What are you reading at the moment?

[Knaldskalle]

I'm not sure where to post this, but I just wanted to share that I just picked up Emma Beare's "501 Must-See Movies", Pauline Kael's "5001 Nights at the Movies" and Richard Schickel's "Keepers" at a local library book sale. $1 each.

Oh, and the Shawshank Redemption on blu-ray, also for $1.

[OldAle1]

I'm not sure where to post this, but I just wanted to share that I just picked up Emma Beare's "501 Must-See Movies", Pauline Kael's "5001 Nights at the Movies" and Richard Schickel's "Keepers" at a local library book sale. $1 each.

Oh, and the Shawshank Redemption on blu-ray, also for $1.

Library sales are hard to beat. A few weeks ago I picked up 20 50s-70s science fiction paperbacks - most in like-new condition - for .50 apiece. One of them was a very early edition of Day of the Triffids which sells for $10 all by itself. As a matter of fact I'm off to the library now, always fun to see what shows up...

[kongs_speech]

I'm not sure where to post this, but I just wanted to share that I just picked up Emma Beare's "501 Must-See Movies", Pauline Kael's "5001 Nights at the Movies" and Richard Schickel's "Keepers" at a local library book sale. $1 each.

Oh, and the Shawshank Redemption on blu-ray, also for $1.

Library sales are hard to beat. A few weeks ago I picked up 20 50s-70s science fiction paperbacks - most in like-new condition - for .50 apiece. One of them was a very early edition of Day of the Triffids which sells for $10 all by itself. As a matter of fact I'm off to the library now, always fun to see what shows up...

That's a swell deal. Good luck!

[brokenface]

I'm not sure where to post this, but I just wanted to share that I just picked up Emma Beare's "501 Must-See Movies", Pauline Kael's "5001 Nights at the Movies" and Richard Schickel's "Keepers" at a local library book sale. $1 each.

Oh, and the Shawshank Redemption on blu-ray, also for $1.

Library sales are hard to beat. A few weeks ago I picked up 20 50s-70s science fiction paperbacks - most in like-new condition - for .50 apiece. One of them was a very early edition of Day of the Triffids which sells for $10 all by itself. As a matter of fact I'm off to the library now, always fun to see what shows up...

very jealous of that haul! If i had the money/space, I'd be trying to collect as much as i can of 60/70s era Penguin science fiction. had some beauts there
https://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/

[outdoorcats]

The only problem with library sales is that you get too many books!

Finished two more books off my summer reading list:

The Three-Body Problem is the first in a trilogy of Chinese science-fiction novels by Liu Cixian that is notable for, among other things, being the first book not originally written in the English language to win the Hugo Award (Ken Liu, an acclaimed sci-fi writer himself, shared the award for translating it into English). The series has become hugely popular with sci-fi fans and garnered Liu comparisons with the greats. It's an incredibly exciting, page-devouring yarn that somehow mixes the Chinese Cultural Revolution, hard sci-fi, first contact, virtual reality gaming and Asian horror movie tropes into one plot. It's not without flaws - like many high-concept science fiction, it has an incredibly bland protagonist with almost no depth or personality - but succeeds in exactly what it sets out to do, which is to create a dizzying, fearful sense of awe at the scale of the universe. I'll definitely be checking out the next two books in the trilogy,

This one has already been adapted into an Chinese TV series, which I'm interested in checking out, and is in the process of being adapted into a Netflix series, which looks...less promising, despite being produced by the showrunners of Game of Thrones.



After that, I did a sharp left turn and picked up a Toni Morrison I hadn't read yet, Jazz. I consider Morrison tied with Cormac McCarthy as one of the two greatest writers in the English language of the past century, and I intentionally only read ones I haven't read every 1-2 years so I can spread them out and I won't run out of new Morrison books to read for a while. Jazz is one of the shortest books I read this summer, but I took two weeks reading it, and any fan of poetry/prose would understand why: any given sentence or paragraph anywhere in this book is just a masterpiece of poetic language. There are passages that just beg to be read aloud, or to be read and re-read again.

