Eat any good books lately?

[Besticus Maximus]

Finally finished The rise and fall of the Third Reich.

Great long read. Whet my appetite for more WWII history or even WWI. Gonna start looking into some different reads on the topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilty_Men

Guilty Men is a British polemical book written under the pseudonym "Cato" that was published in July 1940, after the failure of British forces to prevent the defeat and occupation of Norway and France by Nazi Germany. It attacked fifteen public figures for their failed policies towards Germany and for their failure to re-equip the British armed forces. In denouncing appeasement, it defined the policy as the "deliberate surrender of small nations in the face of Hitler's blatant bullying".[1] A classic denunciation of the former government's policy, it shaped popular and scholarly thinking for the next two decades

It was Michael Foot who wrote it

[Potato]

Just finished The Sea of Ash by Scott Thomas.

Slightly creepy little Lovecraftian cosmic horror novella.

Pretty good read.

[Besticus Maximus]

I'm on with the Fisherman by John Langan on audible. I've been waiting for the audible for this for years as it's been hyped to smithereens but I gotta be honest, it kinda sucks. It's really, really dumb but very straight with it.

[benji]

https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1903t4p/the_homogeneity_of_book_titles_is_out_of_control/

So books called "The X's Daughter," and "The (Adjective) (Noun) of (First Name) (Last Name)" have been adequately noted here, as have books called "A/The X of Y and Z." Below however is a list of just a subset of the last pattern: "A/The X of Y and Z," books, but where one of the variables is "Bone/s"(Source: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/90430.The_Blank_of_Blank_and_Blank)

A Cathedral of Myth and Bone
Children of Blood and Bone
Boys of Blood & Bone (cf. #2)
Court of Bone and Fury
A Crown of Blood and Bone
Cry of Metal & Bone
Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Diadem of Blood and Bones (cf. #5)
A Ferry of Bones & Gold
The Forest of Ghosts and Bones
The Forest of Shadow and Bones
Forest of Bones and Wishes
Ghosts of Blood and Bone
King of Ash and Bone
The King of Bones and Ashes (cf. #14)
A Kingdom of Blood and Bones
Kingdom of Ice and Bone
Kingdom of Needle and Bone
Master of Salt & Bones
A Place of Blood and Bone
The Primal of Blood and Bone
A Secret of Birds & Bone
The Secrets of Blood and Bone
A Throne of Feathers and Bone
Woman of Blood & Bone

There are about 500 books on the list above, meaning that one out of every 20 has "bone/s" in the title. Variables such as "ash," "blood," "salt" believe it or not, "shadow," and "stone" are also abundantly represented. I would estimate that titles without any of these words are in the minority.

Is there just like one guy responsible for naming every book?

A while back I noticed a bunch of books titled "____ and other ______s" or "______, ______, and other _____s". This is an incomplete list because I stopped counting after a while. That being said, there are soooooo many books published every year, it would be impossible to give every single one a unique titled... although this particular format stopped feeling clever pretty much immediately.

My Heart and Other Black Holes
Love and Other Man-Made Disasters
Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit
Love and Other Alien Experiences
Love Fortunes and Other Disasters
Love Charms and Other Catastrophes
Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend
Revenge, Ice Cream, and Other Things Best Served Cold
Hearts, Fingers, and Other Things to Cross
The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distractions)
Love and Other Unknown Variables
Flying Lessons and Other Stories
Family Game Night and Other Catastrophes
Love and Other Carnivorous Plants
Kale, My Ex and Other Things to Toss in a Blender
Trusting You & Other Lies
Birds and Other Transdimensional Things
Sasquatch, Love, and Other Imaginary Things
Love Songs ~& Other~ Lies
Love, Hate, & Other Filters
Love and Other Train Wrecks
Airports, Exes, and Other Things I'm Over

Do you think the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ever met the Girl on the Train, or the Girl Who Stole an Elephant, or the Girl in the Tower, or the Girl Who Disappeared, or the other Girl Who Disappeared, or the Girl With No Name, or the Girl From The Sea, or the Girl From Portofino, or the Girl By The Bridge, or the Girl You Left Behind, or the Girl Who Speaks Bear, or the Girl Who Looked Beyond The Stars, or the Girl With The Make-Believe Husband, or the Girl With All The Gifts, or the Girl In Question, or the Girl of Bomber Command, or the Girl Next Door, or the Girl of Ink and Stars, or the Girl in the Attic, or the Girl Who Saved Christmas?

