What are you reading now - and then

[kaientai]

Neil Gaiman's American Gods for me better then the show (which I also like)

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks Stavros, for your remembrance on Lawrence Ferlinghetti who died Feb. 22 2021 .
Ah yes, I remember those days when I first discovered Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books in my Junior year of high school in 1965. I bought Ginsberg's "Howl" , and Ferlinghetti's "A Coney Island of the Mind" and other great City Lights editions of works by Gary Snyder (who is still writing) and others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Ferlinghetti

[Stavros]

Perhaps you could tell me who, other than the obvious ones, are your favourite American poets?

For reasons I can't explain, we had a teacher when I was in Junior school, ie 7-12 who loved Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha in particular -possibly she was influenced by a generation before, ie teachers born in the 19th century for whom Longfellow was essential reading? I doubt even High School students read him these days. Whitman, Hughes, Frost, Lowell, the Beats, Ferlinghetti -and Sylvia Plath, maybe even Denise Levertov and Adrienne Rich were staples for me, but there must be less obvious ones you can recommend. And no, it doesn't include Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash or Robbie Robertson -I knew an American who insisted he was one of American's finest poets.

[sukumvit boy]

Perhaps you could tell me who, other than the obvious ones, are your favourite American poets?

For reasons I can't explain, we had a teacher when I was in Junior school, ie 7-12 who loved Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha in particular -possibly she was influenced by a generation before, ie teachers born in the 19th century for whom Longfellow was essential reading? I doubt even High School students read him these days. Whitman, Hughes, Frost, Lowell, the Beats, Ferlinghetti -and Sylvia Plath, maybe even Denise Levertov and Adrienne Rich were staples for me, but there must be less obvious ones you can recommend. And no, it doesn't include Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash or Robbie Robertson -I knew an American who insisted he was one of American's finest poets.
American poets would be Whitman ,I carried a worn copy of "Leaves of Grass" with me the last 2 years of high school, and Lowell and the Beats particularly Gary Snyder. My all time favorite poet is your British T S Elliot , at one time I committed "The Waste Land and Other Poems " to memory.
Other than that I'm very interested in Chinese poetry particularly the "Hermit Poets" and the work of Bill Porter aka Red Pine,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Pine_(author)

[Stavros]

Thanks for the recommendations, as I have not heard of Red Pine before and have found some intersting articles to read. I have some compilations of Chinese and Japanese poetry on my shelf for years, but have not take a special interest in going further. I pondered reading The Dream of the Red Chamber/Song of the Stone, but have not done more than that. I spent a month travelling through China and should probably have read it then. I have tended to be lukewarm on Chinese culture, as I find it more vulgar than the Japanese. It is most noticeable in visual arts, where Japanese painting, though similar in its use of materials to the Chinese (and probably not as original as most educated Chinese will tell you the Japanese poached everything from them) has a subtlety I don't find in Chinese, and the Haiku is even more dense than the one-breath poetry these Asians seem to specialise in. Japanesee films are definitely preferred to the Chinese, and I am not just referring to Jackie Chan. Why Chinese poetry never developed an 'epic' or 'heroic' style is not clear to me, though the European classics, such as The Iliad and The Odyssey were not written down but oral poems long before writing was common, and their length is due to them being moral tales spun out nigh after night or day after day.

TS Eliot is a problematic poet for me, because I was hooked when I first read him and it was my introduction to that generation of moderns. I recall it being set to music by Tim Souster at a concert in London with the late Marius Goring as the reader, but my view on Eliot has changed a lot since then. In particular Four Quartets is a disturbing journey into a form of Christian Fascism which has its connections to Charles Maurras, a 'thinker' Eliot admired and continued to admire long after his death in 1952. Eliot is one of those who wrote superb poetry that caused a frenzy of rage and argument amongs those who took it seriously at the time (cf FR Leavis, New Bearings in English Poetry, 1932). But his politics is a major turn off.

Just a thought -do you think William Carlos Williams was influenced by Chinese poets? Thinking of the Red Wheelbarrow...

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks for the recommendations, as I have not heard of Red Pine before and have found some intersting articles to read. I have some compilations of Chinese and Japanese poetry on my shelf for years, but have not take a special interest in going further. I pondered reading The Dream of the Red Chamber/Song of the Stone, but have not done more than that. I spent a month travelling through China and should probably have read it then. I have tended to be lukewarm on Chinese culture, as I find it more vulgar than the Japanese. It is most noticeable in visual arts, where Japanese painting, though similar in its use of materials to the Chinese (and probably not as original as most educated Chinese will tell you the Japanese poached everything from them) has a subtlety I don't find in Chinese, and the Haiku is even more dense than the one-breath poetry these Asians seem to specialise in. Japanesee films are definitely preferred to the Chinese, and I am not just referring to Jackie Chan. Why Chinese poetry never developed an 'epic' or 'heroic' style is not clear to me, though the European classics, such as The Iliad and The Odyssey were not written down but oral poems long before writing was common, and their length is due to them being moral tales spun out nigh after night or day after day.

TS Eliot is a problematic poet for me, because I was hooked when I first read him and it was my introduction to that generation of moderns. I recall it being set to music by Tim Souster at a concert in London with the late Marius Goring as the reader, but my view on Eliot has changed a lot since then. In particular Four Quartets is a disturbing journey into a form of Christian Fascism which has its connections to Charles Maurras, a 'thinker' Eliot admired and continued to admire long after his death in 1952. Eliot is one of those who wrote superb poetry that caused a frenzy of rage and argument amongs those who took it seriously at the time (cf FR Leavis, New Bearings in English Poetry, 1932). But his politics is a major turn off.

Just a thought -do you think William Carlos Williams was influenced by Chinese poets? Thinking of the Red Wheelbarrow...

I certainly think that through his friendships with Ezra Pound and Allen Ginsberg he was influenced by both Chinese and Japanese poetry,they were steeped in it ,Pound's "The Chinese Written Character As A Medium For Poetry " comes to mind."The Red Wheelbarrow" is reminiscent of the Japanese Haiku poetic form.
Bill Porter has also written a host of excellent travel books

[sukumvit boy]

With regard to the visual arts ,I am a student of both Chinese ink painting and Japanese Sumi-e painting and was fortunate to have studied Sumi-e with Koho Yamamoto in New York City in the 1970's.
https://nyhandmadecollective.org/blog/2017/10/24/sumi-e-artist-koho-yamamoto-new-york-citys-treasure

[Stavros]

American poets would be Whitman ,I carried a worn copy of "Leaves of Grass" with me the last 2 years of high school


BBC Radio 3 repeated a broadcast of Song of Myself from 2016, based on another incomplete project by Orson Welles -he reads the opening, some of the middle and then the last passages, interspersed with new voices, male and female, filling in the gaps, with recorded music and sound. It is quite long, but mesmeric in its effect, those waves of words washing over the soul and ending with that lyrical flourish (Verse 52), worth quoting in its entirety, and hearing Welles baritone voice do it some justice...


The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me—he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable;
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me;
It flings my likeness after the rest, and true as any, on the shadow’d wilds;
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air—I shake my white locks at the runaway sun;
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean;
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;
Missing me one place, search another;
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0770h0v

[sukumvit boy]

Recommended; V S Naipaul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._S._Naipaul
I previously read "A House For Mister Biswas" and just finished "Miguel Street" and "The Middle Passage"

[sukumvit boy]

BBC Radio 3 repeated a broadcast of Song of Myself from 2016, based on another incomplete project by Orson Welles -he reads the opening, some of the middle and then the last passages, interspersed with new voices, male and female, filling in the gaps, with recorded music and sound. It is quite long, but mesmeric in its effect, those waves of words washing over the soul and ending with that lyrical flourish (Verse 52), worth quoting in its entirety, and hearing Welles baritone voice do it some justice...


The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me—he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable;
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me;
It flings my likeness after the rest, and true as any, on the shadow’d wilds;
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air—I shake my white locks at the runaway sun;
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean;
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;
Missing me one place, search another;
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0770h0v

Thanks,great link. Nicely done program. It's good to hear Well's voice again and the other readers are also very good.

[Stavros]

Another saucy spat between writers, this time two men who have made a living writing about the Minnesota-born painter, lyricist and guitar-and-harmonica player, Bob Dylan . I once shared a taxi with a man who told me he was writing a book about the Manic Street Preachers. When I asked if it was about weird Christian Fundamentalists in America, he looked pained. Apparently, they are a band. I don't know if he ever finished the book, but I see him around town occasionally, but he doesn't say hello, and looks to me a lttle sad. Should he switch to Abba?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/apr/19/semi-literate-writers-in-bitter-row-over-bob-dylan-books

[broncofan]

I once shared a taxi with a man who told me he was writing a book about the Manic Street Preachers. When I asked if it was about weird Christian Fundamentalists in America, he looked pained.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/apr/19/semi-literate-writers-in-bitter-row-over-bob-dylan-books
Some people expect others to share the same level of interest in obscure things. I've never heard of the manic street preachers and think your guess was amusing. I like some Bob Dylan songs but I never understood the obsession with him that some of his fans have. These two writers aren't the only ones. There are people who know every lyric, every quote, and every detail of his life. I'm not saying Dylan isn't a great musician and lyricist, just that I can't understand the level of obsession.

