What book are you reading? #3

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I loved A Canticle for Liebowitz when I read it a few years ago.
 
Justin_Swanton said:
A Canticle for Liebowitz.

Miller’s biography is very sketchy. Does anyone have anything substantial about him?
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Canticle and its posthumous sequel are the only novels he wrote, I think, and was mostly a short-story writer, many of which appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I recall reading that during WWII, he was a tail-gunner on an air force bombing run that struck a Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, and that his guilt over the incident was one of the factors that lead him to write it. He converted to Catholicism after the war.

Apparently a very troubled man through his life. Joe Haldeman (who wrote the excellent “The Forever War,” and is himself a Vietnam vet), said Miller had undiagnosed troubles with PTSD with which he struggled throughout his post-war life. Sadly, Miller took his own life after his wife died.

It’s a very interesting novel, originally published as 3 novellas and rewritten for the novel version (there is also a posthumous sequel, I believe), with the last section especially concerned with issues of bioethics, euthanasia, and abortion which are very relevant today.
 
nicolep said:
I’m currently reading The Girl Who Played With Fire. I finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo not too long ago and wanted to proceed with the series. The former is the first one that I’ve read on the Kindle. I kind of dragged my feet about buying one. I do like reading on it though. Good purchase. Up next is The Mill River Recluse. I’ve heard good things about that book.
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That whole series is just incredible. I’m re reading the first one before the new movie comes out.
 
child_of_God85 said:
That whole series is just incredible. I’m re reading the first one before the new movie comes out.
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That’s what inspired me to finally start reading the series (the movie being released in December). I had several people recommend it to me. When I saw the movie preview when I went to see “Contagion”, I knew I needed to get started. I flew through the first. The second is taking longer, but only because I’ve been sort of busy.
 
nicolep said:
That’s what inspired me to finally start reading the series (the movie being released in December). I had several people recommend it to me. When I saw the movie preview when I went to see “Contagion”, I knew I needed to get started. I flew through the first. The second is taking longer, but only because I’ve been sort of busy.
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The third one ties everything up really well. It’s so tragic hat the author died, he was planning on righting 7 more books.
 
Right now I’m reading The Woman in Black and The House of Mirth.
 
nicolep said:
I need to read The Woman in Black before the movie comes out. I think it’s set to open in the US in Feb. '12.
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You should have pleanty of time to read it, it’s under 200 pages long. I got it for my nookcolor, and so far it’s pretty creepy.
 
“Economics for Helen” by Hillaire Belloc. Previously “Redeeming Economics” by John Mueller. Bought the former for my grandchildren and am reading it to see if it’s as good as it’s touted and what the age-appropriate level is. Bought the latter for each of my adult children for Christmas. They are all dying to read it, but I couldn’t give my one copy to each of them simultaneously. Excellent, excellent book.

I hope to get Solzhenitzyn’s “Apricot Jam” for Christmas. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.😉 It’s a collection of stories, actually.
 
Ridgerunner said:
“Economics for Helen” by Hillaire Belloc. Previously “Redeeming Economics” by John Mueller. Bought the former for my grandchildren and am reading it to see if it’s as good as it’s touted and what the age-appropriate level is. Bought the latter for each of my adult children for Christmas. They are all dying to read it, but I couldn’t give my one copy to each of them simultaneously. Excellent, excellent book.

I hope to get Solzhenitzyn’s “Apricot Jam” for Christmas. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.😉 It’s a collection of stories, actually.
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What do you think of Belloc? I’ve thought about several of his books but have not ready any.
 
cthulhubryan said:
What do you think of Belloc? I’ve thought about several of his books but have not ready any.
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I have not read much of his work. I will say that what I have read so far of his economic ideas, there is a lot to be said for them, but they appear incomplete to me. They appear (so far) incomplete in that he was very clear on what he felt was wrong with the economic system of his day, and clear on what he felt the economic arrangements should be. But there’s no real “road map” from one to the other, at least from what I have read so far.

