JUburton wrote:11/22/63 was entertaining. I then picked up Portnoy's Complaint and put it back down and started Yes, Please. I also bought Fate and Furies and A Brief History of Seven Killings.

A Brief History of Seven Killings was outstanding. Probably best book of 2015 for me.

Read Rushdie's new book (good not great) and David Mitchell's new horror-ish type book (basically a continuation of Bone Clocks; really good)

Decided to re-read all George Saunders stuff because he's the best there is right now.

Just finished Eugene Rogan's The Fall of the Ottomans, which is actually more about that portion of World War I that took place in the Middle East, a war whose end more or less took what was left of the Ottoman Empire down with it. At more than one point the author remarks that the Ottoman Empire had been declining since before 1700, but doesn't really elaborate, which is kind of odd in a book so titled. But that's not the book's only problem.

Like most things having to do with the Middle East, the fighting there in WWI was complicated, multifaceted, confusing. As Rogan tells it, the war in the Middle East was anyone's to win, yet everyone seemed hell-bent on losing it. From the Entente's catastrophic blunders at Gallipoli to the Young Turks' Armenian genocide (which the author gingerly but firmly accounts as such), war in the Middle East was hell cubed: nasty, brutish, and long. Rogan recounts it enthusiastically but clumsily; you really need to provide lots of information to bring military history to life - times, places, troop counts, conditions, etc etc - and present it clearly, and Rogan doesn't really do either. He confuses the already confusing.

He's not so hot on the political context of the Middle East war's carnage, either. The worst example: he springs the Russian Revolution on the reader almost as an afterthought, rather than as something that a) in its buildup certainly influenced Russia's conduct of its share of the war on the Ottomans and b) greatly impacted both the Entente's strategies and the political aftermath of the war. Rogan essentially presents the Revolution as a surprise to everyone involved; dismaying for the Entente, a Hail Akbar for the Ottomans.

Most notable is Rogan's observation that one of the Entente's chief concerns about the Middle East war was that the Caliph would declare jihad on the Western powers, thus uniting Muslims across national borders and even religious factions. Didn't happen. Muslims, like Commies, were not a monolithic bloc, and never really much even drifted in that direction. Lessons for the 21st century?

Leavened the disappointing Fall with occasional selections from Todd Selbert's The Art Pepper Companion, a collection of articles about the alto sax master written mostly during his lifetime. It was a life filled with great music making and ugly life-living.

I mentioned The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin above, and I'm about 1/3 of the way through the second volume of the trilogy, and I have to reiterate that it's simply fantastic, mindblowing in a quiet way even.

TenuredVulture wrote:I mentioned The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin above, and I'm about 1/3 of the way through the second volume of the trilogy, and I have to reiterate that it's simply fantastic, mindblowing in a quiet way even.

Ok, I'm in, TV. I'll have book one before Christmas

Not making much progress on The Three Body Problem, but just about done with In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, Erik Larson's chatty small nonfiction story about the ambassadorship of William Dodd to Germany, 1933-37.

Not really a history but apparently historically faithful, In the Garden of Beasts is much less about Dodd than about his frisky daughter Martha and the various creeps and kooks who comprised the emerging Nazi leadership, the decaying Weimar "leadership", and the profoundly clueless american diplomatic establishment of the period. While the fact that Larson is picking his historical spots to tell his story is frustrating at times, his mode of storytelling enables him to get across the flavor of the period, the feel of Germany particularly as it may have felt to American expats at the time.

It makes especially clear how easy it can be for people - a lot of people, all at the same time; people who could have done something about it - to completely miss the subhuman intentions of subhuman thugs whose public behavior seems merely embarrassingly clownish buffoonery - until they explode in a grisly spasm of mass murder.

I'm a big fan of Larsen's. Devil in the White City is one of my favorite non-fiction books.

The Dude wrote:I'm a big fan of Larsen's. Devil in the White City is one of my favorite non-fiction books.

Reading this now. Man this guy makes Steven Avery look like a goddamn saint.

Larson's no great prose stylist, but he has some kind of knack for selecting telling quotes from his subjects' diaries, their incidental interviews, etc and weaving them with period facts into an engaging yarn. He never has to tell you that Ambassador Dodd was a kind of innocent abroad, not really up to the job he improbably found himself occupying; Larson's accumulation of stray observations gets that point across more than adequately. His oblique style is well suited for getting across what may be his larger unstated point; that "history" is not any one readily identifiable thing, or theme, or incontrovertible narrative. It's always kind of a hazy, undirected mess

drsmooth wrote:Larson's no great prose stylist, but he has some kind of knack for selecting telling quotes from his subjects' diaries, their incidental interviews, etc and weaving them with period facts into an engaging yarn. He never has to tell you that Ambassador Dodd was a kind of innocent abroad, not really up to the job he improbably found himself occupying; Larson's accumulation of stray observations gets that point across more than adequately. His oblique style is well suited for getting across what may be his larger unstated point; that "history" is not any one readily identifiable thing, or theme, or incontrovertible narrative. It's always kind of a hazy, undirected mess

I loved Devil in the White City--I agree with whoever said it was his favorite non-fiction work--but his other stuff is hit or miss for me. I enjoyed Thunderstruck but quickly lost interest in Dead Wake. Been meaning to pick up In the Garden of Beasts.

