What Are You Reading Right Now?

[southwest88]

The house at Otowi Bridge; the story of Edith Warner and Los Alamos. Drawings by Connie Fox Boyd. Church, Peggy Pond, 1903-, c1960, U. of NM Press, biography

Subjects
• Warner, Edith, -- 1891 or 2-1951.
• Los Alamos (N.M.)

Length
• 149 pages

Interesting story, the NM life of Edith Warner, who fell in love with NM, lived on San Ildelfonso Pueblo Reservation land for decades, & was buried there. She bridged everyday life in the US, the Pueblo, & the administrators @ Los Alamos, as they developed the atomic bomb. She maintained a spark of humanity @ the doorstep of the atomic age.

 

[Mr Person]

Seneca's letters and moral essays.

Oh, there's one last book re: Roman history I never included in my project, for some silly reason. I'm too lazy to fetch it, but the title is something like "Seneca in the Court of Nero <subtitle>"

 

[Angel]

Oh, there's one last book re: Roman history I never included in my project, for some silly reason. I'm too lazy to fetch it, but the title is something like "Seneca in the Court of Nero <subtitle>"

Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
by James Romm
Amazon.com: Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero (0884234621817): James Romm: Books

It looks good! Seneca's public life was touched by Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. And he was one of the most influential philosophers of all time.

 

[Mr Person]

Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
by James Romm
Amazon.com: Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero (0884234621817): James Romm: Books

It looks good! Seneca's public life was touched by Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. And he was one of the most influential philosophers of all time.

Yep, that's it.

 

[Winchester]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Allright. Finished The Dark Tower series.

That was something. Terribly bitter, but with a grain of hope. A true epic, as good as it is strange.

I finally read that for the first time last year.

 

[southwest88]

The beginning of the end

Napoleon 1812 / Nigel Nicolson, c1985, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 940.27 Nico.

Subjects
• Napoleon -- I, -- Emperor of the French, -- 1769-1821.
• Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815 -- Campaigns -- Russia.

Length
• 192 pages, [8] pages of plates : maps, French & Russian military org. chart, index, bibliographical note,

A brief introduction & view of the Russian campaign, 6 months in 1812. A good place to start. Some of the biographies or war histories are massive things.

 

[haymarket]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

I finally read that for the first time last year.

Did you like it?

Those books were one of the things that made me give up King for twenty years until the Kennedy assassination book.

 

[Mr Person]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Did you like it?

Those books were one of the things that made me give up King for twenty years until the Kennedy assassination book.

Which one did you stop on, and why? Just not your kind of thing?

They were written 1982-2012 (the latter being something fitting in between 4 and 5 in its chonology), so when you say twenty years...

 

[haymarket]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Which one did you stop on, and why? Just not your kind of thing?

They were written 1982-2012 (the latter being something fitting in between 4 and 5 in its chonology).

I started reading Kings short stories and then when CARRIE came out each of the novels for several years. When the DARK TOWER stories started and when IT came out - I so disliked both that I simply walked away for quite a number of years. Somebody I respect then told me to read 11/22/63 and I did and absolutely loved it. Then I found out he had written it many years before and it fit in with SALEMS LOT and THE SHINING and THE STAND (which I think is his absolute best books) in quality and it all made sense.

To be honest with you, and this is going to sound rather cynical, I think every author has some stories in them that just have to get out. For King, I think it was the first five or six novel sand perhaps even DEADZONE - at least in parts. Then what happens is it becomes a business and one must turn out the annual novel to keep the money train running. And with King the money train kept gathering both cars and steam and became an industry unto itself.

 

[Mr Person]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

I started reading Kings short stories and then when CARRIE came out each of the novels for several years. When the DARK TOWER stories started and when IT came out - I so disliked both that I simply walked away for quite a number of years. Somebody I respect then told me to read 11/22/63 and I did and absolutely loved it. Then I found out he had written it many years before and it fit in with SALEMS LOT and THE SHINING and THE STAND (which I think is his absolute best books) in quality and it all made sense.

To be honest with you, and this is going to sound rather cynical, I think every author has some stories in them that just have to get out. For King, I think it was the first five or six novel sand perhaps even DEADZONE - at least in parts. Then what happens is it becomes a business and one must turn out the annual novel to keep the money train running. And with King the money train kept gathering both cars and steam and became an industry unto itself.

Most of King I don't like. But I've liked when he veers away from straight horror into weird mish-mash's of genres. So, sure, The Stand, Hearts in Atlantis, Dark Tower, etc... even It gets a bit sci-fi ish towards the end.

I actually hadn't read him in 20 or more years when I picked up the tower series again (once it was finished).

 

[Superfly]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

I started reading Kings short stories and then when CARRIE came out each of the novels for several years. When the DARK TOWER stories started and when IT came out - I so disliked both that I simply walked away for quite a number of years. Somebody I respect then told me to read 11/22/63 and I did and absolutely loved it. Then I found out he had written it many years before and it fit in with SALEMS LOT and THE SHINING and THE STAND (which I think is his absolute best books) in quality and it all made sense.

To be honest with you, and this is going to sound rather cynical, I think every author has some stories in them that just have to get out. For King, I think it was the first five or six novel sand perhaps even DEADZONE - at least in parts. Then what happens is it becomes a business and one must turn out the annual novel to keep the money train running. And with King the money train kept gathering both cars and steam and became an industry unto itself.

Same as John Grisham. He'll never recapture how great The Firm was, or A Time to Kill.

I loved all of King's older stuff. I think the last book he wrote that I enjoyed was Desperation. I think I lost him when he wrote some book about an old man with insomnia, who saw people walking up and down his street with red strings or balloons or something, coming out of their heads. It was like reading a Timothy Leary memoir or something. Just weird. But you won't get better fiction reading than The Stand.

 

[haymarket]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Most of King I don't like. But I've liked when he veers away from straight horror into weird mish-mash's of genres. So, sure, The Stand, Hearts in Atlantis, Dark Tower, etc... even It gets a bit sci-fi ish towards the end.

I actually hadn't read him in 20 or more years when I picked up the tower series again (once it was finished).

Sounds like you and I like the opposites in Kings work. Which is terrific - different strokes for different folks as they say.

Glad you found something you enjoy and appreciate.

 

[haymarket]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Same as John Grisham. He'll never recapture how great The Firm was, or A Time to Kill.

I loved all of King's older stuff. I think the last book he wrote that I enjoyed was Desperation. I think I lost him when he wrote some book about an old man with insomnia, who saw people walking up and down his street with red strings or balloons or something, coming out of their heads. It was like reading a Timothy Leary memoir or something. Just weird. But you won't get better fiction reading than The Stand.

THE STAND is so heavily influenced by THE LORD OF THE RINGS that it basically is his modern version of that story. The parallels in story and character and plot are so very very similar that it is not by accident. I agree that it is his best and makes for great reading. But I wonder if King could have produced it had not Tolkien written his great work first. I suspect not. The one I like best after THE STAND is SALEMS LOT. I can still remember buy it and staying up half the night to read it and having to put it down because I was actually scared. I was married man at the time in my own house for heavens sake.

 

[Mach]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

When the DARK TOWER stories

King is overall "OK" to me, he simply has a different aesthetic. I read a number of his books 25 or so years ago. One of the reasons he supposedly did Dark Tower because he didn't like LOTR (! does not compute!). So then he figures he can write a fantasy that he'd prefer...so he started Dark Tower. But epic fantasy, world building...that's not King. He's small town quirk. I quit after Drawing of the Three back then. Revolvers, a handful of characters...*yawn*.

But I did go back and read Dark Tower right after the movie came out. As a story (characters, general plot), it was good...not great...however.

*Potential spoiler.*

Apparently King struggled mightily with it (he doesn't do the genre/epics!), and so many years passed between them. So he starts dabbling in a meta story, about reality (you/me reality), and the book fantasy reality. Now, normally that's hokey, or gimmicky. But King did it with a purpose, and with his talent for pulling you into the story...it became something else. It's almost a shared experience with King, who was conveying feelings about life and imagination/stories, and death. He took me along for a ride that I hadn't yet experienced in literature. I mean, anyone can write about life and mortality, etc., *yawn, depressing*, but he did it intertwined with the story and himself, and the reader in a way that to me, made this his magnum opus, a real work of art. I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much until middle-age.

