What are you currently reading?

[Grazioso]

In time for Halloween, Richard Matheson's seminal 1954 novel I Am Legend. A mix of horror and SF, it tells the tale of the last man on earth, holed up in a Los Angeles neighborhood after a plague has turned everyone else into nocturnal vampire-like creatures. While the book isn't particularly well crafted, and the prose and dialogue leave something to be desired, it's an interesting tale of how one man copes with terrible loneliness amid a horrific situation. Interesting twist at the end, too.

It's ultimately more interesting as the matrix for a bunch of SF/horror tropes that are now standard: post-apocalyptic survival after a plague has decimated civilization, blending the traditional attributes of vampire and zombie, giving the monsters a scientific instead of supernatural basis, etc.

It's the source material for multiple films, such as

[Coco]

[Grazioso]

As companions to Suzuki's classic writings on Zen, which helped introduce it to the West, I'd highly recommend the works of Alan Watts, particularly The Way of Zen.

[Coco]

As companions to Suzuki's classic writings on Zen, which helped introduce it to the West, I'd highly recommend the works of Alan Watts, particularly The Way of Zen.

Thanks, I will do that.

[Mn Dave]

Thanks, I will do that.

This is one of the best.

http://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Plain-Simple-Steve-Hagen/dp/0767903323

[Grazioso]

Thanks, I will do that.

Watts was one of the more entertaining and insightful 20th-century thinkers. He approached Zen and other Eastern thought from a fresh and unfettered, yet sympathetic, outsider's perspective. Along with Suzuki, yet coming from a very different angle, he was one of the key early popularizers of Zen in the West and was also an interesting philosopher in his own right.

For a good scholarly yet approachable overview of Buddhism in general:

[bwv 1080]

Speaking of Buddhism, how about a messianic proto-nazi Buddhist convert?

also some interesting background on 19th century Tibetan Buddhism, which easily made the worst excesses of the Medieval Papacy look tame

[Mn Dave]

Speaking of Buddhism, how about a messianic proto-nazi Buddhist convert?

No thanks! 

[Grazioso]

Seminal 1984 novel by one of the most important SF writers. A noir heist story set in the near future, this novel fathered the Cyberpunk SF subgenre and predicted and popularized the concept and term cyberspace well before it was an everyday reality. Gibson is not only a gifted prognosticator and observer, but a master of richly baroque prose, with a prodigious gift for rendering hyper-vivid concrete details in words.

[Mn Dave]

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[Papy Oli]

2 books finished recently :

[asin]014005667X[/asin]

[Drasko]

Speaking of Buddhism, how about a messianic proto-nazi Buddhist convert?

Ungern-Sternberg was fascinating character. I first found about him through Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese comic.



But I have avoided that Palmer book till now, it received some criticism for quite a few historic inaccuracies. Wonder should I give it a go anyway?

[Geo Dude]

I'm three chapters in and it's been quite engaging thus far.

[Mn Dave]

I'm three chapters in and it's been quite engaging thus far.

I keep forgetting I need that. Thanks for the reminder.

[Mn Dave]

.[asin]0140449493[/asin]

[jlaurson]

Ungern-Sternberg was fascinating character. I first found about him through Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese comic.



But I have avoided that Palmer book till now, it received some criticism for quite a few historic inaccuracies. Wonder should I give it a go anyway?

Sounds like a character from a Flashman novel.

.
P.G. Wodehouse
The Man With Two Left Feet
Everyman


Continuing my Wodehouse binge. One Wodehouse a week, at least. Lots of short stories, these days. Didn't like the shorter ones as much as the full length novels in the beginning, but have gotten around to them.
Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets  and   The Clicking of Cuthbert are just behind me.

[Grazioso]

More classic SF, this time Heinlein's 1959 novel Starship Troopers



This is the granddaddy of military SF and enormously influential: authors like David Weber and Jack Campbell, films like Aliens, games like WH40K and Tribes, and so on owe much to Heinlein's vision.

Not surprisingly, the novel bears only a superficial similarity to the film of the same name. (Director Verhoeven never finished reading the novel.) The movie is mostly an action spectacular, with bits of comedy and a running satire of fascist militarism.

The book is completely serious in tone and tells the story of one young man's coming of age in the military, going from recruit to noncom to junior officer. There are only two relatively brief battle sequences; the great majority of the book is a disquisition on moral and political philosophy, a look at military culture (particularly training and leadership), and a love letter to the infantry. The values espoused are conservative, but not fascist, as some critics have oddly claimed.

As for the SF elements themselves, this is the book that gave us the concept of powered, armored combat exoskeletons with jump jets, along with the idea of troop "drops" from orbit for surgical strikes (an extrapolation of existing airborne infantry).

Good stuff if you're interested in political thought or military life, but don't expect lots of shoot 'em ups.

[lisa needs braces]

nvm

[Coco]

nvm

Is it any good?

[lisa needs braces]

Is it any good?

I linked three books and their pictures all came blank. 

They were two I recently read:

"The Storm of War: A New History of WWII" by Andrew Roberts and "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin" by Timothy Snyder.

And another I'm currently reading: "Stalingard: The Fateful Siege: 1942 - 1943" by Antony Beevor. I enjoyed the WWII book mainly because I hadn't read any history of WWII before ( I'm sure a one volume history can't do that topic justice). The Snyder book was a compelling account of the barbarities committed by Hitler and Stalin. I just started the Beevor and, 60 pages in, I already think it's the best written of the three.