What book is on your nightstand? Readers!

[JohnSand]

The Boys in the Boat.
My old partner highly recommended it, he wasn't wrong. It far surpasses the movie.

 

[Snuffy]

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" - Robert Heinlein

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" - Robert Heinlein

Good one!

Are you already a Heinlein fan, or is this your first foray?

 

[Snuffy]

Good one!

Are you already a Heinlein fan, or is this your first foray?

I was a voracious sci-fi reader when I was in highschool. I Asimov, Piers Anthony, Ray Bradbury, PK Dick, Walter Tevis, Arthur C Clark.. My son left this one when he was here last. I think it's one of the few of Heinlien's I haven't read. Or if I did, I've forgotten it.

 

[bleme]

Wild Tulare County: Outlaws,... https://www.amazon.com/dp/1609495098?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

 

[sdbbp]

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Surreal, but soothing parts.

I read her Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell some years ago and liked it. Nerdy with many footnotes, if I recall.

 

[Rish]

Into Enemy Waters by Andrew Dubbins. I've read a number of books on WWII in the Pacific but don't recall any that gave mention of the Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs), the Navy teams that eventually became the SEAL teams. This is a very interesting account of groups of frogmen that went to Japanese held islands to gather recon for the landings that would follow. They sometimes left signs for the Marines coming ashore to let them know the UDTs got there first. Great read.

 

[HighlandTap]

Shortest History of Europe & Louis Armstrong’s Satchmo auto bio of his Storyville era days in Nola. I highly recommend the Europe book, it explains how so many customs and cultural norms in Western society (as far back as Ancient Greece) came into being, and how they effect our lives to this day. So many “ah ha” moments about simple things that never occurred to me to wonder how they came to be.

 

[sdbbp]

This post in this thread reminds me that on my nightstand is a collection of essays by David Foster Wallace including "Authority and American Usage". I'm not done reading that 62-page essay. But being neither a writer nor a linguist, it's a great nerding out on, of all things, dictionaries. Read it just for the heavy footnoted structure.

 

[HBT_Admin]

I will be starting Who Built the Moon by Christopher Knight this evening.

I like conspiracies. They can be fun.

 

[estricklin]

Been reading a lot of WW2 stuff lately. Started with "The Good Shepard" by C.S. Forester. That sort of led me to this one, I never thought I would be so interested in naval combat.

After that I read PT 105 by Dick Keresey. Currently reading "From Here to Eternity" by James Jones. When I was a kid my parents had the 1979 6 hour mini series adaptation of this book on VHS, it looks pretty difficult to find now. I have yet to see the 1953 movie.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

If you're ever in Chicago, they have U-505 at the Museum of Science & Industry. Cool exhibit.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I read Steel Boat, Iron Hearts. Very interesting book, but Goebeler seemed to excuse the military men who served Hitler's regime. I felt it boiled down to "only following orders," like that made everything okay. They knew what they were supporting. They saw Jews and other "undesirables" being beaten in the streets and hauled away, and they knew about the mass murders. Love of country doesn't justify fighting for a regime like that. Resistance to the Nazis in Germany and Austria was unpopular and weak.

Germany and Austria were pretty remarkable places back then. The day before the Nazis surrendered, Germany and Austria were full of Nazis. The day after, not only were there no Nazis...there had never been any!

Now Germany works hard to treat Israel well.

 

[oakbarn]

I decided to read "Steel Boats, Iron Hearts". The above comments remind me somewhat of the museum in Hiroshima. It was mostly about how Japan was the "victim". Off in a far corner of the park there was supposed to be a small memorial for the Korean "comfort women". I could not find it. Also the population in Gaza celebrating on Oct 8. Dancing in the street and serving sweets.

Jews and Arabs lived side by side up until the 1930s when the Mufti of Jersuleum decided that Hitler was right. That resulted in todays problem.

I also picked up "The Testament" by John Grisham. Looking forward to reading both.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

The Japanese were much more cruel than the Germans, which is saying a great deal. There was the Rape of Nanking, and also, they routinely used captured Allied servicemen for sword practice. You could never make an accurate movie about the Japanese POW camps, because it would be impossible to find actors who would be willing to drop down to 85 pounds, and most of them would have to be nearly naked. And the Japanese have sanitized their past, so the young ones don't know what happened.

