Books - What are you reading?

^The Perfect Golden Circle is such a beautifully written book.

Yeah it's defo his best. One of those books that really hits the spot. The Offing is also excellent.

Just finished Guns, Germs and Steel. Now started The Dawn of Everything.

Struggled to get in to Guns, Germs and Steel, but it looks interesting - do you recommend persevering?!

I thought it was very engaging to read, but there are elements of repetition. The breadth of scholarship us impressive.

There are critiques of the historiography applied by Diamond, (including the Dawn of Everything), but the overall approach of explaining human history primarily through environmental and geographic factors generates brilliant insights, atmo.

I think they are both worthwhile, as long as you are aware of that there is skepticism out there when reading them. Have a look at some posts on reddit's AskAnHistorian for well argued critiques of both books.

yep

The very sparse references to the archaeological record of the Pleistocene era undermine the credibility of the Dawn of Everything.

It is interesting on the intellectual history of the enlightenment though.

I'm really enjoying this at the moment. Very strange and entertaining.

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I'm discovering the problem with reading Remembrance of Things Past is that you start thinking about your own past, which means it's not exactly ideal bedtime reading material, for example.

What’s it about?

There's a lot going on. It's all tied around an area in France during a 3 day period where nobody dies and a guild of gravediggers has a massive banquet (as per the title). It reminds me a bit of some of Mikhail Bulgakov's writing, such as The Master and Margarita.
I'm happy to pass this on when I'm finished if anyone's keen!

I think I would be.

Anybody can recommend a book with songs as good as the English Patient?

If you liked Band of Brothers and The Pacific, you might like one of the books the latter was based on, 'With the Old Breed' by Eugene Sledge. Dismayingly honest. It can be borrowed for free from the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/witholdbreedatpe0000sled_q3m5/page/316/mode/2up

Coming through Slaughter

At a guess? It’s another Ondaatje book

If you liked Pacific, you should read

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer and have a word with yourself

songs

Lord of the rings / Hobbit for sure. Packed with songs lol.

Slide in to my DMs! If you're in east/south east London I can drop it round. If not I'll pop it in the post.

Got that book somewhere; meanwhile Heat 2, I hadn't listened to John Prine in a while.

I've found this immensely moving, profound and challenging.

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Fucking hell! 🤣

I’ve just gotten started on ‘Xi Jinping, the most powerful man in the world’. There’s something about the descriptions of contemporary Chinese life that’s so intensely depressing, but I shall persevere.

Re-read the lord of the rings for the first time since being a kid.

You know what, it’s pretty good, can see why it was popular back in the day.