Craig Childs’ Atlas of a Lost World subtitled Travels in Ice Age America
The author shows as well as tells what life must have been like in pre-Holocene America. Engaging prose style...in discussion of the Bering land bridge he recounts his 1000km trip down the Yukon. Much has changed in pre-historical thought since Jared Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel. There is now evidence that puts man’s presence in this hemisphere as far back as 130k years. To one scientist` claim that a thousand years would be required to journey from Alaska to Monte Verde in Chile Childs points to a young man (Alaskan) who made the journey in a Kayak in 18months.
Nothing stale about this ancient history. Were the first men from Polynesia? or Iberia? Or Siberia? would the various types of spearpoints have worked against a 20’ tall bear? or 14’ at the shoulder mammoth...
BrianR...Fatherland by Robert Harris will help ease your jones for more Kerr

Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh [a continuation of Trainspotting]


Updated for the new millennium, the Trainspotting crew tumble into the future. Bad words abound, drugs abound, sex abounds and rebounds, violence rains down, and general mayhem, corruption, blackmail and sinister purposes permeate the landscape.


And the Author makes extra money scamming off his earlier success. So everyone is happy. Good read.

just blitzed thru this, couldn't put it down.
absolutely fascinating.

any other fascinating bios of hitler or the nazi leadership?

i just finished Michael Chabon's Moonglow, which is one of his strongest works. Sort of a novel and sort of a memoir ("autofiction" as the current jargon prefers), Chabon has constructed this narrative around his grandfather’s life, which is interesting both for his relationship with his psychologically-disturbed (and historically traumatized) wife and for his historic encounters with Werner von Braun. An interesting balance of humour and pathos, recommended.

I also recently read David Bezmozgis's just-published collection of short stories, Immigrant City, which offers an interesting perspective on Toronto from the point of view of Latvian immigrants. (I reread Bezmozgis's first story collection, Natasha, last year. It also deals with this material but is a connected sequence and very powerful.) The new book shows more of the underbelly of the community; as one reviewer remarked “Bezmozgis’ Latvians along Highway 401 are the contemporary inheritors of the gangster world set out in Isaac Babel’s masterful Odessa stories.”

And someone recommended Sara Gran's Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead to me as a clever take on the noir detective story. I found it entertaining but much too self-consciously "clever".

I'm currently listening to, and immensely enjoying, the Audible version of Madeline Miller's classical retelling of Circe--and struck by its description of a “hierarchy of fear”.

Eye of the I,

From which nothing is Hidden

Trying to grasp it, Power Vs Force was excellent. Excellent author David R Hawkings. This book I think is met for the very studious.

Destination Shanghai by Paul French. It follows figures who traveled to Shanghai pre WW2. Pretty fascinating to me because I love Shanghai and that time period, but wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't share those interests. Especially fun to read, for me, was the movie stars and the transition from silent films to "talkies."

The author is incredibly talented. He manages to keep the book flowing smoothly while also giving an enormous amount of information.

This has to be the slowest I've ever read a book. I find myself constantly on wikipedia looking up things which he references, or wanting to know more about the person. So far the biggest wikipedia hole I fell through due to this book was for Eugene O'Neill, which the author opens with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_O%27Neill

Maybe I'm an uneducated rube, but I'd never even heard of him before. Kind of amazing considering this quote, and how widely known those authors/plays are.

For all you studious types, may want to check out these

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Th...cnUwb2JlWmgwaw

Bluegrassplayer - are you American?

Yeah

Fwiw it's, shall we say, controversial:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...n-ohler-review

https://www.ft.com/content/3989c0b2-...e-b428cb934b78

Ian Kershaw's books on Hitler are the most prominent recent ones, at least in the UK. In fiction, The Kindly Ones is an intriguing option: originally in French by an American author, the French and Americana loved it, the Germans hated it, and the British mostly ignored it. I found it frustrating, but it has lots of fascinating detail and seems to have been very rigourously researched.

cool ty.

I'm much more interested in non-fiction accounts but I'm open to try anything.

Rbk, this thread was a great read, if you haven't read it you should check it out: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/3...ghlight=hitler

awesome ty.

I got a copy of Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels for $1.50 from the Goodwill I slum at. It's way more interesting than any biblical scholarship has a right to be, really fascinating stuff. And this from someone with zero general interest in Christian dogma.

Basically they found these shady-ass weird quasi-Bible scrolls out in the desert back in the 40s, a find that either changes everything or changes nothing, depending on who you ask and how you think.

Everything Pagels writes is fascinating. And you certainly don't need to be a believer to enjoy her work. (Indeed, if you are you may find your faith shaken by her historicizing!) I found memorable both Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity and The Origin of Satan.

For non-fans of BEE, here is one the greatest take-down reviews ever!
https://www.bookforum.com/inprint/026_01/20825

Finished Madeline Miller's Circe, the best retelling (not adaptation or modernization) of a myth I've encountered! Reductively one could say it's a kind of Pinocchio story, in that in the end Circe achieves full humanity.

I also finished Nicole Krauss's first novel The History of Love, having read and liked her later novel, Great House. Both are very well-written and both employ complex narrative structures. Maybe it was the psychic state I was in when I read The History of Love (tired), but it felt like it was more work than I wanted to put in. Spoilers, hell! I thanked god for the Wikipedia summary!

Tiamat’s Wrath (expanse book 8) is out.

Currently reading book 7. Will roll straight into book 8

Distilled Wisdom

Alfred Armand Montapert

Compelling book passed onto me from my Beautiful Grandparents!!! If u can get a copy get one!!!

Men Without Women

Murakami short stories about love. Pretty amazing. Haven't finished it yet, but I can't imagine him topping Kino, wow that was something else.

I am about 2/3rds of the way done with 'The River' by Peter Heller. It is about two friends who go down a long canoe trip in northern Canada who experience two situations: A massive fire and a potential spousicide with a man and woman. I'm enjoying it so far and the overall language and pace are both intense and vivid.

I'd recommend this book for people who enjoy the outdoors as well as people who like thrillers and a fairly simple plot.

I loved Kino but can't say I understood it. I like to listen to the music Murakami mentions in his writings and I remember there was a ton of old jazz in this story.

Totally agree, I got the overall theme but a lot of elements went right over my head.



It's a story I'll be reading a few times I think, hopefully I figure some of it out.