What was the last book you read?

[mamacags]

Faye Kellerman Blindman's Bluff.  I LOVE Faye Kellerman!

[Wayne]

 Just finished I Alex Cross Patterson  and started Kings new thousand plus pages  Under the Tower.  Oh boy!

[SVPete]

Just finished Liberty and Tyranny. Before that, I read Dracula, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Canterbury Tales. I just started The Grapes of Wrath, which I've never read before, involuntarily or voluntarily. What a freaking luddite Steinbeck is in the intro set-up! My Dad was a farmer, who used tractors and such. He cared for his land as much as any mule- or horse-driving farmer. And his machinery and such also made his land vastly more productive (that's why it used to be called, "Progress"). I'm going to try to get through Grapes, if only to get a better picture of the lib/prog mindset.

[Ladywinter]

Since I am a Beck fan - I just finished The Christmas Sweater.  Also reading (or finishing up) The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes.   I recommend both books.

[SVPete]

Concur with your recommendation of The Forgotten Man, which I read earlier this year. Also read Liberal Fascism earlier this year, which I highly recommend.

[debk]

Finished Vince Flynn's Pursuit of Honor tonight.

I highly recommend it....just make sure to read Extreme Measures first.

It isn't necessary to read EM first...just make P of H more exciting....

[Duke Nukum]

The last book I finished was Under the Dome by Stephen King, at his most long winded and mean spirited, still it was a real page turner.

I'm currently in the middle of Going Rogue by Sarah Palin.

[Aaron Burr]

Dear SVPete,

I loves me some Steinbeck. So I'm curious, and please forgive the question, but how does the Grapes of Wrath provide insight into the Lib mindset? I only ask because I happen to be somewhat familiar with some of Mr. Steinbecks works. I'd recommend East of Eden over Grapes anyday. Eden has it all. Guns, Injuns, whiskey, whores, murder, the first World War and horses. Oh, and dope and money. It may or may not have a whole hell of a lot to do with farming. But it's got a great Chinaman' in it and a pretty cool recipe for winter melon soup too so I say check that one out instead.

Oh, and I'm reading an epic bio about Andy Jackson written in the thirties by Marquis James right now. (No, I have no idea if he's french and/or gay. If he was, it's no big deal because now he's humpin' poodles in Heaven.)

Anyway, before that I read W.F.B. a remembrance. By Buckley Jr and his sister. It's about W.F.B. Sr. Who, as it turns out, kicked even more ass than Bill Buckley Jr. Seriously, the man practiced law in Mesico' because he grew up speaking Spanish on the Texican border. He funded, schemed, plotted and survived his way through 4 Mesiken' revolutions before being booted out of the country on a technicality. All because the man wanted to make an honest buck drilling for oil. After ripping on Woodrow Wilson for fuggin' up Mesico' in 1919...at a Congressional hearing (so it's all on record), he then went to Venezuela to drill and encountered the same ol' same ol' so he decided to have 10 kids and 31 grandkids before taking the proverbial dirt nap in 58'. Hell of a man.

Steinbeck would have loved him.

[mamacags]

The last book I finished was Under the Dome by Stephen King, at his most long winded and mean spirited, still it was a real page turner.

I'm currently in the middle of Going Rogue by Sarah Palin.

I was going to attemp to read Under The Dome even though Mr. King has a brutal case of BDS.  I wish he would STFU and just write a dang story.

[SVPete]

So I'm curious, and please forgive the question, but how does the Grapes of Wrath provide insight into the Lib mindset?

Up till a week or two, I would have done a bit of guilt-by-association, pointing out the affinity academia seems to have for Steinbeck (among others), academia being generally liberal, in the liberal arts anyway (I realize that "liberal arts" does not refer to modern political liberalism). After reading about 1/8 of the book, I'd point to things like Steinbeck's seeming dislike of the idea of property ownership, dislike of (using the term anachronistically) Evangelical Christianity generally and Pentecostalism particulary, usage of ridiculous stereotypes thereof, hostility toward modern farming and portraying the displaced share-croppers as static, helpless victims.

I'm not saying that Steinbeck or Grapes is terrible or inferior. Frankly, I thought the opening chapters brilliant prose, albeit bordering on overdrawn for my taste.

[Duke Nukum]

I was going to attemp to read Under The Dome even though Mr. King has a brutal case of BDS.  I wish he would STFU and just write a dang story.

In a way, he shoots his arguments in the foot by the way he depicts his hero but I have to be vague as I don't want to spoil.

[Aaron Burr]

Hmmm. I can see how Grapes might be seen as a Capitalist whackin' book. But academia hates Steinbeck. They have since he supported U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In fact, they've spent the last 40 years ripping ol' John a new one and trying to show his inadequacies as a writer to new generations of readers. Steinbeck wrote Grapes in pretty universal terms. It wasn't meant to rip on Unca' Sam, but he spent the rest of his life trying to distance himself from that accusation. But he's always been accused of being pretty heavy handed with ethnic stereotypes. In his defense, he claims he knew people like "Danny" the hero from Tortilla Flat, or the Italian fishermen in Cortez. I may have to re-read Grapes just to see how he handles the Oakies. If I remember right, they're poor.

