What are you currently reading?

[bwv 1080]

I likedTooze's book on WWII. Let us know if this is good.

It is - I work in finance and followed the whole debacle in detail - like the good historian he is, does a great job of separating what was known and reasonably believed at the time vs what was not widely understood.  His key point is the SIVs - highly levered off balance sheet pools of non agency RMBS issued by banks and funded with short term securities purchased by money market funds- were the primary mechanism that rendered the US and European banking systems insolvent.  After all, if the banks had really just securitized bad mortgages and sold them all off to investors then they would not have failed - the investors would have just taken the losses. 

[Ken B]

It is - I work in finance and followed the whole debacle in detail - like the good historian he is, does a great job of separating what was known and reasonably believed at the time vs what was not widely understood.  His key point is the SIVs - highly levered off balance sheet pools of non agency RMBS issued by banks and funded with short term securities purchased by money market funds- were the primary mechanism that rendered the US and European banking systems insolvent.  After all, if the banks had really just securitized bad mortgages and sold them all off to investors then they would not have failed - the investors would have just taken the losses.

Thanks. Placed a hold at the library.

[Ken B]

Just started this



(The Story of San Michele --- the Romanian traditional translation actually reads The Book of San Michele)

and it's a page turner. One of the most humane and enjoyable books I've ever read. It literally made me happy while reading. Fwiw, the latest occasions in which I felt something similar was when listening for the first time to Saint-Saëns's Septet and Moeran's Violin Concerto.

Actually Andrei I suspect my wife might like this a lot, as a Christmas present. Have you finished it? Good all the way through?

[JBS]

The piano in question being the one which FC used while in Majorca, and which decades later found and restored by Wanda Landowska, kept in her Paris apartment until she had to flee the Nazis. Which is why the last part of the book is heavily focused on the topic of Nazi loot.

[Florestan]

Actually Andrei I suspect my wife might like this a lot, as a Christmas present. Have you finished it? Good all the way through?

I'm halfway through. Consistently good. (And he hasn't even started building his "Roman" villa yet. ).

[MN Dave]

John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography
The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: 1920-1963
The Brickeaters by the Residents

[Karl Henning]

From the Loyal Opposition:

Because Christians start with two false beliefs, they can't possibly begin to empathize with the victims of abuse and disasters.

Premise 1: The Christian god loves his followers and wants to help them wherever he can, except when he makes cheap bets with Satan, of course.

Premise 2: Sinful behavior stymies this omnimax god's efforts to help.

Conclusion: Anybody who suffers must have come by that suffering through some sin they committed. They need to quit doing that, so they can receive the help of their divine safety net.

It's a purely insidious line of thinking. And yet we see examples of it everywhere in the religion.

[Ken B]

From the Loyal Opposition:

Because Christians start with two false beliefs, they can't possibly begin to empathize with the victims of abuse and disasters.

Premise 1: The Christian god loves his followers and wants to help them wherever he can, except when he makes cheap bets with Satan, of course.

Premise 2: Sinful behavior stymies this omnimax god's efforts to help.

Conclusion: Anybody who suffers must have come by that suffering through some sin they committed. They need to quit doing that, so they can receive the help of their divine safety net.

It's a purely insidious line of thinking. And yet we see examples of it everywhere in the religion.

Jeez Louise. I am about as atheistic an atheist as you can be and even I find that kind of argument stupid. Look around. Do you see the ThereIsNoSalvation Army collecting for the poor?

[Karl Henning]

Jeez Louise. I am about as atheistic an atheist as you can be and even I find that kind of argument stupid. Look around. Do you see the ThereIsNoSalvation Army collecting for the poor?

Separately . . . there is a scene in Jacob's Ladder where the title character has fallen to the street out of a moving car, his back injured, and a Salvation Army Santa lifts his wallet.


Aye, there has to be a better way to make his points;  "except when he makes cheap bets with Satan, of course" would probably have struck almost any other writer on the planet as cheaper than the cheap bets.

[Ken B]

Separately . . . there is a scene in Jacob's Ladder where the title character has fallen to the street out of a moving car, his back injured, and a Salvation Army Santa lifts his wallet.


Aye, there has to be a better way to make his points;  "except when he makes cheap bets with Satan, of course" would probably have struck almost any other writer on the planet as cheaper than the cheap bets.

The wallet joke works because it's incongruous. Like a catholic priest who prefers grown women ...

[NikF]

The wallet joke works because it's incongruous. Like a catholic priest who prefers grown women ...

Good stuff.

[Karl Henning]

Jeez Louise. I am about as atheistic an atheist as you can be and even I find that kind of argument stupid. Look around. Do you see the ThereIsNoSalvation Army collecting for the poor?

The wallet joke works because it's incongruous. Like a catholic priest who prefers grown women ...

It's What I was currently reading, not An argument I absolutely stand by.  So, yes:  point taken.

[milk]

Having read all the novels, I'm currently reading all of Ursula Le Guin's Hainish short stories. They're scattered throughout various collections. Le Guin is the only sci-fi writer I really love. For one thing, she has a great command of language: she never wastes a word and she's quite elegant. But Le Guin always presents a deep idea for consideration. And she also always pushes our understanding of ourselves as human beings in imaginative ways. She's not dark; she's not verbose; she's not technical or "scientific." She's "human" to the core: anthropological and sociological. There's no one like her. I recommend all things Hainish (except her very very first short novel "Rocannon's world").

[NikF]

Victorian filth first published in 1880 or thereabouts.

This differs from much of the other material I've read of that genre/era, in that it ranges from being generally less than charming, to (as in the account offered by dear wheelchair bound Lady Beatrice as she imparts her love of the dick) being delivered in an air where camphor fights with lavender, but both failing in a combined bid to hide slowly decaying health, withering and rot that's brought on by natural human frailty, all hurried along by an excess of the good things in life. But as they say, we've all got to go some time. 

I suspect reading this can only be augmented with random glances at the often well stuffed period upholstery depicted by Henry Hayler of Pimlico (good luck there) and/or a soundtrack of the Rondo alla Zingarese, courtesy Brahms Op. 25

[Karl Henning]

Alexa, Should We Trust You?

[Ken B]

Rereading The Talented Mr Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith.

[Karl Henning]

How the Yankees Became Baseball's Most Improbable Underdogs

[Karl Henning]

Verne Troyer, Mini-Me of 'Austin Powers,' fought a drinking addiction. His death was ruled a suicide by alcohol intoxication.

[aligreto]

Dan Brown: Origin





I had promised someone that I would read this book after a discussion that I had with them as to why I had decided to stop reading Dan Brown. I am about twenty per cent of the way into this book and I am struggling with it and it has already confirmed why I originally made my decision. My thesis is that he has a template, changes the concept involved, changes the name of the protagonists and the City involved and then makes a ton of money. Good luck to him.
[Disclaimer: I did not buy this book - it was given to me to read.]

[JBS]