Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?

[LizKat]

Punch and Judy Politics (2018) by Ayesha Hazarika and Tom Hamilton. What a wonderful surprise this book was!
I am one of the geeks overseas that enjoys watching the British PMQ (Prime Minister Questions) time almost every week. This book, written by two people that actually helped prepare PMQ's, is simply outstanding in its explanation of how the PMQ works, the toll it takes on the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, and all the tricks and tips to survive it. Apparently, it takes about 8 hour of work for the PM alone to be ready enough to survive the PMQ, and each PM has a trusted team working on the possible questions and answers. Apparently, it's an insane, weekly task for every PM. The book shows how the format changed throughout the decades through "tricks" by MP's that are very knowledgeable about the strangest rules of the House of Commons.
Style of this book is impressive, it's a page turner which is a rarity for political themed books.
Highly recommended for all the political geeks. Heck, this book even gave me a few ideas for organizing my aide-memoires.

There goes (yet again) my promise to set aside some dough earlier for the school tax budget. I see rice and beans in the October grocery slot. I'll thank you, and your ears will burn for weeks.

 

[yaxomoxay]

There goes (yet again) my promise to set aside some dough earlier for the school tax budget. I see rice and beans in the October grocery slot. I'll thank you, and your ears will burn for weeks.

Let me know if you like it!

 

[AVBeatMan]

Thoroughly enjoyed “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight. Now onto “The Moon’s a Balloon” by David Niven.

 

[0388631]

I envisioned you reading Fred Astair biographies to be honest.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Thoroughly enjoyed “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight. Now onto “The Moon’s a Balloon” by David Niven.

I'd be curious to read what you think of "The Moon's a Balloon".

My mother read it when it was first published, and I read it later on.

However, I have the oddest feeling that it may be one of those books that hasn't aged particularly well.

David Niven was never an especially great actor, - his most impressive role seems to me to have been himself a version of which he played in almost every movie he featured in - and the milieu in which he operated seems to me to be strangely dated.

 

[yaxomoxay]

I
David Niven was never an especially great actor, - his most impressive role seems to me to have been himself a version of which he played in almost every movie he featured in - and the milieu in which he operated seems to me to be strangely dated.

Well, I loved him in Murder by Death

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Well, I loved him in Murder by Death

He was good when he was playing what he actually was: An English gentleman.

Thus, in Around The World In Eighty Days, he was excellent as Phileas Fogg, who himself was a sort of caricature of a particular type of 19th century English gentleman.

But, his range didn't really extend very far beyond that.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Punch and Judy Politics (2018) by Ayesha Hazarika and Tom Hamilton. What a wonderful surprise this book was!
I am one of the geeks overseas that enjoys watching the British PMQ (Prime Minister Questions) time almost every week. This book, written by two people that actually helped prepare PMQ's, is simply outstanding in its explanation of how the PMQ works, the toll it takes on the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, and all the tricks and tips to survive it. Apparently, it takes about 8 hour of work for the PM alone to be ready enough to survive the PMQ, and each PM has a trusted team working on the possible questions and answers. Apparently, it's an insane, weekly task for every PM. The book shows how the format changed throughout the decades through "tricks" by MP's that are very knowledgeable about the strangest rules of the House of Commons.
Style of this book is impressive, it's a page turner which is a rarity for political themed books.
Highly recommended for all the political geeks. Heck, this book even gave me a few ideas for organizing my aide-memoires.

It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: Thus, I have just placed a order for this book.

 

[yaxomoxay]

It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: Thus, I have just placed a order for this book.

Ah! Since you lived through many of the administrations mentioned in the book (it starts at Macmillan if I am right), and since you really know your political history, I look forward to read your comment, positive or negative.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Ah! Since you lived through many of the administrations mentioned in the book (it starts at Macmillan if I am right), and since you really know your political history, I look forward to read your comment, positive or negative.

I look forward to reading it and offering comments, thoughts, and feedback, and thank you kindly for the recommendation.

 

[Matz]

Taking a short break from nonfiction, and reading Crimson Shore, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
Aloysius X.L. Pendergast is, imho, one of the most entertaining characters in modern fiction.

