What are you reading continued

Well, it depends what aspects of the left bother him, no? Or whether he plays up minor aspects or plays down significant ones?

There seems to be a trend, partly but perhaps not entirely prompted by 9/11 and the Iraq war, of people who think they've discovered an amazing revelation that other people on the "left" have yet to discover, or can't accept the reality of.

That revelation, discussed on Babble at length with regard to Christopher Hitchens and Michael Ignatieff among others, is that the Islamofascists really want to destroy all that people on the left hold dear, and that we should unite behind George W. Bush and company to crush them. Heck, while we're at it, how can we really say the Iraq war was a bad thing? Who knows how it'll play out in the long term? And besides, in the short term it got rid of an evil dictator.

Tony Blair is perhaps the highest-profile proponent of this view. Another Canadian proponent is BC author Terry Glavin, who is sporadically intelligent when writing about more local topics like First Nations land struggles, but insufferably disingenuous when you get him talking about anything international in scope. I have trouble thinking of any Americans who fit the bill, but then the "left" in the U.S. has until recently been rather docile as it is.

Ignatieff, Hitchens, Glavin, and Blair share a sort of condescending smugness, alternating with a somewhat paranoid defensiveness, that comes with their belief that they have to deliver this news over and over again to their benighted brethen, but that of course entrenched and powerful forces will try to attack them in an effort to cover up their own hypocrisy.

(Then there's also the further subset of folks who will attack any criticism of Israel's policies as "anti-Semitic." However, so many pixels have been spilled here on that topic that I'll just mention it in passing.)

Cohen's book is getting glowing reviews from the likes of Hitchens and Glavin (who's written several gleeful posts on his [url=http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/]blog[/url] about the strong negative response to the book -- how that response reveals the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of so many leftists, yadda yadda ya).

There's a couple of decent critiques of Cohen's book [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2002456,00.html]here[/url] and [url=http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/andrew_murray/2007/02/nothing_left_o....

(Edited to add: There was also a bit of discussion about Cohen's book [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=39&t=000130]h....)

[ 01 April 2007: Message edited by: obscurantist ]

I have interupted my reading of "Naked Ape to Superspecies" to lose myself in a work of fiction called "Wolf of the Plains" by Conn Iggulden.

It's been a while since I have read some entertaining fiction. If one likes good story telling and historical fiction, this is a good book for you.

It's about the life and times of Temijun, aka Gengis Khan, of no fixed address.

I quite enjoyed those books also. In fact, the HBO "Rome" series, while very good, regretfully chose not to start with Gaius Marius and Cornelius Sulla. I think the generation before Julius Ceasar had more drama.

You should try some of Bernard Cornwell's books if you like historical fiction and just plain good old fashioned story telling. It isn't literature, but it's a lot of fun.

And of course, there's always Macdonald Fraser's "Flashman" series.

Ripping yarns.

Today I'll be reading a ton of course material for my two courses so I can do two essays in the next two days!

since I'm a loser I found all three books in the Mars trilogoy in a library discard pile. I've read through Red Mars in about a week. It is pretty okay, not the best written...but fun.

I was perusing around the UoT bookstore because it is a sale. I found a really cool bok called "The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia from 1860-1930". I also went to the Toronto Women's Bookstore with a friend (she had never been) and found Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450-1500 by Henrietta Leyser, which looks interesting.

I've just picked up Timothy Taylor's [b]Stanley Park[/b] and look forward to the well-publicized food descriptions, courtesy of "Canada Reads."

Just finished a Tommy-Paine recommendation: Wolf Of The Plains. A good, fast, fun read.

I'll be curious to hear what you think of Stanley Park, M Gregus. I think I'll get my library to order me in a copy of this year's Canada Reads winner, Lulabies For Little Criminals. Stanley Park sounded good, too.

I'm reading both Pandemonium by Andrew Nikiforuk and The End of Food by Thomas F. Pawlick.

When one depresses me I turn to the other until it depresses me. Strangely I haven't been very hungry lately!

