Just finished Divergent by Veronica Roth and am waiting with baited breath for Closer to Home: Book one of Herald Spy by Mercedes Lackey to get released in October (I think, or was it Nov?) It's pre-ordered.
Man, I totally forgot about Dilvish, the Damned and The Changing Land, not to mention Jack of Shadows... and My Name is Legion... damn, Zelazny was good.
Yeah, I re-read it recently and, while I still love a lot of the ideas, it's not quite all I remembered it being. Still, how do you not love the Dung Pits of Glyve? And the Compact?
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Thing about Zelazny is that he's clinically unable to make a decent ending for his stories. I forgive him that because the trip there is so much fun. Also, it is always a good thing to remember who is telling the story. Seconded that the first five books outshine the second five. The absolute cream of the crop for me was #2, the Guns of Avalon.
I read like 15 Stephen King books, so believe you me I know the pain of an author who just doesn't know how and when to finish his stories. I don't think I can ever forgive about 80% of the last book in the Dark Tower.
But when I think about it, most writers are kinda bad with endings. The solid, satisfying ending of Otherland is one of the best things about it (because when have we ever seen a good ending to such a long story?), and one of the things I like most about Sanderson is that his endings are simply fantastic. My greatest wish in regards to books right now is that Martin can pull off a good finish for A Song of Ice and Fire.
I'm not sure what it means, but coolio.Another obstacle to more reading.
I hope the books will forgive me while I nerdgasm and try not to be too creepy where Eric Foner might see.
I think it's funny to mock myself over how much I'm into Eric Foner. :) I'm taking an online course "from" him, but it's really lectures he recorded last year.
...now if I actually met Foner in person. Yeah, that would be horribly awkward. But maybe I would get a nerd tan off his historian halo.
While I love the first five Amber novels, the first Zelazny I like to recommend is Lord of Light.
I love what I've read of Zelazny, which sadly isn't enough. Amber has been something I've been meaning to look into for years now. I may just try and find a collection of his works, surely there has to be something available.
Lord of Light is actually sitting about two books from the top of my "to read" pile at the moment, and the only reason it's not at the top right now is that the first two books are ones I borrowed from a coworker. So as soon as I finish re-reading The First Law trilogy, it's on to those ones.
Going to read The Book Thief first, because I'm assured that it's a very quick read... then I'm diving into Gardens of the Moon, first book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I'm told that may take a while.
I think it's funny to mock myself over how much I'm into Eric Foner. :) I'm taking an online course "from" him, but it's really lectures he recorded last year.I'm not sure what it means, but coolio.Another obstacle to more reading.
I hope the books will forgive me while I nerdgasm and try not to be too creepy where Eric Foner might see.
The latter is what I wasn't sure about. Coolioolio.
Anyone can watch, or you gotta sign up?
The latter is what I wasn't sure about. Coolioolio.Anyone can watch, or you gotta sign up?
Ah I see. It started today, but yeah it's free and open to the general public. Not sure if you can still register, but it's all of filling out an online form. There's talk about photo ID and crap, but as long as you audit it doesn't actually ask for that.
Well, let's see. I read Amber, Lord of light, Eye of Cat, To die in Italbar, The dream master... probably something more. It isn't that the endings are particularly bad, it's more that they aren't really endings. I have just never felt any of his endings were spectacular. In several books, it feels like he just didn't resolve the storyline, one just simply stopped. But, as I said, all of them are worth reading despite this. That IS a pretty high mark for an author, I'd say. Lord of light ranks among my absolute favourite books.
I'm just going to say that whatever complaints some might have about Zelazny's ending, it's nothing like the abomination that was the end of the Dark Tower. Though for me that started nosediving a book or so earlier and just kept getting worse.
King writing himself in was a bonehead move, and most of Song of Susannah was filler, but still, not egregiously awful yet. And the first third or so of the last book, up until
The middle third
The very ending? I was actually fine with that.
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I'm just going to say that whatever complaints some might have about Zelazny's ending, it's nothing like the abomination that was the end of the Dark Tower. Though for me that started nosediving a book or so earlier and just kept getting worse.King writing himself in was a bonehead move, and most of Song of Susannah was filler, but still, not egregiously awful yet. And the first third or so of the last book, up until ** spoiler omitted ** was the high point of fantasy, IMHO -- an incredible culmination of an awesome series. When I re-read the series, I just stopped reading there and was really, really happy!
