trying to find a used copy of 'The Dragon's Egg', but alas, it has not appeared.

In some ways it could have been my biography, except I was fortunate enough to have lived in subsidised housing during the time I had to do jobs like those done by Ehrenreich (For a time we paid $50.00/month for rent while our household brought in $700.00).  Housing stuck out as the biggest problem fopr the working poor in Nickel and Dimed, which I would say is good reason for government(s) to work on providing homes for all.

[ed.] I saw Michael Moore's Capitalism: a Love Story yesterday, which brought to mind one of the cleaning women in Nickled and Dimed who said that she didn't resent the wealth of the people whose homes she cleaned because she aspired to be just as wealthy herself some day.  Moore suggested that such an attitude may soon give way to a more rebellious stance towards the wealthy.

Good choice PB!

I just finished Bret Easton Ellis's Imperial bedrooms. Now reading the amazing Tama Janowitz's They Is Us - a wicked story set in the late 21st century - the world is run by a giant corporation, people are literally living in chemical wastelands, food in not food anymore and people have become immune to any form of political action. Interesting subplot going on that involved screwing with DNA to make weird animals.

The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development by Michael Lebowitz

CBC Radio listeners heard Barbara Kingsolver interviewd last night on her new novel, The Lacuna, in which she sets out partly to explain how the United States weapped itself in its flag and has since "refused new ideas." As one reviewer puts it:"The Lacuna is a gripping story of identity, connection with our past, and the power of words to create or devastate. Crossing two decades, from the vibrant revolutionary murals of Mexico City to the halls of a Congress bent on eradicating the colour red, The Lacuna is as deep and rich as the New World itself."

Kingsolver is the author of The Poisonwood Bible. I'm calling the library this morning.

Muriel Rukheyser wrote about US culture, moral choices and how that country lost its chance for greatness at the end of WW2. This is an old theme. She was a great poet and a greater critic. Read her after Kingsolver ... if you dare.

I have just picked up Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins at the library book swap.  (In English.  It would take me too long to read in French.)  I hope to be the better for it. 

Ma belle-mère recently gave me Yann Martel's What is Stephen Harper Reading?  It' was a project (or maybe a political statement) in which, every 2 weeks or so, Yann Martel sends a book and a personal review of that book, to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Tucked inside the book was a press clipping from La Press about a thank you note Mr. Martel had received from U.S President Obama for the novel Life of Pi. He wrote it after reading the book to his daughter. As a seque, the press clipping mentioned the What is Stephen Harper Reading project and book. I have since passed on the book, complete with press clipping, to my youngest son.

Read the book and you will realize that Mr. Martel promotes and praises this practise.

WISHR is a good read, unlike the Life of Pi, which was absolutely brilliant, and one of my favorite books of all time. After reading What is Stephen Harper Reading? I then had to read The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Wow. One thing leads to another and For Whom the Bell Tolls is now on the bedside table.

Other favs from the last few years:

Robertson Davies - The Deptford Trilogy and The Cornish Trilogy - I found a paperback edition with both trilogies- and than I gave it away! Doh!

Margret Atwood - The Blind Assassin

A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

Mistakes were made (but not by me) - Carol Travis and Elliot Aronson

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse - Jared Diamond

My favorite novel of all time has been The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, who is my favorite writer of all time. I had read everything in the collected works except (regretably) The Importance of Being Ernest. Fate had it that I would visit his grave in Paris (searching, with the boys, for Jim Morrisons grave) and then, purely by chance, walk by where he lived in London. One of those blue heritage plaques marked the spot. It was like walking on the zebra crossing in front of Abbey Road studios. I digress.

The current non-fiction project is The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. I am actually enjoyng reading this, in small doses. It's an amazing history book for one, and remarkable in its examination of trade, wealth and economy. Some things change, some remain the same.

Mr. Martel, if you ever read this, as far as I'm concerned, you never have to write another novel again. Your Life of Pi is a Catcher in the Rye, and in my mind, you are in the same company as Oscar Wilde. I have selected 5 other books from your WISHR reading list to read, and if I were Stephen Harper, I would have been deeply honoured by your gift.

