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Luke_W

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Just finished Men In Space by Tom McCarthy

Set in a Central Europe rapidly fragmenting after the fall of Communism, "Men in Space" follows a cast of dissolute Bohemians, political refugees, football referees, deaf police agents, assassins and stranded astronauts as they chase a stolen icon painting from Sofia to Prague and beyond. The icon's melancholy orbit is reflected in the various characters' ellipses and near misses as they career vertiginously through all kinds of space: physical, political, emotional and metaphysical. What emerges is a vision a world in a state of disintegration.

 

 It was thoroughly absorbing, a flexible narrative that circles through a mosaic of characters, lot of symbolism in the art if you like that but I just enjoyed the wry yet melancholic mood of it. Will be checking out some of his other stuff.

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The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek (1944)

Brilliantly prescient book on the perils of trading liberty for security by allowing government central-planners to dictate all aspects of life.

He explains how a post-war federal Europe controlled by its strongest state would substantially weaken democracy.

But the ending is very satisfying because it turns out it is entirely the Germans' fault, as the Prussians' successful militarist system of government made totalitarian systems look workable.

 

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The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek (1944)

Brilliantly prescient book on the perils of trading liberty for security by allowing government central-planners to dictate all aspects of life.

He explains how a post-war federal Europe controlled by its strongest state would substantially weaken democracy.

But the ending is very satisfying because it turns out it is entirely the Germans' fault, as the Prussians' successful militarist system of government made totalitarian systems look workable.

 

That sounds like a really good book, but I'm afraid (my) life's too short to read stuff that will make me depressed and angry.

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The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek (1944)

Brilliantly prescient book on the perils of trading liberty for security by allowing government central-planners to dictate all aspects of life.

He explains how a post-war federal Europe controlled by its strongest state would substantially weaken democracy.

But the ending is very satisfying because it turns out it is entirely the Germans' fault, as the Prussians' successful militarist system of government made totalitarian systems look workable.

 

 

That sounds like a really good book, but I'm afraid (my) life's too short to read stuff that will make me depressed and angry.

Funny enough, that is what I was expecting but it is written in a very gentlemanly and gentle style which presents its case quite modestly, and rather less aggressively than those who are to be heard quoting it these days.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

51tJpXLaviL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

started this today, it's a subject I always enjoy reading about, did plenty of research for it as a student etc, and know this historian already so I'm pre-disposed to liking it. It's new this year and is focused chiefly on oral and written testimony from amongst others the more marginalised voices.

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51tJpXLaviL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

started this today, it's a subject I always enjoy reading about, did plenty of research for it as a student etc, and know this historian already so I'm pre-disposed to liking it. It's new this year and is focused chiefly on oral and written testimony from amongst others the more marginalised voices.

I'll be buying that, cheers!

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Reading is hard work man, how do you all stay so committed to a book if it doesn't have many pictures in?

The pictures are all in your head!

No, just the voices. I've read Mr Nice, Freaky Dancing and the Stone Roses War and Peace. They were good, lots of pictures.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm about a quarter of the way through 'Waves' by Virginia Woolf which I'm really enjoying, has a nice flow to it. Also reading a book on Psychogeography, still not entirely sure what it is, in precise terms, but still quite interesting when taken as a game.

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