Grand unified books thread

[Ed Anger]

It is. I had just forgotten how much of a tool McClellan was. And am I the only one who has a hard time disliking Burnside?

Burnside was a decent guy.  He knew he wasn't competent to run the entire army of the Potomac and to his credit tried to avoid the commission.  He wasn't a totally incompetent solider though, and suffered a lot of bad luck.  He did know his strengths and he probably would have served better as a mid ranking military bureaucrat rather then front line commander.

Plus he harassed the Copperheads in Ohio. Good guy.

[Malthus]

It is. I had just forgotten how much of a tool McClellan was. And am I the only one who has a hard time disliking Burnside?

Burnside was a decent guy.  He knew he wasn't competent to run the entire army of the Potomac and to his credit tried to avoid the commission.  He wasn't a totally incompetent solider though, and suffered a lot of bad luck.  He did know his strengths and he probably would have served better as a mid ranking military bureaucrat rather then front line commander.

Plus he harassed the Copperheads in Ohio. Good guy.

And had the most awesome facial hair - evidently a prime pre-requisite for a civil war general. 

[Ed Anger]

At least he didn't John Bell Hood his own army.

WHERES MAH OPIUM?

[Jacob]

So I read the first four books of Game of Thrones. Does the fifth one end the series or is it another mess of unresolved story threads?

[Sheilbh]

So I read the first four books of Game of Thrones. Does the fifth one end the series or is it another mess of unresolved story threads?

I've not read it yet, but read the other four and agree. 

I think the TV series could end up a lot better than the books.  It's like the Harry Potter series, the author's addicted to adding things and developing a world while the TV or film producer has to strip a lot of that out and focus on narrative.  So the last Harry Potter book still had those wonderfully silly names for new things in the world and other slightly oddball wizards, while the films focussed on the road movie narrative and the final battle - strip out the Rowling-fun.

The TV series is very good, if you've not watched it.

[Jacob]

Yeah, it's because of the TV series that I read the books. The show's really good, better than the books IMO. The sometimes tedious description of fantastic wonders is shown, and the acting and direction brings just a little more dimension to the characters as well.

[crazy canuck]

So I read the first four books of Game of Thrones. Does the fifth one end the series or is it another mess of unresolved story threads?

The fifth is as bad or worse than the fourth.  No end in sight and most of the interesting plot lines from the first three books never make it to print.

[FunkMonk]

Read ARSÈNAL – The Making of a Modern Superclub. Very informative and well-written. Goes into the nuts and bolts of the club since the arrival of Wenger (and a little bit prior) and really details the inner workings of the board over the years. Fully recommended to anyone interested in the club or the sport in general.

[sbr]

Just finished Treasure Island for the first time.  My new phone came with a Google Books app and Treasure Island was preloaded on it, I got hooked pretty quick.

[jimmy olsen]

Ah, the good old days.

The opening paragraph of Cruelty and Laughter: Forgotten Comic Literature and the Unsentimental Eighteenth Century

[Gups]

Just finished Treasure Island for the first time.  My new phone came with a Google Books app and Treasure Island was preloaded on it, I got hooked pretty quick.

About two thirds of the way through it, it's the first book I've read on a kindle. Funny that we are using new technology to read a 130 yr old book.

[Josephus]

Finished 11/22/63. Stephen King's best work since the late 80s.

[crazy canuck]

Just finished Treasure Island for the first time.  My new phone came with a Google Books app and Treasure Island was preloaded on it, I got hooked pretty quick.

About two thirds of the way through it, it's the first book I've read on a kindle. Funny that we are using new technology to read a 130 yr old book.

I felt the same way when I read The Three Muskateers but after finishing it I was happy for it because without the new technology and the free give away of classic titles I probably would never had the pleasure of that reading experience.

[Sheilbh]

I felt the same way when I read The Three Muskateers but after finishing it I was happy for it because without the new technology and the free give away of classic titles I probably would never had the pleasure of that reading experience.

It's true.  Though I only read some classics on my Kindle.  There are some which I like to have a proper edition for because I need the notes or think the introduction will be worth it.

Similarly I've not really read many non-fiction books on the Kindle.

[Barrister]

Just finished the Steve Jobs bio.

Man was that man an asshole.  There's just no getting around it.  It's even the question that was put to him by his biographer, and numerous other people - why are you so mean sometimes?  Jobs had no real answer (or insight) - saying either 'it's just who I am', or 'you need to be blunt to get the best out of people'.  He was a man fascinated with zen buddhism and studied it all of his life, but never came remotely close to acheiving that calm buddhist demeanour.

I kind of wish the book had spent more time discussing both his early life and the start of apple.  That felt rushed.  Perhaps because the author felt those areas have been well written about in other books (they have).  But the dicussions of the last five years are so are pretty much common knowledge, with little new insight from the book - or at least to me.

It was also interesting because it makes the point that Jobs vision was the same for pretty much all of his career - the tightly integrated, well designed and beautiful single box.  You can see it in the original Mac, at NeXT, the iMac an onwards (original Apple II was much more Woz designed, but even then there were Jobsian influences on subsequent models).  Very, very few people have that kind of clarity of vision for that length of time.

The writing itself is very matter of fact - it doesn't get in the way, but neither does it make it worth reading if you have little interest in the subject.  It is however very well researched, with hundreds of interviews and of course unique access to Jobs himself (he was extremely protective of his privacy).  If you have an interest in the computer industry then it is worth taking a look at.