Cheers and success and thank-you.

I read about Jack Fisher, namesake of Fisherville and Mt Fisher, who discovered gold on Wild Horse Creek near Fort Steele.

Then I read "Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot smaller" by Jeff Rubin [Chief Economist for some big bank for 16 years]. It almost completely SUCKED... but I read it all anyway. The premise is that when this recession is over, oil will return to "triple digit prices", and that oil has peaked and will therefore stay at high prices. From that comes the end of globalisation, esp. in that international trade will halt due to transport costs. So will air travel, and even a lot of car travel.

He barely mentions the alternative energy gig, or that electric cars could stabilise the electric grid, or using sails on big ship to cut fuel use, or any of the other fixes that are possible when we start to end the age of oil. When those alternatives takes the pressure off of oil as our only source of energy, the demand will be reduced and prices will fall accordingly... but he doesn't mention any of this.

Okay, so on to the really good stuff: I just picked up, from my local library, Mel Hurtig's "The TRUTH About Canada". We SUCK!! Canada is no longer what we think it is. We rank so low on education, health care, and other social indicators - mostly to the benefit of Big Business, which is making out like bandits. Financial equality is bad and getting worse every day as the elite wealthy control government and the economy [to their benefit only].

Happy Reading!!

Papal Bull - I took your recommendation for Timequake [Vonnegut] and placed a request with my library for it. Thanks for pointing it out.

I love love love reading the Gut. I read Deadeye Dick just a few years ago, and long ago I was heavily influenced in my teens by a new book at that time called Breakfast of Champions, with others in between.

Eat, Pray, Love.

 Eat money, Pray to non-existent gods, and don't you just Love to go shopping at Walmart?

  - or is that a book title, Remind?

Its a book title of a best selling book and now a movie with Julia Roberts *sigh* which Im sure makes the author sigh as well, tho not a happy sigh

Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City.   Autobiographical sketches that help you to understand the country's history and development as well as the author.   A wonderful find...thanks for the author, skdadl. 

The Mists of Avalon because it is such a wonderfully lush summer book.  I can't recall how many times I have read it, perhaps three or four,  but each time I am impressed by how she illustrates the mysteries that have been lost to us in the name of Christianity and in doing so reminds us that there are deeper mysteries than we know. 

Which reminds me of Harold Bloom's The Book of J, which I loved when I read it years ago - will have to dip in again to see how I view it now.

Here's an article about it.

I'm reading Nineteen Eighty-Four these days and pondering whether to inflict it on students next year.

Zamyatin's "We", or even Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" might be worthy of consideration as well. Depends what you're aiming at.

Heck would have to  freeze over before I would consider Atwood.

I'm aiming at studying language use and recognising propaganda in everyday life.  Orwell would be replacing Dickens' Hard Times, which I use to reinforce the idea of class struggle.

One prof I know used Zola's Germinal for some depiction of class struggle. What about using film, such as Matewon or The Salt of the Earth or ... ?

ETA: of course, there's always Balzac. But the class he was best at depicting was ... the rising bourgeoisie.

Well, I'm technically not teaching class struggle, but I like to be able slide a few concepts in whenever I can.  Matewan contrasted with a film version of Germinal (the one I know has Miou-Miou, Renaud and the ever-present Gerry Depardieu) would be an intriguing idea.  Then again, it's not a film class.

I've shown bits of Oedipus Rex as background to Antigone, and Apocalypse Now to provide some context to Heart of Darkness...and I've even tried using the Calista Flockhart version of Midsummer Night's Dream to help the students imagine Shakespeare. 

OK, I see. Language and propaganda in everyday life ... hence Orwell. Edward Herman wrote an excellent follow-up piece to 1984 (especially in relation to Orwell's supplement at the end of 1984 ON language, etc) on the ocassion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Orwell's famous book ...

From Ingsoc and Newspeak to Amcap, Amerigood, and Marketspeak.

Fences and Windows by Naomi Klein. Her description of the Left in 2002 sounds much like the Left in 2010, so far.

I'm reading a collection of Emma Goldman's writing called Red Emma Speaks.

