What are you reading right now?

[glass_houses]

I've just started The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time by Steven Sherrill, just started as in I'm on the fifth page.

The precursor book, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break which I read way back in 2000, is on my top ten, if not top five favourite books of all time. I've been very reluctant to read the sequel, however, because the books that Sherrill wrote after the first Minotaur book were jagged and nasty, and completely forgot the compassion and understanding that I associated with his work. The first one, Visits From The Drowned Girl, did have redeemable characters, but the second, The Locktender's House, had many sharp edges, rank shadows and no resolution. I stopped following Sherrill for many years, but about twelve months ago I tripped over an advertisement for the second Minotaur book.

It's taken a lot to get myself into a headspace where I can wrap myself around this. I have hopes but no expectations. Here goes.

 

[glue eater]

I'm on my polchud streak again, and I tried to find Helmer Kalas book "10 Years on the Road of Adventures" where he tells about fighting for the Waffen SS and then defecting to the CIA. Too bad the cheapest copy is like 55 euros in a second-hand bookshop which is a bit too much. However, the silver lining is I found a book from the bargain bin for 4 euros. The book titled "Red Nazi" by Mikko Laaksonen, a union boss, socialist politician and waffen SS veteran. Imagine cross of Jimmy Hoffa and Hans Landa. I was vaguely aware of the guy, he was active during cold war so it was a bit before my time, but in the end I got my nazi literature fix and get to refresh my memory on local politics. Tbh I would have gotten the book just for the title. All in all, a very productive day.

 

[Sergeant Major Buzzkill]

“Dolls, Dolls, Dolls! Deep Inside the Valley of the Dolls” by Stephen Rebello. Very juicy, taking majority of the info with a grain of salt (there’s an instance of the word “mansplain” so fun). Of course I’m also reading the Jacquline Susann novel of the same name.

I’m reading my Study Bible on top of it (on Leviticus).

 

[Neighborhood Janny]

I'm starting to work through the books I got for Christmas. It's all history stuff, which I love. Currently reading Things Our Fathers Saw Volume I: Voices of the Pacific Theater by Matthew Rozell. I've always been into history, but I'm starting to really thirst for first hand sources and accounts. My big kick right now is reading and researching everything I can on the Pacific Theater of WW2, which I feel doesn't get as much attention as the war in Europe. First hand accounts are always horrifying to read. They are equally horrifying to imagine happening, but if we don't find these stories and write them down, they will be lost to the sands of time. I think a lot of folks take this for granted. Rozell does an incredible job of letting the veterans tell the story and doesn't inject himself unless additional context is needed. There's also a great index of information in the back of the book for additional research. After I get done with this, I plan on starting Ian W. Toll's Pacific War trilogy, which is a relatively big ~2k pages across 3 volumes. Really excited for those.


As far as fiction goes, I'm going to start reading Tolkien's works again. This time I'll be going Full Autist by reading in chronological order starting with The Silmarillion. After that, I plan on reading the Dune series.

 

[YourFriendlyLurker 2.0]

I have just read The Terror by Dan Simons and I fucking loved the book. The atmosphere, the suspence and the way he writes the language of those seamen are beyond enjoyable and make a book a real page turner. Makes me want to read something Documental about Franklin'e expedition next time. The only tiny thing I found myself cringing about was his obsession over breasts. Like for fuck's sake each time we see Ms Silence in the scene we certianly get a description of "what her breasts doing". Totally understandable for the first couple of times but made be laugh afterwards. Again, does not make the book worse at all. Also, another thing which I did not expect to find in the book and that surprised me in a good way was his handling of homos. That is how one writes gays without making your book a woke shit.

Also read Universe from nothing by L. Krauss. I know something about cosmology so it was like 70% more or less clear to me but I imagine someone without any knowledge at all, would struggle with that one. In general, a good book.

 

[CowPox]

 

[shameful existence]

I have just read The Terror by Dan Simons and I fucking loved the book

I was recommending the book here a few months back. I still think about it sometimes.
There are some interesting articles and documentary style videos about the topic - some of the bodies were recovered relatively recently, and many dives to the wreck(s) have been done in the past year or so.
And if you haven't watched it, I highly recommend The Terror series with Jared Harris. It's really well done.