 

[Huntn]

No spoilers please!

I’ve started The Handmaid’s Tale, the narrative grabbed me immediately, but so far it’s mostly about a dystopian society where women have been subjugated into human cattle to be bred, the ones that are fertile, a description of the present, with current happenings from the narrator’s perspective, and much reminiscing about the good old normal days. Don’t consider this statement my negative critique, as I am in the first couple of chapters and the stage still maybe being set.

However, I’m not usually into stories all about misery, and without dropping spoilers about the book (or the tv series), I’d like to know if this story goes somewhere significantly? I don’t want to know if it is a happy or unhappy ending for the narrator, but it would be nice if there is some shakeup in the status quo.

As I ask this, I also wonder if I should be asking? Sometimes there are thrills to be found in such stories, not knowing as I think of the Shawshank Redemption, but in other stories, it has been, why did I just read this, as I think of Cold Mountain or maybe The Road, the latter, I only saw the movie.

So maybe just say it’s well worth the read, or not.

​

I finished this dystopian story and it is a painful portrayal of female subjugation under the guise of reproductive necessity, at the hands of a murderous fascist regime with a religious wrapper, where everyone is locked into strict rules of conduct, with dire punishments. In some cases punishments where group behavior is encouraged to bring justice to the accused even if it is all just another scam and form of control.

What this woman, and women around her have to go through is a frick’n nightmare although it’s easy to argue that everyone in this story is oppressed. Despite this oppression, there is subtle rebellion, as human needs resist the restrictive bonds placed on them as both oppressed and oppressors. The story pace picks up a bit once the heroine finds an outlet for her restricted existence.

I won’t say whether it was a happy ending or not, but it ends with another chapter to wade through, devoted to an after the fact symposium (part of the story) discussing the manuscript that was discovered and historical details that add to the story.

Can I recommend it? For myself no, the verbose nature of observation and reflection, while intricate and creative, painting a vivid picture, was simply too much, more than I wanted and I ended up skimming through many pages to get to the next part of the actual story.

It might appeal to you, if you like being awash in a sea of vividly descriptive, meandering detail, extensive remembrances, with seeming-less jumps from present, to past, back to present, with page upon page devoted to the analysis of a variety of human emotions, like what is Love, how it was then as compared to now. Into this structure, tidbits of story are inserted like raisins in rice pudding. It reads much like how it might be to read someone’s thoughts as they flow by.

Now for the TV series, is it better? I have to believe it can’t go into the same depth of descriptive detail, that the narrative is forced to move forward at a faster pace and that it is probably spiffed up a bit with excitement and tension. Maybe they treat the book as the core setting and then run with the story of the rise and fall of this regime.

​

 

[LizKat]

Most of what I'd have to say about The Handmaid's Tale is probably too political for this subforum. But I'd offer that the most startling thing to me was the short timeframe of the changes that occurred, and the realization that things we may take for granted --"inalienable rights"-- did not just drop out of a cloud sometime and stick here as a force of nature unto themselves, nor somehow evolve to end up naturally engraved in everyone's hearts. I found the book a lot of work to get through but that it's left me a lot of food for thought and made me more of an activist than I had perhaps thought I'd have to be at my age.

I have not seen the TV series nor so far read reviews of it either. I confess to being a little wary of made-for-TV adaptations of anything treating subjugation of women. Perhaps that's very unfair of me without a look-in at some episodes of any particular series.... but "sex sells" and is sometimes problematic in TV presentations of how the good guys may (or, may not!) win in the end but meanwhile look how they tie her up and put duct tape over her mouth and stuff her in the trunk of a car and... is that a cigarette burn on her forearm.. Jesus Christ enough already has often enough been my response to abandoning some exposition of "how it's done".

Was there some other point to the story? Oh yeah, the bad guy got caught and locked up at the end. Hoorah for the good guys. What do I remember about it? Not that tacked on and formulaic ending, nope. I'll remember the attempt to make the "how it's done" crime ever more ingenious and compellingly gritty for us, the voyeurs, since we may no longer just feel like viewers.

