Retconning, so as to have a copy of these online as well. This was the year of moving away from Tbilisi. 2666 and Hadji Murad are the books that remain most in memory from the year’s reading.
Thirty-four in total; one in German; none in electronic form, as I did not yet have an e-book reader.
The God Engines by John Scalzi
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Zero History by William Gibson
The King of Vodka by Linda Himelstein
The Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith
2666 by Roberto Bolano
The City & The City by China Mieville
The Making of the Georgian Nation by Ronald G. Suny
Yalta: The Price of Peace by S.M. Plokhy
The Caucasus: An Introduction by Thomas de Waal
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Hadji Murad by Leo Tolstoy
Let Our Fame be Great by Oliver Bullough
What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe
Twilight Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
Crimea by Orlando Figes
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
No Way Down by Graham Bowley
Germania by Simon Winder
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog by Boris Akunin
The Clinton Tapes by Taylor Branch
12 Geheimnisse im Kaukasus by Essad Bey
What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell
Trotsky by Robert Service
Meskhetians: Homeward Bound by Tom Trier et al.
Your Hate Mail Will be Graded by John Scalzi
The Revolution Business by Charles Stross
The Trade of Queens by Charles Stross
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/01/04/taking-stock-of-2011/
I cannot praise this book too highly. I have read other books on modern Iran, but this book gives a much more detailed, complex, and fascinating look at what life in Iran is actually like. The author paints a picture of a vibrant and spirited people struggling desperately against a hated theocracy, and a theocracy struggling equally desperately to hang on to power. The most fascinating and perplexing aspect of Iranian collective psychology is the ambivalent love-hate attitude toward the United States. There is still very much a “Death to America” chorus in modern Iran, but Iranians also see America as a place of hope and opportunity that is sadly lacking in their own country. And the booming youth of Iran have no use for the Revolution or for theocracy, presenting a tantalizing hint of what Iran might look like ten years from now. This is a wonderful, wonderful book that deserves to be read by more Americans.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/11/03/persian-mirrors-the-elusive-face-of-iran-by-elaine-sciolino/
This is a very thoughtful and rational analysis of a very diabolical subject. Keegan acknowledges that war has evolved into something so terrible that it is to be avoided at all costs, but at the same time argues that war and preparedness for war remain unfortunate necessities in the fallen world in which we live. He also urges us to respect and honor the soldier and the code that enables him to do his duty, and not to let our modern distaste for war undermine our appreciation for the service that the soldier performs. This book is much warmer and more humane in tone than Keegan’s usual cold-blooded military dissertations, and it is one of his most readable works. A good introduction to a subject that defies any definitive rational explanation.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/10/25/war-and-our-world-by-john-keegan/
“What do I think about the legacy of Atatürk, General? Let it go. I don’t care. The age of Atatürk is over.”
Guests stiffen around the table, breath subtly indrawn; social gasps. This is heresy. People have been shot down in the streets of Istanbul for less. Adnan commands every eye.
“Atatürk was father of the nation, unquestionably. No Atatürk, no Turkey. But, at some point every child has to leave his father. You have to stand on your own two feet and find out if you’re a man. We’re like the kids that go on about how great their dads are; my dad’s the strongest, the best wrestler, the fastest driver, the biggest moustache. And when someone squares up to us, or calls us a name or even looks at us squinty, we run back shouting ‘I’ll get my dad, I’ll get my dad!’ At some point; we have to grow up. If you’ll pardon the expression, the balls have to drop. We talk the talk mighty fine; great nation, proud people, global union of the noble Turkic races, all that stuff. There’s no one like us for talking ourselves up. And then the EU says, All right, prove it. The door’s open, in you come; sit down, be one of us. Move out of the family home; move in with the other guys. Step out from the shadow of the Father of the Nation.
“And do you know what the European Union shows us about ourselves? We’re all those things we say we are. They weren’t lies, they weren’t boasts. We’re good. We’re big. We’re a powerhouse. We’ve got an economy that goes all the way to the South China Sea. We’ve got energy and ideas and talent – look at the stuff that’s coming out of those tin-shed business parks in the nano sector and the synthetic biology start-ups. Turkish. All Turkish. That’s the legacy of Atatürk. It doesn’t matter if the Kurds have their own Parliament or the French make everyone stand in Taksim Square and apologize to the Armenians. We’re the legacy of Atatürk. Turkey is the people. Atatürk’s done his job. He can crumble into dust now. The kid’s come right. The kid’s come very right. That’s why I believe the EU’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us because it’s finally taught us how to be Turks.”
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald, pp. 175-76
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/10/23/the-dervish-house-by-ian-mcdonald/
This is a marvellous book chronicling the history of science. The journey is fraught with heartache and tragedy, as it is an oft-repeated theme that scientists who have made great discoveries were never properly recognized in their lifetimes and died broken and unhappy. It is also an expose of the scientific world that debunks its reputation for cool impartialities; the scienctific world is in fact rife with ego, pettiness, and cutthroat competition. And while the author acknowledges how little we know about the origins of things, like most atheists he never questions the assumption that the universe popped into existence out of nothing or that life randomly assembled itself by pure accident. This book is not just a history of science, it is also a deconstruction of the scientific personality, which seems to be a combination of brilliance, dogged devotion, and sheer pig-headedness.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/10/22/a-short-history-of-nearly-everything-by-bill-bryson/
Read this book years ago, but it was worth rereading. This is mostly told from the Western and American side, chronicling the steps and missteps that American policy makers took to counter the threat of communist expansionism. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan all get their share of due credit, but ironically the President on whose watch the Cold War ended, George Herbert Walker Bush, is described as “sleepwalking through history” during the critical moments of the unraveling of the Soviet Union. There is indeed some evidence that Bush saw the demise of the Soviet Union as a threat to stability and the established order and actually sought to slow down the process somewhat rather than aid and abet it. But it is Gorbachev and not any Western leader who really emerges as the key actor in this phenomenon, although what he brought about was surely not what he intended. This was a good book, opinionated but fairly evenhanded, definitely at the top of the list on CW history.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/10/22/the-cold-war-by-martin-walker/
These stories are not exactly edifying, but they are certainly not dull. Bukowski’s writing is remarkably uninhibited, and many of the things he writes about seem to have escaped censorship only by virtue of the fact that the respectable literary establishment takes no notice of him. A few of these stories are outstanding examples of the great man’s genius and originality; the rest are merely exercises in gratuitous obscenity. In these stories one can still hear Bukowski’s eternal “F**k you” to the world from beyond the grave. He lived and wrote like the lowlife derelict that he was, but he did it with incomparable class and style.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/08/20/the-most-beautiful-woman-in-town-and-other-stories-by-charles-bukowski/
Celine has a way of writing about perfectly horrible experiences in a way that makes you laugh out loud. This book is a work of genius, although not quite as good as *Journey to the End of Night*. It’s too bad he didn’t write more. He has an uncanny way of finding humor in all the petty miseries of life, and humor is possibly the best antidote for such misery.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/08/12/death-on-the-installment-plan-by-louis-ferdinand-celine-2/
Like all the books I have read on infectious disease, this book is highly alarmist in tone. It recounts several recent outbreaks, adding a good dose of medical science for good measure, in order to advance the thesis that we need to be more prepared for the next outbreak. The author is not arguing for more research into drugs and treatment, but better organization and information resources to halt the spread of deadly disease as opposed to successfully treating individual cases. A book that makes you go, hm. The United States has been lucky for much of its recent history in avoiding epidemics, but the author argues persuasively that we must not let this lull us into complacency. The kind of measures he advocates would probably entail the Big Government that conservatives are trying to save us from, but if dealing with national emergencies is not the job of the federal government, what is? Informative and thought-provoking.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/07/29/microbe-by-alan-zelicoff/
This book came highly recommended, but it left me cold. Gibson’s vision is of a future in which there is more of the artificial than the natural, in which reality is effortlessly constructed by ubiquitous technology, and in which what you perceive is much of the time what some powerful person wants you to perceive. And that is about all I can say about this book. I read the story from beginning to end, and I still don’t really know what it was about. Maybe I’m just not smart enough for this kind of book. There was no character I cared about, and there was nothing that happened that I could relate to or that made sense to me. If this is an accurate prophecy of the future, it is neither utopian nor dystopian…just really, really weird.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/07/28/neuromancer-by-william-gibson/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire