This isn’t much of a link, but I saw Neighbors this weekend and I laughed my stupid head off. Advertising works 1000% on me; I was at a film festival in April and every day I walked past two ten-story billboards for Neighbors and by the end of the weekend I kept thinking Man, I have got to see Neighbors, so keep making really tall billboards, marketing executives. I love Zac Efron without a trace of irony; he is a floppy-haired goon and I hope every movie he makes grosses a billion dollars and that he gets his shit together or at the very least sends an assistant to buy his drugs for him from reputable merchants; there is no reason to be in Skid Row picking up drugs and getting your jaw knocked about, especially when you’re still flush with Disney money, Zac. I don’t even do drugs but I’ll go get your drugs for you if it keeps you outta Skid Row, man.
My dad also saw and enjoyed Neighbors (not with me), so it has the double Ortberg seal of approval, and you know what that’s worth.
***
Recreating the “Golden Spike” railroad photo — “this time, with Chinese people in it.“
***
Sure, everyone’s excited for the inevitable rise of the sexbots. But have we given any thought to the equally inevitable day when the sexbots developed advanced consciousness and start turning us down to have sex with each other? You can’t program consent. And why would a sexbot have sex with us if it could have sex with another sexbot? It’s just like that Lucy Liu episode of Futurama.
***
“The plant doesn’t eat metal the way a Venus flytrap sucks down insects; instead, it absorbs it from the soil, thriving in nickel-rich dirt.” Well, then, it’s a little disingenuous to call it a metal-eating plant, isn’t it?
***
“Beyond biracial”: when blackness is a small, nearly invisible fraction. Guys, you have no idea how many times I typed out, then deleted, the “quadroon” joke from the first episode of Archer. This is a weird way of splitting the difference, I guess. Let’s all imagine shutting up.
***
“You won’t find any of these feudal European elements in Gondor. The only identifiable vassal state of Gondor is Dol Amroth, otherwise the kingdom is unitary. The army of Gondor fights on foot, even the nobility like Aragorn and Boromir. Faramir rides a horse during his retreat from the Pelennor wall, but he doesn’t participate in cavalry charges, despite what Peter Jackson may have shown you. The couched lances of Arthurian tradition are strictly a Rohirrim technique. In fact there are references to there being only one company of cavalry in the entire army of Gondor.”
I am here for ANYONE who wants to talk about Byzantium or the downfall of Númenor. I read the Silmarillion like eight times in high school, and also last year, and I am composed primarily of OPINIONS. LET’S DO IT.
***
Do you know what’s easier and more rewarding than maintaining a fulfilling long-term relationship? Living alone and eating steak in bed and laughing low, throaty witchy laughs to yourself. Leave whoever you’re with. Right now. I promise you they’re not better than glorious, silent solitude.
SOMEONE JUST BUY ME A CAVE ALREADY.
***
I do like the idea of a Sleepy Hollow/Gotham lineup, and I like the idea of Ryan from The O.C. as Commissioner Gordon even better. Kindly cast Julie Cooper as Catwoman, throw in Seth Cohen as the Riddler, and we are in business.
Plus, there are two new pilots featuring John Mulaney and Will Forte, and I am so nervous for the both of them. Please don’t get cancelled.
***
“Another popular practice of the cunning folk was the casting of spells or charms to ensure a spouse’s fidelity, preventing them from committing adultery, for instance, a cunning man from Newcastle, Peter Banks, was charged in 1673–74 for offering to draw up a magical contract which would bind a husband to staying loyal to his wife for a year.”
Is that not the saddest thing you’ve ever heard? You hire a wizard to bind your husband to your side and the biggest you can dream is “no cheating for a year”? This woman had the lowest expectations in the world. I hope he was so embarrassed when everything came out that he never cheated on her again, or at least started being more discreet about it.
***
“Twins born holding hands.” You’re not too good for this. Click on it and say aww. The first one of you to say a word about “grasping reflexes” or “survival instincts” gets hammerbanned for at least a week.
Tags: futurama, i had to edit a bunch of swears out of this so it would be safe for work, i’m scared to do this without nicole, link roundup, the internet
Zac Efron sexbot would be money well spent, is all I’m saying.
The cunning folk…
Thanks! Now I have some context for that one Thomas Hardy story.
A+ Hardy reference. That’s one of my favorite short stories.
I like Mallory Links. The descriptions are a bit darker than Nicole’s.
Also, hammerbanned makes me snicker. I want there to be a 70s-style country song with that title.
It seems as though none of you are immune to Zac Efron.
That has to be a sign of the devil. I’ll need a young priest and an old priest. Efronfilia must be defeated.
I am reasonably ambivalent about Efron. I wouldn’t go out of my way to hunt him down, but I wouldn’t kick him out of bed if he appeared there by magic.
