It's a brilliant work of journalism and I'm only half way through. It's caused me some difficult self-reflection in why I read material like this. By the end of it I'm going to try and force myself to articulate just what I find so alluring about tragedy well told because these women and their stories, and by extension the story of PTSD suffered by an entire nation not just through its people but its infrastructure and national identity, is so addictive. 12 pages a go is still shift work I'm enjoying.

Russian's deserve better than Putin.

Been slogging through Life 3.0 for like 2 months, the premise is exactly my cup of tea, big thought experiments on what might happen if you take the development of AI right to it's logical conclusion waaaaaaay in the future.

But I swear down it's the worst laid out book I've ever read. The pages are just crammed with smallish text, narrow margins, tiny line spacing, footnotes that don't always apply to the page they're on, etc.

Every page feels like getting hit in the face with a wall of text. I might have to abandon it and come back later, finally got 1984 up next on the book pile of shame and its calling out to me.

Started Don Quixote recently.

Amazing book. So rich in texture.
Goes from incredibly funny to deadly serious, in the blink of an eye.

It's amazing to think it's 3-400 years old.

Also, while I can't be sure what anyone would make of this parallel, it reminds me of Huckleberry Finn a great deal. Especially the duo on a road trip aspect.

So far, the book has been more funny than serious, but I can't wait to see what's to come.

Cracking read.

Fun fact I have probably read every Christie ever.

I love whodunnits, they're basically puzzle games. Christie's aren't very difficult though tbh.

Okay.

Seethe.

Finished my next Lem, The Cyberiad. A collection of short tales set in Space where the universe is a medieval Europe populated by conceited Robots who are also often figuratively cunts. The main linchpins between the stories are two famed robot constructors (scientists/alchemists/wizards) who are sought after for employment and threatened in equal measure by at least a dozen monarchs. You get mostly comedy with a lot of science fiction tropes bashed, mashed and downright subverted into pure freshness. The best titled story is easily "The Fourth Sally, or How Trurl Built a Femfatalatron to Save Prince Pantagoon from the Pangs of Love, and how Later He Resorted to a Cannonade of Babies."

The real marvel though is how the hell most of it was translated from Polish. There's a few word games and some poetry that feel like they had to have come from an original English source but this doesn't seem to be the case. Reinforces respect to the craft of literary translators when it gets to this level. Definitely worth mentioning Michael Kandel's name next to Lem's.

Also finished The Unwomanly Face of War. I never want to read it again but I am going to read everything Svetlana Alexievich has ever written. What's translated into English anyway.

Way above but I find Christie tiring. It's always a thing that you're not as a reader ready for and it seems like it's a rug pull for the sake of being one. As if she didn't like her audience being smart enough. There's better out there.

I liked it. Took a while though.

Lem is basically the best scifi writer.

Anyone know of an easily digestible book about World War 2? The wife and I have been watching Band of Brothers recently, her first time, and she would like to know more about the events of the war having seemingly not paid attention at school to this stuff.

But it can't be too dense, as she'll never get through it. Any ideas?

MattyJ wrote:

Anyone know of an easily digestible book about World War 2? The wife and I have been watching Band of Brothers recently, her first time, and she would like to know more about the events of the war having seemingly not paid attention at school to this stuff. But it can't be too dense, as she'll never get through it. Any ideas?

I'd suggest Anthony Beevor's Second World War, but that is a mighty 1000 pages, so maybe work your way up to that (although I'd skip some chapters - the build up to the Japan-China conflict for instance).

Your best bet might be World War Two:A Short History by Norman Stone. Only a couple of hundred pages and manages to pack a hell of a lot of content into 200 pages. 

Even easier and a great starting point (plus its 99p) would be World War Two: History in an Hour by Rupert Colley.

Watch The World At War.

Aye. World At War is a great place to start.