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Read any good books lately?

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Read any good books lately?

Old 08-15-16, 07:30 AM
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Not a recent read but We Were Young and Carefree by Laurent Fignon is an excellent read.
I gained quite a lot of respect for 'Le Professor' after reading this one, doping history or not.

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Old 08-15-16, 08:26 AM
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Originally Posted by lotek
Not a recent read but We Were Young and Carefree by Laurent Fignon is an excellent read.
I gained quite a lot of respect for 'Le Professor' after reading this one, doping history or not.

marty
Agreed, I have far more respect for Fignon than the other more popular riders of his era. He was intelligent, talented and perhaps the last of the great all-rounders.
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Old 08-15-16, 05:37 PM
  #603  
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Originally Posted by Kilroy1988
As a medievalist I feel compelled to link you this review of The Swerve, in order that it may save you from various misconceptions and blatant biases presented throughout the text by Greenblatt. Due to its popularity, it may well be one of the most counterproductive books written about late medieval history in decades.

Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve racked up prizes ? and completely misled you about the Middle Ages - Vox


Interesting. I am no medievalist, that's for certain, but I find I can't condemn this book in its entirety, as the paper published in VOX does so freely. The author of that paper noted that he wasn't troubled by footnotes in Swerve ,(I don't recollect his exact comments, but it would leave the reader to believe there were few/none) yet I note over 40 pages of notes, and another 25 pages of bibliography in the copy of Swerve in my hand.


The author also questioned Greenblatt's comments about lack of the lack of curiosity in the 1400's. Vladimir Nabokov has an interesting thought about curiosity, and it seems that Galileo was a curious gentleman, and we know how his curiosity was received. (I recognize that Galileo's time was more than 100 years hence.)


At the time my many greats back Grandfather was in Henry V's army at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, the great Catholic/Pope schism was being settled, as noted in Swerve in a way that was rather similar to the battle Richard Eyre was in. I am not knowledgeable about the particulars of this Schism, but there was nothing in Swerve that seemed out of line to my limited knowledge of that time period.



The battle of Agincourt was one of many in the Hundred Years War between England and France. When it was over (1453), it didn't take the French long to start their own internal war, known as the Wars of Religion. The Wars of Religion are significant to me, because another many greats back Grandfather, Michael Michelet, was burned at the stake as he was a Huguenot, and he refused to recant. This, of course, happened much later than the time period in Greenblatt's book, but it gives a taste of the times, and so, in my opinion, does Greenblatt's book.


It turns out that what happened to Michael Michelet is important to at least some US readers. His descendants eventually found their way to Philadelphia in the 1700's, and John Jacob Mickley (Michelet Anglicized) is the guy who smuggled the Liberty Bell out of Philly in 1777, under the nose of the British.


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Old 08-15-16, 06:12 PM
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Originally Posted by Ed.
Interesting. I am no medievalist, that's for certain, but I find I can't condemn this book in its entirety, as the paper published in VOX does so freely.
I wouldn't condemn any book in its entirety, nor do I think that Dr. Laura Saetveit Miles did so in her review as it was published in VOX. However, it is a critical review that has as its focus the negative aspects of the book's historical premises, which is what many other academic reviews of The Swerve have considered - because it's a very important matter. Any non-fiction book that becomes as popular and well-received as The Swerve is and should be put under the most delicate sort of scrutiny.

The main issue at hand is that the text has clear biases, both from the author and his choice of contemporary sources. I personally have a reading list of dozens of books that are more important for my studies right now than The Swerve, so will have to rely on the judgment of reputable academics whose reviews have tended to say just this: the book is not lacking in historical information, but Greenblatt has chosen to depict only a particular ideological premise and expand upon it to make his argument, while relegating or abandoning a great deal of evidence to the contrary. While the book has historical integrity and valid arguments are made, it does not present a balanced impression of Western European intellectualism as we know it was in the ffiteenth century.

For an historian or well-read enthusiast this is of little danger, as every non-fiction book needs to be read with the caveat that alternative theories and additional evidence needs consideration to form the most definitive impression. Where things get problematic with books like The Swerve, which gain widespread appeal, is that many readers may never read another book about that historical period, and thus come away with a biased conception of an entire historical generation. This is simply not what historians have been trying to achieve - it's in fact the opposite.

So, for all of the interesting qualities that The Swerve may possess as a work of history, it is hard for those who have dedicated their lives to understanding the intellectualism of medieval European society, to see the intricate and complex web of evidence to be so simplified and in fact largely pigeon-holed in what has turned out to be a book read by many, many people. Thus the passionate and critical response among medievalists to Greenblatt's work.

There is of course plenty of truth to the things that Greenblatt argues in his book, as evidenced by many counter-intuitive movements of religious zeal and anti-intellectualism throughout late medieval and Renaissance Europe. What Savonarola did in Florence at the end of the 15th century may have been among the greatest setbacks to European intellectualism of all time, and was certainly aligned with the premises of The Swerve. One could read William Manchester's infamous (for similar reasons) A World Lit Only By Fire, and come away with similar impressions that put one in despair of intellectualism in late medieval times. However, there are also many books of medieval history dedicated to expounding a vast array of scientific and artistic knowledge that was perpetrated and advanced by contemporaries to such men as Bracciolini or Savonarola, and to see that a book has become "popular reading" and somehow excludes or sidelines the significant intellectual contributions of an era is a loss for many academics and enthusiasts alike.

(p.s. The French Wars of Religion began in 1562 or 110 years after the end of The Hundred Years War, which in most any historical time scale would be considered a long time.)

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Old 08-15-16, 06:21 PM
  #605  
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Originally Posted by Kilroy1988
...
(p.s. The French Wars of Religion began in 1562 or 110 years after the end of The Hundred Years War, which in most any historical time scale would be considered a long time.)

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Old 08-15-16, 08:00 PM
  #606  
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Since the thread has hit a medieval note, some of the books I've read recently have been set during this period:

The Accursed Kings series (6 books) by Maurice Druon, which is historical fiction centered on the fall of the Capet dynasty in France, with some side excursions into England.

The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones, which is a very readable historical narrative of the Plantagenet dynasty in England.

The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones, which is another historical narrative about the collapse of the Plantagenet dynasty and the resulting civil wars leading to the rise of the House of Tudor.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which is historical fiction centered around the activities of Thomas Cromwell assisting Henry VIII in setting aside Queen Catherine of Aragorn for Anne Boleyn, along with the resulting internal and external national problems this caused, notably the break from Rome and the creation of the Church of England.

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, which continues the Cromwell/Henry VIII story through the downfall of Anne Boleyn.

The Sagas of the Icelanders by Örnólfur Thorsson, which is a selection of major sagas about Vikings, centered around Iceland, Norway, England and Ireland. The sagas are based on actual family histories, but in some cases develop fantasy elements during generations of oral history prior to them being written down.

and somewhere amongst the medieval frenzy, just to cleanse the palate:

Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, The Road) which is loosely based on depraved criminal activities occurring prior to the Civil War in the area of Texas and Mexico. Fantastic book, incredibly brutal, nearby dictionary required.

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Old 08-22-16, 07:42 AM
  #607  
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Old 08-22-16, 09:02 AM
  #608  
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David Thewlis wrote this. Reminds me of JP Donleavy. Brilliant and crude, a glimpse inside the life of an artist that could only be written by an artist. Fall on the floor crying laughter filled with pain and agony. Damn.
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Old 08-22-16, 09:40 PM
  #609  
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Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson.
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Old 08-28-16, 07:42 PM
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Oh, hey...if we're going to Henry VI, VII, VIII, Edward IV(?), and Richard III, I've got to recommend Philippa Gregory's Cousin's Wars series - The Lady of the Rivers, The White Queen, The Red Queen, The Kingmaker's Daughter, The White Princess, The King's Curse.

I can't say it made me understand the Wars of the Roses, but it showed me why I never will understand it - every family has Henrys, Edwards, Richards, Elizabeths, and Margarets so it's effing impossible to understand! :-)

Gregory has also convinced me that Shakespeare screwed Richard III's memory to avoid attracting punishment or to win favor from Elizabeth Tudor.
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Old 08-29-16, 12:06 PM
  #611  
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Originally Posted by dweenk
If you like crime/mystery, I would suggest Tony Hillerman (died a few years ago) who wrote about the Navajo Tribal Police: or Michael Connelly who was a police reporter for the LA Times before he quit to write novels.
His daughter wrote afew more books with the same characters
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Old 08-29-16, 02:31 PM
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I gave up on Stephen King a long time ago. Somewhere around the "Dark Tower" days. I just picked up "Mr. Mercedes", "Finders Keepers" and "11/22/63" and was pleasantly surprised.

