I asked this question a few months ago and figure I’d ask every few months because it was great to see the large response and it was nice to get book recommendations to add to my ever expanding pile to read. The book I most recently finished was The Cat Who Walked Through Walls by Heinlein and I’m currently reading The Strong Shall Live which is a series of short stories by Louis L’Amour. I have found a ton of his books at yard sales and they are usually sold for a quarter or 50 cents a piece so I have quite a few and this is the first one I’m reading. Also found the book Lonesome Dove along with L’Amour’s stuff. Anyway, what are yall reading?
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Livy's The War with Hannibal
Reject modern sources, embrace ancient ones.
Definitely one I’d love to read.
Teaser: a Roman consul commanding an army of slaves offers freedom in an imminent battle against the Carthaginians for each man who comes back with the head of a slain enemy.
The slaves are overenthusiastic once battle starts and become too busy trying collect and hold onto lopped of heads while fighting is still continuing. It nearly costs them the battle until the Roman commanders correct the behavior.
Last book I read months ago was Atlas Shrugged (very relatable given current times) and I've been more reading Manga and Manwha for now.
If I was going to read another book, I'd probably go over again The Prince by Machiavelli as I'm tired of the politicians trying to think they are as smart as that and rather read his ideology from the original than the pretenders.
Check out Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy. That and The Prince really should be read together.
I'm obsessed with polar exploration, so don't get me wrong, South is a classic.
But as any other Shackleton expedition, it can be summed up as the "pipe in the bicycle wheel" meme.
Shackleton has amazing problem solving skills, that he spends mostly solving problems that he created himself.
All that suffering was utterly unnecessary (as demonstrated by Amundsen), but the Brits of the Edwardian era were really into noble sacrifices and heroic failures.
It's amazing no one died on the Shackleton expedition.
I get it confused with the Franklin one to the Northwest Passage where everyone did.
Currently reading The Bible. I'm 260 pages in. Last book I read was the Bhagavad Gita.
First time reading or you never read it all the way through? I’ve read the Bible but out of order and try to read some daily along with church.
I never went to church growing up and ignored religion for most of my life. It's the first time I'm reading any of it. I'm going from front to back using the NASB Protestant translation.
It has been difficult. It's very up and down in terms of entertainment while reading. Some parts actually do make you want to skip forward while other parts seem more like a technical historical account that's really dry. Genesis and Exodus have been my favorite.
So far the Bible just seems like God doing stuff for his people and then his people not listening, then God punishing them and trying it all over again with a new generation.
Yeah. That’s pretty much the story of salvation history: God does stuff for humanity, people don’t listen, God punishes them, wash rinse repeat.
Definitely contains elements of that. Feel free to message me if you have any biblically based questions. I’m no theologian but I’ll give it my best answer. I grew up going to church. There have been times is stoped going but that was due to being lazy, not because I stopped believing
I actually own a Greek Orthodox study Bible with annotations and interpretations. I also have the original Douey-Rheims translation with annotations and interpretations.
I really want to read through the bible myself without being plagued by anyone's idea of what the bible is trying to say so I can come to my own genuine view and then I'll start to dabble into what others think.
Gotcha. I have the King James and my Bible in Spanish is from the Middle Ages
Last book - Lords of Uncrearion by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
I got 1/4 into it and shelved it. Tbh it took a decent amount of effort to get through the previous two. I find the authors world interesting but I found the plot to plod along and I don't particularly like the main character. Hysterical and whiny comes to mind.
Currently reading - The whole Xeelee Sequence by Stephen Baxster. Much better.
Honourable mention if you want to subject yourself to something truly God awful - Lone Huntress by Andrew Miller. Got about 10 pages in and almost dropped stone dead through sheer unadulterated weapons grade cringe.
I have some Stephen Baxter but have only read a short story so far. What is Xeelee Sequence about?
What made that other book cringe?
The vague plot is human expansion in the galaxy but the whole series is set over hundreds of thousands of years. Each book is self contained from each other but all set at some point in said universe.
As for the second one, well, I had to suffer it so now you do too. I suggest z library for a nice free copy. Although it's not worth the power used downloading it.
"The Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama" by Walter L Fleming,
Last one I finished before that was "Which Way Western Man?" by William Gayley Simpson
Haven't bothered reading any fake books lately. Maybe one day I'll try to catch back up on the Horus Heresy or something idk but unlikely.