Like nearly all of Morrison's books that I've read, Jazz's stream-of-consciousness narrative (this is thoroughly postmodern literature) jumps all over the place in time, with shifting narrators and perspectives. It begins with an incident you'd read about in tabloids and then moves backwards and forwards around that incident, reaching back decades and into past generations and down fascinating tangents which are great short stories on their own, but also in context are puzzle pieces for understanding this incredible, sprawling, deeply humanist story.

[hurluberlu]

The Three-Body Problem is the first in a trilogy of Chinese science-fiction novels by Liu Cixian… to create a dizzying, fearful sense of awe at the scale of the universe. I'll definitely be checking out the next two books in the trilogy,

Some of the best sci-fi I have read, the first two books are great and the third is mind blowing. I would not venture in the Chinese TV series until I am hearing it is at the level or that would be spoiling the lasting impact I got from the reading.

[mightysparks]

The Three-Body Problem is one of the worst books I’ve read lol, really couldn’t get into it.

Jazz sounds really cool though.

[Knaldskalle]

Some of the best sci-fi I have read, the first two books are great and the third is mind blowing. I would not venture in the Chinese TV series until I am hearing it is at the level or that would be spoiling the lasting impact I got from the reading.

The Three-Body Problem is one of the worst books I’ve read lol, really couldn’t get into it.

This pretty much represents the two types of takes I've read on The Three-Body Problem. People either really dig it or they really don't. I've yet to see anyone have a middling opinion of it. I should get around to it.

[gunnar]

I'm reading Transcendence by Charles Sheffield, the third book in his Heritage Universe series. I read the first three books in hardcover back in the 1990s and liked them a lot, but never got around to reading the last two books in the series after a wait of several years between books and a change in publishers. I listened to the audiobooks for the first two books within the past year and while I did like them, my feelings toward them are kind of lukewarm and definitely not with the same enjoyment that I had 30 years ago. I'll still probably go through and finish the series this time around.

With regard to The Three Body Problem mentioned earlier, I read that a couple of years ago and thought it was okay. I didn't hate it, but I also didn't like it enough to continue on with the second and third book.

[outdoorcats]

Finished Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It certainly starts a bit slower than I'm used to with Dickens, but the payoff is extraordinary and definitely is one of his best and one of the best books I've ever read. Dickens' main flaw is boring main characters (here, Charles + Lucie), but it's always easily redeemed by his incredible, colorful supporting cast who seem to feature more than the "main characters" anyway. The key word is payoff; for someone who published chapters week to week, Dickens is incredible at planting seemingly pointless seeds at the beginning of his stories that pay off in extraordinarily satisfying ways towards the end.

What an iconic antagonist is Madame Defarge, and how great is her final chapter!

Looks like I won't quite finish my reading list by the end of summer (I'm only at the beginning of "A Little Life" and haven't started "Doctor Zhivago") but I'm still pretty pleased with myself for how much I read.

[gunnar]

Finished Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It certainly starts a bit slower than I'm used to with Dickens, but the payoff is extraordinary and definitely is one of his best and one of the best books I've ever read. Dickens' main flaw is boring main characters (here, Charles + Lucie), but it's always easily redeemed by his incredible, colorful supporting cast who seem to feature more than the "main characters" anyway. The key word is payoff; for someone who published chapters week to week, Dickens is incredible at planting seemingly pointless seeds at the beginning of his stories that pay off in extraordinarily satisfying ways towards the end.

What an iconic antagonist is Madame Defarge, and how great is her final chapter!

Looks like I won't quite finish my reading list by the end of summer (I'm only at the beginning of "A Little Life" and haven't started "Doctor Zhivago") but I'm still pretty pleased with myself for how much I read.

Congrats on getting close to finishing your summer reading list.

