Greetings, all well I trust? A warm welcome to the new faces in the thread, it's great to see you.
In no particular order, here's a round up of some the book you have been reading recently, and what you thought of them:
I was never a great fan of Superman (but read a bit about philosophy) and found this book at the weekend:
Superman and Philosophy: What Would the Man of Steel Do
Absolutely fascinating stuff about everything to do with Supes.
All of the chapters (especially "Could Superman Have Joined the Third Reich? The Importance and Shortcomings of a Moral Upbringing", "Superman: From Anti-Christ to Christ Type" and "World's Finest Philosophers:" Superman and Batman on Human Nature") are brilliant.
Just finished 'The Year of the Flood' by Margaret Atwood, and still immersed in that world (not to mention trying not to count down the days until 'Madaddam' is released later this year).
'Money' - Amis is one of my all-time favourite authors, so I thought it was about time I read what is widely regarded as his best novel. While it is too soon to say whether I personally think it better than the others that I've read, it is the first one to make me laugh out loud, and for long periods of time, both at the slapstick set-pieces and the withering precision of his prose. Am deliberately trying to make myself take it slowly and savour it, rather than rushing through as I normally do
Reading EF Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful".
As a read its not particularly great - quite repetitive really and he can get a little bogged down sometimes - but the overall strength of his ideas and vision, his clarity of thought (for the most part) and the resounding common sense of his approach to economics is laudable and, in its own way, exhilarating. His particular criticism of modern economics and our over reliance as a society on scientific knowledge and progress at the expense of the humanities (and in particular a consideration of how we should live) is refreshing even though the book is 30+ years old.
From way up-thread, books dealing with Afghanistan, I'd highly recommend the Mulberry Empire by Philip Hensher, the story of the 'Army of the Indus' heading off to Kabul to meddle disastrously in the 1840's, the 1st Afghan War: strong resonances to more recent events and helps to provide a context. The diaries of Fanny Eden, the then Governor General's sister, are a great red too, again lots of insight into the time and very funny as only the Victorians, intentionally, could be.
A selection of books we're reviewing this week
Fiction:
• We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
• Time Past and Time Present by Deirdre Madden
• The Professor of Truth by James Robertson
• Cooking with Bones by Jess Richards
• All is Silence by Manuel Rivas
Non-fiction:
• Isaac and Isaiah by David Caute
• Attention! by Josh Cohen
• The Unwinding by George Packer
• Our Church by Roger Scruton
• A Place in the Country by WG Sebald
• Semantic Polarities and Psychopathologies in the Family by Valeria Ugazio
• Men from the Men from the Ministry by Simon Thurley
