Discussion Random Discussion

[Yawkey way]

It isn't his latest; his new book is a study of Gaza. If you're interested in the situation in the middle-east, I would recommend all his work. Finkelstein is an excellent scholar on the subject.

Discussing his latest book here:

Interesting point of view, what else does his book cover.

 

[Dard Ball Get]

Bloody funny video parody of Shapiro and Peterson of which a few of us were discussing a few weeks back

 

[Joffaboy]

What's everyone reading at the moment?

I really need to get back into my reading, it's dropped off in the last couple of years.

I've just started reading Sapiens and it's fascinating stuff.

Anna Karenina atm

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[Joffaboy]

Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany

and

Behemoth: A history of the factory and the making of the modern world.

I try to lighten out the reading with novels but the older I get the more critical I am of fiction, for me there's a real issue in the quality of story vs the quality of writing, can't quite get the two to match.

Listened to a podcast with the author of Blitzed.
Fancy fighting a couple hundred thousand heavily armed Nazi's to the eyeballs on Crystal meth, oops I mean Pervaton.
Jesus Christ.

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[StCicatriz]

pretty funny

 

[Quixote]

So the Nazi's we're being fed methamphetamine? That's scary shit.

 

[Quixote]

Do you have a preference for reading?

I hear you RE quality of story vs quality of writing. For me at the moment, story wins.

Traditionally I'm a fiction guy but getting more into non-fiction. To be honest I feel like everyday life is quite consuming and it takes me ages to get through a single book. It was never like that.

Your question above relate to devices? I've never used a kindle or iPad for redding but would do so if I had one.

 

[Quixote]

Oh you meant reading choices Moral. Yeah just whatever has caught my interests, probably on the coat tails of larger themes occurring in real life.


How about you?

 

[Quixote]

If they were feeding soldiers meth back then, FMD what's happening now.

Actually I know it's fairly bad. The ADF gave my brother an anti-malaria vaccine when they went to Timor that seriously ****ed some of those boys up. Class action on the way. And that was just a vaccine.

I'd imagine some there's some stupid shit happening in the upper levels of modern Western warfare. Be interesting to look into.

 

[gringo2011]

If they were feeding soldiers meth back then, FMD what's happening now.

Actually I know it's fairly bad. The ADF gave my brother an anti-malaria vaccine when they went to Timor that seriously ****** some of those boys up. Class action on the way. And that was just a vaccine.

I'd imagine some there's some stupid shit happening in the upper levels of modern Western warfare. Be interesting to look into.

In the Long Road to the Deep North or what ever that book was called the Japanese were downing meth while they tortured Aussies on the Thai Burma railroad project.

the Americans got pills in Vietnam..

https://www.history.com/news/drug-use-in-vietnam.

 

[Quixote]

In the Long Road to the Deep North or what ever that book was called the Japanese were downing meth while they tortured Aussies on the Thai Burma railroad project.

the Americans got pills in Vietnam..

https://www.history.com/news/drug-use-in-vietnam.

Yeah I started that book, was promising but then I had to give it back or something.

Yeah high as **** in Apocalypse Now, Platoon, etc. plenty of good current Iraq etc stories too. Crazy world.

 

[MUFKilda]

And you MUFCUKStKilda, what drives your reading choices?

I've always been a book worm. For fiction, I love the likes of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Zola, Mann, Proust, Hamsun, Dickens. For the playwrights it has to be Shakespeare, Chekhov, Beckett. It's the 'serious' writers I tend to go for. I'm not really into what is called 'light reading'.

For non-fiction history and philosophy are my favourites, with a bit of politics thrown in. Love reading Bertrand Russell, Montaigne, Isaiah Berlin, the Greek stoics and Chomsky in particular. Soviet history, Nazi Germany and the conflicts in Ireland and the middle east are my main historical interests.

I always buy more books than I can read; kind of finish one and buy two. My backlog is currently at about 200 books

 

[MUFKilda]

Interesting point of view, what else does his book cover.

His book on Gaza covers just that: life in that tiny and very congested place. His book I'm reading just now, Image and Reality, takes a look at many of the controversial episodes in the middle east conflict since Israel was created in 1948, such as the expulsion of the Palestinians, the Six Day War, the occupation and the unsuccessful attempts at finding a solution. It's excellent.

 

[gringo2011]

I've always been a book worm. For fiction, I love the likes of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Zola, Mann, Proust, Hamsun, Dickens. For the playwrights it has to be Shakespeare, Chekov, Beckett. It's the 'serious' writers I tend to go for. I'm not really into what is called 'light reading'.

