What are you currently reading?

mudcow007

EKE_38BPM

DDD wrote:

DDD, something you want to tell us?

Chuckle chuckle

rjsterry

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies - a history of the less well-known kingdoms and states of Europe.

Norman Davies - he wrote that enormous book "Europe - a history" didn't he?

Yes. This one'e no slim volume either - quite tricky to read in bed without dropping it on my face.

Yeah. First history module at Uni I did was called Europe - from antiquity to modernity, and his book was the backbone for quite a bit of it (though we spent most of our time slagging it off).

Didn't enjoy lugging that up the hills of Sheffield.

This was bought for me by my archaeologist brother. It's very readable for what could be a very dry subject, but the intricacies of medieval hereditary titles are pretty difficult to follow. There are something like 13 different definitions of Burgundy, which each refer to a different state or group of territories. England is pretty unusual in having geographical boundaries that have remained so static for so long.

Bump.

Just spotted this on the Grauniad website. A 'time-lapse' map of Europe showing how state boundaries have evolved. Fascinating stuff (if you're interested in that kind of thing)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/may/17/european-history-time-lapse-video

Green Brompton

The Millenium Trilogy just arrived from Amazon on my desk today :-). Watched the GwtDT on film and thought it was pretty cool. Novels come with high recommendation.

Holiday reading sorted.

rubertoe

Anyone read any of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series of books, and if so are they as awesome as the TV series (Games of Thrones)?

I'm thinking of investing in them.

Currently reading "Roule Britannia".

Kieran_Burns

rjsterry wrote:

Bump.

Just spotted this on the Grauniad website. A 'time-lapse' map of Europe showing how state boundaries have evolved. Fascinating stuff (if you're interested in that kind of thing)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/may/17/european-history-time-lapse-video

I am. It is. This is the link to the full screen 1080p version:

http://youtu.be/QIdPkDofGFI?hd=1

rick_chasey

Kieran_Burns wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Bump.

Just spotted this on the Grauniad website. A 'time-lapse' map of Europe showing how state boundaries have evolved. Fascinating stuff (if you're interested in that kind of thing)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/may/17/european-history-time-lapse-video

I am. It is. This is the link to the full screen 1080p version:

http://youtu.be/QIdPkDofGFI?hd=1

Slightly overlooks that the concept of a 'nation' or a 'nation state' wasn't really around in the way we understand it till roughly the 17-18th Century, but we'll brush over that .

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

Kieran_Burns wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Bump.

Just spotted this on the Grauniad website. A 'time-lapse' map of Europe showing how state boundaries have evolved. Fascinating stuff (if you're interested in that kind of thing)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/may/17/european-history-time-lapse-video

I am. It is. This is the link to the full screen 1080p version:

http://youtu.be/QIdPkDofGFI?hd=1

Slightly overlooks that the concept of a 'nation' or a 'nation state' wasn't really around in the way we understand it till roughly the 17-18th Century, but we'll brush over that .

A good chunk of that video is post 17th-18th century, and besides, that's not really the issue. in the medieval and post-medieval period (for want of a better description), boundaries were defined by the area over which the local hereditary king/grand duke/count could exert their influence. If you were seen as a soft touch, your neighbour would expand into your territory, or if you were really feeble, annexe the whole lot, with maybe some pseudo-legal-hereditary justification that the land had always belonged to them. So, granted the average Johan, might not have considered himself Burgundian/Swiss/French, but he would still have been aware of to whom he paid his taxes.

SickAsAParrot

rubertoe wrote:

Anyone read any of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series of books, and if so are they as awesome as the TV series (Games of Thrones)?

I'm thinking of investing in them.

Currently reading "Roule Britannia".

I bought the box set and got about 10 chapters through the first one and gave up, there are too many characters too soon, I hate when I have to constantly back-flip to remind me who somebody is and what they did last.

I got a kindle so have several books on the go at once, half way through The Coldest Winter about the Korean war, also just finished the first Pax Brittania novel which was a bit of fun, and Max Hastings' Das Reich, which wasn't (the chapter about the Oradour massacre was singularly horrifying)

Kieran_Burns

SickAsAParrot wrote:

rubertoe wrote:

Anyone read any of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series of books, and if so are they as awesome as the TV series (Games of Thrones)?

I'm thinking of investing in them.

Currently reading "Roule Britannia".

I bought the box set and got about 10 chapters through the first one and gave up, there are too many characters too soon, I hate when I have to constantly back-flip to remind me who somebody is and what they did last.

