I just finished My Lobotomy by Howard Dully. When he was 12, he was given a lobotomy for no reason other than that his step-mother hated him and convinced the doctor that he was crazy and out of control, which wasn’t true. Very interesting, but sad.
Not sure what I’m going to read next; I have a shelf full of library books to choose from!
I’ve started Emma, by Jane Austin. I love her work and read Pride and Prejudice at least once a year, but for whatever reason, I’ve never read this one. I’m not far enough in to have a very strong opinion of it yet.
I’m also listening to The Ruins, by Scott Smith, on the train. It’s my first book-on-cd and I don’t think I enjoy “reading” books this way. It’s harder for me to focus on the story. The narrator isn’t bad, but he’s not particularly gifted either. Am I just not getting this? Is there an exceptional recorded book I should check out?
I like the story so far, but I’m still waiting for it to get scary.
I just finished King Leopold’s Ghost, which was a fascinating book, although it never really gets into the why a lot of Unpleasant Things™ happened in the Congo, other than “Rubber” and “Because”.
It does, however, put Heart of Darkness into slightly more context for me. Still hated the book, but I have a better idea of the background Conrad was writing against now.
King Leopold’s Ghost, however, is well worth reading, especially since the Congo’s history under Leopold is a subject not especially well known for the most part.
When you’re done, (re)watch Clueless for the fun modern interpretation.
Heh, I thought it explained it rather well: Leopold wanted lots of money, fast, and seriously did not care how he acquired it; he was also very adept in media manipulation.
Give this guy control over a very large and very remote territory rich in labour-intensive natural resources, let him hire mercenaries, give them orders to being back valuable stuff without paying for it, have him control the media accounts of what he was up to - and you get the Congo.
Reading Dough by Mort Zachter, the story of an accountant who learns that his “impoverished” Brooklyn bachelor uncles really were multimillionaires, while they ran a discount bakery in which his mother worked for no pay and the author slept in the dining room of the family’s cramped, leaky apartment.
Oh, too bad! My book club and I loved it. A movie of it will be coming out soon… Christmas, I think. What frustrated you about it?
I got all that (and thought it was a fascinating study in megalomania and spin), but it was never explained why ammunition was being rationed to the point where hands had to be bought back to account for spent cartridges, for example.
That and after a while you start to find yourself getting numbed by the figures: 10,000,000 people killed (at best guess), for… the stuff we make tyres out of. The political manoeuvring at the time on both sides is fascinating in itself, and it was also worth reading to see where a lot of the modern Human Rights movements got their ideological start.
I’m currently on the last book in Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan series. At the same time, I’m reading Pratchett and Gaiman’s Good Omens, which is hilariously funny, if only I can finish it. I started in during jury duty two weeks ago and I haven’t gotten back to it. The same thing happened three years ago with The Time Traveler’s Wife. I got most of the way through the book during a week-long trial, but for some reason never actually finished the damn book. It’s been collecting dust under my computer desk. 
I’m reading The Last Argument of Kings, the third book in the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. Abercrombie’s writing has improved with each book. Not that the first one was “bad”, but the second one was better and the third is better yet.
Currently I have by my bedside **Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology ** from Library of America, which I’ve put down in favor of The Prisoner: Shattered Visage by Mark Askwith and Dean Motter. Shattered Visage is a graphic novel form 'sequel to the British TV series. The graphic novel is proving dissapointing so far, especially because the TV show is one of my all time favorites.
My streetcar reading is The Once and Future King by Terence Hanbury White, which I am liking very much, to my surprise. I’ve seen the book referenced so many times, that I thought it must be this heavy, ponderous philosophical meditation on the nature of power. Turns out, it’s funny! At least the first book about the education and childhood of the Wart (to be King Arthur) is very sweet and humorous. I’m about two-thirds through the book.
Just finished *Small Favor *by Jim Butcher, which was the 10th book in his Dresden Files series. Great recreational reading, interesting storyline, and he’s very clever with some of the applications of magic the character does.
Note: I’m not a fantasy/magic type reader at all. It’s not my bag. However, my uncle gave the first book to me for my birthday, and I couldn’t put it down. I went out and immediately bought the remaining books in the series. If you read one, have time to read them all, because you’ll want to. I think the major appeal is that it’s not a standard take on fantasy writing. It’s Harry Potter for adults.
Just started book two of his Codex of Alera series, Academ’s Fury. So far it’s good, but nowhere near the quality of the Dresden books. But that just might be my fantasy predjudice showing.
My recollection was that it was purely a function of cost. Cartridges cost money - each had to be imported at (comparatively) vast expense - and that cost went into the “expense” side of Leopold’s Big Ledger™. Expenses were bad.
The mercenaries liked to shoot big game and the like for fun which raised expenses - thus, they were forced to account for every cartridge with a human hand, to prove they “spent” it “properly” on serious business, or pay for the cartridge out of their own pockets. Indeed, this lead them to hacking off a few extra hands, so that they could go on safari - sometimes without bothering to kill their unfortunate victims first.
Truly banality-of-evil stuff. It wasn’t that the people running the system particularly disliked the people they were destroying, like the Nazis - they just wanted to make money, and literally could not care less how much carnage resulted.
I’ve been looking at that series and wondering if it was worth reading. Would you recommend it?
Interesting. Although I enjoy both series, I think that the Fury series is the better written of the two and enjoy it more. But then, that is part of what these threads are about - to see different opinions.
Best book I’ve read this month - Ben Goldacre, Bad Science, a reasonable and only mildly tetchy read about the mistakes and frauds perpetrated in the name of science (and in particular, around recent nutrition ‘experts’, MMR, MRSA and the like). Goldacre’s a doctor with a regular newspaper column exposing ludicrous scientific claims, poorly-conducted experiments and meaningless studies.
Oh yes. The story takes awhile to get going though, so if you like lots of action early in the story, it’ll be a disappointment. It wasn’t until near the end of the first book that I even had an idea of where the story was going. Abercrombie reveals things gradually. He could have stepped it up a bit, but going slowly helped me get attached to the characters.
Dave up on Freakonomics, and also The Post-American World. Still chewing on SuperDove and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. But in truth doing justice to the New York Times each day eats up a lot of time.
The King’s Captain by Dewey Lambdin. He’s no Patrick O’Brien, but I seem to keep reading this series, so I must like it well enough.
I read and liked his first one, when he was still listed in the Memphis phone book.
I thought we were going to have a sea going Flashman. I skipped several of them when I quit working at the library, and tired one recently. I believe they were doing some secret agent stuff in New Orleans. I gave up. Perhaps I should start over.