Reading anything good?

[BridgeWalker]

How do you like Remedies?

Loving it actually.  I had the prof for torts II and sucked pretty bad-one of my pregnancy terms--but really liked him.  Put remedies off for a while so I could take it with this guy.  Awesome prof.  Most of his work was in asbestos litigation, and he seems the real thing: a sincere, honest, hard-working, realistic, and well-off plaintiff's lawyer.  He's doing a pretty good job of turning me off to tort reform, but that may also be because Michigan has jumped waaayy off the deep end with tort reform, with pretty poor results for people who no longer have any effective recourse, especially for med-mal. 

Yeah, remedies is a nice, fun class.  Now if only pre-trial wasn't kicking my butt quite so much, I could actually enjoy it...

[De Selby]

I had the same experience-learning the applicable law tends to dispel myths about the plaintiff who slips on a piece of cheese and gets a million dollars.  There's no real windfall for anyone except maybe class action lawyers in the law business, is there?

Is the remedies book any good? A friend of mine took a course by Prof. Laycock and loved the guy...but I didn't know him.

[BridgeWalker]

It's pretty dated tbh.  Spent a lot of time flipping to the supplement and reading supplemental cases.  It really needs a new edition.  Just please not before I sell mine back!  Aside from its age it's remarkably readable.  Nice mix of cases.  Good notes.  Yeah, it's quite good.  A new edition is in order though.  When there's a hundred pages of supplement, it's time.  It's five years old.  I appreciate holding off on a new edition annually, but it's time.

So, what're you reading?

[De Selby]

It's pretty dated tbh.  Spent a lot of time flipping to the supplement and reading supplemental cases.  It really needs a new edition.  Just please not before I sell mine back!  Aside from its age it's remarkably readable.  Nice mix of cases.  Good notes.  Yeah, it's quite good.  A new edition is in order though.  When there's a hundred pages of supplement, it's time.  It's five years old.  I appreciate holding off on a new edition annually, but it's time.

So, what're you reading?

New editions-the bane of my starving student budget!  When there are new cases/material/whatever they're fine, but I really get upset when all they do is change the page numbers and add some fluff so that it's a hassle to follow along with an old edition.

Everyone will laugh at me, but right now I'm reading a love story:  Ali and Nino, by Kurban Said.

[roo_ster]

I'm about to be defeated in yet another attempt to finish a Jack Kerouac novel. (Visions of Gerard this time) Whatever merit he might have, I can't get past feeling like I'm talking to (or being talked at by) a flighty stoner with an interest in Buddhism.

So I think Joyce Carol Oates On Boxing is next.

Why be content to engage a mere flighty stoner?  Why choose the mildly intoxicated when you can engage a schizophrenic freak who likely buys his recreational drugs in bulk from Stoner Costco:
William Burroughs' Naked Lunch

Think of an inverse Pink Floyd's The Wall in literary form.  Instead of the watcher/reader getting stoned while enjoying the work, the writer is getting stoned while writing. 

Less coherent, more wacky, but still a better read than Kerouac, IMO. (I also couldn't get through any Kerouac to speak of.)

The Beats are over-rated, IMO. 

Heck, I'll make a general rule: If I never read another semi-biographical first novel by a pretentious twit, it will be too soon.  Hear that, Henry?

[roo_ster]

A History of Christianity
Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson is good stuff.

[roo_ster]

Hokay, here it goes for me:

Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan 

HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories, can't recall specific compilation.  I was inspired by the gift of plush Cthulhu to my daughter from a friend to read him again.

Gibon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  I had lost it for a while, but came across it yesterday.

RAH's TMIAHM

I can hardly stick with one book, nowadays.  I have to have several on the burners.

[wooderson]

Junkies, tweakers and the insane I can handle - Burroughs has never been a favorite, but he is at least never uninteresting.

Only Beat I rate aside from Burroughs is Diane di Prima. Now consigned to minor poet Styx, wrote four or five outstanding pieces (Song For Baby-O, Unborn; April Fool Birthday Poem For Grandpa).

[Perd Hapley]

A History of Christianity
Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson is good stuff.

Please expand.  Have you read that volume?  I am so far unimpressed. 

[bunni]

Kingdom of Fear by Hunter S. Thompson

[drewtam]

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Been reading that one lately too. The version I'm reading is an abridged one, edited by Mueller. It tries to cut out some of the tangents that Gibbons goes off on. But it is heavy material to read.

How far are you? I'm about to the conversion of Constantine. I'm thinking of skipping ahead to the progress of the Huns and the various beatings by the Germanic peoples. I've been curious lately as to why the germans converted to Christianity. And why were the Vandals and Goths and Franks unable to defend themselves against the invading Muslims? What did "the Hammer" do differently?

[Lee]

Just started "Fist of God" by Frederick Forsyth.  Good read so far. 

