What are you filthy heathens reading atm?

kylith

Jernal wrote: »

Oh no, that's not making it worse. This is.

WARNING! ! ! Viewer discretion is advised. This clip contains content of a violent ruthless nature.


Personally, I think she might be the most evil person on this planet.

Oh, those poor babies! Why? WHY??????????

Pinterest is terrible for things like this. People are forever eviscerating beautiful old books and gluing them to things. It's absolutely heartbreaking.

Turtwig

kylith wrote: »

Oh, those poor babies! Why? WHY??????????

Pinterest is terrible for things like this. People are forever eviscerating beautiful old books and gluing them to things. It's absolutely heartbreaking.

Some people just want to see the world burn.

Flier

I like the bit where she says "this is a great way of displaying vintage books..."
What's wrong with just putting the beautiful books on the shelf, and shock horror, someone might actually take one down and READ it!!!

Lingua Franca

Currently reading this, The Old Testament According to Spike Milligan.

Sulla Felix

bluewolf wrote: »

Hey the look the plane is taking off and all electronic devices have to be switched off, what will I do? I know! Read my BOOK! :pac::pac::pac:

Nah they do look handy, just not on my list of priorities to get. Also I love books

My rules for takeoff

Have two sets of identical earphones. This way you can plug one into your seat and when they tell you to turn off your mp3 player, you can point and say they're plugged into the aircraft system.

While sneakily listening, keep one ear unplugged so you can hear the attendants approaching. That way you can hide your kindle under the magazine you only bothered to buy for this express purpose.

Happy flights all.

Canis Lupus

Sulla Felix wrote: »

My rules for takeoff

Have two sets of identical earphones. This way you can plug one into your seat and when they tell you to turn off your mp3 player, you can point and say they're plugged into the aircraft system.

While sneakily listening, keep one ear unplugged so you can hear the attendants approaching. That way you can hide your kindle under the magazine you only bothered to buy for this express purpose.

Happy flights all.

When the plane explodes on takeoff, sets off a chain reaction that triggers earthquakes and general death and destruction culminating in the second coming of christ you won't be so smug about being able to sneakily listen to Justin Beiber :P

On topic, I'm currently reading Genellan: Planetfall. Interesting so far.

kylith

Moved on to Xenocide in the Ender series.

Boy, do I love these books. I'm thinking about dossing off work so I can keep reading.

robindch

This one looks interesting -- a review of the Nazi's beliefs about religion and their beliefs about themselves, and how the two interacted.

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/397

Reviews in History wrote:

The Holy Reich comes with substantial praise attached. According to the blurb on the back, Michael Burleigh says it is 'an important and original book' which 'deserves as wide a readership as possible'. Helmut Walser Smith regards it as 'a brilliant and provocative work that will recast the whole debate on Christianity and Nazism'. He adds that study has 'deep revisionist import'. Richard Evans's comments are a bit more 'empirical'. He notes that the book displays well the ambivalent attitudes Nazis had towards specifically Protestantism and that Nazism was associated with an whole array of religious beliefs. So what do you get for your money?

Without doubt Richard Steigmann-Gall has undertaken a massive and careful research project to detail comprehensively the way Nazism touched and drew upon especially Germany's Protestant heritage. His archive work is impressive and the text's story is pieced together with both thought and art. Its sweep takes in everything one would expect and displays well the competing tendencies within Hitler's movement (from Nazi paganism and anti-Christianity, to the efforts to create a Reich Church). More unusually it also discusses possible connections between Christianity and Nazi social policy, which centred around the creation of a Volksgemeinschaft.

The author makes a case that his study is re-casting knowledge in a fundamental way. Thus he maintains, for instance, that Nazism was 'a movement long believed to be at best unrelated to Christianity, and at worst as anti-Christian as it was antisemitic or anti-Communist'.(p. 3) Noting that Fritz Stern had regarded Nazism as something which replaced defunct religion, he says, ‘I suggest that, for many of its leaders, Nazism was not the result of a 'Death of God' in secularized society, but rather a radicalized and singularly horrific attempt to preserve God against secularized society.' (p. 12)

Steigmann-Gall buttresses his case with a wealth of information drawn from across the period of National Socialism's existence. Hans Koch remained a card-carrying Christian even after 1945; Josef Goebbels once interpreted Nazism as involved in the struggle of Christianity against Marxism; and Dietrich Eckart used images of Christ on the cross in his work. So the purpose of the author's discussion becomes the case that many Nazis understood themselves to be the true political expression of Christianity.(p. 49) On this basis, and in due course, he echoes Rubinstein's observation that Christianity brought with it slavery, wars and exploitation. It has been responsible for as much darkness as light. Steigmann-Gall adds:

"The discovery that so many Nazis considered themselves or their movement to be Christian makes us similarly uncomfortable. But the very unpleasantness of this fact makes it all the more important to look it squarely in the face."(p. 267)

Without doubt, the author is to be commended for blending such an interesting study of the ideas about religion which leading Nazis held. In the process he gives any reader plenty of pause for thought. But it is the power of the wider claims of the book which is most likely to be debated. The possible existence of ties between Nazism and Protestantism was first raised quite some time ago, for example by W. M. McGovern, whose work was first published in the 1940s.(1) It is well enough established that the German Christians came from within the Protestant Church; F. Zipfel made the point clear in 1965 and it is even reflected in at least one text only aimed at students.(2) So of course some Nazis saw their politics and religion as intermeshed. In fact, given that Christianity helped frame the traditions of culture inherited by Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, it was just about inevitable that its themes would be reflected in a political movement which, after all, was seeking to control the nation as a whole and which was drawing its minions from it.

The core of the issue here is probably one of balance. Did religious terms drive leading Nazis, did they influence them in a more low-key way, or were they more background features? Obviously the precise balance must have differed by individual (and Steigmann-Gall's study certainly makes this clear), but when individuals read his text, they may wonder whether the overall impression of Nazism is quite right. Was Christianity, in general terms, really so significant; or has a relatively subordinate point been over-egged? Readers should consider the issue for themselves.

This leaves us with the Janus face of Christianity. Steigmann-Gall is quite right that the idea that some Nazis had religious motives is uncomfortable. The point is well worth making. But obviously it is also true that some of the resisters had Christian motives too. There were the German Christians, but there were also people such as Yorck von Wartenburg for whom involvement in the events of 20 July was bound up with religious conviction. In other words, given that Christianity was part of the cultural framework of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, the interesting point is that some people saw it as grounds to support participation in Nazism, whereas others saw it as grounds to resist. Conformity or resistance; intolerance or tolerance; Inquisition or charity? The religious texts stay the same, but what people have done with them always has varied greatly. This makes us ask, ‘Why’? Was it religious belief per se that influenced behaviour in the case of every 'Christian' (whether Nazi sympathiser or resister), or maybe something else was at work – perhaps something more fundamental which drove, channelled or gave meaning to the belief itself? It is impossible to avoid wondering whether concern with the place of Christian belief in the Third Reich really does get to grips with the heart of that particular political phenomenon, or whether (for very many individuals) some more important (general or personal) motivation overshadowed their professions of religious belief. In this light, we can ask whether Germany really did experience a ‘Holy Reich’ between 1933 and 1945, or whether such an image (if it existed all) was more the cynical exploitation of a contemporary cultural resource, or even a hypocrisy of religiously-minded careerists.

So are the comments on the back of Richard Steigmann-Gall's book exaggerated? Maybe a bit, but all the same it is an engaging read. The text is enjoyable, the research effort has been substantial and the ideas do make you want to argue. That's good enough for me.

keane2097

MagicMarker wrote: »

Just after finishing this, really enjoyed it. Rothfuss is a ridiculously good writer, and this is an incredible debut novel.

I'm actually tempted to jump straight into the 2nd in the series, but I'm somewhat concerned by it's length. Book #1 was over 600 pages and maybe that could have been cut down a little bit, I'm afraid #2 might contain a lot more filler at 1000+ pages.

Probably too late replying to this, but in case you read it before ploughing into Wise Man's Fear just be aware that Rothfuss took ages writing the second book, and that there's no sign of the third book arriving any time soon so maybe give yourself a break before coming back to it at a later date.

I thought Name of the Wind was good but didn't end up being as great as I thought it was going to be 25% of the way through. Thought it really slowed to a crawl at times. Still very good though, and a decent entry into the fantasy genre. There are some great books ahead of you.

Banbh

I've been reading Sansom's thrillers set in Henry VIII's England. Apart from being good whodunits, there's a lot of very interesting background on the emergence of Protestantism, the looting of the monasteries and that sort of thing.
I'm not spoiling the books by telling you Henry was a disgusting slug but now I'll have to go and find a decent history book on the period.

Sulla Felix

Canis Lupus wrote: »

When the plane explodes on takeoff, sets off a chain reaction that triggers earthquakes and general death and destruction culminating in the second coming of christ you won't be so smug about being able to sneakily listen to Justin Beiber :P

On topic, I'm currently reading Genellan: Planetfall. Interesting so far.

On the contrary, it was the Rise of Bieber that spurred me to instigate this method of bringing about the armageddon. :P

[-0-]

robindch wrote: »

This one looks interesting -- a review of the Nazi's beliefs about religion and their beliefs about themselves, and how the two interacted.

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/397

Have you read it? It was written in 2004 and has some good reviews on Amazon.

pauldla

Just arrived this morning from Amazon, the next two Patrick O'Brian novels (The Surgeon's Mate and The Ionian Mission, if you're interested), and Dawkins The Greatest Show On Earth, which was put in my mind by the 'Origins of Specious Nonsense' thread. Heading to Macau next week for the Spring Festival holidays, so that's my holiday reading taken care of. Happy days.

Hourglass Shrugged

I'm about a third of the way through Atlas Shrugged right now. I'm liking it so much that I made my username to sound like the title.

robindch

Hourglass Shrugged wrote: »

I'm about a third of the way through Atlas Shrugged right now. I'm liking it so much that I made my username to sound like the title.

There's a (closed) thread on Ms Rand and her oeuvre here.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055929894

Am not sure the Randian genie should be let out of the bottle again.

Hourglass Shrugged

robindch wrote: »

Am not sure the Randian genie should be let out of the bottle again.

I'm not planning on discussing what I'm reading, I'm merely stating what I'm reading at the moment. Though, in the future, I may apply objectivist logic when discussing a topic on this forum, without actually making reference to the word "objectivism" or Rand or any of her work -- if that is acceptable to the censor, of course.

Bannasidhe

Hourglass Shrugged wrote: »

I'm not planning on discussing what I'm reading, I'm merely stating what I'm reading at the moment. Though, in the future, I may apply objectivist logic when discussing a topic on this forum, without actually making reference to the word "objectivism" or Rand or any of her work -- if that is acceptable to the censor, of course.

Hang on. I got an email from Atheist HQ about this...





aw feck, I deleted it.

robindch

Hourglass Shrugged wrote: »

in the future, I may apply objectivist logic when discussing a topic on this forum, without actually making reference to the word "objectivism" or Rand or any of her work -- if that is acceptable to the censor, of course.

Here in A+A, you're absolutely free to use whatever form of logic you wish. Do be aware though, that not all logics were created equal and shaky reasoning will be shook good and proper

Hourglass Shrugged

robindch wrote: »

shaky reasoning

Great, I cannot wait to shake the shaky reasoning inherent in statism and collectivism when it does appear on this forum. YEP-PE

robindch

Hourglass Shrugged wrote: »

Great, I cannot wait to shake the shaky reasoning inherent in statism and collectivism when it does appear on this forum.

No problem. Do feel free to start a thread on statism and collectivism, or Rand's weird parodies of them, if you like

Banbh

'm about a third of the way through Atlas Shrugged right now. I'm liking it so much that I made my username to sound like the title.

Don't get it. What accent makes Hourglass sound like Atlas? Maybe QEII.

Hourglass Shrugged

Banbh wrote: »

Don't get it. What accent makes Hourglass sound like Atlas? Maybe QEII.

Well "Hourglass" and "Atlas" both end with an 's', that's why. I don't care about these trivialities.

ShooterSF

Ah Banbh you got him all self conscious and he closed the account!

kylith

I started trying to read The Goldilocks Enigma: Why the Universe is Just Right for Life, but my brain isn't in the right place for a rather dry book about physics, so I'm reading GoT, A Dance With Dragons Part 2: After the Feast instead.

Banbh

Ah Banbh you got him all self conscious and he closed the account!

You're kidding. I was genuinely curious as I am interested in accents and just couldn't make that fit. I thought I was being friendly. Jayiz!

Bannasidhe

Banbh wrote: »

You're kidding. I was genuinely curious as I am interested in accents and just couldn't make that fit. I thought I was being friendly. Jayiz!

I was going to point out that 'jackass', 'ignoramus' and 'hippopotamus' also end in s but never got the chance

Sarky

I picked up a bioinformatics book today, deals with areas that weren't really covered in great detail in college or my last job, mostly human genetics and proteomics. Should help me get to grips with the messy, shoddy, complicated half-arsed job that is allegedly God's finest creation. Once that's done, I think I'll read a book on how to code in perl. Useful language to know in bioscience, I understand.

swampgas

Sarky wrote: »

I picked up a bioinformatics book today, deals with areas that weren't really covered in great detail in college or my last job, mostly human genetics and proteomics. Should help me get to grips with the messy, shoddy, complicated half-arsed job that is allegedly God's finest creation. Once that's done, I think I'll read a book on how to code in perl. Useful language to know in bioscience, I understand.

Human Biology and Perl - you are a glutton for punishment!

One is a messy, shoddy, complicated half-arsed job that is allegedly God's finest creation, the other is human biology.

Turtwig

swampgas wrote: »

Human Biology and Perl - you are a glutton for punishment!

One is a messy, shoddy, complicated half-arsed job that is allegedly God's finest creation, the other is human biology.

At least they moved on from Fortran. :pac:

Sarky

I'll make sure it's a short book then.