The middle third ** spoiler omitted ** is sooooooooooooooooooooo baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad that it makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.
The very ending? I was actually fine with that.
This is really kind of how I felt about the whole thing. Song of Susannah was my least favorite of the entire series. All the more annoying because it came right on the heels of my most favorite, Wolves of the Calla, and because I likewise loved the first half of the final book.
I lost interest in Amber after just a few books. Zelazny seemed to have said all he had to say therein, and proceeded to wander around milking it after that. (The whole "my creation is the real world" always smacked more than a little of pretension to me, so I don't remember it as fondly as some others.)
Heh. The funny thing is that Amber turned out not to be the "real" world either. Before the creation of the Pattern, there was Chaos, and in particular the Courts of Chaos, which could project shadows just as well as Amber. I think that the pretension was on the part of the princes of Amber.
Anyway, I don't know how many "a few" is, but my favorite volume was "The Hand Of Oberon". I couldn't put that one down. I mean that. I'm a very slow reader, yet I finished that book in under a day. Even when people were watching TV (which I generally find distracting) and urging me to watch that TV show, I couldn't take my eyes off "The Hand of Oberon". (And it was a busy day, when I was supposed to be studying for my final exams. Ah well.)
And my hair stood up when I found out that...
(WARNING: This is a major, MAJOR spoiler!!! Don't click on it if you haven't read the book. I mean it.)
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Never having read a Zelazny book myself, all I have to offer is a
I'll have to admit that I read "Lord of Light" only once, and don't remember too much from it. Could someone explain to me what that song has to do with the novel?
For those of you who can't watch YouTube (because it's blocked at your place of work, or something) the lyrics are:
The elements that gather here upon this hill
Shall cast no fear
Of lines that match across the world for travel
Which no man has ever heard
The moon that shines it's beam so bright
Of stones that measure the silvery light
Of energy that travels here
It happens on the seventh year.
A day shall come, we shall be as one
Perhaps the Dying has begun
From the realms beyond the sun
Here our lifetime has begun
Maybe this is supposed to be the original colonists planning to make themselves gods?
De Rotlösa (literalal translation: The Rootless) by Marcus Olausson. First in a fantasy trilogy by one of my brother's workmates.
40 pages in, the main impressions are that it's nice to read a fantasy novel with a genuine Nordic nomenclature, and the publisher need a stricter editor.
Finished The Death of King Arthur; or, Knights of the Round Table Make Terrible Decisions Despite Copious Good Advice, Including from Angels, and Then Die Full of Regrets. It was pleasant to trade the extreme gore of The Song of Roland for laments about love and the cruelty of fate, but in the interest of trimming down my meat books, off to the library book sale it goes. Now on to The Ecclesiastical History of the English People!
I'll have to admit that I read "Lord of Light" only once, and don't remember too much from it. Could someone explain to me what that song has to do with the novel?
Having never read it, I, alas, cannot.
In fact, I would have been willing to chalk it up to coincidence, but I did read somewhere on the internet that the song was inspired by the book...but maybe it was just the acid.
I lost interest in Amber after just a few books. Zelazny seemed to have said all he had to say therein, and proceeded to wander around milking it after that. (The whole "my creation is the real world" always smacked more than a little of pretension to me, so I don't remember it as fondly as some others.)Heh. The funny thing is that Amber turned out not to be the "real" world either. Before the creation of the Pattern, there was Chaos, and in particular the Courts of Chaos, which could project shadows just as well as Amber. I think that the pretension was on the part of the princes of Amber.
Anyway, I don't know how many "a few" is, but my favorite volume was "The Hand Of Oberon". I couldn't put that one down. I mean that. I'm a very slow reader, yet I finished that book in under a day. Even when people were watching TV (which I generally find distracting) and urging me to watch that TV show, I couldn't take my eyes off "The Hand of Oberon". (And it was a busy day, when I was supposed to be studying for my final exams. Ah well.)
And my hair stood up when I found out that...
(WARNING: This is a major, MAJOR spoiler!!! Don't click on it if you haven't read the book. I mean it.)
** spoiler omitted **
I don't know if I'd call the Amber books spectacular, but I definitely found them entertaining as well. I think what made them work was that they were each fairly short for fantasy novels. Just a nice story without much proselytizing on any particular subject.
Done with Melville (poor Billy!), Swords and Ice Magic and halfway through The Lost World. Was gonna continue straight on into The Knight and Knave of Swords, but I think I'm gonna have to re-read Comrade Lenin's "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder for the umpteenth time for next weekend's Regional Branch.
[Rest of the post redacted due to democratic centralism]
Shadow of the Wolf, by Chris Carlsen. Didn't like it much; was expecting cheesy sub-sub Conan and got thoroughly overripe sub-sub-sub Conan atrocity porn.
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I'm just going to say that whatever complaints some might have about Zelazny's ending, it's nothing like the abomination that was the end of the Dark Tower. Though for me that started nosediving a book or so earlier and just kept getting worse.King writing himself in was a bonehead move, and most of Song of Susannah was filler, but still, not egregiously awful yet. And the first third or so of the last book, up until ** spoiler omitted ** was the high point of fantasy, IMHO -- an incredible culmination of an awesome series. When I re-read the series, I just stopped reading there and was really, really happy!
The middle third ** spoiler omitted ** is sooooooooooooooooooooo baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad that it makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.
The very ending? I was actually fine with that.
Interesting. My favorite part of the series by quite a lot is THE WASTE LANDS, book #3. That was the book which expended Roland's quest into truly epic proportions, had the best world building, and felt big and weird and alien.
The section where Jake is "split" between the reality where he died in Roland's world and the one where he didn't was incredible. The concept of the beams that hold the Dark Tower is really cool. All the characters get very good development. The final sections with Lud were tense and awesome. Blaine is one of my favorite villains of all time.
The beginning of the seventh book really reminded me of the Waste Lands, in a good way. I started hating it exactly where you said.
But how could you possibly like the ending?
So let's see. During the entire series we thought the gunslinger is on a quest to save the Dark Tower, which is under siege by something called The Crimson King, is the center of the universe and for some reason is falling apart. During the quest, Roland and his friends stop the Breakers from destroying the last standing beam, thus saving the dark tower and reality itself. Then Roland gets there and it turns out that... the Tower was all about him? just an object of some absurd, inexplicable, eternal obsession?
the what was all that business with the Breakers? when Roland is sent back in time, are the Breakers revived again? Is the Dark Tower again in danger of being destroyed? If it will be destroyed, will the universe collapse? Also, if the Dark Tower is the dark entity it turned out to be, than what was up with the rose in New York? the wonderful singing voices, the faces in the suns? the wonderful, welcome feeling it created in anyone who was near it? that was not a genuinely good force, I guess?
And let's say we can look past how the ending seems to conflict with the story that was established up to that point... we still don't have the why. Why is the Dark Tower all about Roland? did the Dark Tower exist before Roland did? Why does it insist that Roland will complete his quest in a perfect manner? and what will happen when he does?
No, as far as I'm concerned King did just about every possible mistake he could with where the story went in the seventh book. it was a giant punch to the face, eliminating the sense of importance the story had up to that point. It's only a slightly more fanciful version of "it was all a dream Frodo had after a night of too much ale".
haven't responded or kept up with thread in awhile
Currently over half way through Lies of Locke Lamora. Damn this is a great book...been reading it on lunch breaks at work.
Also Ellen Datlow's edited Best horror of the year volume 5, which i am reading on my kindle right now
I'm just going to say that whatever complaints some might have about Zelazny's ending, it's nothing like the abomination that was the end of the Dark Tower. Though for me that started nosediving a book or so earlier and just kept getting worse.King writing himself in was a bonehead move, and most of Song of Susannah was filler, but still, not egregiously awful yet. And the first third or so of the last book, up until ** spoiler omitted ** was the high point of fantasy, IMHO -- an incredible culmination of an awesome series. When I re-read the series, I just stopped reading there and was really, really happy!
The middle third ** spoiler omitted ** is sooooooooooooooooooooo baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad that it makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.
The very ending? I was actually fine with that.
Interesting. My favorite part of the series by quite a lot is THE WASTE LANDS, book #3. That was the book which expended Roland's quest into truly epic proportions, had the best world building, and felt big and weird and alien.