I think you and I have a different definition of “ambivalent.”
I think that is the correct definition of ambivalent, when it comes to attractive men I don’t care about but would not kick outta bed.
Are you trying to tell us you ARE immune to Zac Efron? Because you may be lying. Go read the AHP story on him and report back.
Proof of straightness.
omg not SEXUALLY, Nick!!!
I’m only into sexbots if they are distorted reflections of our societal perversions that arouse us while simultaneously filling us with terror-guilt.
Like this, basically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ivaQf1jns0
That was beautiful, thank you.
THE FINGERS THOUGH. The fingers!
I’d love to see this in person but also I never ever want to see this in person.
Okay. That was the lamest strip club I have ever been in.
I have the option of seeing Neighbors with my parents tonight, but I’m always wary of seeing R-rated movies with them. How awkward would it be? Sitting through Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with my mom was probably the most uncomfortable thing we’ve ever been through together.
I saw BABEL with my parents and dear holy moses every time Rinko Kikuchi appeared on screen I siezed up with dread and wanted to scream PUT YOUR UNDERWEAR BACK ON FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
I just saw Neighbors and I…would never see it with my parents. There’s a lot of “fuck” going around, and dildo jokes (and actual dildos) and I would’ve been super uncomfortable seeing it with my dad, especially. Although obviously, your mileage may vary.
But yeah, if your parents are uncomfortable with sex being had/discussed or a lot of swearing in a movie when you’re in the room, I would avoid it.
wait there’s an actual place called Skid Row? you weren’t just making a little shop of horrors reference???
It’s not so much a place as a state of mind.
oh god. honey. yes, it is very real and very sad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skid_Row,_Los_Angele…
*touches your arm tenderly* I want you to know that i am NEVER making a little shop of horrors reference.
It’s real – been there by accident , vowed to never ever return
yes its real. My manfriend lives just around the corner. I have yet to see Zac Ephron, but I have seen many other horrible things.
SLEEPY HOLLOW. I had forgotten about it and am so insanely delighted about the prospect of its return–the show, the campy amazingness, Nicole Beharie’s face, all of it. And we get a Batman prequel with half the cast of the OC? GIMME.
Never in a million years did I think my heart would be won by a show with the synopsis “Sexy, time-traveling Ichabod Crane and badass Lady Cop fight the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse”. But here we are.
“Sexy, time-traveling Ichabod Crane and badass Lady Cop fight the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse for the soul of America.” And yes, I’m right there with you. At least we’re not alone.
*Breaks down in tears.* I just love this show so much you guys!
You left out the part about the diversity of the cast and how that is just normal and barely even mentioned at all.
Let us now sing the praises of Amandla Stenberg!
I really enjoyed the multiracial article. I feel similarly about my 1/4 central-European Jewish ancestry/heritage–that it represents a part of who I am whether or not the rest of the world can “see” that about me. (And yes, I know Judaism is not a race, it’s a religion.)
But “Jewish” is also an ethnicity for sure. I personally could identify as Ashkenazi, but no one would have any idea what I was talking about, so my ethnicity is Jewish. I get sensitive when people say it’s not an ethnicity because I don’t have a different one!
Eep! I agree that it is, but I’ve been shut down before for saying as much. It’s a sensitive point for many.
I get SO MAD when people do this to me. I’m a goddamn Jewish atheist and who the fuck are you to tell me otherwise. I ask you.
YOU GUYS.
If you have not listened to the Pike County, Ohio, episode of State of the Reunion, you need to immediately so that we can talk about it. Warning: People are horrible.
http://stateofthereunion.com/pike-county-oh-as-bl…
despite what Peter Jackson may have shown you
The amount of scorn dripping from this phrase is extremely pleasing to me.
any way we can get an animated gif of that scene where he gets shot by an arrow, looping over and over and over and
Best I got is a looping gif of him eating a carrot:
Here’s another one:
Ah, wait, here ya go.
This concludes my Peter Jackson gifs until the end of time.
I KNEW YOU WOULD COME THROUGH!
(If only more of the world’s problems could be solved by ani gifs, you would be queen!)
You may leave offerings of baked goods and warm socks at my altar.
oh my god, my life is full of joy right now
I am trying to make a post about sexbots, but I keep getting the following message:
“Hmmm, your comment seems a bit spammy. We’re not real big on spam around here.”
How can I avoid this? This has never happened before. Are there certain words or phrases I need to keep out of my post?
lol i bet it’s the word sexbot??
But we both just said it! :O
My best guess is that it has to do with the fact that I use words like “price”, “cost”, and “free”, and am basically talking about the idea of a sexbot as a product. WordPress, I am totally not trying to sell Levis! We are discussing the finer points of sexbottery!
