Who's Reading What?

[medicinebox]

Just finished a book titled "Treblinka". About the WW2 Nazi Death camp by that name. The Jews retaliated under some extreme conditions and burnt the camp to the ground. Out of 600 escapees only 40 lived to tell the tale. Best book I've read for some time. Very grusome, and proves that the Jews didn't always go to their deaths like sheep.

Whats everyone reading right now or read recently? Can you recommend any good titles and give a brief review. I like Non-fiction and though provoking.

[phazey]

Stupid white men: Michael Moore

Porno: Irvin Welsh

Red Storm Rising: Tom Clancy (2nd time around)

[Edit] thaivisa.com by George: hilarity ensues!

[tutsiwarrior]

'Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises' and 'A Moveable Feast' both by Ernest Hemingway, 'The Cold Six Thousand' by James Ellroy and 'The Quiet American' by Graham Greene. All on the umpteenth reading as I can't afford to buy books anymore.

Anyone with me in a plan to firebomb the book sellers in the departure area of Don Muang to punish them for their ridiculous prices?

[350torana]

Another good book about Nazi Germany and the Jews is Mila something or rather, my memory is not so good. About the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto .

Right now reading Wilbur Smith's 'Blue Horizon'(picked up at Tullarmarine airport) for the umpteenth time as there are not to many Asia Book stores in my part of Bkk.

Also read ' Forget u had a daughter' good read but came across as a bit ' blame men for everything'

My two cents worth

[taxexile]

john le carre......absolute friends.....excellent

james ellroy....the big nowhere......awesomely unputdownably fantabulous, like everything else (except the cold 6000 which i didnt like! but one day will try again) from americas finest crime writer....ever.

the ends of the earth......robert kaplan.....an exceptionally insightful travel writer visits central asia,and the far east (bangkok,nong khai,laos,cambodia)...this also is a remarkable book and very readable.

any recommendations for a good second hand bookshop,bangkok area.

(elite books near villa on sukhumvit has become too expensive for second hand stuff)

[tutsiwarrior]

tax...Elmore Leonard kicks Ellroy's ass any day of the week...just recently re-read 'Pronto'...

[medicinebox]

Some interesting sounding titles. Can you give any quick reviews or excerpts? (sic) Hard to judge by titles.

[taxexile]

tax...Elmore Leonard kicks Ellroy's ass any day of the week...just recently re-read 'Pronto'...

leonard is a good read,no question about it,funny dialogue,interesting characters wonderful plot twists,usually unputdownable as well,

but...

for atmosphere,menace,bonechillingly nasty characters,both the criminals and the police,the obsessive attention to detail,....ellroy has not,and never will be beaten.

you become the characters in his books as you read them,you enter their minds.

i used to watch re-runs of an old us crime show when i was a kid,called highway patrol,with broderick crawford. it was in black and white,i loved the american cars from the late fifties and the sleazy scum perps and the noirness of it all, ellroy takes me back to all that, but in a much more sinister and evil way.

leonard is the appetizer,the snack,the hamburger if you like, to ellroys subtly flavoured gourmet feast that leaves you satisfyingly full to bursting. unable to pick up another book for a week or so until his characters have stopped waking you up at night.

you might read a little leonard for half an hour or so before going over and picking ellroy down from the shelf for a real read

[mbkudu]

I just finished 'The Art of the Steal' by Frank W. Abagnale. It's by the guy who

the movie 'Catch Me if You Can' is based on. It's not his life story; it's a very fascinating manual on fraud and con tricks. I would recommend it to anyone, especially people who run businesses.

[tutsiwarrior]

tax...re: Ellroy's characters...I agree, to a degree...

I wanna be 'Big Pete' Bondurant...(knuckles cracking in the background...), however he doesn't figure in the LA stories which are better than his other efforts...

Elmore Leonard's stuff is more filmable...probably why the dialog rules (easily adaptable to a screenplay...) and is much easier to visualise

[tutsiwarrior]

oh yes...and I remember Highway Patrol and Broderick Crawford...wonderful series and beat Dragnet anyday of the week. Broderick Crawford was featured as a guest host on Sat. Night Live about 20 years ago...he knew that he was being sent up but he commanded the stage anyway...do you remember the theme music from Highway Patrol?

[TizMe]

Stephen Hawking's Biography, an amazing man.

[natee1]

Anyone with me in a plan to firebomb the book sellers in the departure area of Don Muang to punish them for their ridiculous prices?

Have them sell their asses in a Hat Yai brothel for a week, then make them proclaim on BBC world news that there is no sexual exploitation in THailand.

