Aye, thar’s mutiny afoot…Anarch has taken command of another thread and declared it open for book discussions…
No need for such drastic measures:
Currently reading (in between every freakin’ book ever written on Alexander the Great) It’s My Party Too, by Christine Todd Whitman…just started it, but clearly she ain’t gonna be invited to Christmas at the Rove’s.
Reading:
Rising Sun Victorious by Pete Tsouris, rec’d by liberal japonicus.
Just started Family Trade by Charlie Stross.
On & off The Complete Kama Sutra translated by Alian Danielou
Recently finished: Tooth & Claw by Jo Walton
Currently re-reading Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. Most. Quotable. Book. EVAH. 😀
Catsy, I love Stephenson’s stuff, all of it, but I think my favorite thing to quote is the recidivist-violent-criminal tatoo from ‘SnowCrash’: Poor impulse control.
Currently reading:
Serpent’s Reach, by C.J.Cherryh. (Re-reading, that is. But I hear there’s a new atevi book out!)
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke (On my sofa at home, because it’s too big to carry about with me.)
Italics begone!
Reading “Gilead” by Marilynne Robinson. I’m 1/3 of the way through and it’s a beautifully written story of a father’s love for his young son as the father nears death.
And may CT Whitman take her party back, and quickly.
My fun book is Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke and my serious book is The Fortune At the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits by C.K. Prahalad (recommended by Madeline Albright of all people!) 🙂
recommended by Madeline Albright of all people!
Oh, I didn’t know you and Madeline Albright were acquainted *fawns*
Apologies, Jes; I think that open italics was my fault, from my earlier post. I started another post to fix it, but in preview it looked like the tag from the previous post was closed after all.
Sorry sorry!
Motions, legal briefs, and assorted filings. I haven’t read for pleasure (other than magazine) in more than a month. Aaarrgh.
Serpent’s Reach is great.
Don’t read much for pleasure anymore. A sleep-aid at bedtime. Currently Speak the Nightbird by Robert McCammon, horror about a 1680 witch-trial in the Carolinas. Gotta read some Stephenson, am wondering if McCammon is responding in some way.
What’s someone named “Anarch” doing taking command of anything? That’s what I want to know.
“Men who have just finished talking to Waterhouse tend to walk away shaking their heads-and not in the slow way of a man saying “No,” but in the sudden convulsive way of a dog who has a horsefly in his middle ear.”
mmmmmmm, Cryptonomicon.
Currently reading: Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity by Edward Tenner. It’s a historical look at how the things we use change how we use our bodies, and vice-versa. Really good for anyone with a layman’s interest in the history of design, physiology, etc.
Also reading a bunch of cheesy Star Wars-licensed novels because I’m an SW geek and am like a kid on a sugar buzz waiting for E3 to be released.
Currently: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (abridged)
Gibbon is an amazing writer. I was really surprized at how readable it is, especially considering that it was written some 200 years ago.
Currently re-reading Generations by Strauss & Howe. Reading for the 1st time Paul Krugman’s The Great Unraveling. If the latest installment in Steven Saylor’s Rome Sub Roma series is out, I’ll get for my next airplane flight.
“Oh,” Waterhouse says, and rolls his eyes at his own stupidity. “That’s right. Sorry. Maybe I should have explained that part first.”
“What part?” Comstock asks.
“Dr. Turing, of Cambridge University, has pointed out that bobbadah bobbadah hoe daddy yanga langa furjeezama bing jingle oh yeah,” Waterhouse says, or words to that effect. He pauses for breath, and turns fatefully towards the blackboad. “Do you mind if I erase this?” A private lunges forwad with an eraser. Comstock sinks into a chair and grips its arms. A stenographer reaches for a benzedrine tablet. An ETC man chomps down on a number two lead pencil like a dog on a drumstick. Strobes flash. Waterhouse grabs a fresh stick of chalk, reaches up, and presses its tip to the immaculate slate. The crisp edge of the stick fractures with a slight pop, and a tiny spray of chalk particles drifts to the floor spreading into a narrow parabolic cloud. Waterhouse bows his head for a minute, like a priest getting ready to stride up the aisle, and then draws a deep breath.
The benzedrine ewars off five housr later and Comstock finds himself sprawled across a table in a room fill with haggard, exhausted men. Waterhouse and the privates are pasty with chalk dust, giving them a ghoulish appearance. The stenographers are surrounded with used pads, and frequently stop writing to flap their limp hands in the air like white flags. The wire recorders are spinning uselessly, one reel full and one empty. Only the photographer is still going strong, hitting that strobe every time Waterhouse manages to fill the chalkboard.
Everything smells like underarm sweat. Comstock realizes that Waterhouse is looking at him expectantly. “See?” Waterhouse asks.
Currently reading “Freedom And Responsibility” by hilzoy. On page 128. Haven’t understood a word since page II of the Aknowledgments.
Currently reading “Freedom And Responsibility” by hilzoy. On page 128. Haven’t understood a word since page II of the Aknowledgments.
‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ Nobody ‘loves’ like that anymore.
OMG. I forgot there was a Waterhouse character in Cryptonomicon. I have to reread it, now that I’ve finished the Baroque Cycle.
I couldn’t make it through the Baroque Cycle. Hell, I couldn’t even make it through Quicksilver. Which is a pity, because I love Neal’s style.
I couldn’t make it through the Baroque Cycle. Hell, I couldn’t even make it through Quicksilver.
Me neither. Quicksilver manages to fail both as history and as novel, which is kind of impressive in a way.
just finished China Mieville’s Iron Council. about to start either John Stewart’s America or a collection of Jonathan Lethem’s short stories, after i go read Crooked Timber’s Mieville series.
Currently reading Quicksilver (what is going on with all this Stephenson being read). I guess wading through all of the early Barth oeuvre, The Sotweed Factor in particular, makes this an easy read.
Sebastian, I hope we get a review of that BOP book so that I can decide whether to read it or not.
The Baroque Cycle (nearly done)
Neruda’s Canto General
Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language
Re-reading:
Old Path, White Clouds
Pinker’s The Blank Slate
Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought
Currently reading:
Making Friends With Hitler: Lord Londonderry, The Nazis And The Road To World War II by Ian Kershaw
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
The Civilization of the Middle Ages by Norman Cantor
and a whole bunch of motorcycle magazines
Goodbye to All That is a fantastic book, I read it once a year.
Currently rereading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, and several anthologies of American Splendor by Harvey Pekar and supporting artists.
Someday someone will write an excellent book about today’s ruling by a New York state judge that denying civil marriage rights to couples of the same sex violates the state constitution.
See how I manipulate the open thread to my own nefarious ends?
Someday someone will write an excellent book about today’s ruling by a New York state judge that denying civil marriage rights to couples of the same sex violates the state constitution.
Let me be the first to say “WAHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!”
That is Way Cool, sidereal. NY would be a huge plum in the pro-human rights column.
“Let me be the first to say “WAHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!”
This is why and how “state’s rights” can be and is, in the modern era, a liberal issue (in states with more liberal Constitutions than the federal Constitution, at least).
Reading Three Junes. That I am enjoying a book of this type says a great deal for it.
I tried so very hard to read ‘Everything is Illuminated.” I’d heard such wonderful things about it.
But the distorted-English dialogue drove me nuts. Too cutesy and clever by half. Trying to read this book the way I prefer to read novels – in great gulps, for hours at a time – was like reading too many David Sedaris essays at one sitting.
I put it aside. Maybe I should just try reading it in little bits?
Currently reading:
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Julian by Gore Vidal
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Just finished (and loved) Alice Munro’s Runaway
and a whole bunch of motorcycle magazines
What’s your fave? I like “Bike” from England.