That can be said of all the early “Distributists”, at least from what I have read so far. They are very clear on what they would like to see and on what they do not like. But they’re thin on the “how to”.

I’ll add, however, that it’s very easy to read them and ignore the personal aspect of it, which is a shame. Much of what they advocate can be achieved (though perhaps with more difficulty than they would prefer) with a change in attitude on the part of the individual. With that, the “how to” isn’t so opaque, in that a simple return to Catholic principles of living, combined with only a rudimentary resort to Distributist concepts, would seem to suffice.

Take, for instance, wage-servitude and consumerism. It isn’t so easy to see how the two are connected, but Belloc and Chesterton would say (and do say) that they are intimately connected. If a man can’t see beyond his wage, he will limit his world-view to it and spend it up in consumerism. If his mindset is consumption-driven, he will worship his wage. Consumerism is fundamentally driven by corporate thought processes, which producers certainly try to encourage in every way. (It may be noted that this country has almost “officially” adopted consumerism as the ethic of the polity and principle of well-being; witness the constant citation of the economy as a “consumer” economy, and efforts to stimulate consumer spending in the face of unsustainable public and private debt and undercapitalization of families.)

But again, I have not read enough of Belloc’s work to really have a full appreciation of him on the whole.

For what I, at least, consider a more complete "road map’ in the realm of economics and Distributist principles (which are actually based on ages-old Church principles) I recommend John Mueller’s “Redeeming Economics”. It’s a tough slog if one tries to follow the equations and delve into the historical background and economic theories he repeatedly cites. But it’s also fundamentally readable, even if one does not attempt to “crack the academic code”.

But again, systems alone do not do everything.
 
I’m reading From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury. It’s like a literary version of The Addams Family.
 
I just finished “Life” the Keith Richards bio , he has amazing stories about artists he worked with, interesting man Keith is a self described "bookworm " as for his past drug issues, unlike some musicians he does not glorify it. He is guy whose seen a lot. Coming from “A sleepy London Town.” his story of why his teeth started to go almost black is belly laugh funny!! It had nothing to do with lifestyle … Not to give the punchline but it goes back to Dentists of his Chlilhood… “Keef” calls them : Like Sir Olivier in “Marathon Man”(-: ouch
 
I’m on a Jane Austin binge right now. I’m reading Pride and Prejudice at the moment and am planning on reading all her books back to back. You can never go wrog wih Jane 😉
 
“THE DEMONOLOGIST” The Extraordinary Career of Ed & Lorraine Warren
by Gerald Daniel Brittle
awesome book…every Catholic should read this one…will challenge your perspective and your notions of life, death, and where our place is. Demoniacal phenomena, diabolical possesion, and occult museum… some new words to add to my vocabulary. It went out of print for a while and no one could touch it for less than $150.00 but it’s availble again. I picked up a copy for $17.95. Its worth every penny…Godspeed…LukeSr
 
Here is a book that I have not quite finished. I’m about two thirds finished, but reading it has made me angry and outraged. It is especially pertinent now at time of increasing public outrage over sex crimes, and it serves as a warning over premature public judgment.

The book is “No Crueler Tyrannies” by Dorothy Rabinowitz. It is subtitled “Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times.”

It concerns some rather notorious cases of sex crimes, particularly alleged child abuse cases, brought against child care centers and child care teachers several decades ago.

One might think that false convictions on sex crimes charges, especially of child abuse, would be rare. But the cases recounted in this book suggest that they are not only possible but in certain periods, common. After hours and days of interrogations, children who show no evidence or awareness whatever of the horrors alleged to have been done to them, can at length be elicited to cooperate in fanciful and incredible stories suggested to them by prosecutors and “experts.”

I could recount some examples but the book is replete with them. Innocent people were accused, tried, convicted, and sent to prison for long sentences for crimes—not only that they did not commit and were innocent of—but crimes which never happened.

The book is availably cheap on Amazon and other places, as well as on Kindle.
 
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