4215 replies to this topic

[Anthony Bonner]

I'll add it to the list. I thought the Nazi's plans for the Ukraine/Belorussia/Poland was to starve the 30 million inhabitants in about 6 months and move Germans in to planned utopian communities. When most of their Eastern plans were stopped by Russia, they decided kill all the Jews (which hadn't initially been the plan, but there was no where to ship them) so they could feel good about meeting at least one of their goals.

the narrative I've read is that it was two different forks of the same ideology, not "Part 1 failed, lets try Part 2" The people behind "operation hunger" and moving German farmers into the newly deserted farmlands were the crazy aryanist cult-of-farmer crowd, while the jew-killing was the crazy aryanist "jews are the blame for everything crowd"

[Wilfrid]

Imperial Bedrooms by Brett Easton Ellis. In which our favorite Less Than Zero characters show up some years older for another bout of amoral sex, drugs and general consumption. Very good of its kind. Reminds me strongly of Martin Amis's Money, although Ellis's prose is much less cluttered.

[g.johnson]

The suffering of the people stuck between Germany & Russia, from the late 1800s through the end of WW 2 is just astounding.

Also known as "Poles".

[Stone]

And Belorussians and Ukrainians (Ruthenes?).

[Wilfrid]

And the Jewish. Don't forget those.

[g.johnson]

The Genius in My Basement by Alexander Masters. Anyone who argued recently that mathematicians are not peculiarly strange might give this a go.

[Lex]

What I'll be reading next month when its' published is The Passage of Power, the next volume of Robert Caro's multi volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. The man is a superb storyteller. The last book, Master of the Senate, explained how Johnson learned how to play the Senate like his personal pinball machine. No one had ever done that before and no one has done it since. Caro actually managed to make the Senate truly interesting and it got him another Pulitzer.

Johnson's skills in managing the legislature were directly responsible for the civil rights bills of 1964 and 1965. He said at the time, privately, that they would cause the Democratic party to lose the South for a generation. He pushed those bills through anyway.

The new book will cover the years from 1958 to early 1964, just after he became president. I have no doubt the next volume will be terrific - all the other ones were.

[Wilfrid]

The New Yorker published an excerpt on LBJ assuming the Presidency. Gripping.

[Wilfrid]

Slideshow in the Times today reveals Caro is composing his masterpiece on a portable Electra typewriter.

[yvonne johnson]

S. J. Watson's Before I go to sleep. A good thriller about a woman who suffers amnesia. Dennis Lahane describes it as "Memento on crystal meth". Not sure I'd describe it as that, but a jolly good page turner.

Anyone else read it without looking up wiki re the author's gender? I was convinced on one, but it was the other.
http://www.sjwatson-...foreigotosleep/

[bloviatrix]

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Loving the writing. Thus far, I'm finding it's living up to the hype.

Finally finished the book, and although it started strong the story couldn't sustain itself. I can't decide whether it was too ambitious or just too long and in need of tighter editing. That said, Harbach writes about baseball well.

The new issue of The Atlantic has a review on "the most over-hyped novel of the year" aka The Art of Fielding. Myers makes some valid points.

Swing and miss

[Wilfrid]

Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park.

[splinky]

paul mooney, "black is the new white"

paul mooney was richard pryor's writer and muse for most of his career and created pryor's best known routines including the "name calling" routine with chevy chase on snl. about half way through his memoir and it's clear that mooney is the probably one of the most conceited guys on the planet.

[Lippy]

I came late to The Rotters' Club, but I can't remember the last time in recent years that I've enjoyed a book as much.

[Wilfrid]

Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park.

I shouldn't have missed this when it first came out. Deeply funny. Of course, I am just getting to the part where some horrendously nasty violence is probably about to happen.