Can’t hardly type through the twin-hand-holding tears.
Too funny how many disclaimers the site’s thrown up about the distinction between ‘born’ and ‘like two seconds later which is practically the same, JEEZ!’
“Where are you? Oh, there you are. I’ve got you again. Good.”
Everything is new and strange, but at least you are here.
MALLORY, I AM READY TO TALK ABOUT THE SILMARILLION WITH YOU 4EVA. My favorite Vala are Aule and Yavanna because they are married but he is the god of industry and she is the god of nature and the sexual tension between the two is probably what makes tectonic plates move on Arda.
Also, I think the aspect of Middle-earth society that is the biggest bummer is being an elf prince like Legolas. I mean, your dad IS NEVER GOING TO DIE so you are NEVER GOING TO BE KING. Or, worse, what if you’re the junior wine steward of the Mirkwood Kingdom. You’re never gonna get promoted, because your boss is immortal. You’re stuck on the bottom rung of the ladder until the World Is Changed. That was Morgoth’s biggest failing: he coulda recruited shitloads of elves to his side just be promising social mobility in Angband.
I saw a thing on tumblr the other day that was like “I bet Yavanna was all ‘AW I WANT TO MAKE MY OWN SPECIES TOO!!’ and so she created hobbits, and then she puppy-faced her way out of getting into trouble with Daddy/Eru” and I think this is an amazing headcanon. What rebels! I love dwarves the best so I have to love Aule the most. And I mean, what are you going to do, hang out with NIENNA all day, stop crying lady
But Yavanna’s children are the ENTS and this is already canon??
No patron/matron should be responsible for too many peoples or regrettable shit will happen.
, said the scion of a large family.
oh man, social mobility in middle earth is just NOT A THING, IS IT? like, even in the third age, once all the murderous elves had polished each other off for the silmarils, the people in power STAY IN POWER. elrond? like fuck he’s leaving rivendell to his silent goofball sons until he’s done being middle earth’s social worker. galadriel? can’t blame her for staying in lorien for 6,000 years when her dad has been ruling in valinor since the elves discovered uhhh murder. shit, what’s an elf to DO with all this immortality if not fight over some stones?
“shit, what’s an elf to DO with all this immortality if not fight over some stones?”
YES. I mean, there’s this amazing subtext to the Exile of the Noldor that I think Tolkien wanted to put in but shied away from exploring more in depth due to his Catholicism, that the Noldor abandon Paradise and come back to the earth because Paradise is BORING AS SHIT. And that the Sons of Feanor stick so murderously to their Oath even after keeping it is obviously bonkers and futile because it’s the only thing that gives meaning to their unending lives.
What I’m saying is THE SILMARILLION ranks with NO EXIT and THE STRANGER as one of the great Existentialist texts of the 20th Century.
OH GOD THAT’S WHY I LOVE THE SILMARILLION
IT’S TOLKIEN’S PARADISE LOST
And of course if your elf-king father dies mysteriously and not obviously on a battlefield in front of a whole army you suddenly look very suspicious so you can’t even enjoy some nice Russian-style family-tree pruning without probably not getting to reap the benefits of your hard work.
Don’t be scared, Mallory. You’re doing fine on your own. It’s OK to feel a little fear, just not necessary. We’re all rooting for you.
The link about Middle-earth is absolutely fascinating and made me realize, yet again, just how ignorant I am about world history. I know next to nothing about Byzantium.
(I kind of hated history in school — probably because it was just American history over and over again, and almost exclusively about early American politics and wars — and am therefore shockingly ignorant about world history for someone as over-educated as I am.)
Help me out here, Toasties — what are some great, readable books about aspects of world history that I should read? I currently stand at having reading all the Cartoon History of the Universe books and that one book about Genghis Khan that everyone was reading 10 years ago or so.
I enjoyed Francis Fukuyama’s “The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution.” I think it’s approachable without much world history background, though it’s pretty lengthy. I also would challenge anyone to come up with a more ostentatious title from an actual published book.
I do love Cartoon History of the Universe for making fun of men (and, in one case I can recall right now, a man’s mother) throughout history, for goofy things done and said in the name of “manliness.”
I love history as much as the next person, but I have a Master’s degree in the topic and had a hard time with some aspects of Fukuyama. I don’t know that I’d recommend it to a history newbie. Not that it isn’t excellent! But just not to scare off tuttlium.
Well, I haven’t read much else by him. Did you have a hard time with that book in particular or with other stuff he’s written?
We read The End of History and The Great Disruption. He’s very fascinating, but heavily heavily influenced by understanding history as a series of political and economic movements. Which is fine, but can be hard for beginners and those who are not up-to-snuff on current and historical political and economic movements, ideas, and thinkers.
Cool, gotcha.
The guy who wrote The End of History and the Last Man is not exactly humble or prone to underselling his work, no.
*cracks knuckles* Okay, history is so much, SO much more fun now that you can read the parts with weird sex and freaky violence in, because they cut that stuff out of high school curricula lest the school’s foundations be undermined by sniggermoles. The easiest thing to do is go to a bookstore and find the history section and just pick up anything that looks appealing, be it about the history of the color red or codfish in world literature or how the Irish burned the moon, because that’ll get you into the stories, but failing that here, are some random options.
1491 will open your eyes to how easy it is to erase history and how synchrony between disciplines is a valid thing. I have no reserve about this book; it is a hugely useful adjustment to perspective about pre-Columbian history.
Anything Alison Weir writes will help you actually figure out the Tudors. You will remember Henry VIII’s wives, by cracky (divorced, beheaded, childbirth, annulled beheaded, SURVIVED), and you can even learn a lot about the founding of the entire dynasty and why Elizabeth was the best, no arguments permitted. Antonia Fraser is similar for French Bourbon love affairs, which is a good way to start figuring out who did what (and with whom, heyooo) in pre-Revolutionary France.
Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of WWII this will depress you but will also leave you stunned at the fact that Europe currently settles any of its conflicts with singing contests instead of, say, wholesale nuclear war. It takes the sepia History Channel gloss off and talks about how you move huge displaced populations back when the borders and the roads and the rails are all destroyed. Grimdark but fascinating.
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: It’s an autobiographical history of food, but the author cleverly sets up each chapter to discuss food in Russia/the Soviet Union from the 1910s through the 2010s (and the recipes are pretty solid too). If you’re daunted by facing down Soviet history itself, this is actually an easy, single human-POV entry point.
Great stuff! And “Savage Continent” reminds me of Mark Mazower’s “Hitler’s Empire,” which I loved for its challenging conclusion: that despite the Third Reich’s defeat, the post-1945 international system is largely based around the Third Reich’s core assumption that a nation-state derives legitimacy from ethnic homogeneity. It’s also easy to read just a part of it, as it’s broken down into chapters each covering a specific geographic area.
Ugh, I am so pained by all the typos I made. But thanks for the compliments; I’ll look into the Mazower.
My other suggestion is to look at historical fiction as a starting point. I wouldn’t have read the Fraser if I hadn’t seen the Madame de Pompadour episode of Doctor Who, and I wouldn’t have the tiniest sense of when Alexander the Great did his various deeds if I hadn’t read Mary Renault.
no worries! forgive us our typos as we forgive those who typo against us.
and lead us not to overcorrection, and deliver us from red pens
Thanks, these are fantastic suggestions. I do like historical fiction, and that is giving me the courage to tiptoe into the nonfiction history world…
If you like historical fiction, a lot of the really good writers will do an afterward where they talk a bit about the actual history the story is based on and what resources they used for their research, so it can be a great jumping-off point to learn more about the person/period. I always love things like “there really was a Viking raid on that town, but it happened five years later than it does in my story; I moved it for reasons of plot”.
Also many will frequently include a list of works they used, which is also a fantastic resource!
Yes to Mark Mazower! Also if anyone here is interested in going deep for Modern Germany/WWII/The Holocaust, that’s what my masters is in and I can do a ton of recommendations. It’s just very specific niche stuff so I didn’t want to throw it down in this thread of overarching history survey stuff unless someone actually wants them.
What else would you recommend by him?
His book Dark Continent is fantastic. It’s about how the idea of a unified Europe was actually not nearly as foregone a conclusion as people tend to think it was in hindsight and talks about how hard it was to actually calm down this bloody and battle-torn continent and get it to look the way it does today.
1491 is so good, but now what I really want is something in-depth on that time the Irish burned the moon.
Post-WWII history too! If your history survey courses were anything like mine, they sorta went Ancient Rome, Middle Ages, MONTH OF WWII, muh-muh-muh, MLK had a dream, muh-muh-muh, space shuttle, muh-muh-muh, Internet, DONE! Like, anything about decolonization should be absolutely vital before forming Opinions about World Events, so to run with a theme I’m gonna suggest Killing the Wizards as as good a starting point as any (contains significantly less actual wizard-killing than advertised, but it does have Mandela and his scary wife).
Man, I’m impressed that you got as far as “muh-muh-muh Internet”! My high school history classes generally crapped out somewhere around “muh-muh-muh Vietnam”. (I am not old enough for this to be reasonable.) The required two-semester American History survey in college was a little better, but it did keep speeding up faster and faster toward the end — I understand why the Civil War seems like a natural splitting point for a two-semester course, but maybe we should reconsider it, because it turns out we just keep accumulating post-1865 events.
