If you want something with a specific point of view and likely very different from what you heard in h.s., try Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, it's unfair and unbalanced but it's a counterpoint to the equally unfair and unbalanced property party fairy tale most people have heard for most of their lives.

Finished The Beast in View by Margaret Millar. I read this as part of a two-volume LoA boxed set called Women Crime Writers of the 1940's & 1950's. It takes up 148 pages of that set, so it's short and quick.

It's a classic of its time and extremely well written, the kind of writing that follows all the classroom rules and still reads smooth and easy. If you're looking for classic noir, it would be hard to find better without going to Chandler or Hammett.

You spelled "People's" wrong. Its spelled "Patriots "

Any recommendations on one which is not unbalanced in either direction?

I've never read one that is without a point of view, a slant, or an editorial opinion.

Sapiens: A brief history of humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Started reading it, very engaging and insightful

I just finished reading Madeleine Thien's Booker short-listed Do Not Say We Have Nothing. I found it an extraordinary reading experience. It’s not a quick book (it felt longer than its approximately 500 pages) because of its complex movement across time and place and its laying out of complicated interrelationships between characters but it has magnitude. I reached a point, about half-way through, where I couldn’t do anything else but read on. Now that I’m done, I’m finding it hard to think of starting anything new.

I found the material compelling but also painful: the tragedy of life in China under Mao from the period of the Great Leap Forward through the Cultural Revolution — and the persecution of those perceived to be, first, financially advantaged (the landholders) and then those seen as the intellectually or artistically “elite.”

My feelings about the American election may have intensified my responses to this chronicle of the horrors of a Strong Man rule …

I really enjoyed The Sense of an Ending. It's a contender for my favourite thing I've read this year. Excellent writing, an interesting mystery, and just the right amount of cynicism for my taste (i.e., a whole lot!). I'm always a sucker for stories of tight-knit groups of intellectual friends, so that was a bonus.

Next up: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet.

ok russell you've convinced me. gonna start it on turkey day.

Seinfeldia was solid. I was dreading reading the early history because it's a story I've already seen and read about so many times, but Armstrong brings enough new stuff to the table that it was still entertaining. The later parts, about the show's lasting impact, were what I was really looking forward to. There are several pages devoted to my favorite Twitter account, @Seinfeld2000, worth the price of admission for me.

It's a light read, which is both good and bad. There's room in the world I think for a dense Caro-esque 1000 pager about Seinfeld. This isn't that.

It doesn't enter into my top tier of non-fiction, but it's worth the read.

Surprised I haven't seen anything here about The Secret History of Twin Peaks by the show's co-creator Mark Frost. It's an epistolary novel, with a lot of great visual detail put into the numerous fictional documents.

Mixed bag. It's put together very well, parts are very entertaining. YMMV on how you feel about the Twin Peaks connection. It goes as far back as Lewis & Clark and connects various historical events and conspiracy theories with the town of Twin Peaks. It feels like The Da Vinci Code in some respects.

In a way, Frost here is semi-answering quite a lot of the show's long-standing mysteries. Not "what happened to such and such character" (there's a little of that and I'm not finished yet), but deeper mysteries about the town itself and the nature/origin of certain supernatural events. I don't like that, at all, and I hope it's not an indication of what Season 3 will do. It is Lostification.

I'll expand upon this a bit perhaps in the Twin Peaks thread when I'm finished.

There's some chat about The Sense Of An Ending ITT if you care to look for it.

Edit: and almost certainly JdZ, too.

I like that this is your suggestion for "light reading"


cliff notes.

Tyranny
Some folks stand up to tyranny
Those folks get murdered, but in jail, beat up, etc

time passes

The thing those folks tried to stand up to, gets reversed



For current events version, see the North Dakota Pipeline

If it was 100 years ago, those people would be dead already, and the pipeline would be going just fine.

I am so happy for you.

Loving the first 50 pages, though I'll admit to having some trouble keeping track of who's who.

Finished The Biology of Luck by Jacob M. Appel. I've never seen an author show, then tell and then explain as much as is done in this book.

It's the story of a man named "Bloom" who wanders around NYC on Bloomsday (though he seems to not be conscious of that). The author says that he began the novel to be analogous to Ulysses but that the characters went other ways. Allowing the characters to determine the plot was the right decision, but it would have been better if he had removed the obvious references to Joyce's work.

The plot is cute, but the need to triple hit (show, tell, explain) every character action becomes tiresome.

One, suggestion re reading Do Not Say We Have Nothing. It helps to keep notes as you read on the major characters when they are introduced. There are a bunch to keep track of.

This is not meant to be off-putting. This novel is highly rewarding!

Read the first three trade paperbacks of Powers, a graphic novel by Bendis and Oeming. The comic is pretty fun. It is a police procedural (homicide detectives) in a world that has superheroes. Not an elite comic book series, but worth the read if you enjoy crime fiction and superheroes.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow. I downloaded it for free from his website since I haven't read any of his stuff before and he self-publishes everything under Creative Commons in every conceivable format. I chose the book through my recent interest in analyzing the connections, disruptions, organizing principles, social strata, etc., humanity would face in a post-scarcity Anthropocene.

Once a revolutionary technology makes every human need so absolutely cheap and universally available that money becomes worthless, capitalism and all its associated institutions are transcended in ways we would do well to anticipate. In Down and Out, the primary mode of exchange is Whuffie, which seems to be a kind of social reputation score.

One of the organizing principles Doctorow uses is the adhocracy. For instance, Disneyland is still up and running but each ride seems to be managed by whoever occupies the area, accumulating more whuffie the more patrons they attract. Everyone's whuffie is instantly viewable to everyone else via a brain implant, so there is still economic motivation to keep certain institutions operational under a moneyless mode of exchange.

The book is well-written, fun to read, and revolves around interesting ideas, there's a murder mystery, some humor, and it's free. Pretty strong.

I finished The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero. For those unfamiliar, this is a book about the making of the best worst movie ever, The Room. I love The Room and have watched it multiple times. The book is well written and laugh-out-loud funny at times. Highly recommended for those looking for a lighter read.

For those who like audiobooks, Downpour is having a Black Friday sale ending on the first. Lots of DRM-free stuff like the aforementioned Doctorow, Sturgeon, Ellery Queen, Don Winslow, Dostoeyevsky, Dickens, Heinlein, L'Amour, Hammett, Roth, Niven, Austen, Twain, Slaughter, Marquez, Card, etc.

Just finished Journey through genius by William Dunham. The book consists of 12 chapters through history of mathematics. Each chapter talks about a great theorem in mathematics. The author explains the theorem well, why it's important and then he goes a bit further into the impact it had.

The selection of the theorems was pretty good. I wasn't too happy with the theorem selected in chapter 10, since I thought it wasn't important enough and it's the theorem that connects to my field of study. However, I liked all of the other ones and thought the exposition was fantastic.

Yup, I was a fan a while back - I noticed this year they seen to have turned it into a TV programme. I watched the first episode but it wasnt promising.

Sounds very interesting. Is it accessible to someone with no math beyond high school?

I watched the show. It was canceled after 2 seasons. I thought it was a good show, but it's very different than the comic. The show has a season-long arc and it is more super-hero-y instead of focused on solving cases.

Any general consensus on what the best George Saunders collection is?? I love his articles in the New Yorker and have a long flight coming up so thought I'd make a start on his stories.