I’ve heard of Which Way Western Man, but what’s it about? I try to mix it up with genres. I love Sci-Fi/Fantasy but I try to make sure that’s not all I read so I mix it up
It's very hard to sum up and it's very long. He goes over his entire life first as he says that he doesn't just want to trot out his prescriptions for reality but wants people to understand how he got to where he was. First focusing on the period where he lived in the woods and would go into his local city to try to serve people randomly on the street for a decade as a jesuit trying to emulate the life of Jesus. Then he spent another decade going further into the woods reading all of Nietzsche after becoming disenchanted with Christianity. He had an interesting take on Christianity, that Jesus wasn't trying to make a religion for the masses, but rather sought out special people with "eyes to see and ears to hear" which I essentially translated that to "red-pilled people" in our terminology. He blamed Paul for ruining something that was meant for a small elite and only really respected Jesus and the "synoptic gospels" aka those who actually saw Jesus themselves in person. He felt that Christianity has, over time, "primed the pump" for socialism and communism, probably an idea he got from Spengler, wherein socialism is the atheistic reinvention of our societies religion which this reinvention of religion is something that seems to occur during the end of empires or peoples.
He then goes from spelling out his life in detail and the last half of the chapters are devoted to eviscerating an aspect of our current society each chapter. A list of the chapter names might sum it up better than I can.
I snagged a copy off ebay for like $80, but it's available free online.
https://ia800706.us.archive.org/4/items/9NeinsEbooks/Which-Way-%20Western-Man-%20William-Gayley-Simpson.pdf
It's insanely based, there's a reason why the phrase is a meme. Incredibly long, incredibly wordy, incredibly detailed.
Interesting. Thanks. I’ll add to my queue
The most recent book I finished was The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie, about the various contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s a little woke, but not too awfully so.
The one before that was The M1911 Complete Owner's Guide by Walt Kuleck.
I’m between books right now, and trying to decide between The Rifle by Andrew Biggio and The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World by Nathan Gorenstein.
I got my Garand from CMP a couple of weeks ago. And today would have been JMB’s 169th birthday. So both seem appropriate.
Very cool!
Current attempt is a really mediocre afrocentric young adult fantasy called "Children of Blood and Bone". It was obviously committee written to maximize the chances of a movie or TV script coming out of it.
Oh, it’s a new story? What is the premise? But if it’s Afrocentric there is a good chance it’ll get adapted
so far about 1/3 of the way in, I think it is relatively new
it is a fantasy africa and the worldbuilding appears to be cribbed from avatar the last airbender
Some people are born with magic power in a convenient category like fire or telepathy or whatever, with a description how magic works that is pretty close to midichlorians. Then magic was destroyed so the ruling empire didn't have to deal with threats and now the former magic users and their decedents are oppressed.
Naturally the empire is lighter skin and the oppressed magic people are darker. You can tell the author(s) are black because there is a lot of emphasis placed on every characters skin colors and stating the skin color in descriptions when it really isn't necessary.
Gotcha. Sounds like a black American view of Africa.
Last book: Insane Emperors, Sunken Cities, and Earthquake Machines
Current book: Sick Societies
Reading "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist;" still have most of the book to finish. Lately I've been hungry for answers a lot of questions that casual Christians side-step, like "Why does God let bad things happen to good people?" and "How could Earth possibly be 6,000 years old?"
Before that I read "The Creature From Jekyll Island." I'm not ashamed to admit I put that book down several times because I was triggered from reading what those sleazeball power brokers did.
I downloaded that podcast and I’ve given much thought to those questions. I’m a Christian but I do believe the earth is billions of years old along with the universe. I have my theories on why do bad things happen to good people but it’s a tough question that goes beyond “we were never promised a great life”. That is true but it has many layers.
I loved Creature from Jekyll Island.
I was given The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams for my birthday and I’m trying to find time to sit down with it, it’s the first part of a fantasy trilogy that was a big inspiration for A Song of Ice and Fire. Unlike ASOIF, it’s actually a complete story.
Before that I read Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. It’s a medival horror story that takes place in France during the black plague. It’s got monsters and demons and shit, and the characters were pretty cool, it really reminded me of Berserk. It’s also pretty based, the demons are all clearly evil, God is good, etc.
atlas shrugged, and i finished off the last of the sword of truth books.
I have yet to read Atlas Shrugged. I have read Fountainhead. Sword of Truth good?
the constant BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE got a bit taxing but i enjoyed it overall
I'm currently reading Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger (original 1929 translation, published by Mystery Grove).
A books about the experiences of a young German officer in WWI. I'm still at the beginning, but it seems interesting so far, even if a little over the top at times.
