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Grand unified books thread

Started by Syt, March 16, 2009, 01:52:42 AM

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Barrister

#5130
January 14, 2025, 06:17:55 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 14, 2025, 02:41:47 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on January 09, 2025, 03:05:24 PMI really enjoyed that.

I has made me feel I could possibly enjoy an O'Brien book and get through the pages of naval terminology :ph34r:

Read volume II first.  Almost all set on land.

Personally I thought the jargon that had to do with direction of the wind relative to the ship and adversary important  because it aided understanding of Aubrey's decision making. Sailing by and large, reaching, etc. Jargon relating to ship furniture, I don't care what a  euphroe is.

O'Brien was reasonably smart about it - he had Maturin as (amongst other roles) as the reader's stand-in, so many nautical details would thus be explained both to Maturin and to us.  So certainly important details as to the course of the battle would be made clear.  But all the talk of the rigging (which no doubt would be of key importance to the captain) really is nothing more than background information.

I enjoy Volume 2 (Post Captain) in part precisely because it's largely set on land, and in fact sets up a lot of the personal drama that will wind up being important for the remaining 18 books - but let's also be clear a lot of the fun of the books is the swashbuckling action scenes too.  Post Captain is a Jane Austen novel set from the male perspective for the most part.
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

Sheilbh

#5131
January 15, 2025, 11:25:44 AM
So tracking books I've read this year.

Finally finished The Catholic School by Edoardo Albinati. The black hole at the heart of this book is the kidnapping and rape of two working class girls and the murder of one of them by three privileged boys who attended the same prestigious private Catholic school as the author. This story is almost literally in the middle of the 1,200+ page novel. The rest is almost essayistic examinations of Italian society: that Catholic school, that neighbourhood in Rome, the bourgeois society the boys came from, fascism, the Years of Lead, Italian society (especially patriarchy) more generally, criminality. I think, though, it's less than the sum of its parts - the essayistic chapters and the auto-fiction don't really cohere. You can see what the book is trying to do (and I am someone who is really interested in post-war Italy), there's moments where I felt there was a real flash of insight but I don't think it worked and in a way I think it was overwhelmed by the scale of the crime its about and how you approach that as a novelist and how Albinati attempts to "interpret" it.

Nathaiel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton. Frankly a bit pointless, very light history of early days of the East India Company and its competition with the Dutch for spices. But I don't think there's a central story told well, or much analysis. It's only 20 years old but shows its age. And ultimately it's hard to think that the story its telling particularly matters. I have another Milton book on my shelves which I might take to the charity shop because I don't think he's for me.
Let's bomb Russia!

Sheilbh

#5132
January 18, 2025, 03:56:03 PM
About half-way through the Booker list and just finished Claire Messud's This Strange Eventful History which was fantastic. So far my favourite, also liked Percival Everett's James and Hisham Matar's My Friends. It starts about the French family, in June 1940, the kids and wife having got back home to Algeria while the father, naval attache in Thessaloniki/Salonica. It then follows that family over the next seventy years, each part skipping forward ten years as they all move through the world and world moves around them. In a way a novel about a world that no longer exists even as it's moving closer to us - but at heart just brilliantly observed characters and the dense layers of love (mostly) in a family.

I enjoyed the winner, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, but not my favourite. So far though, sadly not a great list.
Let's bomb Russia!

Admiral Yi

#5133
January 21, 2025, 06:49:21 PM
I reread Stilwell and the American Experience in China and learned on of Barbara Tuchman's uncles was Henry Morgenthau.

Sheilbh

#5134
January 22, 2025, 04:23:52 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 21, 2025, 06:49:21 PMI reread Stilwell and the American Experience in China and learned on of Barbara Tuchman's uncles was Henry Morgenthau.
On my shelf - possibly also worth reading Jay Taylor's The Generalissimo which is very good and drawn from far more Chinese sources (which wouldn't have been available to Tuchman).
Let's bomb Russia!

Habbaku

#5135
January 22, 2025, 09:42:44 AM
I highly recommend Taylor's book, especially because it provides a significant amount of the Chinese perspective as to how awful Stilwell was.
The medievals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers.

Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people.
-J. R. R. Tolkien

Syt

#5136
January 25, 2025, 07:38:16 AM
Humble Bundle has a collection of sports books: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/sports-trailblazers-legends-who-changed-game-books

  • Home Run King: The Remarkable Record Of Hank Aaron
  • Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story Of Ted Williams And The Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II
  • Fall From Grace: The Truth And Tragedy Of "Shoeless Joe" Jackson
  • Banned: How I Squandered An All-Star NBA Career Before Finding My Redemption (Sugar Ray Richardson)
  • Baseball Gaijin: Chasing A Dream To Japan And Back (Aaron Fishman)
  • Champions Of The Octagon: One-On-One With MMA And UFC Greats
  • Tomlin: The Soul Of A Football Coach
  • Slobberknocker: My Life In Wrestling (Jim Ross)
  • From Gold Teeth To Gold Jacket: My Life In Football And Business (Edgerrin James)
  • Beneath The Surface: My Story (Michael Phelps)
  • Dusty: Reflections Of Wrestling's American Dream (Dusty Rhodes)
  • Understanding The Golf Swing
  • Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud (Joe Pepitone)
  • Shohei Ohtani: The Amazing Story Of Baseball's Two-Way Japanese Superstar
  • Warren Spahn: A Biography Of The Legendary Lefty
  • Major Taylor: The Inspiring Story Of A Black Cyclist And The Men Who Helped Him Achieve Worldwide Fame
  • Blood In My Coffee: The Life Of The Fight Doctor
  • Drama In The Bahamas: Muhammad Ali's Last Fight
  • Yankees 1936-39, Baseball's Greatest Dynasty: Lou Gehrig, Joe Dimaggio And The Birth Of A New Era
  • Terry Funk: More Than Just Hardcore
  • Don Shula: A Biography Of The Winningest Coach In NFL History
  • Turning The Black Sox White: The Misunderstood Legacy Of Charles A. Comiskey
  • Bad News: The Turbulent Life Of Marvin Barnes, Pro Basketball's Original Renegade
  • Larry Doby In Black And White: The Story Of A Baseball Pioneer
  • Red Holzman: The Life And Legacy Of A Hall Of Fame Basketball Coach