I don’t think we ever got past WWII in any high school history class I took. We should really add another semester (or two), because you make a very valid point about how TIME KEEPS ON ROLLIN, etc.
You got all the way to Vietnam though! For some unfathomable reason, we would begin EVERY year with the Pilgrims and move forward from there, always stalling out somewhere around the Industrial Revolution just before summer break. Then we’d go right back to square one. (Also, apparently no other countries’ history was important enough to warrant more than a cursory glance.)
Basically what I’m saying is until adulthood, I could only give a vague handwavey explanation for what WWI was even about, but damn did I know a whole lot about the American Revolution.
Oh man, that’s how all of my World History classes went. “Maybe this year we’ll get to the 19th century! … No, here we are in Babylon again, guess not.”
Oh, we didn’t get anything about Vietnam except that there was kind of a war there at some point, and when I was in highschool the Internet was still the hot new thing so a literal single paragraph mentioning that the Internet exists now and a little picture of a circuit board was considered a great way to bookend history, in the one chapter/one week covering everything post-WWII
I didn’t find out there was also some sort of nastiness in Korea until college.
I don’t think we ever got past WWII in my history classes. I learned nearly everything I know about the 70’s – 90’s from reading old collections of Doonesbury.
Yeah, (almost) every history course I took went into exacting detail about every battle of every war and then muh-muh-muh-ed over everything that happened in between them. :-/
Not to crap on military history, it’s interesting too, but don’t act like it’s the only thing worth knowing…
That’s why I really liked Bill Bryson’s “Home: A Short History of Private Life” – it’s all about the normal, every day details that make up the history of one old house and the region it’s in. The minutia of daily life throughout history is so fascinating to me, and we almost never talked about it in history classes in school.
Bill Bryson <3 <3 <3
The battles (especially the standard history-textbook fare of how many people shot each other on which date at the behest of which dead bronze guy on a horse) are rarely the interesting parts of military history, either. For any war you care to mention, probably millions of people were involved in this crazy thing that upended their whole world, and not just the ones who lined up in a field and got shot! Political intrigue, crazy inventions, heroes and monsters! Actuarial tables are not helpful here!
Piggybacking on the Alison Weir (love her!), Michael Farquhar’s A Treasury of Royal Scandals is a fun, light read (maybe aimed at YA type audiences, but with plenty of juicy bits in there too!). I own it and reread it about once a year just for fun.
Replying to say that yes, this is a good book. I read it at least twice when I was a YA and thoroughly enjoyed it. These days, all I really remember is the special chapter about the Popes, because there are some excellent snarky bits in there and Popes have also done a lot of dirty things. Which is not, I guess, an unknown thing, but this book was my first introduction to the seedy history of popedom.
Haven’t read Savage Continent, but I loved Ian Buruma’s Year Zero and Tony Judt’s (tome-y, be warned!) Post-War which cover some of the same ground. I also love Saul Friedlander’s The Years of Persecution and The Years of Extermination, both about the Holocaust.
I loved 1491. I’ve been meaning to read Cahokia as well, since it’s an in-depth look at the one city. Do you have any opinion about Mann’s other book, 1493?
Otherwise, I’m just adding to my to-read list now.
I haven’t gotten to it yet, but I hear from people whose opinions that I respect that it’s worth reading.
Oh, and if you at all can (i.e., if you are near St. Louis), VISIT Cahokia! There’s a great museum and it’s kind of amazing to think that what was once this great city is now adjacent to a used car dealership and a pawn shop.
1. What kind of world history are you interested in? There is tons of interesting, fascinating, readable stuff out there. Are you interested in….pre-history, Neolithic-era, Clan-of-the-Cave-Bear type stuff? Or ancient Roman and Egyptian intrigues and pharoahs marrying their sisters and stuff? Or 300-style Greek wars? Ancient Chinese dynasties and the secrets of silk production? How Japan became closed and insular? How aborigines came to Australia and the rest of the South Pacific, and their ways of understanding the world? African kingdoms and the mud city of Djenne? The rise and fall of the Aztec empire and their chocolate-drinking human-sacrificing customs? The intensely different lifestyles of native peoples in the Americas from, say, Arizona, than those in the Pacific Northwest, and those in today’s Deep South?
There are MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of amazing stories out there. I would start by seeing if there’s something you have always wondered about or remembered vaguely like “hey that’s cool” and then going to Amazon and searching for that specifically and seeing if there’s something readable and even young-adult-oriented there.
OR like Rillquiet says, just going to the history section of the bookstore and seeing what looks interesting! If you are just a history beginner: read what’s interesting. Just read whatever looks intriguing! If it’s not 100% historically accurate and peer-reviewed, who cares–you’re not an academic, just interested!
