Recommend Books on This Thread

10 posts

Stubby
Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Decisive Battle by Richard B. Frank

An in depth analysis of the campaign, and the events surrounding it. Details the workings of both sides, and gives great detail (shell expenditures, planes lost to parts shortages), very good stuff if you're a war-nerd.


With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge

Gritty war memoir, one of the source materials for the HBO series The Pacific.

The Campaigns of Napoleon by David Chandler

Incredible depth, exhaustive, who knows who knows what, but after reading this you can give a cogent overview of the whats hows and whys of the Napoleonic wars.

The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy by Peter H. Wilson

I've poked through a couple other books on the subject, none where as comprehensive or deep in their analysis. A little cynical maybe.

Hammer of God by Bo Giertz

Lutheran exploration of the Law/Gospel distinction, among other topics. Conservative pseudo-Christians beware, real spirituality here.
Stubby
History of the Byzantine State by George Ostrogorsky

I'll admit I haven't actually started this yet, but it's supposed to be a fantastic history of Byzantium, I've peaked inside and it looks quite detailed.

The Lessons of Modern War, Volume 2; The Iran-Iraq War by Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner

The best analysis of the war that I've seen so far, I'm only half way through. Definitely a little anti-Iranian bias, not necessarily in the facts, but in the tone. It's worth remembering it was written in 1990, just two years after the end of the war.


The New Cambridge Modern History


Has 12 volumes, I can't really attest to the universal accuracy, but it's fun reading

Ostfront 1944: The German Defensive Battles on the Russian Front 1944 by Alex Buchner

Read this quite a while ago, gives a little insight into the massive war on the Ostfront which is usually summed up in a few key battles, although millions of men over vast swathes of territory were involved. Worth reading just for a rare (for an American) look at this theater.

Try pairing it with:

The West Point Atlas of War: WWII: European Theater

Not much to say, great maps, great detail, helpful to have with you when reading other books on the subject.

I'm starting The City of God by Augustine, and Evangelical Theology: An Introduction by Karl Barth
Cornelio
"Lovecraft: Against The World, Against Life", by Michel Houellebecq

Good little book to read on a grey spring evening. Personally I read it in my van, while pretending I was at work.

It's not a biography but a free exploration of Lovecraft personality. Houellebect focuses in what he seens as HPL's dominant trait: his thorough rejection of the modern world, and its two centers: sex and money . It's spot on most of the time, even the chapter on racism is readable, both funny and sad.

Lovecraft was a proto-internet hero, a man who, like us, discovered the horror of existance and took refuge in an idealized past, all the while sharing his thoughts with distant friends.

Recommended.
Cornelio
"Limonov", by Emmanuel Carrère

Carrère is an asshole. A stupid, lame "bobo" faggot, whose opinions on just about everything suck. Example: He wrote a book about W. Herzog in the eighties and then went to interview the famous director. Before the interview he asks Herzog if he has read his book on him, and Herzog tells him to his face that he thinks his book is "bullshit" (literal quote). Carrère is butthurt mainly because he knows Herzog cannot read french, so it's impossible that he has read the book. Hell, it's not rocket science pal: if you wrote it, then it's bullshit, period. Also, if you know Herzog cannot read french, why the fuck did you send him the book in the first place? He's still butthurt after 30 years and goes out of his way to call Herzog "fascist".

Anyway, when Carrère manages to shut the fuck up (i.e. never), the story of Eduard Limonov comes to the surface, and it's not a bad story. It's not great either, and I doubt that it merits a 350 pages book, but it has its moments, like when he becomes homeless in New York and to relieve his misery he becomes a homosexual who sucks random homeless niggers. Let's be honest: Limonov is a fucking clown, and his latest phase as the great paladin of democracy in Russia is laughable. If we also take into account that Carrere probably embellishes the story because hey, one has to make a living, truth shouldn't get in the way of a good biography, and those holidays in a spa in Bali are not going to pay themselves, then you are left with the tale of a pencil neck faggot who wrote some bad books in the 70s and 80s no one cares about now, got AIDS, and now survives as a failed democratic charlathan. Fuck him, fuck this book, and fuck Emmanuel Carrere.
Stubby

The Conquistadors, Hammond Innes

Nice accounts of the conquests of Cortez and Pizzaro. Men of great power those two, Cortez especially.

popfop
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

This is a rather well known book and an example of one of many ironies of the arts as it was published and subsequently became a bestseller after the author had killed himself over his failure to become a successful writer. An entertaining middlebrow satire of life in New Orleans in the 1960s, it remains prescient in its lampooning of various social groups. The protagonist, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is an overweight buffoon who lives with his mother and is easily susceptible to delusions of grandeur. Despite having a Master's degree in Medieval Studies he works only the most menial of jobs which stems largely from his allergy to labor itself. Reilly is in many ways a reactionary, a Roman Catholic who finds the current Vatican too soft, he despises modern culture (going to the cinema for the sole purpose of loudly criticizing the feature) and in one instance even admits to his mother that he's a monarchist. Despite Reilly's complete lack of self awareness the reader can't help but sympathize with him and the way he is brought down by his surroundings. The novel follows his misadventures relating to employment and his various rabble rousing schemes where he attempts to uplift other lost souls of New Orleans. His organizing plots are encouraged through correspondence with his only friend, Myrna Minkoff, a highly sexualized Jewess who acts as the quintessential 1960s radical. Minkoff lives off her father's money (who she openly despises) and works to radicalize blacks and the sexually frustrated. She makes no secret of her hatred of WASPs and stops working with one downtrodden Harlem resident who complains that she hasn't been paid for her leafleting work which Minkoff interprets as anti-Semitic.