Before that I read Lost to the West, by Lars Brownworth, which is about the history of the Byzantine empire. A great book, very concise, and it was the only book about Byzantine history I ever managed to finish.
Sounds interesting. Is that like All Quiet on the Western Front?
It's the anti-All Quiet on the Western Front.
Erich Marie-Remarque served in combat a relatively short time before he was wounded and exited World War I, was an avowed pacifist, and spent much of his life living abroad outside of Germany.
Ernst Junger,on the other hand, fought for over three years in numerous battles, was wounded multiple times, and received Germany's highest award for valor. He utterly rejected pacifism and although recognized the horrible carnage of modern war he also appreciated it's capacity for adventure and personal, even transcendent growth through adversity. You'll see all of that in Storm of Steel. Just the type of book you'll never see assigned in high school literature class.
Some of Junger's fiction is quite good but rather unknown in the States, like the Glass Bees.
Aryanity: forbidden history of the aryan race. Nonfiction, amazing book.
If we count audiobooks I'm currently going through the Wheel of Time series. I'm on the last book Jordan wrote before he died, and while aside from book 8 (nothing happens in book 8) it isn't awful, if this ranks as one of the greatest modern fantasy series, the genre is incredibly sick (or maybe I just don't like the genre as much as I thought I did.) I think the problem large comes from the fact that every book after the first adds at least one character to the cast of "main" characters so you go from seven or eight to past double that a few books in, and they all have their own story (or share a story with one of the other main characters) which means if you don't like a character at some point you have to spend a few chapters reading their story, or (in the reverse) if there's a character you particularly like, you may go (at least almost) a whole book without anything major happening for them.
I enjoyed the series but I get the criticism. The show totally ignores the source material
(Forgive me if my spelling on anything below is incorrect. As I mention I'm going through the series on audiobook so I haven't actually seen how almost anything is spelled and I don't feel like looking them up right now.)
It probably doesn't help that one of the more recent series I wen through was Dune, so I can't help but compare Rand to Paul/Leto II, the Aes Sidae to the Bene Gesserit, the Ael to the Fremen, etc. and while Dune is a slog (I think by page count it might be the longest series I've ever read, and that's only Frank's six books), I think it's definitely better written. Each book has a main cast of about eight, of which about three actually have their own storyline. I also don't recall being irritated by the flaws in Herbert's characters, whereas the flaws in Jordan's (particularly female) characters often grate on me, which I think is a combination of the fat that the narration in Jordan's books is essentially "in the head" of whoever is the central character at that moment, and that the flaws often remind me of people I know (or know of) in real life that I find somewhere between irritating and incensing.
If not for the fact that I know that the show takes my problems with the series and makes them even worse, while simultaneously destroying the parts of the series I like, I'd probably watch the show out of morbid curiosity.
The showrunner wanted to update for modern audience and add crap that isn’t in the books. Also I’m so tired of constant race swapping. The book already had people of different races once they left their village.
Dark Harvest by Will Jordan aka The Critical Drinker. Just finished it, overall solid but not quite what I expected. Next up will be Shadow of the Conqueror by Shad. Wanted to support some content creators that I enjoy so got their books.
I need to get their stuff. Also want to get that Western comic that Razorfist and George the Giant Slayer did. I have the Rippaverse comics
I'd like to some day get Rippaverse's stuff, and I'll have to look into that comic you mentioned. Want to keep supporting alt media and creators.
Will I be stoned for this? Ascendance of a bookworm Part 4 book 2. Its a light novel that starts very stereotypical with someone isekai'd but the world building is great and all she cares about is books, bringing modern tech into being slowly over time. Honestly one of my favorites recently, tons of books I have ahead of me and looking forward to it. Last I finished was incidentally book 1 of part 4.
Why would you get stoned?
It's not something super high level, I just read for fun. Also it's a light novel and some people will outright dislike it cuz weeby. This one is actually somewhat western influenced, at least in terms of names. I really enjoy it so I basically bought the whole series up to what is released by now.
No shame. I have Oh My Goddess Omnibus volume 1-6 to read
Wow it's like 2003 never went away
Is that a real book or more of your trolling? By all means say what you feel, and I get you are atheist so have at it.
Ok. You don’t believe in God. I do. I guess there is nothing more to say on that. I’ve said my piece. Enjoy your time here for as long as you stay
I’m a Christian. I know you think it’s all nonsense and fairytales so like I said there is nothing more to discuss.
I’ve always thought it’s the same God.