I'm reading a book by Dorothy Hughes called Ride the Pink Horse. Two of her books were made into movies and this was the lesser known of the two. I saw the film In a Lonely Place with Bogart and so didn't want to start with that book because I'd keep imagining the main character as Bogart. Hughes' books were written around the time that more famous male writers like Chandler and Cain were producing some of their more memorable works. I've enjoyed books by Chandler and Cain but so far find Hughes' writing to be a cut above. Vivid, insightful descriptions without the sardonic one liners of Marlowe or the sleaziness of Cain. I'm enjoying this book a lot so far and am finding certain passages to be almost poetic in their beauty.

[killingmrwatson]

I'm reading a book by Dorothy Hughes called Ride the Pink Horse. Two of her books were made into movies and this was the lesser known of the two. I saw the film In a Lonely Place with Bogart and so didn't want to start with that book because I'd keep imagining the main character as Bogart.

I read In a Lonely Place but have never seen the movie, and I can attest that it's a great book. I liked it a bit more than The Expendable Man, but I think that comes down to personal preference and not the quality of either book. They're both really good.

On The Yard by Malcolm Braly is one that I really liked recently. It's a prison novel but it is quite sensitive and human. There's a relationship involving a crossdresser that is a significant part of the plot.

[broncofan]

I read In a Lonely Place but have never seen the movie, and I can attest that it's a great book. I liked it a bit more than The Expendable Man, but I think that comes down to personal preference and not the quality of either book. They're both really good.

On The Yard by Malcolm Braly is one that I really liked recently. It's a prison novel but it is quite sensitive and human. There's a relationship involving a crossdresser that is a significant part of the plot.
I'll take a look at On The Yard next. Thanks.

I want to read The Expendable Man as well for sure.

[Stavros]

I'm not saying Dylan isn't a great musician and lyricist, just that I can't understand the level of obsession.
.

'Dylanology' has been around since, I think the late 1970s. Much of it is fuelled by Dylan's reluctance or refusal to talk about his songs as well as his private life, leaving the field open to the Nerds. One of your fellow Americans once informed me that Robbie Robertson was America's greatest poet, and this man had a degree in English from that place in Madison. We had quite a few exchanges on literature at the time which, shall we say, puzzled me -mostly about him, not the Dept in Wisconsin. Another American and I had a furous exchange on whether or not Dylan was even a poet, as I said No, and she said Yes, a reversal of the most common exchanges I had with women at that time.

[Stavros]

I read In a Lonely Place but have never seen the movie, and I can attest that it's a great book. I liked it a bit more than The Expendable Man, but I think that comes down to personal preference and not the quality of either book. They're both really good.

On The Yard by Malcolm Braly is one that I really liked recently. It's a prison novel but it is quite sensitive and human. There's a relationship involving a crossdresser that is a significant part of the plot.

Thanks to you and Broncofan for the tips, as both these books look good -I had not heard of either author and will expore. I also wonder if the US has produced better literature on life on the margins. I am thinking of John Rechy's books City of Night and The Sexual Outlaw, and Hubert Selby Jr's Last Exit to Brooklyn. They are grittty, hard-edged with a lot of swearing and sex. The only comparable books I can think of are by the French writer Jean Genet, such as The Thief's Journal and they tend to be almost lyrical rather than crude (in the best sense of that word). The UK has not done this genre well, unless you want to include life in a Debtor's prison in Dickens's Little Dorrit, Room 101 in Orwell's 1984, or Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, three well written books that are a world away from the ones I first mentioned. Or maybe I am just not familiar with British books of this type.

[GroobySteven]

'Dylanology' has been around since, I think the late 1970s. Much of it is fuelled by Dylan's reluctance or refusal to talk about his songs as well as his private life, leaving the field open to the Nerds.

Chronicles Vol 1. He explains much of why he doesn't talk about his songs.
I hope there is a Vol 2.

[filghy2]

One of your fellow Americans once informed me that Robbie Robertson was America's greatest poet, and this man had a degree in English from that place in Madison.

Robbie Robertson can't be America's greatest poet because he is Canadian. He was a member of The Band, which was also Dylan's backing band at one point.

You don't think this is poetry? Sure, its meaning is totally obscure, but it's great wordplay.
http://www.songlyrics.com/bob-dylan/subterranean-homesick-blues-lyrics/

[Stavros]

Robbie Robertson can't be America's greatest poet because he is Canadian. He was a member of The Band, which was also Dylan's backing band at one point.

You don't think this is poetry? Sure, its meaning is totally obscure, but it's great wordplay.
http://www.songlyrics.com/bob-dylan/subterranean-homesick-blues-lyrics/


The remark on Robertson was made in a letter c1974 so I can't be sure if he said 'In America' rather than of it, but I suspect he didn't know Robertson was Canadian, and neither did I.

As for the Dylan, it illustrates my view, snobbish, eccentric, call it what you will, that there is a difference between a Lyric and a Poem, and in your example, one that makes more sense when sung rather than read, hence the need for the distinction.

I had a Dylan phase in the second half of the 1960s and continue to admire his work from that era, indeed, Mr Tambourine Man is one of the best songs ever written and has some of the most memorable lines in song of any genre, containing within it the mystery, the danger and the promise of a life in art -In the Jingle Jangle Morning I'll come following you. It resonates, indeed may even be inspired by and refer to that haunting conclusion to Schubert's Winterreise, one of the extraordinary works this troubled man wrote shortly before his death in Vienna at the age of 31-a cycle of songs about lost love and alienation where art alone survives as the motive force of life, much as one can imagine Dylan himself following that American 'leiermann' Woody Guthrie to New York City where the 'Folk Revival' was reaching its crescendo there, as it was in Yorkville in Toronto with people like Gordon Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell. Anyway, that's enough Dyanology for today. Here are some examples, with Melanie's rendition particularly intense, and in memory of a recital she gave in London all those years ago, such a wonderful singer.


Wunderlicher Alter,

Soll ich mit dir geh'n?

Willst zu meinen Liedern
Deine Leier dreh'n?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIIS-UgixGE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LwyOSyWpNg

[Stavros]

Chronicles Vol 1. He explains much of why he doesn't talk about his songs.
I hope there is a Vol 2.

I read the book when it first came out, but I can't remember a lot about it, other than the references made to obscure musicians Dylan knew in his early years. If I can find the book I will look at it again, but I think its in a box on the stairs along with many others.

At least one claim that Chronicles Vol 2 will be published in 2020 has not come true-
https://www.bobdylan-comewritersandcritics.com/pages/books/bob-dylan-chroniques-volume-2.htm

You can even order a copy from Waterstones-
https://www.waterstones.com/book/chronicles-volume-2/bob-dylan/9780743230773

[Stavros]

David Baddiel, Jews Don't Count (TLS, 2021).

Baddiel is well known in the UK as a comedian, journaist, co-host of a now defunct football fan show on TV, and co-author of the lyrics of a popular song about English football 'Three Lions'.

In this extended essay he launches a critique of the 'hierarchy of racisms' in which Jews are either invisible, or make sudden appearances with the peculiar status of being in some way 'less important' than other victims of hate. The book takes in the depiction of Jews in film and tv by non-Jews comparing it to the futore that has more recently emerged when, say a non-trans or non-gay actor takes on a trans or gay role. The importance of social media becomes evident owing to posts on Twitter, for example, having the ablity to transmit 'messages' instantly across the world -and get a response, and later in the book takes on the issues raised by the Labour Party's investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism in the party.

What emerges is the hurt that he argues is what many Jews feel at the way in which they are treated, regardless as to whether or not they are religious or secular Jews, love or hate Israel (Baddiel is in the 'Fuck Israel' camp), and whether they are on the 'left' or 'right' or identify as he does as 'Progressives', whatever that means. As a clear exampe of how 'Jews Don't Count', he cites the term BAME and notes that when Sajid Javid was described as the first BAME Chancellor of th Exchqeuer it ignored, and made irrelevant the fact that Nigel Lawson held the role before him, the unstated assumption being that Jews are not an ethnic or any other kind of minority -even though at key moments they are treated -mocked, ridiculed- as being 'other' than 'us'.

It is an eloquent broadside that asks a lot of uncomfortable questions and can be read in one sitting. Recommended.

[decastro]

Some people expect others to share the same level of interest in obscure things. I've never heard of the manic street preachers and think your guess was amusing. I like some Bob Dylan songs but I never understood the obsession with him that some of his fans have. These two writers aren't the only ones. There are people who know every lyric, every quote, and every detail of his life. I'm not saying Dylan isn't a great musician and lyricist, just that I can't understand the level of obsession.



I agree with the Dylan part. An old roommate of mine was obsessed with him. His music is worthy of admiration but I honestly think the obsession part for fans has to do with the way he looked. I say that because as I started to learn more about dylan, i could see the influence he had on my friend. Hair, fashion sense, ray bans etc. Dylan was kind of an amoeba when it came to that kind of thing but most of his fans have a time they prefer him in based off some combination of photos and the music. I've always found that fascinating how much taking a good picture can affect longevity. I think of all the che guevera posters I've seen in college dorms, generation after generation, most of them having no idea who the man was but being drawn in by a picture.