[chronovore]

I understand that the publisher is in charge of choosing a title, so it makes sense that they’re not particularly imaginative, and doubly so that they’re sticking with a formula where sales have been good. 

Still:lame. 

I hate Marketing.

[benji]

This is kind of like a slightly more lively textbook. It covers stuff with a few paragraphs, some things get a few pages. It's just sort of general history too, nothing too specific though the source list could be used for that since he claims basically every popular history work for the period as a source. That's fine but still somewhat disappointing because of the lack of any thesis or argument really.



Exactly what it says on the tin and written fairly short for a "film fan" type of audience rather than history or business or whatever. As much as Hollywood is known for stuff like the casting couch, some of the stories in this struck me as possibly embellished legends and myths of Hollywood versus literally true. I'm not saying Darryl Zanuck didn't stand up from behind his desk to show his erect penis to people, I'm saying that from the person described in the rest of the book the skeptic in me wonders if this story was "improved" like the scripts he was famous for improving.



I liked this well enough but the title is a complete lie. This book has almost nothing about anything in the title. Unless by Patriots vs. Loyalists you mean Ben Franklin and his loyalist son. And by "civil war" you mean them writing letters to each other until they stopped during the Revolution. There's an actual story here about this stuff, especially things like the illegal seizing of loyalist property, but the book sort of summarizes it on a few pages and spends the rest of its time talking about Ben Franklin, John Adams and George Washington doing the things you can read in any history about the Revolution.



Great for me, horrifying for the normal type of person. I, of course, loved many of the descriptions of the kafka-esque system of doublespeak of the paranoid totalitarian state. One small section made me laugh because it sounded like it was describing the ResetERA.com staff rather than a real world totalitarian bureaucracy in terms of its obsession with irrelevancies over the proper purpose of the job.



There's some enjoyable Fox News personalities gossip in this, especially about Hannity (while Tucker Carlson comes off as too normal to work there), but the overall thing is amusing in the negative way. First, did you know that the hit TV show Succession is based on the Murdochs? It is, and this is like a real life version of the hit TV show Succession. Second, it proudly talks about how they rushed this book to get it out in a "timely" fashion. The bulk of the book is focused around what will happen when Rupert Murdoch gives up control, which he literally did a couple weeks after the book was published lmao. Third, you may have noticed that Fox News did not end and still exists, the book never explains this or even attempts to suggest what it could allude to except for a brief mention of The Daily Wire raising $100 million and Tucker signing with Twitter. Which I think would argue less for Fox News being pushed out of a market and more that there's a market for 24/7 conservative and/or MAGA programming to an extent that even Fox wouldn't ever go to. Something that's not exclusive to Fox News but any cable news network in a more general way about how we all consume news, much as cable news both displaced and added onto the network news. Anyway, you know this Murdoch family drama sure is like hit TV show Succession. That makes sense since it's based on them, the hit TV show Succession that is, and the Murdochs. Lastly, this guy seemingly gets paid by the comma based on how many tortured overwrought sentences that are in this thing. His book about the Murdochs who were the basis for the hit TV show Succession.

[Potato]

Just finished The Expanse book #8 Tiamat's Wrath.

I loved it, but Naomi is becoming such a Mary Sue character it's actually becoming annoying.

[benji]

I'll keep my remarks shorter than normal about these except one because they were fine. The Amazon book is the first part of the one I read last year or year before. Founding of Amazon up through Kindle or so. I just read it to be complete. A short comment about the Apocalypse Never book is this is from pre-pandemic, Shellenberger lost his mind and interest in the environment to be a lunatic about homeless people and drugs. It makes the one chapter ironic because he doesn't see how he's slipped into the very thinking he was condemning in it.

