Although I would have to agree with the general position of the author that peak oil will touch off a great many chronic problems worldwide, I find the book is insufficiently researched and rather weakly argued. The author (whosis) tires quickly of supporting his opinions, so that often he just collects them and hands them to you with very little more than this sort of 'argument': "Is it likely this technology can continue without the platform of cheap oil to support it? I think not." End of story.
I'm disappointed, because this issue needs to be much more thoroughly presented. We are already fighting our second oil war in two decades and we are likely to be fighting more of them in the next several decades, unless the American public grasps the nettle and decides to change its way of life, rather than always being caught far behind the curve of events, manipulated, impoverished, and terminally stupid.
― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 20 October 2006 16:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Saturday, 21 October 2006 20:30 (seventeen years ago) link
― Broke Q. Pooreman (x Jeremy), Saturday, 21 October 2006 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― justine paul (justine), Sunday, 22 October 2006 00:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 23 October 2006 03:00 (seventeen years ago) link
i really liked this until the end, which i found really awful. it was all build up but the payoff didn't work for me.
i'm reading a 70s sci-fi short story collection, "Where Do We Go From Here?" it was collected for high schools by isaac asimov, and as such has leading questions for discussion after each story to engage the class/serve as homework for lazy teachers. i've got about 6 or 7 of this sort of short story collection, with various themes. they're always really enjoyable.
next i want to read ray bradbury's something wicked this way comes, because it fits the weather nicely.
― derrick (derrick), Monday, 23 October 2006 05:19 (seventeen years ago) link
I haven't decided on my next book, but I did pick up The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley and started in on it last night. It may be a bit too introductory to hold me for long.
― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 23 October 2006 15:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Monday, 23 October 2006 16:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ray (Ray), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 06:46 (seventeen years ago) link
70 pp of Titus Groan to go.
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 07:10 (seventeen years ago) link
Please do not come back here trying to get us to buy Noel Edmonds' book. If you do, I will assume you are being paid by a viral marketing company.
I am still wading my way through The Scramble for Africa. Too many wars and not enough exploration for my liking, at this point. However, I took a break from it at the weekend and read Affinity by Sarah Waters. I'm not sure I'd describe her books as pastiche Victoriana really. Although Fingersmith certainly does have a great deal of lesbianism in it. Affinity is slighter, shorter, and very gothic.
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 07:25 (seventeen years ago) link
Just started Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express and so far it's giving me aching wanderlust (not much use when you're 5 months pregnant).
― Meg Busset (Mog), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 08:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 09:08 (seventeen years ago) link
Now: "The Goodbye Kiss" by Massimo Carlotto, which is brutal Italian hard-boiled crime fiction. I'm about halfway through and it's all too macho for me, I think. It looks like I'm the sort of person to enjoy the more bleeding heart liberal Scando version.
― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 09:26 (seventeen years ago) link
That being said, "Portrait of a Lady" was a fairly smashing book, and I feel wonderfully happy being lost in the jungle that is "The Golden Bowl." Strange, too, because I had always heard that Henry James was a tedious read -- I guess I'm just a sucker for florid prose.
Rabelais has been put on hold until I can find a better version.
― mj (robert blake), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 01:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 06:00 (seventeen years ago) link
But, to reward myself for actually finishing them, I've just started Suite Francaise which is achingly beautiful ... at least the first couple of chapters. But it's going to be getting grim really soon, I fear. And, knowing what happened to the author and all, I have this overall feeling of bleakness.
― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 07:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 07:28 (seventeen years ago) link
glad to hear you say this to know that i'm not just mad. it was so wonderfully delightful until the very, very end, and the anticipation makes the lousy payoff seem all the worse. i felt cheated :(
this week, i am cracking into turkey: a modern history and terrorists or freedom fighters: reflections on the liberation of animals.
― derrick (derrick), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 07:54 (seventeen years ago) link
So now I'm reading "Portnoy's Complaint", which is much more up my proverbial alley. NO I DON'T MEAN BY WAY OF IDENTIFICATION WITH THE LEAD CHARACTER, cheeky.
*I have met more first year undergraduates who take this self-congrtulatory and fruitless line than I have any other broad group, please don't take this as some kind of blanket condemnation of undergraduates!
― Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 13:46 (seventeen years ago) link
Have you read anything by him before? The early work is actually written in a fairly straightforward manner -- it just isn't as interesting as the later stuff (to me, anyway). The ornate style only really confuses in the final works.
Could I recommend one of his novellas to you? "Daisy Miller," perhaps? "The Aspern Papers"? Those probably wouldn't require a whole lot of time if they interested you.
― mj (robert blake), Thursday, 26 October 2006 01:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 26 October 2006 02:11 (seventeen years ago) link
I like them, but I definitely wouldn't start with The Bostonians or What Maisie Knew.
― horseshoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 26 October 2006 04:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― horseshoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 26 October 2006 04:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mädchen (Madchen), Thursday, 26 October 2006 08:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ray (Ray), Thursday, 26 October 2006 09:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― the pinefox (the pinefox), Thursday, 26 October 2006 14:37 (seventeen years ago) link
LRB has not yet shown, but a letter arrived, with a little slip on it, a little slip I completed and returned by return.