The Chinese and Koreans remember, though.

 

[mac_1103]

Jews and Arabs lived side by side up until the 1930s when the Mufti of Jersuleum decided that Hitler was right. That resulted in todays problem.

Westerners have been screwing up the middle east a lot longer than that. Read Lawrence in Arabia for example. Almost every geopolitical problem of the modern world can be traced to the British empire one way or another.

the Japanese have sanitized their past

Doesn't everybody sanitize their past?

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

No.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

This isn't the debate forum, folks.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Just finished Neal Stephenson's latest, Polostan.

Apparently it's book 1 of what I *think* is slated to only be a two-book series. Either way, it's pretty good standalone. The story finishes like any good book with a sequel coming; it's wrapped up the main story nicely but leaves you wanting the next one.

Recommended.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

This isn't the debate forum, folks.

Sorry. You're right. This is Being Hit on the Head Lessons.

 

[Willy]

@mac_1103
Doesn't everybody sanitize their past?

Yes. With starsan, bleach and oxyclean followed by a heated saltwater bath with PBW. Followed by more starsan. That is why history is clean.

 

[oakbarn]

Deep into "Steel Boat, Iron Hearts". Interesting book. I did not get the the same vibe that "just following orders". It is a first hand story by someone who was proud of his elite service and from a view point from a crewmember.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Finished Sinclair Lewis' 1935 book, It Can't Happen Here. Not going to say any more about it since we're not in the debate thread, and of course, it's not like it could ever happen here...

 

[Snuffy]

"The Ginger Man" - JP Donleavy

 

[Brockness Monster]

"The Black Company" series by Glen Cook. Specifically, on "The White Rose" right now

 

[bkboiler]

Ha, old throwback from the library $1 sale....
The Company by Robert Littell
Good ol CIA book. Writing seems pretty good...is first fiction book I've read in a while...nice to read a good story and not something that requires me to stare at an equation for several minutes trying to figure it out

 

[estricklin]

I decided to read "Steel Boats, Iron Hearts". The above comments remind me somewhat of the museum in Hiroshima. It was mostly about how Japan was the "victim". Off in a far corner of the park there was supposed to be a small memorial for the Korean "comfort women". I could not find it. Also the population in Gaza celebrating on Oct 8. Dancing in the street and serving sweets.

Jews and Arabs lived side by side up until the 1930s when the Mufti of Jersuleum decided that Hitler was right. That resulted in todays problem.

I also picked up "The Testament" by John Grisham. Looking forward to reading both.

I read the Testament back when it was in hard back only, not my favorite Josh Grisham book, but certainly not as bad as Camino Island. I remember reading a lot of John Grisham in the late 90s, really enjoyed his writing as a teenager. I remember reading The Client and my parents rented the VHS, that was when I first learned that books get butchered when they hit the screen. When I read The Chamber, I learned sometimes you can't trust the hype haha. A Time to Kill is still top notch in my mind, and a good Grisham book you may have missed is Rouge Lawyer.

 

[agentbud]

Free Book. Aug 21-25 Only... 3 years ago I wrote a book, mostly just because I wanted to say I did. Think D&D with lots of beer. I was pretty happy with it but as I started to work on book 2, I developed a new writing style that I was much happier with. So, I took a break from book 2 and completely rewrote book 1. Same story, just different writing style. To celebrate the completion of that endeavor, I am giving it away for free. From Aug 21-25, The Lich of Thandorien will be 100% free to anyone who wants it. Available through Amazon at the below link. Feel free to share this link.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PNTKYX9

*** I only ask for 2 things in return: ***
1) If you find the book is not your cup of tea, try and make it through at least 5 chapters before giving up.
2) If you finish it and enjoy it, please leave a review on Amazon.

Thanks...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PNTKYX9

***

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Just finished a Jeffrey Deaver novel “The Skin Collector “.