I read through all of Dickens back in 2017-2020 and enjoyed each of his books. A Tale of Two Cities ranked near the middle of his works for me, but I still thought it was very good. Here's how I ranked them back in 2020:

Upper Tier
Nicholas Nickleby
Bleak House
Our Mutual Friend
David Copperfield
Great Expectations
Little Dorrit

Middle Tier
Oliver Twist
Hard Times
A Tale of Two Cities
Dombey and Son
The Old Curiosity Shop

Lower Tier
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Martin Chuzzlewit
The Pickwick Papers
Barnaby Rudge

I think that the books in the lower tier are still worth reading once, but each has their issues. The main problem with Edwin Drood is that it was only half completed when Dickens died. Otherwise, it probably would have ended up in the middle tier. I've read all five of his Christmas novellas, but the only one that I really enjoyed was A Christmas Carol, which would fall in the upper tier if I included it.

Nicholas Nickleby is probably an unusual choice for the top spot, but I think that the top three or four books are all pretty close and the order could change slightly if I ever decided to read them again.

[outdoorcats]

Bleak House is a pretty perfect book. There's a clear line between Bleak House and the TV series The Wire that I love, as well as just a general thread comparing Charles Dickens to David Simon.

Haven't read most of the others, yet, and all the other Dickens I have read, I haven't read in 15 or so years.

[45MinuteZoom]

I remember really enjoying a Tale of Two Cities when I read it in high school 15 years ago. I really didn't like Great Expectations, and recently I tried to listen to the audiobook of Bleak House but ended up abandoning it. Maybe audiobook is just not the best format for it.

Just finished the first Cradle book Unsouled by Will Wight, it was not great, but not terrible. The way the clans were written, and how important honor was and saving face was annoying. Multiple people have said that the first one is the weakest though, and I enjoy a good Dragonball type story of getting stronger and fighting other opponents, maybe in a bit I'll try the first sequel.

Also just finished The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn. It's just a short novella, but I spent a lot longer on it than I thought I would need to. The chapters are very small, only a minute or two long, just HR sort of reports from unnamed workers that all combine to tell a story. The book is just dense, and in audiobook form it's easy to tune of for a second or two and then feel like you've missed something important. Overall I found it interesting, but would recommend against the audiobook.

And finally I decided to reread some comic books runs I enjoyed in college. I started Hickman's run on Fantastic Four again, and haven't been wowed like I was. The first mini arc with the multiverse Reeds was fun, but the next few issues after that were standalone, and something is going on with the pacing for these. I think they may be trying to emulate the pacing of the early FF comics, but haven't read enough of those to be sure. I do know that the pacing on them feels too fast, like a whole story isn't being told, they just wrap up too quickly. I remember really liking it when it changed to "FF" rather than Fantastic Four, and that is in a bit, so I'm holding out hope that these one off stories are just some one off duds.

[3eyes]

Just picked up Finnegans Wake again. I keep it handy - no desire to read it through, but I love to dip into it for the language with its bi-and trilingual puns, such as "The Ondt and the Gracehoper". My son left for Ireland yesterday, so I emailed him "For Ehren, boys, go brawl!"

[prodigalgodson]

Haha, nice 3eyes! I found a copy online and it's my go-to reading material when I'm waiting around somewhere for a little while. Each page is a goldmine, even if I have no idea what he's talking about most of the time.

[outdoorcats]

So a bit earlier in this thread I wrote this:

After that, I did a sharp left turn and picked up a Toni Morrison I hadn't read yet, Jazz. I consider Morrison tied with Cormac McCarthy as one of the two greatest writers in the English language of the past century, and I intentionally only read ones I haven't read every 1-2 years so I can spread them out and I won't run out of new Morrison books to read for a while.

That's from some weeks ago. Yesterday a popular Booktuber posted this (linked to relevant clip):



?

That's...the mother of all coincidences...?

[peeptoad]

Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall , Tim Mohr

[blueboybob]

I started the new Elon Musk biography

[45MinuteZoom]

I read Kid Gloves by Lucy Knisley and absolutely loved it. The book is about Lucy trying to get pregnant, dealing with miscarriages, getting pregnant, and then having a terrible pregnancy and nearly dying while giving birth. My partner luckily had a much better time with her recent pregnancy, but did need to have an emergency c-section like Lucy did. That part of the book is told by the husband and was too relatable in parts. Overall great book, it’s so well told and there’s a ton of interesting historical pregnancy facts.