For non-fiction history and philosophy are my favourites, with a bit of politics thrown in. Love reading Bertrand Russell, Montaigne, Isaiah Berlin, and Chomsky in particular. Soviet history, Nazi Germany and the conflicts in Ireland and the middle east are my main historical interests.

I always buy more books than I can read; kind of finish one and buy two. My backlog is currently at about 200 books

Yeah, I love the classics, one of my french friends hates Zola and Balzac but I love them. I have had big binge periods on Russian literature, I like Solzinhytsyn too and the existentialists were a bit of a favourite when I was trying to look intense for the ladies at art college. Camus is a favourite still but I think I just love writing.

I'll read anything from Kerouac, Bukowski, Hemingway to Satre and Proust. I tend to go all in on an author and read everything I can get, I reread all the Orwell classics a couple of years ago then tracked down every obscure title I could find and read them too, same with Hemingway, got through his entire catalogue in order. Too many good books not enough time.

When we renovated my wife made me cull most of my books because I literally had boxes in the shed and roof. I had so many when they were all in one place and was hard to throw them out even though I'd never reread most of them.

 

[MUFKilda]

Yeah, I love the classics, one of my french friends hates Zola and Balzac but I love them. I have had big binge periods on Russian literature, I like Solzinhytsyn too and the existentialists were a bit of a favourite when I was trying to look intense for the ladies at art college. Camus is a favourite still but I think I just love writing.

I'll read anything from Kerouac, Bukowski, Hemingway to Satre and Proust. I tend to go all in on an author and read everything I can get, I reread all the Orwell classics a couple of years ago then tracked down every obscure title I could find and read them too, same with Hemingway, got through his entire catalogue in order. Too many good books not enough time.

When we renovated my wife made me cull most of my books because I literally had boxes in the shed and roof. I had so many when they were all in one place and was hard to throw them out even though I'd never reread most of them.

I should be shot for omitting Camus. His philosophical essays and his fiction are up there with my favourites. The Plague and The Fall are masterpieces of fiction, and his philosophical writing, such as The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel are great moments in existentialism/absurdism. I can't recommend his work highly enough.

You also mention Orwell, who is another of my favourites, so apologies to him too. 1984 can stand the comparison with any novel I think.

 

[NarklesHelmet]

Yeah, I love the classics, one of my french friends hates Zola and Balzac but I love them. I have had big binge periods on Russian literature, I like Solzinhytsyn too and the existentialists were a bit of a favourite when I was trying to look intense for the ladies at art college. Camus is a favourite still but I think I just love writing.

I'll read anything from Kerouac, Bukowski, Hemingway to Satre and Proust. I tend to go all in on an author and read everything I can get, I reread all the Orwell classics a couple of years ago then tracked down every obscure title I could find and read them too, same with Hemingway, got through his entire catalogue in order. Too many good books not enough time.

When we renovated my wife made me cull most of my books because I literally had boxes in the shed and roof. I had so many when they were all in one place and was hard to throw them out even though I'd never reread most of them.

You sound like me, I read in a similar way: binge on old authors that I have maybe read one book of. Been through all the Russian ones and love them: there's just something about the way they write and the feelings it gives. Love Chekhov: the way he describes/observes people is amazing. Love all Hemingway stuff and Steinbeck.

This summer I am going to read Thomas Hardy books I think. I only remember reading The Mayor of Casterbridge and I think of it often: something about doing something dreadful on a drunken night like selling your wife and it haunting you speaks to my love of exploring the dark side of humanity in what I read.

The only modern writer I order all books from is Irvine Welsh. Loved Trainspotting and have been hooked on anything he wrote ever since.

For trashy holiday reading that I don't have to think about I am a sucker for musician and sports biographies. I found Leigh Matthews biography was a good read and have read loads of soccer ones.... enjoy pretty much all the music ones I read, Ron Wood, Keith Richards, Johnny Cash etc.... they are all relaxing and fun reads. They are great for long flights or days on the beach. Also am partial to true crime/serial killer books. Reading books about Ted Bundy are always fascinating and The House of Horror killers Ted and Rose West.

 

[Moral Decay]

Listened to a podcast with the author of Blitzed.
Fancy fighting a couple hundred thousand heavily armed Nazi's to the eyeballs on Crystal meth, oops I mean Pervaton.
Jesus Christ.