I don't read much non-fiction but I did read Devil in the White City and highly recommend it.

Anybody read any of the Shannara books? I read a bunch as a kid and noticed that MTV just premiered a series where they are going to do 1 book per season (starting with Book 2). I think I have to not watch it because I really loved the books when I read them. As a matter of fact, I may have to look at re-reading some of them.

Haven't read Shannara stuff since school. No clue which I've read, it all blurs together into a mush of Ohmsfords with magic pebble lumps.

Fates and Furies is creatively written but not especially compelling imo

Overrated

Trent Steele wrote:

JUburton wrote:11/22/63 was entertaining. I then picked up Portnoy's Complaint and put it back down and started Yes, Please. I also bought Fate and Furies and A Brief History of Seven Killings.

A Brief History of Seven Killings was outstanding. Probably best book of 2015 for me.

Read Rushdie's new book (good not great) and David Mitchell's new horror-ish type book (basically a continuation of Bone Clocks; really good)

Decided to re-read all George Saunders stuff because he's the best there is right now.

who wants to talk about A Brief History of Seven Killings?

Some times I read it before bed and I feel like the passageways between the living world and the dead are atrophying. It spooks me the hell out.

read King's Mr. Mercedes over vacay and really enjoyed it, though there was a feeling in the middle of like, Do I really want to get into the mind of another killer?

but his goofy style with all the references and turns of phrase is just a lot of fun, imo

Grotewold wrote:Fates and Furies is creatively written but not especially compelling imo

Overrated

OK hold the phone it's heating up

Youseff wrote:

Trent Steele wrote:

JUburton wrote:11/22/63 was entertaining. I then picked up Portnoy's Complaint and put it back down and started Yes, Please. I also bought Fate and Furies and A Brief History of Seven Killings.

A Brief History of Seven Killings was outstanding. Probably best book of 2015 for me.

Read Rushdie's new book (good not great) and David Mitchell's new horror-ish type book (basically a continuation of Bone Clocks; really good)

Decided to re-read all George Saunders stuff because he's the best there is right now.

who wants to talk about A Brief History of Seven Killings?

Some times I read it before bed and I feel like the passageways between the living world and the dead are atrophying. It spooks me the hell out.

It's next on my list so gimme like a month.

drsmooth wrote:Finally got the McCullough Wright brothers bio. I'm enjoying it. At only 335 pgs, it's hardly more than an essay for McCullough.

With 2 of his 3 Presidents (Truman, Adams; Roosevelt doesn't fit the script), McCullough sort of sneakily took on stories of 'uncomplicated' people, characters who 'everyone' knows, but doesn't know much about, and revealed their special complexities via an accretion of particulars that establish how thoroughly American and appealingly individual they were. He's taking basically the same approach with the Wright brothers.

Enjoyed this. Knew the basic outlines of their story, but virtually nothing of what happened after Kitty Hawk [spoiler alert: the plane flies]. since this takes place around page 100, the majority of the book is about the aftermath, though largely on the 5-6 years just following, when they were trying ot prove viability and and make a professional go of it, which in many ways was more challenging than the technical aspects. Interesting to see how much they were loved abroad well before they were admired at home.

JUburton wrote:

Youseff wrote:

Trent Steele wrote:

JUburton wrote:11/22/63 was entertaining. I then picked up Portnoy's Complaint and put it back down and started Yes, Please. I also bought Fate and Furies and A Brief History of Seven Killings.

A Brief History of Seven Killings was outstanding. Probably best book of 2015 for me.

Read Rushdie's new book (good not great) and David Mitchell's new horror-ish type book (basically a continuation of Bone Clocks; really good)

Decided to re-read all George Saunders stuff because he's the best there is right now.

who wants to talk about A Brief History of Seven Killings?

Some times I read it before bed and I feel like the passageways between the living world and the dead are atrophying. It spooks me the hell out.

It's next on my list so gimme like a month.

giddyup.

it's a speedy read but it is 700 pages, so I'm taking some time to get through it.

Youseff wrote:

JUburton wrote:

Youseff wrote:

Trent Steele wrote:

JUburton wrote:11/22/63 was entertaining. I then picked up Portnoy's Complaint and put it back down and started Yes, Please. I also bought Fate and Furies and A Brief History of Seven Killings.

A Brief History of Seven Killings was outstanding. Probably best book of 2015 for me.

Read Rushdie's new book (good not great) and David Mitchell's new horror-ish type book (basically a continuation of Bone Clocks; really good)

Decided to re-read all George Saunders stuff because he's the best there is right now.

who wants to talk about A Brief History of Seven Killings?

Some times I read it before bed and I feel like the passageways between the living world and the dead are atrophying. It spooks me the hell out.

It's next on my list so gimme like a month.

giddyup.

it's a speedy read but it is 700 pages, so I'm taking some time to get through it.

the NY chapters aren't grabbing me as much

Finished Devil in the White City. On to A Brief History.