Also started Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers. I’m 30% in and not in love with it, it’s just not grabbing me like the first two had.

And we are 80% through listening to The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. The stuff when he is a kid is fantastic. When he is a teen is different, but still good. But the stuff when he is an adult…it feels like it’s lost the thread, not a fan of where it’s been going. I also really dislike the character dynamic between him and Pippa.

[mightysparks]

Last week I hit my reading goal for the year -- 52 books. It's been a little bit of a meh year book-wise but have also read some great stuff. Another new yearly goal for me is to read a book from a new country from each continent (as far as possible). Just trying to diversify my reading in other ways.

Since last time I have read:

The Neverending Story (Michael Ende) 7/10
The House in the Cerulean Sea (T.J. Klune) 6.5/10
Collected Ghost Stories (M. R. James) 4/10
Half of a Yellow Sun (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) 7.5/10
The Silmarillion (J. R. R. Tolkien) 5/10
Frankenstein in Baghdad (Ahmed Saadawi) 4.5/10
The Beekeeper of Aleppo (Christy Lefteri) 6/10
The Snowman (Jo Nesbø) 7/10
Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman) 6/10
The Ballad of Black Tom (Victor LaValle) 6/10
The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patricia Highsmith) 7.5/10

And I'm currently reading:

Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins) - These books are so cringey but easy listening. I can't tell you how many times I 'pffft' while reading though. Will be glad when this series is over, YA is really not for me.

Broken Monsters (Lauren Beukes) - My current toilet book. It was in one of the horror book lists posted in another thread but idk why. It's kinda.. nothing. Maybe it has some amazing stuff happen in the latter half but so far fairly unimpressed.

The Way of Kings (Brandon Sanderson) - Only started last night so not much to say so far. I'm not a big fantasy fan although I did really enjoy Sanderson's 'The Final Empire'. This so far feels a little too serious and high fantasy but we'll see. Seems like it needs some time to world-build.

[gunnar]

Last week I hit my reading goal for the year -- 52 books. It's been a little bit of a meh year book-wise but have also read some great stuff. Another new yearly goal for me is to read a book from a new country from each continent (as far as possible). Just trying to diversify my reading in other ways.

And I'm currently reading:

The Way of Kings (Brandon Sanderson) - Only started last night so not much to say so far. I'm not a big fantasy fan although I did really enjoy Sanderson's 'The Final Empire'. This so far feels a little too serious and high fantasy but we'll see. Seems like it needs some time to world-build.

Congratulations on reaching your goal. I should reach my goal by the end of October. I liked The Way of Kings quite a bit, though it is a pretty long book as are all of the main books in the series. I'm up to date on the series except for the most recent short novel, Dawnshard. I've read a couple of other series from Sanderson and liked them so I'll probably give Mistborn a try in the near future.

I'm just about finished with book 26 of 30 in Alexander Kent's Bolitho series. The series went downhill a bit after book 17, but were still enjoyable enough to continue. I started the reread of the series last October and should have the whole thing finished off by mid-October this year. I've usually been mixing other books inbetween, but might make a sprint to the finish.

[blocho]

Robert Caro, The Passage of Power

This is the fourth and most recent volume in Caro's series on the life of Lyndon Johnson. It is much the same as the previous three books. The same gift for weaving complicated historical narrative. The same psychological insight. The same eloquence, paired with the same run-on sentences. The same tendency to belabor a point repeatedly. The same commitment to understanding all the details in events and all the nuances in individuals.

The focus in this volume is on the 1960 presidential campaign, LBJ's three years as Vice President, and then the first few months of his presidency after Kennedy was killed. The title suggests the crux of Caro's thematic focus. He is interested above all in how power moves from one administration to the next, especially when it occurs because of an unexpected transition like the death of the president. He posits this ultimately as Johnson's finest hour, highlighting all the ways he succeeded administratively and legislatively while working under immense pressure.

