What Book Are You Reading?

[Groton]

Thanks Wayfarer – your incitement to ‘go overboard’ is gratefully accepted.
I don’t use Kindle and I guess its range of books will be strictly commercially focussed, thus of generally (mere) mainstream attractiveness. So, for what it’s worth, here are a few books I would have wanted someone to have enlightened me about (given my [sigh] sad psychopathic eccentricities – had I not by chance eagerly stumbled upon them at some earlier point in my life. These could be my personal ‘if you were stranded on a desert isle . . . . . ’ selection (but I won’t be jammed in a corner and so the selection is liable to vary over time).
‘The Ghost Ship’ – Richard Middleton [a collection of quaint Edwardian short stories written in refreshingly clear and unaffected literary style – ref. published 1912].
‘The October Country’ – Ray Bradbury [any library without this, or one of Bradbury’s other books, has a brick missing].
‘The Zeppelin in Combat’ – (the late) Douglas Robinson [this book is so wonderfully thorough, comprehensive and replete with rare photographs that I would likely treat it with the same awed reverence were it a book about crocheting].
‘The Mask of Time’ – Joan Forman [this matter-of-fact collection and analysis of anomalous time experiences is to the curious, truth-seeking sensitive, what the bible must be to a believer hustled by an unruly mob of doubters*.]
‘The Parapsychological Revolution’ – Robert Schock & Logan Yonavjak [another down-to-earth, fact and logic-ridden book on a little-explored, s******ingly derided, aspect of human experience.]
‘Before the Dawn’ – Nicholas Wade [new light and fresh ideas on a distant stage set, and music cued, for humanity’s slow rise from the quagmire (if that’s what it has been)].
‘The Age of Chivalry’ – Arthur Bryant [the author has great depth of knowledge of this period of history. He is possessed of a wonderful turn of phrase too, as when, in leading up to a significant battle of the Hundred Years War – (paraphrased from memory) - the weather was the worst in living memory, provisions were almost exhausted and the English army was denied re-supply, or even strategic withdrawal to the coast, by a huge and growing French army tracking them on the far side of the river. However (says Bryant) the king was never so dangerous as when fate turned against him . . . ]
* I could have said ‘Muslims’ instead of ‘doubters’ – but I had no desire to take a hand in hammering further wedges into the deplorable schisms of humanity.
If I we are supposed to confine our book choice to Kindle-fit titles, then please disregard this post with callous indifference. Thank you.

[Stitch]

Who has the dead chick and kitten duty today? AR? Yeller? GG?

[YellowFever]

You've been here almost as long as I have and never did the duty so you do it for once...you slacker.

[Cruiser]

This newbie can't just stand by and watch a fellow newbie flounder, so:

Groton, before you make another post, please go to "WAB Information Center". It is the very first forum listed.
There you will find a list of "Sticky Threads".

May I suggest you read three of them in particular. I recommend doing so in this order:

1) "Forum Guidelines". I believe this is the official set of rules for the site.

2) "Semi-Official WAB Survival Guide". This is a long-time member's list of how to "survive" here. A good, and humorous, read of how to better "fit in" here. One or
two items there will feel familiar to you...

3) "Introduction Thread for All New Members". I suggest your very next post be made there.

And for what it's worth (what with me being a newbie myself), Welcome Aboard!


I'm hoping I survive this "rescue" attempt...

[tankie]

Anything to do with astronomy ,, the possibility of alien life ,( imo they are in abundance ) and my favs are fictional by Catherine Cookson which depicts the hardships of life in the N/E England in victorian times , lots of drama series been made about it , they are very engrossing and superbly written , coming from the N/E myself I can understand all the phrases used in them . Also there is a living museum dedicated to the times , its called , Beamish and i have been 3 to 4 times . Other favs are fieldcraft books , fly tying for salmon , sea trout etc etc .

Welcome aboard the noobs .Enjoy .

[Parihaka]

No dead kittens in this thread as books are timeless though I may merge it with "what book are you reading".
Groton, welcome aboard.
Cruiser, couldn't have said it better myself. :-)
Tankie, nobody understands N/E phrases, including the people from there

[YellowFever]

I just realized that tankie and Stitch joined a week apart back in November '06.

That's like getting a heart attack and a fatal blunt trauma to the head a week apart for the same person.

Congrats WAB for surviving that tumulous time.

Damn, why do all the riff raff join in November?

:SidewayglanceatParihakafornoreasonatall:

[Groton]

Thanks for the welcome attempted assist Wayfarer, but when I tried to access the page I just got this:


HTTP 404 error

That’s odd... Microsoft Edge can’t find this page

. . . so still floundering . . . first principles, eh?

[Stitch]

I just realized that tankie and Stitch joined a week apart back in November '06.

That's like getting a heart attack and a fatal blunt trauma to the head a week apart for the same person.

Congrats WAB for surviving that tumultuous time.

Damn, why do all the riff raff join in November?

:SidewayglanceatParihakafornoreasonatall:

Why, oh, why do I CONTINUE to put up with Yeller? I have no idea . . . let's just say I find him "amusing", in an odd, sort of lowest-common-denominator kind of way . . .

[Albany Rifles]

No dead kittens in this thread as books are timeless though I may merge it with "what book are you reading".
Groton, welcome aboard.
Cruiser, couldn't have said it better myself. :-)
Tankie, nobody understands N/E phrases, including the people from there

Big Like....and totally agree with Pari regarding Tankie....he is our own crazy uncle in the attic!

As for me, I am prepping for another battlefield tour this spring. Going to be leading a tour of Washington's Winter Campaign 1776-77, Philadelphia Campaign of1777 and the Monmouth Campaign of 1778. As such my reading this year has been centered on that.

I am quoting myself from 2011.

All

I just finished reading Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer. It is an excellent telling of the Winter Campaign of 1776/77. I highly recommend this most readable history to anyoen remotely interested in the American Revolution. Don't be put off by its apparent heft. It has excellent notes, maps and a great historiography of Revolutionary War writing. A great read.

So I dusted it off and just reread it. It still is excellent.

Just finished The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777-1778 by Stephen R. Taaffe...very good overview. He does a great job explaining all of the lesser known fights along the Delaware River which are often overlooked.

Monmouth Court House: The Battle that Made the American Army by Joseph G. Bilby is what I am currently reading and it is excellent. His coverage on foreign officer influence in the winter of 1777-1778 on Washington's Army is discussed in depth. He is doing a good job setting up how the 2 armies met on the battlefield. I;m about half way through.

On deck is Brandywine: A Military History of the Battle that Lost Philadelphia but Saved America, September 11, 1777 by Michael Harris. It was released just 2 years ago and has excellent reviews.

[Albany Rifles]

And try this link for the WAB Survival Guide

http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/showthread.php?t=46580

It was written by a longstanding member (Zraver) who ran afoul of the mods early on and instead of going out in a blaze of glory put his experience to good use and developed the guide for noobs.

Give it a check.

[snapper]

I read 'Antigone' by Anouilh in French recently (not the Sophocles version) and found it very good for anyone interested in ancient Greek rewrites. Now spare time reading is The Dialectics of Pain: The Interrogation Methods of the Communist Secret Police in Poland, 1944-1955 by Marek Chodakiewicz.

[astralis]

I'm currently reading a lot of "year" books.

the last book I polished off was "1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War". it's an excellent book, looking at the major political, economic, and cultural events of 1913 via an "around the world" tour of major cities. a lot of the books on this period of time like to emphasize the "fin de siècle" aspect or a glorious past before WWI and WWII screwed things over, but this book looks at the situation as it existed...and boy, it was messy at the time.

China was in the midst of a very messy revolution. Turkey was in barely controlled chaos following the Young Turk revolution and the Balkan Wars.

the UK was in the middle of a huge crisis over the Irish Question, and there was talk about civil war. France had just voted in a new conscription law to keep up with Germany's much larger population, which ended up causing massive protests.

the US just went through a very bitter Presidential election where Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican ticket and led to election of Wilson. this was the election where TR was shot in an assassination attempt and continued making his speech.

culturally, a lot of the "shocking" developments that occurred during WWI such as the loosening of sexual mores, women agitating to vote, etc...all of this was already happening in the world of 1913, only accelerated during WWI.

[GVChamp]

Ben Bernanke, Courage to Act.

Key takeaway: the Bank thought they had most problems under control and worked a LOT of hours to try to resolve problems as soon as they occurred. Problems in finance can move incredibly quickly: Bear Stearns had something like $60 billion in cash at the start of the week and was down to $3 and about to go bankrupt a few days in. The Fed had already come up with a solution in anticipation of investment bank failure, but it wasn't scheduled to open for another two weeks.

Other note: a lot of in fighting at the Fed. The Fed, apparently, strives to maintain perfect consensus. Bernanke faced a lot of opposition from the hawks, who worried about inflation leading up the recession. It wasn't unreasonable, either. Staff economists at the Fed were predicting 2+% inflation for most of 2008.

Last note: financial regulation isn't so much under- or over-regulation, but which agency does the regulation. Lehman was supervised by the SEC, which didn't have a damn clue how to regulate an investment bank, even if it did have more authority. It'd be like having the local police run the local bakery. The skill-set isn't there.

[astralis]

currently reading the Edmund Norris set on the life of times of Theodore Roosevelt (The rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex).

this guy was seriously scary, a product of pure focused will. as a kid, he was asthmatic and sickly, yet completely transformed himself via sheer will.

the stories associated with the man seems too impossible for fiction: one time, while hunting, he chased a cougar down with his hunting dogs, kicked the dogs out of the way, leapt off his horse and KNIFED the cougar to death.

he was an insane workaholic: in the first two weeks of his appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897, he reviewed/revised the existing war plans against Japan; started planning how the Navy would be able to eject Spain from Cuba; began ordering huge supplies of coal and ammunition while penning monographs and letters on the necessity for acquiring new battleships.

all while his boss was merrily on vacation.

or as a young legislator, he would start out the mornings with an hourly bout of fighting with a professional boxer, then work 14 hour days, go home to eat, work on the books he was contracted for, and then read -several hundred- pages a night before going to bed.

he wrote his first book at age 22, the Naval War of 1812. 4 years later the US Navy ordered it to be placed on every ship. which, incidentally, was the same year that TR and two of his cowboy companions tracked down and captured a band of boat thieves in the Dakota Territories...in the middle of winter...by building their own boat to navigate down the river.