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Old 08-29-16, 03:28 PM
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I'm reading Babylon Revisited and other stories, by F.S. Fitzgerald.

Not sure whether I'm enjoying it or not.
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Old 09-13-16, 09:21 PM
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Just finished Geronimo by Tim Moore. A really fun read. In a nutshell, an old bloke who is in over his head gets a crazy notion to replicate the 1914 Giro by riding the same route on a vintage bike of that era. The early portion of the book is filled with several comical scenes as he sets out to acquire a suitable vintage bike, with several false starts and lessons learned. The bulk of the book then narrates his adventures along the 1914 Giro route, with a healthy mix of cycling history and Italian travelogue, filled with self-deprecation, zeal for a bygone era, moments of out-loud laughter, plus a surprise C&V ending I don't want to spoil. There's even a brief and humorous mention of bikeforums.net in the book (he asked a question about average speed and was answered with typical not unexpected derision).
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Old 09-14-16, 12:05 AM
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not bike related but a great story while bringing into focus a perspective on british imperialism and the history of Burma - I got it randomly from the corner "free library" (welcome to oakland/berkeley.. there are little free homemade library exchange kiosks every few blocks.. its great actually) but could not put it down:


The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
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Old 09-14-16, 03:25 AM
  #616  
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Just finished "Road to Valor" by Aili and Andres McConnon. Excellent read and great information about Gino Bartali. I love what he did during the war years. A true hero both on the bike and as a human being.
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Old 09-14-16, 04:08 AM
  #617  
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"Nobody's Fool", "Everybody's Fool" by Russo........author of Pulitzer Prize winner for "Empire Falls."
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Old 09-14-16, 04:29 AM
  #618  
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Originally Posted by gaucho777


Just finished Geronimo by Tim Moore.
Great book.
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Old 09-14-16, 04:33 AM
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Just started Pedalare! Pedalare! by John Foot. History of the Giro, my favorite stage race.
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Old 09-14-16, 04:34 AM
  #620  
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Re-reading "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman.

My youngest son is a senior in high school and his history class is doing a pretty thorough discussion.

I'm re-reading it as well to get in on the conversation with his friends.
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Old 09-14-16, 04:42 AM
  #621  
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I just came back from a 10 day vacation in Colorado and New Mexico. At Page One Bookstore in ABQ I found a first printing of the paperback copy of "Good News" by Edward Abbey.....signed, for $5.
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Old 09-14-16, 05:04 AM
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WHA? Five bucks? What a deal. Have never read that one but Abbey is a national treasure.

A good friend of mine just sent me a signed copy of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, 40th anniversary edition. As he knows I collect different editions of it, one of my favorite books.

And speaking of favorites, just finished Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, again. May be my all time favorite work of fiction. What a dark, funny and well written story. I re-read it every couple of years.
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Old 09-20-16, 05:09 AM
  #623  
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Originally Posted by rootboy
WHA? Five bucks? What a deal. Have never read that one but Abbey is a national treasure.

A good friend of mine just sent me a signed copy of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, 40th anniversary edition. As he knows I collect different editions of it, one of my favorite books.

And speaking of favorites, just finished Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, again. May be my all time favorite work of fiction. What a dark, funny and well written story. I re-read it every couple of years.
Yea, I couldn't believe it either. I've since done some research and it's either his signature or an excellent forgery. Since we can't ask Mr. Abbey I guess we'll never know for sure.
The book is about a post-apocalypse city in the southwest (pretty sure it is Phoenix). It's been 20 years since I read it.
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Old 09-20-16, 06:11 AM
  #624  
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If anyone is into Harry Potter...the new book based on the play, Harry Potter and Cursed Child, is an interesting extension to the HP universe. It is a quick read, albeit in "play" format...
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Old 09-20-16, 07:04 AM
  #625  
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I did read the Potter books. Found them at an estate sale, for cheap. So figured, what the heck.
Probably won't read the new one, though. Life is short and there are so many other great books to read.
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