I recently tried to read Simmons' Hollow Man, but got stuck early on.

 

[YourFriendlyLurker 2.0]

I was recommending the book here a few months back. I still think about it sometimes.
There are some interesting articles and documentary style videos about the topic - some of the bodies were recovered relatively recently, and many dives to the wreck(s) have been done in the past year or so.
And if you haven't watched it, I highly recommend The Terror series with Jared Harris. It's really well done.

I recently tried to read Simmons' Hollow Man, but got stuck early on.

Already done (I mean documentary things, not series). It was interesting to compare how I imagined characters how the real people looked like. I hope they will retrieve something interesting from tge wreck (when Simmons wrote it, they hadn't been found yet) or maybe find and identify the crew. Those people totally deserve it.

Btw, when I read it, I thought that without the monster, the story would probably be even more gruesome. What really hits here (like with Chernobyl series) is that the reality must have far worse than depicted. There is no respite "that's just fiction" here. The events and people are real.

 

[shameful existence]

Btw, when I read it, I thought that without the monster, the story would probably be even more gruesome. What really hits here (like with Chernobyl series) is that the reality must have far worse than depicted. There is no respite "that's just fiction" here. The events and people are real.

You can interpret the supernatural elements in all kinds of ways. There's a lot of speculation about poisoning / illnesses / years in isolation severely impacting the men's perception of reality, so who knows, maybe they saw things...

Another impressive thing the book has done is making Francis Crozier into an unlikely hero. I remember watching old documentaries about the expedition and someone said that Franklin is a British national hero and his name is bigger than that of Amundsen. That surprised me, because I never heard of Franklin before getting interested in this expedition. On the other hand, Crozier was a drunk who was unfortunately for his reputation likely still alive during the months of the alleged cannibalism and complete demoralization... yet he's the most memorable character of the book and one you end up rooting for. And similarly to another very cool polar explorer, Shackleton, Crozier was in fact Irish, which was probably another reason he never was as famous as he deserved.

If you're into weird polar expeditions, I recommend looking into S. A. Andrée and his hydrogen balloon. It's the exact opposite of the Franklin expedition in all the ways Scandis differ from Anglos, but very strange and fascinating.

 

[Constellationzero]

Started Clive Barker's Weaveworld. I love me some Clive Barker, so I'm pretty excited since I absolutely love The Thief of Always.

 

[Crocodylus Acutus]

I started Julius Caesar's commentary on his exploits in Gaul, Latin name "Commentarii de Bello Gallico." Even though its translated to English, you still get a good idea for Caesar's expertise in linguistics and writing, being very concise and deliberate in what he writes about, and how he writes about it. There's a clear bias, as this was a collection of letters and diaries that he was sending to the Roman Senate to detail his progress in Gaul, so he frames everything in the best light for himself as possible. Despite this, it provides a very good timeline for the events of the Gallic war, and insight into the strategic mind of one of the most important Romans in history.

Great read for anyone who loves history and learning about Rome, I hope to pick up his commentary on his civil war with Pompey as well.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

I'm the only person in the world who doesn't read Stephen King

Far from it. Ever since I learned King unironically wrote a child sex orgy in IT. I haven't cared for the man one bit. The fact he is a raging leftist shithead is just icing on the cake.

banks will implement negative interests rates, you will be charged a fee to keep your money in the bank and top academia professors have already justified this by suggesting it'll encourage spending

This is the stupidest shit I've ever heard. What exactly is to stop people from acquiring other means to store value?

*snip*

What book is this?

THREAD TAX: Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by Dan Simon

A wonderful look into the homicide unit of the Baltimore PD during the year of 1988. Despite being thirty-six years in the past, the nature of policing, murder, investigation and community response feels exactly the same as it does today. Obviously Baltimore then, as now, is a minority-majority city of mostly poor urban blacks. Who engage in all the theft, drug selling, prostitution, rape and murder that they do now. The only key differences between then and now being the lack of burn, loot, and murder agitators. In fact, when the "white police be racist and shit!" stuff comes up, it feels like a breath of fresh air as compared to day. Race is everything today, whereas back then it isn't.