 

[Superfly]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

THE STAND is so heavily influenced by THE LORD OF THE RINGS that it basically is his modern version of that story. The parallels in story and character and plot are so very very similar that it is not by accident. I agree that it is his best and makes for great reading. But I wonder if King could have produced it had not Tolkien written his great work first. I suspect not. The one I like best after THE STAND is SALEMS LOT. I can still remember buy it and staying up half the night to read it and having to put it down because I was actually scared. I was married man at the time in my own house for heavens sake.

:lol: I felt that way by It and Pet Sematary. I loved both of them. I read Pet Sematary 5 times in a row, when it first came out. I haven't read It in probably 25 years and I still remember certain parts that scare me way too much.

 

[haymarket]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

King is overall "OK" to me, he simply has a different aesthetic. I read a number of his books 25 or so years ago. One of the reasons he supposedly did Dark Tower because he didn't like LOTR (! does not compute!). So then he figures he can write a fantasy that he'd prefer...so he started Dark Tower. But epic fantasy, world building...that's not King. He's small town quirk. I quit after Drawing of the Three back then. Revolvers, a handful of characters...*yawn*.

But I did go back and read Dark Tower right after the movie came out. As a story (characters, general plot), it was good...not great...however.

*Potential spoiler.*

Apparently King struggled mightily with it (he doesn't do the genre/epics!), and so many years passed between them. So he starts dabbling in a meta story, about reality (you/me reality), and the book fantasy reality. Now, normally that's hokey, or gimmicky. But King did it with a purpose, and with his talent for pulling you into the story...it became something else. It's almost a shared experience with King, who was conveying feelings about life and imagination/stories, and death. He took me along for a ride that I hadn't yet experienced in literature. I mean, anyone can write about life and mortality, etc., *yawn, depressing*, but he did it intertwined with the story and himself, and the reader in a way that to me, made this his magnum opus, a real work of art. I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much until middle-age.

Its wonderful that you found those books and appreciate them at that high level. Its a tribute to Stephen King and his talent that not only so many people read him, but they can enjoy differs types of his work and different aspects of it. Calling any book a real work of art is one of the highest compliments any reader can give. I have no doubt you would put a smile on Mr. Kings face with that.

 

[PoS]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

The Nasty Bits- Anthony Bourdain: a collection of essays from the late great celebrity chef. Although I believe Bourdain never finished any formal schooling after high school, the man can truly write. His style is witty, funny, and down to earth insightful. He could literally describe everything from being stuck in a foreign land to the intricacies of preparing and tasting wonderful flavors in every bite of food. A truly great read. 9/10

 

[PoS]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Spy Catcher by Peter Wright. I read books for fun, inspiration and research, and this one is all three. Wright was a long time agent for MI5- British counter-intelligence, and when they decided to lower his pension he decided to write a tell-all book about the agency. The Brit government tried to suppress publication, and it became a bestseller because of it. I'm only in the first few chapters, and already I am enjoying the heck out of it.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Adam Higginbotham / Simon & Shuster / 2019 / 538pp.

The author takes you on an excursion from the Chernobyl (V.I. Lenin Atomic Energy Station) facility planning (Leningrad/Moscow) in the staid and cash-strapped Soviet Union through its construction, modus operandi, the accident in 1986, the immediate response, and the long term response/consequences.

I [illegally] visited the Chernobyl nuclear complex and the deserted Pripyat workers town twice when I lived in Ukraine. Last year Ukraine and an international consortium completed a four year project to put in place a sarcophagus (Novarka/New Safe Confinement) over Chernobyl's destroyed Reactor Number Four. This 354' high temporary shielding solution should be viable for the next 100 years.

The NSC in place.....

 

[Rogue Valley]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Professor Alan Bullock / Vintage Books / 1993 / 1152pp.

Rereading the 2nd Edition this classic dual biography. Bullock alternates chapters on Hitler with those on Stalin. Perhaps the best biographical accounts of both 20th century tyrants.

 

[jet57]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

"The Hacking of the American Mind":

 

[clg311]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Wicked War by Amy Greenberg. About the invasion of Mexico and the theft of Texas and California by James Polk. Lincoln, Henry Clay were some of the leading figures of the day who opposed the war.

