Grand unified books thread

[The Brain]

By Force of Arms, about the Austrian army in the Seven Years War

I would be really interested to hear your thoughts on it when you get around to finishing it. I have read Richard Bassett's For God and Kaiser, but it's more an overview of the entirety of Austria's army rather than covering that specific period.

Sure thing!

Have you read Instrument of War? I'm likely to read that one before By Force of Arms.

I'm reading For God and Kaiser right now, as a general introduction to things Austrian and military.

[Habbaku]

Negative, but if it's worth a damn I'll throw it on the list.

[Savonarola]

John Henry Newman - Apologia Pro Vita Sua

I had read a book about British political thought  in the 19th century  last year.  One of the vignettes concerned Cardinal Newman; which seemed a strange person to put in a book on political thought.  After reading this I can see the author's point.  The Oxford movement began, in part, as a reaction to the Whig parliament; their restructuring of the Church of Ireland and the Tractarian's fear that the Whig's would appoint liberal () bishops.  It was also a University Politics type political movement; conservatism had been the dominant philosophy at Oxford in the wake of the French Revolution, but by the 1830's liberalism was coming into favor.  In addition, even though the Catholic emancipation had happened 30 years prior, there was still a widespread feeling that the Catholics were up to something.  (This view is lampooned in George Elliot's "The Mill on the Floss," but treated with complete earnestness in Charlotte Brontë's books, notably "Villette.")  This book did a great deal to change, or at least start changing, those views.

I doubt the subject matter would be of interest to much of Languish, but the prose is simply gorgeous.  The Penguin edition of the book contains not only the complete work, but the attack on Newman and his writings by Charles Kingsley which led to the Apologia.  That reads much like a Languish argument.

[Scipio]

Rereading The Sun Also Rises.

I thought Gatsby's friends were bad, but holy shit. I forgot how much Bill, Mike, and rest really hate Jews in that earnest, Lost-Generation way.

[Admiral Yi]

Went to Barnes and Nobles today to pick up some pool reading for my Montreal trip.  They only had one Raymond Chandler that I hadn't read, so I got that and grabbed two Scandiweenian detective novels.  NYT Book Review makes them seem like all the rage. One is "Gone" by Mo Hayder and the other is "The Bat" by Jo Nesbo. 

[Kleves]

Mo Hayder is British. 

[Syt]

My apartment building has a ledge at the entrance gate to the inner yard. People often leave their old books there for other inhabitants to pick up.

Someone left Leonhard Cohen's Beautiful Losers there. Alas, it was in German translation instead of English.

When I put in my earbuds on my way to work, Spotify randomly played his "I'm Your Man" right afterwards.

[jimmy olsen]

Went to Barnes and Nobles today to pick up some pool reading for my Montreal trip.  They only had one Raymond Chandler that I hadn't read, so I got that and grabbed two Scandiweenian detective novels.  NYT Book Review makes them seem like all the rage. One is "Gone" by Mo Hayder and the other is "The Bat" by Jo Nesbo.

Barnes and Nobles still exists!?

[Ed Anger]

Shockingly, printed books still exist!

[CountDeMoney]

Shockingly, printed books still exist!

I refer to them as Soviet-era analog technology.

[11B4V]

Reading

Butler's Rangers: Three Accounts of the American War of Independence

[Admiral Yi]

Mo Hayder is British. 

That explains why it was less shitty than the Nesbo book.  That one was pulpy trash.

[Ed Anger]

I can't believe I bought a Gettysburg book. Might as well buy a battle of the bulge and a Stalingrad one too to complete the overdone trifecta.

[Admiral Yi]

I've only read one Stalingrad book that I can think of right now.  The Beevor one, which was excellent.  I got cold reading it.

[garbon]

A friend just messaged me that progress has finally caught up with my favorite second hand bookstore in SF and they are going to be closing. Goodbye, Aardvark Books! Without you I'd never have had to create a personal rule that I'm not allowed to buy more than 3-4 books at a given time.