What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by ruralavalon »

Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492 - 1504, by Robert Bergreen. The author seems to feel (incorrectly) that Columbus was not a skillful navigator, lacked concern for his crews, and that he abandoned crew in Hispaniola as a ruse to compel the Spanish crown to authorize multiple return voyages.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by telemark »

I won't defend Burroughs on literary grounds, but I'll admit that the disembodied heads in Chessmen of Mars still give me the creeps. The Barsoom books are interesting to read side by side with the Oz books: they were both written around the same time and with the same complete disregard for anything resembling credibility. Come to think of it, there's some stuff in the Oz books that gives me the creeps too.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

"Sixkill" by Robert Parker.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

On a mystery kick at the moment

'Rat on Fire' by George V Higgins. 'Friends of Eddie Coyle' is incomparable for language, setting in the early 1970s etc. And a pretty good movie with Robert Mitchum. Not sure about this one: stupid lowlifes. It's all about the dialogue and I have trouble hearing it in my mind all said in Boston dialogue. Higgins is highly rated but not sure how much more I am going to read.

'Trouble is my Business and other stories' by Raymond Chandler. Reading the early Chandler is fascinating: did his main character always drink so much? (Chandler battled with alcoholism). Different scenes and characters eventually fed into the novels. He is working his way out how to write-- the convoluted plots come through. The stories are more violent than the novels as I remember them-- his pre Marlow characters shoot a lot more people, it seems to me.

There are these flickers of recognition when you recognize whole scenes which found their way into other novels.

I would put this into the category of interesting in terms of watching a great writer become great, by hard labour (the loss of the pulp short story market is, I suspect, one of the reasons why SF novels don't read as well as some of their predecessors-- the short story and the novella were often the perfect format for fiction of the 'idea as hero').

It's like reading the lead up to the canon of Raymond Chandler, the novels. But the novels will reward you more (and none is particularly long).
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

telemark wrote:I won't defend Burroughs on literary grounds, but I'll admit that the disembodied heads in Chessmen of Mars still give me the creeps. The Barsoom books are interesting to read side by side with the Oz books: they were both written around the same time and with the same complete disregard for anything resembling credibility. Come to think of it, there's some stuff in the Oz books that gives me the creeps too.
My vague memory of the Oz books is though that they were better written? With deeper meaning?

In particular they were a satire on William Jennings Bryan and 'Free Silver' I believe. Nisiprius can take you through the detail of that background.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

ruralavalon wrote:Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492 - 1504, by Robert Bergreen. The author seems to feel (incorrectly) that Columbus was not a skillful navigator, lacked concern for his crews, and that he abandoned crew in Hispaniola as a ruse to compel the Spanish crown to authorize multiple return voyages.
With a subject like that you get revisionism-- everything original has been said that can be said, so you take the opposite tack.

On that line I think Hew Strachan's 'The First World War' is just full of insights I had never thought of about WW1 -- really did make me think again with new information and insights. There is a documentary which went with it which is superb. I would rank it with Norman Davies 'No Easy Victory' about WW2. By contrast I was disappointed with David Kennedy's latest on WW2 (his revisionism is about the role of Ultra/ Enigma/ Bletchley Park, and given the other allied intelligence failures of WW2 (ie other than for the USSR a complete failure to get any intelligence from inside the German military and political command, I find that hard to credit)).

By contrast that other Oxford parlour game contrarian (see 'The History Boys' movie for what I mean about getting into Oxford by floating the boat 'what if Britain had not fought in WW1'), Nial Ferguson, doesn't seem to add much value for me.

Adam Tooze's book on the Nazi war machine (I haven't read his latest) is impressively revisionist.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by jebmke »

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America, by Annie Jacobsen
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by jginseattle »

The Reversal, by Michael Connelly.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by stemikger »

The Boglehead's Guide to Retirement. It's not as sexy as The Boglehead's Guide to Investing, but at 50 it's time to start getting informed on the planning side.

I'm also reading Clash of the Cultures by Jack Bogle.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

"Rough Weather" by Robert Parker.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by nisiprius »

Just finished Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Secrets the Change the Course of World War II, and I highly recommend it to anyone who thinks they might be interested in the subject. It is basically a biography of Alfred Loomis, a name that rang only the faintest of bells with me. I think I might have heard of him in connection with early work on EEGs. He was truly extraordinary, a successful Wall Street bond dealer who made a fortune, retired to become a very serious amateur scientist with a well equipped private laboratory, and had an awful lot to do with the development of wartime microwave-based technology including radar and radio navigations aids. He seems to have been truly disinterested in having people know his name. LORAN was originally LRN for Loomis Radio Navigation and he changed it to LORAN and it became a backronym for LOng Range Navigation.

