What are you currently reading?

[AnotherSpin]

ffs...Hitler wasn't a socialist. In the early years of the party they cynically appealed to the socialists to consolidate power and numbers, and with that power pursued an agenda that was in no way socialist and punished any socialist dissent.

[..]

That's exactly what I'm saying. Lenin and Mao were neither socialists nor Marxists either. All their rhetoric about social revolutions and the transfer of property to the workers is obvious bs.

By the way, I have read Joseph Goebbels' detailed and very colourful descriptions of the workers' love for Hitler. He wrote that H. always carried several packs of cigarettes in the pockets of his leather coat and would offer them to ordinary people when he got out of his car in a poor neighbourhood to talk to people about their lives and everyday worries.

I saw something similar in old Soviet films about Lenin. He, too, supposedly liked to have a heart-to-heart talk with the workers and peasants who came to the Kremlin to chat with him and drink a cup or two of tea right from the samovar.

[steve ridgway]

Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England was a very informative study of just how low the living standards of workers can be driven by unscrupulous employers in an uncaring society. Appallingly low in fact, what we'd consider war crimes if carried out by an occupying foreign power. Well worth a read as a cautionary history lesson, there was no complicated political theorising.

[AnotherSpin]

Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England was a very informative study of just how low the living standards of workers can be driven by unscrupulous employers in an uncaring society. Appallingly low in fact, what we'd consider war crimes if carried out by an occupying foreign power. Well worth a read as a cautionary history lesson, there was no complicated political theorising.

About war and money. An uncaring world has not stopped Putin's war crimes in Ukraine for 850+ days. Yes, West sends some weapons and air defence systems, painfully slowly squeezing out of its warehouses mostly what it no longer needs. And Putin is paying his murderers and rapists exorbitant wages, he is quite solvent, still selling oil and gas and trading with the West through third countries such as Armenia, which accordingly to some reports has tripled its GDP while this war continues.

[ritter]

Starting William Faulkner's Knight's Gambit.



This will be my first approach to this author. Quite excited!

[steve ridgway]

Currently reading a Cold War map of Europe and thinking how much of that threatening red area has shrunk. I really don't want it getting any bigger again.

[AnotherSpin]

Currently reading a Cold War map of Europe and thinking how much of that threatening red area has shrunk. I really don't want it getting any bigger again.

Really? How unusual. Every day I read here the snarky reasoning of some forum members who support Putin and his demands - give up territories, stop helping a country that is now fighting an aggressor planning to rebuild an empire.  Only within much wider limits than on the map above.

It's amazing how their argumentation matches word for word the verbiage of European and American intellectuals who endorsed Hitler or Stalin in the 30s. History teaches us nothing, but this is not news at all.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

St. Petersburg. Jonathan Miles.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I have a copy of that (different edition) sitting on a shelf unread.  Just never got around to it.  Would be interested to hear what you make of it.

Good writing and fun read!

[vers la flamme]

Émile Zola's Germinal. I had no idea I'd like it so much.

[Brian]

Émile Zola's Germinal. I had no idea I'd like it so much.

Hmmm, you have me curious! I have always been scared of Zola because of an impression that his work must be bleak, depressing, dry.

[Henk]

Balzac


Zola


EDIT: Choose wisely 

[vers la flamme]

Hmmm, you have me curious! I have always been scared of Zola because of an impression that his work must be bleak, depressing, dry.

I had the exact same impression, and avoided his work for the same reasons, until I found this book for $1 in a thrift store the other day. This book is certainly bleak and depressing, but his writing is anything but dry; he really sucks you into the story and makes you care about these characters. Absolutely fascinating study, despite being informed by beliefs about sociology that are now quite outdated. I can't wait to read more of the Rougon-Macquart series, though I expect nothing will come close to this.

This book is filled to the brim with sex, and sexual violence, so if that is something that offends you, you might want to steer clear. I couldn't believe how explicit it was for the time.

[Henk]

I had the exact same impression, and avoided his work for the same reasons, until I found this book for $1 in a thrift store the other day. This book is certainly bleak and depressing, but his writing is anything but dry; he really sucks you into the story and makes you care about these characters. Absolutely fascinating study, despite being informed by beliefs about sociology that are now quite outdated. I can't wait to read more of the Rougon-Macquart series, though I expect nothing will come close to this.

This book is filled to the brim with sex, and sexual violence, so if that is something that offends you, you might want to steer clear. I couldn't believe how explicit it was for the time.

'Zola, or the pleasure of stinking.' (Nietzsche)
The picture confirms it for me.

[vers la flamme]

'Zola, or the pleasure of stinking.' (Nietzsche)
The picture confirms it for me.

I can't get the Balzac photo you posted to display but that is a great photo of Zola.

The horses in the coal mine in Germinal are just unforgettable. Some of the best non-human characters I've ever encountered in a book.

[Henk]

I can't get the Balzac photo you posted to display but that is a great photo of Zola.

The horses in the coal mine in Germinal are just unforgettable. Some of the best non-human characters I've ever encountered in a book.

This one is more or less the same, seem the original photo of the painting I posted:

[vers la flamme]

This one is more or less the same, seem the original photo of the painting I posted:

Thanks. Man, I need to read more Balzac, too! I've only read Père Goriot. But I think I'll be exploring more of his disciple Zola first.

[Henk]

Thanks. Man, I need to read more Balzac, too! I've only read Père Goriot. But I think I'll be exploring more of his disciple Zola first.

I have 'Lost Illusions' on the shelves. Hope to get to it some day.

[Mandryka]

Thanks. Man, I need to read more Balzac, too! I've only read Père Goriot. But I think I'll be exploring more of his disciple Zola first.

and Houellebecq-- the 21st century Zola.

[Henk]

and Houellebecq-- the 21st century Zola.

Not a fan of him neither.

[AnotherSpin]

and Houellebecq-- the 21st century Zola.

Emile Zola was highly regarded in the USSR and was frequently published. It seems that he fought against something or condemned something. I definitely read him when I was a teenager, but I don't remember anything, probably for the best.

The comparison with Houellebecq is interesting, I think I know what you mean.