What makes this book so entertaining isn't so much the humor itself but seeing what passed for satire at the time it was written. For instance, after talking with a homosexual dandy who acknowledges a friend dressed in a sailor uniform, Reilly comes under the mistaken impression that the US armed forces have been infiltrated with homosexuals. He then decides to organize the homosexuals of New Orleans under a banner of pacifism which he thinks will lead to world peace. The plan goes awry after his speech to a party full of fags and dykes goes over like a lead balloon. The homos just want to mince around and talk about clothes and female singers while the butch lesbians pound beers and eventually throw Reilly out on his ass. The joke, of course, is (a) a military full of homosexuals and (b) the idea of politicizing homosexuality. Prior to this failure he writes Minkoff of his plans in the hopes of one upping her. Amusingly, she recoils in disgust at the idea of organizing homosexuals (Negroes are one thing, but faggots?) and quotes Freud in reference his living situation with his mother. I find that this is a product of the book being written in the 1960s, before the full psychosexualization of social politics by the Left.

Another aspect of the book worth mentioning is that despite the array of different characters (a undercover cop, a black bar worker, a would be stripper, a Jewish pants manufacturer), almost everybody is miserable and somewhat crazy which is about the most accurate generalization of the American public that I can think of.
popfop
Brief Fiction List for mlad

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

A book both beautiful and unspeakably brutal. The descriptions of the Southwestern landscape make it seem almost otherworldly, the perfect palette onto which acts of violence occur with a cold matter-of-fact-ness. The Judge is considered one of the best villains in fiction and rightly so. The fact that he may have been a real person makes the descriptions of him exceptionally chilling. Poetic, nihilistic, and mythological, this is how American historical fiction should be written.

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

A good introduction to Pynchon's sprawling conspiratological mystery fiction. The setting: California in the 1960s, is perfect given the range of weird stuff that happened then. Absurd and entertaining without being pretentious or corny.

Platform and Whatever by Michel Houellebecq

Platform is better for Houellebecq's witty cynicism, containing some genuinely hilarious lines, though I found the plot to be unrealistic and boring. Whatever is more realistic (which is to say depressing) but less amusing. Both establish Houellebecq as the voice of the angry, post-liberal white collar incel.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

A tale of murder at an elite liberal arts college in Vermont. The main characters are rich Yankees obsessed with Greek philosophy and their Leo Strauss-like professor. Despite taking place in the 1980s, these characters seem to belong to another time. Descriptive and suspenseful with excellent characterization.

Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño

This book features biographies of non-existent writers from North and South America who were in some way associated with far right politics. The final chapter, "The Infamous Ramirez Hoffman", is the best and tells of an author whose works include sky written poetry and the torture of dissidents in Pinochet's Chile. Some of the authors remind me of characters in the Francis Parker Yockey biography, Dreamer of the Day , specifically those associated with James Madole's National Renaissance Party.
Cornelio
Truman , by David McCullough.

This book is a fascinating read. It's the story of an exceptionally mediocre, unremarkable man who rose to power precisely because of what a failure he was. Truman became a president only because he was so insignificant no one had anything against him. Only a democracy could enthrone such a pathetic, effeminate loser, and this very book is the sharpest (unintended) indictment of the representative system I have ever read. If someone like Truman could reach absolute power then please, bring back monarchism, feudalism, hoxaism, whatever the hell is necessary but please free us from this nightmare.

That this book is really well written is evident in the fact that it is quite addictive despite what a nonentity Truman was.
Cornelio
The Adversary , by Emmanuel Carrère

One night of January, 1993 a house burns in Prevessin-Moens, a french town near the border with Switzerland. The whole family of doctor Jean-Claude Romand, member of the World Health Organization and pillar of the community, is found dead except for the doctor himself, who is badly burnt but alive nonetheless. He is immediately taken to the hospital.

Next day, when the police goes to his parents' home to inform them, they find them both and their dog lying on the floor, gunned down, dead for several days. What appeared at first a simple accident (a short-circuit, a cigarrette maybe), has suddenly taken the shape of a terrible act of vengeance. But what enemies could the good doctor have? His friends are astonished, he was well-liked by everyone, valued by his employers, a simple man incapable of foul play.

Then, as the investigations proceed, more inexplicable facts begin to surface: there is no one working in the WHO by the name of Jean Claude Romand, the autopsies of the bodies of the family reveal that they were already dead when they burned, the doctor had taken a massive dose of drugs before the fire, and the explanations that he offers when he regains consciousness are contradictory and suspicious.

Jean Claude Romand lived a double life for 20 years, swindling relatives for money, taking long highway trips that he disguised as business travel, and when he saw himself lost, ruined, about to be unmasked, killed his whole family. Emmanuel Carrère does a good work investigating his motives and the causes that brought about this tragedy. Of course, he's a faggot , but this time he is more restrained in his self-promotion and makes this powerful, dark and absorbing story come alive.

Recommended.
Cornelio
The Path To Power , by Robert A. Caro.

This is the first volume of Caro's detailed biography of Johnson, "The Years Of Lyndon Johnson", covering his life from his birth to the advent of WWII.

It's enormously satisfying to learn that this standard-bearer of liberal values, someone greatly responsible for much of America's (and the world's) troubles nowadays was such walking, breathing piece of shit. A man completely devoid of dignity or honour. A complete scumbag.

Johnson learnt very early in life that in a decaying society the path to power is doing favors to people. Giving the parasites stuff so they vote for you in exchange. This realization was the germ of the Great Society, the War Against Poverty, and the ultimate victory of civil rights undermen. Caro does a great work. Highly recommended.