I'm not critiquing anything in the Handmaid's Tale here... but acknowledging my reluctance to bother with it since I have read the work and found it compelling enough that I'm not sure I want to see how someone else wants me to see it. Or rather see how someone else chooses to focus on this or that aspect of the tale, since you're right, no TV production could translate the whole thing in its detail to the little screen.

"All art is propaganda..." [Orwell] so... it's not just the moral of the story that waves some banner, is it? The graphic immediacy of video in portrayal of physical or psychological violence is sometimes a deal breaker for me whereas I don't feel inclined towards censorship of the underlying written material at all. Maybe it's just my age. I'm in that last generation that learned to read before laying eyes on a TV (or, obviously, a movie theatre screen). That must surely make a huge difference in how people perceive "talking pictures".

 

[Gutwrench]

Not that I apply them, but have always found manners and etiquette fascinating.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Reading "Have Sword Will Travel" by Garth Nix and Sean Williams.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Not that I apply them, but have always found manners and etiquette fascinating.

View attachment 853766

It is, and I try to apply it as much as I can. Some stuff can be over the top, but there are things that can be done and are minimally noticeable.
Sadly some people don't like even basic education, I got screamed at for holding a door open.

 

[JamesMike]

Decided on a mystery book titled The Birthday Mystery by Faith Martin. It is light reading about a traveling chef who is also an amateur detective.

 

[Gutwrench]

It is, and I try to apply it as much as I can. Some stuff can be over the top, but there are things that can be done and are minimally noticeable.
Sadly some people don't like even basic education, I got screamed at for holding a door open.

Pity.

I held a door for a man in a wheelchair once. He snapped at me saying “I’m just as capable as you.” I bit my tongue wanting to say, ‘I hold the door for everyone jackass.’

Paraphrasing from a book on table etiquette:

A gentleman always sets the table properly for his guests.

A gentleman never assumes guests are noting if he made a setting error.

A gentleman never notes a setting mistake made by his host.

That seems to sum it up for me with the door thing. I try to be marginally appropriate because its the way I choose to be — not because others demand it or I demand it of them.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

It's been on my to-read list for a long time, so now I take the plunge. Currently reading:

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

By chance I found this Viking Critical Library edition (of which my copy of Dubliners is also).

 

[0388631]

Decided on a mystery book titled The Birthday Mystery by Faith Martin. It is light reading about a traveling chef who is also an amateur detective.

Cozy genre.

Pity.

I held a door for a man in a wheelchair once. He snapped at me saying “I’m just as capable as you.” I bit my tongue wanting to say, ‘I hold the door for everyone jackass.’

Paraphrasing from a book on table etiquette:

A gentleman always sets the table properly for his guests.

A gentleman never assumes guests are noting if he made a setting error.

A gentleman never notes a setting mistake made by his host.

That seems to sum it up for me with the door thing. I try to be marginally appropriate because its the way I choose to be — not because others demand it or I demand it of them.

Should have let go of the door and let him sort it out.

 

[obeygiant]

The Rational Male



Completely mind blowing. Like every page is a revelation.


Every guy should read it

 

[yaxomoxay]

Range (2019) by David Epstein. An interesting take about specialization and the need for diversification in the real world. I think that the book makes sensible arguments, however I don't see it as a one-size-fits-all solution. I believe in diversification, but also deep thinking and deep study in one topic. I liked, however, that he mentioned that athletes are often not the best example of success to use in real-world scenario as an athlete has to work within a certain set of predetermined rules that rarely change, while workers often don't. Hence, saying that since Tiger Woods specialized since his youth might not be a good reason to tell everybody to specialize. A good, easy read.

[doublepost=1566593217][/doublepost]

The Rational Male



Completely mind blowing. Like every page is a revelation.


Every guy should read it

I am curious about this one, I might give it a try.
Rollo Tomassi…… reminds me of LA Confidential.

 

[aFlockaCgulz]

Anna Karenina by Tolstoy.

 

[2984839]

The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton

 

[yaxomoxay]

The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton

A classic.