Currently reading

Glad I finished Jonathan Israel's 800-page tome http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Ideas-Intellectual-Revolution-Robespierre/dp/0691151725/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416962650&sr=8-1&keywords=israel+french+revolution.


& Robert Mayhew's considerably shorter lol http://www.amazon.com/Malthus-Robert-J-Mayhew-ebook/dp/B00KIHO4HA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1416962694&sr=8-2&keywords=malthus as well.


Currently reading;


Geoffrey Parker's another tome, Global crisis : war, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century /


Richard Cohen's Israel : is it good for the Jews?


Corrado Augias' The secrets of Italy : people, places, and hidden histories


Frederic Morton's Thunder at twilight : Vienna, 1913/1914


Most of these books, already finished about half.


---------------


And plan to read about;


Spinoza, so A book forged in hell : Spinoza's scandalous treatise and the birth of the secular age


More about French Revolution, so;


William Doyle's The Oxford history of the French Revolution


Peter McPhee's  Robespierre : a revolutionary life


From the Conservative Britain's point of view; The savage storm : Britain on the brink in the age of Napoleon


Early modern history of China, especially on the Chinese Civil War;
The Penguin history of modern China : the fall and rise of a great power, 1850 to the present


http://www.amazon.com/China-1945-Revolution-Americas-Fateful/dp/0307595889/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416963610&sr=1-8&keywords=1949+china


Also curious about Sperm Whale lol, so
The great sperm whale : a natural history of the ocean's most magnificent and mysterious creature


And about Ulysses, Joyce's masterpiece
The most dangerous book : the battle for James Joyce's Ulysses

Munich] Conservatives' rant

From Lynne Olson's Troublesome Young Men, p. 172-3


"I should like to crush Duff Cooper's head to a jelly."


Lady Willingdon, wife of former viceroy of India. Cooper resigned the minestry office over Munich.


--


At Kenneth Clark's house, over the issue;


"I look forward to using your skull as an inkpot!"


An Oxford don.


Clark had to banish both participants.


--


"Those traitors- Churchill, your brother, and hsi like- should be shot."


A society matron to Barbara Cartland, Ronald Cartland's sister.


British people were wise to support Churchill during the wartime, then to support the Labour party after the war.  Because the Conservative Party utterly failed to lead the nation during the critical 1930s, and many Tory grandees were even very fond of Hitler(a rare exception was Lord Salisbury).
Especially Chamberlain, who had a distinctly authoritatrian trait, even wiretapping telephones and threatened Tory rebels.  Actually most of the press magnates cooperated with the Tories as well, BBC too. 
If the leader's foremost quality is to inspire, Chamberlain utterly failed in its task.

Reissue of the year: Trotsky bio

http://www.amazon.com/The-Prophet-Life-Leon-Trotsky/dp/1781685606/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1YKCJWS0TCMC5ZQY23J6

Trotsky's history of the Revolution and autobiography are pretty highly regarded as well.

Haven't read any of 'em, so am curious at the least.

Clergy endorses war

" War caused all industry and trade to grow and prosper: peace makes them wither and decline."

" War became a bond of union and unity: peace brings quarrels and disunity."

Dutch Calvinist pastors, 1650

quotes from The Enemy

p.210 res ipsa loquitur


p. 212 The triumph of disengagement


no hay de que


Balzac; "Laws are spiderwebs through which big flies pass and little ones get caught"


p. 217 Herbert Marcuse on Law and Order

The horror of the heat in Texas

The 1st impression you get while reading Lee Child's Echo Burning is..


'Thank God I'm not living at Western Texas'  lol. The author constantly reminds us of the unbelievable heat and humidity of the environs!


I do have a good memory of College Station(the weather there was pretty extreme to be honest), but that kind of extreme humidity wouldn't be popular..

Otto Preminger

Was browsing the photos on the book,The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger, and once again marvelled at his productivity.

Nature books by Pliny and Aristotle

Found this book by Aristotle, History of Animals, while reading Octopus!: The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea.  Aristotle is really a keen observer; and some passages seems to be quite hilarious lol.


Pliny's Natural History is of course famous, and vast. In some passages he is known to depart from dispassionate explanations and fulminate about the state of things(mores, etc) lol.

August: Osage County & Hateship Loveship

Enjoyed those two movies.




Osage felt a bit like Lumet's masterpiece Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962). Streep was particulary delightful in the movie.


HL, nice subdued atmosphere, didn't seem to try too much on selling humor as well. Everybody was good imo, Pearce included.

Ulmer at LACMA

http://www.lacma.org/series/after-expressionism-versatile-edgar-g-ulmer

Books related to the French Revolution

http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Ideas-Intellectual-Revolution-Robespierre/dp/0691151725/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415069316&sr=1-1&keywords=revolutionary+ideas


In depth analysis of the deological battle of the French Revolution


http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Storm-Britain-Brink-Napoleon/dp/1408701928/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415070692&sr=1-5&keywords=savage+storm


British hysteria upon the French Revolution






http://www.amazon.com/Malthus-Life-Legacies-Untimely-Prophet/dp/0674728718/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415069511&sr=1-2&keywords=malthus


Malthus' reaction to the French Revolutionary idea

Jack Reacher series

It's so...American, in a way.  Child says it's a bit like the Medieval tales and Western, but I detect a hint of Noir in it as well.


How popular is this series? The most recent output of Lee Child,


http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Jack-Reacher-Lee-Child/dp/0804178747/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415070261&sr=1-3&keywords=lee+child+jack+reacher+series


 has 60 on hold at the local the pubilc library.

Andrew Robert's bio of Napoleon?

Was waiting of Philip Dweyer's vol. 2 of Napoleon,


http://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Power-Dr-Philip-Dwyer/dp/B005M4WM5U/ref=pd_sim_b_21?ie=UTF8&refRID=1EG3Z1GDFCCFH8BBM071


yet conservative historian Roberts published first lol.


http://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-A-Life-Andrew-Roberts/dp/0670025321/ref=pd_sim_b_8?ie=UTF8&refRID=0P43ASZ8F5EA3Z9C0K2G


 No doubt Dweyer will be better, but until he publishes, should take a look at Roberts'.


Damn I'm not the only one, the books already has 4 holds when it's still on order lol.