Might be of interest to some. (epub and mobi files)
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Barrister

#5137
January 28, 2025, 12:20:38 PM
Quote from: Syt on January 25, 2025, 07:38:16 AMHumble Bundle has a collection of sports books: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/sports-trailblazers-legends-who-changed-game-books

  • Home Run King: The Remarkable Record Of Hank Aaron
  • Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story Of Ted Williams And The Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II
  • Fall From Grace: The Truth And Tragedy Of "Shoeless Joe" Jackson
  • Banned: How I Squandered An All-Star NBA Career Before Finding My Redemption (Sugar Ray Richardson)
  • Baseball Gaijin: Chasing A Dream To Japan And Back (Aaron Fishman)
  • Champions Of The Octagon: One-On-One With MMA And UFC Greats
  • Tomlin: The Soul Of A Football Coach
  • Slobberknocker: My Life In Wrestling (Jim Ross)
  • From Gold Teeth To Gold Jacket: My Life In Football And Business (Edgerrin James)
  • Beneath The Surface: My Story (Michael Phelps)
  • Dusty: Reflections Of Wrestling's American Dream (Dusty Rhodes)
  • Understanding The Golf Swing
  • Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud (Joe Pepitone)
  • Shohei Ohtani: The Amazing Story Of Baseball's Two-Way Japanese Superstar
  • Warren Spahn: A Biography Of The Legendary Lefty
  • Major Taylor: The Inspiring Story Of A Black Cyclist And The Men Who Helped Him Achieve Worldwide Fame
  • Blood In My Coffee: The Life Of The Fight Doctor
  • Drama In The Bahamas: Muhammad Ali's Last Fight
  • Yankees 1936-39, Baseball's Greatest Dynasty: Lou Gehrig, Joe Dimaggio And The Birth Of A New Era
  • Terry Funk: More Than Just Hardcore
  • Don Shula: A Biography Of The Winningest Coach In NFL History
  • Turning The Black Sox White: The Misunderstood Legacy Of Charles A. Comiskey
  • Bad News: The Turbulent Life Of Marvin Barnes, Pro Basketball's Original Renegade
  • Larry Doby In Black And White: The Story Of A Baseball Pioneer
  • Red Holzman: The Life And Legacy Of A Hall Of Fame Basketball Coach

Might be of interest to some. (epub and mobi files)

I count three books about pro wrestling, and none about hockey?

It's not like there's a shortage of books about hockey.
 
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

grumbler

#5138
January 28, 2025, 12:33:14 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 28, 2025, 12:20:38 PMI count three books about pro wrestling, and none about hockey?

It's not like there's a shortage of books about hockey.

Probably because most hockey fans are illiterate.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Barrister

#5139
January 28, 2025, 12:52:23 PM
Quote from: grumbler on January 28, 2025, 12:33:14 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 28, 2025, 12:20:38 PMI count three books about pro wrestling, and none about hockey?

It's not like there's a shortage of books about hockey.

Probably because most hockey fans are illiterate.

And pro wrestling fans are voracious readers? :lol:


(to be fair, I've read a couple of really good wrestling books over the years.  But also some really good hockey books)
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

Syt

#5140
January 28, 2025, 01:14:19 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 28, 2025, 12:20:38 PMI count three books about pro wrestling, and none about hockey?

It's not like there's a shortage of books about hockey.
 

Plenty baseball, though. :P
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

The Minsky Moment

#5141
January 28, 2025, 01:15:34 PM
Quote from: Syt on January 25, 2025, 07:38:16 AMHumble Bundle has a collection of sports books: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/sports-trailblazers-legends-who-changed-game-books

  • Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud (Joe Pepitone)

Almost tempted to get it just to confirm this book truly exists.
The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
--Joan Robinson

Valmy

#5142
January 28, 2025, 01:32:48 PM
What was so trailblazing about Joe Pepitone? A Yankee who failed to win the World Series? Though even then he might have been on one of those early 60s teams who did.

QuoteTomlin: The Soul Of A Football Coach

How to do just enough every year to not be fired but no more.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

Barrister

#5143
January 28, 2025, 01:37:45 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 28, 2025, 01:32:48 PMWhat was so trailblazing about Joe Pepitone? A Yankee who failed to win the World Series? Though even then he might have been on one of those early 60s teams who did.

QuoteTomlin: The Soul Of A Football Coach

How to do just enough every year to not be fired but no more.

I've never heard of the guy so I googled - Rolling Stone called it "The best baseball book you've never read".

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-sports/joe-you-coulda-made-us-proud-the-best-baseball-book-youve-never-read-184869/

Which I guess is what Joan is talking about - published in 1975, out of print for decades.
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

Valmy

#5144
January 28, 2025, 01:40:01 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 28, 2025, 01:37:45 PMI've never heard of the guy so I googled - Rolling Stone called it "The best baseball book you've never read".

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-sports/joe-you-coulda-made-us-proud-the-best-baseball-book-youve-never-read-184869/

Which I guess is what Joan is talking about - published in 1975, out of print for decades.

Ah ok. It is a famous yet elusive book.

I had heard of him. A famous Yankee from one of their flop eras. Like Mattingly and his sideburns.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."
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