What Are You Reading Now?

[happyone]

Anyone read anything good that focuses on colonial america? I've read a bit about the founding fathers, but not much from before then. Any recommendations?

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Here a couple more you might like to check out

Charles I's Killers in America

This looks at 3 men who signed Charles I's death warrant and later escaped to Mass and later Conn after the Restoration. The first half of the book is their story. No one is sure when the passed, probably sometime in the 1670s. During this section, the author also looks at the relalationship the colonies had with the crown. When Charles II sent someone to capture them and bring them back for execution, both Mass and Conn basically thumbed their collective noses at them. The second half looks at the legends that grew up around them and how those legends influenced the colonial thoughts towards monarchy and independence from Britain.

It is a bit dry, but interesting.

My current read is appropriate for this time of year - I am currently reading a new look at the Pilgrims


Mayflower Lives

This is a series of biographical sketches of about 1/5 of the people who were on the Mayflower - including the Captain, Myles Standish, the 13 yr old girl who was the "first" person to step foot on Plymouth Rock (the author says there is no contemporary evidence that she was the first ashore), William Bedford who wrote the first account of those trying yrs, a young 4 yr old girl who along with her 3 siblings were sent as an indentured servants - their legal father was convinced they were the off spring of an affair his wife was having, won legal custody and promptly got rid of them.

It is shaping up to be a solid four star read.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Just finished Heavy, highly-rated memoir by black author Kiese Laymon. It was OK. I am starting to think that most memoirs are trauma porn. But he is a good writer and it wasn't too long (~6 hrs).

[CardiacCoug]

This should probably go in a politics thread but it’s a book I read recently so I’m putting it here:

The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul.

Rand Paul is pretty much right about everything. Foreign military intervention sucks because of unintended unforeseen consequences. Socialism sucks because of unforeseen consequences and the fact that socialism lowers the average standard of living across the board. He goes into a lot of data about Scandinavia and how it’s actually the retreat from socialistic policies that leads to wealth in Scandinavia.

Capitalism is the best system because it leads to the highest average wealth and quality of life. Obviously we need to help the losers in the harsh meritocracy of capitalism, particularly kids and disabled people. It’s actually robust capitalistic free markets that will lead to enough of a tax base to help the poor.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here but Bernie and AOC and other socialists will not just hurt rich people but will hurt everybody and especially the poor if they have their way.

My heart likes the Democrats and I voted for Hillary but my head says the Libertarian-leaning Repubs are right about almost everything.

[SeattleUte]

This should probably go in a politics thread but it’s a book I read recently so I’m putting it here:

The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul.

Rand Paul is pretty much right about everything. Foreign military intervention sucks because of unintended unforeseen consequences. Socialism sucks because of unforeseen consequences and the fact that socialism lowers the average standard of living across the board. He goes into a lot of data about Scandinavia and how it’s actually the retreat from socialistic policies that leads to wealth in Scandinavia.

Capitalism is the best system because it leads to the highest average wealth and quality of life. Obviously we need to help the losers in the harsh meritocracy of capitalism, particularly kids and disabled people. It’s actually robust capitalistic free markets that will lead to enough of a tax base to help the poor.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here but Bernie and AOC and other socialists will not just hurt rich people but will hurt everybody and especially the poor if they have their way.

My heart likes the Democrats and I voted for Hillary but my head says the Libertarian-leaning Repubs are right about almost everything.

Andrew Sullivan is always right about everything. We're probably saying the same thing.

[chrisrenrut]

I put my Audible membership on hold for a few months to re-listen to a few of my favorites. Currently in the middle of All The Light We Cannot See. Such a gorgeous book, conveys the mood and characters so well.

[CardiacCoug]

I put my Audible membership on hold for a few months to re-listen to a few of my favorites. Currently in the middle of All The Light We Cannot See. Such a gorgeous book, conveys the mood and characters so well.

Yep — that is a great one.

[Donuthole]

I put my Audible membership on hold for a few months to re-listen to a few of my favorites. Currently in the middle of All The Light We Cannot See. Such a gorgeous book, conveys the mood and characters so well.

Yep — that is a great one.

Really enjoyed that one. I read The Nightingale shortly thereafter (enjoyed that one as well, though maybe not quite as much as ATLWCS) and now, a couple years later, several of the characters and plot lines from the two books are running together. I find this very unfortunate and quite frustrating, as it is blurring my ability to recall certain scenes and situations described in these books; I generally pride myself on being able to draw on and compare with a bank of learned scenarios (factual, fictitious, or somewhere in between) when I’m analyzing something.

Is this what it’s like to get old?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Really enjoyed that one. I read The Nightingale shortly thereafter (enjoyed that one as well, though maybe not quite as much as ATLWCS) and now, a couple years later, several of the characters and plot lines from the two books are running together. I find this very unfortunate and quite frustrating, as it is blurring my ability to recall certain scenes and situations described in these books; I generally pride myself on being able to draw on and compare with a bank of learned scenarios (factual, fictitious, or somewhere in between) when I’m analyzing something.

Is this what it’s like to get old?

Pretty much.

Of the two books, I enjoyed the Nightingale more.

[Donuthole]

Pretty much.

Of the two books, I enjoyed the Nightingale more.

You and Mrs. Donuthole agree on that.

[SeattleUte]

I just finished "The Third Reich in Power," the second volume of Richard J. Evans's classic trilogy. In a sense, the middle of this book is a slog, but if you're patient and up to it, it's a fascinating, painstaking narrative of how a totalitarian regime can with relative speed establish itself with all the hallmarks, insinuating itself into every aspect of public and private life. Suddenly, even your book club and your scout troop have the regime's seal and sanction. The only places they really didn't succeed in absorbing were the churches. The final chapters are of course gripping, recounting in detail Hitler's diplomatic machinations and duplicity that led to the bloodless occupations of Austria and Czechoslovakia, and finally concluding with the invasion of Poland, shattering the Allies delusions.

Now the big payoff, The Third Reich at War. Actually, I've always had a special fascination for the story of Hitler's takeover and also the first two years of the war, up to the disaster at Stalingrad.

This trilogy is more academic and in a way objective than The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which has abundant colorful cinematic prose and Shirer's first hand accounts as well as controversial speculations about Lutheranism and its role in German psychosis and other gripping stuff. I think I'm going to chase down the trilogy rereading Rise and Fall.

I can't get enough of this stuff. This is the second greatest story ever told--next to the West's triumph in the Cold War. Earlier this year I read a great book on the Bolshevik Revolution called "House of Government." I love that book. It's written by a Russian professor at Berkley. He does not romanticize the Bolsheviks.

[Scott R Nelson]

I'm two thirds of the way through Becoming by Michelle Obama. It's a very good autobiography that covers her early life, getting involved with Barack and then politics, and then moving into the White House. I'm right at the point before the inauguration.

Whether you agree with their politics or not, it's worth reading. And so far it hasn't had much that would distinguish Republicans from Democrats.

Read the book if you get the chance.

[BigPiney]

Pretty much.

Of the two books, I enjoyed the Nightingale more.

I thought The Nightingale was terrible. Characters were so annoying. If they could make a bad decision, they would.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I thought The Nightingale was terrible. Characters were so annoying. If they could make a bad decision, they would.

Characters making bad decisions is what drives the plot in most stories!

[BigPiney]

Characters making bad decisions is what drives the plot in most stories!

Oh come on, these women were terrible. They became totally unsympathetic.

[Pelado]

Oh come on, these women were terrible. They became totally unsympathetic.

So, they became women?