Sorry, I am drunk...

Porno, by Irvin Welsh,

anything by Chris Moore is great, crime novels about farangs lost in LoL and cunning bar girls

Mike Simpson, The English Thai dictionary

and Chogyam Trungpa, don't know the English title, but any of his books on Buddhism are worth reading.

[tutsiwarrior]

natee...I wouldn't go so far as to suggest sexual abuse as punishment for the airport bookseller's ridiculous opportunism...maybe simply to confine them to unventilated rooms with boiled cabbage and buddhist texts

However, I do admire firebombing and the application and drama of 'direct action'...

[natee1]

Have any more targets on your mind?

[tutsiwarrior]

'other targets'?...absolutely, ie., as in intimidation, emasculation and sexual abuse of those that prohibit smoking in bars in airports (please note that we are talking about Don Muang, a Thai airport and within the constraints of the thai.visa rules)...

if we fail, so what...we can blame the action on the muslims...

[natee1]

Could you elaborate as to what exactly you mean when you say 'smoking'?

[bigwetpatch]

its not fictional, but following on from the war theme, i strongly recommend sebastian Faulks " birdsong". For me at least it was very thought provoking. For non-fiction, i am very much enjoying Alfred Lansings " endurance".. about the shackleton antartica voyage.

If we are talking about books though i have to mention george MacDonald Frasers "flashman" series. They are histerical...and historically very acurate; well once you have taken flashman out.

[tutsiwarrior]

natee...smoking...as in the activity that requires tobacco. Under the table blowjobs are quite unbecoming to a middle aged gentleman like myself...

[natee1]

...so what about the herbs you've been growing in your backyard?

I know your type!

[LaTanne]

I thought you guys were talking about books.

If anyone likes mystery novels, I would recommend John Sandford and James Patterson. I listen to all of their books. When I said "listen", I do mean it. I don't have time to read anything so I listen to book-on-tape instead.

[tutsiwarrior]

La Tanne...the 'books' thing is a subterfuge...we are actually discussing public oral sex and illegal substances in the back garden

natee...I live in a converted shophouse on the edge of the developed area in town and I have no back garden. We have cleared away the bullrushes by the back of the house to prevent damage to the concrete. This is the domain of a 2 meter monitor lizard that I call 'Big fella' that eats small cats and dogs and threatens small children...

I would have responded sooner but my cs-loxinfo card ran out and had to go down to 7-11 on a motorbike with no brakes with pocket change to buy a new one. That pisses me off...cs-loxifo cards are an anathema to serious forum posters everywhere plus the money only lines the pockets of thaksin and co. Internet connection should be a service with nominal charge for everyone with a fixed telephone line like the UAE that is a government monopoly. Firebombs, WMDs, whatever it takes...free the masses of the current 'communications tycoon' fascism...

LaTanne I like Dorothy Sayers and wish that I had a copy of Busman's Holiday wherein Lord Peter Wimsey wept in his beloved Harriet's arms while remembering the horror of the Great War...

[chokrai]

Tutsi-sounds like you are running out of books to read. I have a bunch here that i have finished with,nothing special just stuff i bought for a dollar each at the Salvation army before i left canada. Some of them are ok and you can have them if you ever come up to CM or u know a good way to send them to you? Maybe to the bus station near you?

[fatter than harry]

I second Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, a wonderful book.

Also Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - I copied this blurb from Amazon:

Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods--World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first.... Of course, to observe is not its real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed.... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious."

All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes--inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe--team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.

Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short on plot, but long on detail so precise it's exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea, or a bit of sharp prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird characters, funky tech, and crypto--all the crypto you'll ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of information overload (and starvation).

I also liked Carter beats the devil by Glen David Gold

[Pink Mist]

Stephen Hawking's Biography, an amazing man.

I read "A brief history of time".

You're right Tiz an amazing man.

[tutsiwarrior]

chokrai...thanks for the offer. I'll be in touch when next in CM.

[stumonster]

for second hand books in bangkok the market at chutuchuk is the place I usually go to, in the book section there is a few shops which have books in english, though be prepared to spend at least an hour digging through a lot of trashy novels to find some good books...I have been very happy with some of my finds there

on the subject of books about concentration camps, I recommend a book called stoker or the stoker, which was written by an australian pow about his experiences in a couple of concentration camps in poland during the second world war. he make an interesting comment about schindler at the end.

and tutu warrior have a look online at www.gutenberg.org

[tutsiwarrior]

tutsi ain't got nothing against ancient attempts of popularizing bad news that are hard to read...please check comments regarding "Cuneiform and the Hammurabi code'...'Tzotzil interpretations of glypth apologetics' and 'an attempt to justify the roman alphabet in 21st century literature'

tutsi didn't get a Nobel prize for nuthin'...