Anyway, I hope you finish the book and enjoy it....although I can't see how...it's pretty fuggin' depressing. I'd go with the aforementioned Eden and Tortilla Flat. Everyone's already read Cannery Row and the Log from the Sea of Cortez.

[SVPete]

Hmmmmm ... I will gladly rethink Steinbeck. The only book I've read of his, to date, is The Pearl, involuntarily in high school. I mainly remember the hyper-analysis of symbolism that left me disliking much of what I read for the class that year. Glancing really briefly at his Wikipedia bio, I see he traveled in the post-WW2 USSR; I wonder if he perceived much more than he wrote.

19th Century Brit Lit has been more to my taste - Dickens, Thackeray, Austen, the Bronte sisters - voluntarily, not for school. Some of H. G. Wells's books are pretty good (though In the Days of the Comet is a truly dumb paean to a Socialism that could never be, in the form of a "history" of how things got that way). Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is really good. A. I. Solzhenitsyn's work - fiction and non-fiction - is really good. His Gulag Archipelago is, putting it minimally, an eye-opener; Chang and Halliday's recent Mao: The Unknown Story is as much or more so.

[Oceander]

HTTP:  The Definitive Guide

(yeah, I'm kinda nutso that way)

[rustybayonet]

Just finished "In Harm's Way", by Doug Stanton ---- It's not about the movie of the same name starring John Wayne.  It's a historical story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in shark invested waters near the end of WWII.  The Indianapolis had just delivered the atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima, then the Indy sailed toward Leyte to prepare for the invasion of Japan, when a Japanese submarine sunk her.  The late Stephen Ambrose, IMO, one of the best authorities of WWII history said about this book --- "The most frightening book I've ever read".

[Wayne]

Just finished "In Harm's Way", by Doug Stanton 0---- It's not about the movie of the same name starring John Wayne.  It's a historical story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in shark invested waters near the end of WWII.  The Indianapolis had just delivered the atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima, then the Indy sailed toward Leyte to prepare for the invasion of Japan, when a Japanese submarine sunk her.  The late Stephen Ambrose, IMO, one of the best authorities of WWII history said about this book --- "The most frightening book I've ever read".

  Ive read similar accounts of the Indy many years ago and it scared me to death to think of dying that way.  I'll have to try and find that book. Thanks for the info.

[rustybayonet]

Finished another book last night - "Darker Than Night", by Tom Henderson

This one kept me glued, because it was the true account of gruesome murders that took place in the north woods of Michigan.  When I lived in Michigan, we had a cabin right in the middle of the area; I have hunted, fished, vacationed there since the folks built the cabin in the late 1950's.  I knew one of the persons that was interviewed and later testified in court.  Time frame of book starts Nov. 1985, I moved from Michigan to Florida in July 1985, keeping the cabin until 1994 after my parents had died, but as recently as last summer, we still visit friends up there. 
A quick book review; two deer hunters are killed, their bodies, vehicle, and possessions are never found, and even though everyone in the area is sure who killed them, because of cover-ups, it can't be proven for 18 years.

[vesta111]

Is it good? I have read all of them so far, but I did find T is for Trespass hard going.

I reading 2666 by Roberto Bolano. It's hard to describe, but great so far.

I missed the U book but was given T is for Trespass and could not put it down for long.

The one thing about these ABC books is the fact there is always one or two characters that remind me of someone I know or have known about. 

[SOFTBALL#4GRAMA]

The last book I finished was Under the Dome by Stephen King, at his most long winded and mean spirited, still it was a real page turner.

I'm currently in the middle of Going Rogue by Sarah Palin.

Good morning....I was just curious as to your review of Going Rogue...I got it for Christmas and just now have gotten into her first few weeks of being Gov. I loved the first part of the book leading up to this, but now, am becoming quite bored, probably because I don't understand all of the political jargon....

[SVPete]

I can see how Grapes might be seen as a Capitalist whackin' book.

I came across this at the end of chapter 14 of Grapes[/i]:

If you who own the things that people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we."

That's a pretty healthy whack. To be fair, Grapes was published in 1939, and was probably in the process of writing and editing in 1937 or 1938. So Steinbeck probably had no idea of Stalin's 1937-1938 purges, and Stalin's late-20s--early-30s terror famine and de-kulakization were being white-washed by Pulitzer-winning shill-reports from Walter Duranty in the NYT. Steinbeck actually visited the USSR a decade later, and he may have come away with a better understanding of the Lenin-Stalin monster.

[Aaron Burr]

Yes indeed. A lot of folks back then were snookered by the lefties, just like today. In fact, 20 years after Grapes came out, a lot of intellectuals and pseudo intellectuals were raked over the coals during the House Un American Activities circus for expressing sentiments like those of Tom Joad.  Hind sight is always 20/20, and the road to Hell is always paved with good intentions.

But Steinbeck was definitely writing from the perspective of the little guy. The people who are too busy working for a living to either understand or care about the tortuous and arcane intricacies of international banking. It's an eloquent plea for humanity though. An incredibly naive and materialistic plea, but his hearts in the right place.

Chapter 14 in East of Eden diverges from the narrative for a remembrance from Steinbeck about his mother, Olive Hamilton.  "None of the Hamilton daughters “were destined to become work-destroyed farm girls.”  Olive chose to be a teacher, one of the most respected professions a young woman could have in her day.

So by the time Steinbeck churns out Eden, his perspective on the dignity of farm labor has changed somewhat.

All I'm saying is that Grapes is an O.K. book, but shouldn't be read too critically. Here, here's a cartoon I did years ago that pretty much sums it up.

[SVPete]

Novels are like social and intellectual mileposts, both in the life of an author and of their society. Grapes is where Steinbeck and much of America's intellectual classes were at in 1939. A decade or two later, many had to be either deeply horrified or deeply in denial about what they supported in the USSR.

As you say, Steinbeck has a materialistic outlook. He also has curious, to me contradictory, attitudes: history and evolutionary change produce progress, what is right; mechanical progress and social change are wrong, and people are/should remain wedded to their agrarian ways of life. For me, working in Silicon Valley, such a static approach to my career is just impossible. I've had to partially re-educate myself and alter career directions multiple times since coming here nearly 31 years ago. I'm not complaining, just showing how my social reality is rather different from what Steinbeck portrays in Grapes. I've been around (and been) theologically conservative Christians my entire life, ranging from Lutherans to Baptists to charismatics (similar to Pentecostals). With that perspective, Steinbeck's portrayal of religious attitudes is a weirdly unreal mish-mosh of less-than-well-informed half-baked stereotypes. E.G. "Jehovists"? The Watchtower Society adopted the name "Jehovah's witnesses" in 1931. "Jehovists" would not have been a realistic name for the group; more realistic would have been "Bible Students," the name the Society had used for over 40 years. If I were speaking of a fantasy novel such as one of H. G. Wells's, considering such things would be silly. But Grapes purports to be a historical novel, concerned with real events: the Dust Bowl, created by poor farming techniques and (real) climate change; the consequent migration of people from the southern Great Plains to California. Oopses like "Jehovists" distract from appreciation of his work (kind of like a part of a History Channel bio of Churchill purporting to show RN battleships in the WW1 Dardanelles campaign; the distracting problem was that the ships shown had a unique design feature, and could only have been American or Argentine).

[The Village Idiot]

You want BDS?? You really want BDS?

Look what I found for $1... my morbid curiosity got the best of me...

Richard A Clarke's "The Scorpions Gate".

The evil US  Secretary of Defense is trying to invade Saudi Arabia at the behest of the Al Saud family to reinstall them into power. To do this the US will have to invade that peaceful and democratic new country, so we can get their oil instead of China. Meanwhile Iran is a real problem being ignored. Bush is slandered and the whole US government seems on the take except for some spies and admirals and reporters (all good liberals of course) who are the heroes of the story as well as former-Saudi rebels who now run that country. The SecDef is in league with Iran, China and the dethroned Saudi "Royal" family. Iraq kicked the US out and is now an Iranian puppet state.

The story is totally stupid of course. The man seems to know barely anything about the military and military equipment.

One of the worst books ever written I would say.

[The Village Idiot]

Just finished this one up last night.

Not quite sure if I'm going to pick up another one immediately, or work some more on mine.  I found out over the holiday that my sister in law is working on a psychological thriller, and it would be nice to have a draft to exchange with her when she's done so we can proofread each other's work.

you and your sister could visit my site once in a while. *sniff* its so lonely... heh

[vesta111]

Just finished "In Harm's Way", by Doug Stanton ---- It's not about the movie of the same name starring John Wayne.  It's a historical story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in shark invested waters near the end of WWII.  The Indianapolis had just delivered the atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima, then the Indy sailed toward Leyte to prepare for the invasion of Japan, when a Japanese submarine sunk her.  The late Stephen Ambrose, IMO, one of the best authorities of WWII history said about this book --- "The most frightening book I've ever read".

My Dad had friends that were Bosun's Mates on that ship, often came to visit him.

Worse cussing and hollering was among them about the Captain of that ship.    Everyone had different openions on the Captain, was all this his fault, or were the Japes to blame for a good kill.

You know the Captain endured disgrace for his decisions at the time for the rest of his life.    I hope you now know that years after his death he has been cleared of all charges.

Horrid story, never heard a man mention what it was like in the water.   But these guys had faced the most frightening thing in anyones life. 

Have I read the book----NO---- I have no need to, Daddy's friends told it all as I curled up in a corner and listened to them watched their faces-----All I need to know.