I'm still inching through Foner. It's really good but some of it's hard to read. Passages about how slavery gets ended and racial equality advances are a lot easier to take than long sections about the evisceration of unions. Almost up to the Sixties now, but then after that it's the backlash to finish out the book.

After I'm going to be reading a lot of Civil War stuff because [shameless]I started a blog.[/shameless]

Very impressive, Samnell!

I look forward to reading it!

Orthos wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Just finished "A Perfect Blood" by Kim Harrison.

Is that part of her Hallows series?

Making Money by Terry Pratchett.

Yup, part of the Hollows series.

I just can't figure out which Clint Eastwood movie the title is based off of?

A Perfect World.

I love title schemes. It took me a bit to catch onto hers though, as I'm not heavily familiar with Eastwood, but "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" parody is unmistakable even for me.

Samnell wrote:

I'm still inching through Foner. It's really good but some of it's hard to read. Passages about how slavery gets ended and racial equality advances are a lot easier to take than long sections about the evisceration of unions. Almost up to the Sixties now, but then after that it's the backlash to finish out the book.

After I'm going to be reading a lot of Civil War stuff because [shameless]I started a blog.[/shameless]

Very impressive, Samnell!

I look forward to reading it!

The plan is one substantive post every weekday. We'll see how long I can keep that up. :)

I can't wait to bring Civil War-themed politrolling to other parts of the internet!

SmiloDan wrote:

Orthos wrote:

SmiloDan wrote:

Just finished "A Perfect Blood" by Kim Harrison.

Is that part of her Hallows series?

Making Money by Terry Pratchett.

Yup, part of the Hollows series.

I just can't figure out which Clint Eastwood movie the title is based off of?

A Perfect World.

I love title schemes. It took me a bit to catch onto hers though, as I'm not heavily familiar with Eastwood, but "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" parody is unmistakable even for me.

Check Steven Z. Brust's "The Phoenix Guards" and "500 Years Later." They're a riff on the 3 Musketeers and 20 Years Later.

Death's Heretic is the novel I'm currently reading.

Celestial Healer wrote:

I am rereading The Hobbit. It has been so long since I last read it, and I want to remember what it is all about before the movie comes out.

I think it would take massive head trauma or Alzheimer's before I could ever forget what that book was about. I think I read it at least once a year between second and sixth grades and have read it probably three or four times since then.

I think I read it back in 7th grade and then again when I was about 20, but sadly that was many years ago.

I also picked up a volume of poetry by Allen Ginsburg and am throwing that into the mix. Incredible stuff.

I got my copy of 'The Story of O' back today. Didn't like it myself, so I lent it to an acquaintance who I thought would like it, as she's into all those 50 Shades of Grey type novels. The long and short of it is that she hated it and now thinks I'm a pervert, too, which is something I probably should have expected...

In other news...

I'm sorry, what?

Reacquainted myself with my Les Mouches.

Pretty killer version of the Oresteia, if I do say so myself.

I also picked up a volume of poetry by Allen Ginsburg and am throwing that into the mix. Incredible stuff.

America, when will you be worthy of your million Anklebiters?

And, finally:

The Art of Book-making by Washington Irving

I'm sorry, what?

May have got the wrong end of the stick (bad choice of words), but this will tell you all you really need to know about the Story of O (NSFW? Wikipedia?)

Alternatively, sorry for snarking all over your Selected Writings, General :)

Oh, I am familiar with The Story of "O".

Goblins do it in the street! (When they can escape from being held imprisoned by creepy Frenchmen)

Oh, I am familiar with The Story of "O".

Goblins do it in the street! (When they can escape from being held imprisoned by creepy Frenchmen)

Many goblins prayed for freedom, but it never did them any good until they started praying with their feet. And teeth. Mostly teeth. Sometimes fire.

the hero and the crown, by robin mckinley. a solid, straightforward fantasy tale. up next is the blue sword, also by robin mckinley.

So, Washington Irving is turning out to be quite the 18th-century prose stylist. Part travelogue, part short story collection, part philosophical essays, I am quite enjoying The Sketch Book, even though, truth be told, I just skipped four (4?!?) essays about Christmas. Bah, humbug!

The Mutability of Literature

Restarted The Reavers of Skaith which got lost in all of the shuffle between Malcolm and Jean-Paul and Washington.

I just started Idoru by William Gibson.

I just started reading Cloud Atlas. It's been on my shelf for a couple of years, but now that there's a movie, I'm finally getting around to starting it.

Men at Arms by Pratchett.

Just finished The Cold Commands by Richard K. Morgan.

Just began Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey. Part of her new {i]Agents of Hel[/i] urban fantasy series.

Finished Dukaj's Ice at last, after over a month...

Now I am reading second tome of Eddings' Dreamers series.

Last book i read was "lizzie the lamb" with my baby boy

Decided to re-read Len Deighton's first Bernard Samson trilogy.

Fun little essay about books

Just finished re-reading the Mistborn books.

Re-reading my favorite Terry Pratchett, Night Watch, in preparation for the soul crushing darkness that is Dan Simmons' writing. Getting ready to read Endymion. Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are so...good. I just can't read them very often, or even close together in time. I might lose all faith in humanity and live the rest of my days locked in a 10x10 bunker with no lights, crying to myself every 15 seconds.

