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As a non-american with a vague idea of Joseph Smith and no idea about FLDS Under the Banner of Heaven was a great read. Turns out I'm wrong because of mountain climbing or something.
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Mar 30, 2016 23:43
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Earwicker posted:I'm currently reading Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh, it's by a dude who grew up in middle class southern California and then went to grad school in Chicago to study sociology, became interested the poor black neighborhoods that surrounded the school and decided to focus on studying them, and then wound up becoming friends with a gang leader in the projects where he was essentially "embedded" in a way that is fairly rare for sociologists and allowed him to have a lot of very direct involvement and observation. Really interesting book that focuses a lot on the relationship between the gang and the non-gang residents of the projects and how they rely on and feed off one another. I read this book, and unfortunately I'm not sure I'd recommend it? I think there's perhaps some good content there, but similar to Tokyo Vice (which I'm convinced is 85% total B.S.), I think the author got too caught up in his own narrative, or trying to refine a narrative. He does say the conversations are based largely on memory, but they seem... way too crisp? They read a lot more like a screenplay than an actual recitation of fact. I'm not claiming he didn't do the work, but I think his memory has been affected substantially by what he wanted to learn when he first set foot in the projects. He made himself the main character of a story that's just too clean (and rather condescending). It ends up feeling paper-thin and more like a novelization of The Wire than a serious academic work. Pick fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 01:33
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Going from memory Gang Leader for a day, was pretty controversial in sociology circles, they recommended reading it to see how it's possible to embed yourself within a chosen sample population and subculture. But also warned that it was an example of how getting too close actually causes a lot of problems for your research. This reminds me though of a similar work. The Warriors by Sol Yurick is a novel about teenage gangs in New York, but my copy came with an essay by Sol about the novel and its eventual film adaptation. In addition to giving some behind the scenes dirt and explaining the Xenophon connection Sol goes onto explain his background working with teenage gang members as a social worker in the 60's (technically the Warriors was set in the future). It's really interesting stuff and him being a social worker meant that he was kept at arms length but also acquired a lot of knowledge of their subculture. Its worth a read, especially if you liked the film and the PS2 game. Though I warn you the novel is a lot darker than the film where the Warriors are a group plucky delinquents just trying to make it in this crazy world.
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Apr 7, 2016 03:18
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There's a chapter in Freakonomics (published in 2005) built around Sudhir Venkatesh's adventures in gangland. The start of that adventure is described in Freakonomics asSteven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner posted:But his (Venkatesh) graduate advisor, the eminent poverty scholar William Julius Wilson, promptly sent Venkatesh into the field. His assignment: to visit Chicago's poorest black neighborhoods with a clipboard and a seventy-question, multiple-choice survey. EDIT: I just looked at the cover of Gang Leader on Amazon, and apparently the foreword is by Dubner. Is the story of those two books available anywhere? I'm curious about the relationships between those authors. Baka-nin posted:The Warriors by Sol Yurick 
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Apr 7, 2016 03:37
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ExecuDork posted:
Well actually I'm not recommending the novel, even though it left quite an impression on me, my recommendation is of the essay that was in my edition (its not in all of them, this was a special re-release, and I don't know if its available separately)I said that if you like the film you'll probably like the essay because a big chunk of it is dedicated to the Hollywood machine and an analysis of what the changes to the script actually mean, and how poorly the film reflected reality. Also a strong word of caution, the actual novel is very, very different from the film, for starters their called the Dominators and are all about fifteen, with Junior being about twelve and they do very nasty things that couldn't get away with filming. there's a gang rape of a fifteen year old girl by the Gang and an attempted rape of a nurse that ends in robbery and assault Its a realistic depiction of gang culture in 60's New York, there are no rumbles with twenty something's in outlandish gear, when they fight its a group of juveniles with switchblades and I'm pretty sure at one point they murder a random guy for disrespecting them.
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Apr 7, 2016 04:05
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Recently finished: Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson. Really enjoyed this one. A very interesting recounting of Lawrence and his actions and motivations through the middle eastern campaign as well as the other forces at work both political and personal, overt and covert. Was expecting a little more analysis of the "making of the modern" bit but unfortunately any of that is relegated to a hastily written epilogue. Nonetheless the story is fantastic and the book reads like a novel so much that I had to remind myself many times that I wasnt reading a work of fiction. Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason and the Gap Between Us and Them by Joshua Greene. Interesting analysis of moral theory through the lenses of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. At least for the first half of the book. The second half starts to waffle on a bit as the author lays out his theories of utilitarianism and although I found myself agreeing with much of what he was saying, it was simply because I had already reached similar conclusions myself. The strength of his case I felt suffered from an inordinate amount of time spent apologising rather than arguing for his view points. Anyway still an interesting read. Currently reading: Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future by Ian Morris. Seems to seek answers to to the same questions as in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel but with hopefully a bit more of a scholarly approach, I guess. corn in the fridge fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 13:39
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Pick posted:It ends up feeling paper-thin and more like a novelization of The Wire than a serious academic work. I certainly agree that it's more of a narrative than a serious academic work (after all, it only has one title). But I don't think it was at all intended to be a serious academic work, this isn't the guy's thesis but a non-fiction work that is being sold commercially. And in that context I'd put the responsibility as much on his editor and the publisher as the author (and I'm not saying what they did was wrong) since they wanted a book that would actually sell. I mean, unless some element of the story is actually falsified, I don't see much of a problem, though I do agree the dude's tone was rather condescending at times.
