World War 2 as told by Japan is present. Actually, World War 2 gets quite a bit of play...
World War 2- European Theater: Britain, Germany, Russia
D-Day and European Liberation: Britain, Canada, France, Italy
Resistance: France, Italy, Germany
World War 2- Pacific Theater: Philippines, Japan
Atomic Bomb: Japan, Philippines, Canada, Britain, Italy
Also, turns out why the "Caribbean" got lumped into one big group is because none of the smaller islands individually make for a big enough textbook market, so they just kind of share based on language.
I'd be really interested to know what the Japanese parts looked like.
Within Japan there is a massive split between different ideas about WW2 and war in general. There are massive amounts of mainstream pacifists who are proud of Article 9 of the Constitution, who turn out in droves to commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and who think the Japanese government (including Hirohito) were moronic fascists to attack China, SE Asia and then the US.
Then there are people who think that Japan was justified in attacking the US because of being squeezed by embargoes, and that Yasukuni-jinja gets too much shit. These people are often older conservative men, who crucially were born after WW2 and seem to have a thing about foreigners and losing the war. They're not numerous, but very powerful, hence the textbook controversy - you don't meet many actual people who think like them, but they give us a bad image abroad.
And then there are various permutations of these two groups. I know many people who are basically in the first group, but who resent the shit out of the US for the atomic bombings and view them as mainly a field test and posturing towards China & the USSR. The firebombings were brutal and the civilian casualties massive, and certainly this group has affected my own views a lot.
Oops so off-topic.
Codex Alera by Jim Butcher is still rocking my world. An absolute barnstorming pageturner.
I'm on the next Vorkosigan book, Komarr. Also been going through a collected works of Edgar Allen Poe. It's a weird mix of absolute stone cold classics like The Masque of the Red Death and literary oddities like The Colloquy of Monos and Una.
Finally got around to reading American Psycho after having loved the movie for so long.
I can't say right now which I like more, but I found American Psycho to be the funniest book I've read since Catch-22, and the violence was refreshingly shocking if only for the banality with which it's presented. I will probably read it again right away, like I did the first time I went through Naked Lunch. I know there are things I missed.
I know they couldn't clear 1/10th of the products and brand names they wanted to use in the movie, which is probably the biggest knock against it, though you hardly notice if you don't know to look for it. Bateman's obsession with brands and designers is one of the most important parts of his inner life, but I still think the movie would have been better for those details.
The chapter Lunch (about 1/3 into the book), in which Bateman has lunch with an associate (who, naturally, thinks Bateman is someone else), who, when asked about his recent vacation to the Bahamas, delivers all of his dialogue like he's reading from a prepared commercial spiel, while Bateman contemplates suicide and eats food that is prepared and presented in such a way that they cant even tell which plate is which order, coupled with Bateman's absurd horror at having seen a Gay Pride Parade on his way to work, was the highlight of the book for me. This chapter is prefixed by one in which Bateman goes into detail, and with great authority, about how amazing Genesis and Phil Collins are, and suffixed by a chapter in which he's "forced" to go to a U2 concert and goes into how much he hates live music (and doesn't like, or know about U2 -- he keeps calling them "some Irish band"), and keeps getting their lyrics wrong. Great stuff.
Bateman's utterly terrible taste in music, and the strange passion he has for blandness, was so great.
I'm on the next Vorkosigan book, Komarr. Also been going through a collected works of Edgar Allen Poe. It's a weird mix of absolute stone cold classics like The Masque of the Red Death and literary oddities like The Colloquy of Monos and Una.
I've only ever read the collections of the major works (the Dupin stories, the poetry, The Gold Bug, MS Found in a Bottle, etc.) Is any of the minor stuff worth a look?
I'm on the next Vorkosigan book, Komarr. Also been going through a collected works of Edgar Allen Poe. It's a weird mix of absolute stone cold classics like The Masque of the Red Death and literary oddities like The Colloquy of Monos and Una.
I've only ever read the collections of the major works (the Dupin stories, the poetry, The Gold Bug, MS Found in a Bottle, etc.) Is any of the minor stuff worth a look?
I'm honestly not sure. If you're interested in Poe and want to try and understand him as an artist of his time I guess they're invaluable, but frankly the oddities so far have aged far less well than the classic tales. I'll let you know if one of them stands out, but so far my reaction to them has been hmmmmmmm.
Still working my way through The Magician King. If you didn't like the Magicians due to the protagonist, I would still absolutely give it a try. Well written world, complex, and the protagonist has grown up quite a bit to where he is actually likable.