[meadish_sweetball]

John Pilger's "The Hidden Agendas" is an excellent if sometimes a bit challenging read which explains a lot about what went on behind the scenes in recent history.

As for pure fiction, Mark Helprin's "A Soldier of the Great War" is a fantastic piece of literature revolving around philosophical concepts, heroism and WW 1, but in a way that is extremely captivating.

My Thai book tip: "Mad Dog & Co." by Chart Korpjitti. On a bunch of young Thai good for nothings who smoke herb, drink whisky and their friendship. Chart Korpjitti has won the South-East Asian Writers award twice and several of his books have been translated into English.

"The Glass Palace" is a piece of historical fiction which gives a fair bit of insight into Burma/Myanmar and its history.

"The Woman and the Ape" by Peter Hoeg is not too bad either.

[TRIPxCORE]

I usually stick to non-fiction. Right now I am reading "Hope of the Wicked." This is mandatory reading for anybody that desires to know the truth about what is and has been actually happening in the world. Here is a description, you'll be shocked. It will turn your world upside down.

Book Description

Many well-intentioned people these days look to the realm of politics for the solutions to the many and diverse societal problems facing the world. They believe that if only they could get good people into seats of power, then all would begin to correct itself and heal. These are noble and sane beliefs; indeed, one would expect the political route to bring this hoped-for outcome. Thats what politics are for, after all, right? We have come to believe that government does the will of the people, that the vote of the individual is the ultimate shaper of policy. The reality, however, is quite different, and this is borne out factually and undeniably in Ted Flynn's new book, Hope of the Wicked .

Politics has become but a tool for chaos; the solution for the ills confronting us exists far beyond. How have we arrived at the point we find ourselves, a point defined by the lack of ability to even govern our own future? If we can no longer determine our temporal destiny, then what does? The answers lie in a vast tangle of forces, organizations, individuals and philosophies, a tangle purposely confusing so as to avoid detection, a mass bound together tangibly by the desire of money and power, intangibly by the very essence of deceit.

What are these forces? How do they function? How have they come to the height of power? The truth is not easy to explain, nor is it easy to accept. The deception underlying the plans and processes is extremely subtle and pervasive. To understand all that is afoot requires delving into a large number of areas. Hope of the Wicked does just this. It explores the convergence on a global basis of multi-national corporations, foundations, and the political and sociological instruments of a one-world government to bring a New World Order. The book is 550 pages with 82 photographs and 1,200 footnotes, with a strong historical basis to show that there is a global elite working to end the sovereignty of nations, to place all under the United Nations. Areas explored are: the plan to bring America into the New World Order, the altered roles and make-up of the family, how a global elite is working to change the form of money, the abuse of technology, the Shadow Government, Executive Orders, the role of the Federal Reserve and who owns it, the Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, identities of the global big wigs and wonks, how the agenda has no ideology and is neither Democrat nor Republicanbut about control, the erosion of freedoms and rights, the planned collapse of the world economy to bring a new order from chaos, the intentional dumbing-down of American education, and many other issues that are bothering you in your gut, but that you can't put your finger on.

Hope of the Wicked is about the greatest deception in modern history. The book is packed with hundreds and hundreds of quotes from world leaders themselves showing where they want to bring the world. Nothing is left to guesswork; when you are finished reading, you will understand that what seems to be inconsistent and illogical to you, is not to the global elite who wish to bring the United States under the auspices of the United Nations. The quotes are from established world leaders, past and present, and most are household names. It is laid out for all to see what they have organizedout in the open for all to observe, if one wants to learn what the Masters of the Universe are planning for the New World Order. The book is neither left- nor right-wing politically, but is the view of a scribe observing these trends and issues over a twenty-five year period. It is primarily a resource guide and mini-anthology, with an index and 38 pages of footnotes that will be most difficult for someone to take issue with, principally because the quotes are from the perpetrators themselveswhat they have accomplished, and where they hope to go in the future. When you are done reading the material presented in this book, you'll never look at the news the same way again. It all amounts to control, control of your money, your work, your family, your education, your attitudes, your beliefs, your thoughts. Do you think its impossible? Read Hope of the Wicked and you will know for sure it is not only possible, it is already being done.