The book I have to comment on is the Buffy one which is just terrible. Dude writes endlessly about himself in that obsessed media writer style like people should care. He gives an overly long yet full of gaps summary of every season of the show where you learn nothing except which episodes he likes even if he only names them not tell you which they were. The main chunk of the book is dedicated to either whining about how Buffy fails to meet 2020s Twitter social justice standards for anything or handwringing about whether or not you can like Buffy considering Joss Whedon exists.

All the actors/show writers/set designers/etc. interviewed say "yes, of course you can, TV shows are not a single person." While everyone else media writers/podcasters/PhDs/politicians/etc. struggle with the idea that Buffy and Joss Whedon are not the exact same thing in every way. If you want to read this book to find out what Joss Whedon did that's so awful you won't learn it either because every single person says "it's not my story to tell." Which, great, thanks. The closest you get is someone recounting that Joss once said a mean joke about somebody during season five. The most absurd is that James Marsters mentions that Joss once got in his face during a discussion about a character point. Marsters immediately frames this as passion for the material and that he respected it and it helped him understand the point. The author asserts that Marsters is sympathizing with his dangerous abuser and likely has Stockholm Syndrome from how terrible Joss was to him. Which ignores not only what Marsters directly said but also earlier when Marsters talked about how before doing Buffy (and Angel) he thought TV work was just a paycheck, that the only real place you could do the craft of acting and have passion was on stage, so he did TV and Spike just for the money. But it was in doing Buffy that he realized just how much there could be in acting on TV. So to me, not the author, it sounds like Joss and James were connecting over shared passion for the work even if Joss may have been a bit of a jerk about it. The author denigrates this into James being abused by Joss.

The book actually never makes any kind of resolution about whether or not you can like Buffy since Joss Whedon exists. After pages and pages of this the author just simply says it means too much to him so he's not going to stop loving Buffy (although it sounds more like a stalker obsession with Sarah Michelle Geller) but he can't answer for anyone else. Wonderful, it was all useless.

[Potato]

Started reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb.

I'm not usually a fan of first person perspective, but in this instance I don't hate it. 

I'm about 20% of the way through and Fitz's tale is interesting if a little derivative. I know this is a product of its time and the coming of age/hero's path/secret training combo with orphans/lost children were very typical of the era, but it's just a little too familiar to draw my right in. However, I'm sufficiently interested that I'll continue the book to conclusion (and probably the series).

The world building is light at the moment, but it is clear there is a lot more to come. I prefer not being hit over the head with exposition about the setting too early at the expense of developing characters, so that's a big plus. I'm not having to constantly refer to the map or to character wikis to remember who the main players are either.

Overall I'm enjoying it, but I probably would have taken to it more as a teenager in 1995 when it was published.

[Besticus Maximus]

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. Not what I was expecting, kinda ruled. Now I have to read more Graham Greene but it's all about spies or catholics.

[chronovore]

Started reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb.

I'm not usually a fan of first person perspective, but in this instance I don't hate it. 

I'm about 20% of the way through and Fitz's tale is interesting if a little derivative. I know this is a product of its time and the coming of age/hero's path/secret training combo with orphans/lost children were very typical of the era, but it's just a little too familiar to draw my right in. However, I'm sufficiently interested that I'll continue the book to conclusion (and probably the series).

The world building is light at the moment, but it is clear there is a lot more to come. I prefer not being hit over the head with exposition about the setting too early at the expense of developing characters, so that's a big plus. I'm not having to constantly refer to the map or to character wikis to remember who the main players are either.

Overall I'm enjoying it, but I probably would have taken to it more as a teenager in 1995 when it was published.

I loved that book and the next, but by the third one I was very tired of the masochism Hobb has for her readers. She loves setting up hopeful paths where things might go right for Fitz, only to pull the rug out from under our feet. 

Lovely prose. Hope you enjoy it.

[Potato]

Yeah, I must say the writing is lovely.

[benji]

This starts off just fine but increasingly degrades. By the Brosnan films the only people interviewed after the fact appear to be one of the writers, some crew, some of the directors and amusingly a studio executive, everyone else are pretty obviously PR interviews from the release of the film especially because they all speak in present tense about them. By the Craig films pretty much nobody except Martin Campbell (and the guy who makes the title sequences) is much reflexive about the films, they're all quoted from promoting it at release. This leads to a weird situation where nobody on the films seems aware that ones like Die Another Day or Spectre were not well received let alone why since they give the impression that the production was perfect, the scripts were perfect and the actors were perfect. (George Lazenby and Roger Moore seem to be the only Bonds actually interviewed by the authors about having done the movies. Timothy Dalton is reflective but it seems more like taken from other interviews rather than from the authors specifically talking to him.)