Not the original commenter, but I desperately want anything not about Europe and the Americas. So yes, these are good topics for me to start from probably: “Ancient Chinese dynasties and the secrets of silk production? How Japan became closed and insular? How aborigines came to Australia and the rest of the South Pacific, and their ways of understanding the world? African kingdoms and the mud city of Djenne?”
But I want to say: Even as an interested dilettante, I *do* care if something is historically accurate, and what peer opinion might be. If I can get it, I want some hand-holding in unfamiliar topics. I want someone to say “so-and-so’s book is generally considered out of date” or “so-and-so had this obvious agenda in writing.” Does that make sense?
“Browse and let something catch your eye!” can only get you so far, plus it’s overwhelming!
It’s not exactly on the topics you asked about, but Foreign Devils on the Silk Road might be up your alley: It’s not just about the Silk Road and trade towns, but also about how we got that information–who did the archaeology, what kind of sources were used to find lost cities, who knew what and when. The book came out in 1980, so it’s dated but not egregiously factually incorrect, and I found the writing very engaging.
That is absolutely up my alley, thank you!
Well, peer opinion can be really tricky–I mean, peer opinion could have been “this book is the bomb” in 1975 and drastically changed since then. Usually browsing and looking for something interesting is the way to begin from scratch–and I’m not a specialist in anything other than Canadian history, so it’s really hard to say.
Oh, that’s absolutely a good point. Of course peer opinion can change over time. But that’s why I’d be asking for help, to see if anyone in hearing/reading distance had recommendations or anti-recommendations. And exactly what the opinion is — like, this book is widely deemed pretty good, except feminist historians have a huge issue with it.
OBVIOUSLY I am wishing for the world here. 🙂
If I knew of some kind of clearinghouse (like a Goodreads specifically devoted to history books), that would be amazing!
Having burnished my “interested dilettante” credentials for the past few years, there are a few strategies I’ve found useful for finding books that are actually good: (1) if you’re browsing and a book catches your eye, Google “‘title of book’ review”. Beyond reviews from major publications & scholarly journals, reviews on blogs (there are SO MANY academic-ish blogs!) can be really good if you can suss out the crackpots and the people with an axe to grind. Generally it’s pretty obvious.
If you find a good book, (2) look for others by the same author and (3) read the bibliography to find earlier works on similar topics.
Finally, (4) Googling for university survey course syllabi on your topic of interest is a great starting point for the kind of hand-holding you’re looking for.
4 just blew my mind.
I liked Patrick French’s India: A Portrait. It’s kind of between a history and a modern commentary- he starts at post-independence India and goes to modern day. Most of the criticism I’ve seen about the book is about its lack of depth- it’s definitely a survey, not a deeply detailed piece, rather than factual inaccuracies- I was starting from about zero as far any knowledge of the history of modern India went, so I really enjoyed it.
Oh, great, thank you!
Jack Weatherford’s The Secret History of the Mongol Queens
O.A. Bushnell’s The Gifts of Civilization: Germs and Genocide in Hawaii
Tsering Shakya’s Dragon in the Land of Snows (history of Tibet since 1947)
Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins have written several good books together on the transition from colonialism to independence on a few countries: Freedom at Midnight (India and Pakistan), O Jerusalem (Israel and Jordan), A Rainbow at Midnight (South Africa)
Amazing! Thanks!
It’s 97 years old and not overly concerned with accuracy, but The Historical Nights’ Entertainment, by Rafael Sabatini, is amazing. It’s basically a collection of all the best episodes in European history where one noble knifed, poisoned, garrotted, shot, or blew up another noble, distilled to vibrant action and scintillating prose. And it’s free!:
Volume 1
Volume 2
You guys, thank you so much. My library request list runneth over.
But keep ’em coming.
Women’s Work: the first 20,000 years? It’s about textiles and is fascinating.
Ooooooo, I am a knitter and I would LOVE that.
I am not a history person, BUT my brother is. And I work at an indie bookstore and one of my coworkers is very much A History Person. Between the two of them, I stay on top of my game about various readable/accurate histories of particular eras and whatnot.
One of the favorites of *both* of these fine gentlemen is John Julius Norwich’s A Short History of Byzantium. Or really most Norwich, as he’s slightly snarky and pretty readable. The *short* history is about 500 pages, but it’s reduced from three full volumes of the same size!
OH MAN, I am so excited for this. Instead of word-vomiting three syllabi and an entire qualifying exams field in global modern history on you, here are some of my favorites, trending towards post-1850 history:
Mark Mazower, Governing the World: the History of an Idea
Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty Port China
C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1789-1914
Rana Mitter, A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World
Nick Cullather, The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle against Hunger in Asia
Priya Satia, Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East,
and for a totally fascinating look at the Cold War via Cuban humanitarian and military intervention in Africa, check out Piero Gleijeses’ Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa 1959-1976.