It gets worse the further in you go - and frankly, they get a little depressing... the story takes for EVER to develop and you want things to happen just to add some spice.

They are pretty well written but there are much better books out there.

rick_chasey

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Kieran_Burns wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Bump.

Just spotted this on the Grauniad website. A 'time-lapse' map of Europe showing how state boundaries have evolved. Fascinating stuff (if you're interested in that kind of thing)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/may/17/european-history-time-lapse-video

I am. It is. This is the link to the full screen 1080p version:

http://youtu.be/QIdPkDofGFI?hd=1

Slightly overlooks that the concept of a 'nation' or a 'nation state' wasn't really around in the way we understand it till roughly the 17-18th Century, but we'll brush over that .

A good chunk of that video is post 17th-18th century, and besides, that's not really the issue. in the medieval and post-medieval period (for want of a better description), boundaries were defined by the area over which the local hereditary king/grand duke/count could exert their influence. If you were seen as a soft touch, your neighbour would expand into your territory, or if you were really feeble, annexe the whole lot, with maybe some pseudo-legal-hereditary justification that the land had always belonged to them. So, granted the average Johan, might not have considered himself Burgundian/Swiss/French, but he would still have been aware of to whom he paid his taxes.

Meh, I disagree but I CBA to get into it. Suffice to say a lot of those maps would have meant nothing to anyone at the time...!

DonDaddyD

Dawn of the Jedi

Awesome concept.

Jay dubbleU

Richard Fortey - 'Life - an unauthorised biography'

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

Meh, I disagree but I CBA to get into it. Suffice to say a lot of those maps would have meant nothing to anyone at the time...!

You're no fun TBF, those maps would mean nothing to a fair few modern Europeans.

rick_chasey

Yeah, I'm no fun

The map thing is a bit teleological. The idea and concept of land and space was different then, so those maps are just a modern projection/interpretation of what was happening - so they are useful to a 'modern' understanding of the past, conceptualising their existance into our own discourse, but they're not actually accurate in their own right.

As an aside, I'm currently reading Morgen, Pamplona! by Jan van Mersbergen. ( I believe there is also an English translation readily available called Tomorrow, Pamplona!)

I'm enjoying it - it's very Dutch - but for some reason there is no punctuation for speech, so you need to be paying attention.

EKE_38BPM

Rick Chasey wrote:

...for some reason there is no punctuation for speech, so you need to be paying attention.

I hate it when books do that. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is similar and has awful grammar all the way through. I assume it was done deliberately to convey the breakdown of society.

BelgianBeerGeek

byke68 wrote:

Been trying to get through WAR AND PEACE for the last umpteen years. I can read, just never get the chance to although I did manage to flick through a few pages of Chicken Cycle-fit brochure earlier.

Stick with it as it is actually very good. As with most (if not all) Russian literature there is a moral to the story, but the story itself is very well told. As also mentioned, the names can be difficult as they use patronymics, diminutives and nicknames a lot.
Currently re-reading August 1914 by Solzhenitsyn, his take on Russia's war with Germany. Ace book.

CrackFox

The Man Who Quit Money, by Mark Sundeen.

msmancunia

Bike Snob, by Eben Weiss

A bit American, but pretty good, and something you can dip in and out of.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bike-Snob-Systematically-Mercilessly-Realigning/dp/1742700020

rolf_f

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

Didn't realise that much of it was going to be about bicycles! It's good fun!

“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles...when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.”

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

Yeah, I'm no fun

The map thing is a bit teleological. The idea and concept of land and space was different then, so those maps are just a modern projection/interpretation of what was happening - so they are useful to a 'modern' understanding of the past, conceptualising their existance into our own discourse, but they're not actually accurate in their own right.

As an aside, I'm currently reading Morgen, Pamplona! by Jan van Mersbergen. ( I believe there is also an English translation readily available called Tomorrow, Pamplona!)

I'm enjoying it - it's very Dutch - but for some reason there is no punctuation for speech, so you need to be paying attention.

Well maps are always selective in the information they show or distorted in some way to make the point the author wants.

Not read it yet, but I want to get my hands on a copy of this.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mapping-London-Making-Sense-City/dp/1906155070

EKE_38BPM

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Yeah, I'm no fun

The map thing is a bit teleological. The idea and concept of land and space was different then, so those maps are just a modern projection/interpretation of what was happening - so they are useful to a 'modern' understanding of the past, conceptualising their existance into our own discourse, but they're not actually accurate in their own right.