Hmmm, am going to have to get it in at the library if they do not have it, just finished reading the Secret of Shambhala, that mr remind had picked up at the trade shack a few months back.

Interestingly, at least to me, he spoke of things that Yogananda spoke of about Babaji.

It was an easy 101 read.

there is a women's circle here that practises some of the deeper mysteries lost to us through churchianity. The former mayor tried to run "those witches", even though they are not, per se...out of town.

We do have a ordained "shaman" from Lynn Andrews' Mystery School though. :D  Gobsmacked about that actually.

Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna is a wonderful romp through the politics of Mexico and the United States of the 30s and 40s and ending with the sickness of McCarthy and an America where saluting the flag became mandatory for every citizen.  Kingsolver told a BBC/CBC late night audience that she had wanted for some time to look at the historical runup to the current tight-assed America...which preceded 9/11.

It's also a wonderful look at Mexican art (Diego Revera) and history, and Trotsky's sad end, alone ini a mad, ignorant world demanding solidarity under Stalin, more than a year before  U.S. entry into the war.  Kingsolver tells it with lots of use of data from the time.  Mexico's nationalization of U.S. oil is a wonderfully revealing look at an essentially nationalist revolution...on the heels of Pancho Villa, and with the trappings of a worker's revolution.  It certainly had the support of all but the large landowners.

And it is all put together with the incredibly inventive wit of the author of the Poisonwood Bible.   Her portrait of people living in the Smokies of North Carolina and their language is worth the read in itself. What an ear she has! It has just come out in paperback and I may break down and buy a work of fiction. 

Welp, over the past week I got the hankering to read. So I finished up Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Then I read Childhood's Dream - a suggestion from Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Tom Wolfe's book is great and all, but Childhood's End was a far better read. 'The stars are not for man'.

I just one shot Farenheit 451 - just like I did with Childhood's Dream. I don't know how I had never read that one til' now.

Now what does the future hold?!

Has reading Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test piqued your interest in reading about Neal (I think of Dean Mo-ri-ar-ty) Cassady?

I HAVE been meaning to read On The Road...Pity the local library that has it is under renovations and acquiring said tome will be problematic for at least another month.

I'm reading Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" right now.  (I read "We The Living", and liked it so well I bought "Anthem", loved it so much that when I was only half way through I bought "The Fountain Head" and "Atlas Shrugged".)

Mods alerted.

To bad taste in literature?

Why yes.

This Yibpl scoundrel is obviously trolling the book thread.

I'm highly offended and...I think...I'm going to...cry.

I won't cry. But I found attempting to read Atlas Shrugged was a lot like trying to read a boring version of Fellowship of the Ring. Lots of whining, orcish monsters and really long, boring sets of pages that you can happily grab and skip without losing a beat.

Oh, lately I've been going through some Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition source books. Been reading the Dungeon Masters Guide and Player's Handbook. And the ever fun Monster Manual.

I've been reading We, by Gino Zamiatin, but had to put that aside since I have a library copy of The Jazz Age: Popular Music of the 1920s by Arnold Shaw that I want to finish before its time runs out.

A while ago I read George Woodcock's Orwell's Message: 1984 and the Present as well as Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Before you start reading that there tome, you must get hold of  Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray's "The Hunt" as well as as many Slim Gaillard recordings as you are able.  Then it's imperative that you injest some tea, spin said records and generally get your kicks while reading sad old Jack's novel.

Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif

The books can stand alone but is, I think, the first of 5 volumes - 4 of which have been translated into English.

at the cottage had  a mouldy copy of John le Carre's The Looking-glass War novel about,  briefly, a superannuated WWII spy found and retrofitted 20 years later to go over the Wall and find out about a Russian missile ... the anti-James Bond, for sure, with lots of seedy but realistic details about 1950s/60s era UK espionnage

otherwise,  I skimmed relentlessly , and at the country library were a number of unusual volumes I took down out of curiosity,

including Conrad Black's Duplessis, which is in fact his McGill master's thesis beefed up by access to Duplessis family archives, but includes some irreplaceable photos, for example 1950 federal-provincial conference at Quebece City with inter alia Tommy Douglas, Duplessis, Louis St Laurent, Joey Smallwood et cie in attendance -- what a gallery of characters

Looked also at Ignatieff's Isaiah Berlin, out of interest in the latter above all, but wanted to confirm that anecdote about Churchill inviting Irving Berlin, rather than Isaiah, to a dinner and sure enough, there it is in the section on WWII; adds to controversy about who knew what when about the Holocaust as Berlin was truly shocked to grasp the scale and methods of the genocide, as late as 1944-45...

