What Are You Reading?
Reading Fatherland by Robert Harris. Much like Philip K. Dick’s The Man In the High Castle, Fatherland’s premise features a “What if Hitler won?” scenario. I may write up a comparison/contrast of the two, as I find this milieu pretty fascinating.
I also started reading The Midnight Disease by Alice Weaver Flaherty. It’s about hypergraphia, and conversly, writers block.
What are you reading?
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June 26th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Fiction, shmiction!
In the car I’m working on Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It’s interesting so far, but I’m afraid it’s going to end up being another intriguing but ultimately useless book of trivia like The Tipping Point.
In dead tree format, I’m wrapping up Robert Greene’s The 33 Strategies of War which is probably one of the top 5 best books I’ve ever read. Essentially it’s a guide to conflict and engagement in life using strategies employed by history’s greatest generals. Gripping read, even if you’re only interested in the stories.
And I’ve also just begun How to Win Friends and Influence People by the famous Dale Carnegie. It’s one of those classics I’d never gotten around to until now… and just in time, too, because all I know how to do is lose friends and discourage people. :(
June 26th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Jon: Gladwell is smart, but his writing style tends to be a little redundant, so if you get his points–which you will since he writes so clearly and effectively–then you kinda have to sit through him hammering that same point through again. I just wish his books had more interesting stories instead of rehashing.
Just finished reading Jarhead, of which the movie was very loosely inspired. Book is excellent, movie was garbage.
Currently I’m reading the last few novels of Raymond Chandler– The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye, and Playback, all bound into a single handsome volume by the Everyman Library. Once I finish this one I’ll have read all of Chandler, and by then it’ll be about time to start reading the short stories again. These are his last novels and so there’s something of a poignant quality to then.
In a very different mode I’m also rereading Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, which is a difficult and strange book. It’s an extremely violent and seemingly plot-less journey of a murderous band of scalpers in Mexico in the old west… but there’s a lot going on. Second reading is a good deal more illuminating though still difficult. McCarthy manages to very convincingly wash away any romantic notions of the old West in a tide of blood; but getting at what he means to say and the reasons he’s showing us such unending violence takes some trust.
June 27th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Let me know how this book is. It looked interesting but it kinda smacked of anti semitism. So I backed off. There is some fiction written about “What if Lee won the civil war”.( I just watched the entire Ken Burns Documentary) I remember one of writers gave the South M-16 rifles to tip things in there favor. I remember an illustration of Lee on the cover holding an M-16 in his Confederate Battle Dress. If you or anyone stumbles across the title let me know.
June 28th, 2006 at 12:14 am
Oh…I’m reading “Lost in the Wild” Danger and Survival in the North Woods by Cary Griffith. It’s a true story of two seperate instances of people getting lost in the Boundry Waters of MN.
June 28th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
If Fatherland smacks of anti-semitism, that’s because the fiction world it takes place in is dominated by Nazi Germany. The Final Solution was implemented to the fullest degree, beyond 1945 and was highly ’successful.’
The novel takes place in 1964. A good 19 years of Nazi world triumph. The milieu is very dark, as I imagine things would be if Hitler had won. I do not take this to represent any prejudice on the part of the author. He does a great job in portraying what such an alternate history might be like.
The heroes are not down on Jews. Like many stories, the heroes are curious and questioning about the true nature of their own government. What most people don’t realize is that it took some years for the full truth about the death camps to come out. If Hitler had won, perhaps nobody would realize the truth of what happened?
The book explores this in spades, and some of this is weaved into the main plot. Neither within the 1964 Nazi Germany society or outside of it, are people aware about the extent of The Final Solution.
It is the main characters who are asking all the questions about this (among other things), and getting themselves into trouble with the Nazi authority.