What kind of mysteries?

Some ideas like the following:

The mysterious fire on the Normandie . . . Who really was behind the eerily efficient destruction of the famed ocean liner?

The ominous "Deadly Double" advertisement in The New Yorker . . . Was it a coded leak to Japanese and German spies announcing the upcoming bombing of Pearl Harbor?

The botched Nazi kidnapping of the Duke of Windsor . . . How did a serendipitous series of events save the duke from Hitler's grasp (and the Allied forces from a crippling strategic setback)?

The curious sinking of the Tang

. . . How did this deadliest of U.S. submarines come to meet such an unexpected and mysterious end?

etc. There's also coincidences, mysteries, etc.

Its essentially all of the timeless wisdom from don Juan.

Finished "Old Man's War" by John Scalzi, moving on to the sequel "The Ghost Brigades".

Not bad. Not bad t'all.

Just tried, and failed, to finish The Mongols, by Jeremiah Curtin. It's so dense as to be unreadable. It's an advanced level book -- you'd already have to know quite a bit about the time period to get much out of it. And the question is why bother at that point -- the book was published 100 years ago (which I didn't know when I bought it, idiot me). Might as well just stick to the latest scholarship. Can't remember the last book I just gave up on, but I was 200 pages into it and realizing that I would retain absolutely nothing, so I just tossed it aside. Life's too short...

Currently reading the Life of Belisarius, Last Great General of Rome. It's even older, like 140 years, but very readable. I'm at least passingly familiar with the subject matter, so the fact that the scholarship isn't the latest is ok. Wouldn't highly recommend it or anything, but it's fine.

David Drake has modeled a couple of his 'military sci-fi' series on Belisarius...minus the eye-poke ending. Quite nice, really, in a 'learn something from pulp fiction' sort of way. If you're ever forced to hold back a tide of nomads, you'll have a clue anyway.
I'd also recommend Count Belisarius by Robert Graves. Actually, almost anything by Graves. I may take my own advice, I'm about due to revisit I, Claudius/Claudius the God.

Just finished Ship of Ghosts, by James Hornfischer. The story of the USS Houston and her survivors.

Just bought 2 books by Bill Sloan, The Ultimate Battle - Okinawa, the last epic struggle. And Brotherhood of Heros - The Marines at Peleliu

And yes I'm still a big WW2 geek :D

Finished Deep Economy by Bill McKibben. If you like Michael Pollan or any of the Friedman stuff, you'll like this. McKibben actually presents an interesting challenge to some of Friedman's points. He takes a lot of Pollan's ideas about local eating and applies them to our entire economic model.

Also read Living Dead in Dallas, which is one of the books that the True Blood series is based on. Just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Mediocre stuff, but entertaining.

Currently reading The Disciplined Mind by Howard Gardener. I really like his MI theory, but I'm not crazy about this book at all. Unfortunately, a colleague is bothering me daily about what I think about the book, and she loves it. I have to finish it quickly so I can move on to something else. Or I could just be impolite and tell her I don't like the book and am putting it down.

I'm reading the Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera. It's good so far.

Two Wars By Nate Self; written by the platoon leader at Takur Ghar who led the Quick Reaction Force to rescue Navy SEAL Neil Roberts in March of 2002. His second war is coping with PTSD
Blink By Malcom Gladwell; The power of thinking without thinking...Intuition is stronger and more reliable than most give credit for. More information is not always better during unstable to unpredictable situations.

Both are well worth the time.

More post-colonial lit:

Potiki by Patricia Grace

A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul

im reading Soul Survivor by Dean Koontz

Just finished Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch by Jim Norton and am about to start up on I Hate Your Guts by Jim Norton. All in all they are great comedy books if you have that kind of humor. Also want to take down Patriot Reign and Next Man Up for book reports.

It's not traditional post-colonial, but I think you'd like it if you haven't already read it:

Ishmael Reed's, Mumbo Jumbo. The heavy Caribbean and diaspora elements in it make it dovetail nicely with post colonial stuff, but it's also a weird, wild ride of a book more along the lines of Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow in style.


My thesis director was a post colonial and postmodern wonk. He actually wrote The Chinua Achebe Encylopedia.

I'll take a look.

Most scholars have, I think, rejected the eye-poke as being a fable. It is rather over the top and hard to believe, even for the Byzantines.