Susan – When you’re done ‘Julian,’ and if you have a taste for alternate-history science fiction, try ‘The Dragon Waiting,’ by John M. Ford.
It’s a novel set in about the 15th C., in Europe… BUT in a Europe, and world, where Julian *succeeded* in re-establishing Olympian paganism (?)as Rome’s official religion, and Xtianity was reduced to a minor cult. Oh, and wizards and vampires and sorcery are real.
Many of the same players are in Ford’s book as in real history – the Medicis rule Florence, the Yorks and Lancasters are at it in England – but the spritual/magical backdrop is entirely different.
I can’t recommend it enough.
For that matter, I can’t recommend Ford enough.
What’s your fave? I like “Bike” from England.
Yeah, me too. It and RiDE are consistently the best mags, way better than any of the American ones. I especially like that RiDE actually does Consumer Reports-style gear testing, not just “we rode around in this stuff for a while and it seemed okay, so you should buy it!”
I buy the American mags every so often, mostly when I’m done with the British ones and need a fix.
Hey, you going to Laguna for USGP?
I make sure I pick up CityBike each month too.
Hey, you going to Laguna for USGP?
Depends, I may have non-race fan company in town Grrrr.
Edward: Aye, thar’s mutiny afoot…Anarch has taken command of another thread and declared it open for book discussions…
Arrrr… shiver me pancakes, lad, ’twas time for a thread that be open!
Bernard: What’s someone named “Anarch” doing taking command of anything? That’s what I want to know.
Poor impulse control.
Depends, I may have non-race fan company in town Grrrr.
Bummer. I’m trying to get lined up to cornerwork. Maybe I’ll get to scrape Biaggi off the pavement!
sidereal: See how I manipulate the open thread to my own nefarious ends?
Avast, ye thread-jackin’ starrgh! Belay that nonsense lest ye be put to Davy Jones’ Flapjack Haus!
Maybe I’ll get to scrape Biaggi off the pavement!
ROFL!!
try ‘The Dragon Waiting,’ by John M. Ford.
Wow, CaseyL, that book looks really good. Vidal’s Julian has always been one of my favorites. As much for the subject as the writing.
If I do nothing else in my life but turn people on to John M. Ford’s writing, I will still consider it well spent 🙂
“Avast”
Yar. I savvy there be two freebooters plying the sweet trade in these rich waters.
Well you guys are all pretty highbrow compared to me. I’m reading, for the umpteenth time, one of Stuart Kaminski’s Russian murder mysteries. But I read Barack Obama’s autobiography over Christmas break and I just fiished rereading Greg Bear’s Ilium.
“…try ‘The Dragon Waiting,’ by John M. Ford.”
Heh. Another book I was assistant on when we republished it at Avon in the Eighties. Mike (“John M.,” though the “M” doesn’t stand for “Michael”; don’t ask) is a great guy and unbelievably good writer. (If only his health were better.)
My compliments to contributors to this thread for such generally good taste, IMO, by the way.
Anarch says: “Poor impulse control.”
I blame society.
Actually, when it comes to quotability, Good Omens (Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett) is probably right up there with Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash.
Having carefully scoured my bedside stack of unfinished books I find that the most impressive one is “The Diversity of Life,” by Edward O. Wilson.
As Abraham Lincoln once allegedly wrote in a book review, “Those who like this sort of thing will find this to be the sort of thing they like.”
“Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell” competes with the new Nicci French as fun boek, I just read the “black magician trilogy” by trudi canavan as fun boek.
Just read ‘what Hitler really wants” (E. Lorimer, in 1938) as ‘serious book’, will now start on Jared Diamonds “Guns, Germs and Steel”.
“Well you guys are all pretty highbrow compared to me. I’m reading, for the umpteenth time, one of Stuart Kaminski’s Russian murder mysteries.”
Not me. I have the complete Kaminski, all three series.
Every Russian volume made me cry. Cruz Smith is not in the same class, but better known and much richer.
All I read is category fiction anymore, and not as much of that as I used. Kaminski, John Sandford, early Laurel Hamilton(I blush) before she went weird, Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books(contemporary Chicago wizard battles vampires and nasty fairies),Dennis Lehane,Joe Gores,Harlan Coben,Robert Crais. All hard-boiled secret sentimental stuff.
“Dragon Waiting” is a stone entertaining classic that I read on first release. There is another guy doing vampires in an alternate history that I like a lot, but the name escapes me.
Found it. Kim Newman “Anno Dracula” in which Queen Victoria marries Vlad Tepes. Above average.
What can I say, I read vampire books, everything that isn’t Yarbro. You thought I was an intellectual or something?
Leisure time reading? I vaguely seem to recall it. Right now, I’m obsessing over five papers and several dozen MathSci citations about 0^#, in particular the similarities possessed by false sharps. Which is to say, I’m going farking mad.
[Just saw “The Aviator” tonight, though, and I’m going to go see a couple more movies tomorrow, so I guess that counts for something.]
Oh, and I’m watching Hellboy right now. Not working r0x!
We’re sitting here at work watching The History Channel right now. Yay for the history channel–there was a brief interregnum where my coworker insisted on watching some awful show. Reality TV is a wart on the ass of society.
Just finished Jason DeParle’s American Dream, which I recommend to everyone. It’s the story of three families who were on welfare until welfare reform, and what happens to them, woven together with the story of welfare reform itself. DeParle was the NYTimes writer on welfare and poverty; he knows a lot, and writes very well. It’s not a particularly ideological book — surprises for both sides, I think — just a really good story on an under-reported topic, and very thoughtful and thought-provoking.
xanax: how, um, heroic of you. But there aren’t two pages of acknowledgments; just the one paragraph. If memory serves. My poor dad made it through two chapters, bless his heart, and said: “you know, I just couldn’t understand it, even though I could tell that it was very clearly written.”
Quicksilver was a tough read, it took me 9 months of on and off reading but worth it in the end.
Currently reading Evolution by Steven Baxter and the bathroom book, which is usually humorous or light, is Al Franken’s Lie book (can’t remember the exact title).
“Reality TV is a wart on the ass of society.”
Innit a shame not to live in a culture where the History Channel is reality tv?
I have the complete Kaminski, all three series.
Is one of those the Hollywood stuff, or am I thinking of someone else? I really like his other series, but that one doesn’t appeal to me at all.
“Is one of those the Hollywood stuff”
Yeah, it is the weakest, but intended to be very very light reading anyway. I mean we are talking an hour to get thru Toby Peters solves Greer Garson’s kidnapped secretary case.
The Chicago Police detective series is quite good, but kinda standard….never seem to stick with me.
The Russian series is outrageous. Detective Karpo, the ascetic Party fanatic who lost his religion when the Soviet Union fell is one of my favorite characters in fiction.
I liked _The Dragon Waiting_, but I admired it more. I think it suffers a bit from late-Gene-Wolfe disease, trying to be too clever at the expense of narrative momentum. But _Growing up Weightless_ and _The Last Hot Time_ are scintillating.
Rereading Cesare Pavese _Lavorare Stanca_ with Arrowwood’s translation to get me over the rough spots – it’s very plain poetry and very good. I _was_ reading _A Poet’s Guide to Poetry_ by Mary Kinzie but her prose is execrable.
Ian McEwan’s new novel, “Saturday” is very good. A day in the life of a London doctor, on the Saturday of the anti-Iraq War demonstrations. It felt like a parlor trick going in, and novelistic equivalent of the TV show ’24’, but McEwan is just too good a writer for that. It pulls you and does not let go.
Innit a shame not to live in a culture where the History Channel is reality tv?
You are my hero.