Those of you who enjoy hard science fiction and the gentleman thief archetype should check out The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. Very different from my usual sort of fare but a lot of fun. I don't read a lot of sci-fi so it was pretty hard to get my head round at first; it's not one for easing you into things gently in terms of jargon, but the payoff is great.
Now reading Rivers of London by Ben Aarnoovitch, kind of an English take on Jim Butcher.
Instead of reading one of my dozens of unread books and volumes, I decided to read a quasi-textbook on the recommended list for a class but not required. I want to know at what point in my life I changed from "ugh textbooks. I'm just going to sell these back in 4 months," to "cool books I can make a professional library out of." It's called the brand gap. It's an essay about brand development and growth. It was pretty good. Light on stats, full of discussion and simple ways to get the points across. It only dates itself once (it's from 05) by referring to Amazon branching out from books to everything as a failure and diluting of the brand. Statistically it was when it happened and when the book was written but now Amazon is the go to for online shopping so it was more a long term re imagining of the brand that ended up working out. Anyway, interesting read for people into design or marketing or business.
Now I need to read Slaughterhouse 5 so I can say I've read all of Vonnegut's works.
Struggled through Ready Player One based on positive reviews and word of mouth.
What a pile. Squandered an interesting setting with horrible writing. It's like a fanfic author took a break from Draco Malfoy Meets the Enterprise and decided to churn out a piece with the 80's as a protagonist. Add a little nerd wish fulfillment, sprinkle liberally with geek references and presto, a bestselling crapfest.
I finished Harry Connolly's third installment in The Twenty Palaces society. It was formulaic, but I find that his books are getting stronger and the series spanning arc took off, so I'll certainly keep reading. If you are looking for an urban fantasy to pick up, you can do worse.
Now reading Rivers of London by Ben Aarnoovitch, kind of an English take on Jim Butcher.
Do yourself a favor and read Mike Carey's Felix Castor series(which I ended up liking more than The Dresden files).
Hell, even Kate Griffin's Matthew Swift series is at times better than what Aaronovitch wrote.
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
I just finished rereading Pattern Recognition, which was even better than I remembered it being. (I got Spook Country for my birthday last year, opened it up, and realized I didn't remember anything that happened in PR, got nervous, and decided to reread PR first. Of course, now I know that Gibson plays pretty fast and loose with books in a series, but whatever, Pattern Recognition was still great.)
Started An Instance of the Fingerpost - I'm not very far in, but I'm enjoying it so far. I've found that I enjoy stories about doctors and scientists in Ye Olden Days.
I've only read the first book in the Dresden Files and I found Rivers of London to be more fun than it, doubtless in part due to being a young black Londoner myself. I'll check out the others you mentioned, my only experience with Kate Griffin is with her first Horatio Lyle book; pretty awesome that she's just three years older than me and actually had that published when she was 17.
3DS: 2234-8122-8398 | Battle.net (EU): Ladi#2485
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
edited September 2011
Double post
Mojo_Jojo on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
edited September 2011
Triple post
Mojo_Jojo on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
Seems you deleted the first one as well, @Mojo_Jojo
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
So I did. That's a weird quirk to the double/triple posting bug.
Anyhow, all I was saying is that I've started on Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. And I was amazed to discover that is really was written by a single author. There are some great ideas in there, but then they all seem to have terrible elements to them. The writing oscillates between cringe-worthy and decent too. It really feels like two very different people put together the outline and then wrote alternating sections.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
Seems to be a thing for Mormon writers of speculative fiction - I vaguely remember some crazy theory about Ender's Game being written by committee, and then Card writing the rest of the series without actually reading the first until much later. But I haven't read them, so who knows. Either way, I choose to believe that these books are written by several different authors, then passed on as being written by one person as some sort of hidden meta-commentary on the Bible (and the Book of Mormon I guess) by heretics within the Church of LDS.
Conspiracy theories! The great American art form of the 21th century.
So I did. That's a weird quirk to the double/triple posting bug.
Anyhow, all I was saying is that I've started on Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. And I was amazed to discover that is really was written by a single author. There are some great ideas in there, but then they all seem to have terrible elements to them. The writing oscillates between cringe-worthy and decent too. It really feels like two very different people put together the outline and then wrote alternating sections.
I think what happens is you actually double-post but some weird preview gets thrown up as well, so you think you've triple-posted.
Then of course, you delete the first two, only to discover the third never even existed! Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa.
Or not.
I figure I could take a bear.
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
So I did. That's a weird quirk to the double/triple posting bug.
Anyhow, all I was saying is that I've started on Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. And I was amazed to discover that is really was written by a single author. There are some great ideas in there, but then they all seem to have terrible elements to them. The writing oscillates between cringe-worthy and decent too. It really feels like two very different people put together the outline and then wrote alternating sections.