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Apr 8, 2016 15:46
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I get that, but among the other nonfiction I read it's a standout for... lack of substance. Meanwhile, I'm still getting through Lawrence in Arabia and drat it's a good book. It's so loving good!!
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Apr 16, 2016 05:39
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Another one up for Caro, I haven't touched his LBJ series, but The Power Broker on Robert Moses is just stellar. Superb writing and drat entertaining as well.
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Apr 19, 2016 09:18
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Pick posted:Meanwhile, I'm still getting through Lawrence in Arabia and drat it's a good book. It's so loving good!! I finished it and it's one of those books, along with The Wilderness Warrior, that I am going to shove down people's throats. It's a must-read and a wild ride and fun/depressing as hell. Also, boy was TE Lawrence both a spitfire, a horse's rear end, a genius, a martyr, and a big weird. Current reading list: Lincoln (David Herbert Donald) Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Crusade for America The Great Mortality Indefinitely shelved until that one Twilight Zone episode where the guy breaks his glasses happens in real life: The Children's Blizzard: Everyone wants to hear about children dying in a huge blizzard, but the tone of this book is obnoxious. The author seems to be trying to inject drama into a situation where hundreds of children died, which is unnecessary for a situation where hundreds of children died. I skipped around through this book, and the organization is also rather poor. The Last Viking: Not "bad" but taking too long to get off the ground, will return to it later most likely or just skip to the most key chapters about Amundsen. Pick fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 23, 2016 21:39
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I just finished Near Death in the Desert, edited by some guy who's written a whole series of these Near Death in the XXX books. Gotta say, not very good. Besides writing godawful intros and extros to each excerpt, Kuhne put together a collection of travels-through-the-desert stories in which nobody comes particularly close to dying, but everybody shows off their selfish-dick side. Hard to relate to the narrator when he's describing how great he thinks these nomads are after they complain about the difficulties of selling slaves in the mid-to-late 20th century.corn in the fridge posted:Currently reading:
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Apr 23, 2016 21:55
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ExecuDork posted:I'm part-way through War, What is it Good For by Ian Morris and so far, so good. Actually, better than good - I'm devouring that book at a pretty rapid pace. He mentions his previous books every so often and he makes his case very well. I'm curious about what you think about Why the West Rules. Yeah, it was good. Ian Morris is a good writer and its easy and enjoyable to read. He does make some interesting observations and has a few good theories but if you're expecting something profound and groundbreaking you might be disappointed. Overall however, it's a very nice contextual history lesson and I would recommended it over Guns, Germs and Steel as it's much more "fleshed out." (I'm pretty sure Morris assumes everyone reading his book has already read Diamond's book)
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Apr 25, 2016 16:16
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Pick posted:I read this book, and unfortunately I'm not sure I'd recommend it? I read Tokyo Vice mostly because i wanted to learn more about the yakuza. but half of the book is the dude getting high and loving chicks.
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Apr 26, 2016 02:24
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I've just finished DisneyWar and it was great. Is there anything else like it that's worth checking out? It would be pretty cool if Stewart revisited Disney in 2018 when (if) Bob Iger retires. The book ends just before Eisner actually resigned (his announcement is literally the last thing in the afterword) and I have some awareness of what happened next for Disney (mostly restricted to the big successes - bringing Pixar back into the fold, acquiring Marvel and Lucasfilm, the runaway success of Frozen etc.) but not in anything resembling detail. There must be many more stories to be told in the decade that's passed since.
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May 5, 2016 13:40
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Wheat Loaf posted:I've just finished DisneyWar and it was great. Is there anything else like it that's worth checking out? I could tell you the detailed story about how Disney completely ruined Hyperion, a publishing house they once owned then gutted and sold to Hachette.
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May 5, 2016 13:46
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Wheat Loaf posted:I've just finished DisneyWar and it was great. Is there anything else like it that's worth checking out? "Like it" in the sense of the story of a business, following proud people make terrible decisions, or what made it stand out to you?
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May 5, 2016 16:51
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I enjoyed what you're describing but I was also interested in the corporate intrigue dimension. The only other book I've read which I think is reasonably similar is Soulsville USA by Robert Bowman, which is the story of Stax Records. I recently watched Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films and enjoyed it as well. I feel that that's similar.