** spoiler omitted **
The beginning of the seventh book really reminded me of the Waste Lands, in a good way. I started hating it exactly where you said.
I'd definitely call The Waste Lands my second favorite of the series, and Wizard and Glass the third.
In semi-unrelated news, Count Zero didn't hook me nearly as strongly as Neuromancer so put it aside for now. Instead reading Mistborn: The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson.
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I think I am going to start Stephen King's The Shining as my annual October thriller. I was having a conversation with some friends earlier this year, and the subject of favorite King novel came up. A few agreed upon The Shining, and I have somehow never read it, so I suppose that needs to be rectified.
Finally wrapped up The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. Pretty much a colossal waste of time. I think I'd put them right out there with Catch-22 on the uninteresting and unengaging scale.
Up next, The Myth of Sisyphus. After that I'm going to take a crack at Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
I'm currently reading the Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey, on a friend's recommendation/insistence. I have to read them, he has to read A Clockwork Orange. I got the short end of the stick.
I don't mind the whole idea behind the books, and the dark humor is pleasing to me, and there are some really cool ideas in it that I want to know more about - but I hate the protagonist. In fact, I hate almost all the characters. The only reason I'm reading is because I hate the antagonists more than the protagonist, and want to see them get f*$$ed up. I'm hate-reading. Once I finish this, I'm going for The Three Musketeers.
I'm currently reading Catch-22 to my partner, and we're both enjoying it. I've read that about half a dozen times now. When we're done, he wants me to read him 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
I think someone else mentioned it several thousand posts ago, but I just read The Given Day by Dennis Lehane. It has a hefty page count but goes by pretty quick. It explores the historical events of Boston around 1918-1919, you're introduced to characters just as WW1 is ending and ends around the time that Babe Ruth is traded to the Yankees.
It's fairly well written, though one of the main characters, Danny Coughlin, was a bit too liked by the other characters for my tastes. His sense of fairness and justice felt almost unnatural, but it wasn't majorly distracting.
Trigger Warning
Overall it was a good read though. I enjoy works that at least try to engage with some of the more uncomfortable aspects of our past, such as racism and class warfare, even if they don't necessarily show either in as harsh a light as really happened.
Next up is Cloudsplitter, a fictional narrative from the point of view of Owen Brown, John Brown's (the famous abolitionist) 3rd son. He was the last surviving member of the raid on Harper's Ferry.
Finally wrapped up The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. Pretty much a colossal waste of time. I think I'd put them right out there with Catch-22 on the uninteresting and unengaging scale.
Up next, The Myth of Sisyphus. After that I'm going to take a crack at Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
To each their own. I loved The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue and The Fuller Memorandum, since I enjoy Lovecraftian fiction, nerdy jokes, black comedy and spy thrillers. I'd be reading the fourth book at the moment, except that I bought it around the time I was having to go through a rather rushed reorganization of my apartment, and now I can't find the damn thing.
Started Gardens of the Moon, really enjoying it. Complicated, and it throws you straight in without really giving any background, but I'm liking the way it's slowly starting to come together.
Tried The Book Thief, but just couldn't get into it. Could just be that I saw the movie first, but I suspect the weird issues I'm spotting throughout it (missing words, incorrect usage, things like that) may have something to do with it. Could just be editing errors, but it was definitely irritating me.
I think someone else mentioned it several thousand posts ago, but I just read The Given Day by Dennis Lehane.
A book about Boston, race and class war? I wonder who might've recommended that?
I'm not a big Lehane fan, but being a proud trade unionist and a communistically-inclined ex-Bostonian, I've got to give a shout out for The Given Day.
Random historical stuff from that book that was sure to turn me into a fan:
Spoiler:--John Reed and Eugene O'Neill getting into a bar fight--Babe Ruth striking during the World Series
--The Great Molasses Explosion
--More examples of Boston's sketchy history with race relations
--Boston Police Strike of 1919
--A "War on Terror" style manhunt for Italian anarchists (although as far as I can tell the characters are fictional, they are depicted as followers of Luigi Galleani, whose other followers Sacco and Vanzetti used to meet in a building down the street from where I lived for 12 years that is now a White Hen convenience store.)
Although, last time I was in Eastie, the White Hen has been replaced with something else.
About to re-read the chapter on poor Louis Fraina and I'm already starting to cry. (In particular the "1919-20 espionage controversy" and "The Mexican Interlude" bits.)
