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Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?
- Thread starter Huntn
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“Pawn Power” by Angus Dunnington. Not a book on the (non-existant) Revolt of Pawns of 2017, but a pretty good technical chess books that examines some unique features to pawn. I learned and reviewed quite a few elements. The book contains many illustrative games.
Well, did you like it? Did you find it sufficiently interesting to wish to read further books by the same author? Would you recommend it?
I actually just published a book. It's up on Amazon and I get a big box of copies on Friday!
I'm re-reading The Hobbit and Overlap by Sean McCabe (start a business while working a full-time job).
I'm re-reading The Hobbit and Overlap by Sean McCabe (start a business while working a full-time job).
Absolutely yes. Read,
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation’s Edge.
Then go with the Robot series,
I, Robot (collection of short stories)
Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
Robots of Dawn
Robots and Empire.
Then integrate the rest of the Foundation:
Prelude to the Foundation
Forward the Foundation
And then conclude the entire Foundation Saga:
Foundation and Earth.
I liked it, but for some reason did not expect it to be essentially a collection of short stories. Not that it's bad, but each short story left me wanting to read more.
Thanks for the list, I think I will get on that then !
Really interesting book. I'm about a third of the way through but its a hugely impressive so far. You will need to understand a bit about the Civil War (the English one
) first.As a side note I would strongly recommend the English Civil War as a reading subject to our readers across the pond, as I've often thought of the American War of Independence was the last act of the English Civil War. (I think you can also argue that much of Americas political thought has come from the ideas of the Puritans, Quakers, Eastern Association, the Levellers, the Diggers etc etc)
Some books I have either recently finished or am still reading:
Modern Man in Search of a Soul--Carl Jung
The Origins and History of Consciousness--Erich Neumann
Man's Search For Meaning--Viktor Frankl
Explaining Postmodernism--Stephen Hicks
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics--John Mearsheimer
Man, the State, and War--Kenneth Waltz
Modern Man in Search of a Soul--Carl Jung
The Origins and History of Consciousness--Erich Neumann
Man's Search For Meaning--Viktor Frankl
Explaining Postmodernism--Stephen Hicks
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics--John Mearsheimer
Man, the State, and War--Kenneth Waltz
Really interesting book. I'm about a third of the way through but its a hugely impressive so far. You will need to understand a bit about the Civil War (the English one
As a side note I would strongly recommend the English Civil War as a reading subject to our readers across the pond, as I've often thought of the American War of Independence was the last act of the English Civil War. (I think you can also argue that much of Americas political thought has come from the ideas of the Puritans, Quakers, Eastern Association, the Levellers, the Diggers etc etc)
Sounds fascinating, and I agree with your analysis.
I have actually been eyeing I,Robot for quite some time. I think that will be on my short of books I want to read!
If I have to be honest it’s not my favorite in the Robot series. It’s just a collection of short stories, some vaguely linked together. It still provides a good basis to understand the Robots better. As any nerd, I am in love with Susan Calvin.
The Caves of Steel is a masterpiece, and The Naked Sun is more actual than ever.
Well then, looks like "The Caves of Steel" is on my list now too! Thank you!!
Finished “Skipping Christmas”. Just started “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
I just downloaded a sample of this to my Kindle. Thanks for sharing.
Zenithal, thank you for recommending Fredrik Bachman's books to me --I just finished Britt-Marie Was Here & have A Man Called Ove, & Bear Town on reserve.
Britt-Marie began so bleakly that after forming a fetal ball i nearly didn't finish reading beyond the first 2 chapters. Even so, there were already sparks of a subversively dry humor, SO very glad that I continued. The life altering experience with an IKEA flat-pack, baking soda, all the characters are terrifically funny. I loved it.
Not quite similar to Jonathan Unleashed, Britt-Marie Was Here has more weight to it.
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Currently reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, it's very compelling & feels so timely. This is the first book of his I've read though I follow his blog, have read very short pieces, & watched
the movie Coraline. It's almost like the delay in reading his stuff was quite a good thing.
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Sounds interesting, please let us know how it turns out.
Heard good things about this book, it's on deck for me.
I find it an extremely interesting, intelligent, well-written, thought-provoking book that is uncomfortable (but in a good way - the sort that makes you think, even if you do not agree with all of his conclusions) at times.