As an aside, I'm currently reading Morgen, Pamplona! by Jan van Mersbergen. ( I believe there is also an English translation readily available called Tomorrow, Pamplona!)

I'm enjoying it - it's very Dutch - but for some reason there is no punctuation for speech, so you need to be paying attention.

Well maps are always selective in the information they show or distorted in some way to make the point the author wants.

Not read it yet, but I want to get my hands on a copy of this.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mapping-London-Making-Sense-City/dp/1906155070

Was there a TV programme about this a while back? Whether or not, I watched a good programme about old mapping.

rick_chasey

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Yeah, I'm no fun

The map thing is a bit teleological. The idea and concept of land and space was different then, so those maps are just a modern projection/interpretation of what was happening - so they are useful to a 'modern' understanding of the past, conceptualising their existance into our own discourse, but they're not actually accurate in their own right.

As an aside, I'm currently reading Morgen, Pamplona! by Jan van Mersbergen. ( I believe there is also an English translation readily available called Tomorrow, Pamplona!)

I'm enjoying it - it's very Dutch - but for some reason there is no punctuation for speech, so you need to be paying attention.

Well maps are always selective in the information they show or distorted in some way to make the point the author wants.

Not read it yet, but I want to get my hands on a copy of this.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mapping-London-Making-Sense-City/dp/1906155070

Love maps. My favourite are the early colonial maps - where they've made half of it up, but not so much it's basically fantasy. SO revealing.

rolf_f

Green Brompton wrote:

The Millenium Trilogy just arrived from Amazon on my desk today :-). Watched the GwtDT on film and thought it was pretty cool. Novels come with high recommendation.

Read the first, have the third, waiting for a charity shop to provide the second! GwtDT is kind of like Dan Brown for people who like books. Not brilliant but whiles away the hours satisfactorily.

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Yeah, I'm no fun

The map thing is a bit teleological. The idea and concept of land and space was different then, so those maps are just a modern projection/interpretation of what was happening - so they are useful to a 'modern' understanding of the past, conceptualising their existance into our own discourse, but they're not actually accurate in their own right.

As an aside, I'm currently reading Morgen, Pamplona! by Jan van Mersbergen. ( I believe there is also an English translation readily available called Tomorrow, Pamplona!)

I'm enjoying it - it's very Dutch - but for some reason there is no punctuation for speech, so you need to be paying attention.

Well maps are always selective in the information they show or distorted in some way to make the point the author wants.

Not read it yet, but I want to get my hands on a copy of this.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mapping-London-Making-Sense-City/dp/1906155070

Love maps. My favourite are the early colonial maps - where they've made half of it up, but not so much it's basically fantasy. SO revealing.

There is an Elizabethan globe that is, um, well these days it would probably start some kind of diplomatic incident due to the liberties it takes.

rick_chasey

You should see some of the stuff that's written by 'explorers' in South America.

three eyed men twice the size, etc etc.

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

You should see some of the stuff that's written by 'explorers' in South America.

three eyed men twice the size, etc etc.

Comme ci?

rick_chasey

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

You should see some of the stuff that's written by 'explorers' in South America.

three eyed men twice the size, etc etc.

Comme ci?

Pretty much.

Yet only 30-50 years later, accounts of anthropophagy were written (which inevitably end up with the explorer being an all round hero, saving everyone) and are still taken as fact today...! :roll:

Kieran_Burns

Rick Chasey wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

You should see some of the stuff that's written by 'explorers' in South America.

three eyed men twice the size, etc etc.

Comme ci?

Pretty much.

Yet only 30-50 years later, accounts of anthropophagy were written (which inevitably end up with the explorer being an all round hero, saving everyone) and are still taken as fact today...! :roll:

Wizard's First Rule (which also happens to be the book I'm reading at the moment!!)

To save people looking it up:

"Wizard's First Rule: people are stupid." Richard and Kahlan frowned even more. "People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."

byke68

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

byke68 wrote:

Been trying to get through WAR AND PEACE for the last umpteen years. I can read, just never get the chance to although I did manage to flick through a few pages of Chicken Cycle-fit brochure earlier.

Stick with it as it is actually very good. As with most (if not all) Russian literature there is a moral to the story, but the story itself is very well told. As also mentioned, the names can be difficult as they use patronymics, diminutives and nicknames a lot.
Currently re-reading August 1914 by Solzhenitsyn, his take on Russia's war with Germany. Ace book.

Slowly getting there!