 

[sibelman]

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson offers a view into the struggles of native peoples in the U.S., particularly the Dakota. Fine writing and storytelling.

 

[Airborneguy]

The Dawn of Everything A New History of Humanity

David Graeber & David Wengrow

 

[Broothru]

I recently read Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. I've been familiar with Klein for many years going back to my blogging days, and always found him a very smart and thoughtful writer, even if we didn't always agree politically.

I don't want to debate politics, so if you want to go that route, please do not respond. I personally am of a largely libertarian bent. For some, that means a jerk who wants the government to stay away so they can do despicable things. For others--like me--that's someone with broadly liberal values who sees all the ways that liberal government has failed to live up to--or even thrown up roadblocks in front of--those values. One of the guys from Reason once said "Ezra Klein will die a libertarian", because he thought Klein would see that what he wanted was unachievable via the methods [gov't] he believed necessary to achieve them.

Preamble aside, that's essentially what this book is. It's a book written by liberals, for liberals, explaining why liberalism is actually failing to result in--liberalism. He's not speaking to conservatives or anyone that doesn't share those liberal values. He's speaking to liberals explaining why and how their ideals actually resulted in building a government that can't fulfill those ideals. How we've spent so much time trying to make sure that everything we do is done "right" that we end up doing... Nothing at all.

The intro to the book states this:



Essentially he looks at this through multiple areas (the first word is the chapter title):

1. Grow - Looking at things like housing stock, affordable housing, etc. Dealing with things like NIMBYism, zoning regulations, and all the other entrenched ways in which we prevent building housing, which [naturally] means that we have no chance of housing being affordable because it's supply-constrained.
2. Build - Looking at things like infrastructure spending, high speed rail, green energy, etc. How projects get tied up in mountains upon mountains of red tape, environmental impact reviews, etc. How every regulation--though well meaning--means that everything we try to build is slower and more expensive than it "should be", if it gets built at all.
3. Govern - Looking at the ways that government--often in a well-meaning way to avoid repeated past problems--stops progress. And how the incentives are reversed... If you are in government and you have the opportunity greenlight 99 successful projects and 1 screwup, well it might be better to greenlight nothing because you don't want that screwup.
4. Invent - Looking at things like the NIH and NSF. Largely that these are the government agencies that are supposed to be advancing health and science, but that they are largely SO worried about being called wasteful that they greenlight grants for the most milquetoast ideas unlikely to fail but unlikely to truly advance the science, and avoid the big ideas that are high-risk, high-reward. It largely centers around the scientist who decades ago had some funky ideas about the opportunities of mRNA but was getting absolutely no traction because everyone was focused on DNA and "the establishment" largely thought mRNA was a dead end. But it also highlights that the structure of DARPA is the opposite of NIH/NSF--they empower their "project managers" to take on risky, big idea, projects. And as a result, DARPA has had a pretty significant hit rate on developing real things that have changed the world... Like the internet that we're communicating through right now.
5. Deploy - Largely looks at the "Eureka myth" and gets into the nitty gritty about deployment of new ideas is an area that the US falls behind. An example is solar... It was invented in the US, but into the 1980s the funding on development was gutted and abandoned by the US, and where we could have been world leaders, we're laggers. And makes examples of many other areas where doing something overseas is just easier, because we don't get out of the way. But then it uses a counterexample--Operation Warp Speed. Where suddenly you decide to bypass all the BS, and lo and behold, America actually still DOES know how to get something done when you let it [and support it $$]!

In the final summary chapter, they also touch on the "degrowth agenda"--the idea that you tell Americans that the answer to scarcity is to reduce consumption, reduce energy usage, and generally to accept a lower material standard of living. That not only is this a political loser, but that ultimately the story of history is that invention creates abundance. That some of the scarcity we experience today is not due to limited resources, it's due to a lack of invention that allows a greater standard of living based on the resources we already have--including the energy output of the sun that we can harness without doing things like burning fossil fuels and adding CO2 into the atmosphere.