The Passage of Power was released 11 years ago. Readers have been waiting ever since for the final volume in the series and wondering, as Caro drifts into his late 80s, whether it will ever emerge. The world as a whole has seemed to enter a Caro elegiac era. There's a documentary about his relationship with his editor. There's a Caro exhibit at the New-York Historical Society. I wonder whether he's still committed to finishing the job. He still has to cover the majority of LBJ's presidency, and it's an action-packed presidency.

[gunnar]

I'm just about finished with book 26 of 30 in Alexander Kent's Bolitho series. The series went downhill a bit after book 17, but were still enjoyable enough to continue. I started the reread of the series last October and should have the whole thing finished off by mid-October this year. I've usually been mixing other books inbetween, but might make a sprint to the finish.

I did go ahead and sprint to the finish and just completed book 30 (the last book) in the Bolitho series. I enjoyed all of the books, but Kent (Douglas Reeman) definitely got a bit repetitive in his later years and some of the plots in the last few books didn't quite hold together. I originally read the first 24 novels back in the mid-late 1990s after getting hooked on Hornblower and looking for another naval fiction author to read. I read the next five as they were released, but realized when I got to the last book that I had purchased the hardcover when it came out in 2011, but had never read it.

Other naval fiction authors that I've enjoyed include Dudley Pope (Ramage), C. Northcote Parkinson (Delancey), Tom Connery (Markham), Adam Hardy (Fox), Julian Stockwin (Kydd), and Richard Woodman (Drinkwater), though I got tired of the Drinkwater books and only made it halfway through the series. The Aubrey/Maturin series gets a lot of love, but I was bored by the first book and haven't read any further. I may give it another try someday.

[MartinTeller]

Been going through the "Temperance Brennan" series in order. Really enjoying them so far (after mixed results with Sara Paretsky, Patricia Cornwell, and Sue Grafton).

[peeptoad]

Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall , Tim Mohr

This is going on my top books of all-time list (if I had one). It's excellent, detailed, well-written and wholly relatable (for me).

[magnusbernhardsen]

Just finished Mike Rotschild's Jewish Space Lasers which was good, but not amazing. Now I'm reading Zeke Faux' Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall. It is quite incredible to be reminded of the olden days just two years ago when people believed NFT would save art and let artists get paid for their work.

[gunnar]

I'm currently reading Defiance. the 22nd book in C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series (with a co-author credit for Jane Fancher this time). While I do like the book for the most part, I'm 67 pages into the book and it has almost all been introspection/worrying on the part of Bren Cameron with not much really happening. The series seems to have moved more in this direction as it progressed, especially the last few books, and it isn't nearly as much fun as it used to be. I might be liking it somewhat on reflex with a chance to revisit characters that I enjoy.

[3eyes]

Just finished rereading Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, her most complex novel. In none of the others is it so hard to keep the characters straight.

[gunnar]

Just finished rereading Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, her most complex novel. In none of the others is it so hard to keep the characters straight.

Mansfield Park is my favorite Austen novel. I enjoyed all of her novels when I read them back in 2017. Here's how I ranked her 6 completed novels back then:

1) Mansfield Park
2) Sense and Sensibility
3) Persuasion
4) Pride and Prejudice
5) Northanger Abbey
6) Emma

I suspect that Northanger Abbey might move up the list if I were to reread it, though.

[3eyes]

Northanger is next.

I blame Emma for my son being born 3 weeks early (with opposable big toes, which did straighten out eventually). I had the one-volume Austen propped up on my belly and my waters broke.

[45MinuteZoom]

I finished Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers, I think it came together in the end, but I really enjoy the stories where she focuses on less characters better than the books with larger groups of characters.

I started a collection of short stories by Gabriel García Márquez. I've never tried to read any of his other books, but am liking these stories so far. In general I'm a fan of magical realism, though with some of these stories I've enjoyed what I've heard but felt like I'm missing some larger context.