 Now back to some actual reading after all that skimming, with esp. French political philosopher Pierre Rosanvallon's book about "political legitimacy", and how legitimacy is created through unmediated relations to the leader through symbolic acts (presence at a disaster, personal intervention in social dramas) in the new media age 

I've just finished Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land. A moving and inspiring short book, created under the ribs of death. Judt calls for a return to politics and civic engagement, to communal effort as the key to improvement. He decries our obsession with wealth, celebrity and the unregulated market. He is quite open in his advocacy of social democracy. He sees it not as some half-hearted compromise between capitalism and socialism, but as the power behind the years the French call ‘les trente glorieuses', that between 1945 and 1975 produced an unparalleled flowering of equality and opportunity. Judt criticizes the right, as might be expected, but also doesn't spare the left. Too often, he says, the left has been in such a hurry to embrace new utopias that it has failed to properly appreciate the considerable achievements of those who went before. As an historian, he reveres men like Beveridge and Keynes, who were able to tame the wilder excesses of capitalism and create a more equal society than had been possible a few years earlier.

The writing is masterly: urgent without being rushed, assured without being arrogant. He never yields to the temptation of overstating his case or shrieking condemnation. He maintains a grave, lapidary style fuelled by moral fervour. His spacious, cosmopolitan habits of mind and immense learning shine through. I was moved to find Judt quoting the great Leveller Colonel Rainborough: "The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he." I remember thirty years ago my father was near his own far too early death. Like Mr Judt, he "held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better". He wasn't a scholar but was widely read and had run across the Putney Army Debates somewhere. He quoted that line to me, marvelling at the greatness of ordinary men seized by a cause. Judt's book may be an act of filial piety for the social democrats who built the modern world.

Catching up on my reading, I noticed a very perceptive review of Ill Fares the Land (see post above) in the Times Literary Supplement. I can't give you a link because Murdoch has decided that the Times group will be the guinea-pigs for his paywall experiment. The review is by the American sociologist Richard Sennett, a truly wise man who has upheld the virtues of public life and craftsmanship in previous books. He traces Judt's intellectual odyssey and his commitment to public thinking and speaking.

Here's the part that arrested me: "I have, however, one quarrel with Judt's testament. At its very end he declares 'socialism was about transformative change...socialism--under its many guises and hyphenated incarnations--has failed'. Historically this is certainly correct. Looking forward, his disillusion may ill serve us. There were socialisms before Marx, and alongside its deadly reign, and there will be socialisms in the future--micro-socialisms, if you like, from communal workshops to mutual benefit societies to food co-ops and job exchanges. These micro-socialisms have dwelt on co-operation rather than conversation [?], emphasizing the social in socialism; as micro-societies they have represented one way to deal with the capitalist beast--not to slay it but to resist it; in future they might be constituted online rather than face to face."

Thank you for putting forward Ill Fares the Land, FP.  The immediate postwar period of growth of social democratic values was also a period of economic growth making it all possible.  Does Judt go into the political economy of the period? 

Unfortunately, our blessed library does not carry the book, and I would want to know the depth of Judt's analysis before springing for the purchase of a copy (Hardcover only?)

- interesting - I read the Rand books when I was in my late teens, early 20s, and was quite inspired myself - it was only when I got a bit older and wiser I realised how adolescent they all were - "Me Tarzan!! Look after self!!' and etc - in reality, in human communities, we look after one another, or the predators take us, as we realise as we get a bit older and see how the world really works. As Rand's modern neocons are currently stealing everything from us.

- by the way, Rand's book was The Fountainhead - who wrote this 'Fountain Head' you refer to? Can't seem to find any mention of it anywhere - your copy must give some more info ...