I think what happens is you actually double-post but some weird preview gets thrown up as well, so you think you've triple-posted.
Then of course, you delete the first two, only to discover the third never even existed! Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa.
Generally two authors telling how their latest YA book was consistently rejected by agents because one of the characters was gay. They were told that if they made him straight or had no reference to his sexuality then the agent would take it, but even though it just had the male protagonist kiss another guy (no different from the het couples) this was too much.
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BobCescaIs a girlBirmingham, UKRegistered Userregular
Seems to be a thing for Mormon writers of speculative fiction - I vaguely remember some crazy theory about Ender's Game being written by committee, and then Card writing the rest of the series without actually reading the first until much later. But I haven't read them, so who knows. Either way, I choose to believe that these books are written by several different authors, then passed on as being written by one person as some sort of hidden meta-commentary on the Bible (and the Book of Mormon I guess) by heretics within the Church of LDS.
Conspiracy theories! The great American art form of the 21th century.
I didn't really notice a lot of bible/book of mormon references in the ender's books. Then again at the time I was in high school and didn't really notice subliminal ideas in books. That being said, I didn't like Ender's game or enders shadow that much. On the other hand I loved the Speaker/xeno/child books as well as the shadow books after the first one.
Seems to be a thing for Mormon writers of speculative fiction - I vaguely remember some crazy theory about Ender's Game being written by committee, and then Card writing the rest of the series without actually reading the first until much later. But I haven't read them, so who knows. Either way, I choose to believe that these books are written by several different authors, then passed on as being written by one person as some sort of hidden meta-commentary on the Bible (and the Book of Mormon I guess) by heretics within the Church of LDS.
Conspiracy theories! The great American art form of the 21th century.
I didn't really notice a lot of bible/book of mormon references in the ender's books. Then again at the time I was in high school and didn't really notice subliminal ideas in books. That being said, I didn't like Ender's game or enders shadow that much. On the other hand I loved the Speaker/xeno/child books as well as the shadow books after the first one.
Well, not saying anything about actual Christian symbolism. I haven't read them either. Just pointing out that one book written by different authors but purported to be written by one author is like the Bible (the author in that case being of course god.) Or at least that's what a filthy progressive would say about the Bible. Basically I'm just talking out my ass.
If one were looking for actual subliminal messages/propaganda in Ender's Game I suspect it would be more like fascism/militarism, based on the little I've heard about the story.
But I have gotten around to putting the new poll up on this group's Goodreads home. Specifically, the poll is for what our fourth quarter (October through December) group read should be. All candidates were chosen at random from the recommended reading list. The choices are:
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Voting ends September 20. Head on over to the link and to the polls section over there to vote.
Also starting with the next group read (first quarter of 2012), I'll start using some genre and nonfiction selections from the recommended reading list, so there's more of a cross-section to the whole thing.
I saw some listings for what people are saying is the last Repairman Jack novel, but I'd never heard of them. So I looked up information on the Adversary Cycle and the Repairman Jack novels by F. Paul Wilson, and they seemed interesting. Has anyone read them (or anything by F. Paul Wilson) and have an opinion?
I could only make it half way through Ender's Game. I don't know how many times people recommended that book to me, and I just now read it (im 33). I thought it was really really bad. Simplistic writing, marty stew, it leaves me wondering about my friends who recommended it...
Posts
I'd be really interested to know what the Japanese parts looked like.
Within Japan there is a massive split between different ideas about WW2 and war in general. There are massive amounts of mainstream pacifists who are proud of Article 9 of the Constitution, who turn out in droves to commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and who think the Japanese government (including Hirohito) were moronic fascists to attack China, SE Asia and then the US.
Then there are people who think that Japan was justified in attacking the US because of being squeezed by embargoes, and that Yasukuni-jinja gets too much shit. These people are often older conservative men, who crucially were born after WW2 and seem to have a thing about foreigners and losing the war. They're not numerous, but very powerful, hence the textbook controversy - you don't meet many actual people who think like them, but they give us a bad image abroad.
And then there are various permutations of these two groups. I know many people who are basically in the first group, but who resent the shit out of the US for the atomic bombings and view them as mainly a field test and posturing towards China & the USSR. The firebombings were brutal and the civilian casualties massive, and certainly this group has affected my own views a lot.
Oops so off-topic.
Codex Alera by Jim Butcher is still rocking my world. An absolute barnstorming pageturner.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I can't say right now which I like more, but I found American Psycho to be the funniest book I've read since Catch-22, and the violence was refreshingly shocking if only for the banality with which it's presented. I will probably read it again right away, like I did the first time I went through Naked Lunch. I know there are things I missed.
I know they couldn't clear 1/10th of the products and brand names they wanted to use in the movie, which is probably the biggest knock against it, though you hardly notice if you don't know to look for it. Bateman's obsession with brands and designers is one of the most important parts of his inner life, but I still think the movie would have been better for those details.
The chapter Lunch (about 1/3 into the book), in which Bateman has lunch with an associate (who, naturally, thinks Bateman is someone else), who, when asked about his recent vacation to the Bahamas, delivers all of his dialogue like he's reading from a prepared commercial spiel, while Bateman contemplates suicide and eats food that is prepared and presented in such a way that they cant even tell which plate is which order, coupled with Bateman's absurd horror at having seen a Gay Pride Parade on his way to work, was the highlight of the book for me. This chapter is prefixed by one in which Bateman goes into detail, and with great authority, about how amazing Genesis and Phil Collins are, and suffixed by a chapter in which he's "forced" to go to a U2 concert and goes into how much he hates live music (and doesn't like, or know about U2 -- he keeps calling them "some Irish band"), and keeps getting their lyrics wrong. Great stuff.
Bateman's utterly terrible taste in music, and the strange passion he has for blandness, was so great.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
I've only ever read the collections of the major works (the Dupin stories, the poetry, The Gold Bug, MS Found in a Bottle, etc.) Is any of the minor stuff worth a look?
I'm honestly not sure. If you're interested in Poe and want to try and understand him as an artist of his time I guess they're invaluable, but frankly the oddities so far have aged far less well than the classic tales. I'll let you know if one of them stands out, but so far my reaction to them has been hmmmmmmm.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Now reading Rivers of London by Ben Aarnoovitch, kind of an English take on Jim Butcher.
Now I need to read Slaughterhouse 5 so I can say I've read all of Vonnegut's works.
What a pile. Squandered an interesting setting with horrible writing. It's like a fanfic author took a break from Draco Malfoy Meets the Enterprise and decided to churn out a piece with the 80's as a protagonist. Add a little nerd wish fulfillment, sprinkle liberally with geek references and presto, a bestselling crapfest.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
Hmmm. Oh, ok. Now reading The Sisters Brothers. A very nice, dark comedy western.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
Now I'm reading Irma Voth. Poor Irma Voth...
Do yourself a favor and read Mike Carey's Felix Castor series(which I ended up liking more than The Dresden files).
Hell, even Kate Griffin's Matthew Swift series is at times better than what Aaronovitch wrote.
Started An Instance of the Fingerpost - I'm not very far in, but I'm enjoying it so far. I've found that I enjoy stories about doctors and scientists in Ye Olden Days.
Anyhow, all I was saying is that I've started on Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. And I was amazed to discover that is really was written by a single author. There are some great ideas in there, but then they all seem to have terrible elements to them. The writing oscillates between cringe-worthy and decent too. It really feels like two very different people put together the outline and then wrote alternating sections.
Conspiracy theories! The great American art form of the 21th century.
I think what happens is you actually double-post but some weird preview gets thrown up as well, so you think you've triple-posted.
Then of course, you delete the first two, only to discover the third never even existed! Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa.
Or not.
And then, you were the triple post
Generally two authors telling how their latest YA book was consistently rejected by agents because one of the characters was gay. They were told that if they made him straight or had no reference to his sexuality then the agent would take it, but even though it just had the male protagonist kiss another guy (no different from the het couples) this was too much.
I didn't really notice a lot of bible/book of mormon references in the ender's books. Then again at the time I was in high school and didn't really notice subliminal ideas in books. That being said, I didn't like Ender's game or enders shadow that much. On the other hand I loved the Speaker/xeno/child books as well as the shadow books after the first one.
Well, not saying anything about actual Christian symbolism. I haven't read them either. Just pointing out that one book written by different authors but purported to be written by one author is like the Bible (the author in that case being of course god.) Or at least that's what a filthy progressive would say about the Bible. Basically I'm just talking out my ass.
If one were looking for actual subliminal messages/propaganda in Ender's Game I suspect it would be more like fascism/militarism, based on the little I've heard about the story.
But I have gotten around to putting the new poll up on this group's Goodreads home. Specifically, the poll is for what our fourth quarter (October through December) group read should be. All candidates were chosen at random from the recommended reading list. The choices are:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Voting ends September 20. Head on over to the link and to the polls section over there to vote.
Also starting with the next group read (first quarter of 2012), I'll start using some genre and nonfiction selections from the recommended reading list, so there's more of a cross-section to the whole thing.