The Book Thread 2022

[scott1328]

1. Caliban's War, James S A Corey Book 2 in the Expanse Series.
2. Time’s Eye, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter

3. Sun Storm, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Sequel to Time's Eye. Strange alien race has decided that humanity must be destroyed and has instigated a massive solar flare that will sterilize the Earth. A genius solar scientist's modeling software predicts the flare 5 years before it is to occur and the people of Earth mobilize to undertake the largest engineering project ever conceived: a literal shield erected at the Earth/Sun L1 point that will shade the whole Earth. Second of a three part series. It’s free on audible. it’s worth the price.[/quote]

[NamelessFaceless]

I'm off to a slow start!

1. Hope of Heaven - John O'Hara

[NamelessFaceless]

[quote="NamelessFaceless";p="2780121"]

1. Hope of Heaven - John O'Hara
2. Pal Joey - John O'Hara

[UncertainSloth]

]1. the long take - robin robertson - 8/10
2. the gatekeeper - russ kane - 5/10
3. dr potter's medicine show - eric scott fischl - 8/10
4. just one damn thing after another - jodi taylor - 8/10 - a light, enjoyable time-travelling romp

[Blip]

1. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
2. The Expectation Effect by David Robson
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Road Ends by Mary Lawson

There's an interesting theme of thwarted potential running through these works. This is another one with multiple viewpoints, US, used very effectively.

[don't get me started]

1. Cognitive Discourse Analysis: An introduction - Thora Tenbrink
2. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender And Identity- And Why This Harms Everybody – Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay

3. A History of the World in 12 Maps – Jerry Brotton

514 pp.

An absolute treat for anyone interested in history and maps. The depth scholarship on show is impressive, but Brotton is a fluid and compelling writer so it didn’t feel heavy or overly academic.

I can hardly do justice here in to the many and varied insights that the author gives to the history of human endeavor in trying to represent the world in diagrammatic form. Among the highlights was the background on Ptolemy’s world view and map that so dominated the western outlook for centuries. Similarly, the Hereford Mapamundi is given full treatment and the practical as well as theological basis of its design are well described. (East at the top- garden of Eden, west at the bottom, the setting sun and the end of times… )
Brotton does not just focus on the Western tradition. The chapter on the Islamic map maker and scholar al Idrisi who worked in Sicily under the Norman king Roger II was an interesting take on the ways that Christians and Moslems often worked and lived together in peaceful ways. I was introduced to the term ‘convivencia’ which was the Spanish term for the ‘peaceful coexistence of Catholics, Moslems and Jews under one rule’. (p.54).

There was also a full background to the work of Mercator and the thinking behind his famous projection. (Not, as was later claimed by some later commentators, a deliberate attempt to exaggerate Europe at the expense of the tropics, but a mathematically driven enterprise to project a spherical surface onto a flat plane in such a way that the compass bearings between any two points would be accurate.)

Up until now I had only known the name Cassini from the NASA space probe but here was a thorough introduction to the dynasty of mapmakers and mathematicians that set about creating an accurate topographic, triangulated map of France in the years preceding the revolution…

The book comes right up to date with a chapter on Google Earth and modern geospatial reckoning.

I’ll leave off with a quote from the chapter on the Cassini project that I though summed up a key element of Enlightenment thinking.

[Colbert] supported scholarship, and did so not only because of his natural inclinations, but for sound political reasons. He knew that the sciences and the arts suffice to make reign glorious; that they spread the language of a nations perhaps even more so than do conquests; that they give the reign a control over knowledge and industry which is just as prestigious and useful; that they attract to the country a multitude of foreigners who enrich it by their talents. (p.299)

A grand read (even with the rather small font size…)

[Evolving]

That looks rather fascinating.

[Evolving]

All right then, here goes.

1. Professor Unrat, Heinrich Mann

Heinrich is Thomas Mann's less talented brother - Thomas notoriously confided to his diary in the 40s: "Been reading Lidice. Suffered." But Heinrich wrote at least two really quite good novels, and this is one of them (the other one is Der Untertan, which I read last year and really rather enjoyed). Professor Unrat is the novel on which Der blaue Engel is based, with Marlene Dietrich. (I haven't seen it.) I enjoyed this one too.

2. God is not Great, Christopher Hitchens

I probably don't need to say anything about this one.

3. The Ill-Made Knight, T.H. White

The third in the series of four novels that begins with The Sword in the Stone (on which the Disney film was based). It's an effort to get past the first novel, but after that the series is really rather good. This one (and the fourth, which I haven't re-read yet, this time round), dealing with the tormented Lancelot. Recommended.

4. Northern Lights, Philip Pullman
5. The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman
6. The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman

A re-read, too. As you can discern from over to the right, I'm in it.

I have several books on the go at the moment (as I usually have). I'll let you know when I finish one of them!

[scott1328]

1. Caliban's War, James S A Corey Book 2 in the Expanse Series.
2. Time’s Eye, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
3. Sun Storm, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Sequel to Time's Eye.

4. The Firtstborn, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, Sequel to Sun Storm. having failed to wipe out humanity with themassive solar flare,the aliens tryagain with what is called a “Q-bomb” and spherical pocket universe capable of devouring worlds.Free onaudible. still worth the price. The series ends on a cliff-hanger.

[Blip]

1. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
2. The Expectation Effect by David Robson
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Road Ends by Mary Lawson
5. A Brief History of Earth by Andrew H Knoll

Concise and accessible chronicle of earth's environmental history and the evolution of life by Harvard's Fisher Professor of Natural History.

[don't get me started]

1. Cognitive Discourse Analysis: An introduction - Thora Tenbrink
2. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender And Identity- And Why This Harms Everybody – Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
3. A History of the World in 12 Maps – Jerry Brotton

4. Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language – Patricia T. O’Connor & Stewart Kellerman

266.pp

A quick and breezy tour through some of the common myths about English words and expressions, revealing some of the idiocy, make believe and downright lies told about English. The pronouncements of (usually self-appointed) language “authorities” are given short shrift and the actual etymology and history of English words and phrases is explained in an accessible and conversational manner. The baleful influence of earlier authorities who tried their best to make a Germanic foot fit into a Latin shoe is revealed for the self-aggrandizing piffle it was, as well as some of the more modern missteps and just so stories.

There was an interesting chapter on the origins of taboo words. The author deals familiarly with 'cunt' and doesn’t hedge or obfuscate (There is a nice anecdote about the Queen Mum visiting Newcastle. The Lord mayor got tongue tied during a trip to the waterfront to see the punts and canoes; “In the excitement, his tongue got tangled and he called her attention to “the colorful cunts and panoes.” After a short silence, the Queen Mum replied: “What exactly is a panoe?” (p.79)

There was a lot here that was familiar to me (like the great Eskimo snow hoax) and also a lot of new stuff on the nooks and crannies of this chaotic and willful thing called English.

[Blip]

1. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
2. The Expectation Effect by David Robson
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Road Ends by Mary Lawson
5. A Brief History of Earth by Andrew H Knoll
6. Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Lois Roth

The couple who influenced many subsequent authors of Scandi Noir: this, the first in their acclaimed Martin Beck series, is great.

[BWE]

I read the alignment problem
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover
recently.

If you are into machine learning, it is a fabulous book at a popsci high level view. For me, I give it 5 stars.

[Clive Durdle]

Just heard about an author I don’t recall having heard about who is brilliant and summarises much of my thinking including how to be a religious atheist- it is about respecting the rhythms of the universe we are in, Wendell Berry

[Blip]

1. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
2. The Expectation Effect by David Robson
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Road Ends by Mary Lawson
5. A Brief History of Earth by Andrew H Knoll
6. Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Lois Roth
7. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate

I suspect, like Bella Fortuna who tipped me off about these novels, that I'll be reading the whole series in short order.

[scott1328]

1. Caliban's War, James S A Corey Book 2 in the Expanse Series.
2. Time’s Eye, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
3. Sun Storm, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Sequel to Time's Eye.
4. The Firtstborn, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter

5. Abaddon’s Gate, James S A Corey, Book 3 in the Expanse Series.

[Macdoc]

Lucky you early on the The Expanse book series. Have you watched the TV series. ?

I'm re-listening on Audible - part way into Book 7 which goes past the TV series ( hopely they do more on the TV series )
Even tho this is likely the third or fourth time around on the read/listen ....does not get old. Haven't quite got to getting a belter tattoo. Enjoy

[Blip]

1. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
2. The Expectation Effect by David Robson
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Road Ends by Mary Lawson
5. A Brief History of Earth by Andrew H Knoll
6. Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Lois Roth
7. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
8. The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson

Another great novel from an excellent writer.

[scott1328]

Lucky you early on the The Expanse book series. Have you watched the TV series. ?

I'm re-listening on Audible - part way into Book 7 which goes past the TV series ( hopely they do more on the TV series )
Even tho this is likely the third or fourth time around on the read/listen ....does not get old. Haven't quite got to getting a belter tattoo. Enjoy

Just started Cibola Burns

[Kaleid]

1. The Five - Hallie Rubenhold
2. The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain - Ian Mortimer
3. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

Two years of dipping in and out, and I've finally finished this, well, phenomenon, I suppose. Undeniably great, but I don't think I'll be giving it a re-read Any. Time. Soon.