Weekly “what are you reading” Thread #46

I'm currently reading “The Rising Sun” by John Toland. It covers the last years of the Japanese Empire (1936-1945) and WW2/Second Sino-Japanese war from the point of view of the Nippon government.

!historychads the book was published in 1970 and despite being an American the author looks weirdly sympathetic towards the japs (his wife was Japanese lol). He thinks the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty created resentment in Japan by restricting the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) to 60% of the tonnage of the US and the Royal Navy and believes this planted the seeds of war. He covers the Nanking massacre on 2 pages and there's no mention of what was going off in Korea.

STILL, the book is quite informative showing How dysfunctional the Japanese Government was at the time with fascists young officers assassinating politicians and attempting coups while getting hailed as heroes and treated with kid gloves by the courts and the high command composed by militaristic conservatives whom by the late 30s decided to embrace lots of the latter group demands after quelling a rebellion attempt (2/26 incident). It also delves into Japan's diplomatic maneuvering towards Germany, the Soviet Union and the US before Pearl Harbor (the most radical officers wanted war with the USSR as soon as the late 30s, the sentiment came back after Barbarossa but the high command remained cautious and decided to wait if Germany could actually win while the Foreign Minister was a warmonger instigating to attack the USSR as soon as possible assuring the military that Germany would beat the soviets soon )

Struggled to make progress this week on “The Rules of Attraction” cuz I've been busy. I'll talk about a book I finished earlier this year instead.

“Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage” by Alfred Lansing is legit one of the most insane stories of survival I have ever read, Just due to the fact that nobody on the ship died. 28 men lived on the ice in the Weddell sea for 18 months and somehow that's not the most unbelievable part. The 800 mile journey of a 22 foot boat with 5 men from Elephant Island to South Georgia in 1916 is nuts to read about. It seems like every obstacle they crew was dealt with, would end up with either certain death or impossible luck to achieve survival. And somehow they survived all the obstacles they were presented.

I think my favorite part about the book was that everyone thinks that the key to them being able to survive was because they all got along and had the time of their lives for the first months. After the ship got ice locked, they treated it like a party. Even in the beginning of them living on the ice, they were still enjoying their time. Essentially, just guys being dudes is how they survived. Highly recommend reading it.

I'm reading Flying Blind by Peter Robison. It basically traces Boeing from its birth to 2021, specifically trying to trace exactly how the internal culture shifted from emphasizing engineering excellence to emphasizing cash and shareholder value. Then connecting those changes directly to the 737 Max MCAS crashes.

Pros: Detailed, but does a good job breaking down technical issues for laymen

Cons: The amount of names and rotating top dogs can be difficult to keep track of. That's more of a ‘me' problem though.

Whatever: It's easy to tell the writers politics, which I hate being able to do in non-fiction. I don't think it hurts the overall value of this well researched book however.

Verdict: So far a recommended read from me, at about halfway through

I might try to make an effort post when I'm done reading, although I'm so darn busy to do anything except do some minor shitposting these days I dunno

I've discovered i cannot focus on an ebook to save my life lol. physical only for me from now on

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

A tale by a famous Nigerian in a tribal Igbo setting following the trials of a highly renowned clan warrior.

I learned that in old Nigerian tribal culture you can beat your wives and kids when they disrespect you, and most of the villagers sit around getting drunk on palm wine and telling stories about the evil spirits that live in the forest while building walls out of mud.

At some point the main characters gun goes off and kills an elder's son by accident.

I'm actually becoming more racist reading this lmao

Started some sci fi novel but couldn't get past all the “futuresque”-sounding buzzwords that are almost comedic. The same reason I can't read fantasy. “I am Eifhsiemdyn of Djeifkslmoor.” Very hard take any of it seriously.

Nothing!

Haunted House novels . Darcy Coates mat right cozy horror but she's still got some teeth.

nobody told me how funny Camus' The Stranger was.

Peter Watt's Blindsight and Echopraxia. HARD scifi (the appendix is his notes and bibliography), its about post-human consciousnesses and intelligences and how they are not mutually implied.

Greg Egan's Permutation City. More hard scifi. Simulated consciousness and a mathematical universe imply immortality. His anthology Axiomatic was also good. Dry characters but really good ideas.

Just finished reading The Prince by Machiavelli as part of my inceldarktriadmaxxing(120 Days of Sodom is next). It's fascinating how some of the advice can even be used to say which of the rdrama jannies is the most incompetent()(since being loved and/or feared is good but a ruler must avoid being hated by taking away people's stuff for no good reason and being seen as contemptable, that is: effeminate,volatile, indecisive and cowardly) and why that is often not ultimately too much of an issue for internet jannies because the users here have comparatively little leverage (but on rdrama it's lot more than on reddit, where jannies only have to answer to the admins).

New SOP's

She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be by JD Barker and while it has a pretty gay name, I've been enjoying it a lot. Kind of a supernatural, suspense book. Kid visits his parents graves every year on the same date and starts seeing a girl who is also in the cemetery on that same date.

About 2/3rds in and I'm excited to see how it ends.

Blood meridian. Taking me so long to finish it. Either the book is boring, I'm r-slurred or both

This past week, I finally got around to starting the 2nd book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, The Drawing of the Three, and holy crap, it gets crazy and really good

I am not a big reader, but I enjoy occasionally reading Lovecraft or King short stories; I have heard a few times that the Dark Tower series is King's "magnum opus," and coincidentally, I own a 1st edition copy of the 1st book, The Gunslinger, so I thought frick it, let's give a 4000+ page, multi-book fantasy series a shot. So far I have loved it and can't put it down

The 1st book, The Gunslinger, was a massive vibe

A short-and-sweet, tone-setting book that (for me, anyway) did a great job of getting me invested in the mysteries of this series. Also, I have heard a lot of people crap on King's style (specifically in The Gunslinger), but personally, I found King's prose really compelling (a bit "old-timey," somewhat similar to Lovecraft). I also gave the audiobook for the 1st book a shot, and the narration is fricking GREAT.

I honestly don't want to get into specifics of why the 2nd book is so good so far because you guys should honestly give it a shot if you haven't

Would like to know if anyone else has read this and what you thought of it

Please no spoilers past the 1st half of The Drawing of the Three, as I have only gotten to the part where they enter the 2nd door (with the black women)

im reading this thread

The Age of Wood. Very good.

a web novel called Water Magician