I'm excited for this board game that GMT is developing called Cross Bronx Expressway, which covers urban development and the history of the South Bronx from 1940-2000. The developer of the game mentioned this book in an interview about the game: Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics by Kim Phillips-Fein and I've only just started it, but it's been interesting so far. The developer also mentioned The Power Broker about Robert Moses, I may try and work my way up to that one.

Also been reading a ton of picture books to my baby, have really enjoyed Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton - about a dog who wants to be good, but then is bad, but then learns from being bad, All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon - which I really like the rhyming scheme/tempo of, and two books by Lynley Dodd Hairy Maclary's Bone and Slinky Malinki - really enjoy Dodd's artwork and the rhyming schemes and names of the characters are just so much fun.

[blocho]

David Halberstam, The Powers That Be

I'm done with this book. I'm about 40% through an 800-page book, and I don't want to go on. In some ways, I don't think I can go on. I'm not sure I've ever gotten so far into a book and not finished it.

Halberstam's book is an examination of changes in 20th century American media through a portrait of four of its most notable organizations: Time/Life, CBS, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. I'm fascinated by journalism and modern American history, so I was excited to read this.

But a big problem emerged early on because this book is less a portrait of those organizations than of the men who led them. And it's even less a portrait of what really matters -- how media changed so rapidly in a few decades. Halberstam writes a lot about Bill Paley, and through his writing, I learned a good deal about CBS and a little about the advent of radio and TV broadcasting. Now which of those things really matter? Paley, CBS, or the development of radio and TV? This is the Great Man theory of history in action. Paley is interesting and notable, but if he wasn't the head of CBS, somebody else would have been. Radio and TV, which transformed modern life, would have happened with Paley or without him.

There's a huge, huge story here in the background. It's a story of how broadcasting changed the way Americans lived and learned and interacted. It's a story about how news magazines made photography a means of mass communication. It's about how afternoon newspapers died and morning newspapers consolidated into hegemons, while transforming the impact and reliability of daily journalism. All of it adds up to story of media going national and international in a way that had never happened before.

But again, all of this happens in the background of Halberstam's story. In the foreground are endless anecdotes about Paley, Henry Luce (Time/Life), Phil Graham (Washington Post), and the Chandler family (LA Times). Halberstam loves these anecdotes. And the more they show up, the more useless they seem.

Here's one anecdote: Walter Cronkite’s wife, upon his posting to Moscow by the United Press in 1946, bought hundreds of golf balls because she had been told they were unavailable in the Soviet Union. Upon arriving, she discovered there were no golf courses in the Soviet Union. Does that story tell me anything about Cronkite or the media?

Here's another one: Buff Chandler told her husband, Norman Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, that they wouldn’t have sex until Norman switched his support from Robert Taft to Dwight Eisenhower during the 1952 Republican convention. Does this story seem a bit random and hard to believe? Well, wait until you hear the next one from Buff. In a later chapter, we learn that Buff's son was pronounced dead in a hospital after an accident, so she carried his corpse out of the hospital and drove to another hospital, where her son was magically revived. I mean, what the fuck? This is neither journalism nor history. It’s tripe. Tabloid nonsense.

After reading that story, I knew I couldn't finish the book because I knew I couldn't trust it. If a reporter is willing to publish something so obviously fanciful, what other nonsense is he including? For those who don't know, Halberstam is widely considered one of the titans of 20th century American journalism. He produced some of the earliest and most important reporting on the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, often at considerable personal risk and against considerable opposition from government officials and his own news desk. I've read five other books he wrote. And now I find myself with a troubling thought: Just how sure am I that those other books are more accurate than this one?

[Knaldskalle]

David Halberstam, The Powers That Be

I'm done with this book. I'm about 40% through an 800-page book, and I don't want to go on. In some ways, I don't think I can go on. I'm not sure I've ever gotten so far into a book and not finished it.

Oh, I got you beat. "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clarke is... *checks goodreads* 800 pages long. I dnf'ed it with about 100 pages left. I usually don't dnf books once I've decided to read them, but I make the occasional exception. Far too boring, far too long between the exciting parts and far too pedestrian for a book about magic in the Napoleonic age. I simply had enough of it and gifted it to someone who might like it better. It's apparently popular and they made a TV series out of it.