The author of this book, David Simon, when on to help create the hit show The Wire from HBO. I haven't watched the show in a while, so I can't say how much is exactly the same. If I remember that show deals with busting drug lords. Whereas the homicide unit just deals with everything body related.

The book is full of little tidbits about homicide investigations and how the detectives deal with the cases they receive. For example, when a body is found, a call is placed to the homicide unit and a detective is dispatched to the crime. That being his case to solve with little help from the rest of the unit. Whereas cases involving heinous murders, such as the murder of a little girl as talked about in the book, are labeled as red balls and usually come with heavy outside pressure from the top of the police department. These types of cases are called red balls and involved most if not all the department in them.

Another little tidbit is the way they describe cases as either who-done-its or as dunkers. The former being truly hard cases to solve with little to no evidence or witnesses. The latter referring to easily solved cases. A back alley drug murder for example is a who-done-it. While a domestic turned murderous in front of the rest of the family is a dunker.

 

[AnOminous]

There's a clear bias, as this was a collection of letters and diaries that he was sending to the Roman Senate to detail his progress in Gaul, so he frames everything in the best light for himself as possible. Despite this, it provides a very good timeline for the events of the Gallic war, and insight into the strategic mind of one of the most important Romans in history.

The bias isn't too harmful, because while he was portraying himself as a guy going around kicking Gallic ass all the time, he was in fact actually a guy going around kicking Gallic ass all the time. The main misrepresentation was presenting Gaul as any kind of threat to Rome justifying invading it. They just wanted the booty.

This is the stupidest shit I've ever heard. What exactly is stop people from acquiring other means to store value?

The fact that something is stupid as hell doesn't mean they won't try to do it.

 

[Sincere Irony LLC]

Completed Dune and Dune Messiah. Dune was excellent, I'd rate it almost equal to Lord of the Rings in my enjoyment. The political intrigue is a lot of fun and the vision of the far out future is fascinating. A lot of the best parts of the book are background information about the future, such as the Butlerian Jihad which sought to eliminate AI and permanently ban its future creation of the idea that personal energy shields basically invalidate projectile weapons so people go back to using edged weapons. Frank Herbert also does something I personally haven't seen before but appreciate immensely, he writes as if specific cultures and religions will persist into the future and change. The reason the Fremen of Arrakis are basically Arabs in culture is because they are, they're the descendants who colonized the planet. Internal monologue is utilized constantly which is welcome and necessary to convey all the scheming and "feints within feints within feints." There was a glossary of the worlds unique terminology which was very useful.

I watched the most recent movie after completing the book and it seemed an extremely faithful adaptation to me. Basically 1 for 1 which was nice to see but I think probably hurt it as a movie because it only adapts the first half of the book so there's not a proper or traditional structure to it. They made Liet a woman which doesn't really affect anything but idk why they did it, it's not like the movie was short of diversity. I didn't like how they depicted Lady Jessica though, they made her rather sad and weepy and I envisioned her more stoic. Oh also I think the movie cowarded out and never said the word "jihad," but I could be wrong.

Dune Messiah is pretty good, not as good as the first. It's much shorter which surprised me, very dialogue heavy. The story is a conspiracy against Paul as he continues to see it for the most part but finds himself railroaded in a way where he can't figure out how to avoid it without causing an extinction level jihad. It tries to describe how upset Paul is at the destruction he's caused but also that he's trapped trying to prevent further ruin and the forward said Frank Herbert wanted to decry cults of personality but I guess I'm a simp because I still rooted for Paul the whole time and wanted him to rule forever. Not to be too anime brained but it reminded me a lot of Attack on Titan, Paul and Alia basically have paths and the jihad is like the rumbling. Idk if it's just a coincidental fantasy/scifi concept or if Isayama drew inspiration. Another idea that was probably a coincidence but stuck out to me was the Bene Gesserit and the Sorcerers of the Witcher series were similar organizations, sort of magic users who have their own guild but implant themselves as "advisors" to royalty to sway the ship of history in a direction of their own choosing.

Gonna take a short break before getting into the rest of the series. Probably try and read some lighter stuff that I can finish quickly.