The History Channel is, IMO, one of the only reasons to have cable.
The History Channel is, IMO, one of the only reasons to have cable.
Thanks to the History Channel, I believe I’ve seen WWII four times now.
“Thanks to the History Channel, I believe I’ve seen WWII four times now.”
And it gets better each time, eh?
The suspense just kills.
How soon before we have the Alternate History Channel? I can hardly wait myself, though I’d insist it must be called the “Alternative History Channel” unless it presents two different versions of the same events in a row, each time. (I could live with the “Counterfactual History Channel,” though I’d grumble, because this seems to me to be an example of an alternative word usage filling a non-existent gap.)
I have a good science-fiction book reccommendation, but I can either tell you why it is good or the title, but not both. 🙂
I’ll take the title for 400, Alex. 🙂
I have a good science-fiction book reccommendation, but I can either tell you why it is good or the title, but not both. 🙂
There’s only one book that really makes this joke work, but I’ll be interested to see what you’re thinking of…
The Forge of God by Greg Bear.
The Forge of God by Greg Bear.
…nope. Sorry. The correct answer was this. Thanks for playing!
Heh, that is a good answer too. But I like mine better though now I can’t tell you why. 🙂
But I like mine better though now I can’t tell you why. 🙂
Does it have anything to do with the comments you posted over at Crooked Timber on Belle’s contribution to the China Mieville discussion?
Uhoh, someone has been reading my posts on other boards.
Uhoh, someone has been reading my posts on other boards.
You post on other boards? You SLUT!
Seb
in regard to what you wrote here, I would highly recommend Keith Jarrett’s recordings of Shostokovich 24 Preludes and Fugues. Also, the opening to Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste (get the Reiner/Chicago version, paired with Concerto for Orchestra) and the fugue at the beginning and, if so inclined, check out this analysis
If I’m a slut, it has nothing to do with posting on other boards. 🙂
RE Music, anyone know of a good harpsichord recording of Kunst Der Fugue by Bach?
I’ve got three or four recordings of the 24 Ps and Fs and I too like the Jarrett best.
Can’t imagine spending two hours listening to a harpsichord – I’ve got a trio recording of Die Kunst and probably a string quartet one. Actually, I can’t listen to Die Kunst for two hours in those versions either.
I love the Bartok Sonata for Solo Violin.
I tend to agree with rilkefan, the fact that it is the same timbre really makes it difficult for me to listen to harpsichord versions. Being a horn player, I love the Canadian Brass recording of Art of the Fugue, and I remember a great video of Glenn Gould talking about Art of the Fugue, but it doesn’t look like it has been reissued as a DVD.
Also, the opening to Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste (get the Reiner/Chicago version, paired with Concerto for Orchestra)
That recording is one of my favorites, but only for the Concerto for Orchestra; the Music for Strings &c I can take or leave. As for Die Kunst Der Fugue, I haven’t heard of a full harpsichord rendition of them but I’ll ask around the music department on Tuesday; I’m looking for a copy myself but I haven’t decided on my preferred orchestration.
In a similar vein: I mentioned this earlier, but if anyone knows where I could obtain a CD set of the full Israelsbrunnlein by Schein, I’d be eternally grateful. The best version listed by Amazon is missing about five to seven of the complete set (I have no idea why) and I’d dearly love to have them all.
Anarch
How about this Was quite amazed there are 6(!) CD versions.
Also, in Japan, I end up checking amazon.co.jp and co.uk in addition to .com and have ended up ordering from all three of them. Don’t know if that would work for you, but the co.uk might be worth checking.
How about this Was quite amazed there are 6(!) CD versions.
Hot damn! This must have just come out; I had looked everywhere before XMas but couldn’t find it. And it’s a) complete, b) without continuo! Too damn cool.
Thank you ever so much, Master LJ. Now I need to whip on down to my local CD shop and see if they’ve got it cheaper there than at Amazon. 😀