Finally finished the Tom Clancy book with Gen. Fred Fanks- good Lord, that was a struggle to get through.

[Perd Hapley]

Just a Theory:  Exploring the Nature of Science
Moti Ben-Ari

I see the science wars have piqued your interest. Any good? Just read a brief synopsis and a brief review - pretty positive.

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=10774.0

[roo_ster]

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Been reading that one lately too. The version I'm reading is an abridged one, edited by Mueller. It tries to cut out some of the tangents that Gibbons goes off on. But it is heavy material to read.

How far are you? I'm about to the conversion of Constantine. I'm thinking of skipping ahead to the progress of the Huns and the various beatings by the Germanic peoples. I've been curious lately as to why the germans converted to Christianity. And why were the Vandals and Goths and Franks unable to defend themselves against the invading Muslims? What did "the Hammer" do differently?

Mine is an OLD abridged version I bought off of abebooks.com on a whim and as an add-on to a book I really wanted.

I am past the splitting of the empire into E & W, but it has been a month since I lost & then found it.

Charles the Hammer
The battle of Tours/Orleans/Poitiers is a poorly documented affair, especially given its significance*.  A few things were known about it & Charles the Hammer's forces:
1. Infantry
2. Well-equipped (chain mail, swords, etc)
3. More disciplined than most European armies of Late Antiquity/Dark Ages/Middle Ages

Their opponents were traditional medium/light cavalry. 

Thing is, as long as infantry holds its morale and is not completely engulfed by uncounted hordes, it can not be broken with cavalry.

The prof that taught the Carolingian class at UALR described the Hammer's infantry as taking and rebuffing the charges of the Mohammedians and maintianing discipline in the ranks.  Their opponents broke themselves on the Franks and then broke and ran when their camp & loot was endangered.

After they routed the invaders, they did adopt much more cavalry as well as the compound recurve bow.  They went from primarily infantry to combined arms.

German Conversion
Thank Charles the Great/Charlemagne/Karl der Grosse.  He converted the Saxons by the sword and destroyed their sacred groves, as well as many other folks north & east of him.










* "Perhaps,' the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.''
---Edward Gibbon in The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire

[roo_ster]

A History of Christianity
Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson is good stuff.

Please expand.  Have you read that volume?  I am so far unimpressed. 

I have read PJ's histories of Christianity, the Jews, & the American People.  Also his books The Intellectuals, Modern Times, and a book on renaissance lit & art.  I still need to read his Birth of the Modern.

His books are aimed at the interested layman.

I would not have wasted my time on an author I thought a dud.  Could you describe what the book lacks that you are seeking?

[Otahyoni]

I just finished Monster Hunter International. I loved it! Cant wait for the next one!

[De Selby]

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Been reading that one lately too. The version I'm reading is an abridged one, edited by Mueller. It tries to cut out some of the tangents that Gibbons goes off on. But it is heavy material to read.

How far are you? I'm about to the conversion of Constantine. I'm thinking of skipping ahead to the progress of the Huns and the various beatings by the Germanic peoples. I've been curious lately as to why the germans converted to Christianity. And why were the Vandals and Goths and Franks unable to defend themselves against the invading Muslims? What did "the Hammer" do differently?

The reason they were defeated is that the germanic tribes at this time were a disorganized horde with very little technology or social cohesion.  They had no real system of law and order, and no real leadership capable of organizing armies to the degree or scale that the Romans had. 

Charles Martel wasn't that different-he defeated the Muslim armies primarily because at that stage, the Muslim armies were simply way, way too far from home to organize and supply themselves efficiently.  They had limited reach, limited numbers, and were too far from their breadbaskets in North Africa to mount much of a threat.

Some interesting reading from primary sources to supplement Gibbons:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1h.html

[Antibubba]

The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, by Naomi Wolf.  Usually, her stuff slants a little Left for me, but she's really done her homework on this one.  She lays out the steps a democracy must take to become fascist or authoritarian, like invoking an external and internal threat, establishing secret prisons and legalizing torture, surveillance of the citizenry, suspending habeus corpus, and so on.  I'm only halfway through it; I promise a full report when I'm done. 

[Nick1911]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

[CmereYou]

I just now put down Unintended Consequences. I tried to get through it, and I'm sure John Ross is a good guy, but as a writer he fails miserably.

Anyone want a free, barely used copy?

Currently starting on The Historian, it's pretty thick and longwinded but damned if I can't seem to stop reading it.

[Perd Hapley]

I just now put down Unintended Consequences. I tried to get through it, and I'm sure John Ross is a good guy, but as a writer he fails miserably.

Anyone want a free, barely used copy?  

If you really mean it, I'll PM you my address. 

[CmereYou]

How much would shipping to you from Mckenney VA be?