Amusingly that writer and studio executive from the Brosnan era are some of the more thoughtful critics in that section as both go out of their way to defend Denise Richards, argue that the character being terrible wasn't her fault and point out she was put in an impossible situation to push back against sexualizing the character since she would be labeled "difficult" for it. On cue one of the critics, who are just savaging her and calling her the worst thing ever and as if she ruined the movie, talks about how she was a problem on set. Apparently the reason was that she demanded the character be dressed less sexually outside of the introduction scene* since she was supposed to be a renown nuclear scientist not a Bond bimbo. The critics seem to blame her for taking the character seriously.

*

[Potato]

Started reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb.

I'm not usually a fan of first person perspective, but in this instance I don't hate it. 

I'm about 20% of the way through and Fitz's tale is interesting if a little derivative. I know this is a product of its time and the coming of age/hero's path/secret training combo with orphans/lost children were very typical of the era, but it's just a little too familiar to draw my right in. However, I'm sufficiently interested that I'll continue the book to conclusion (and probably the series).

The world building is light at the moment, but it is clear there is a lot more to come. I prefer not being hit over the head with exposition about the setting too early at the expense of developing characters, so that's a big plus. I'm not having to constantly refer to the map or to character wikis to remember who the main players are either.

Overall I'm enjoying it, but I probably would have taken to it more as a teenager in 1995 when it was published.

Finished this now. Wonderful book. Not sure if I'll go directly to the sequel or take a detour, but I will definitely be continuing.

[chronovore]

I loved the first one as well. Hope you enjoy it as you continue, with the awareness that she loves punishing any hope in the reader.

[Potato]

Yeah, I decided to move straight to book 2. Regarding the punishment of the reader, I agree. Despite all appearances to the contrary, it's actually more grimdark than anything else. Like, holy shit, how much can she throw at poor Fitz and the reader?

[benji]

Bundle of Dune books:

Pay at least $1 for this item
Dune: The Butlerian Jihad

Pay at least $10 for these 3 items
Dune: The Battle of Corrin
Dune: The Machine Crusade

Pay at least $18 for these 17 items
Dreamer of Dune
Dune: The Heir of Caladan
Dune: The Lady of Caladan
Dune: The Duke of Caladan
The Road to Dune
Princess of Dune
Sands of Dune
Navigators of Dune
Mentats of Dune
Sisterhood of Dune
The Winds of Dune
Paul of Dune
Sandworms of Dune
Hunters of Dune

Topically related YouTube video:

[benji]

Alright but spends way too much time on quoting what just a handful of dudes wrote in letters for no clear reason. And in retrospect I'm not really sure it has a thesis beyond "The Jeffersonians existed."



This was mostly just stuff we all kind of heard just being Twitter adjacent after Elon gets involved. Two things that come to mind were that Elon, no matter how much the Twitter veterans tried to dissuade him, was incredibly focused on how accounts with millions of followers use or saw Twitter and struggled to believe Twitter that most people do not in fact see it that way. This explains his bot obsession to me, because it seems he would scroll his replies not realizing that even large accounts that were nowhere near millions of followers never had bots flooding their replies before. (Well, until Elon fixed things.) He did because he was one of the biggest and most active accounts on the site. Also Elon did not himself just move into Twitter and take over, he brought a whole team of cronies who did not gave a shit and even moved in people and his own son to live in Twitter's vacant left over office spaces. (This was before the firings, Twitter had rented tons of office space for more planned expansions in employees they could not afford.) I got the impression that these yes-men may have been behind some of the larger problems because they existed to push Elon's decisions and part of this included making sure that the Twitter veterans could not change Elon's mind on certain things they already knew about. I'd have to read one of these Tesla books to develop my theory but it seemed to me they may exist as a protective layer but functions purely as never questioning Elon. This would also explain why Elon's rate of reversing decisions has picked up once this protective layer returned to Elon's other companies.

As someone closer to Jack's position on free speech versus Elon's the disappointment wasn't surprising to me because I could tell it in what Elon was saying but I think there's actually a more fundamental difference in how they viewed the platform beyond just the free speech aspect. Jack viewed Twitter as something you check maybe a few times a day unless something is happening and then you keep up and hop into the conversation. Elon basically sees it as a group chat but with the entire world that will become his friends. This to me also explains Jack's departure from BlueSky, it's been taken over by people more like Elon, the original Blue Check crowd. While Twitter is big enough to survive with both populations using it in two different ways. (This also means that the problem that threatened Twitter before it sold was that nobody recognized it was actually serving multiple different populations, Facebook is the wrong model because it mostly serves one unified audience. That's why Meta has other platforms.)

edit: Actually one other thing: Elon was (possibly drug-induced) buying so much Twitter stock off the market before it was ever announced or known I'm surprised word never leaked that somebody was buying Twitter stock en masse during that period. Elon suddenly owning 9% was like this huge shock that he had bought so much, but he was buying HUGE amounts every single day for weeks. None of the Twitter watching tech/social media/etc. journalists ever noticed*! Twitter had already had one attempt at a hostile takeover just a few years prior, this is part of why Jack reached out to Elon, they needed a big backer who loved Twitter to block any future activist investors who attempted it again. But Jack didn't tell Twitter he had engaged Elon, so they might not have known to ask if he knew who was doing it! (Elon also convinced Jack not to sell his Twitter stock to Elon, so he's some percentage of the private ownership.)

*and few others because Elon wasn't legally reporting it as required since it seems to be very impulsive how much he was buying, this is known at all because of the lawsuit after he tried to back out of the purchase.  



A fine enough sports book, it's mostly just the history and not too detailed at that. Like a chapter a season maybe. Funniest part to me is a Bill Walton quote from the 1970's where he voices the thing we all saw on Twitter recently where he says it'd be totally okay if a Black man just randomly murdered him because whites have been bad to Blacks before. The more things change...

[Potato]

Just finished Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb.



Damn.

No option but to go straight to Assassin's Quest.

[benji]

It's basically just a bunch of Grantland type columns. Which is fine! He's smarter than Bill Simmons at least.



This arguably should have been a bit more specifically focused. Many of the critical reviews are right, it falls apart after the 1970's and just rushes through mentioning all kinds of stuff to get up to date. But I really enjoyed the earlier chapters about the far earlier history and transition into standup. So it should have been two books, one with that and then one that could have given the 1980's forward the kind of attention it deserves. There's a lot of situations where he'll mention people who you know become famous later like George Carlin or Rodney Dangerfield but you never get any part where they're famous because he's rushing through some other thing. Because of the early radio and television stuff he covers I was looking forward to that time in the 1980's/1990's where every sitcom on TV was like "give this standup guy a show, who gives a shit if he can act or anybody can write anything" but it's not mentioned. Not even Seinfeld is mentioned to show you just how it really rushes through those years. But I still liked it anyway.



The second book after the first one from Kent stops just after the N64 comes out, this one gets through the 360/PS3/Wii era. This is fine, I didn't really learn too much I hadn't learned in my other reading but it's generally okay if it a bit overly focused on Microsoft launching the two Xboxes because those are the only people who would talk to him. The very last chapter is somewhat randomly about movies based on games with a heavy focus on Uwe Boll. And one of the last chapters is "the games that defined a generation" but rushes through a handful like Call of Duty and Guitar Hero that get barely article length coverage. But the worst part is there are so so many errors. Despite the fact that he claims three game expert proofreaders, one of whom is "meticulous" and "detail-oriented" but missed all kinds of wrong years. I'm more forgiving of the technical errors (claiming the PS1 looks sharper because it does more polygons than N64 or that PS3 was "much more" powerful than the 360) but some of the other errors are pretty unforgivable. Like claiming the first Soul Calibur had multiple PS2 versions. (From the context I'm pretty sure he actually means to be talking about Dead or Alive 2 which was on the Dreamcast and had two PS2 releases in Japan.) Or saying that Call of Duty was a yearly massive franchise during the PS2/Xbox era. All kinds of game titles are wrong like Super Mario Bros. Galaxy and Super Mario Kart Wii being big Wii titles. But worst of all is that he claims there was a Titanfall 3 released before Respawn moved onto Star Wars and Apex. For that reason alone I'm petitioning my local school board to ban this book from all school libraries.

