BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA

Subject: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Nov 24 - 04:26 PM

I've been noticing some of the smoke signals going up in the on-and-off line world. Most recently a cute little note from (cute little) Robert Reich (with the heart of a giant lion to be sure) to whatever-the-cost not give up on Democracy and capitalism. In the meantime I'm reminded of the Claudius books by Robert Graves.

My purpose is to instill heart in our mini community of depressive outrage but part of treatment as you can see by my selections below is via catharsis. We gain courage and resolution by reflecting on the trials and tribs of our ancestors.

I could append commentary on why I've included the items I've done, but I want to know if anyone likes this idea and has their own additions to make.

So I've got s little list:

Robert Graves:
I Claudius
Claudius the God

Robert Penn Warren:
All The King's Men

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Helen
Date: 17 Nov 24 - 05:02 PM

Thanks robomatic.

While I have NO love at all for the TV series version of Margaret Atwood's book, The Handmaid's Tale, I love the book. I bought it in 1985 when it was first published and promptly stacked the library shelves with all of her books because I had some control over the books I could order as Branch Librarian.

The Handmaid's Tale is dark, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, based on strong action and the strong ethics of a number of people in the face of the extreme difficulty, which has been imposed on them by people in power - essentially, powerful white males with screwed up ethics, which is a funny-not-funny parallel to recent times.

Almost every Atwood book I have read has been a good read, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Nov 24 - 06:28 PM

Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here is an eye-opener, if for no other reason than that talented author could visualize something like this happening back in 1935 that did finally in some ways come to pass. This second term may get some of the awfulness he envisioned that the first term missed. We may all end up as hobos out west riding the rails and sending postcards with obscure messages.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Thompson
Date: 18 Nov 24 - 09:06 AM

Robert Harris has a few books about Cicero and his genius slave Tiro, which cover the destruction of the Roman Republic by Crassus, Julius Caesar, Pompey and Mark Antony; as far as I remember, the first is good and the sequels not as good.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Thompson
Date: 18 Nov 24 - 02:17 PM

Forgetting about politics for a moment, I just started reading The Coast Road by Alan Murrin and am loving it.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Thompson
Date: 19 Nov 24 - 02:59 AM

Further: The Coast Road is very funny, set in Donegal, at a time when divorce wasn't available in Ireland. Also heart-rending. Bit here about Alan Murrin.
I'm dithering about whether to buy the graphic novel Élise et les nouveaux partisans as an ebook (anyone know a good comic reader for Mac with which you can up the size of the frames?) or request the libraries to buy a few copies in English - Elise and the New Resistance - so everyone can read it. It's about les événements in Paris in 1968, and how the university students became radicatlised, but starts with a race crime against Algerian residents. It comes highly recommended.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Nov 24 - 02:52 PM

I read 'The Handmaid's Tale' not long after it came out. I'm ashamed to say I'm more retentive of movies and some series shows. I remember some of the scenes in the book but I'm one of the 'can't happen here' sort so I took it more as sci-fi than prologue.
I am somewhat embarassed to say that I have also confused Margaret Atwood with Barbara Kingsolver. I read 'The Poisonwood Bible' which I enjoyed, although it does not to me satisfy the OP that it be a NEW ERA book. I suppose it could be interpreted as such, and my friends count listening to a book as equivalent to reading. I've only listened to one book when I was on the road. I suppose it counts. I believe I saw or heard something that the same brain cells are involved either way. I have entered an era in life where I don't believe anything, however, and it's interesting how there is stuff I hear right now, today, which I immediately put the mental kibosh on, and then there's reflection on long held stuff where it comes up as if from some extra cow-stomach to be ruminated on, and in the re-chewing I'm disbeleiving more and more stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Helen
Date: 19 Nov 24 - 03:42 PM

Yes robomatic, the book was "can't happen here sci-fi" in my opinion, but now it appears that it may not be as impossible in a democratic country as I first thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Thompson
Date: 19 Nov 24 - 03:54 PM

The Handmaid's Tale is - or was - certainly easier for a woman to envisage as a possible though improbable future than for a man. Similarly, Paul Lynch's dystopian Ireland in Prophet Song is probably easier for people who've lived in, say, parts of South America, the Middle East and Central Europe to envisage than for people in what is laughingly called the Free World.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 20 Nov 24 - 07:12 AM

My vote: George Orwell's 1984. I dread the thought of our grandchildren living in Airstrip One.

.... I know, I know, it's supposed to be set in the aftermath of an extreme-left revolution. But read the last paragraph of Animal Farm, then tell me how to distinguish fascist left from fascist right.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Helen
Date: 20 Nov 24 - 12:46 PM

MaJoC, good point about distinguishing fascist left from fascist right, especially when recalling that modern day Russia was founded on a revolution to oust the autocratic ruling class and now there is a firmly established autocratic ruling class.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: rich-joy
Date: 20 Nov 24 - 06:27 PM

I must confess that when I'm not reading reference books, particularly from the Exopolitics field (by for example, Dr Michael Salla), I love escaping to the extraordinary Fantasy worlds of Jacqueline Carey, such as her 10 book "Kushiel" series, believably replete with politics, sex, and adventure.

And so it is .......

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Nov 24 - 07:48 PM

Thompson, do you live in Ireland, or are you from Ireland. I was very moved by 'Say Nothing' by Patrick Raddon Keefe, which also involved a school I've gone to, Boston College.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Nov 24 - 03:42 PM

Doug Richardson: "Dark Horse" The only reason for bringing this work of FICTION UP is that you have probably never heard of it. It's a guilty pleasure of extremely nasty politics in Texas. With a good guy and a very bad guy Also there is more than one book with the name so pay attention to the author's name.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Nov 24 - 03:58 PM

Every so often when I need a pick-me-up I listen to the audiobook of the Pratchett/Gaiman classic Good Omens. I've listened/read it maybe three times now and something tells me it's suitable listening beginning January 20.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Rain Dog
Date: 26 Mar 25 - 03:25 AM

I would recommend Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack,by Richard Ovenden.

Here is a link to a review in the Financial Times

Burning the Books — why memory matters

Well worth a read in these troubling times.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 26 Mar 25 - 04:32 AM

Raindog, the FT is paywalled - £59 a month! No thanks!

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Helen
Date: 26 Mar 25 - 04:57 AM

Good Omens was the first Terry Pratchett book I read. I was addicted after that, *and* I also stacked the library branch with his books. I am responsible for a lot of other people getting addicted as well.

There are worse things in life to be addicted to, IMHO.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: Rain Dog
Date: 26 Mar 25 - 05:26 AM

BWM, I was able to read the review free of charge. Other reviews are available. The book also covers preserving archives in the digital age. As we are seeing daily, that is becoming a growing problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 26 Mar 25 - 11:47 AM

Right then: time for some further picks of mine, both of which feature some of the most alien aliens I've ever read about, and manage to make them convincing as people.

Vernor Vinge: A Fire Upon The Deep.
Vinge (again): A Deepness In The Sky. The prequel.

.... I won't precis them to death here: that'd be a waste of two (imho) thundering good reads.

Subject: RE: BS: Book Club for the NEW ERA
From: meself
Date: 26 Mar 25 - 12:08 PM

I just read Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, a collection of interlinked short stories by Stephen Leacock. On the whole, it is a good-natured satire on (North) American high-society of the early 20th Century, with a main theme being the self-interest behind much of the seemingly high-minded activity of the "Idle Rich". It ends, in an understated way, on a grim note, with the story "The Big Fight", which - spoiler alert! - concerns an ever-expanding cabal of businessmen who create the 'Clean Government' movement, in a hypocritical assault on "corruption"; they pull in the press, the churches, and various social institutions, and in the end are able to replace the elected city council with a "board" of their cronies. That final story is well worth the read; it comes across now as a distant warning from an author best known for his gentle humour.