Oliver Kamm has put together a book list that is likely to interest readers of this blog. He includes three books on Truman and the Bomb, one on developments within the modern Left, and some Chomsky/Zinn bashing.
I'd assemble a 2007 book list myself, but German science readers are so timeless that I'm not sure there's much point.
Posted by Ben Brumfield at January 8, 2007 10:30 AMI have to admit, these days I rarely finish non-fiction books. Or if I do finish them, I skim them. So I really don't have anything to review.
And in any case, my reading habits of late are too specialized for a "general interest" blog.
I'm also in the throes of passion for the fairly maligned but still excellent (sort of) TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Hint: It's magical realism mixed with parodies of horror cliches, spotty acting, and patently unlikely or psychologically bizarre situations which have the oddest resonance if you sleep on them. Like Gabriel Garcia Marquez crossed with Vincent Price with a pinch of All My Children and a dash of Valley Girls. If you can resist that then...what's wrong with you?)
Naturally, this cuts into leisure reading time.
Now that I'm in grad school I have no patience for art. Mildly intelligent schlock, and lots of it. That's what I crave nowadays.
Although I do want to get Pynchon's new novel.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at January 18, 2007 01:05 AMWe went through a phase of renting Buffy DVDs several times a week. The influence on my dreams was startling. I still remember frantically trying to remember how to decline "spiritu sanctui" in order to exorcise Sara one night.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at January 19, 2007 08:56 PMI know, it's surprising! Because 1/4 of the episodes at least really are quite schlocky, and some of the acting really is bad, and it does have a formula, and yet I keep being haunted by those images of Buffy and Angel making out just before he turned evil...and then the poor guy spending thousands of years in hell and coming back so degraded that he was little more than an animal. It sticks with you, there's something resonating underneath the surface.
No wonder it was so popular.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at January 19, 2007 10:31 PM