[chronovore]

I like Scalzi just about all the time, but I thought I had read all the Old Man's War sequel stuff. Apparently not — I'm reading The Ghost Brigades now, and holy shit it's great. Pretty much makes the lite fare™ he's doing lately feel like he's phoning it in. He's trying more challenging stuff on just about every front: story, characterization, pacing, and description of action. 

I'm enjoying it so much that I'm feeling dumb for enjoying his most recent, Starter Villain, though it was a simple tale based off a quick gimmick — I mean, it's almost like SV was targeted as a pitch for a prestige TV series.

[Potato]

Ghost Brigades is like the second book. How did you skip it?

Great book/series btw.

Never cared for much else he's written though.

[chronovore]

Ghost Brigades is like the second book. How did you skip it?

Great book/series btw.

Never cared for much else he's written though.

I actually am beginning to remember it now, it turns out I have read it before, as I'm remembering how it wraps up. It's still a fun ride. 

Not sure WTF is wrong with my brain though. 

The other Old Man's War series of novellas is probably next up. I had read mayble half of them, out of order — I finally bought the set to completion and will re-read. 

If recent history is any indicator, it will all be a surprise to me. :-/

[HardcoreRetro]

I actually am beginning to remember it now, it turns out I have read it before, as I'm remembering how it wraps up. It's still a fun ride. 

Not sure WTF is wrong with my brain though. 

The other Old Man's War series of novellas is probably next up. I had read mayble half of them, out of order — I finally bought the set to completion and will re-read. 

If recent history is any indicator, it will all be a surprise to me. :-/

Sounds like you're coming up against the real Old Man's War.

Started reading some more Dutch literature.  Een soort Engeland by Robert Anker. Started out with the main character jerking off for like a page and a half. The kind of subtlety I'm used to from the Dutch literature I've read.

[chronovore]

The struggle is real.

I had COVID19 two months ago, and then got tied up with my mom dying, travel to the USA for the arrangements, then came back and caught the flu. I'm not surprised that I'm still discombobulated, and there's a non-zero chance that I have C19 "brain fog," so hopefully it goes away after a few weeks like the first time.

[Snoopy]

Listening to Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone of a nervous disposition as she goes into great detail about all the bad things that might be coming. Rogue states. Nuclear winters. Mass famines. Millions dying slowly. Her nice soothing voice actually makes everything more horrifying. It's the worst ASMR ever.

[NekoFever]

A bit of a random one from the backlog but I finished 11/22/63 by Stephen King this morning, having devoured it in a couple of days, and holy shit I shouldn’t have slept on that one for so long. Probably my favourite King book now. That ending just destroyed me. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

[Potato]

Just finished Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb.

Jesus, what a ride down a dark hole that series was!!

Definitely need to cleanse my palate with something light after that. 

Great series though. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it given that it's so depressing to read, but I did enjoy my time with it.

[chronovore]

The reason I eventually abandoned Robin Hobb is she loves writing to show the reader how things could go right, brings them remarkably close to going well, and then has everything go wrong anyway.

She is a talented writer, beautiful prose, I just didn’t like being edged for 400pp only to have shit become miserable.

[Potato]

Yeah, I have to agree with you there. The more I think about the ending, the more I think she really didn't land it either. I'm interested in maybe checking out a synopsis of where things go after, but I don't think I can deal with 600 pages of misery porn just to be let down with a bad ending and characters making bad decisions.

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

I mean, what the fuck was with Burrich and Molly getting together, Verity and Kettricken having a baby using Fitz's body and Fitz and Starling being casual fuck buddies?

In addition, she built up the Red Ships as being the big bad, and the Elderlings, then the whole war is resolved in an epilogue. 

I get that it's a personal story for Fitz, but fuck me give me some satisfaction after all that misery.