ChiefsPlanet - Books Ok for the high brow crowd what books you are reading

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Ok for the high brow crowd what books you are reading (https://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=137161)

I'm planning on rereading Crime and Punishment over the Thanksgiving Break.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NewPhin

I'm planning on rereading Crime and Punishment over the Thanksgiving Break.

Dostoevsky? The Russians are too wordy and depressing for my tastes. Although I did finish C&P, something I couldn't do with War & Peace.

I like Dostoevsky's Notes From the Underground. It's very good, and not too long. Like an extended short story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pikesome

Dostoevsky? The Russians are too wordy and depressing for my tastes. Although I did finish C&P, something I couldn't do with War & Peace.

It's always fun to me to turn that first page of a long work like that. It's like embarking on the first step of a really long journey. I haven't tackled a large work like this since Pynchon's Against the Day. I definitely enjoy Dostoevsky more than Tolstoy, though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blaise

I like Dostoevsky's Notes From the Underground. It's very good, and not too long. Like an extended short story.

Notes is wonderful as well, though I haven't read it since I was in grad. school.

Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich, by William L. Shirer.

[QUOTE=NewPhin]I finished The Road last week as well. I really liked it, probably more than any other McCarthy book. As you said, it has an eerie, chilling feel to it. It reads like a parable or something.

The Road is an excellent work. I am not a McCarthy fan, but this went beyond the man as an author. I felt a sense of surrealism for days after reading it. I am thinking about assigning it in a interdisciplinary critical thought class that I teach.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohninGpt

No I haven't. I've always been fascinated with history, and kind of read him for the first time (the Great War series) on a lark. I found that the way he wrote alternate history was very plausable, even likely if certain events would have changed or not happened. I really enjoyed the whole series. But I don't know if I can get into the Sci-fi/fantasy stuff. From what I understand "Guns of the South" is based on a time traveller giving the Confederacy AK-47's, which is too big of a leap for the history guy in me.
I have read a couple other stand alone alternate histories by him that I enjoyed. One was "Ruled Britania". Sheakspeare as a resistance leader was pretty cool. And I can't remeber the other. Let me refill my Bubbakeg with rum and coke and I'll try to figure it out.

Ruled Britannia was very good, I also liked "In The Presence of my Enemies". He also did a decent two book series on an invasion of Hawaii following Pearl Harbor (Days of Infamy/End of the Beginning).

Worldwar is fun, but very hokey. The Guns of the South..well, obviously the war is over in the first 100 pages or so. The main reason I really enjoyed it was it's a fantastic presentation of a post-war Robert E. Lee, and very well researched. Especially the parts dealing the the 41st North Carolina Irregulars, IIRC.

I'd also suggest "Death is Lighter than a Feather". It's not Turtledove, but a great book about the Olympic/Coronet landings that Hiroshima made unnecessary.

[QUOTE=oldandslow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NewPhin

I finished The Road last week as well. I really liked it, probably more than any other McCarthy book. As you said, it has an eerie, chilling feel to it. It reads like a parable or something.

The Road is an excellent work. I am not a McCarthy fan, but this went beyond the man as an author. I felt a sense of surrealism for days after reading it. I am thinking about assigning it in a interdisciplinary critical thought class that I teach.

I think it would be an excellent work for critical analysis. It just has a certain gravitas to it. As I was reading it, I also couldn't help but think what a great minimalist art film the book would make.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adept Havelock

One of my students is reading a Turtledove where aliens invade during WWII, forcing the Axis and Allies to unite with each other against the common enemy.

Right now I am reading Don Quixote.

It is taking me some time... have to do it in chunks to get anything done really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pr_capone

Right now I am reading Don Quixote.

It is taking me some time... have to do it in chunks to get anything done really.

I read Don Quixote while I was backpacking across Europe (probably one of the greatest ways to get a ton of reading done, as you have so much time just sitting around or riding on trains). I loved about the first half of it, but it really seemed to drag after that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NewPhin

One of my students is reading a Turtledove where aliens invade during WWII, forcing the Axis and Allies to unite with each other against the common enemy.

That's Worldwar/Colonization series. Turns out the "Foo Fighters" they detected over Europe were recon for the little green guys.

It's hokey as hell, but fun.

For more serious reading, I just finished another trip through William Craigs "Enemy at the Gates" and am getting ready to start "The First Circle" by Solzhenitsyn.

My Men Are My Heros
The Brad Kasal story.

All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History of The Replacements by Jim Walsh