He was a behind the scenes influencer with personal connections to Vannebar Bush, James R. Conant, E. O. Lawrence, and dozens of business connections, and was the kind of guy who could make calls in company with E. O. Lawrence on steel tycoons and say "make sure he gets all the steels he needs," on copper tycoons and say "make sure he gets all the copper he needs," etc. He was willing to personally finance anything he needed to be done in a hurry if government funding was too slow. He had a lot to do with the MIT Rad Lab, and I was trying to figure out why there was so little apparent Rad Lab institutional memory at MIT, and it was in part because Loomis saw it as a wartime mission-oriented organization and systematically and quickly disassembled it.

Also: started The Panther by Nelson DeMille--1/3 done, seems to be a very good Nelson DeMille--and the very first Perry Mason novel, forget the title and am on slow wifi and don't want to take the time to look it up.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Dave55 »

chaz wrote:"Sixkill" by Robert Parker.
+1
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by ruralavalon »

Valuethinker wrote:
ruralavalon wrote:Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492 - 1504, by Robert Bergreen. The author seems to feel (incorrectly) that Columbus was not a skillful navigator, lacked concern for his crews, and that he abandoned crew in Hispaniola as a ruse to compel the Spanish crown to authorize multiple return voyages.
With a subject like that you get revisionism-- everything original has been said that can be said, so you take the opposite tack.
Admiral of the Ocean Sea, by Samuel Eliot Morison, is still the best in my opinion. In addition to historical scholarship, he brings the insights of a sailor to telling the story of the voyages.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by MP173 »

Fields of Prey by John Sandford.

It didnt have the snap, crackle, pop of past Lucas Davenport novels. It was ok, but nothing special.

Ed
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

ruralavalon wrote:
Valuethinker wrote:
ruralavalon wrote:Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492 - 1504, by Robert Bergreen. The author seems to feel (incorrectly) that Columbus was not a skillful navigator, lacked concern for his crews, and that he abandoned crew in Hispaniola as a ruse to compel the Spanish crown to authorize multiple return voyages.
With a subject like that you get revisionism-- everything original has been said that can be said, so you take the opposite tack.
Admiral of the Ocean Sea, by Samuel Eliot Morison, is still the best in my opinion. In addition to historical scholarship, he brings the insights of a sailor to telling the story of the voyages.
Thank you!
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by VictoriaF »

Everything I ever needed to know about Economics I learned from online dating. by Paul Over, Harvard Business Review Press, 2014.

I found this book in Harvard Bookstore when I was in Cambridge in May. The title was similar to my current project and so I bought it. The book is good, but a bit dry on both dating and economics. I have not finished it yet; here are some interesting concepts I've encountered so far.

Chapter 1. Search theory.
Economics search models consider trade-offs between accepting the best currently available option and continuing incurring the cost of further search. In many situations, best options disappear and one regrets not choosing them. Those who engage in a lengthy search fall into two general categories.

1. They derive utility from the search itself or they have nothing better to do.
2. They are patient or picky or unrealistic.

Chapter 2. Cheap talk.
Most people lie in online dating sites. Most people expect that others engage in at least minor deceptions. Any provided information is automatically discounted, and thus it's prudent to compensate for this discounting with somewhat exaggerated claims of one's own.

However, there are situations where deception or exaggeration are counterproductive. For example, while people who are married may lie that they are not, people who have dogs usually disclose it.

Chapter 3. Network externalities.
The larger an online dating site is the more potential partners one can encounter there, and thus people flock to the largest sites. Large sites become larger, small sites disappear unless they offer unique value.

There are two general types of externalities, positive and negative. A network externality is positive. A male dater, like the author of the book, wants to have access to many women. A counterpart is a negative externality of congestion, such as one would encounter on a busy road. For a male dater, other men on a dating site are competition that creates congestion on his way to women. (Sites for gay men are interesting. Other men are both potential partners and competitors.)

Victoria
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

VictoriaF wrote:Everything I ever needed to know about Economics I learned from online dating. by Paul Over, Harvard Business Review Press, 2014.

I found this book in Harvard Bookstore when I was in Cambridge in May. The title was similar to my current project and so I bought it. The book is good, but a bit dry on both dating and economics. I have not finished it yet; here are some interesting concepts I've encountered so far.

Chapter 1. Search theory.
Economics search models consider trade-offs between accepting the best currently available option and continuing incurring the cost of further search. In many situations, best options disappear and one regrets not choosing them. Those who engage in a lengthy search fall into two general categories.

1. They derive utility from the search itself or they have nothing better to do.
2. They are patient or picky or unrealistic.

Chapter 2. Cheap talk.
Most people lie in online dating sites. Most people expect that others engage in at least minor deceptions. Any provided information is automatically discounted, and thus it's prudent to compensate for this discounting with somewhat exaggerated claims of one's own.

However, there are situations where deception or exaggeration are counterproductive. For example, while people who are married may lie that they are not, people who have dogs usually disclose it.

Chapter 3. Network externalities.
The larger an online dating site is the more potential partners one can encounter there, and thus people flock to the largest sites. Large sites become larger, small sites disappear unless they offer unique value.

There are two general types of externalities, positive and negative. A network externality is positive. A male dater, like the author of the book, wants to have access to many women. A counterpart is a negative externality of congestion, such as one would encounter on a busy road. For a male dater, other men on a dating site are competition that creates congestion on his way to women. (Sites for gay men are interesting. Other men are both potential partners and competitors.)

Victoria
Studying online dating? :)
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

"The Ophelia Cut" by John Lescroart.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by VictoriaF »

chaz wrote:Studying online dating? :)
I have created my own topic, Behavioral Economics of Dating, or BED. Will you buy my book?

Victoria
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

VictoriaF wrote:
chaz wrote:Studying online dating? :)
I have created my own topic, Behavioral Economics of Dating, or BED. Will you buy my book?

Victoria
With pillow talk?
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by VictoriaF »

chaz wrote:
VictoriaF wrote:
chaz wrote:Studying online dating? :)
I have created my own topic, Behavioral Economics of Dating, or BED. Will you buy my book?

Victoria
With pillow talk?
I am collecting BED-time stories but keep the details under cover.

Victoria
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

VictoriaF wrote:
chaz wrote:
VictoriaF wrote:
chaz wrote:Studying online dating? :)
I have created my own topic, Behavioral Economics of Dating, or BED. Will you buy my book?

Victoria
With pillow talk?
I am collecting BED-time stories but keep the details under cover.

Victoria
Forcing me to buy your book?
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by LadyGeek »

Please stay on-topic, which is a book you are currently reading.

Soliciting or making propositions on new book material is off-topic.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Igglesman »

One Summer: America, 1927 - Bill Bryson.
I liked it. Who would have thought that 1927 had so much going on.

The Goldfinch: A Novel - Donna Tartt. Pulitzer Prize.
Actually I am only half way through. I do like it.... but just like Stephen King, if you can say something in 10 words or 10,000....Donna and Stephen both choose what the heck, go for 50,000.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

Igglesman wrote:One Summer: America, 1927 - Bill Bryson.
I liked it. Who would have thought that 1927 had so much going on.
That's just the human mind for you. *Every* year has a lot going on-- think 1979 in 'American Hussle' (Abscam scandal in Congress) or 'Argo' (Iranian hostage scenario), also the year Margaret Thatcher was elected and Ronald Reagan presumably announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination.

What is true of the 1920s in America is the pace of adoption of technological innovation: indoor plumbing, electricity*, telephones, automotive, aircraft. RCA was the 'dot com' stock of the era, the Amazon or Google. In some ways, I suspect the rate of technological innovation was as great or greater than it is now (at least from the perspective of adoption rather than invention). It has been argued that this pace accelerated in the 1930s and I think there is good evidence for it (you certainly see it in military technology. The fighter plane of 2000 still competes with the fighter of the 2010s-- in fact mostly it's the same airframe. The fighter plane of 1930 had no hope against the high speed closed cockpit monoplane fighter of 1940).

1914-- *that* was a year when something really important happened. By contrast, unless you happened to be Polish, there was a sense of inevitability of 1939 and it was really just a prologue to the second round of what began in 1914.

I suspect if we look back and say 'what important happened in 2014'? It will be either something to do with robotics, or something to do with antibiotic resistance. Some point of no return passed. We'll think the politics and society were pretty uneventful ;-).

The Goldfinch: A Novel - Donna Tartt. Pulitzer Prize.
Actually I am only half way through. I do like it.... but just like Stephen King, if you can say something in 10 words or 10,000....Donna and Stephen both choose what the heck, go for 50,000.
Except we get one Donna Tartt a decade, and before his injuries, one Stephen King a year ;-).

* a story. Samuel Insul built the first large scale electricity grid, centred on a huge financial structure of utility holding companies and rank financial speculation (Goldman Sachs at the centre of it). It collapsed and he fled, a refugee from justice. But the grid lived on, one of the great building blocks of the modern world. Not all consequences of financial bubbles are bad.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by ruralavalon »

The Rainbow Trail, by Zane Grey. An ex-minister wanders Arizona and the Grand Canyon region, searching for a lost girl, a story of traders, Navajos, Mormons, outlaws and a mysterious village hidden away in the wilderness. This is a sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by jasc15 »

Just finished Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World, and am starting Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by jginseattle »

Keynes's Way to Wealth: Timeless Investment Lessons from The Great Economist, by John F. Wasik. With a forward by John Bogle.

Highly recommended!
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by gouldnm »

"A Regular Guy" by Mona Simpson. Mona Simpson was already a published author, when she found out that she had a long lost brother, who was none other than Steve Jobs! The book is fiction, but it's obviously based on the life of Steve Jobs. I'm liking it so far.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by BHCadet »

The Complete Book of Running by James Fixx, circa 1977.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

"Gone Tomorrow" by Lee Child.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by LadyGeek »

The Past Through Tomorrow, by Robert A. Heinlein. I'm almost half-way through and can't put it down.

I modified Valuethinker's list below, as my copy of The Past Through Tomorrow (830 pages, 19th printing, 1987) includes The Green Hills of Earth (a subset of the same stories) and the full 176 page version of Methusaleh's Children.
LadyGeek wrote:
Valuethinker wrote:...Let me reorder that list

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
The Past Through Tomorrow (starts you at the beginning of Heinlein's universe)
The Green Hills of Earth
Methusaleh's Children

Time Enough For Love
I will Fear No Evil
Friday (actually I prefer it to I Will Fear No Evil, but that's not a consensus view)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has my interest. I wanted to read that next, but it's not available as an eBook. I ordered a used copy from amazon.com. With shipping, the cost is about the same as an eBook. Also ordered (used paperback) is The Past Through Tomorrow.

For now, I'm going with Stranger in a Strange Land (I have it in paperback). I'm hoping that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress will show up before I'm done.

Update: Revised comments as I unexpectedly found that availability in eBook format is not guaranteed.
I'm still waiting for The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

LadyGeek wrote:The Past Through Tomorrow, by Robert A. Heinlein. I'm almost half-way through and can't put it down.

I modified Valuethinker's list below, as my copy of The Past Through Tomorrow (830 pages, 19th printing, 1987) includes The Green Hills of Earth (a subset of the same stories) and the full 176 page version of Methusaleh's Children.
LadyGeek wrote:
Valuethinker wrote:...Let me reorder that list

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
The Past Through Tomorrow (starts you at the beginning of Heinlein's universe)
The Green Hills of Earth
Methusaleh's Children

Time Enough For Love
I will Fear No Evil
Friday (actually I prefer it to I Will Fear No Evil, but that's not a consensus view)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has my interest. I wanted to read that next, but it's not available as an eBook. I ordered a used copy from amazon.com. With shipping, the cost is about the same as an eBook. Also ordered (used paperback) is The Past Through Tomorrow.

For now, I'm going with Stranger in a Strange Land (I have it in paperback). I'm hoping that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress will show up before I'm done.

Update: Revised comments as I unexpectedly found that availability in eBook format is not guaranteed.
I'm still waiting for The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Apologies I had forgotten what all is in 'Past Through Tomorrow'. Methusaleh's Children is really the core of 'Time Enough for Love' (and better).

It never gets any better than MIAHM, although there are some close, earlier rivals:

- The Puppet Masters - this is how an alien invasion novel should be written
- Double Star - political thriller with Heinlein's message about the evils of discrimination
- probably 5-6 juveniles: Space Cadet, The Star Beast (perhaps the best), Citizen of the Galaxy, Between Planets, Time for the Stars, Red Planet, The Rolling Stones, Farmer in the Sky (The RS so named before the rock group was formed)

As I say I think Starship Troopers is a 'good' novel. That first chapter is unsurpassed in military science fiction (AFAIK) for the description of a combat operation-- much imitated but never equalled. It's also highly controversial: you have to see it in light of America post Korea and with deepening involvement in Vietnam (and Joe Haldeman's 'The Forever War' is the Vietnam veteran's answer). If a writer as liberal as John Steinbeck could be roped into writing pro Vietnam War pieces (some of his last journalism pieces) we can understand the divisive moral conflict America was going through. No surprise Heinlein wrote ST.

Almost all of Heinlein's short stories are a treat (I don't remember finishing 'the unpleasant profession of Jonathan Hoag') even the ones that don't fit into 'The Past Through Tomorrow' future history.

The Menace from Earth is a personal favourite-- ability to get into the mind of a smart ass (female) teenager. You have to go to Alexei Panshin Rite of Passage for rival (ROP is a homage to Heinlein, and a riposte- -to the extent that if fits as an essential part of the Heinlein canon).

Of late Heinlein one reads Stranger in a Strange Land I suppose (I never finished it). And I Will Fear No Evil (which is interesting, I am not sure if anyone had written a 'man in a woman's body' novel before). After that... well Friday (again flashes of the old Heinlein).

The other great writer of 'Future History' of that era (besides Isaac Asimov) was H Beam Piper (whose suicide due to personal financial problems tragically cut it off). But I am a great fan of the Poul Anderson 'Polesotechnic League' (Nicolas Van Rijn)/ Terran Empire (Captain Dominic Flandry) series.

If you like strong female characters in SF then James H Schmitz. The Witches of Karres. Any of the Telzey Amberdon stories or the Trigger Argee ones. My personal favourit in the Hub Universe is 'The Demon Breed'.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by protagonist »

That was great. Thank you, Valuethinker.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

protagonist wrote:That was great. Thank you, Valuethinker.
Thank you.

If you check back through the thread you will see 5-6 recent posts re trying to steer Lady Geek in her Heinlein reading. They get repetitive!

Basically in my view there is pre about 1966 Heinlein and post (basically pre Moon is a Harsh Mistress/ Starship Troopers) and post. The post novels are interesting for their frank discussions of sex-- Heinlein was ahead of his time in observing the changes that technology and society would reap upon human interaction, and he was a quite genuine libertarian (although his strong notions of civic duty wouldn't suit John Galt ;-)).

But I really find the later novels confusing, boring, too much talking/ preaching of the kind one encounters in parts of Starship Troopers. With the exception of Friday which had flashes, and only flashes, of the old Heinlein, I really didn't get much value of them. After Number of the Beast I really stopped trying. Heinlein had a period of major brain-related illness and whilst when he recovered he wrote bestsellers, I don't think they were very good. He was in too much of a hurry to tell the world what was what.

(of the later novels, I Will Fear No Evil and Stranger in a Strange Land are probably the ones 'worth' reading).

Whereas what he wrote from the late 1940s to the early 1960s is mostly, to me, exquisite science fiction. Especially The Past Through Tomorrow collection and the others I have mentioned here and the 'juvenile' novels which I think still stand the test of time. Heinlein generally avoided 'talking down to' the average 10-14 year old reader and he was ahead of his time on gender equality and racial equality (although given the time in American life, you have to read that into it: Farnham's Freehold (an ugly novel) is really his only direct comment on race, AFAIK) and his obsession with getting scientific details right (spent 1.5 days calculating the orbits in Space Cadet so he could write them into the novel).

There is no 'alternative' to Heinlein, he is too big a figure for that-- along with Asimov and Clarke (and Philip K Dick) the giants that surmount all of mid 20th century Science Fiction.

He gave to science fiction the superb person-centred action novel-- Heinlein's character will be in the middle of a huge spacewar and you'll see it entirely through their eyes. An ability to communicate the strangeness of the future in a single line 'the door dilated shut behind him'. And the power of ideas of a giant schematic of future history. More controversially a military-libertarian view of human beings and the human future (but Heinlein rather more subtle than some of his imitators). Less controversially, a profound individualism, an imperative of the necessity of choice and taking responsibility by the individual and of honouring a moral code-- this lies at the heart of his juvenile novels and of Lazarus Long (his Methusala character).

By all accounts even to writers with whom Heinlein had bitter personal interactions (Alexei Panshin) or radically different worldviews (Philip K Dick) Heinlein was a gentleman who acted with great personal charity.

But authors who wrote at the same time or followed in his footsteps with many similar features include: James H Schmitz, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven (Known Space series), Jerry Pournelle (more expressly military/ right wing SF: The Codominium series (perhaps its best, The Mote in God's Eye also fits that series), H Beam Piper. Orson Scott Card and Enders' Game arguably would have been impossible without 'Starship Troopers'. And Joe Haldeman's The Forever War would not have the same impact if you have not read ST.
Last edited by Valuethinker on Fri Jun 20, 2014 8:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

BTW for those into Science Fiction.

BBC Radio 4 is doing an adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The Philip K Dick novel that was (heavily adapted) made into Blade Runner. First episode expires in 2.5 days.

It's free for UKians to listen to, but I don't know if it blocks American internet users.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046j873
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by bpp »

I expect that will be confusing/disappointing to Bladerunner fans.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by protagonist »

Valuethinker wrote:BTW for those into Science Fiction.

BBC Radio 4 is doing an adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The Philip K Dick novel that was (heavily adapted) made into Blade Runner. First episode expires in 2.5 days.

It's free for UKians to listen to, but I don't know if it blocks American internet users.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046j873
I would love to catch this. I wonder if it will air in the US. I don't have cable, or even rabbit ears, but I do have the internet and The Eye That Ate The World. I bought it for a renter who wanted to watch the Superbowl. It instantly transformed my uber-cool bohemian Paris-esque living room into a man cave.

I suppose there may be sources, the discussion of which would violate Boglehead policy.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

bpp wrote:I expect that will be confusing/disappointing to Bladerunner fans.
In that the stories are apparently very different-- yes (the movie is among my all time favourites, the book I have not read, I find Dick forbidding to scale). They have deliberately tried to catch the 'private eye noir' tone of the film I think-- the narrator speaks in a gruff American 'private eye' voice.

They are also doing a 5 part '15 minute drama' of comic book female James Bond 'Modesty Blaise' which I am really enjoying (like the Ian Fleming novels, the villains are quite sadistic, they are real villains). If you google '15 minute drama Modesty Blaise' then again I don't know if you can get in from outside the UK, but they are worth listening (the 2012 one is off the site but the current one episode 5 is today and you can still listen to them all).
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

protagonist wrote:
Valuethinker wrote:BTW for those into Science Fiction.

BBC Radio 4 is doing an adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The Philip K Dick novel that was (heavily adapted) made into Blade Runner. First episode expires in 2.5 days.

It's free for UKians to listen to, but I don't know if it blocks American internet users.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046j873
I would love to catch this. I wonder if it will air in the US. I don't have cable, or even rabbit ears, but I do have the internet and The Eye That Ate The World. I bought it for a renter who wanted to watch the Superbowl. It instantly transformed my uber-cool bohemian Paris-esque living room into a man cave.

I suppose there may be sources, the discussion of which would violate Boglehead policy.
Try going to the website and see what it says. BBC Radio Dramas are usually worth the time taken to listen to them. They did a couple from the old, classic TV series 'Blake's 7' (themes of B7 came up again and again in shows like Babylon 5, Star Trek Deep Space Nine and even Battlestar Galactica) with the original cast doing the voices in particular Jacqueline Pearce reprising the incomparable Servalan and Paul Darrow the supercriminal antihero Kerr Avon.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by protagonist »

Valuethinker wrote:
protagonist wrote:That was great. Thank you, Valuethinker.
Thank you.

If you check back through the thread you will see 5-6 recent posts re trying to steer Lady Geek in her Heinlein reading. They get repetitive!

Basically in my view there is pre about 1966 Heinlein and post (basically pre Moon is a Harsh Mistress/ Starship Troopers) and post. The post novels are interesting for their frank discussions of sex-- Heinlein was ahead of his time in observing the changes that technology and society would reap upon human interaction, and he was a quite genuine libertarian (although his strong notions of civic duty wouldn't suit John Galt ;-)).

But I really find the later novels confusing, boring, too much talking/ preaching of the kind one encounters in parts of Starship Troopers. With the exception of Friday which had flashes, and only flashes, of the old Heinlein, I really didn't get much value of them. After Number of the Beast I really stopped trying. Heinlein had a period of major brain-related illness and whilst when he recovered he wrote bestsellers, I don't think they were very good. He was in too much of a hurry to tell the world what was what.

(of the later novels, I Will Fear No Evil and Stranger in a Strange Land are probably the ones 'worth' reading).

Whereas what he wrote from the late 1940s to the early 1960s is mostly, to me, exquisite science fiction. Especially The Past Through Tomorrow collection and the others I have mentioned here and the 'juvenile' novels which I think still stand the test of time. Heinlein generally avoided 'talking down to' the average 10-14 year old reader and he was ahead of his time on gender equality and racial equality (although given the time in American life, you have to read that into it: Farnham's Freehold (an ugly novel) is really his only direct comment on race, AFAIK) and his obsession with getting scientific details right (spent 1.5 days calculating the orbits in Space Cadet so he could write them into the novel).

There is no 'alternative' to Heinlein, he is too big a figure for that-- along with Asimov and Clarke (and Philip K Dick) the giants that surmount all of mid 20th century Science Fiction.

He gave to science fiction the superb person-centred action novel-- Heinlein's character will be in the middle of a huge spacewar and you'll see it entirely through their eyes. An ability to communicate the strangeness of the future in a single line 'the door dilated shut behind him'. And the power of ideas of a giant schematic of future history. More controversially a military-libertarian view of human beings and the human future (but Heinlein rather more subtle than some of his imitators). Less controversially, a profound individualism, an imperative of the necessity of choice and taking responsibility by the individual and of honouring a moral code-- this lies at the heart of his juvenile novels and of Lazarus Long (his Methusala character).

By all accounts even to writers with whom Heinlein had bitter personal interactions (Alexei Panshin) or radically different worldviews (Philip K Dick) Heinlein was a gentleman who acted with great personal charity.

But authors who wrote at the same time or followed in his footsteps with many similar features include: James H Schmitz, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven (Known Space series), Jerry Pournelle (more expressly military/ right wing SF: The Codominium series (perhaps its best, The Mote in God's Eye also fits that series), H Beam Piper. Orson Scott Card and Enders' Game arguably would have been impossible without 'Starship Troopers'. And Joe Haldeman's The Forever War would not have the same impact if you have not read ST.
That was a fabulous synopsis. Thanks again. I am much less familiar with Heinlein's body of work than you are, but from the little I read, I agree with you.