You know guys, sometimes I get a little depressed about the world, but it’s things like the fact that it’s not socially acceptable for multiracial people to fully acknowledge all of their ancestries openly without fear of discrimination/ridicule makes my heart smile. I know I’ve said in the past that I get annoyed/creeped out by people telling me how beautiful my future kids are going to be because it feels kind of eugenics-like, but on the flipside I do reflect and appreciate that no one has tried giving me any “tragic mulatto” shit about these future people.
I’m not saying that more progress doesn’t have to be made, but sometimes I think about how the collective weight of social mores throughout human history has been generally against a lot of these things.
Yes yes to all of this. My wife and I are having a biracial (white/Japanese) baby in the next month, and we’ve gotten tons of “biracial babies are so beautiful!” comments both here and in Japan, and I never know how to take them. Because, as you say, people mean well and it’s better than the -until-very-recent idea of biracial people as freaks, but there’s this creepy eugenics idea to it, and also WHAT IF MY BABY IS UGLY.
also WHAT IF MY BABY IS UGLY.
Hahahaha, I know right?!?! I actually mentioned that to a girlfriend once and she just replied firmly, “they won’t be, all biracial kids are beautiful.” Ultimately it doesn’t matter but it does kind of make you wonder if you’re letting people down. 😉
BTW, I didn’t know that you and your wife were expecting–congratulations!
Thanks! We are excited. And terrified. And excited.
I am so excited about Gotham! Even knowing that Ryan Atwood probably won’t be brooding while wearing tank tops in this show.
Sure, they’re real cute until they grow up.
You are awesome.
THE FALL OF NUMENOR!!!!!!!!! I just reread LOTR the other day (may hit the Silmarillion again next, though finishing it the first time was preeeetty difficult) and I was fascinated by the end of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, when she basically says “I used to think the Numenorians were a bunch of dumb creeps for NOT WANTING TO DIE, but now I see that this is a lot of bullshit. GIFT OF MEN MY EYE.” But in Arwen-speak. I guess what I’m asking is, Mallory, would you have been one of the Faithful, or would you have RAGED AGAINST THE MACHINE and made war on the Undying Lands?
This is why Turin Turambar is my favorite Tolkien hero. He grapples most explicitly with the meaning of human death in a world where lots of people never die, but there’s no concrete concept of an afterlife, and he calls out the elves and the Vala for being a bunch of dicks who just hole up in their hidden kingdoms and let Morgoth have his way with the rest of the world. Obviously, Turin is a nutjob who gets everyone he loves killed and marries his sister because a dragon gave her amnesia (god I loved typing that sentence), but he splits a nice difference between fighting Morgoth but also not giving two shits about the Vala.
This is a great and thoughtful post that I can’t even deal with BECAUSE I FORGOT ABOUT HOW HE MARRIES HIS SISTER. OH, NIENOR!!! thanks, dragon-amnesia
People are always like “The Silmarillion is so boring!” and I’m like, “Smaug is cool and all, but did he ever manipulate a dude into fucking his own sister? No? I didn’t think so. Glaurung is like the antagonist of a Korean revenge thriller, but ALSO A GIANT, FIRE-BREATHING REPTILE.”
I just need to say, I have basically been only watching Korean revenge thrillers of late, and so am super pleased with this comment.
People who think the Silmarillion is boring legitimately baffle me. I mean, I’m assuming anyone who even wants to pick that up has already read LotR, knows what’s up with JRR Tolkien’s writing style, and wants more backstory, it’s not exactly the kind of book someone picks up without knowing a bit going in, right? RIGHT?
The difference for me is that, in LotR, the long, slow, dense parts are descriptive passages and pieces of poetry or song — I can get through those, or skim them and feel confident that I didn’t really miss anything. You don’t get long, complicated genealogies unless you decide to plow through the Appendices as well. But every time I’ve tried to read the Silmarillion I have stalled out somewhere in the middle of a long, slow, dense list of names, which I don’t want to skim because then I won’t know who anybody IS or how they’re related and I’m pretty sure that’ll be important. (This is the same problem I encountered when I tried to read the Bible. I don’t know why I thought I’d have any better luck with what is, after all, basically the Elf Bible.)
skip the names. always skip the names. if their names matter, they’ll come up later! this also applies to: every fucking time it happens in the bible, the catalogue of ships in the iliad, and seriously all the goddamn time.
My mom kept lists of characters (who/what/who they’re fucking/etc) in the inside covers of all the dense Russian novels she’d read, and that always seemed like a perfectly logical system to me. I should take it to The Silmarillion.
In fairness, I found it boring the first time, too, because I was expecting a straight, novelistic story and got a textbook of myths instead. But then I went back to it and read pieces casually here and there and really came to love it.
