What are you reading?

[Griffin NoName]

I'm going to reduce it to a stream of well enumerated tokens so that I can deal with one thing at a time with no problems.

Hope you've considered life is a mere token...... else you might be in for a shock.

Still reading Carry me Down but also reading my cheque stubs and screaming.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Nothing, I ran out of books! (We bought 10 last weekend.)

Now to whine until I get Dan to agree to go to Half Price Books and raid the close-out section. Again.

Amazon. That's all I can say. I pick up books for like, $2 (though there's shipping, which can be decent if you're willing to wait).

The Man in the High Castle--Philip K. Dick

[Aphos]

Just started the 4th Kathy Reichs novel.  Dr. Brennan an airliner has crashed and she is part of the response team.

I have really enjoyed the first three novels.  Very different from the TV show "Bones".  Other than the name, gender and profession, the characters are not the same at all.  Still, I have enjoyed the TV show, too.

[beagle]

John Gough - Compiling for the .Net Common Language Runtime

and

Mary Beard - Pompeii, The Life of a Roman Town
(covering such interesting questions as how archeologists can tell whether a building was a brothel, or just an ordinary villa).

[Griffin NoName]

Mary Beard - Pompeii, The Life of a Roman Town
(covering such interesting questions as how archeologists can tell whether a building was a brothel, or just an ordinary villa).

isn't it something to do with the number of stone bench like projections built into the walls? and also I seem to remember a nearby subterranean chamber with lots of baby skeletons figures somewhere?  or am I mis-remembering some other theories elsewhere (but I think still Roman).......


Still reading Carry Me Down - really hard to get into but the blurb (gushing) is so intriguing I cannot abandon it until I find out why..... another 3/8 inch until I am half way through..... does anyone else measure their reading by size rather than pages or am I just sad?

[Kaliayev]

The Runaway : The Chronicles of a Spy in Medieval Europe during the Reign of Louis XI of France by Thierry Bontoux
From Civil to Political Religion: The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics by Marcela Christi
and
Death's Dream Kingdom: The American Psyche since 9/11 by Walter A. Davis

I'm trying to get more into the psychological and cultural aspects of political theory, so hopefully the latter two books will help there.

[beagle]

Mary Beard - Pompeii, The Life of a Roman Town
(covering such interesting questions as how archeologists can tell whether a building was a brothel, or just an ordinary villa).

isn't it something to do with the number of stone bench like projections built into the walls? and also I seem to remember a nearby subterranean chamber with lots of baby skeletons figures somewhere?  or am I mis-remembering some other theories elsewhere (but I think still Roman).......

Some archeologists count every building with erotic pictures as a brothel. However, as even the most respectable Pompeiian families horded and ostentatiously displayed porn with an enthusiasm which would make a modern teenage male blush, this  may have led to something of an over-estimate.

The next level counts any one-room home near the street with a bed as a brothel, but this may have wrongly included starter-homes and other hovels.

Professor Beard is more inclined to go for buildings, with lots of small rooms with just a bed, (possibly a small  ante-chamber for the madam ), and lots of graffiti of the form "I f***** here". 
(Probably sounds wittier  in Latin).

However she points out sex for money was pretty much diffused through the whole town.

Wasn't the baby skeleton stuff a European nunnery?

[Griffin NoName]

Wasn't the baby skeleton stuff a European nunnery?

Good to know how to identify a Roman brothel   I dunno re the baby skeletons; I had it fixed in my brain as Roman but I wouldn't trust my brain further than I can throw it, so you may be right there.

Terrific progress on Carry Me Down ~ just over 1mm over half-way, downhill from now on. Still haven't found out why it is a good to read seller and I am still struggling.

[Kaliayev]

Warfare and Society in Imperial Rome
European warfare 1494-1660
Darkness at Dawn - The Rise of the Russian Criminal State
Twilight (urgh)

[Pachyderm]

Another companies bat report for a site we just got.

Dreadful. Simply dreadful. Done badly, and at the wrong time of year. Waste of time and money.This kind of thing is what gives consultants a bad name.

But at least we get to remedy the situation.

[Swatopluk]

Just started The Eliminationists by David Neiwert

Otherwise (job-realted) a public information guide on mercury 

[Kaliayev]

Niewert is fantastic.  Do you read his blog, Orcinus?  Alot of the material cited in that helped form my end of year terrorism paper on the "Patriot movement" in the US (in the context of "new terrorism").

[Griffin NoName]

Lethal Practice ~ Peter Clement

a medical thriller, right up my street

[Swatopluk]

Niewert is fantastic.  Do you read his blog, Orcinus?  Alot of the material cited in that helped form my end of year terrorism paper on the "Patriot movement" in the US (in the context of "new terrorism").

I regularly read the blog. The posting frequency has become a bit erratic though since he and Sara Robinson write and work also for other sites.

[Kaliayev]

Niewert is fantastic.  Do you read his blog, Orcinus?  Alot of the material cited in that helped form my end of year terrorism paper on the "Patriot movement" in the US (in the context of "new terrorism").

I regularly read the blog. The posting frequency has become a bit erratic though since he and Sara Robinson write and work also for other sites.

Well, to be fair, they are the only two people in America with job security currently (in the words of Sadly, No!), so they're probably getting a lot of requests for articles and so on.

I do like the site a lot though.  In my third year at Uni I elected to do a module on political ideology and philosophy and I chose to focus on Fascism, mainly because it aligned with elements of my terrorism research (Italian neofascist movements - now there is a rabbit hole that goes into some very deep and frightening places).  When Googling around I found the site and have followed it ever since.  I've sometimes considered doing something similar for Europe, though I'd need to bone up on Eurofascist parties somewhat.  I have all the material, its just finding the time to read, analyze, digest and follow these people.

I really, really hate Fascism, and its the only political ideology whose adherents actually scare me, so I like to know as much as possible about them.