So I'm not the only nutjob who likes the smell of books? Aside from being delicious brainfood that keeps my brain from going "must destroy all consciousness", as purely aesthetic objects they can be quite nice. Oldbooksmell is pleasant.

Now onto "V - SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY."

And when a book opens with this on the frontispiece, followed by half a dozen images of cotton gins and textile machinery, you once again, know what kind of thing you are in for:



He just went straight through the development of cotton manufacture dating back from 5 B.C. and following it up to 1905, never once directly mentioning slavery.

Chris, those seem like the Best Goddamn Books Ever. There is nothing about your descriptions of them that make me think they are anything but pure, distilled class.


Myself, currently these:



Thanks Mum & Dad; American politics was always F'd up. and:



Thanks to me friends Marc & Kelly. Captain Kelly is ex-Air Force, so that makes this slab of vitriol all the more delicious. (Her politics are not exactly rah rah go team... ) I'm about halfway through and other than Marshall and Eisenhower, it doesn't have much good to say about a lot of folks, and the farther you get, the more fuck'd up they are. It's the sort of thing that makes you remember Ike wasn't just a '50s President, he was a military man. Patton reported he drank heavily, and Ike quaffed more than a gallon of coffee and smoked four packs of cigs every damn day (at which point I'd think he'd have to drink heavily if he ever wanted to sleep? Of course, at that level, he might as well have done like and just do speed (or, for that matter, just do blow)? It is probably better for you. ). This again confirms he never did anything untoward with his lovely British driver-companioness, a non-affair of which I was aware. But I digress as usual. Interesting stuff. MacArthur takes it in the nuts here. Patton, the chapter on is quite brief, and mostly favorable, commending him for his skill. I was surprised by its shortness, but there's little more to be said about Patton than has already been written or filmed; he was what he was; an outsized character and a 19th Century man in the 20th Century's great conflict- much like Churchill. (Weren't they both cavalrymen, IIRC? Patton designed the US Army's last cavalry sabre, which was more like a Scottish basket-hilt broadsword, with its straight blade, and was apparently a fine piece with exquisite balance and an extraordinarily light weight. I saw R. Lee Ermey's demonstration of that and the Civil War sabre and the curved blade of that simply did more damage though Patton's design is better on paper and easier to swing around.)

I suppose I've been on a bit of an American history kick lately. I got about a hundred pages into Primary Colors, which I'd never read, shockingly, but I just wasn't in the mood.

Started this tonight:



Why I've been on an American history kick, I don't know. Perhaps because the books are easily accessible, and there are some very good ones. So far this is not an exception.

Not as exciting as you would think

EDIT- Though in Brazil I did knock out these:








They were all good, though I've read The Hobbit a few times now.

That is one awesome Bilbo. He looks like a Russian Jack Black.

More Ringworld.

Really, that is about what one should expect all of the Hobbits to actually look like. Elijah Wood always struck me as an oddly thin choice for a 'second breakfast' type of people.

Myself i am now onto "VI - SCIENCE AND THE MECHANICAL ARTS."

So far, just a little Edison fawning, overview of the phonograph, and now into the development of books from antiquity. Here at the beginning of it, a little dull compared to the last five.

Decided break temporarily from VI, to reread this one:



Mainly because it has been ages since i first read it, and i was reading a pile about oldtimey warplanes the other day.

Folks have been bugging me to read this for years.



The Shrike is so brutal it's ridiculous.

Speaking of brutal Dan Simmons, Geoff, this one was awesome; read it a few years back:



I am currently reading the following, because I wanted something more lightweight than my usual historical fare:



Apparently there is a film version. I would like to see that.

Wife of Geoff: "-gasp- For the first time? I envy him. It's such a good book, such a good book."

The Merry Men is hard going with all the phonetic Scottish stuff.

I prefer my technical books to use animals on the cover.

I wonder if the rhino is intentional in that it represents the sheer length and weight of this 1000-page beast.

The rhino is a unicorn, but fat, grey, nearsighted and mean.

much like just the old man of unicorns

"Get off my plains!"

IRL. I don't know why that's so funny, but it is.

killing. yes killing

Fuckin' great Bill Laswell interview section that's not in the print version TapeOp but is in the online bit: http://www.tapeop.com/interviews/93/bill-laswell-bonus/

Seriously, read this. It's not that long. He's one of the good guys. Some of you know who he is.

Started "VII - CONQUEST OF AIR AND ETHER" the other night. Airplanes, telegraphs etc.

As the writing approaches the then-contemporary, i find it slightly less fantastic reading than the early books(it occurs to me that it is harder to say whatever one wants about historical figures and events when the figures are still alive and the events have been caught on film or similar repoartage, so if anything, as the series approaches the modern era of its own writing, the tone seems to have become a bit more dry and kind of objective. Which, i am less into. ), but we will see where it goes from here.