What's Everyone Reading?
- Thread starter Said1
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Still reading Niall Ferguson's Civilization: The West and the Rest.
Along with a Rex Murphy collection.
BTW, I was enthralled to learn Ferguson was married last year: to Ayaan Hirsi Ali!!!
Now there's a family of extensive IQ!!!
Along with a Rex Murphy collection.
BTW, I was enthralled to learn Ferguson was married last year: to Ayaan Hirsi Ali!!!
Now there's a family of extensive IQ!!!
The Union Jack ~ Imre Kertész
'The Union Jack', a novella by the Hungarian author Imre Kertész...
'The Union Jack', a novella by the Hungarian author Imre Kertész...
Currently re-reading all the Sherlock Holmes stories, which I've always enjoyed, and working through Barbara Tuchman's massive volume, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. It's a good read, though pretty heavy going, its information density is very high. It was a nasty time, the Hundred Years War between the French and English kings, there were two competing Popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon warring with each other and intriguing with the nascent European states for advantage, dynastic squabbles producing slaughter and rapine all over the continent, plagues, disasters, social unrest, usurious taxation to support all the conflicts... That was a time when the church had real secular power too, executed heretics right and left, and meddled devastatingly in politics. Several lessons emerge: religious authority with secular power is a prescription for disaster; the surviving remnants of European royalty and nobility are just the descendents of the most successful thugs and warlords of mediaeval times; knightly chivalry was a fraud, And perhaps a few more: there really was a time when so-called western civilization was a lot worse than it is now, and human arrogance, pride, and foolishness, are constants.
I post on another forum where, evidently, everyone is a long standing fan of HP Lovecraft. In fact, some of my pals there are humongous fans of his works. Therefore, I decided to pursue reading a little more of his work and started:
His personal letters and memoirs.
His personal letters and memoirs.
If you liked Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, you might like Andy Lane's Young Sherlock Holmes Series..
He writes with the permission of the Arthur Conan Doyle family heirs in a similar style;;
This is one book out of a series of three (I think?) I have read...
Summary:
Sherlock Holmes is sent to live with his unknown aunt and uncle in Holmes Manor in Hampshire over his school holidays when his father is unexpectedly sent overseas with the British Army. He cannot go home as his mother is unwell, and cannot go to London as his older brother Mycroft is busy working for the government. Wandering around the estate and the surrounding countryside he soon befriends a boy his own age named Matty Arnatt (who has witnessed an unusual death involving a cloud of death).
After a few days of holidays Sherlock discovers that his brother Mycroft has hired him an unusual American tutor named Amyus Crowe. During their first lesson together Sherlock finds a dead body on the Holmes' estate and witnesses the same death cloud surrounding the body that Matty had previously seen. He detects a yellow powery substance around the body and takes a sample of it.
With Matty's help he tracks down a warehouse which has links to one of the deceased, and almost dies in the warehouse when the villains set it alight. Holmes escapes the building, and determines that he must travel to Guildford and locate an expert in exotic diseases who might help identify the yellow substance. He, therefore, sets out with Matty on his barge to Guildford, and although they are attacked along the way by the villains, they nevertheless make it to his destination and discovers that the yellow substance is bee pollen. On returning home he visits his tutor's home, where he meets Crowe's daughter Virginia.
A few days later Sherlock is lured to a fair, where he is forced to participate in a boxing match, from which he is kidnapped and interrogated by the unseen Baron Maupertuis until he is rescued by Matty, and the pair go to his tutor's home. Knowing that the Baron has left his headquarters, Sherlock, Matty, Crowe and Virgina determine to follow and locate the Baron.
They discover that the Baron is shipping a weapon from a London wharf, and after a series of chases, Sherlock and Virgina are kidnapped to France by the Baron, and further interrogated. The pair escape and meet up with Crowe and Matty and set out to stop the Baron from trying to destroy the British Empire
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: "We Never Make Mistakes" (1963)
We Never Make Mistakes: Two short novels ("An Incident at Krechetovka Station" & "Matryona's House") by Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
We Never Make Mistakes: Two short novels ("An Incident at Krechetovka Station" & "Matryona's House") by Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
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The newspapers online.
This just in.
Some banks are accused of being naughty. Tell me it ain't so, Joe!
This just in.
Some banks are accused of being naughty. Tell me it ain't so, Joe!
This is the third story in the encyclopedic volume I have of Lovecraft's writings. Fascinating stuff!
H.P Lovecraft is one of my favorites...Good pick gopher..
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Just finished reading( put the book down half way through; it was making me sick with all the Sci-Fi B.S) " The Grand Design " By dare I say: Stephen Hawking .. It was more like a science fiction cult novel written by Star trek - Next Generarion writter Leonard Mlodinow.....
A lot of Ionionist drivel ...1 out 5 stars
Too many scientists seem to be Overlooking/Looking Straight through something that is staring them right in the face...( an open ended question )
Too many Mathematicians and Scientists Think they know what GOD is/ would be, without fully knowing Math and Science...
I love science...because I strive to know GOD....( for Whatever iITt. Truly is )
Book was a large disappointment ...
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All due respect to Thee Stephen Hawking; and Leonard Mlodinow.( a "Star Trek: Next Generation" writer.(Love Star Trek..))
-- Separately ..
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Contrary to popular myth, the Belle of Amherst was a bit more worldly and assertive than the shy recluse she is thought to have been. In addition, the author asserts that ED's reclusive nature was caused by epilepsy. That this led to occasionally bizarre behavior such as drowning kittens! Dunno if true but this is very interesting.