Grand unified books thread

[The Brain]

Ah, the C'ucks.

[11B4V]

Anyone read this.

[Ed Anger]

Read Beevor's D-Day book. Some nice Monty bashing in it. 

The only D Day book I can remember reading is The Longest Day. All others have been on operations after the landings. Like Danglish's books on Goodwood and others about the Canucks.

Beevor's goes to the Liberation of Paris.

[Capetan Mihali]

It was a set text in the Pentagon I think during the Iraq War.

Alastair Horne's done a series of excellent books on French conflicts: Price of Glory on Verdun, Fall of Paris on the Siege and the Commune and To Lose a Battle on 1940. Not read a bad one yet. And he's Harold MacMillan's official biographer so I think his off-the-record knowledge of a (highly partial) insider in the 40s-60s is probably a really interesting informing factor in those books.

I forgot to mention this earlier: of the three, I've only read The Fall of Paris (which I bought and spilled red wine over just 24 hours or so short of the Paris shootings, making for some awkward bus reading), and enjoyed it greatly.

It is very much a persona-driven type of history book, taking a close look at the individual characteristics Prussian leaders and different Parisian deputues as it spins its narrative.  I think including the perspective of a few expatriate Britons, stranded or remaining voluntarily in Paris, as conveyed in their letters back home throughout 1870-71 was a real strength of the book, even though it might seem kind of parochial in the abstract. 

Speaking of which, there's bit of a British "common-sense" chastising of those hotheaded, vindictive Frenchmen that occasionally strikes a condescending note, especially when "national character" enters the discussion.  There is also a very pronounced hostility towards Marx/Marxism that is sometimes very well-founded, sometimes less so.

Overall, it was a very fast-paced and engaging read that gave me some much-needed insight into a topic that I should have known much more about than I did.  Military history buffs who've already read up on the Franco-Prussian War or social historians who are already knowledgeable about the Commune will probably not get much out of it, but for a novice like me it was a great introduction to both topics (the war and the Commune).

[Savonarola]

I finished re-reading Philip K. Dick's Flow My Tears The Policeman Said.  I had read it several years ago to try to get a better understanding of "Waking Life" which references.  It didn't help with that, but it's still a good story. 

Funniest view of the dystopian future:  Richard Nixon has been deified (obviously borrowed from Brave New World, but Nixon is an even funnier choice than Ford/Freud.)
Most prescient view of the dystopian future:  Recreational drugs are legal, but cigarettes are rationed.

[Malthus]

Currently reading The Steel Bonnets: the Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers by G. MacDonald Fraser.

A place and time that sounds so grim and unpleasant as to be almost funny. The border was, apparently, for a couple of centuries a cesspit of mafia-like violence, raiding, rape, murder and blackmail - a sort of lawless zone, sometimes encouraged by England and Scotland, sometimes suppressed - that developed its own twisted, nasty and brutal culture (later much romanticized) as a result of constant border clashes. People in that area learned that violence paid more than making stuff; they lived in temporary shacks (or stone towers) because anything permanent but flammable got burned down by raiders; they lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle, always wary of raiders come to kidnap and steal. Sort of like a 16th century Mad Max. 

At one point, he discusses how the various place names themselves conjure up sinister imagery (Bloody Bush, Foul-Play Know, Oh Me Edge, Blackhaggs, etc.). The cast of historic characters more than matches that imagery!

Interesting, too, that so many of the famous family names from the bloody border regions are later found prominently in North America - he mentions how, in a presidential campaign, President Nixon was holding a press conference with Johnston and Billy Graham: all three last names are famous borderer names (Nixon, Johnston, Graham).

[Habbaku]

I loved that book, myself.  GMF did some great history alongside his Flashman series as well.   

[Malthus]

I loved that book, myself.  GMF did some great history alongside his Flashman series as well.   

Yup; I'm a big Flashman fan, and I also loved his WW2 autobiography Quartered Safe Out Here, and his "McAuslan" short stories too. For some reason I never tracked down his Steel Bonnets - I'm repairing that omission now. 

[Pedrito]

Anyone here ever read anything by Thomas Ligotti?

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race is told to be an interesting read.

L.

[Malthus]

Anyone here ever read anything by Thomas Ligotti?

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race is told to be an interesting read.

L.

No, but I heard that The Conspiracy Against the Human Race was a major influence on the series True Detective, which I saw and enjoyed. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Interesting, too, that so many of the famous family names from the bloody border regions are later found prominently in North America - he mentions how, in a presidential campaign, President Nixon was holding a press conference with Johnston and Billy Graham: all three last names are famous borderer names (Nixon, Johnston, Graham).

The colonial frontier and Appalachian regions were populated by lots of folk from that region; the guy that wrote Albion's Seed argued that it shaped political culture up to the present day.

Main thing I recall from the US histories of the region was the repeated legislation banning eye gouging which was apparently a very common practice.

[Capetan Mihali]

Mainly for Oex, but my aunt got me a very belated Amazon gift card and this is what came in the mail today:

[CountDeMoney]

Nothing like some Schmitt to debunk the "CM is an antisemite" myth. 

[Capetan Mihali]

  Considering he comes right after Heidegger in terms of philosophical/jurisprudential influence... not to mention the extensive of L-F Céline and Ernst Jünger collection residing on the fiction-end of the bookshelf, I guess I'not m doing myself any favors.  

Plus a biography of Robert Brasillach, the only French collabo to be executed (rather controversially, even at the peak of the épuration légale) for "intellectual crimes," with no allegation that he collaborated in any political or military fashion.

Hell, look at the book on the left in the particular; maybe I'll get a rep as anti-Mason as well as anti-Jew, and wind upbelieving Dreyfus was truly guilty of treason towards France.

[Malthus]

Interesting, too, that so many of the famous family names from the bloody border regions are later found prominently in North America - he mentions how, in a presidential campaign, President Nixon was holding a press conference with Johnston and Billy Graham: all three last names are famous borderer names (Nixon, Johnston, Graham).

The colonial frontier and Appalachian regions were populated by lots of folk from that region; the guy that wrote Albion's Seed argued that it shaped political culture up to the present day.

Main thing I recall from the US histories of the region was the repeated legislation banning eye gouging which was apparently a very common practice.

Heh why is that not surprising? 

Though to read this book, it sounds like the Anglo-Scottish border made the colonial frontier look like kindergarten.