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Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?
- Thread starter Huntn
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With pleasure.
I read the original edition ("The Balkans 1804-1999 Nationalism, War and the Great Powers"), when it was first published almost twenty years ago and wished to revisit this topic.
Misha Glenny wrote an outstanding book - one of the plethora of books - and one of the better ones - that appeared in the wake of the Fall of the Wall, called "The Rebirth of History" in which - rather than jubilating over what had happened, he mused about the future and accurately predicted the collapse of Yugoslavia plus got a number of other things right.
Actually, I'm very impressed by his writing, analytical and research skills.
Still reading Danubia (which is very very good in parts, intelligent, funny and insightful, but a little too self-indulgent occasionally ), and have ordered a few other books.
In the middle of a number of books about the Balkans and central Europe, I decided to take a look at an old favourite: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, by C S Lewis.
It is still brilliant, and timeless, and close to perfect.
@Scepticalscribe Almost finished "The Long Hangover" by Shaun Walker. Another great recommendation so thank you. It's not a subject I knew much about. It is simply horrific what happened to millions (20, 25 million?) of people. The stories of people taken away on trains and long walks to concentration camps (wasn't one woman made to leave her home when she was a child and only returned in her 70's?). These kind of books are great in that they educate you not only in history but also in geography. I had to dig out my Times atlas of the world to see where Magadan was and then look on YouTube to see the place as it is today. And, then of course, how Putin is manipulating and influencing the media to "impose" his "idea" of what Russia now is. I thought the way World War 2 is viewed interesting.
I wonder, have you read Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore? I read it years ago but now feel like revisiting it.
I wonder, have you read Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore? I read it years ago but now feel like revisiting it.
Delighted that you enjoyed The Long Hangover by Shaun Walker; I like that it is balanced and fair - it is not anti-Russian in a sort of default way, but thoughtful - and sympathetic - to the minds and motives of the people and worlds it describes, and whatever criticism it does mete out is thoroughly justified.
No, I haven't, not least because 1) I have read an awful lot on that era, and there comes a time when one is sated, and how many books on psychos such as Hitler and Stalin can one credibly have on one's bookshelves without thinking "ça suffit"- and 2), I'm not all that cracked about Simon Sebag Montefiore and/or his writing.
Re Stalin, I have read Isaac Deutscher's brilliant biography "Stalin", "Let History Judge" by Roy Medvedev, "The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire - Soviet Leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev" by Dmitri Volkogonov, and countless others.
Alan Bullock (who wrote a fine early biography of Hitler) and Richard Overy (whom I met and found extraordinarily arrogant) wrote parallel biographies of Stalin and Hitler - both were better on Hitler than on Stalin.
I'll rack my brain and ransack my memory - I'm sure I have read a lot more than that.
Earlier this week I was rummaging through my parents' attic, and came upon a cardboard box full of books. Now, my parents (and my father especially) are both what you might call bibliophiles, so there's always something interesting to be found when the desire to read strikes.
The "loot" included The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers by Will Durant. I've read a bit about Durant, but this is the first book of his that I actually get my hands on. I've always had an interest in philosophy, but never really delved in to the subject, so maybe this book is the primer I've been needing.
The "loot" included The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers by Will Durant. I've read a bit about Durant, but this is the first book of his that I actually get my hands on. I've always had an interest in philosophy, but never really delved in to the subject, so maybe this book is the primer I've been needing.
That is not a book I have come across, but, if the subject interests you, I can recommend "A History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell.
Much appreciated, that's going on my reading list.
Finally getting round to dive into his latest.
Hasn't lost his touch… Psychogeography at its best.
Iain Sinclair — The Last London
Hasn't lost his touch… Psychogeography at its best.
Iain Sinclair — The Last London
More books arrived today, and inevitably, having read an intriguing review or two, I have ordered yet more books.
I have just read a review of this book in the NYT and am curious - and interested - to see what you think of it.
Well I am a fan of his. I came to read him by way of Peter Ackroyd's novel Hawksmoor.
That took me to Sinclair's Lud Heat… and psychogeography.
I'm curious what the NYT thought of it. Some of the references are arcane in a way that Londoners would "get"… it is very much a self-referential London this.
Edit: The other day I wandered into a secondhand bookshop in Bristol and wanted to see if they had anything — but where to start looking? He is so unclassifiable! The assistant was also flummoxed. Fiction? History? Travel?! Poetry? Nowhere to be found.
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman is my current non-fiction read.
Have yet to choose a work of fiction to read simultaneously (as I always do), but I got a stack of new books at a library book sale on Saturday, so I have a lot to choose from.
Barbara Tuchman was an excellent writer and was a very fine historian.
It is a good book — but I would caution that it was written in 1962. So excellent to read as a classic, but as representative of the latest research and thinking, not quite. And a lot has happened! Archives opened, Official secrets finally beyond their sell by dates, letters discovered in attics etc.
So much is spent on the progress of the "Great" war — especially the maudlin, poppies in muddy Flanders school of thought — and not enough spent on the hows and whys and wheres of what caused the world to convulse itself into its second Thirty Years' War…
If you would like to explore the area more, I wholeheartedly recommend:
Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, Max Hastings
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, Christopher Clarke
The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World War, Margaret Macmillan (A self confessed Tuchmann admirer)
Agreed.
And I heartily second your recommendations. Christopher Clarke's book is excellent.
As is the case with both Shirer, and Bullock, (re WW2), they both wrote excellent books, rightly regarded as classics, but books that have also been uperseded in some ways by more recent research and scholarship.
However, the immediacy of some of the earlier tomes - and their access to witnesses, plus seeing what seemed clear at the time (the old 'sometimes a cigar is only a cigar' in the context of historical writing) material and perspectives that may be over-looked or downplayed at a later time in subsequent writing - plus their sheer readability - all commend them to me; however, I wouldn't view them as sole sources.
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