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I'm about 60% of the way through the book, Pervitin (methamphetamine) was legal like alcohol freely available from 1933-1938 and on prescription after that so all of German society was well prepared to use it, when the big dance started in Poland then France it really allowed soldiers to cope with fatigue and keep going, records show some soldiers went for 17 days without stopping, I can only imagine the crash after that period, there were heart attacks and psychosis

The confusion of the French and English, like the building of the reputation of the German fighting men was based on the remarkable consumption of tens of millions of hits, good for a Blitz Krieg but a really bad idea for the Russian invasion, the battles went way too long. It wasn't just the soldiers, officers, drivers, and the leadership, the amount and variety of drugs that Hitler and his whole inner circle were on just beggars imagination. While reading the description of Hitler's addiction it occurred to me that any one who believes in him escaping to Argentina should have a read of this book, I'd be amazed if he could get any where without his prescribing doctor and he was taken prisoner by the Americans.

 

[Moral Decay]

I saw there was a doco on SBS about the drugs in the Nazi party, I meant to watch it. I have seen some stuff mentioned but not the data compiled in one place. Interesting how narcotics are often fed to soldiers.

WW2 records even now are providing new areas of study, people just have to ask the right questions.

In WW1 the soldiers wanted cigarettes, more than food and warm clothing, of course the word assassin comes from hasheesheen or hasheesh eater, addicts controlled by their habit and used as killers. James Brooke Rajah of Sarawak used to get his men to have a big party and sing along the night before particularly dangerous operations, I'm sure there'll be someone that knew what the beserkers used to get them in the mood, and of course the Royal Navy loved a good rum amongst other things.

 

[Moral Decay]

I've always been a book worm. For fiction, I love the likes of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Zola, Mann, Proust, Hamsun, Dickens. For the playwrights it has to be Shakespeare, Chekhov, Beckett. It's the 'serious' writers I tend to go for. I'm not really into what is called 'light reading'.

For non-fiction history and philosophy are my favourites, with a bit of politics thrown in. Love reading Bertrand Russell, Montaigne, Isaiah Berlin, the Greek stoics and Chomsky in particular. Soviet history, Nazi Germany and the conflicts in Ireland and the middle east are my main historical interests.

I always buy more books than I can read; kind of finish one and buy two. My backlog is currently at about 200 books

Man your a Pro, I used to think I was a dilettante now I think I'm a dilettante at being a dilettante, I've read a lot of the stuff your into but that was a long time ago, problem is I've got to be in a certain mind space to be able to read them and I struggle to find that space nowadays. Finding the right frame of mind to read Fenimore Cooper or Akhmatova is beyond me nowadays let alone Chaucer, I think Gorky ruined the Russians for me, prose so ugly I just wanted to punch him in the face.

 

[Moral Decay]

I hear you RE quality of story vs quality of writing. For me at the moment, story wins.

Traditionally I'm a fiction guy but getting more into non-fiction. To be honest I feel like everyday life is quite consuming and it takes me ages to get through a single book. It was never like that.

Your question above relate to devices? I've never used a kindle or iPad for redding but would do so if I had one.

Went through a long period when I was a young'un reading the Russian and the Frenchies, (no one other than me likes Stendhal?) and English Classics, still have a soft spot for Austen, fascinating how social norms come back around, the mores of the me too movement and their expectations of male behaviours could come straight out of her novels.

Nowadays it's Belfast Noir; Adrian McKinty, Caimh McDonnell and Tana French, Mick Herron and the Slow Horses books, GM Ford's Leo Waterman. I got a start with this type of novel through Raymond Chandler, the first three Renko books by Martin Cruz Smith and Len Deighton's Bernard Samson.

Non fiction really is just where mind takes me, and the list is just a bit too long to try writing out easier to say I've been a avid reader for as long as I can remember being able to read.

I've had to buy a Kindle, too many books I have no room for and the cost of them becoming overwhelming. I can recommend the Kindle though

 

[MUFKilda]

Went through a long period when I was a young'un reading the Russian and the Frenchies, (no one other than me likes Stendhal?) and English Classics, still have a soft spot for Austen, fascinating how social norms come back around, the mores of the me too movement and their expectations of male behaviours could come straight out of her novels.

Nowadays it's Belfast Noir; Adrian McKinty, Caimh McDonnell and Tana French, Mick Herron and the Slow Horses books, GM Ford's Leo Waterman. I got a start with this type of novel through Raymond Chandler, the first three Renko books by Martin Cruz Smith and Len Deighton's Bernard Samson.

Non fiction really is just where mind takes me, and the list is just a bit too long to try writing out easier to say I've been a avid reader for as long as I can remember being able to read.

