Weekly “what are you reading” thread # 11

Finished Killers of the Flower Moon! Sad book overall, but really insightful

Just started Empire of the Summer Moon, pretty brutal so far

Think I'll pivot to scifi next and pick up The Three Body Problem

Das Kapital and essential works of Lenin.

Will also read the prince when im done with these

I've been rereading mortal engines. I know its just YA shlock but I love the worldbuilding so much.

Embers of War. It's about the French and American involvements in Vietnam. Not a lot of focus on military more a focus on the political wrangling and upper command decisions.

I'm really liking it. Way better than Crucible of War

One of these days we’ll have a lit thread that doesn’t mention Lolita/Pale Fire, Blood Meridian, or Anna Karenina (No hate these just show up in almost every thread lol)

I was gifted the first three books of Asimov's Foundation series. I remember reading the first one when I was nine or so, or possibly just The Encyclopedists. It's nice to get the fuller story as an adult.

Reading sci-fi written before the moon landing is always interesting. I was worried I wouldn't like The Mule arc, but I'm coming around to it.

Still reading blood Meridian, but also Eichman in Jerusalem.

I've been reading the Count of Montecristo, but I'm sad because I wanted to know more of what happened between when he finds the treasure and his final return in Paris

soldier, sailor, frogman, spy, airman, gangster, kill or die: how the allies won on d-day by giles milton

first 24 hours of d-day told from...just every perspective. regular american troops and regular german troops and french citizens and resistance and just every possible normal people who aren't at the top making all the decisions group you can think of and IT'S SO FRICKING GOOD.

i'm only like 100 pages in so far and it's already had a lot of stories i'd already heard (like the british commando who got captured and became rommels bff and rommel went against hitler by making sure the commando didn't get immediately shot after interrogation) but it's all been told in an entertaining/very readable way.

it told the story of the for that very first bridge in france between glider troops and germans from muh both sides. like hanz german shot his german gun and just missed tommy brit who then fired back and hanz german fled which i thought was cool.

i'm such a mark for boots on the ground WW2 stufff

One detail about Lolita is that in universe it is a manuscript Humbert was writing in order to give to the jury during his trial. I’ll drop this line from the essay at the end too:

Nabokov adds that "the initial shiver of inspiration" for Lolita "was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage."[70]

Right now I’m still reading the histories and also listening to Aristotle's politics on my commutes. I find Greek philosophy uh simple enough to listen to while driving unlike say Hegel or Kant.

So you guys might remember that I was reading a book about ancient Rome.

Well I bought an e-reader and that book doesn't have any epub or similar versions (just PDFs) so I picked up a different book, this one titled SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard. I'm only on the third chapter but it's actually a fair bit more engaging. My favorite part is that she talks quite a bit about how we're drawing inferences of history, ie what texts or artifacts we're relying on to piece together the story of what happened, along with the multitude of different ways some of the evidence can be interpreted.

Paradise lost and Malazan book of the fallen

a guy, but when I was 11 I literally masturbated anally with a garden hose. i much would have preferred to have a dildo at that age.

Reading House of Leaves. Seems like a 700page horror short story with an elaborate framing device of multiple narrators/authors. None of them are fully sane or reliable. Story is about an impossibly huge labyrinth that spawns from the inside of a closet inside a family home. Comes off like an academic paper at times with countless footnotes, edits, and appendixes. The words get a little nuts on the page at times too. Which is what initially drew me to it.

My Disillusionment in Russia/My Further Disillusionment in Russia by Emma Goldman. Goldman was a major anarchist figure in burgerland, got deported to Russia, and saw the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution (she was there from 1920-1922). I'm about 3/4s of the way through but the title is apt-when she arrives she can't believe the Bolsheviks do any wrong, then starts and at how they treat anarchists

I am reading Bad Blood which is about Theranos founder and absolute girl boss, Elizabeth Holmes.

Interesting read so far

I couldn't live in a house with a sofa that uncomfortable.

Just finished I, Claudius/Claudius the God by Robert Graves (solid Historical Fiction).

Just started rereading Ulysses, I always forget how lyrical some of the lines of it are, I feel something new and different every time I read it.

Reading the dark tower series, on wolves of calla. I really tried reading the wizard and the glass but after 200 pages of I dont give a shit about susan delgado I just skipped it. Tried to watch the movie and show based off them but they're both terrible.

Rakuin no Monshou

Still reading the Hagakure. I'm almost done with book 2. Really enjoying it, there's a good mix of wisdom that could be applied to every day life (fall down 7 times, stand up 8 times) and just nonsense (if you urinate infront of your lord you should keep yourself safe). There was also a segment advocating for pederasty, which was fricking bizarre to read. "A young man before his coming of age ceremony without an older male lover is like a woman weithout a husband" . According to the context notes it was common in the time period, but still gross.

I picked up Lenny Bruce's autobiography "How To Talk Dirty And Influence People" a few weeks ago, which I think is going to my next read. The quotes I've seen from it are really good, and he's an interesting guy.