The Idiot Board Readers Corner - General Discussion

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Haven't checked this thread in awhile, but I would definitely be down. We did this occasionally on the old board and the threads were always interesting. We do this for movies and tv shows on here all the time, wouldn't hurt to do a book once in awhile. A few that would spawn plenty of discussion:

- Starship Troopers
- 1984
- Blood Meridian
- The Grapes of Wrath
- The Corrections

In the off chance that we get a thread rolling, I don't necessary think it has to be a book that's as popular as what I listed, but just not something really niche like Fantasy, or an autobiography.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

I've been on a Heinlein kick lately (just finished Cat Who Walks Through Walls last week) and Starship Troopers gets my vote. How did it work on the old board?

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

I'll throw my hat in the ring if you need someone to help run it.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Anybody read the Mistborn trilogy? Would you recommend? Trying to decide if I want to commit to another sci Fi trilogy

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

First one was good. Second two were incredibly boring, and the third in particular got a little too tropey to be enjoyable.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

I have the same problem with this as I did with the movie. While not labeled a Young Adult book, Ender's game is fundamentally about a child who gets so good at video games that he saves humanity. Frankly, it seems dated and immature. Am I missing something here?

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

That's like saying that LOTR is fundamentally about a guy trying to dispose of jewelry. While technically correct, it misses the spirit of the thing. Enders Game and the books that followed it, particularly the speaker for the dead branch of follow ups, are about more than smart kids doing cool adult stuff. They're about responsibility, and humanity, creative thinking, persistence, consequences. You know, the broader themes of life, but in a futuristic sci-fi setting. Just like say, Bradbury, or Asimov, or others of that type.

Also, they're a good read.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Do you at all feel like you're getting hung up on the semantics and missing the message? Also, have you actually read the book of Enders game or just seen the movie? I'm not sure at all how you could miss the broader themes of sacrifice and deception for a greater good or the cost and darkness of feeding children through a machine to make soldiers and the damage that does to them or the dichotomy of adult pragmatism and the deception and prejudice it entails when cast against the honest optimism of youth. It's a story about how people lose themselves and the fight to retain who we were before we were too jaded to remember. The side plots with Peter and Val's use of psuedonyms to manipulate the world through the internet is a fascinating insight into truth and perception, and media manipulation. Especially if you consider that the book was published in 1985 - is a phenomenally prescient insight into the future. With the increasing prevalence of drone piloting and the likelihood of future warfare being performed by remote vehicle operators rather than in-situ pilots and drivers - in a book written 20 years before any of those things were plausible - the parallels are remarkable.

I loathe Card's politics and I hope he dies in his fire. But his books were remarkable. It's sad, and ironic in a brutally dark way that he's become the systemic prejudice that his protagonists struggled so much against.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

I'm sorry, but no. It's an absurd plot line that's only made even more ridiculous by its result. The idea that a couple kids can conquer the world by creating debates and blogging on the internet is the most far fetched out of touch nonsense I've ever read in a book. The main story with Ender is just as ludicrous. He's a genius - ok, but he's also at a school that's supposedly filled with brilliant students and defeats, in a wholly unrealistic fashion, kids far more intellectually developed and with every advantage because they can't identify his obvious strategies. Then the story eventually winds down to the concept of the entire species' existence depending on an 11 year old child playing a video game on a distant screen totally unaware of the consequences or ramifications of his actions. It's an entertaining novel, but it's also stupid and should be seen for what it is. I think most of the glorification of the novel's so called 'insight' and 'relevance' has a lot more to do with nostalgic attachment towards the readers rather than any merit the book actually contains.

 

That's what I was trying to say. It's a great book if you don't take it too seriously and enjoy a fantasy that's more interesting than going to everyday class and playing soccer after school. This idea that the book has something important to say about how modern militaries should operate and how the media should conduct themselves is just silly. There's plenty of books that address those issues meaningfully, but Ender's Game isn't one of them. Haven't seen the movie yet, and I liked the book, but that's because I read it as straight science fiction; nothing more, nothing less.

 

I highly suggest both the audiobook and physical copy of Not Taco Bell Material by Adam 'Lakers' Carolla. He's a funny motherfucker recounting these shitty times from his childhood and various other hilarity of his life. Like living in piece-of-shit apartments filled with two rabbits, a cat and a Jewish roomie, idiotic door placement on his mother's house and holy fuck, lots of Adam Carolla tangents. Especially the audiobook. If you hate Carolla though, you're going to be wanting to steer clear.

 

The book is fantastic, the audio book is even better if you like his style. I am glad I didn't have parents like that.