With few exceptions, genius tends to dissipate somewhere in one's mid-thirties. To quote Tom Lehrer (musical satirist, pianist and Harvard math professor) sometime around 1968 (more or less or exactly): "It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years".

You said: "BBC Radio Dramas are usually worth the time taken to listen to them."

Speaking of BBC and sci-fi, though I believe it received mixed reviews, I loved the BBC's mini-series adaptation of Dune that they did about 15 or 20 years ago. I would like to see that again.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

protagonist wrote: That was a fabulous synopsis. Thanks again. I am much less familiar with Heinlein's body of work than you are, but from the little I read, I agree with you.

With few exceptions, genius tends to dissipate somewhere in one's mid-thirties. To quote Tom Lehrer (musical satirist, pianist and Harvard math professor) sometime around 1968 (more or less or exactly): "It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years".
And Tom Lehrer went back to teaching math ;-). It's on the album 'That Was the Year that Was' which was about 1967 I think, and was the most explicitly political of his records. I still note the audience laughter when he mentions 'Ronald Reagan' as an actor getting into politics in the lead up to 'George Murphy'-- Reagan was a B movie actor and his political career was clearly going nowhere ;-).

In the arts, genius can grow and grow-- the late novels of a writer can still be a gem. But SF is a very young field relying on constant new infusions of ideas. The early William Gibson, say, burns very bright (Neuromancer trilogy). Roger Zelazny seemed latterly to be rewriting his old themes (but a novel like 'A Night in Lonesome October' is so good you don't care). The early Asimov (Foundation, I Robot, Elijah Bailley & R Daneel Olivaw) and Clarke (Childhood's End, Fall of Moondust) really are exquisite.

Frederick Pohl is perhaps the amazing exception-- winning Hugos and Nebulas in his 60s with Gateway. In the last 4 years or so of his life, he discovered blogging.
You said: "BBC Radio Dramas are usually worth the time taken to listen to them."

Speaking of BBC and sci-fi, though I believe it received mixed reviews, I loved the BBC's mini-series adaptation of Dune that they did about 15 or 20 years ago. I would like to see that again.
If a radio adaptation I was unaware of this-- thank you.

If the TV series was that not made from the offcuts of the failed David Lynch movie? ie it was an American production?

They never finished John Christopher's 'Tripods' tve series based on The White Mountains/ the City of Gold and Lead/ the Pool of Fire. That really was a brilliant 'young adult' trilogy-- coming of age in an earth under a brutal alien rule.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by kayanco »

I'm reading "Made to Stick" by Chip and Dan Heath.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by protagonist »

That was a fabulous synopsis. Thanks again. I am much less familiar with Heinlein's body of work than you are, but from the little I read, I agree with you.

With few exceptions, genius tends to dissipate somewhere in one's mid-thirties. To quote Tom Lehrer (musical satirist, pianist and Harvard math professor) sometime around 1968 (more or less or exactly): "It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years".

Valuethinker wrote:And Tom Lehrer went back to teaching math ;-). It's on the album 'That Was the Year that Was' which was about 1967 I think, and was the most explicitly political of his records. I still note the audience laughter when he mentions 'Ronald Reagan' as an actor getting into politics in the lead up to 'George Murphy'--
Oh gee it's great. At last we have a senator who can really sing and dance. He wrote those songs for the US version of the TV show by (almost) the same name (substitute "Week" for "Year"), a ground-breaking news satire show that was canceled after the first season but was way ahead of its time.....I imagine a big influence on Saturday Night Live and much that came a few years later. I think it started in the UK (BBC) and then a US version was released. I also wonder if it would still be considered funny. Lehrer is still funny, dated or not....at least to me. He was also one of the few parody songwriters who also composed his own melodies.

My favorite, however, was "The Vatican Rag". Perhaps I should take back what I said about "ahead of its time". I doubt that would pass the network thought police these days.
Valuethinker wrote:Reagan was a B movie actor and his political career was clearly going nowhere ;-).
To this day I think "Bedtime for Bonzo" was the zenith of his career.
Valuethinker wrote:In the arts, genius can grow and grow-- the late novels of a writer can still be a gem.
It's possible, sure. Henry Miller said something to the effect that a writer should not pick up a pen before the age of 40. Beethoven was about 53 or 54 when he composed the Ninth Symphony (on top of being almost totally deaf). But I think if you review the works of genius through the ages in the arts, sciences, whatever, the vast bulk were produced by young ones.
Valuethinker wrote:Frederick Pohl is perhaps the amazing exception-- winning Hugos and Nebulas in his 60s with Gateway. In the last 4 years or so of his life, he discovered blogging.
Cool.

Speaking of BBC and sci-fi, though I believe it received mixed reviews, I loved the BBC's mini-series adaptation of Dune that they did about 15 or 20 years ago. I would like to see that again.
Valuethinker wrote:If a radio adaptation I was unaware of this-- thank you.
My error, sorry....it wasn't a BBC production....It was a TV miniseries done on the Scifi channel starring William Hurt- 3 episodes. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142032/?ref_=nv_sr_4 I probably assumed it was BBC because it was good. In the early days of the Scifi network they did some fantastic stuff ....then they degenerated into pablum.
Valuethinker wrote:If the TV series was that not made from the offcuts of the failed David Lynch movie? ie it was an American production?
The Lynch movie was a disaster. There is a documentary showing now about a failed adaptation of Dune by Alejandro Jodorowsky ("El Topo") in the 1970s that was supposed to star, in addition to others, Orson Welles, Salvador Dali and Mick Jagger (laughing...). It's supposedly excellent.....I want to see it. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1935156/
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by aCautiousWind »

I'm reading...

Knopman Series 7 License Exam Manual (It's a page-turner)

The Boglehead's Guide to Investing

The Intelligent Investor
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Blues »

Have begun reading Robert Galbraith's (J.K. Rowling) "The Cuckoo's Calling".

(Have never read Rowling previously but was interested by the reviews regarding her latest, "The Silkworm" and decided to start with the first in the series. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint.)
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by ruralavalon »

The Cruise of the Dazzler, by Jack London. A 15 year old San Francisco boy, doing poorly in school, runs away from home seeking adventure.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

Blues wrote:Have begun reading Robert Galbraith's (J.K. Rowling) "The Cuckoo's Calling".

(Have never read Rowling previously but was interested by the reviews regarding her latest, "The Silkworm" and decided to start with the first in the series. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint.)
I liked this one.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Blues »

Thanks for letting me know, Chaz. :beer
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by gkaplan »

gkaplan wrote:I am reading The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince, by Jane Ridley. Normally, this subject matter wouldn't interest me; however, Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, and Library Journal noted that London critics had praised the book, so I thought I would give it a try. Having just finished the author's introduction has further piqued my interest. Ms. Ridley, who is a professor of history at Buckingham University in England, concludes her introduction by noting, "In this book I have tried to show a Bertie who was both more able and more complex than the figure we know as Edward VII. The real Bertie was obscured by authorized biographers who, in their concern to protect the reputation of the monarchy, concentrated on the politics and said little about the scandals. Equally misleading and one-sided was the alternative narrative that flourished of Bertie as prince of pleasure – a frivolous, self-indulgent lothario. His bed-hopping exploits were widely exaggerated. His name was linked with more than fifty women, and at least ten illegitimate children were chalked up to him. The true figures are, alas, considerably more modest. I have tried to combine both sides of this life, the public and the private. To do this I have had to chip away at the patina of old anecdotes and peel back layers of hearsay that has been repeated so often that it has almost hardened into fact. It has been a lengthy business. But, like so many women in the past, I have greatly enjoyed the years I have spent in the company of HRH."

As an aside, this book originally was published in Great Britain as Bertie: A Life of Edward VII.
I finished this book today. It was excellent, I thought, with a useful and eloquent index. I do have one complaint, however, and it's a major complaint. The book has no bibliography! To me this is unforgivable in a work of this nature. The book does have endnotes, but they are mostly arcane and, given the lack of a bibliography, virtually useless. (Don't get me started on publishers nowadays using endnotes instead of footnotes.)

I have two other takeaways from this book. First of all, Ms. Ridley concludes that the king died of emphysema and heart failure; yet, she too easily dismisses the negligence of Bertie's doctors in overseeing his health, I think. While the 1964 Surgeon General's report on smoking was more than fifty years to come, I have to feel that most scientists and doctors would be aware even in the nineteenth century of the debilitating and long term effects of smoking; still, none of Bertie's doctors seemed to have the courage to caution him about his smoking habit (daily consumption of a multitude of huge cigars). Similarly, Bertie was morbidly obese going back to early adulthood. Again, though, his doctors seemed not to have the courage to advise Bertie to adjust his insatiable appetite and overly rich diet.

My second takeaway, and one that the author goes to great lengths to expound on, is the unpardonable act of the royal archivists to burn or censure the papers and letters of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII and Edward's siblings. In many cases, they did this at the explicit behest of Victoria and Edward; however, these archivists seemed only too eager to burn or censure documents even when Victoria and Edward gave no specific instructions, thus destroying a wealth of material for future biographers and historians. Furthermore, even when the royal archivists didn't destroy or censure papers and correspondence, they and courtiers went out of their way to obfuscate and limit access to contemporary researchers. To a great extent, only the accession of Queen Elizabeth II to the throne brought about access to the documents of Victoria and Edward.
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