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May 5, 2016 21:34
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Sounds like you'd enjoy Hit & Run - Nancy Griffinquote:Hit and Run tells the improbable and often hilarious story of how two Hollywood film packagers went on a campaign to reinvent themselves as studio executives -- at Sony's expense. Veteran reporters Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters chronicle the rise of Jon Peters, a former hairdresser, seventh-grade dropout, and juvenile delinquent, and his soulless soul mate, Peter Guber -- and all the sex, drugs, and fistfights along the way. It is the story of the ultimate Hollywood con job and the standard by which every subsequent business blunder has been measured. Hit and Run delivers rock-solid business reporting liberally laced with inside gossip and outrageous scandal -- plus a new afterword bringing us up to date on the latest fallout from the Guber-Peters legacy. It's a little dated, and not for everybody, but I enjoyed it a lot. Juanito fucked around with this message at 01:31 on May 8, 2016 |
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May 8, 2016 00:16
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I'm reading The Love You Make which is a history of the Beatles written by a guy who was friends with Brian Epstein and Cynthia Lennon, the book was a bestseller back in the 80's and apparently touted as "the real insider story". I randomly picked it up at a nice little shop in Maine. I'm about a third in, and pretty disappointed, as its much less about the music than about their personal lives, in an odd way that sort of glamorizes John and is rather needlessly meanspirited towards anyone else other than Brian Epstein. I keep hoping that will change and its still kind of worth it as I've never read a detailed book about the Beatles before and still find the history interesting, but if anyone's got a better recommendation I'll trade up.
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May 8, 2016 01:19
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Wheat Loaf posted:I enjoyed what you're describing but I was also interested in the corporate intrigue dimension. One of the classics of that genre is Barbarians at the Gate: the Fall of RJR Nabisco, by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, which is all about the CEO of Nabisco attempting to buyout all the other shareholders, and the emergence of the leveraged buyout at a dominant corporate strategy. It's a lot more gripping and interesting than that sounds.
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May 8, 2016 02:34
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I finished I Wouldn't Start From Here. The 21st Century and Where It All Went Wrong by Andrew Mueller this morning. Mueller is an Australian rock journalist who ended up visiting every war-torn shithole he could get himself sent to by various newspapers and magazines, and tells the stories of just walking around talking to people and trying to figure things out. I picked it up because the foreword was written by Robert Young Pelton and I'm a big fan of his work (The World's Most Dangerous Places is his most famous book). Each chapter is a re-worked version of a column or story he wrote for a magazine or newspaper, with pretty seamless transitions between the previously-published parts and his kind-of metacommentary about that experience. The chapters are not arranged in chronological order, and the book jumps around between about 2000 and 2007, with most chapters apparently arranged because of the contrast or link to the previous chapter - chapter endings like "I didn't find that here. But I did know of one such place." are pretty common. I liked the writing a lot, he's cynical and angry about things we should be cynical and angry about (violent warmongering goverments, violent psychopathic terrorists, etc.) but the tone of the book is surprisingly upbeat. He's also got a sense of humor I really appreciate and a talent for making fun metaphors. In contrast to War, What is it Good For?, which was a broad look at centuries-long trends through history and around the world, I Wouldn't Start From Here is one somewhat baffled man wandering into friendly people's homes in horrible places and asking them about their lives while war and other tragedies rage around them. I'm going to have to see if there's a decent book store in this small town I'm in for the next few days, I've run out of non-fiction on this trip and my fiction supply probably won't last long, either.
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May 8, 2016 06:41
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Waking Up by Sam Harris. While his name has become synonymous with bigotry by some, thanks to a scurrilous and misguided smear campaign, there exists nothing of the sort in this book.
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May 8, 2016 23:12
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I'm currently about halfway through Into Thin Air. I've never read any Krakuaer before other than the odd article here or there. I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying it. I find his prose a little overwrought at times, and to be honest mountain climbing is not a subject I've ever been particularly interested in, but it's an extremely compelling book, quite hard to put down.
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May 13, 2016 23:46
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Just finished Waist High in the World. It's pretty good if you wanna know more about the cultural perceptions of disabled people. It's also hella depressing.
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Jul 26, 2016 08:34
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That makes sense. I've mostly been reading books of film criticism which are I guess published thesisus. I just hate facts whether I'm reading fiction or non-. I'd really recommend Richard Cumbow's Order in the Universe about the works of John Carpenter (sadly written before Ghosts on Mars. Not sure if there's a revised edition). It's great alone for simply collecting a lot of Carpenter quotes but his analysis on the films is solid. Though the contortions he makes to apologise for Cameron can be dreadful: Vampires isn't misogynistic because, uh, there aren't any women in it; the portrayal of gangs in Assault on Precinct 13 is fine because it slots into a long line of eg westerns using indians as a manifestation of evil. Also he gets so excited at Prince of Darkness he breaks down and tries to pin it down through a series of lists, it's bizarre.