Speaking of being drawn in by a picture, a book I finished recently was 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It had been sitting around for months, maybe even years and finally I locked eyes with the picture on the front of the book. Its a hard one to talk about because its one of those books you have to experience but I enjoyed it immensely.

[southern81]

Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey
The Grass Crown by Colleen McCullough
Executive Orders by Tom Clancy

[broncofan]

Speaking of being drawn in by a picture, a book I finished recently was 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It had been sitting around for months, maybe even years and finally I locked eyes with the picture on the front of the book. Its a hard one to talk about because its one of those books you have to experience but I enjoyed it immensely.
I have read two books by Murakami. One was a memoir about running called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and the other was a novel called A Wild Sheep Chase. A Wild Sheep Chase is more typical of his other works in that in involves fantasy elements and moves in and out of the real world. I enjoyed it because there are so many amusing sections where Murakami is able to express odd personal philosophies through the characters. In one scene the main character was arguing with a limo driver about why people name non-human things like airports and parks and boats. People may have a simple answer but the main character was able to find an exception to every single explanation. Beyond good character development and fun discourse there was also an overarching message to the story that made it read a bit like an allegory. I won't say what I took from it because I could be way off base but I will read his books from time to time. I find them challenging in that the fantasy elements are not there merely to provide an escape but usually are connected to some purpose.

[sukumvit boy]

I agree . So far I have only read his "Windup Bird" some 5 or 6 years ago but very much enjoyed it.

[sukumvit boy]

After reading George Orwell's "Burmese Days" and Emma Larkin's excellent "Finding George Orwell in Burma" i decided to read Orwells "Down and Out in Paris and London " as well as some of his collected essays and journalism including "Why I Write" . Such lively and enjoyable writing still fresh after 80 years! I am struck by how much of a Political animal he was ,especially in the cause of democratic Socialism .
I wouldn't be surprised if Bernie Sanders is an Orwell fan.

[broncofan]

I agree . So far I have only read his "Windup Bird" some 5 or 6 years ago but very much enjoyed it.
It's funny that's the book you bring up because I've decided when I read another Murakami I want to read WindUp Bird Chronicle. Kafka by the Shore has been described as challenging and even more surreal and fantasy elements than usual so I will push it further down the road.

I enjoy Murakami and definitely liked reading his book about running because I tried to get into running and he has basically jogged an hour a day for nearly 40 years.

I have just started an Elmore Leonard book called Labrava. I've really liked some Elmore Leonard books over the years but didn't like Get Shorty as much as other people...I think I found it juvenile or maybe just didn't get it. But when I've liked his books I 've really enjoyed them and there are plenty I haven't read so that's where I am now.

I read Kiss Me Deadly by Mickey Spillane a few weeks ago. The story wasn't terrible but even I have standards. Really cheap, sensationalized misogyny. I've enjoyed books where the main character was amoral or worse a psychopath, but none as lame as Mike Hammer.

[sukumvit boy]

It's funny that's the book you bring up because I've decided when I read another Murakami I want to read WindUp Bird Chronicle. Kafka by the Shore has been described as challenging and even more surreal and fantasy elements than usual so I will push it further down the road.

I enjoy Murakami and definitely liked reading his book about running because I tried to get into running and he has basically jogged an hour a day for nearly 40 years.

I have just started an Elmore Leonard book called Labrava. I've really liked some Elmore Leonard books over the years but didn't like Get Shorty as much as other people...I think I found it juvenile or maybe just didn't get it. But when I've liked his books I 've really enjoyed them and there are plenty I haven't read so that's where I am now.

I read Kiss Me Deadly by Mickey Spillane a few weeks ago. The story wasn't terrible but even I have standards. Really cheap, sensationalized misogyny. I've enjoyed books where the main character was amoral or worse a psychopath, but none as lame as Mike Hammer.
As you Probably know Elmore Leonard was already famous for his "westerns" in the 1950's before he started writing his crime and suspense novels like "LaBrava" an excellent "spy" novel. I have not read any of his old westerns or "LaBrava" but I love all his more recent work. His characters are so interesting,real and unpredictably human. Also many of his novels are set in the Miami Beach area which I know well because I grew up in the Miami area.
I've only read a few of the Mickey Spillane books and found them,as you did,unmemorable.
Happy reading!

[killingmrwatson]

I read Kiss Me Deadly by Mickey Spillane a few weeks ago. The story wasn't terrible but even I have standards. Really cheap, sensationalized misogyny. I've enjoyed books where the main character was amoral or worse a psychopath, but none as lame as Mike Hammer.

Evidently Raymond Chandler wasn't a fan of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer books. Philip Marlow says, "I picked a paperback off the table and made a pretense of reading it. It was about some private eye whose idea of a hot scene was a dead naked woman hanging from the shower rail with the marks of torture on her... I threw the paperback into the wastebasket, not having a garbage can handy ready at the moment"

[broncofan]

Evidently Raymond Chandler wasn't a fan of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer books. Philip Marlow says, "I picked a paperback off the table and made a pretense of reading it. It was about some private eye whose idea of a hot scene was a dead naked woman hanging from the shower rail with the marks of torture on her... I threw the paperback into the wastebasket, not having a garbage can handy ready at the moment"
Thanks for that. When Chandler has Marlowe say that it is almost from his own mouth given some of his literary criticism. I like Chandler's books a lot but found some of his criticism of other authors, notably James M. Cain and Ross Macdonald to be over the top and even mean-spirited. At the same time these critiques were often filled with very good observations so they were worthwhile too. Chandler seemed to love Dashiell Hammett, who I like also.

I don't mind writing that makes for easy reading or appeals to interest in sex or violence but Spillane had nothing else to offer. Bad prose, un-insightful about human nature, lacking cleverness or guile, and obsessed with revenge.

[broncofan]

Also many of his novels are set in the Miami Beach area which I know well because I grew up in the Miami area.

That always helps doesn't it. I grew up in Southern California and am easily pulled in by any book that does a good job of describing LA, the desert east of LA, the desert heading towards Calexico, and even going North from LA to central California. There's something about a setting you know very well that hits the nostalgia button or makes you relate to the material.

Edit: I should probably tell you since you recommended Michael Connelly that he had a book with a main character named Calexico Moore and the story dealt a lot with my geography and drives I've taken many times...loved it.

[broncofan]

As you Probably know Elmore Leonard was already famous for his "westerns" in the 1950's before he started writing his crime and suspense novels like "LaBrava" an excellent "spy" novel. I have not read any of his old westerns or "LaBrava" but I love all his more recent work. His characters are so interesting,real and unpredictably human. Also many of his novels are set in the Miami Beach area which I know well because I grew up in the Miami area.

I'm liking Labrava so far and it is veering into Boca Raton and Del Ray beach which I know a little bit. I'm a Jew whose parents stayed in Boca Raton for three winters about fifteen years ago (cliche alert haha). But he's doing an awesome job of describing the different directions Miami has taken through the years in terms of its architecture as well as the Cuban and Jewish populations of same. You're right that his characters are fun.

I forgot to mention I read a Patricia Highsmith book called Deep Water a while back that made an impression on me. It's being made into a movie with Ben Affleck. The book is not that well reviewed but I remembered finding it interesting. Basically a man who is in a "loveless marriage" where he and his wife have an agreement that she can take in lovers. He agrees to it but starts to seethe with jealousy that he disguises very well but well you can anticipate the rest. I was glad I read it.

[Stavros]

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead 2016.

A novel about slavery that relies for its impact on description rather than interpretation, and thus in terms of style often reads like Cormac McCarthy out of Hemingway. Also, there are times when you wonder if the material is half research, half fiction, and while I understand the latter stage of the book with the Preacher and the philosophical characters, I was not sure the wicked Ridgeway would need or want to justify his trade. The lead character Cora to me came across as selfish, if strong, but the main strength of the book is in its ability to describe the diversity of slavery and its opponents rather than offer a simple either/or presentation, be it of plantation life, or the people who made the Underground Railroad succeed. One sentence sums up the predicament Black people found themselves in, whether they were slaves or free, or when like Anne Frank, Cora is hiding in the crawl space of a loft, nominally ‘free’

”Whether in the fields or underground or in an attic room, America remained her warden”.

I have not seen the tv dramatisation.

[sukumvit boy]

I'm liking Labrava so far and it is veering into Boca Raton and Del Ray beach which I know a little bit. I'm a Jew whose parents stayed in Boca Raton for three winters about fifteen years ago (cliche alert haha). But he's doing an awesome job of describing the different directions Miami has taken through the years in terms of its architecture as well as the Cuban and Jewish populations of same. You're right that his characters are fun.

I forgot to mention I read a Patricia Highsmith book called Deep Water a while back that made an impression on me. It's being made into a movie with Ben Affleck. The book is not that well reviewed but I remembered finding it interesting. Basically a man who is in a "loveless marriage" where he and his wife have an agreement that she can take in lovers. He agrees to it but starts to seethe with jealousy that he disguises very well but well you can anticipate the rest. I was glad I read it.
I read Patricia Highsmith's ,"The Talented Mr, Ripley" the First of her 5 book Ripley series last year on the recommendation of a friend and enjoyed it .I just don't get around to reading that much nonfiction with all the other books and magazines that I read so haven't read the rest of the series and because I was thinking about seeing one of the Ripley movies instead.

[broncofan]

I read Patricia Highsmith's ,"The Talented Mr, Ripley" the First of her 5 book Ripley series last year on the recommendation of a friend and enjoyed it .I just don't get around to reading that much nonfiction with all the other books and magazines that I read so haven't read the rest of the series and because I was thinking about seeing one of the Ripley movies instead.
I haven't read nonfiction in a while which is a shame but I think I prefer stories to anything true;).

I read the Talented Mr. Ripley and that was the only Ripley book I read. I've tried to stay away from that series but I'm not sure why. When I'm done with Labrava not sure what I'm going to read. What are you reading now btw?

Might try books from spy novel genre, from authors like Ambler, Greene, or Le Carre. If not I'm going to read something from sci fi. Sci fi bumps up against my preference for relaxing when I read fiction...I get slightly stressed out trying to learn the rules of the world they're in but once in a while I really enjoy it. I've read Philip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly, Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity, and William Gibson's Neuromancer. These are the ones I've liked and gotten through but I've quit more highly acclaimed books from this genre than any other simply out of having trouble getting into it.

[sukumvit boy]

Just started the first of the now 27 book series of called" The Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James " mystery series . I am pleased and pleasantly surprised with the fidelity to the original Sherlock stories and the style of writing . Just finished 3 books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child in the "Nora Kelley " series. Always a reliably interesting and fast paced read by that pair of authors. This particular series dealing with crime and Southwest archaeology.
More later ,daily errands now calling me .

[sukumvit boy]

Sorry about that. I also wanted to mention the P G Wodehouse "Jeeves and Wooster" series . Great stuff.

[broncofan]

That's interesting Sukumvit! I haven't read many of the original Sherlock Holmes books so maybe that's where I should start. I think I just don't have the imagination for sci fi unless it's the rare book that really strikes an interest. I'm always told it's such a great story once I accept the premises of the world they're in. But then when I'm told the premises it's always like "Sam 11, is a mutant who was born on Mars with an arm growing out of his ass" and I have trouble getting into it. I'm going to read something from your last two posts or go old school Arthur Conan Doyle. Thanks.

[broncofan]

I haven't read many of the original Sherlock Holmes books so maybe that's where I should start.
BTW just in case I wasn't clear I do realize you're reading a newer series as I looked it up on amazon but was thinking out loud that maybe I should read the originals before jumping in. Or I'll just start with book one of sherlock holmes and lucy james being familiar enough having read hound of the baskervilles back in the day.

[sukumvit boy]

If you haven't yet read any of the original A C Doyle Holmes stories I would recommend you do . Lots excellent used collections available cheap on Amazon. What I meant about the Lucy James series being true to the original is that the time,characters and setting are the same (except the character Lucy James). Whereas many of the new Sherlock 'knock offs ' are set in the 21st century .

[sukumvit boy]

With regard to Sci-fi I have only read a few of the classics ("Stranger in a Strange Land" and some Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov ) I tried to read the first "Dune " and was turned off by the same issues that you mentioned.
On another topic, have you read any Isaac Bashevis Singer ? My mother's family was Russian /Polish and she spoke Yiddish. I love Singer's stories and those characters.

[broncofan]

I picked up Dune about two months ago. I read about twenty pages and quit. I am sure it's very good. I haven't read Isaac Bashevis Singer but I will look into it. That's really interesting about your mother. My parents only speak a little Yiddish, but they are always trying to add phrases to their repertoire for jokes and feel very connected to it. I will also pass on the info to my mother about Singer because she was taking more Yiddish classes before the pandemic hit and definitely take a look myself.

As for your first post about this new series trying to keep the time and place I think that's important. I never said but one reason I tend to like pulp fiction from the 40s is that I'm not super familiar with the time and place so it seems exotic to me. I may not like lots of stories on other planets or for physical laws to be different but I kind of like when it's somewhat removed from issues of today.

[broncofan]

Hey Sukumvit, I just looked at Isaac Bashevis Singer's goodreads page https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/14444.Isaac_Bashevis_Singer . I'm going to like his books (at least) but I think my mother will love them. Really appreciate it.

[Stavros]

"One is not born, but rather, becomes a woman" (Simone de Beauvoir)

The link below is to the book publlished last month by Katheen Stock. I have not (yet) read the whole of the book, but cannot recommend too highly the introduction (accessed via the 'Look Inside' button), which takes the reader on a tour of theories and ideas that have emerged since Simone de Beauvoir through the latest re-definition of Gender as Gender Identity, and the fractious, sometimes hysterical disputes that have erupted with academics like Stock being 'no platformed' and so on. To me, this is essential reading.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Material-Girls-Kathleen-Stock/dp/0349726604/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=material+girls&qid=1623329153&s=books&sr=1-1

[mealticket]

I enjoy reading mtf transformation erotica, just read https://amzn.to/3gTbAf1 on kindle, hot read

[Nikka]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQgahj6nXvMt3jc4bIqx-Kpg9xrHqkbEVtimLc0/

[sukumvit boy]

Just started the first of the now 27 book series of called" The Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James " mystery series . I am pleased and pleasantly surprised with the fidelity to the original Sherlock stories and the style of writing . Just finished 3 books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child in the "Nora Kelley " series. Always a reliably interesting and fast paced read by that pair of authors. This particular series dealing with crime and Southwest archaeology.
More later ,daily errands now calling me .
I just wanted to update this post regarding the "Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James" series . The first book was good but the second one was a big disappointment .

[sukumvit boy]

I just started book 1 of the 3 volume Maurice Le Blanc "The Arsene Lupin Gentleman-Burglar Collection" translated by George Morehead . Delightful ! Highly recommended .
But beware, there are some awful POD (published on demand) editions out there! On Amazon look for the one with the brown on brown cover ,independently published ,665 pages . Beautifully done edition and translation.
4 books in one.

[Stavros]

Does anyone know Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888 )? I can't find a recent article that introduced it to me, wondering if it is a good read, it was so popular at the time and seems to have uncanny because correct predictions of the 20th century.

[sukumvit boy]

Does anyone know Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888 )? I can't find a recent article that introduced it to me, wondering if it is a good read, it was so popular at the time and seems to have uncanny because correct predictions of the 20th century.
Looks very interesting and worth reading. Highly regarded on Amazon with lots of reader reviews as well as more recent addendums and companion volumes available.

[sukumvit boy]

I just read a fascinating article in the July 26,2021 issue of "The New Yorker" magazine entitled "Hope Against Hope" in the " Annals Of Democracy" series about Lyubov Sobol and her work with Alexey Navalny exposing the crimes and corruption of Putin's kleptocracy.
Additionally the author Masha Gessen ,who identifies as 'they' is a trans journalist and author . Well worth reading.
Sorry I can't post a link right now , my desktop is having some "issues" .LOL.

[sukumvit boy]

Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost " about the Congo with a fascinating cast of characters including the newly appointed steamboat captain Josef Korzenowski (Joseph Conrad) and Henry Morton Stanley (of David Livingston fame)

[Stavros]

Do you know of the late Crawford Young's books on Africa and the Congo? I read Politics in the Congo (1965) when I was a student and was impressed by it. I love Conrad too, one of my favourite writers, but I wonder if I shall ever understand all the layers of meaning in Heart of Darkness...for its length one of the most complex works of fiction ever written. If it is fiction...

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks,I will certainly look into the Crawford Young books! As to fact vs fiction in "Heart of Darkness" Hochschild's research points to several people that Conrad was likely to have come across during his time in the Congo including one that paid a bounty on heads that he stuck on poles surrounding his front garden and Hochschild theorizes that the Kurtz character is a composite of those people.

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks,I will certainly look into the Crawford Young books! As to fact vs fiction in "Heart of Darkness" Hochschild's research points to several people that Conrad was likely to have come across during his time in the Congo including one that paid a bounty on heads that he stuck on poles surrounding his front garden and Hochschild theorizes that the Kurtz character is a composite of those people.
When I say "people" I use the term loosely ,such a collection of real life brutal psychopaths as one would ever be likely to encounter outside of an Auschwitz.
"Oh, the horror" Some sections of text and photographs are almost too horrible to read and view.

[sukumvit boy]

New book just published ,"In the forest of no joy" by J P Daughton about the deadly construction of the Congo-Ocean Railroad in 1934 ,Looks very interesting although I see that M Crawford Young has probably already reported those events in his oeuvre as recommended by Stavros.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/In_the_Forest_of_No_Joy_The_Congo_Oc%C3%A9an/rroCEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Crawford_Young

[sukumvit boy]

John Richardson's ,"Sacred Monsters ,Sacred Masters". As recommended by Stavros in another thread.
Just so fascinating and entertaining .
Superbly written ,this is the famous art historian just having fun! And what a cast of characters! Famous artists, authors ,publishers and scoundrels surrounding the birth of Modern Art in the 20th Century ,up close and very personal.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/262137.Sacred_Monsters_Sacred_Masters

[Stavros]

John Richardson's ,"Sacred Monsters ,Sacred Masters". As recommended by Stavros in another thread.
Just so fascinating and entertaining .
Superbly written ,this is the famous art historian just having fun! And what a cast of characters! Famous artists, authors ,publishers and scoundrels surrounding the birth of Modern Art in the 20th Century ,up close and very personal.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/262137.Sacred_Monsters_Sacred_Masters


I am pleased that you liked it, I particularly like the chapters on Dali, Warhol and Armand Hammer. There is a new series on American Art presented by Andrew-Graham-Dixon, though I am not convinced he succeeded in creating any real interest in the Abstract artists such as Barnett Newman, Mark Rotko and Jackson Pollock. There is a point where the context of modern American an explain why they painted the way that they did, but if the ultimate aim is to make a person regard themselves and their being, then the focus on the painting is diverted and lost, and becomes pointless. I don't need to sit in Rothko's Chapel to contemplate my place in the Universe, and am as sceptical of his work just as my father was baffled by the Seagram collection we saw in the old Tate many years ago. Tom Wolfe in The Painted Word is more savage in his criticism of the critics who turned minimalism into million dollar collectibles, and I agree there is a complex agenda here, but what is art for? Consider the difference between Stillman or Newman's 'critique' of materialism in America, and either Picasso's Guernica, or Goya's Third of May, 1808, two paintings that contain more meaning and enduring rage than the anaemic impotence of the Americans.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b017j25v/art-of-america-2-modern-dreams

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks for the heads up about Tom Wolfe's book. I haven't read his work in years but that looks very good. Also thanks for the Andrew Graham Dixon link and although that only works in the UK ,I found it on my Amazon Prime and will check it out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Painted_Word
I haven't finished reading "Sacred Monsters" yet and am looking forward to the chapters you mentioned which are all in the second half of the book.

[sukumvit boy]

Any Chess enthusiasts out there ? Just read John Donaldson's new book ,"Bobby Fischer and His World" which is outstanding . Also several good new books by and about Magnus Carlsen the current World Champion .
Fischer spent many of the latter years of his life in Los Angeles and in the Pasadena and South Pasadena area where I have lived for the past 30 years and we had several excellent chess clubs. However due to the pandemic shut down several have lost their leases and are in the process of finding new quarters . Thus of late I must spend more time reading about Chess than playing it to feed my Chess addiction.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/outstanding-john-donaldson-s-bobby-fischer-and-his-world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen

[sukumvit boy]

Reading John Richardson's ,"Sacred Monsters ,Sacred Masters" reminds me of "The House of Getty" by Russell Miller which I read in 2019 .

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20549990-the-house-of-getty
Excellent history of the making of the Getty collection and museum.
Amazing how art , collectors , dealers and museums attract the most fascinating and bizarre collection of saints and sinners (but mostly sinners) .

[Stavros]

I am currently dipping into two books by the UK journalist Steve Richards: The Prime Ministers (2019), and The Prime Ministers We Never Had (2020). The latter is in text form a slightly amended version of the straight-to-camera, half-hour lectures Richards gave, in the tradition of AJP Taylor, and can be seen on YouTube -the chapter on Denis Healey is not as good as the YouTube lecture because he digresses to far into Michael Foot's story. I doubt these books will be of interest to anyone outside the UK unless they have a particular interest in British political history.

As tends to happen with these sorts of books, they are a mixed bag. There is some attempt to offer a context for leadership and failed leadership -party support, timing, luck and the ability to present a convincing 'story' to the public. The warning is that the factors that created success in the early years can be the cause of a leader's end -notably in the cases of Thatcher and Blair. I am not sure Richards always gets his facts right, some of his interpretations are open to question but that may be my personal bias having lived through the times covered in the book -the Prime Ministers begins with Wilson and ends with Johnson. He is probably to kind to Thatcher and Blair, but one feels sorry in the end for Theresa May, who runs the risk of becoming the greatest failure of any Prime Minister since Suez, not as the architect of Brexit, but as someone tasked with making happen something she did not believe in. And, while seen in the chaotic days after the Referendum as a 'safe pair of hands', she lacked the basic skills of communication and empathy to hold her party together thereafter, though one notes how cruel it was for her to be attacked constantly by people with no responsibility for power.

There is a savage and often daft review on Amazon.co.uk, and others note the lack of an entry on John Smith and Tony Benn.

I looked but it doesn't seem there is a book The Presidents We Never Had, though there are plenty of online articles.

Two fascinating if flawed books, but fluently written and so easy to read.

[filghy2]

I recently finished reading Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe by British historian Niall Ferguson. As with all of Ferguson's books it is written in an engaging style, with lots of fascinating historical detail on the impacts of past wars, famines, epidemics and other natural and man-made disasters.

However, the chapter on Covid-19 is less satisfactory. This is partly because the book was finalised in August 2020, but also because his assessment seems to be influenced by his conservative political leanings. He accepts that Covid is a real crisis, and criticises the responses of populist leaders like Trump and the push to reopen prematurely, but lays more of the blame on mistakes by public health bureaucracies. The obvious point that is ignored is the way that politicisation has persuaded a large section of the population to not take the virus seriously. He also concludes that lockdowns were a mistake, but this seems to be based on impressions rather than any deep analysis.

The other main failing of the book is in the drawing of lessons about how to better deal with disasters. Ferguson makes the reasonable point we are not good at planning for disasters even though we should know that they are likely to occur periodically (grey rhinos rather than black swans) but seems to attribute this to inherent problems of bureaucratic systems. There is no real discussion of what the alternative might be and whether there is any evidence that decentralised systems (like markets) do any better.

[Stavros]

I haven't read the Ferguson book, he is an annoying person but that's a matter of taste I suppose. That said, he may have a point with regard to bureaucracy, but it begs a lot of questions, because bureaucracies are there to do what the politicians in command tell them to do. As I think I mentioned in various Covid-19 threads and posts, the lack of co-ordination not just between States but also within them has been remarkable -historically, health crises were one area where Governments co-operated and did so successfully, in the 19th and 20th centuries with regard to outbreaks of Cholera, Typhoid and Influenza. What we have seen is a failure within the State to co-ordinate -no such co-ordination has existed between England, Scotand, Wales and Northern Ireland- nor among the member states of the EU, and definitely not in the US where the DIY attitude of the Presidency is surely in part resonsible for the deaths of nearly a million people and the infection of millions more.

But in the case of the US, what did it do to improve its position of influence in the WHO when Trump was President? One word answer: Nothing. He then and now attacks China and the WHO but under his watch the US not only did nothing, but by doing nothing enabled China then and now to evade its responsibility to be transparent about a virus that has affected the whole world ad which we need to understand in all its complexities to deal with it next time.

Disaster management is standard in most advanced countries, but so too is the aversion to spending money o something that might not happen - unless the right people insist on it. Thus we spend billions on nuclear weapons that sit in their silos or tubes in submarines, useless kit that is never going to be used, because the MoD and the Defence lobby are among the most powerful and persuasive in the poltical realm. That the UK has failed to secure its share of global supply chains so that 20% of the normal stock in supermarkets ain't there, and there is a shortage of lorry drivers, and so on, is not just bad planning, but bad management, but the Civil Service on its own cannot command -that is the job of elected politicians.

We get who we vote for. That is the strength and the weakness of liberal democracy.

[broncofan]

There is no real discussion of what the alternative might be and whether there is any evidence that decentralised systems (like markets) do any better.
I can't imagine how a market system would do well in preparing for very rare events. People put capital to use to take advantage of trends and occasionally a big idea will revolutionize how we do things. But it doesn't seem there is profit in setting aside large amounts of capital for things that may not come to pass and if they do may not require the solutions one came up with in advance.

There is a role for markets in coming up with solutions once a disaster strikes, but even then small startups might need or want government subsidies (big pharma looks for subsidies too) if they can't raise money otherwise.

I have also found Ferguson to be an engaging writer but I can't see how there can be disaster preparation unless the profit motive is at least sometimes curtailed. This occasionally requires collective action and cooperation. Innovation is great on the tail end but as we've seen with vaccine technology it can be squandered if there isn't social cohesion.

Anyhow, thanks for the review. Sounds interesting. I'm reading a novel by Walter Mosley called Black Betty. I've just started it so we'll see how it goes.

[filghy2]

I can't imagine how a market system would do well in preparing for very rare events.

A good example is the insurance market. Insurance is profitable only when the incidence of claims is reasonably predictable and limited. Actuarial calculations depend on past experience being a good guide to the future. That doesn't work so well for novel events where the risks are correlated, like a major pandemic. For instance, it is impossible at present to buy travel insurance (at least in Australia) that covers cancellation due to Covid restrictions. Climate change is likely to present an even bigger problem because private insurance won't be able to cope with many more extreme weather events.

[sukumvit boy]

I recently finished reading Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe by British historian Niall Ferguson. As with all of Ferguson's books it is written in an engaging style, with lots of fascinating historical detail on the impacts of past wars, famines, epidemics and other natural and man-made disasters.

However, the chapter on Covid-19 is less satisfactory. This is partly because the book was finalised in August 2020, but also because his assessment seems to be influenced by his conservative political leanings. He accepts that Covid is a real crisis, and criticises the responses of populist leaders like Trump and the push to reopen prematurely, but lays more of the blame on mistakes by public health bureaucracies. The obvious point that is ignored is the way that politicisation has persuaded a large section of the population to not take the virus seriously. He also concludes that lockdowns were a mistake, but this seems to be based on impressions rather than any deep analysis.