I just finished reading a biography of Sir Francis Walsingham, by Derek Wilson.  Walsingham was Principal Secretary and chief spy-master to Elizabeth I, and as such was blessed to live in interesting times.  A relentlessly hard working, brilliant, and quite ruthless man, he really set up the first modern gov't counter-espionage bureaucracy.  Reminded me a bit of James Angleton.  They each would have fit quite well into eachothers times.  Actually, give Walsingham a bit of computer upgrading and he could fit into his old job quite well today.

Last night I started reading the Qur'an, just for the heck of it.  I understand I have a good translation, it's by  Abdullah Yusuf Ali, and is the most commonly accepted English translation.  God, I'd hate to see a bad one.  With all respect, the Prophet, PBUH would have been well served by a better editor.

Hi, George Victor. Judt skates over the political economy--he is more concerned with the habits of mind that made the postwar consensus possible. He is at pains to point out that even right-wingers saw the need for a strong public presence in the market. Contrast that to our own times, when Americans with the IV of public money steadily dripping into their veins and financial death averted only by firm public action gather at Tea Party rallies to proclaim their rugged independence.

Don't know how your finances are, but Judt's book is meant to be an account of modern times without an ounce of spare flesh. It's a bit like a thoroughbred horse, grand for its purpose, but unsuited to hauling heavy cargo. If your library doesn't have it, you could try Inter-Library Loan, though that's sometimes a low priority for the pared-down staff at public libraries. Are you in the central SW? Hamilton Public Library has several copies. If you live in a contiguous area (Brant, Waterloo, Haldimand, Halton) you can borrow a copy using your reciprocal borrowing privileges. Might be your best bet.

Yes, I just got a lazy chap on the library's information desk from the looks of it, FP.  I'll tell him about Hamilton,  Thank you.

Updated:  Turns out there's no inter-library service on a book less than two years after its publication. It better serves the purchasing library's patrons and authors.

Louise Brooks' autobiography: Lulu in Hollywood (1982).  A candid and literate reflection on the life and times of an unabashed hedonist, and the coterie of friends, acquaintances, and hangers-on that the silent screen actress and dancer encountered, in her blithe and obdurate celebration of the decadence that nearly consumed her.  A veritable 'pandora's box' (pun intended) of revelation, and honesty; a woman who I'd love to have met, at my peril.

The Book of Strange - Sylvia Fraser

Am going to read her prior books when done, especially My Father's House.

Susanna Moodie's Roughing it in the Bush

Highly Recommended! It is the account of her life in the wilderness of Canada during the 1830s, after coming over from England with her husband and infant daughter. The sections on Aboriginal people are very interesting especially. She uses the language of the time, but has great respect and friendship for them and is not racist herself. (She actually met her husband at an anti-slavery meeting in England in 1830). 

A Woman on the Edge of Time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_on_the_Edge_of_Time

re. al-Qa'bong; LOL!  

re. siamdave; pobodys nerfect.

Now I am reading Churchill and The Jews by Martin Gilbert.

Vout, Yibplmacscoutie.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel these days. His comments on Adam Smith ansd his false imitators are purdy good, but the rest hasn't been terribly edifying. I had expected more.

The Consumer Trap: Big Business Marketing in American Life by Michael Dawson

The author has a brilliant blog as well.

Cambridge library broke down and bought the late Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land.

Also purchased by the library (they had not planned on it either) Lawrence Martin's Harperland: The politics of Control.  "Martin probes the secrecy, the muzzling of opponents, the workings of an exhaustive vetting system...The central question, Martin writes, (about this guy who once complained of Ottawa's 'democratic deficit) is whether his excesses will solidigy his rule or be his undoing." 

And heading up the National Citizen's Coalition he also talked about building a firewall between Alberta and the rest of the country. Works such as this are badly needed.

I've been working my way slowly through Richard Sudhalter's Lost Chords: White Musicians and their Contribution to Jazz, 1915- 1945, but have to put it aside to read a library copy of Sniclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here.

I thought this passage was interesting, in light of the creation of "Freedom Fries" 60 years later:

.... and a fine note upon which to close for length.