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Jul 26, 2016 08:51
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Mr. Squishy posted:That makes sense. I very well might read this. Especially if it has a newer edition.
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Jul 26, 2016 10:57
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I'm not able to get through The Looming Tower, Wright's book about Al-Qaeda and 9/11. However, Bryan Burrough's new book about 1970's American radical-leftist terrorism is incredibly good. Days of Rage
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Jul 28, 2016 05:59
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I am about to start this Otis Redding biography by Mark Ribowsky. I've heard he's written one about the Temptations as well which I will need to seek out, because I sure do love the Temptations.
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Jul 28, 2016 06:04
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blue squares posted:I'm not able to get through The Looming Tower, Wright's book about Al-Qaeda and 9/11. Just curious since I have a copy but haven't read it yet. Why?
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Jul 28, 2016 15:05
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MeatwadIsGod posted:Just curious since I have a copy but haven't read it yet. Why? It's incredibly well-researched and well written, but for two reasons. One, the situation in the middle east has changed so dramatically since it came out that it doesn't feel relevant anymore. Two, it doesn't have a lot of life to it. The authorial presence is very distant, and I never got a clear picture of the players as people. This might change when the FBI becomes more prominent, but I didn't make it that far. Now, maybe it's just unconscious bias against the Middle East and Arabs, and if so that's my problem and not the book's. But ultimately after 100 pages I just didn't care enough to keep going.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:11
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Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools: A fast read, and basically just a long research paper. I'd still recommend it though, based on the information you get and how quickly/easily it's relayed. Things have changed since the book was released, but then again, a lot of the people who are in power who went to boarding schools were in these schools during this era. I'd say it's a nice peek into a different world, and gives insight into the development of the "elitist" mindset.
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Jul 28, 2016 16:55
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Pick posted:Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools: A fast read, and basically just a long research paper. I'd still recommend it though, based on the information you get and how quickly/easily it's relayed. Things have changed since the book was released, but then again, a lot of the people who are in power who went to boarding schools were in these schools during this era. I'd say it's a nice peek into a different world, and gives insight into the development of the "elitist" mindset. Going off of this William Domhoff's Who Rules America is really good in it's sociological analysis. There's some tedious bits about how Social Network Theory works but other than that it's definitely recommended
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Jul 29, 2016 06:25
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I'm finishing Laura Thompson's The Six, a book about a niche interest of mine: the Mitford sisters. Mine is an advance copy courtesy of a publishing rep, so it's not out yet, but it was previously published in the UK as Take Six Girls. I'm a little disappointed over the title change! The US title does sound sort of magisterial, though... I've been disappointed with previous biographies about the sisters. They seemed either too preferential (which is hard to escape when you're writing a bio, I know) or too caught up in the sisters' own myth-making. But Thompson is very even-handed in her treatment, analytical, critical, and compassionate all at once. Anyway, if you're interested in the Mitfords, in midcentury feminine middlebrow, the interwar era, etc. I'd pick it up. eudaemaniac fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jul 29, 2016 |
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Jul 29, 2016 21:05
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The Mitfords own the pub my grandad used to run back in the sixties
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Jul 29, 2016 21:14
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I picked up a book called Moon Dust about astronauts because it sounded cool and had a Ballard blurb but he glossed IV (4 in roman numerals) so I think this sci has gone way too pop.
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Jul 30, 2016 10:22
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Jimmithy posted:The Mitfords own the pub my grandad used to run back in the sixties The Swan?
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Jul 30, 2016 16:48
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eudaemaniac posted:The Swan? That's the one
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Jul 30, 2016 16:49
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thanks for the recommendation - I have encountered stories about the Mitfords while reading about various other things and was always intrigued and though I should learn more, so now I will.
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Jul 30, 2016 17:28
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Earwicker posted:thanks for the recommendation - I have encountered stories about the Mitfords while reading about various other things and was always intrigued and though I should learn more, so now I will. Do it! I'd also recommend Lovell's The Sisters, with some reservations. I feel as though it is very apologetic towards Diana and dismissive of Jessica, which probably says something about my own politics (and while I admire Jessica, I think she was just kinda... mean; I think most of the actual political action she took was for the better, being so involved with the civil rights movement, but her actual personality seemed dreadful). I'd also recommend Jessica's own memoir, Hons and Rebels, with the caveat that it's mostly hogwash but it's really entertaining.
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Jul 30, 2016 19:30
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Thinking about picking up William Tecumseh Sherman: In The Service of My Country, A Life by James Lee McDonough. Thoughts? Don't read much non-fiction but Sherman is a pretty compelling figure who I'd like to learn more about
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Aug 1, 2016 02:34
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