I loved Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. Hyperion I read normally... first time I read Fall of Hyperion, I finished it in 24 hours. Brilliant. Not to spoil your enjoyment of Endymion, but I much prefer Hyperion and Fall of to Endymion and Rise of.

If you are ever tempted to read Ilium and Olympos, they're pretty good, but not Hyperion good. Fall of Hyperion ties up all the loose ends, but at the end of Olympos, I was still wondering WTF I just read.

And I am just now rereading Hyperion. Just started the Priest's tale.

My winter library books have come in!

Three volumes of The Caerleon Edition of the Works of Arthur Machen, a hoary old 1923 set. Quite lovely.

The King in Yellow. I'm realizing that I only read about half of the stories in there the first time I picked it up. Huh, I wonder what the second half is like...

After Finitude by Quentin Meillassoux. Contemporary philosophy in what's called the "speculative realism" movement. Quite challenging to follow, but from what I can gather it's basically a critique of post-Kantian epistemology and scientific empiricim from a very unusual perspective.

Has anybody else read the Takeshi Kovacs books my Richard K. Morgan? Altered Carbon is the first one.

Has anybody else read the Takeshi Kovacs books my Richard K. Morgan? Altered Carbon is the first one.

I've read the first two. They're really good. So is TH1RT3EN and his fantasy novels: The Steel Remains and The Cold Commands. His fantasy is very Joe Abercrombie-esque, but more subversive.

Red Country by Joe Abercrombie. It follows his phenomenal The Heroes. Which if you have not yet read; do so!

It's out?!?

I dunno, I found The Heroes good, but with an unsatisfying finish.

I thought The Heroes had a typical Abercrombie ending. Whether that is unsatisfying or not depends on taste. I loved it!

E.H. Carr was the author of the monumental, 14-volume A History of Soviet Russia that essentially took him his whole life to write up to 1929.

He was in his nineties when he started a similar series on the Communist International, but, sadly, died after finishing a couple of chapters that were turned into The Comintern and the Spanish Civil War which I am reading because it is very short.

Also contains a moving eulogy from Tamara Deutscher (who, I guess, isn't big enough to get her own wikipedia page...sexists!!) that originally ran in New Left Review.

Vive le Galt!

Just finished Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey.

About to start Under My Skin by Charles de Lint.

Finished Eddings' Dreamers series. Now time for some Zamboch.

It's supposed to be one of the greatest books ever written in the English language, though, and, IIRC, John Keegan called it the best books on war since Julius Caesar.

My bad. It was Edmund Wilson who said that.

John Keegan just said: "perhaps the most revelatory autobiography of high command to exist in any language."

Anyway, blew through Carr (which was easy because there was only, like, 90 pages), chided myself about not finishing Brackett or Irving and then read the MacPherson preface to Grant's memoirs.

Finally admitted losing interest in Foner. Now The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854. I'm hoping to plow through it (yeah, right) by the time my special order of Charles Dew's Apostles of Disunion comes in.

Just finished Under My Skin by Charles de Lint.

Gonna start The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett.

Started reading Flossia Naren: Independent Mage by Kira Izmajłowa.

So, coming in on the home stretch with The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.. Next story is finally Sleepy Hollow and then after that there's only 4 more pages.

I am surprised I have never heard more about this book or about this guy. I mean, except for the two stories everyone knows, which, btw, are like half of the stories in this book. Most of them are just whimsical essays.

Washington Irving, I read, was the petted, coddled, useless, scion of a well-to-do mercantile family who shipped him off to run the family concern in London and failed. So there's lots of essays of him idling about town, wandering into churches and libraries, visiting the haunts of Shakespearean characters and contemplating aesthetics.

Which I like to imagine is the 19th-century equivalent of [bubble bubble bubble]ing and collecting comic books.

Anyway, not for everyone, but I (so far) have enjoyed it quite a bit.

The Life of St Aethelwold, by Wulfstan Cantor, eds Lapidge and Winterbottom.

It's pretty good. Not as adventurous as Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend(which I read on the appropriate feast days, a bit at a time) but all hagiography has its moments.

Currently reading High-Opp, given as a never before published novel by Frank Herbert. Even though I'm not sure about the veracity of the authorship, it's still an entertaining read.

And so far this Christmas season, since being moved to Sugar Candy Mountain, I have been able to read 4 chapters of [i]The Reavers of Skaith[/url] at work per day.

Yay Xmastime!!

Man, not only did I screw up my post, I jinxed myself.

No Skaith this morning. :(

Finally admitted losing interest in Foner. Now The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854. I'm hoping to plow through it (yeah, right) by the time my special order of Charles Dew's Apostles of Disunion comes in.

Apostles came in today. I knew it was short and focused, but the thing's got two period documents at the back and neither one is the obvious Cornerstone Speech. Squee!

Finished Washington Irving the day before yesterday and hope to finish The Reavers of Skaith today. At work? Hee hee!

My future reading plans were blown out of the water by an impulse visit to the public library which netted Daniel Abraham's The King's Blood (couldn't find the new Abercrombie, although the computer says it was there) and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself which will knock Ulysses S. Grant back onto the stand-by pile.

I somehow missed Jacobs up to now, and was pointed to her by this article, which Comrade Samnell might enjoy.

I somehow missed Jacobs up to now, and was pointed to her by this article, which Comrade Samnell might enjoy.

That's some good stuff. Jacobs' name was familiar to me, but I only knew her as someone Henry Gates brought back to general notice.