Ultimately, the message is that we can achieve a world better than we have today, something that it seems was once the soul of liberalism. But that it's the tying down the engine of abundance (building/inventing/deploying), usually by well-meaning people for well-meaning reasons, that keeps us from getting there. And that the idea of a "degrowth agenda" is going to fail because you can't tell voters to want something they don't want. You have to articulate how you're going to build something they do want. And what they want is Abundance.

That's a long way of saying that this is a political book, written by a liberal for liberals, that was highly enjoyed by this libertarian.

Sounds like something I should read.

Recently I become increasingly weary of Bill Maher’s brand of political comedy and commentary. To my sensibilities, he’s become the poster child of the maxim:

If you’re young and aren’t a Liberal, you have no heart. If you’re old and not Conservative, you have no brain.”

In other words, the guy who produced humor from a leftist POV was becoming an aging stick in the mud, professing opinions like “liberals are fundamentally wrong and are losers” to “I changed my mind about Trump being a bad guy, ‘cause he was nice and invited me to the White House.”

But I’m beginning to see a ray of Libertarianism beginning to shine through the funny man facade. I, too find my liberalism aging into a ‘practical’ libertarian, not of the Ayn Rand ilk, but one who is wary of unbridled capitalism and find that (in theory words of Jefferson) that “the Government that governs least, governs best.”

Party politics is not finding workable solutions, and yet a central government is needed to provide a structure for functioning civilization. The alternative would be Mad Max in the Thunder Dome.

There’s a unicorn somewhere out there. We need to find it fast.

 

[passedpawn]

Well written book. Tells 3 tales: Rudolf Diesel, who would be found dead in the english channel, Kaiser Whilhelm II of Germany, and John D Rockefeller.

You will like this one.

https://a.co/d/iEa8XhY

 

[passedpawn]

^^ (the above image suggests I have the audio version. I'm reading the hardback. It has a lot of very nice glossy pics of subjects and locations. If you like that sort of thing, you need the material version.

 

[passedpawn]

Deleted post. said too much!

 

[Airborneguy]

Free Book. Aug 21-25 Only... 3 years ago I wrote a book, mostly just because I wanted to say I did. Think D&D with lots of beer. I was pretty happy with it but as I started to work on book 2, I developed a new writing style that I was much happier with. So, I took a break from book 2 and completely rewrote book 1. Same story, just different writing style. To celebrate the completion of that endeavor, I am giving it away for free. From Aug 21-25, The Lich of Thandorien will be 100% free to anyone who wants it. Available through Amazon at the below link. Feel free to share this link.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PNTKYX9

*** I only ask for 2 things in return: ***
1) If you find the book is not your cup of tea, try and make it through at least 5 chapters before giving up.
2) If you finish it and enjoy it, please leave a review on Amazon.

Thanks...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PNTKYX9
View attachment 882607
***

Nice! I’m a big D&D nerd as well. I’m working on a small book of random encounter tables. I’ve previously published articles and adventures in a 1e fanzine, Flipping & Turning.

 

[agentbud]

Very cool. I have seen your website you listed in a different post. Good stuff. I haven't actually been able to play in years but back in the day, our group got pretty nerdy with it - we strictly played first edition only but wrote a bunch of VB apps to automate alot of the processes (randoms, pc sheets, treasure, etc etc)

 

[agentbud]

Free Book. Aug 21-25 Only... 3 years ago I wrote a book, mostly just because I wanted to say I did. Think D&D with lots of beer. I was pretty happy with it but as I started to work on book 2, I developed a new writing style that I was much happier with. So, I took a break from book 2 and completely rewrote book 1. Same story, just different writing style. To celebrate the completion of that endeavor, I am giving it away for free. From Aug 21-25, The Lich of Thandorien will be 100% free to anyone who wants it. Available through Amazon at the below link. Feel free to share this link.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PNTKYX9

*** I only ask for 2 things in return: ***
1) If you find the book is not your cup of tea, try and make it through at least 5 chapters before giving up.
2) If you finish it and enjoy it, please leave a review on Amazon.

Thanks...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PNTKYX9
View attachment 882607
***

Just a reminder - free book offer ends tomorrow, Aug 25, at midnight.

 

[JC Mendyka]

 

[Snuffy]

"Mockingbird" - Walter Tevis