The next day the same letter arrived (with a date two days later than the first) , with an identical little slip. I thought it best not to return that one, it might have confused them.
I have not yet seen a real actual LRB, but I hope to and I remain very grateful for your kind thoughts.
― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 26 October 2006 16:08 (seventeen years ago) link
DESCRIPTION OF STRATA
Tarmac
Dense Brown Granular FILL - MADE GROUND*
Firm / Stiff Red Brown silty sandy gravelly CLAY*
Soft Mottled Brown clayey sandy SILT some gravel*
Loose Brown silty SAND*
Medium Dense Brown silty gravelly SAND
Medium Dense Grey Brown silty sandy GRAVEL with cobbles*
(Continued...)
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 26 October 2006 17:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 26 October 2006 20:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 27 October 2006 02:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 27 October 2006 02:57 (seventeen years ago) link
right? sometimes I'll think I'm actually understanding one of his ridiculous labyrinthine metaphors in those intros and all of a sudden, it'll turn a previously-unimaginable corner of insanity. Like in the preface to Portrait, when he's describing the "house of fiction" and it gets all out of control.
it's funny, because in academic novel studies, a lot of critical weight is given to those prefaces; they get cited a lot as seminal in the formation of the field. but it's not clear to me that anyone who cites them has actually read them, because the idea that you could actually easily lay out, like, a blueprint for a novel from one of them is totally absurd.
anyway, I'm glad you like What Maisie Knew. I had a weirdly emotional reaction to that book. I think it's generally regarded as cold.
― horseshoe (horseshoe), Friday, 27 October 2006 04:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 27 October 2006 09:51 (seventeen years ago) link
This thread is making me want to read Henry James, a writer I've never remotely considered before and about whom I know basically nothing. I am totally a sucker for florid prose. I didn't know James was florid.
Just finished The Man With the Golden Arm (finally). It reminds me of that line of Rilke's about lying down with a leper and warming him with your warmth, and I think Algren has come closest to achieving that (in a metaphorical sense) than any other writer I know. It was pretty wonderful and haunting, and I had bizarre dreams about morphine and snow and elevated trains last night.
And now I feel like kind of a twat for quoting Rilke, and I started Anthony Powell's A Question of Upbringing this morning.
― franny (frannyglass), Friday, 27 October 2006 11:56 (seventeen years ago) link
That is probably going to take another week though, since "Golden Bowl" doesn't lend itself to fast reading.
― mj (robert blake), Friday, 27 October 2006 12:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 27 October 2006 13:47 (seventeen years ago) link
Cozen: Moy Sand and Gravel?
TH: good news!
― the pinefox (the pinefox), Friday, 27 October 2006 13:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 27 October 2006 13:59 (seventeen years ago) link
Livy is transparently rooting for the Romans to win. Hannibal is this shrewd, faithless, evil genius who keeps beating the tar out of the true-blue Roman consulary legions, who mean well, but for some reason just can't win for losing, the poor fellas.
― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 27 October 2006 15:56 (seventeen years ago) link
this week's classes: the time machine and the book of daniel.
― tom west (thomp), Friday, 27 October 2006 17:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 27 October 2006 18:58 (seventeen years ago) link
Half-way through July, July by Tim O'Brien. he has a really lovely, dry, comic style which is incredibly "readable". Fits nicely into my interest in post-war US fiction.
― justine paul (justine), Saturday, 28 October 2006 23:57 (seventeen years ago) link
Ya think?
I won't spoil the ending for you, though.
The battle of Cannae took place on my birthday, a few thousand years before my birth, according to the Wikipedia. I'm not sure how I should feel about that.
I am reading Nokter the Stammerer's Life of Charlemagne, which is awkwardly translated in the Penguin version (all the Latinisms are plain as day) but which, so far, is kind of hysterical.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 30 October 2006 08:04 (seventeen years ago) link
Thank you. I wonder if I will become a subscriber, in my own right, eventually.
― Tim (Tim), Monday, 30 October 2006 13:59 (seventeen years ago) link
First 80-odd paragraphs are maybe the best philosophy ever committed to paper. I think he tends to lose me shortly after that though.
a cyberpunk detective thriller called a philosophical investigation.
Arf. I bought that, years ago, on the strength of the title. Disappointingly straightforward I thought, but dick lit ain't really my thing.
frank kogan's real punks don't wear black.
Been meaning to get that - mainly on the strength of his Wittgenstein tours de force over on ILX!
― ledge (ledge), Monday, 30 October 2006 15:42 (seventeen years ago) link
Currently, I am reading a book on African-Portuguese slave culture for a class, and probably will start Dangerous Liaisons within the next couple of days once all of the chaos has subsided a bit.
― mj (robert blake), Monday, 30 October 2006 15:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 30 October 2006 16:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 30 October 2006 20:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― wogan lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 00:17 (seventeen years ago) link