Grand unified books thread

[The Brain]

Finished The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774: Catherine II and the Ottoman Empire, by Davies. It does a decent but maybe not very inspiring job describing the background, course, and aftermath of the war. It's certainly nice that it highlights a conflict that isn't very well known in the West. While I'm not a map fanatic, it could have used some more maps. There is only one map (of the peace settlement), and no maps of the main campaigns or similar. The basic geography of parts of the region is certainly a lot more well known in the West today because of the current war, but for an era when household names like Odessa or Sevastopol didn't yet exist, and political borders were very different than today, maps are helpful.

[Admiral Yi]

I think one of the very last SPI games I played was on that war.  Flying column in the mountain passes, jah?

[The Brain]

I think one of the very last SPI games I played was on that war.  Flying column in the mountain passes, jah?

Sounds plausible.

[Malthus]

Reading (well, re-reading after many years) The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, an autobiographical account by a fellow who, in the early 20th century, specialized in hunting down Tigers and leopards that turned to eating humans.

It's a really gripping read (no pun intended). Interestingly, it is only occasionally that these animals take to eating people. According to the author, tigers mostly take to eating people when they get too old or injured to catch their usual prey, while leopards often take to eating people because they get habituated to scavenging human flesh during epidemics, then hunt people by preference.

Apparently, of the two, leopards are the more terrifying - they come at night and even break into people's houses to get at them, and are very clever at it. True horror movie stuff.

The author has a sort of dry humour about his gruesome subject which is very entertaining.

[Sheilbh]

Strong recommend for Six Seasons.

Not sure where I heard about it but it really is an excellent veg cookbook - tried a few things now and all pretty simple and very good. It's season by season which I find really helpful as I love the idea of eating more seasonally but have zero concept of what's good when (except for asparagus ) so this is helpful.

But worth a look

[Savonarola]

I finished La Fiesta del Chivo (Feast of the Goat) by Mario Vargas Llosa; it is quite probably the only work by a Nobel Prize winning author to give an in depth description of Adrian, Michigan. 

The bulk of the story is set in the Dominican Republic and deals with the Trujillo dictatorship.  Because Trujillo demanded absolute loyalty from his minions it's hard not to think of Donald Trump when reading this.  Trujillo was worse; at least, (to the best of my knowledge,) Trump didn't demand to sleep with Karen Pence or forbid Steven Mnuchin to marry Louise. 

The story is told from three points of view; the daughter of a Dominican politician, Trujillo himself and Trujillo's assassins.  The chapters rotate through the different perspectives and tell (or recount) stories that aren't quite in linear order but close enough that you can stitch them together.  I thought it was very well done.

[The Brain]

Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece, Kagan and Viggiano (editors). A collection of papers on the nature, origin, and political impact of the hoplite phalanx. The sparse evidence makes for a range of interpretations. In typical historian fashion focus is often on entire complete scenarios based on very vague evidence, instead of methodically working out what we actually know and how well we know it. But the book is well worth a read if you're into ancient warfare at all.

[The Brain]

The Japanese Myths: A Guide to Gods, Heroes and Spirits, by Frydman. From the mythical origins of Japan through the melting pot of local and continental religions and stories, to modern Japanese popular culture. A nice little introduction to the subject.

Folk Tales of Japan: 28 Japanese folk tales with cultural commentary, by Kyota Ko. Does what it says on the tin.  Every story has a cute little illustration. A charming little book.

[Sheilbh]

So I kept track of my reading for the first time this year and set (and kept!) a target because I'd got a bit out of habit/lazy with reading. It was really good and I strongly recommend - might try to keep a track of new films too in 2023.

But thought I'd share a few favourites. Fiction:
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. It's a very short book, but a realy beautifully spare story of an ordinary man in a small Irish town with a Magdalene laundry one winter in the 80s. It's a very good winter read specifically.

The Death of Comrade President by Alain Mabanckou. It's a novel following a kid in a second city in the Republic of Congo and in particular the way his life is completely upended by the murder of the country's president. It's very funny, very sweet - the writing of the kid at the centre of it is gorgeous - and in the end quite moving.

They by Kay Dick. Another very short book recently re-published for the first time since the 70s. It's more a story cycle than a novel - it's maybe a dystopia and subtitled a "Sequence of unease". Centred on ungendered, unknown protagonist moving through their circle of artists and intellectuals in the South Downs in the midst of the growing, creeping presence of "them". "They" aren't a political movement, don't seem to have beliefs or a government - but "they" are suspicious of/hate art, people who live alone, intellectuals.

The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst. I think it might be Hollinghurst's best book but I get this had mixed reception. With Hollinghurst first of all there's always the style. His work often gets criticised for drowning plot in favour of style and I don't think there's a better working writer in English for perfect sentences that make you pause. It is broadly, loosely a story about a group of gay men in English (high-ish/boho) society from the 40s to the modern day with at its heart, but all in some way related to a charming, handome, athletic man from the Midlands called David Sparsholt and the undefined, vague sexual scandal in the 1960s that takes his name. A warning though that the first section is written by one of the characters and is a plummy memoir of a superior Oxford student during the war - the fun is the overwritten style but it's not for everyone. Then it starts to jump forward and nearer to us in Hollinghurst's narrative voice.

