What have you read lately?

[mamselle]

Supercedes Tuchman?

Impossible. Heresy.

(But I haven't read Hastings, so that's just an uninformed opinion.)

How would you compare Tuchman, Hastings, and "All Quiet on the Western Front"?

Are they each simply functions of their time and the development of more information as things unfold, or does each author's hermeneutic also differ markedly enough that they have very different slants on the situation overall?

(Quiz question, just out of curiosity; you don't have to answer...)

;--}

M.

[apl68]

Supercedes Tuchman?

Impossible. Heresy.

(But I haven't read Hastings, so that's just an uninformed opinion.)

How would you compare Tuchman, Hastings, and "All Quiet on the Western Front"?

Are they each simply functions of their time and the development of more information as things unfold, or does each author's hermeneutic also differ markedly enough that they have very different slants on the situation overall?

(Quiz question, just out of curiosity; you don't have to answer...)

;--}

M.

Well, I'd have to re-read Tuchman and Remarque to refresh myself on them.  I now have a mind to do that, when I can make the time.

[mamselle]

I think I have Remarque, and I read Tuchman about a year ago (can't look at it now, loaned it to a friend and of course returning a borrowed book is--ahem--not possible at the moment).

But I was impressed with her usual methodical way of building up an understanding of the various sides' perspectives one-by-one, so that when it was time to talk about the cataclysm of Sarajevo itself, it made sense in an awful way.

(She's also good on early American history, if you can get "The First Salute.")

I'll have to see about Hastings. It's starting to occur to me that it would be interesting to use the three of them as a backdrop for teaching art history in that period....hmmm....

Sorry, I'm derailing threads right and left today.

M.

[apl68]

Tuchman's A Distant Mirror is my favorite of her works.  My brother and I were talking about it over the phone just the other day.  Another one I haven't read in a very long time.

The first one that I was exposed to was The Proud Tower, which I tried to read when I was in seventh grade.  Though I had long been reading above grade level, that one was too big a chunk to chew at that age.  It made more sense when I went back to it as an adult.

[mamselle]

I've read both. Great minds...

I read A Distant Mirror in a week, straight through, after handing in my M.A. thesis (on a topic in the period, although not directly connected to the book itself).

It was like I was on overdrive and dieseling and had to plow through it to slow back down and re-enter humanity.

M.

[hmaria1609]

I've read both. Great minds...

I read A Distant Mirror in a week, straight through, after handing in my M.A. thesis (on a topic in the period, although not directly connected to the book itself).

It was like I was on overdrive and dieseling and had to plow through it to slow back down and re-enter humanity.

M.

I read an older edition of A Distant Mirror in junior high. It's a worthwhile read!

I discovered Remarque wrote a sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front titled The Road Back. Has anyone else read this novel?
To sum: First published in 1931, the novel begins in the days and weeks following the end of the war and the uncertain future for those who fought in the German army. The novel is available on Amazon; the current English translation of the novel has a 2013 copyright date.

[apl68]

The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, by David Cannadine.  In the 1870s Britain's caste of landed, titled families was still generally in charge of Britain's political and cultural leadership.  They probably owned the highest concentration of Britain's landed wealth that they would ever own.  Things just went downhill for them from there.  In the decades that followed, stagnating landed incomes (Due to competition from imported agricultural goods) and an increasing democratic franchise eroded the aristocracy's incomes, influence, and privileges.  World War I dealt them a severe blow.  World War II pretty much finished them off.  A few landed families have held onto substantial wealth, and now and then an aristocrat may gain some influence or notoriety.  But they're very much exceptions. 

A good book of history that is both serious and readable.  It didn't really need to be as long as it is.


1913:  In Search of the World Before the Great War, by Charles Emmerson.  Emmerson structures this look at the world before the great catastrophe as a series of chapters about what various cities and nations all over the world were doing in the year before it hit.  He gives an impressively broad, if not terribly deep, view of that world.  The idea is just to give readers an idea of what the world was like before World War I, without a teleological effort to show how the war came out of it. 

If there is a thesis here, it's that the world of 1913 looked a lot more modern than people often realize.  There was already a very high level of economic globalization and global movement of people.  Societies dealt with racial and class issues, terrorism, and all kinds of other issues that we deal with today (But not global climate change, it's worth noting).  The decades-long horrors that World War I ushered in led many Europeans to have an understandable nostalgia for a prewar era of prosperity and stability and general absence of mass murder and totalitarian tyranny.  Honestly, though, the prewar world was way too dynamic and unsettled for any stability it may have boasted to have lasted for too much longer.  The forces of modern science, technology, ideology, and media are just too powerful not to create a lot of creative destruction--and plain old destructive destruction.