 

Just finished the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. It's like a Channing-Tatum style Game of Thrones. Some fun characters and some intrigue and a pretty complex setting....and unlike GofT it has an ending, albeit an unsatisfying one. The second book was best, ending was meh. Just not as complex or as deep as you might like and the names he brazenly rips off of other cultures is a little bad (Gurkish=Turkish, etc). If you have kids who are not quite ready for Game of Thrones, this is a good series to point them towards.

 

Merchants of Virtue, by Bill Birchard....solid business narrative. If you're not getting an MBA or you don't give a shit about Herman Miller, pass. Still, this company is iconic and this is the story of how they've held an edge for so long.

Nickled and Dimed by Barbara Erhenereich. This is the type of book I am searching for, to learn exactly how to break the poverty cycle. At some points, it's hilarious, tragic and tongue-in-cheek. If I had a complaint, it's that she never truly was desperate, this was some project for her and that's a bit condescending. However, this is a damned good counter-argument to Atlas Shrugged.

The Portable Henry Rollins by Henry Rollins. This was a bit scattered, but it encompassed his poetry, diaries from the road, reflections and fictional anecdotes. It's insanely good, but it's depressing and intense. Bonus points for his story "The Iron" about lifting weights. I can't speak on the quality of his poetry, but the rest of it is top-notch writing from...well, Henry fucking Rollins.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. You should read this shit. Just not all at once. This is top-tier essential philosophy, especially for men. It's awesome, but fucking depressing if you take too much of it at once. Seriously, it's not hard or long and it makes a great compliment to entry-level philosophy like Zen And the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Seriously good shit.

 

What I've been reading lately:

Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov (Glenny transl.)

I'm not a huge reader of fiction but this is one of the best I've ever read. The Devil pitches up in Moscow and behaves much like a mischievous child would if given his powers, causing havoc at every corner, sometimes gory but always amusing, and sending up the pretences of the Russian upper class at the same time. It has a bit of a Terry Pratchett vibe to it, which isn't anything I thought I'd say about 20th Century Soviet satire. One of those books which you race to the end of only to be left saddened that there's no more to read.

The State of Africa - Martin Meredith

A 700 page history of Africa since independence. It may appear to be a dense tome, when you divide its contents by fifty years and fifty states, it actually flows at a healthy pace. We all know that Africa has been fucked, for want of a better word, for a long time but what this book does is help you understand the reasons why. It's a good mix of anecdote (A stranger at Ghana's independence festivities is asked what it feels like be free by Nixon, his answer: "I wouldn't know, I'm from Alabama.", the president of CAR informing the French foreign minister that he is eating human flesh), history, biography and a light yet devastating sprinkling of stats (Congo-Kinshasa became independent with a total of six university graduates amongst its population). It's nice that one of the few leaders who get pass marks is half-Scottish. A lengthy but great primer on the continent.

Arabian Sands - Wilfred Thesiger

Classic travel writing by a posh English bloke who crosses the Empty Quarter of Arabia with the aid of some camels and local tribesmen. It can be rather dry and descriptive in style at times but the magnitude of his accomplishments needs no flourishes to astound. It's actually quite compact compared to the months of travel it covers and doesn't waste ten pages describing a single rock as T. E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" seems to at times. At its core it's a story of a man rejecting modern (1940s) Western living for a life of frugality and hardship among a people that he realises he'll never be a part of. How close he was to death on many occasions is astounding, even more so is the local Bedu travelling with him's eager acceptance of these dangers which they understand much better and their steadfast support of a European Christian when other tribesmen they encounter want nothing more than to slaughter him. It gives a fascinating glimpse into the culture of the peoples of south Arabia before oil changes their lives forever (he describes Abu Dhabi as "a small town of two thousand inhabitants"). Though never intending to be a writer he does a good job of characterisation and, knowing it's set over sixty years ago, makes you want to know what happened to his travelling companions after the book ends.

I'll throw in a quick ultra-recommendation for The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart. He writes the forward to Arabian Sands and he's probably the closest the UK's come to a Thesiger since the old man passed. The book is the story of Stewart's walk across Afghanistan in 2002, shortly after the fall of the Taliban. It's an incredible trip, written modestly and opened my eyes to the reality of everyday life for ordinary Afghanis and shows their character and motivations. As with every travel book I read, and every country I visit, the land turns out to be far more diverse than I first imagined.

 

Mark Rowland's "The Philosopher and the Wolf". This philosophy professor on a whim ends up with a wolf. Hilarity and deep-thinking ensue. A really worthwhile read, especially for dog people. Highly recommended, even though I disagree with some of his ideas.