I've had to buy a Kindle, too many books I have no room for and the cost of them becoming overwhelming. I can recommend the Kindle though

I love Stendahl. The Red and the Black a superb exploration of social climbers and is a masterpiece. I've never read any Jane Austen, but I like George Eliot.

 

[Quixote]

Went through a long period when I was a young'un reading the Russian and the Frenchies, (no one other than me likes Stendhal?) and English Classics, still have a soft spot for Austen, fascinating how social norms come back around, the mores of the me too movement and their expectations of male behaviours could come straight out of her novels.

Nowadays it's Belfast Noir; Adrian McKinty, Caimh McDonnell and Tana French, Mick Herron and the Slow Horses books, GM Ford's Leo Waterman. I got a start with this type of novel through Raymond Chandler, the first three Renko books by Martin Cruz Smith and Len Deighton's Bernard Samson.

Non fiction really is just where mind takes me, and the list is just a bit too long to try writing out easier to say I've been a avid reader for as long as I can remember being able to read.

I've had to buy a Kindle, too many books I have no room for and the cost of them becoming overwhelming. I can recommend the Kindle though

This is awesome mate. I need a kindle! I'm going to look up Belfast Noir, I'd never heard of that!

 

[Yawkey way]

Tim Winton, Proulx, Kipling, frank w abagnale, Gore Vidal, terry brooks, James kelnam, bernard evslin, armistead maupin, David eddings, Bruce chatwin, Defoe, homer, hardy, Tolstoy, Hemingway, dickens, Huxley, Waugh, Thoreau, James, Chaucer, richard hough, Hardy, Bronte, Chekhov, f Scott Fitzgerald, d h Lawrence, john Wyndham, earnest Shackleton, George Eliot, Kerouac, Capote, Robert drew, Euripides, Anthony Burgess, henry James, Forster, Thomas de Quincey, Bacon, Balzac, Conrad, Tennessee Williams, Bronte, Steinbeck and the penguin book of new American voices.

What do you make of that lot?. Many authors have multiple books.

Well I just recorded the authors names on the top shelf of the bookcases in my bedroom.

The second shelf would have you more confused, more of the same but at a quick glance plenty of tom Sharpe and Wodehouse added in.

Gringo you made me laugh, that's my place books coming out of cupboard's stacked in boxes in the shed. My wife hates it and yes I had a good clean out after the flood a few years back.

I go through stages and my taste in books and reading material waxes and wains but from a young age i loved science fiction and fantasy, I still do.

My next door neighbour is an emeritus professor who has written several books on science fiction always good for an interesting chat.

Absolutely love Steinbeck, cannery row is a personal favorite.

I hate e book readers, iPads etc I have them but me give me a book every time.

 

[Yawkey way]

His book on Gaza covers just that: life in that tiny and very congested place. His book I'm reading just now, Image and Reality, takes a look at many of the controversial episodes in the middle east conflict since Israel was created in 1948, such as the expulsion of the Palestinians, the Six Day War, the occupation and the unsuccessful attempts at finding a solution. It's excellent.

Fascinating subject with so many different layers, periods and points of view.

Gringo and I live in a very Jewish part of melbourne, I'd say with some confidence that 70% of melbournes Jewish population live in our two local government area's.

St kilda was very Jewish and parts of it still are, my federal member is Jewish.

I went to school with a lot of Jewish kids and have quite a few Jewish friends.

I'm a short walk to the Holocaust museum, two local synagogues and a large hasidic population.

I doubt many would share Finkelstein's views but it's interesting none the less.

I assume you have but if you haven't go back and have a look at the old league of nations and how the middle east was carved up, the creation of Jordan and Israel etc. The original oil grab some may say.

When you think that's fairly recent history, what a fascinating and complicated part of the world the middle east is.

 

[Persevering Saint]

I've always been a book worm. For fiction, I love the likes of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Zola, Mann, Proust, Hamsun, Dickens. For the playwrights it has to be Shakespeare, Chekhov, Beckett. It's the 'serious' writers I tend to go for. I'm not really into what is called 'light reading'.

For non-fiction history and philosophy are my favourites, with a bit of politics thrown in. Love reading Bertrand Russell, Montaigne, Isaiah Berlin, the Greek stoics and Chomsky in particular. Soviet history, Nazi Germany and the conflicts in Ireland and the middle east are my main historical interests.

I always buy more books than I can read; kind of finish one and buy two. My backlog is currently at about 200 books

Do you Librivox?