Books: What have you been reading?

[Jim Kelly]

Finally finished WAR AND PEACE. I say finally, but I anticipated it would take me a year to read it and I finished it in nine months. The book becomes increasingly a work of philosophy rather than a historical romance as it goes along. One question that Tolstoy returns to throughout the novel is "Why did millions of people kill one another when it has been known since the world began that it is physically and morally bad to do so?"

My answer (not Tolstoy's) is they were given permission. Everyone has it in them to kill, but in normal circumstances they don't on account of social strictures. But when those in authority gave permission to the masses to kill and when the anonymity of the crowd freed them from individual responsibility, people were allowed to act on their darkest impulses without fear of censure.

Just as today the anonymity of the social network allows people to vent their worst inclinations and destroy others without remorse, the madding crowd gave cover to those people in the Napoleonic Wars to kill with impunity.

[The Darknight Detective]

Now reading Death Masks (2003), the fifth Dresden Files novel by Jim Butcher.

[Jekyll]

Now reading Death Masks (2003), the fifth Dresden Files novel by Jim Butcher.

OHHHHHHH!!!!!!! This is my favorite book of the entire series! Enjoy!!

[The Darknight Detective]

OHHHHHHH!!!!!!! This is my favorite book of the entire series! Enjoy!!

Thanks! So far I'm enjoying it a lot.

[The no face guy]

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak - Can the Subaltern Speak.

[Dante Milton]

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, short but enjoyable, I'll probably read the other books in the series.

[Deathstroke]

I finished reading the Lorna Barrett mystery Handbook For Homicide.

[The Darknight Detective]

On my Kindle, I just started reading The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories (1909) by B.M. Bower.

[Ruby Quartz Diamond]

I finished reading The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion two days ago. It's a pretty wholesome book with such an endearing main character. With all of Don's faults, I admire his determination to better understand other people. And the epilogue is just so sweet.

[The no face guy]

Jacques Derrida - Of Grammatology ....one of the more difficult reads I've encountered in philosophy.

[The Darknight Detective]

New books I'm reading The Illustrated Face of Battle (1988 - the original non-illustrated version was from 1976) by John Keegan.



On my Kindle, it's The Surgeon's Mate (1980), the seventh Aubrey/Maturin novel by Patrick O'Brien.

[Deathstroke]

Today I finished reading the Sherry Harris mystery novel From Beer To Eternity.

[Celgress]

I recently re-read Animale Farm, a well-deserved all time classic and topical for our times.

[The Darknight Detective]

I recently re-read Animale Farm, a well-deserved all time classic and topical for our times.

Never read it, but I have seen a few adaptions of it. Since 1984 is one of a handful of books that moved me beyond just entertainment, I need to put George Orwell's other great work on my to-read list.

[Chubistian]

Swann's Way, by Marcel Proust. I started yesterday, I really loved the few pages that I read. It will probably take me quite some time, but I'm excited to read my first novel by Proust