I haven't read it all, but would recommend it unhesitatingly.
I’m reading a biography of Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury murdered in his own cathedral near the end of the 12th century. I’d seen one or two blurb-reviews of this book cite it as “revisionist” so I was curious but not curious enough to read it without reading a few longer reviews first. After all, it’s not like there are serious plot spoilers in a biography.
Then having read the two reviews from which i took the excerpts noted below, I decided to read the book and I’m enjoying it. All I knew of Becket really was from one play and one movie. Many here are likely familiar with the drama ensuing from Henry II’s plaintive query: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
Beyond that most of us may be like me and not have known much about that priest who so bothered the conscience of a king, primarily because of their lost prior friendship. I’m having fun learning more about the two of them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/books/review/thomas-becket-by-john-guy.html
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/18/thomas-becket-john-guy-review30
Then having read the two reviews from which i took the excerpts noted below, I decided to read the book and I’m enjoying it. All I knew of Becket really was from one play and one movie. Many here are likely familiar with the drama ensuing from Henry II’s plaintive query: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
Beyond that most of us may be like me and not have known much about that priest who so bothered the conscience of a king, primarily because of their lost prior friendship. I’m having fun learning more about the two of them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/books/review/thomas-becket-by-john-guy.html
Both darkly comic and deeply tragic, Guy’s biography is a portrait of a saint with plenty of shadows. Does it diminish Becket for us to know that this future martyr in a hair shirt also made sure to keep a fine silk robe handy for his return to Canterbury, a stately progress one chronicler compared to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem? That his abstemious diet was partly the result of a lifelong susceptibility to colitis? That one of his oldest and closest friends would have found his canonization “utterly absurd”? Only if we prefer the black-and-white certainties of hagiography to the convincingly human portrayal of a charismatic, contradictory individual who was, as Guy puts it, “as prickly as he was smooth . . . a man with the habits of a hedgehog.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/18/thomas-becket-john-guy-review30
Becket had no illusions about his long-term safety. Henry repeatedly and ominously refused to exchange the kiss of peace with him, and the archbishop knew his stand against royal demands was likely to end badly. His enemies thought him a charlatan who deliberately courted death. He himself believed his stand was essential to vindicate the universal church's freedoms, and events were to prove him right, for his martyrdom became the emblem of spiritual resistance to secular tyranny. No king till Henry VIII dared repeat Henry II's assault on ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Four centuries on, when the Tudor Henry finally assumed total control of the church, he symbolised the reversal of Becket's victory by denouncing him as a traitor, burning his bones, and outlawing even the mention of his name, a verdict endorsed by protestant and secular historians till modern times.
John Guy is one of our most distinguished Tudor historians and therefore an unexpectedly sympathetic biographer of Becket, though his earlier books include important studies of More and Wolsey – other chancellors called Thomas who fell foul of a tyrannical King Henry. He discounts the unanimous claim of Becket's biographers that, even as a student in Paris, he had preserved his chastity, but Guy admires Becket's flair, courage and integrity, and he despises his royal opponent as a fickle, unscrupulous and vengeful opportunist.
His book does not drastically alter the picture of Becket offered by specialist studies, such as Anne Duggan's splendid 2004 volume in the "Reputations" series, but Guy is more interested in Becket's elusive psychology than in the ideals that he saw himself as defending, and this study is accordingly stronger on particulars than on principles. So on Guy's account, Becket died for the prerogatives of the See of Canterbury rather than the freedom of the universal church. But he has given us an unfailingly lively, accessible and vividly written portrait of one of the giants of the middle ages.
John Guy is one of our most distinguished Tudor historians and therefore an unexpectedly sympathetic biographer of Becket, though his earlier books include important studies of More and Wolsey – other chancellors called Thomas who fell foul of a tyrannical King Henry. He discounts the unanimous claim of Becket's biographers that, even as a student in Paris, he had preserved his chastity, but Guy admires Becket's flair, courage and integrity, and he despises his royal opponent as a fickle, unscrupulous and vengeful opportunist.
