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Now reading in 2015


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Poon, if its girls you wanna read about, get Gone Girl. Thank me when you're done.

Maybe a spoiler alert, not sure keep scrolling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tried reading Gone Girl. Couldn't stand the prose one bit. Can't explain why. I thought the movie was decent but a bit misogynistic in a Fatal Attraction kind of way. Surprised how many women I know who loved the book.

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Just put The Rape of Nanking on hold at my town library. Thanks for the heads up on it.

 

Be warned, though, as well as the story is told (and it is!) it is nonetheless a horrifying story. But well worth the read, a fascinating piece of history.

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Poon, if its Velrco you want to read about, PM me. I'm kinda stuck on it.  :twitchsmile 

 

Seriously, I'm deep into GOT. Three quarters through the first one.

Favorite new word: craven

Favorite new phrase : "Winter is coming"

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"the Stones were there so we recorded some songs." The book in a nutshell. So disappointing.

Ditto, I was expecting so much from the guy who engineered or produced so many of my top rock albums of all time.  Glyn Johns is just not a storyteller and did very little to let the reader know what it was like to be in those sessions, apart from the behavior that annoyed him.  Seems like a grumpy old curmudgeon.

 

And I bought this book twice before I read it, my first copy was lost in the Indian Ocean when the boat I was in sank on my Indonesian surf trip this Feb.  I'd kinda like my money back, x2.

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I've just finished this horrific,powerful, brilliant book:

 

 

And am now following it with a poignant look at its author's life, written by a close friend of hers, after Iris Chang's suicide in 2004. 

 

 

What a short, profound life, and what a loss.

 

 

I thought Rape of Nanking was a really good and moving (and horrifying) book but I had no idea Iris Chang committed suicide. 

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I thought Rape of Nanking was a really good and moving (and horrifying) book but I had no idea Iris Chang committed suicide. 

 

Yes, in November 2004. She was suffering from depression, which may have been related to the horrors she had researched for "Nanking" and the book she was currently writing on the Bataan Death March. 

"Finding Iris Chang" has been an interesting psychological profile of a fascinating woman, so far. I'm about halfway through the book. It's written by her friend Paula Kamen. Reading the two books back to back has really given her story extra depth.

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"Three Years with the 92nd Illinois-The Civil War Diary of John M. King". Surprisingly well written, lots of details of what it was like to be an Union grunt soldier.

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"Hallucinations" by O. Sachs. I had to skip the part about migraines and auras. I had those as a kid, bad memories. I liked the info on hypnagogic hallucinations. I get those quite often but since they are so mild, I never really gave them much thought. Its a crazy world!

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I'm currently reading Sacks' autobiography, "On the Move", and he speaks frequently about the experiences that led to that book and others. It's fascinating to know what was going on behind the scenes as he compiled his material and worked to create something publishable. He fleshes out several of the accounts that made up that book. What a fascinating life he had!

 

I'm glad to hear that you've apparently outgrown your migraines. Miserable things.

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  • 2 weeks later...

chinamirage-cover.png

 

History buffs take note of this brilliant new book from James Bradley. Bradley is the author of "Flags of our Fathers" and the son of John Bradley, one of the men who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima. 

"Mirage" is capably written and deeply researched, and details how the American view of China created the history of the past several decades, reaching back to Teddy Roosevelt's administration and beyond. It deftly shows how our misperceptions and yearning to believe in a China that aspired to be both Westernized and Christianized (an American mirage) created policies which led to repeated fumbles in China and Japan, and set up a historical path that culminated in wars in Korea and Vietnam that need never have occurred. Powerful as hell and engagingly written. It will change your worldview about many "facts" you thought you knew. I hope this will be widely read!

 

Fascinating.

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Finished "The Ice Harvest" by S. Phillips in one day. Nice, taut, crime noir. Debut novel too. Turns out there was a flick made of the novel in 2005. I may have to see that.

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