Belle du Seigneur, by Albert Cohen:
[url=http://tinyurl.com/3b5yox]http://tinyurl.com/3b5yox[/url]

reading it in French, but narrative remarkably similar in English, I am assured [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]

From Publishers Weekly
[i]A vast, astonishing satire of modern life, Cohen's continuously digressive comic novel, set in Geneva in the 1930s, skewers, above all else, the emptiness of middle-class existence, its worship of power and money. Its antihero is Solal, Under-Secretary of the League of Nations, who risks his reputation over an obsessive love affair with the rebellious, bored wife of a pompous League official. Like Cohen himself, Solal is a Mediterranean Jew, an outsider. He mocks his own deep religious faith and expresses skepticism about the League's idealistic internationalism?which he nevertheless makes his personal mission. Tracing Solal's path, Cohen swings from slang to grandiloquence and pure stream-of-consciousness, mixing low farce, high comedy, rapturous erotica and acid satire on the rise of fascism. His gleefully observed gallery of fools exposes a catalogue of human failings?pretense, envy, snobbery, machismo, conformity?all typified by the man Solal cuckolds, Adrien Deume, a hypocritical, bigoted bureaucrat whose narrow-mindedness contrasts with the League's grand ambitions.[/i]

[ 26 April 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:
[b][b][i]"god is not Great"[/b][/i], by Christopher Hitchens. It is a wonderful examination of the destructive role religion plays in our world.[/b]

---

I'm not sure how the words "wonderful" and "Christopher Hitchens" can fit in the same paragraph (whoops, there, I've done it too!). But maybe if he is not actually saying a single word about politics, you might be right. I'll try not to condemn his book sight unseen! That would be an "ad authorem" argument.

quote:

---

Originally posted by unionist:
[b]

I'm not sure how the words "wonderful" and "Christopher Hitchens" can fit in the same paragraph (whoops, there, I've done it too!). But maybe if he is not actually saying a single word about politics, you might be right. I'll try not to condemn his book sight unseen! That would be an "ad authorem" argument.[/b]

---

Yeah, I know a lot of progressives are unhappy with Hitchens’ stance on the “war on terror” but he remains a very provocative and shrewd observer on a wide range of other issues.

I liked 'Missionary Position'.

quote:

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Originally posted by bigcitygal:
[b]I prefer "Women on Top".[/b]

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[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

quote:

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Originally posted by mary123:
[b]This week I'm off to purchase Chris Hedges "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."

I heard him on the radio and am eager to read his latest release.[/b]

---

Was just going through the thread to see if anyone else had yet picked up this book. I am midway through it, though have had it for 2 weeks. And not because it is a poor read--it isn't--it should be a must read, but because it illuminates, all too clearly, the truths of UR Fascism rising in our society.

So, when reading, I end up, going off on a mental tangent, ferreting out all the examples that indicate this drift towards fascist ideology in Canada. It is amazing, how some seem to be so unconcerned about it. Or at least they are not realizing what they are buying into. Then I end up formulating verbal actions of what to say/do when people, and there are more everyday, exhibit the first blush of fascism. By the time I get back to the book, it is time to put it down and work/sleep.

However, for me, even when the book is put down, it is hard to keeps one's mind from thinking about what he says and the implications. And at first I thought, "we have time to stop the nonsense growing in Canada."

Then was watching The Daily Show last evening and watched Jon's segment on Regent University and how 150 graduates work in the Bush administration. And my mind went to Harper's stacking the judicial committees with the Evangelical crowd, that Hedges reveals so much about, and I have to change my thoughts to; "we MIGHT have time to change this in Canada."

Hitchens seems to be dishonest, re the Iraq war. I can't imagine he (and martin amis too) really believe the 'threat assessment' promoted by foxnews etc, when the west's military budget dwarfs even China's. What's wrong with simply tightening up international law? Btw, i recall reading that hitchens and amis, when kids, got to visit Robert Graves in Ibiza(?)...and here these little bastards are singing bush the neocon's praises! What a fricking waste, eh?
here's a Graves poem (from memory)...
-----
The Miller's Man
The imperturbable miller's man
whose help the boy implored, drowning,
drifting slowly past the mill,
was a stout swimmer,
yet would not come between
the River god,
and his assured victim...