His book does not drastically alter the picture of Becket offered by specialist studies, such as Anne Duggan's splendid 2004 volume in the "Reputations" series, but Guy is more interested in Becket's elusive psychology than in the ideals that he saw himself as defending, and this study is accordingly stronger on particulars than on principles. So on Guy's account, Becket died for the prerogatives of the See of Canterbury rather than the freedom of the universal church. But he has given us an unfailingly lively, accessible and vividly written portrait of one of the giants of the middle ages.
Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth" (undoubtedly Follett's best book by far - some writers have it in them to write one absolutely outstanding work once in their lives - this is Ken Follett's - nothing else he has written comes anywhere close) offers a rounded portrait of Becket.
Of course, the story becomes more complex when one realises that Becket's antagonist, Henry II, wasn't your typical moronic monarch, either; he was an unusually gifted administrator and intelligent man, with an extraordinary appetite for - and capacity for - the bureaucratic business of ruling. They each recognised the talents of the other, and, in a way, matched one another.
Let me know how you find the book.
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Well I always knew I should read up on Becket as well as about the King he tried to serve (and compete with), not least because Hollywood by default seemed to suggest that the two of them always spoke in English. Well, not in the 12th century... and I did know that much from half-remembered history. I was just past knowing I was a fair dunce.
In fact Becket was born in London to parents who had emigrated from Normandy and so surely spoke French at least at home, as did many of the Norman-descended middle and upper classes in London at the time. The parents had done well enough in England so as to have had (English-speaking) servants and Becket was later educated in French, Latin and English. Henry II, however, understood English but did not speak it, instead always using only Latin and French.
So much for Hollywood making English kings and priests speak English. And that was before I got to the Hollywood gauze over some of Becket's less clerical adventures. So I'm discovering there are plenty plot spoilers to be had after all LOL.
I just realized that in my earlier post I hadn't actually cited the title and author of the biography of Becket I finally chose, and that I'd left it to the review links to reveal that info. The author is John Guy. The full title is Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel - A Nine Hundred Year Old Story Retold.
Great post.
And your point about Norman French is excellent and very well taken.
Modern English simply absorbed and incorporated much of the vocabulary of Norman French endowing it with a subtlety of description and layers of nuance that it had lacked.
Very often, a language spoken by successful rulers - who have invaded, and replaced and dispossessed the former ruling elite - replaced or supplanted the language spoken by the ruled, but that didn't happen in this case. With the lower classes, both languages co-existed, and English adapted, adding extra layers of meaning and nuance with the incorporation of much the vocabulary of Norman French.
An obvious example is the development of the use of the verb 'demander'. In French, then as now, it simply means 'to ask'. In English, it also means to ask, - and English itself also still retains the verb to ask, which is nice and neutral - but the precise nuance of the word 'demand' as used in English is to ask with menace, to ask with an edge - to ask as a command - that suggests you will be obeyed.
It means that while demanding something in English is indeed a form of asking, but it is one that is overlaid with the barked demand of an order - in other words, when Norman French was the language of the ruling class, how the verb 'to ask' was expressed or came across to the ruled was in the form of an order that required obedience, so 'demand' in English means something a bit different to 'demander' in French. When learning French, I remember how initially, I flinched when I came across that verb.
Another - fascinating - example concerns food, especially meat. Much of the vocabulary that describes the animals that eventually became food derives from Saxon (or English) - cow, calf, pig, lamb, sheep and so on.
But the food that the animals, in turn, became carries within it an interesting lesson in history, culture, social class and language, because much of it has a French (Norman French) origin: Beef (boeuf), mutton (mouton), veal (vel), pork (porc) and so on.
In other words, there is a marked - and, to my mind, very striking - class difference and distinction between the words used to describe the animals (which derived from Saxon English, largely because the Saxons, not the Normans, were tending and herding these animals on an everyday basis) and the words used to describe the food that those animals became - which derive from Norman French - (the lords merely ate and dined - their status meant that they didn't tend, or kill, the animals or prepare them for eating - and the language they would have used to their servants, staff and underlings would have reflected this distinction) that remains in the language to this day.
The first King since the Norman Conquest to have used English widely in his actual court and in the law courts and in the state bureaucracy - as a language of governance (alongside both Norman French and Latin, both of which he knew) was Edward I (1273-1307).
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