The other main failing of the book is in the drawing of lessons about how to better deal with disasters. Ferguson makes the reasonable point we are not good at planning for disasters even though we should know that they are likely to occur periodically (grey rhinos rather than black swans) but seems to attribute this to inherent problems of bureaucratic systems. There is no real discussion of what the alternative might be and whether there is any evidence that decentralised systems (like markets) do any better.
The US and UK have recently established a new partnership to deal with future pandemics and much more . (Trump shut down the previous US agency)
https://www.tmc.edu/news/2021/06/uk-and-us-agree-new-partnership-to-fight-future-pandemics-and-tackle-health-inequalities/

[sukumvit boy]

Reading Larry MvMurtry's "Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections at 60 and Beyond"
Novelist, screenwriter and antiquarian book dealer tells what the Old West was really like and about how his grandmother and grandfather came to West Texas and built the ranch/farm that he grew up on , his love of books and life as a novelist and screenwriter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_McMurtry
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/walter-benjamin-at-the-dairy-queen--reflections-on-sixty-and-beyond_larry-mcmurtry/312042/item/926952/?gclid=CjwKCAjwh5qLBhALEiwAioodsztG7h6pe8N_sm4ZnGD TwN-CshvAHwEqwBKCP-T97_8XPlFgGd1J0RoCh4kQAvD_BwE#idiq=926952&edition=2278003

[sukumvit boy]

Graham Green "The Orient Express " also known as "Stanboul Train" The Deluxe Penguin edition with an introduction by Christopher Hitchens.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/293919/orient-express-by-graham-greene/
Also "The Portable Graham Green" also the Penguin edition . Includes "The Third Man" and "The heart of the Matter" along with essays ,criticism and excerpts from many of his other books.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/322332/the-portable-graham-greene-by-graham-greene/

[buttslinger]

Today I'm going to order A Life of Picasso VOL IV by John Richardson.
He died while writing it, and it was supposed to come out a couple years ago, I think.
The last good book I read was The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes,
It starts with Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein walking down a street talking.

[Stavros]

Today I'm going to order A Life of Picasso VOL IV by John Richardson.
He died while writing it, and it was supposed to come out a couple years ago, I think.
The last good book I read was The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes,
It starts with Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein walking down a street talking.

Hi Buttslinger, hope you’re doing well,and thanks for the ref to Richardson- was not aware Vol 4 had been published.

[Stavros]

Tim Marshall, The Power of Geography (2021).

Disappointing survey of ten countries that lays out some basic geography but then fails to explain the history as geography, or the geography as history, politics, economics, and so forth. If you know a fair amount about some or all of the countries you may be as surprised as I was at the errors or fact and questionable judgments. If you begin from a state of ignorance, this may be a useful start.
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Tim-Marshall/dp/1783965371

[Stavros]

In case you missed it -David Mamet sounding off. He is a clever man, knows how to write a play, but for me it is the content that falls flat. He thinks Trump did a good job, growing up in Mayor Daley's Chicago convinced him elections are rigged so what is different about 2020? And this "So people are walking around impossibly confused about what is a man, what is a woman"...hmmmm....maybe stick to writing plays?

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/feb/23/trump-great-job-president-david-mamet-free-speech-gender-politics-election-rigging-woods

[GroobySteven]

Just read 'American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal MasterMind Behind the Silk Road' by Nick Bilton.
Very good and easy read, he details how he did the research at the end, and it's an amazing amount of work to present it in a narrative format.
Worth a read.

[Stavros]

Just read 'American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal MasterMind Behind the Silk Road' by Nick Bilton.
Very good and easy read, he details how he did the research at the end, and it's an amazing amount of work to present it in a narrative format.
Worth a read.

Thanks for this, I bought it this morning -in a shop, not online- and will read it as soon as I can.

[Stavros]

Just read 'American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal MasterMind Behind the Silk Road' by Nick Bilton.
Very good and easy read, he details how he did the research at the end, and it's an amazing amount of work to present it in a narrative format.
Worth a read.

Read this over the last two days, and it is a fascinating read with a thrilling clmax, and not much hysteria which can sometimes ruin books like these.

The points of interest that stand out -the larger the site became, the more people Ulbrich needed to help him run it and keep secure, but the more vulnerable he became to blackmail, threats of violence and theft, leading him to make decisions that involved murder, though none was actually committed. It thus blows a hole in a key element of the Libertarian ideology Ulbrcht used to jusify an open market place free of Government control -because, as the Judge in his case pointed out, to manage and beneft from the Silk Road, Ubricht had to impose his own 'laws' on the site, this contradicting the concept of freedom he believed he was practising -but if the transactions are illegal -whether or not narcotics ought to be de-criminalized- that fact attracted genune buyers and scam artists and crooks, some of whom made thousands by exploiting loop holes in the code used to write the 'fabric' of the website.

The other point is crucial -wherever we go on the web, we leave a 'footprint' -Ulbricht must have assumed his earliest posts when creating an interest in the Silk Road had gone, but an intrepid agent of the IRS tracked them down and through other links, Ulbricht, who insisted on running everything himself and using coffee shops -or a publc library at the end- was identified and imprisoned for life.

If you don't read but want to know the story, this brief film tells it all -but the book has the detail and as it is well written I do also recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBTYVVUBAGs

[Stavros]

Catherin Belton Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West (2020)

Belton was for some years based in Russia where she wrote for the Financial Times. The main argument of the book is that when Gorbachev became General Secretary of the CPSU in 1985 there were factions in the Party and the KGB that welcomed reform, and those who were opposed to it, and though the former won over the latter, the men who succeeded in taking over the machinery of politics had a background in the KGB. In other words, they knew who everyone was, from the corrupt party officials to its honest men and women, and most important of all, the organized crime groups who had operated an internal market in the USSR when the Centrally Planned economy was dysfunctional and enabled corruption on a vast scale to carry over into the new Russia. Thus Putin emerged as the champion of the ex-KGB elite who benefited in terms of power, and through the 'Ollgarchs' in terms of wealth, though Belton is keen to show how Putin reigned in the Oligarchs once they had attracted the foreign direct investment which overhauled Russia's antique industrial capacity. Without the capital and expertise of Shell, Exxon and BP, for example, Russia's petroleum industry would not have been able to grow as it has done.

The thesis is persuasive, but the book is marred by irritating errors of fact, and one notes Abramovich sued Belton over claims in the book, thus
"The text will now recognise that the allegation Abramovich bought Chelsea football club at the Russian president’s behest is not a statement of fact. It will include additional denials from the oligarch’s spokesperson and the club."
Roman Abramovich settles libel claim over Putin biography | Roman Abramovich | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/roman-abramovich-settles-libel-claim-over-putin-biography)

In addition, Americans and others will be fascinated by the detail in the chapter that details Trump's long established relationship with the Russians, most of them tied to both Putin and organized crime, with the suggestion that the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City was a money laundering operation for the Russians at a time when it was losing money for Trump. As was said with regard to crooks like Felix Sater, 'Trump doesn't do due diligence'. Ask no questions get no lies? More pertinent, had Mueller reached back into Trump's business and financial history, a deeper perspective on his Russian links, and to some extent, dependency would have, should have re-opened the question, how was a man so closely tied to the criminal underworld allowed to run for the Presidency?

So it is an interesting read, but there are errors of fact I have seen, and some may see others, but that is the peril of history being written by journalists rather than historians.

[sukumvit boy]

Yes, I was Just going to post a thread about Bolton's book and a few others cited in a recent New Yorker magazine article which I will post below.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/28/how-putins-oligarchs-bought-london
What do you Brits think? Looks like Russia has found a home for it's oligarchs and dirty money in London!

[Stavros]

Yes, I was Just going to post a thread about Bolton's book and a few others cited in a recent New Yorker magazine article which I will post below.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/28/how-putins-oligarchs-bought-london
What do you Brits think? Looks like Russia has found a home for it's oligarchs and dirty money in London!

The article you linked does point out, as I did, that Belton was sued by Abramovich over the Chelsea Football clubs claim in her book's earlier version. I don't know if Putin 'suggested' it, as I don't know if Putin follows football enough to know who or what Chelsea football club is. The claim in the article -I have seen it elsewhere- is that Abramovich is not close to Putin, thus

“At no stage is the reader told that actually Abramovich is someone who is distant from Putin and doesn’t participate in the many and various corrupt schemes that are described,” his lawyers asserted."

So who has been seen in Turkey as part of the Russian delegation to the 'peace talks' with Ukraine...? Er....Roman...
Or maybe he was persuaded to intervene by Shevchenko? The superb footballer -ex-Chelsea- from Ukraine....

London has been a key laundromat for the 'Oligarchs', and most recently, one of it's most notorious (to me) -Mikhail Fridman, has complained he can't eat out because of UK sanctions. I was amazed he was even in London, where he owns a $20 million+ home, given he has dual citizenship with Putin-friendly Israel. If the UK can't throw this shit out of London, maybe he should sell his London home and eat falafel from that guy who has a stall near Damascus Gate Jerusalem? Last time I was there, he even added some french fries! I know. To a falafel! You see how far Palestinian cuisine has fallen since the occupation!