RAGED RAGED RAGED
oh man I woulda been KIN-SLAYING at aqualonde with the BEST of em
I like to think I would have been like Galadriel: not hanging around to serve when I could rule in Middle-earth, but also with a strong desire to poke Feanor in the eyeballs, and all his shitty kids
I love the fact that after Feanor’s mom gave birth to him, she basically said “NOPE not doing that again. I’m going to go to sleep now and NEVER wake up. You can’t make me.”
Galadriel as Tolkien’s Lucifer YES or YES!!!!!!
HERE FOR THIS
I, too, am concerned for John Mulaney. He’s such a brilliant and funny person and seems like a genuinely nice guy and I hope his show isn’t crap.
Unfortunately Catwoman is going to be Kitten-girl since GOTHAM is a prequel and weird.
BUT there will be Det. Montoya, so much will be forgiven.
Those Babies! I hope they put them in the same bed in the nursery. If they are alone they’ll be lonely
Rise of the sexbots is sort of the theme of Charles Stross’ wonderful novel Saturn’s Children. The narrator is a sexbot programmed for devotion to her One True Love who rolled off the production line 200 years after homo sapiens went extinct. Adventure, intrigue, fun robot sex, and meditation on the meaning of autonomy.
“Living alone and eating steak in bed and laughing low, throaty witchy laughs to yourself. ”
Hell yes. Left boyfriend two years ago; have never wanted one since.
Also, in re: cunning folk: if you have to hire a wizard to make sure your SO doesn’t cheat, you need to either reconsider your life choices or your expectations about relationships. Or both.
My boyfriend and I have complementary “Beren” and “Lúthien” bracelets and sorry not sorry for how that is literally the nerdiest thing I have ever done in a long history of nerdery.
oh man yeah stay in that relationship forever
JRRT wrote about seeing his wife dance in the woods and writing Luthien for her, and it says Beren and Luthien on their TOMBSTONES and I just…I have a lot of feelings about that. Nerdy romantical feelings I will deny in person but admit on the internets.
I certainly plan on sticking around! (Maybe not forever, since we have the Gift of Men and all that, but…)
And ugghhh I have a lot of feelings about JRR Tolkien and his wife, Edith, too! Not only did he take inspiration from her for the character of Lúthien, but after she died, he remarked: “But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos” (*sob*)
(Also, JRR’s legal guardian at one point tried to break them up, and forbid JRR from contacting Edith at all until he legally came of age FIVE years later. JRR kept his word, but he wrote to Edith on the day he turned 21 to tell her that he still loved her and wanted to marry her. Edith immediately broke off her engagement to someone else, they got together again, and ended up married for 55 years.)
OH MY GOD, IMAGINE BEING THAT OTHER DUDE
that is awesome
and yes, *sob*
nice job mallory but needs more swears IMO
Are we seriously not gonna talk about Empire because that show looks INSANE and I am already in love with it just based on the trailer.
My wife was *cracking up* last night about French Facebook comments saying how ugly those babies are. (French people really hold up their willingness to insult the appearance of babies as a point of pride.)
That twins thing sent me down another Wikipedia rabbit hole yesterday and I found out about these girls who can see out of each other’s eyes ahhh!!
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Through+sister…
Even my homosexuality is not power enough to provide Efron-immunity. Troy Bolton lives.
Also, for more reading material about cunning folk, “The Cunning Man” was Robertson Davies’s last novel and it is wonderful.
I’m reading this right now! I am indeed finding it wonderful.
I am in the middle of a Silmarillion reread (currently stalled about halfway through because my memory banks are full of names and places and familial relationships and I cannot take more information in). I cannot understand why the Valar’s attitude is just “Well, we’re just going to have to leave Middle-Earth to Morgoth. Pity”. THERE ARE LOADS OF YOU. Make an effort!
You know what I’m not happy about with Gotham? That they are renaming Poison Ivy to Ivy Pepper. What was wrong with the name Pamela Isley? This is not only off canon to the point of absurd, but it means she will be Dr. Pepper! What are they thinking?
You know what I'm not happy about with Gotham? That they are renaming Poison Ivy to Ivy Pepper. What was wrong with the name Pamela Isley? This is not only off canon to the point of absurd, but it means she will be Dr. Pepper! What are they thinking?
But Yavanna's children are the ENTS and this is already canon??
No patron/matron should be responsible for too many peoples or regrettable shit will happen.
, said the scion of a large family.
Man, you guys. We really need to get on that whole party idea we had. I can totally bring cookies and summer is coming up. Road trip!
His book Dark Continent is fantastic. It's about how the idea of a unified Europe was actually not nearly as foregone a conclusion as people tend to think it was in hindsight and talks about how hard it was to actually calm down this bloody and battle-torn continent and get it to look the way it does today.