 

[Biggie Smalls' Taint]

The Sympathizer. Wanted to read something recent and critically acclaimed to see what's being pushed. so a pulitzer winner from 2015 seemed like a good choice, and ended up genuinely surprised.

It's a story about a vietnamese communist mole in the pro-US side of the Vietnam war. It takes place during the end of the war/US retreat and after.

Well written, interesting plot, compelling characters and even the seemingly irrelevant bits (cough the squid cough cough) are thematically relevant or plot relevant down the line. A bit heavy handed at points and it overplays the duality bit here and there but still a great read.

Make Something Up by Chuck Palahnuik, on the other hand, can go suck a fat chode. 23 short stories, most of them mid, a few genuinely terrible, one that made me want to commit war crimes and a few that were good. It felt like reading really bad reddit stories (there's one that's a more extreme version of The Jolly Rancher story) or a 4chan greentext (there's one where the twist is that a guy buys a horse and it's the Mr Hands horse).
Genuinely terrible.

 

[CowPox]

 

[timewave0]

Jack Vance’s Tales of the Dying Earth. Four books in one volume, the first being a collection of loosely related short stories. Notable for inspiring the D&D magic system and, of course, the dying earth sub-genre. Very entertaining to read and often quite funny. Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel’s Saga follow the story of Cugel the Clever, a charming but totally self-interested (if not borderline sociopathic) rogue. Highly recommend.

 

[shameful existence]

This one is making me sad. I bought it very confidently, as I'm familiar with the critique of the string theory, read some similar authors and wanted to check off what is probably the earliest classic in the field, but it's just TOO HARD. I'm used to having things dumbed-down to the level of your average youtube video on physics. And Peter Woit - who is, by the way, personally a very nice and humble guy - openly tells people that if they don't have an education in the field, they'll be skipping some chapters. I am skipping some chapters.
It has one on the Bogdanov brothers, btw. Woit exchanged some emails with them when the affair was happening.

Spoiler

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

View attachment 5697106
This one is making me sad. I bought it very confidently, as I'm familiar with the critique of the string theory, read some similar authors and wanted to check off what is probably the earliest classic in the field, but it's just TOO HARD. I'm used to having things dumbed-down to the level of your average youtube video on physics. And Peter Woit - who is, by the way, personally a very nice and humble guy - openly tells people that if they don't have an education in the field, they'll be skipping some chapters. I am skipping some chapters.
It has one on the Bogdanov brothers, btw. Woit exchanged some emails with them when the affair was happening.

Spoiler

View attachment 5697115

I once read a short story in which an eminent physicist is talking to an alien, and the alien says that every race his has encountered has at least one dead end theory on which they expend massive amounts of resources for no gain. Humanity's, the scientist is told, is the notion that there is a single fundamental law from which all others can be extrapolated, which is a major blow to his ego.

 

[shameful existence]

the notion that there is a single fundamental law from which all others can be extrapolated, which is a major blow to his ego

Yeah, that's kind of the debate about the anthropic principle, isn't it? The idea, that the constants we observe have the values they have just because we live in a universe that allows life to exist, while there may be many that have completely different ones, but we're just not there to observe them. I have a problem wrapping my head around all the reasoning, but it feels ugly. Yet that again is my aesthetic human bias, and you have a lot of people arguing against it, because they're just so very smart and manage to overcome their natural inclinations

It's hard to get the idea of how big the string theory actually ever was, and how screwed physics is by it seemingly not working out. You have some physicists arguing that the public's perception of it has been completely deformed by celebrity string theorists - particularly Michio Kaku and Brian Greene - who managed to keep the image that this is what most theoretical physicists believe for an unfairly long time. While in fact most have moved on from it in the early 2000s or so. And now the public feels like they have been betrayed, because the criticism is much louder than the hopeful praise.

I've also heard that not many resources actually went into the string theory itself. It's mostly the accelerators that all the money went to, and supersymmetry is not quite the same thing, though almost everyone hates it and everything the collider people do for other reasons at this point.

This is my favorite layman friendly video about the history of public perception on the string theory, if anyone is interested. I'd say she's not totally objective about some things, but neither is the other side.