Fridman complains-
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/russia-oligarch-london-mikhail-fridman-sanctioned-b990989.html


As for Fridman's complaint he has invested in the UK...hmmm....
"Russian oligarchs from Roman Abramovich to Alisher Usmanov have brought in billions of dollars into Great Britain with most investments flowing into luxury properties or football clubs rather than industrial activities. "
https://www.reuters.com/article/britain-russia-fridman-idUSL8N12B0TD20151011

And if you read the Chapter in Belton's book on Trump, you may have to admit that the US, be it Florida, or Brighton Beach, Noo Joysee, or Las Vegas, is on a par with London when it comes to money Laundering....

You are old enough, Sukumvit Boy to remember Deep Throat's immortal words...'Follow the Money'...

Up next...the FIFA World Cup in Qatar...the Russians in Dubai...sand worms....tremors....

[sukumvit boy]

The world of art and the characters that inhabit it is full of interesting people and stories.
If you are interested in what's happening now in the world of Modern and Contemporary art ,word on the street says this is the book to read.
"Boom" by Michael Shnayerson

https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/michael-shnayerson/boom/9781610398411/

[Stavros]

Cromwell David Horspool (2017)

This short biography in the series of books on English Monarchs is fluently written, covers most of the issues and is the perfect introduction to the life of this most peculiar Englishman. Cromwell even today, is revered and reviled, but in context was part of an experiment in politics that begs the question -was there a Revolution in the 17th century?

For there was a King, and then there was not, and then there was. There was a Church of England and an Archbishop of Canterbury, and then there was not, and then there was. There was a Parliament, and then there was not, and then there was. Those who were rich in 1640 were still rich in 1680, give or take losses from war and punitive taxes that came, and went. The Irish were under the English heel in 1640, and remained so following the extreme violence of Cromwell's wars, notably at Drogheda and Wexford. The Scots Presbyterians who had undermined the King, challenged the 'Independent' Cromwell, and were thrashed at Dunbar and, when they ventured south on behalf of the 'fake' King Charles II (crowned in Scone, if you please), were routed at Worcester, celebrated by John Milton (see below).

And yet, out of this maelstrom came the secular politics of liberty that was encapsulated during the 'Putney Debates' (but delivered in a speech in church) by Thomas Rainesborough, as 'One man, One vote' -Horspool does not discuss the theory that Rainesborugh was murdered on Cromwell's orders. Religious tolerance to a degree was thus something Cromwell sought, the irony being that England's dismissal of the Church of Rome, and his (re-)admission of the Jews, meant that by 1658 Jews in England had more rights than Roman Catholics, rights that would not be properly restored until 1822.

Cromwell failed to establish a new political system, which is why after his death the experiment with Republican government did not survive, while the Puritan excesses that abolished Christmas and much 'jollity' may have led to the hedonistic excesses of the Restoration, as the 18th century indulged in Gin Palaces, Molly Houses, and the King named the streets of London after his boyfriends. Cromwell was buried in Westminster Abbey, then dug up, his body or what was left of it abused and dismembered, his head put on a stick and all that Christian sort of thing. A statue of him outside the House of Commons was placed there in the late 19th century when the agitations over Home Rule in Ireland were expanding into what would become a revolution of more substance in Ireland than England. It was then a provocation, and today remains an eyesore to Roman Catholics and those who think Regicide was a big mistake. So the debates go on, with Cromwell at the core, a deeply religious man, capable to murdering people convinced that God's Providence allowed him, indeed compelled him to do so.


Milton's tribute is here-
Sonnet 16: Cromwell, our chief of men, who… | Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44749/sonnet-16-cromwell-our-chief-of-men-who-through-a-cloud)


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[Stavros]

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Attwood, 1985.

I first encountered Attwood when The Edible Woman was published, but I was not impressed, so have tended to avoid her books. I read this on holiday, and although it it reasonably well written, albeit in Attwood's matter of fact, one dimensional prose, I never cared for the narrator.

The book may be seen as a story of the future to compare to 1984 or Brave New World, and claims to be the record on tape of a woman who lives at a time in the future when, in the aftermath of a nuclear war and the demolition of the US Government, a patriarchal, theocratic society has emerged in the US where women who are fertile are 'Handmaids' to Commanders and have no personal freedom. Although some have tried to link this phenomenal denial of women's freedom to Theocracies such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, in fact Attwood took most of her concepts from Puritan New England, where she claims one of her ancestors was tried as a Witch but survived a hanging.

Too many questions are left unanswered -most of all, is this what men want? Yes, there are flaws in the Theocracy, not just among the lower orders, as even Commanders break their own rules. The historical background that takes a young woman from marriage and a family in her late teens/early 20s, in her thirties into captivity is not properly explained, but the book does give some idea of what a militant Christian Theocracy might look like, and given the Republicans in the US who want the US to be a Christian Theocracy, The Handmaid's Tale may not just be fiction, it could be a warning. Attwood does explore some of the nuances of life in a dictatorship, but if one doesn't empathise with the main character, Offred (= Of Fred, a woman named after her Commander), then a major impulse in the book fails to excite.

[Stavros]

Mike Davis has died in Southern California. I first read City of Quartz not long after it was published and think it is a great read. Ironically for a man who actually loved the State he lived in, his book helped me explain why I don't like LA and never have. I suppose in common parlance I just don't 'get it' -after all there are plenty other places in the US with sunshine and beaches.

This is a fair obituary from the LA Times -
Mike Davis, author of 'City of Quartz,' dies - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com) (https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2022-10-25/mike-davis-writer-who-chronicled-the-forces-that-shaped-l-a-dies)

[diddyboponTOP]

Lullaby for witches Hester Fix. A Mystery/ Love story with a pinch of Witch in there :) as an Occultist I spend a lot of time reading Occult/Spiritual/Religious/Magick based texts I also enjoy novels along those lines as well as Classics, I just started the Moonstone, Finished the Pearl, and Dracula the Undead by stokers Great nephew based off of Brams notes

[Stavros]

Jeremy Bowen, The Making of the Modern Middle East, a Personal History (2022).

Bowen was the BBC's Middle East Correspondent from 1995-2000, Middle East editor from 2005-2022, and is currently International Editor. As if often but not always the case with journalists, the books they write are not as good as the reports they have filed. In this book the only real interest is the eyewitness accounts of events across the region, largely because Bowen's attempt to write the history is too basic although, if readers know little or nothing about it, they might be informed. He cannot present the history in all its complexity and the book suffers from his attempts to put the events he sees in their historical context. The book has notes and a bibliography, but no Index. I was given the book as a gift, for had I browsed it in the bookshop I would not have bought it. For what it's worth, I much preferred the BBC reports of the late Gerald Butt, and Jim Muir.

Journalists who have done better at this sort of thing, as far as it goes, are the late Robert Fisk, and the American journalist John Cooley whose 1991 book, Payback:America's Long War in the Middle East, is at times angry and bitter but a compelling read. To some these are biased accounts, and Bowen has also been accused of bias, mostly by Israel (the IDF shot and killed Bowen's driver in Lebanon, when he was not far away and believes it was deliberate etc), and indeed the BBC commissioned a report, known as the Balen Report into biased reporting. As far as I know the Balen Report has never been published.

[Stavros]

Owen Matthews, Overreach (2022)

Matthews, descended from a prominent Ukrainian family on his mother's side, has lived and worked in Ukraine and Russia for the best part of 30 years, building contacts and acquiring the depth and breadth of knowledge that makes this one of the most compelling books on Putin's war.

He does a good job of unravelling the complex origins of Ukraine, shaped largely by the Scandinavian Kings and Vikings who emerged after the end of the Roman Empire, and thus establishes how different Ukraine can be from Russia -I was not aware that Ukrainian is to Russian as English is to Dutch.

The book goes a long way to demolishing the conspiracy theory that much of the present crisis was 'Made in America', a sub-plot invented by Putin himself, and lobbed like a lollipop into the gaping mouths of idiots like Oliver Stone and Noam Chomsky. This war has been years in the making, and like a murder, it is best seen in terms of Motive, Means and Opportunity. Putin has never accepted that the demise of the USSR was a good thing. He witnessed the collapse of the East German Govt when he was in the KGB in Dresden in 1989, and though critical of Communism, his devotion to a strong, centralized State remained and remains fundamental to his concept of politics.

The Motive is the Glory of Russia, Ukraine being part of that fabulous Empire. The Means is War. The Opportunity was provided by Brexit, Merkel's retirement, and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Matthews, notably in Chapter 4 (Tomorrow Belongs to Me) profiles the friends, thinkers and supporters who have provided an ignorant thug from the slums of Leningrad, with a world view based on the argument that Russia is the last hope of Christian civilization, as 'Western Liberalism' has all but destroyed the troika of values he believes in: God, Family and Country. And if this sounds familiar, there is a correspondance between the militant view of Russia's Christian Nationalism and that found in Hungary, France and the USA. That this is also an anti-Semitic, violent form of Christinaity is no surprise, as these are themes in Russian history, the nightmare from which they cannot seem to escape -hence the idea that Russians can suffer like no other, as if the suffering and death that are the consequences of Putin are worth it. One wonders if this generation of Russians wants to suffer as their grandparents did. The multitudes of young people who have fled to Georgia, Armenia and the Central Asian Republics suggests otherwise.

The war has been catastrophic -the primary aim was to blitz Kyiv, eliminate the Govt, and establish a Russian Govt that would seek unification with Russia with the support of the Ukrainian people.

The plan failed because a) Ukrainians they expected to welcome the Russians had by 2022 sought alliances with the West so even ethnic Russians opposed 'Russification' -just as 75% of Ukraine's Jews left the country after 2014, so a substantial number of Ethnic Russians and Ukrainians -up to 45% of the population- abandoned Luhansk and Donetsk leaving behind only the most militant pro-Russian supporters.

Second, having failed to decapitate the govt in Kyiv, Russian forces met with a more decentralized but better equipped and motivated Ukraine military, one that had been trained and provided with materiel from NATO for the best part of 10 years. So, having failed in its political objectives, the Russians now began failing militarily, having sent into battle men without proper equipment, tanks and armoured vehicles that got stuck in the mud, staffed by demoralized troops whose only aim appears to be to get as much out of the war through looting as they can.

So no Glory for Putin. But just as important as it is that Putin is convinced of his own victory, is the intriguing argument Matthews offers, that because he has never lost an argument or been challenged, Putin doesn't know how to negotiate. His position is 'This is what Russia wants, give it to us'. He launched the war when he perceived Europe weakened by Brexit and the retirement of Angela Merkel, and the US weakened by its withdrawal from Afghanistan. But Russia has failed at more than war, as this telling passage illuminates one of the sources of what drives Putin -his colossal resentment that the West exploited Russia and saw it as a 'little' state to be pushed around and treated badly. Consider -

"Even after three decades, Russia still had not learned to manufacture anything the rest of the world wanted to buy (other than arms...). Everything that made Russia work, from mobile-phone routers to web servers and the engines of its Siemens built high speed trains and its fleet of Boeing and Airbus-produced planes-was invented and largely manufactured by the West and its Asian allies. Even after 2014 a national push to wean Russia off its import dependence had failed to produce a wholly Russian made mobile phone, laptop or even computer processing chip, much less a passenger plane" (page 173).

Where did all those trillions of dollars go from 1991-2022? Not invested in Russia, but real estate in London, New York and Paris. Into offshore bank accounts, yachts, football clubs. No wonder Putin is seething with resentment, but one wonders what he has achieved with his war of revenge.

Putin, Trump, Mohammed bin Salman -vastly rich men who want to change their world, convinced, absolutely, that they are right about everything, whose achievements in reality are measured in colossal debt, millions dead -from Covid or War- and a political agenda that only offers more of the same. For all its flaws, 'Western Liberalism with its policies on Abortion, Same-Sex Marriage, and Open Democracy, is not the end of civilization, but its continuation. And given the choice, I believe most people prefer to take their life chances in a Liberal Democracy than have them made for them by a pompous fool in Moscow, Riyadh or Mar-a-Lago.

Strongly recommended as a good read.

[Stavros]

Donna Tartt, The Secret History (1992).

I heard about this novel at the time and since but only decided to read it when I was in Vienna recently and without a book. In two parts at just over 600 pages the novel is fluently written and easy to read, but around 200 pages too long, and the writing towards the end becomes repetitious and boring. Tartt tries, and fails to integrate her story into the Greek studies the student circle in this novel are supposedly committed to and good at, though as the story unfolds we not only unravel their secret history but discover they are mostly obnoxious posers. A turning point in Part One is not convincing but determines the fates in Part Two where melodrama takes over. The only serious proposition I could find is this: Murder is a Selfish Act, discuss.
4/10 for effort, but I had no interest or sympathy with the characters. whom you can find in The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, and even Crime and Punishment.

[Stavros]

Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf, (1927, English translation by David Horrocks, 2012)

I thought I read this in the 1970s when it was a trendy book, but I now realize I did not finish it at the time. The book concerns a man who has had a bourgeois life who in his middle years rejects it to become a 'lone wolf' in society, disdainful of all its promises and most of its pleasures, other than sex, drinking and eventually some narcotics. It appealed to those from the 1960s who did not follow the family aspiration to go from school to university to career marriage etc, but also takes a prompt from Nietzsche (not mentioned in the book) and the rejection of inherited morals in an effort to define one's self individually without the baggage of religion and philosophy, though the book read like a personal philosophical tract and tends to bore, and has references to Eastern Religions which focus on the Self, and often how to empty the mind to obtain an inner peace. In addition, there is the contrast extant from Ancient Greece, between Apollo -Reason and Order- and Dionysus -Emotion and Chaos- which later in the book leads Steppenwolf to have out-of-body experiences, and though it includes a murder, the person killed is not real but symbolic. The women in the book are obliging in a sexual way, being the physical/sensual/Dionysian alternative to the ascetic/intellectual/Apollonian Wolf.

I can't say I like the book, but have had a problem with Hesse's other books too, I just find them too preachy. The Glass Bead Game has a high reputation, but it is very long and I am not sure if I am motivated to read it.

[Stavros]

The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier (1974).

Has anyone read this? I have not,

It is one of the most consistently banned books in the USA, because they were banning books long before DeSantis started doing it.

The Chocolate War - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chocolate_War#Reception)

[Stavros]

James O'Brien How they Broke Britain (2023, paperback edition 2024)

"Once you are able to speak the unspeakable, people will begin to think the unthinkable and that is how you beat the establishment" (Nigel Farage, p187 paperback edition).

O'Brien quotes Farage in this angry, sometimes bitter analysis of the relationship between the media, politics and 'influencers', mostly from so-called 'Think Tanks'.

If you list names such as David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrew Neil, Paul Dacre, Rupert Murdoch and Matthew Elliot, you find they are part of a network that includes The Spectator magazine, and 'think tanks' such as the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies, the Adam Smith Institute, the Taxpayer's Alliance and others, most of which are well funded, but we don't always know by whom. Crucially, and in spite of Farage's quote, the men concerned here have risen to the top of British politics and the media, yet blame everyone but themselves when their policies go wrong, or don't work, or cost ten times what they were billed to cost.

The Libertarian ideas this group of people believe in, include these-- "anything funded by the state is wrong"; public sector workers are "the enemies of progress", "the NHS doesn't need reform, it just needs to be sold off" (p171-72 in the 2024 paperback edition).

What this has meant for journalism is that the Libertarians are permanently on the attack, and crucially, they have abandoned the facts to transform every statement into a defence of their ideology, demonizing the ideas and the people that they are opposed to. It means that the age when journalists were committed to telling the truth, even if it meant disparaging their own politics, if they had any, have gone, and we live in an either/or world where 'they' are always wrong and 'we' are always right. This is the foundation laid by people in the US like Newton Gingrich, and in the UK by Murdoch, Neil and Dacre, even though the hard evidence is that their policies have done more harm than good, but that in the process, they and the people who back them have become extremely rich while the rest of us have been impoverished, our social services broken, but one hopes not beyond repair.

[Stavros]

Jeremy Black, A Brief History of America (Robinson, 2024).

History books these days are either 900 page monsters, or bite-sized. Lots of ‘History of x in 100’ something.

i find this an interesting but unsatisfactory book, trying to cram in too much into a readable minus 300 pages. Black is more concerned than most with the grim fate of America’s First Nations, whom he calls Indians- well ok, and at least better than Thomas Jefferson, who thought them ‘savages’ and treated them as such.

It is interesting that whereas in Central and Southern America before Columbus there were organised, centralised imperial systems - Maya, Inca, Aztec are obvious examples- nothing comparable emerged in North America, Europeans arrived but did not remain, for as is pointed out, the success of later colonisation was based on numbers of people with the military means to defend/attack in a populated land they did not own, with the creation of trading networks within the new territories but, crucially, linked to the old, in Europe.

This is a conflict driven account, so at times I wanted a more positive image of American achievements which do appear, but in the rushed style of lists. This as I say, makes for unsatisfactory reading, or it could just be too much for one book.

[Stavros]

William Pao, Breakthrough: the Quest for Life-Changing Medicines (Oneworld, 2024)

If you are not sure if RF Kennedy is an idiot who should be nowhere near health policy, this book will explain why. Pao does use the terminology of the science of immunology but does also explain it in simple language so it should not be beyond the scope of most readers. The chapters concern Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a chapter each on two cancers -non-smoking related lung cancer, and breast cancer. Other chapters concerns HIV, Sickle-Cell Disease and Beta Thalassaemia, and Covid. What Pao describes is how science understands these illnesses, and how it develops strategies to either eliminate them, or reduce them to manageable conditions.
On the way, an army of laboratory technicians, innovative scientists, experimentalists, and politicians enable the breakthrough's that have saved, and improved people's lives. There are no conspiracies here, no diabolical accounts of 'Big Pharma' turning humans into laboratory animals for commercial gain, rather an objective account of 'how we fixed it'.

It is one of those accounts which, though not shaped exclusively by Americans, nevertheless should make Americans proud of what the country has achieved in medical science, something that a certain person would do well to acknowledge, if he had the skill and desire to do so.