[gunnar]

There have been a few books where I took long pauses before continuing, but I rarely DNF a book. Musashi is just under 1000 pages and I stopped around 300 pages in for around 7-8 months, then read another 300-400 pages before pausing for another month and then I finally finished the book.

[blocho]

Jon Wiener, Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower

How could I not be interested in this. I did four unhappy years in academia, preparing for a career as a professional historian even as I grew increasingly disenchanted with every aspect of such a life. Wiener's topic is misconduct among historians, defined broadly. Plagiarism pops up, of course, as well as outright academic fraud, shoddy citations, and even sexual abuse.

Wiener states in the conclusion, “There is no single lesson to be found or meaning to be discovered” in the 12 cases he examines. But he does see some repetitive patterns. For example, he notes on multiple occasions that the history profession does an inconsistent job of upholding its own standards and that misconduct is more likely to go unsanctioned when it receives outside attention. Especially if that attention is politically motivated, and especially if the political motivation is right-wing, as is so often the case when it comes to academia, the results are often skewed in improper directions. Wiener presents several examples of scandals where the guilty went unpunished because they were conservative darlings, whereas in other situations, people with trifling errors were punished heavily because conservatives disliked their scholarship.

Another takeaway, though it's my own and not Wiener's, is that standards are simply too low. Wiener himself excuses citation errors, saying everyone does it. Well, sure. If someone says a source is in Box 43 in an archival collection rather than Box 44, no big deal. But even mistakes like that should be rare. It never occurred to me in my academic research that proper citations were something I could treat in a slipshod manner. I was taught, and I wholeheartedly believed, that it was essential to work extra hard to make my work as perfect as it could be. The best academic work is well-armed, prepared to withstand all criticism, whether directed at the methodology or the argument or writing. Avoiding errors in something as simple as sourcing was a rather straightforward part of the process.

Another takeaway is that there are not enough people checking the work of others. Wiener says that even reviewers almost never examine the original sources of the work they review. This is a problem across academia, of course. In the sciences, people often complain that too little time is spent replicating the studies of others. It’s the same in history.

[mightysparks]

Current Reads

Bedside Book: Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler
Not too far into this one so not sure where it's going yet but I'm liking the world-building so far.

Audible Listen: Flowers In the Attic - V. C. Andrews
I've wanted to read this since I was a teenager and I'm enjoying it a lot. Mena Suvari narrates and does a surprisingly good job at capturing the 'sweetness' and innocence of the children.

Toilet Read: The Ferryman - Justin Cronin
Nice writing and enjoyable read so far, characters are a bit flat (but maybe on purpose?) but the world is interesting and it has a nice atmosphere to it.

[3eyes]

Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford. One of the early Victorians that I've never read before - plot is slight but book is delightful.

[gunnar]

Current Reads

Bedside Book: Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler
Not too far into this one so not sure where it's going yet but I'm liking the world-building so far.

I liked Parable of the Sower quite a bit. I have Parable of the Talents on hand, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

[mightysparks]

Current Reads

Bedside Book: Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler
Not too far into this one so not sure where it's going yet but I'm liking the world-building so far.

I liked Parable of the Sower quite a bit. I have Parable of the Talents on hand, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

I've read a bit more of Sower over the last couple of days and geez it's depressing. I had to put it down last night just coz I was getting too stressed.

[Lilarcor]

Jon Wiener, Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower

You might be interested in an ongoing controversy regarding a recently published monograph in Qing dynasty research, this news article gives an introduction:
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/10/ ... g-sources/

This review of the book is the most brutal academic review I have ever read, and I found it a weirdly captivating read (open source):
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... 946BA17823

Not a scholar in this field but I do a fair share of archival research, and having read a bunch of reviews of this monograph (all negative) it is alarming that it could ever be published, based on the use of archival sources alone . More ammo to Jon Wiener's point that standards are often too low.