[Parasaurolophus]

Hmm, I missed August and September. Here they were:

Jane Harper: Force of Nature - A mystery set in the Australian wilderness. This was very capably done, and I enjoyed the surviving-in-the-wilderness aspect. It was reminiscent of Nevada Barr that way. I'd happily read something else by Harper.

Neil Gaiman: Coraline - Picked it up from a book box, and it was fantastic and quite scary (just like the film). I loved it. I don't care for Gaiman's adult novels, but he's clearly a very talented children's author.

Angus Donald: The Last Berserker - Viking-age fiction which I'd hesitate to call 'historical'. It was basically what that crap novel by Snorri Kristjansson wanted to be. It was OK, but the period details were all off (down to 19th-century fantasy arms and armour), and it didn't quite work, although aspects were interesting and some sections were engrossing. In all, it seemed like a hurried job, and it's nowhere near as good as his usual Robin Hood fare. I might well give the sequels a miss. We'll see.

Robert J. Sawyer: Far-Seer - A story about a dinosaur Galileo. I've been pretty hesitant to read these, but I found a signed copy at a used book store and decided to give it a go. I was pleasantly surprised--it's really, really good. The conceit is really well executed, although the biology is clearly late-'80s and early-'90s dino (and not particularly cutting-edge at that). There's a lot of really cool world-building that's gone into this. This is definitely the best thing he's written.

Robert J. Sawyer: Fossil Hunter - This one's dinosaur Darwin. It doesn't disappoint: it's also very good, and it's shrugged off some of the elements of the first one that felt a little forced. There's even a small murder mystery bundled in, and a fantastic showdown with the king of the dinosaurs (although again, '90s dino-bio).

[mamselle]

If there is a thesis here, it's that the world of 1913 looked a lot more modern than people often realize.

+100

In fact, art history looks to 1913 (and the NYC Armory Show that year, in particular) as a watershed year for modernist/abstract movements in the visual arts (Orphism, Fauvism, etc. all draw from this strand):

   https://www.npr.org/2013/02/17/172002686/armory-show-that-shocked-america-in-1913-celebrates-100

and the work of the Delauneys, Matisse, Kandinsky, Dove, and others:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art#/media/File:Robert_Delaunay,_1913,_Premier_Disque,_134_cm,_52.7_inches,_Private_collection.jpg

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art#/media/File:'Windows_Open_Simultaneously_(First_Part,_Third_Motif)'_by_Robert_Delaunay.JPG

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art#/media/File:Yellow_Curtain.jpg

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art#/media/File:Untitled_(First_Abstract_Watercolor)_by_Wassily_Kandinsky.jpg

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art#/media/File:Arthur_Dove,_1911-12,_Based_on_Leaf_Forms_and_Spaces,_pastel_on_unidentified_support._Now_lost.jpg

These were not all peaking just then; there are both known precursors and later developments, and parallels in the performative arts.

But yes, indeed, a century ago we were already doing daring things.

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

Oh, I forgot. Also:

Isabel Fall: I Sexually Identify as an Apache Attack Helicopter (a.k.a. Helicopter Story) - This is a fantastic short story. It's a Hugo finalist for 2021, and it totally deserves to win. It's such a rich story, and actually does a fantastic job of talking about the nuances of gender. Fall did such a great job of running with that stupid meme and turning it on its head. The kerfuffle it caused was entirely unwarranted. I never got around to reading it before Clarkesworld took it down, but thanks to Peter Watts's blog, I found it here.

[ergative]

Oh, I forgot. Also:

Isabel Fall: I Sexually Identify as an Apache Attack Helicopter (a.k.a. Helicopter Story) - This is a fantastic short story. It's a Hugo finalist for 2021, and it totally deserves to win. It's such a rich story, and actually does a fantastic job of talking about the nuances of gender. Fall did such a great job of running with that stupid meme and turning it on its head. The kerfuffle it caused was entirely unwarranted. I never got around to reading it before Clarkesworld took it down, but thanks to Peter Watts's blog, I found it here.

Judging from the timing of this comment, might I infer that you have registered for the Hugos and are perhaps working through your Hugos packet?

I've just finished the first two October Daye books. I doubt I'll read all fourteen of them, however--though mad props to Seanan McGuire (or her publisher) for making them all available for the Hugo packet--because, based on the first two, the series just isn't as good as some of the others up for Best Series. On the one hand, it's fourteen books long, so maybe giving up after two isn't fairly sampling the wares. On the other hand, the other nominees for Best Series were outstanding from the start and should be rewarded for that.  Probably my top ranking votes will go to Murderbot and The Poppy War.

[ab_grp]

Now we are back to the Expanse series (Corey) with Cibola Burn.  We're not too far in yet, but it was interesting to come across the mention of the Nipah virus, since that is currently causing problems in India.

We finished this one last night.  As with many of the other books in this series, it took me a while to get interested in the story.  There are a lot of different characters introduced in each book, and I find myself wanting the same ones to appear in subsequent books rather than meet new ones.  This one had a couple good characters who made their debuts and I who I hope will stick around, and it also brought back some favorites.  Trying not to give too much away, in this book there are people of different factions having to deal with an unfriendly planet without any backup.  Will they work together? Once the story got started, I was on board for the ride. 

Now we are reading The 100-Year-Old Man who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared, thanks to the recommendation from ergative! We just started but are enjoying the writing style (kind of reminds me of Tove Jansson?) and are looking forward to reading about the man's adventures.

[Parasaurolophus]

Oh, I forgot. Also:

Isabel Fall: I Sexually Identify as an Apache Attack Helicopter (a.k.a. Helicopter Story) - This is a fantastic short story. It's a Hugo finalist for 2021, and it totally deserves to win. It's such a rich story, and actually does a fantastic job of talking about the nuances of gender. Fall did such a great job of running with that stupid meme and turning it on its head. The kerfuffle it caused was entirely unwarranted. I never got around to reading it before Clarkesworld took it down, but thanks to Peter Watts's blog, I found it here.

Judging from the timing of this comment, might I infer that you have registered for the Hugos and are perhaps working through your Hugos packet?

Alas, not! I hope to someday, however!

[ergative]

Oh, I forgot. Also:

Isabel Fall: I Sexually Identify as an Apache Attack Helicopter (a.k.a. Helicopter Story) - This is a fantastic short story. It's a Hugo finalist for 2021, and it totally deserves to win. It's such a rich story, and actually does a fantastic job of talking about the nuances of gender. Fall did such a great job of running with that stupid meme and turning it on its head. The kerfuffle it caused was entirely unwarranted. I never got around to reading it before Clarkesworld took it down, but thanks to Peter Watts's blog, I found it here.

Judging from the timing of this comment, might I infer that you have registered for the Hugos and are perhaps working through your Hugos packet?

Alas, not! I hope to someday, however!

It's kind of a catch-22, I've discovered this year: if you're embedded in the SFF buzz enough to want to register and nominate, chances are good you've already read much of the stuff that will end up on the shortlist. I already owned all but one of the books on the best novel list, and read completely four of the six best series (and already owned two-thirds of a fifth best series nominee). I suppose there's the short fiction, which has more new titles, but I tend not to pay too much attention to short fiction (although I did love Open House on Haunted Hill and Little Free Library).

[apl68]

Run, by Anne Patchett.  My latest attempt to read some contemporary or near-contemporary "serious" fiction.  I do this now and then hoping for a nice surprise--it's happened before--but once again all I found was another self-importantly gloomy work aimed at the book discussion group market.  It has no fewer than (sorry for the spoilers here ) three dead mothers in it!  And more characters than I can count who spend time musing about how they've lost their religious faith, since that is of course the only thing that any reasonable person can be expected to do in today's world.  The sad thing is, this is a very well-written work by somebody who obviously has great talent.  It's not written in that annoyingly affected "lyrical" prose style we hear so much about, nor is it "experimental" (i.e. the author saying "I'm going to dress my emperor of a work of fiction in clothing that only very clever people can see, so that you can claim to be clever enough to see it").  Viewed purely as a work of craft, it's very readable. 

The used copy I got had within it a hand-written note by a previous reader that said "Couldn't get into."  Though I did read through all the way to the end, I'd have to say the same.  Another example of how I've learned to treat the knowledge that an author has won literary awards as a warning, not a recommendation.


Why Buildings Fall Down, by Matthys Levy and Mario Salvadori.  The authors are a pair of architectural engineers who examine a series of structural failures that have occurred over the years (mostly in recent decades) to explain what went wrong.  In the process they also explain a lot about how structural engineering is supposed to work.  They have another one out called Why Buildings Stand Up.  Not the most felicitous writing I've ever seen, but lucid enough for the lay reader to follow.  The stories, which they tell in a non-lurid fashion, are often fascinating.  Accompanied by informative line drawing illustrations by Kevin Woest.  In some ways it's like a David Macauley book for grown-ups.  If there's an overarching idea to take away, it's that structural failures tend to be the result of a chain of circumstances, and structures should be designed to stop those chains of failure from running to their conclusion.  That would be a good idea with all kinds of things, really.