I have a strange urge to re-watch Reds (Don't know if Louis made it into the trailer, but he was played by Paul Sorvino.)
IIRC, Louie made a brief appearance in TGD as well. I don't remember any kiddie [redacted], although, it being a Lehane book, I suspect it's mandatory in his contract.
(I'm also wondering how many pages in a row I can link clips of Diane Keaton.)
I'll also rebump a question for the thread from that Lehane post three years ago because I still don't know the answer. Probably should take it to that thread devoted to such things:
"I read a book a long time ago that was a southern detective story that alluded, in fictional form, to both the assassination of Medgar Evars and the history of William S. Burroughs. Is that a Robicheaux book?"
What else?
Catch-22 is one of my all-time faves. One of the (many) books that ruined me for life. Don't give it to a 15-year-old.
I've got Cloudsplitter and it's been sitting on my shelf staring at me for quite a while now, but I'm not going to read it until after I re-read DuBois's JB bio.
[DJdD]And finally, I was at the Goodwill the other day and I found a cheapo copy of a classic erotic thriller that I've been meaning to pick up:
The Princess and the Goblin[/DJdD]
Finally wrapped up The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. Pretty much a colossal waste of time. I think I'd put them right out there with Catch-22 on the uninteresting and unengaging scale.
I haven't yet had the opportunity to read it myself, but I think you are the first person ever I've seen who didn't like Catch-22. Everyone else I've met who has read it loves it and recommends it adamantly.
I'll also rebump a question for the thread from that Lehane post three years ago because I still don't know the answer. Probably should take it to that thread devoted to such things:
"I read a book a long time ago that was a southern detective story that alluded, in fictional form, to both the assassination of Medgar Evars and the history of William S. Burroughs. Is that a Robicheaux book?"
Yay internet search engines!
Cadillac Jukebox, methinks.
Finally wrapped up The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. Pretty much a colossal waste of time. I think I'd put them right out there with Catch-22 on the uninteresting and unengaging scale.I haven't yet had the opportunity to read it myself, but I think you are the first person ever I've seen who didn't like Catch-22. Everyone else I've met who has read it loves it and recommends it adamantly.
I was almost in the apparent minority of people who hate it. The first time I read it, I hated it, because I was being forced to read it for the topic of Change as part of my final year of English in high school, and had to write a few essays about it. The problem was that it was such a godawful text for that purpose that it tainted my whole view of it, until I re-read it a couple of years later, and loved it because I could just read it for the sake of reading it.
Seriously though, as a text for Change... bad choice. The book is basically about how nothing ever changes in war. I guess if I'd been allowed to talk about that aspect of it, and how it was about lack of change, that would have worked, but I tried that in an early essay and got told that I was on completely the wrong track and wouldn't pass if I tried to use that interpretation. In fact I was told that what I had to write about was how things changed by staying the same. It was at this point that I nearly screamed and resigned myself to just having to do my best to try and give them what they wanted to hear.
Hee hee!
I hate to revel in your pain, Tinkergoth, but I am imagining you on Pianosa, hanging out with Yossarian, swapping stories about insane, bureaucratic authority figures, and it amuses me.
My favorite part of the series by quite a lot is THE WASTE LANDS, book #3.
Hmmm. Lemme see; I'd probably rate them, in order from favorite to least favorite:
Wizard and Glass - The Gunslinger - The Dark Tower (1st 1/3) - Wolves of the Calla - The Waste Lands - Drawing of the Three - Song of Susannah - The Dark Tower (2nd 2/3). I'm leaving out Wind Through the Keyhole because it's outside the main sequence, but I really liked it a lot.
Regarding the final ending:
Hee hee!
I hate to revel in your pain, Tinkergoth, but I am imagining you on Pianosa, hanging out with Yossarian, swapping stories about insane, bureaucratic authority figures, and it amuses me.
Eh, these days that's the kind of thing I like to argue about sometimes, so long as I'm in the mood. But when I'm being forced into it...
The only topic I've ever hated more than Change for an English course was when I was taking English Extension class (closest thing I can think of to compare that class to is basically an extra credit course). Retreat from the Global. Known to my friends and I as "Let's all sit around moaning about how awful globalisation is, and how we should all go back to living in tiny villages with no outside communication dying from the g@&&$!n common cold". The first text for this? The Shipping News. Never have I felt such boredom. I actually ended up skipping large swathes of the book, relying on study guides for it, because I just couldn't bring myself to deal with the torturous abuses the author decided to heap upon the poor unsuspecting English language.
The movie was marginally more enjoyable, but I ended up dropping that class because I just couldn't deal with the self righteous crap and dime store philosophy that the others in the class put out. Don't get me wrong, I know globalisation has it's problems, but I don't think they're going to be solved by getting everyone in the world to give up modern conveniences and go back to living an agrarian lifestyle free from the "evils" of modern society.
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While I love the first five Amber novels, the first Zelazny I like to recommend is Lord of Light.
It's my favorite, but it's a little denser than the Amber books. A little more experimental and harder to grasp.
Lure them in with the easy stuff. :)
I read Lord of Light first and I didn't find it experimental or hard to grasp at all. But I read/watch a lot of sci-fi, so maybe I'm used to the sort of world-building where not everything gets explained and tied up in a pretty bow at the end.
Finally wrapped up The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. Pretty much a colossal waste of time. I think I'd put them right out there with Catch-22 on the uninteresting and unengaging scale.I haven't yet had the opportunity to read it myself, but I think you are the first person ever I've seen who didn't like Catch-22. Everyone else I've met who has read it loves it and recommends it adamantly.
What probably colors my opinion of it is the fact that I find history as a topic thoroughly uninteresting. It goes in the "useful to know but boring to learn" category. And when I want stories of bureaucracy gone wrong I just read the news. I don’t think it was horrible, it was just boring. Much like the bulk of Atlas Shrugged.
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I think I am going to start Stephen King's The Shining as my annual October thriller. I was having a conversation with some friends earlier this year, and the subject of favorite King novel came up. A few agreed upon The Shining, and I have somehow never read it, so I suppose that needs to be rectified.
Just be warned that there are not many similarities between the Kubrick film and the King novel, if you have seen the former. If not, enjoy!
I think someone else mentioned it several thousand posts ago, but I just read The Given Day by Dennis Lehane.A book about Boston, race and class war? I wonder who might've recommended that?
I'm not a big Lehane fan, but being a proud trade unionist and a communistically-inclined ex-Bostonian, I've got to give a shout out for The Given Day.
Random historical stuff from that book that was sure to turn me into a fan:
** spoiler omitted **
While reading the book I had no internet access, but I was 100% you'd probably already read it.
In the commentary for Season 4 of The Wire (schools), someone involved with the show is talking about how they got reactions from the general public of incredulity about how bad schools were. Like it couldn't possibly be as bad as they were portraying it. When those same people heard back from teachers at inner city schools, they got universal praise for "telling it like it is" but often also got comments that they had toned down the truth and that it was actually worse. The writer comments that they felt like they had to tone it down some, otherwise no one would believe them.
It feels a little bit to me like Lehane did that too with the racism and class injustice. He portrays some shocking scenes for the modern viewer, all of which would be completely believable for the time period, yet he also held back because many modern readers would find the truth unbelievable.
Yeah, I remember thinking, "Well, there's only one stone cold racist Boston Irish cop in 1919? Yeah, I don't think so..."
To be perfectly honest subject matter aside, I don't really care for Lehane too much.
Maybe it was the anti-Morrissey joke in Gone Baby Gone...
I'm looking forward to Cloudsplitter. Despite my pacifist tendency, John Brown is one of my favorite people in American history. Not purely for what he did, but how his interpretation is basically a litmus test for how a historian views American history in general. Lies My Teacher Told Me was my first introduction to him (outside a text book) and I've always felt that book was a well-written analysis of how history is taught in America. Not a complete analysis, but a good overview/introduction to the concept.
I think John Brown, his song, or parodies thereof, have appeared on at least every other page, of this thread for the last ten pages.
Which is, of course, how it should be.
In one of those bursts of synergistic weirdiosity I only learned about the existence of CS about a week or so before I found a copy in my grandmother's attic when we were getting her house ready for market.
Since then I've seen a quote from it making the rounds wherein Owen Brown fictionally ruminates on his father and white skin privilege (my words, not Owen's, er, Russell's).
It always makes me think, "Well, he was black enough for Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and W.E.B. DuBois..."