Also Quicksand by Malin Persson Giolito. The Netflix series is faithful to the book except for the beginning where the accused killer sounds like a Swedish Holden Caulfield.

 

[Fledermaus]

Re: It's the end of the world as we know it ...

"World War Z"


Much better then the abomination of a movie.

 

[southwest88]

& so it goes

The brothers Vonnegut : science and fiction in the house of magic / Ginger Strand. c 2015, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 813.54 STRA.

Subjects
• Vonnegut, Kurt.
• Vonnegut, Bernard.
• Novelists, American -- 20th century -- Biography.
• Scientists -- United States -- Biography.
• Weather control -- United States.
• Literature and science -- United States -- History -- 20th century.

Notes
• Autumn fog -- Precipitating events -- Head in the clouds -- Bolt of lightning -- Eye of the storm -- Watersheds -- Rainmakers -- Out of the blue -- Cold fronts -- Shifting winds -- Epilogue: rainbow's end.

Summary
• "Worlds collide in this true story of weather control in the Cold War era and the making of Kurt Vonnegut"-- Provided by publisher.
• Ln the late 1940s. Kurt Vonnegut is home after surviving the firebombing of Dresden. He has ambitions to be a novelist but dares to share them only with his new wife. Kurt struggles to complete college and write while working nights at a newspaper. Soon there's a child on the way. Anxious about supporting his family, Kurt quits school and takes a job in the PR department of General Electric, where his older brother, Bernard, is a leading scientist in what's called the "House of Magic"--GE's Research Lab. Unlike Kurt's, with its stops and starts, Bernard's life had always gone according to plan. With a Ph.D. from MIT, Bernie worked for the military during World War II and afterward joined "the nation's oldest and most renowned industrial research lab." By the time Kurt arrives at GE, Bernie is piling up patents on a series of cutting-edge weather-control technologies meant to make deserts bloom. While Kurt writes press releases by day and labors over short stories by night, Bernard builds silver iodide generators and sends planes to bomb cloud banks with dry ice. These experiments, dubbed Project Cirrus, soon attract the attention of military men--maybe weather will even become "the new super-weapon." But as evidence mounts that Project Cirrus is causing alarming changes in the atmosphere, Bernard begins to have misgivings about the harmful uses of his inventions, and Kurt starts writing a new kind of story depicting scientists grappling with moral questions and with fantastic inventions gone awry. Set against a backdrop of atomic anxiety and the dawn of the digital age, The Brothers Vonnegut is a wild collision of science and literature. Melding biography and cultural history, Ginger Strand uses letters, manuscripts, lab notebooks, and interviews to chronicle how the brothers navigated a world where the possibilities of science seemed infinite--a fascinating story of two ambitious men wrestling with the ethical dilemmas of their age, revealing how the desire to control the natural world shaped one of our most inventive novelists.--Adapted from book jacket.

Length
• 305 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : chapter notes, bibliography, index.

A brilliant take on Kurt Vonnegut’s literary & domestic lives. A must-read for people interested in Kurt’s work & life - & also very interesting documentation on weather as a weapon – we (the US military) were field testing it in Vietnam – which is also touched upon. & GE Labs. & the Cold War. A gratifying read.

 

[southwest88]

Part of the rise of the US

Terrors and marvels : how science and technology changed the character and outcome of World War II / Tom Shachtman, c2002, William Morrow, 940.548 Shac.

Subjects
• World War, 1939-1945 -- Science.
• World War, 1939-1945 -- Technology.
• Science -- History -- 20th century.
• Science -- History -- 20th century.

Length
• viii, 360 pages, [16] pages of plates : chapter notes, selected bibliography, selected oral history interviews, photo credits, index

Why did the Nazis lose WWII? Because Hitler was a much better politician than military leader. The Nazis failed to marshal all their scientific & technological advantages, & made bad decision after bad decision, often for purely ideological bad reasons. They emptied the universities & institutes of non-Aryans, as well as government & the military. Hitler was more interested in racial glory (to give it a name) than in actually winning the war. Fascinating reading, for anyone interested in the technology of WWII, & how that influenced events on the battlefield & in intelligence, manufacturing, transportation.