Soon, he, too, swimming in the sun,
is caught with cramp,
And as the boy's ghost
jeers from the reeds and rushes;
he drowns valiantly in silence,
this being no one's business
but his own...

Let us not reckon the miller's man
with Judas or with Jesus,
but with the cattle,
who endure all weathers,
or with the millwheel,
foolishly creaking,
incurious of the grains in the bin...

Does this count?

I tried to print off an article from the [url=http://http://www.cdfai.org/fellows/brianflemming.htm]Canadian Defense & Foreign Affairs Institute[/url] and ended up with 18 page of rather small print.

There are many commentators that I do not agree with, some I do, and some that seem to me to introduce new ideas using verifiable sources and good judgements.

The Brian Flemming in the link above has a particularly good concept. He questions the [b]'Metrics of victory in Afghanisan'[/b]. All in all, if we [i]win, lose of get rained out[/i] [b]how will we know.[/b]

There is also a good article on the Artic. If we build new ice breakers, who is to get them - the navy or the Coast Guard. It has been better than half a century since the navy had ice breaking capability, but they seem to be the instrument to assert our authority in the north. The author points out that we are in a worse condition than Russia, as global warming will be delayed for georgraphic reasons in our section above the Arctic Circle.

This is by[url=http://www.cdfai.org/fellows/robhuebert.htm]Rob Huebert[/url] [i]The Battle for the Control of Canadian Arctic Waters: Icebreakers or Patrol Vessels?[/i]

[ 05 May 2007: Message edited by: Croghan27 ]

I am reading a book that I bought about five years ago and never got around to reading. It's because it was one of a bunch of books I picked up at a charity used book sale, and most of them have sat on my shelf, waiting for me to get around to reading them. Mostly the books were Canadiana that I figured I'd never find so cheap again.

Anyhow, this book is called, "They Shouldn't Make You Promise That," by Lois Simmie. It's a fantastic book so far - I'm almost half-way through it. It's really funny, but also rage-inducing. A housewife's reaction to her life which is a mix of boredom and resentment because her husband is a total chauvanist ass. I'm going between being filled with rage and laughing my ass off at the hilarious, snarky way the main character is describing her life and her interchanges with her husband and kids. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

Here's the blurb on the back cover:

quote:

---

"What more do you want?"

As far as Eleanor's mother was concerned, Eleanor should ahve been content with what she had - a handsome, hardworking husband, three fine children, a lovely home.

As far as Eleanor's husband was concerned, what she needed was a psychiatrist.

As far as Eleanor's psychiatrist was concerned, she had to put romance back into her marriage.

But as far as Eleanor was concerned, there had to be more, and taking a lover was just the first step.

---

I'm looking forward to getting to the "taking a lover" part! I'm so pissed off at her husband right now!

Currently reading '[url=http://www.akpress.org/2006/items/durrutiinthespanishrevolution]Durruti in the Spanish Revolution[/url]' and '[url=http://www.akpress.org/2006/items/horizontalism]Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina[/url]'.

[ 13 May 2007: Message edited by: Flash Walken ]

Okay, so that book I mentioned a few posts ago? I finished it the same day (it's a short book) and it was very good. An especially good read if you're a woman in the midst of separation or divorce issues. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img] I should've read it years ago!

Read Ghost Plane.
Just do it.
At least leaf through it.
That will disturb you enough.

The Noonday Demon

by Andrew Soloman

An Atlas of Depression.

Soloman has depression, and is not a DR. Very easy to read and understand. I have Bi-Polar, and it helps me to understand, and my mother, who has only recently accepted my disorder, is finally using this book to learn about the joy of all sorts of depression.

babble. All my books are packed!

Currently reading Daviud Sedaris' Hilarious Book [i]Barrel Fever[/i]. He is funny and full of social satire (and sarcasm).

Also reading at the same time [i]The Bush Agenda[/i]

Thanks Rundler for the graphic novel links above. They look amazing. I love graphic novels. I have the page bookmarked and will get a few of them next week. I've alreay re-read my Hate series three times.