The Trees by Percival Everett - An incredibly pacy, darkly funny read - a little bit in the mood of Jordan Peele as race, genre and the supernatural entangle. Starting out about investigations in a small town in Misssissippi called Money ("named in that persistent Southern tradition of irony") following the deaths of some rednecks. The first body is found next to the corpse of black man, mutilated in precisely the same way as Emmett Till - which then disappears from the morgue only to reappear next to the next body too. Then slowly all over the country there are more and more white murder victims turning up with bodies of the lynched dead found next to them.

Non-fiction:
Time of the Magicians by Wolfram Ellenberger - A very engaging narrative of Hegel, Wittgenstein, Walter Benjamin and, the less known (now), Ernst Cassirer in the 1920s. It makes the bold claim of these thinkers re-inventing philosophy for the 20th century in parallel and in different ways. I'm not sure it meets the claim, but it's a really interesting read anyway and seems good for someone like me who absolutely cannot read philosophy

Disorder by Helen Thompson - I loved this book and have been thinking about it ever since I read it. It is first of all an attempt to explain the historical context of this moment - in particular through three inter-locking narratives around energy, politics and finance, particularly since the war. But it is subtitled Hard Times in the 21st Century so it also looks particularly at the shocks of 2016 onwards largely as products of those structural forces from energy, politics and finance - and, in my view unfortunately convincingly, argues that the political shocks and disruption from fault-lines in energy, politics and finance are not over.

Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich - I was surprised when I realised this was non-fiction - it is novelistic collage of Russian and Soviet voices about their experience of the collapse of the Soviet Union (and Soviet culture/Homo Sovieticus) as well as what replaced it in the 90s. It covers everything Soviet ideals, the gulag, nationalist wars, veterans, the black market - it's just extraordinary.

The Cold War: A World History by Odd Arne Westad - As with Disorder there's no grand style in this but it's an incredible survey of the Cold War. That it's a world history is very important as it does engage with the Third World movement, India as the "wildcard" of the Cold War and the way that both of those and most of the post-colonial (and Latin American) experience were ultimately overridden by the inescapable global logic of the Cold War. Really interesting if you're interested in the post-war.

[Gups]

I finished La Fiesta del Chivo (Feast of the Goat) by Mario Vargas Llosa; it is quite probably the only work by a Nobel Prize winning author to give an in depth description of Adrian, Michigan. 

The bulk of the story is set in the Dominican Republic and deals with the Trujillo dictatorship.  Because Trujillo demanded absolute loyalty from his minions it's hard not to think of Donald Trump when reading this.  Trujillo was worse; at least, (to the best of my knowledge,) Trump didn't demand to sleep with Karen Pence or forbid Steven Mnuchin to marry Louise. 

The story is told from three points of view; the daughter of a Dominican politician, Trujillo himself and Trujillo's assassins.  The chapters rotate through the different perspectives and tell (or recount) stories that aren't quite in linear order but close enough that you can stitch them together.  I thought it was very well done.

I liked this a lot but not managed to get on with anything else by Llosa

[The Brain]

The Franco-Prussian War, by Howard. A very readable single-volume account. An older book (1961) but AFAIK there has been no revolutionary change in our understanding of the war since then. The war had two distinct phases, first the quick destruction of the Imperial armies and then the cold slog against the Government of National Defense. Both are fascinating, but this time (I have read other books on the war) I didn't feel like the second phase so after the fall of Napoleon I skipped to the peace negotiations. So I haven't read the entire book, but I might go back to it at a later time if I feel like it.

[mongers]

A question for the tolkienistas here, is the revised 50th/60th editions of LOTR noticably different from earlier ones?

I ask as Ithink I've only the 2nd or 3rd dating from the late 70s, so might get a new one before re-reading it, if it'sworthwhile.

[Threviel]

As far as I know Tolkien himself revised LOTR with minor details (things like the moon being described in the wrong phase and so on, very minor) as long as he lived. He died in '73 so editions from the 70's should be more or less the same as newer editions.

This is a somewhat educated guess since I have no knowledge on English editions and I expect grumbler to tell me why I'm wrong shortly.

[mongers]

As far as I know Tolkien himself revised LOTR with minor details (things like the moon being described in the wrong phase and so on, very minor) as long as he lived. He died in '73 so editions from the 70's should be more or less the same as newer editions.

This is a somewhat educated guess since I have no knowledge on English editions and I expect grumbler to tell me why I'm wrong shortly.

Thanks.

I no his late son Christopher did some revisions, but don't know the significance.

Plus given the length of the book. each revision was likely to add in new additional errors, even after older ones were corrected.

[grumbler]

As far as I know Tolkien himself revised LOTR with minor details (things like the moon being described in the wrong phase and so on, very minor) as long as he lived. He died in '73 so editions from the 70's should be more or less the same as newer editions.

This is a somewhat educated guess since I have no knowledge on English editions and I expect grumbler to tell me why I'm wrong shortly.

Thanks.

I no his late son Christopher did some revisions, but don't know the significance.

Plus given the length of the book. each revision was likely to add in new additional errors, even after older ones were corrected.

I know of no major changes since those that Tolkien himself made.  As far as I know, Christopher Tolkien's changes were just correcting map errors.  Though I expect Threviel to tell me why I'm wrong shortly.