What are you reading?

[Mos]

Re: What are you reading?

Currently reading this book: (book was supported by Vartan Grigorian) I will look out for Western bias as I've heard there is some in it.

[Federate]

Re: What are you reading?

Did you finish the Hizballah book Mos? Any final comments/thoughts on it?

[Mos]

Re: What are you reading?

Did you finish the Hizballah book Mos? Any final comments/thoughts on it?

Yeah finished it, it was a short read, was very informative, not very opinionated which is good, it gave a the bare bones of the history, I wish he had talked more about the Civil War and recent politics, but in all good book for anyone who just wants to learn more about this organisation, which is a rather impressive organisation I must say.

I also read Huntington's clash of civilisations, but most of it was just fearmongering, xenephobic BS. Spreading fear that the West is under attack by Islam, China, Orthodox, etc. It's been supposedly very influential, that's why I read it, but in all it's what I expected. I also read some of Bernard Lewis' history of Middle East, just to see the Turkish money at work, was pretty disgusting.

[Christina]

Re: What are you reading?

I saw the short film "I am Neda" and it moving and based on a true story. A young Iranian girl that had utopian
ideals that if she joined the peaceful march it would benefit the people.
You can guess the rest of the story. I really hope they get accepted in the Sundance Film Festival.
Everyone should see it.

[Siggie]

Re: What are you reading?

The Wordy Shipmates
Sarah Vowell

http://www.amazon.com/Wordy-Shipmates-Sarah-Vowell/dp/1594489998

The Wordy Shipmates is New York Times–bestselling author Sarah Vowell’s exploration of the Puritans and their journey to America to become the people of John Winthrop’s “city upon a hill”—a shining example, a “city that cannot be hid.”

To this day, America views itself as a Puritan nation, but Vowell investigates what that means— and what it should mean. What was this great political enterprise all about? Who were these people who are considered the philosophical, spiritual, and moral ancestors of our nation? What Vowell discovers is something far different from what their uptight shoe-buckles-and- corn reputation might suggest. The people she finds are highly literate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty. Their story is filled with pamphlet feuds, witty courtroom dramas, and bloody vengeance. Along the way she asks:

* Was Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop a communitarian, a Christlike Christian, or conformity’s tyrannical enforcer? Answer: Yes!
* Was Rhode Island’s architect, Roger Williams, America’s founding freak or the father of the First Amendment? Same difference.
* What does it take to get that jezebel Anne Hutchinson to shut up? A hatchet.
* What was the Puritans’ pet name for the Pope? The Great xxxxx of Babylon.

Sarah Vowell’s special brand of armchair history makes the bizarre and esoteric fascinatingly relevant and fun. She takes us from the modern-day reenactment of an Indian massacre to the Mohegan Sun casino, from old-timey Puritan poetry, where “righteousness” is rhymed with “wilderness,” to a Mayflower-themed waterslide. Throughout, The Wordy Shipmates is rich in historical fact, humorous insight, and social commentary by one of America’s most celebrated voices. Thou shalt enjoy it.

I am enjoying it; Vowell is very funny.

[Gaya]

Re: What are you reading?

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Really inspiring

[Siggie]

Re: What are you reading?

Unfamiliar Fishes
Sarah Vowell

http://www.amazon.com/Unfamiliar-Fishes-Sarah-Vowell/dp/1594487871

Book Description

From the bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates, comes an examination of Hawaii, the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn.

Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight.

Among the developments in these outposts of 1898, Vowell considers the Americanization of Hawaii the most intriguing. From the arrival of New England missionaries in 1820, their goal to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup d'état of the missionaries' sons in 1893, which overthrew the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, and often appealing or tragic, characters: whalers who fired cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their God-given right to xxxxxs, an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode "Aloha 'Oe" serenaded the first Hawaiian president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade.

With her trademark smart-alecky insights and reporting, Vowell lights out to discover the off, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state, and in so doing finds America, warts and all.

[Hyegirl]

Re: What are you reading?

Primarily income tax textbooks and Bram Stoker's Dracula, and I'm in the middle of a couple of books by/about comedians including Howie Mandel's biography and the less humorous Family of Shadows: A Century of Murder, Memory, and the Armenian American Dream by Garin Hovannisian.

[Mikael]

Re: What are you reading?

Moem - "The moon, and a pence"

[Pedro Xaramillo]

Re: What are you reading?

Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche,
Kavkazskii Plennik by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin