The Book Thread

[Vrede too]

I just started reading:
Salt: A World History (2002)

Any town in England that ends in "wich" produced salt.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wich
I never knew.

Not a book, but while we're on the topic of salt, you might be interested in this documentary. It was very well done:

My Name is Salt

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3276852/

Year after year, for an endless eight months, thousands of families move to a desert in India to extract salt from the burning earth. Every monsoon their salt fields are washed away, as the desert turns into sea.

It does look interesting, and heartbreaking? IMDb RATING 7.7
Tomatometer 89%, Popcornmeter 90%
Since the book covers the globe and hundreds of thousands of years of salt harvesting it may discuss these people or ones just like them.

Neither the book nor doc have anything to do with the Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber action thriller, Salt.

Yeah it's not an overarching history of salt. More of a slice of life type of documentary of a life most probably aren't even aware exists. No narration from what I remember. Heartbreaking, yes. The people featured no doubt live a tough life.

A lot of heartbreak in the book: Wars, repression, greed, poverty, slavery, colonialism, environmental challenges and destruction, and a lengthy discussion of salt harvesting in India, especially since salt freedom from self-serving British market manipulation was the basis for Ghandi's first Indian campaign.

From the 2002 review linked above:

... It was in Cod: The Biography of a Fish (1997) that Kurlansky first wrote of the 'perfect marriage' between salt and fish, and of how salt could shape history, citing how the Basques' discovery of the preservative properties of salt allowed them to sail further afield even than the Vikings.

Kurlansky's new book is subtitled A World History, and it is one of the few commodity histories to merit such a moniker, because salt isn't just a seasoning, it's a life substance, vital to the proper functioning of the human body. For as long as there have been humans, they've had to find or create salt to live. The history of salt is the history of humanity.

Second only to salt's physiological importance has been its use as a food preservative. It was the only way of decelerating putrefaction until technological advances in the twentieth century, notably the fast-freezing method pioneered by American eccentric Clarence Birdseye, but it remains intrinsic to our lives. Contemporary industry pundits claim salt has more than 14,000 uses.

Every piece of evidence in this book is arranged to point to salt as an agency of enormous power. It has determined the geography of warfare, urban growth (almost all Italian cities were built near a saltworks) and most of the world's trade routes....

Kurlansky is especially good on the metaphysics of salt, its metaphoric connotations and its religious significances. He draws our attention to the unrecognised ways in which salt has crystallised into our language. Salad is so named because the Romans liked to salt their vegetables. Salacious is from the Latin salax, meaning a man in love: literally, 'in the salted state'. The Roman army paid its soldiers in salt: thus the word salary and, indeed, soldier. And thus 'to be worth your salt', to earn your pay.

Yep. The book is jam-packed with such factoids and the linking of salt to well known world events.

If there is a downside to Salt, it's that it lacks the bite of Cod. Cod was the product of a highly sensitive ecological imagination. Infused with a sadness for the passing of the cod, that book was a heartfelt elegy. Kurlansky's latest lacks this unifying attitude and occasionally lapses into a recital of statistics and factoids.

I don't think I'd recommend it. The book is quite the slog, 450 large paperback pages. It often feels repetitious. There are only so many ways to collect salt and only so many major uses - road deicing has become a huge one. Given the thousands of years of human history covered the same story feels like it's being told over and over.

Salt is at its very best when it is peppery: there is, for instance, a brilliant and acrimonious chapter on the British salt laws in India and Gandhi's now famous salt march to the Gujarat coast.

Including the decades of occupation that led up to it and India since.

This is several books in one: a food history, a recipe book, a travelogue and a cultural history. It contains images which will abide with you: the body of a Bavarian salt miner prised from collapsed salt caves centuries after his death, for instance, perfectly preserved right down to the bright colours of his clothes. It is also stylishly written and wonderfully learned, covering a vast geographical and historical acreage. William Blake famously suggested that the world was to be seen in a grain of sand; Kurlansky has seen it in a grain of salt.

It will appeal to the serious history buff.

[Whack9]

Been on a kick reading books about the Russian revolution/ civil war.

Russka, by Edward Rutherford: Follows the entirety of Russian history spanning 1800 years. Of particular interest were the later chapters dealing with the entrenchment of serfdom and the erosion of their rights in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the counter reaction. While not a written by a Russian writer, still a good overview. The later chapters had the same feel as writers like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Turgenev (Rutherford'e book even had a chapter called Fathers and Sons)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russka_(novel)

All Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokov. The life of the Don Cossacks and how WW1, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War upended their way of life. I got the abridged version which cuts out roughly 25% of the original. Seems that that's the most widely available one. Seems "And the Don Flows Home to the Sea" isn't as widely available but still wanna check it out. Of particular interest: swiftness of societal changes brought forth by traumatic historical events.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Quiet_Flows_the_Don

The Gulag Archipelago, Solzenhitsyn. I've read a bunch of this guy's books but never got around to finishing this one, having stopped about 1/2 through previously. Kick-started finishing in. Of particular interests: the chapter on blue hats and the corrupting influence of absolute power, especially in conjunction with the blinding influence of ideology.

Other books by him I highly recommend are the Cancer Ward, and In the First Circle. Very good.

Thank you for coming to my talk

[O Really]

What a surprise to find that non-American countries also have histories and that those histories have nothing to do with the US.

[Whack9]

What a surprise to find that non-American countries also have histories and that those histories have nothing to do with the US.

Yes and I highly suggest others broaden their horizons as well. Literature is a great way to do this. Especially in helping take heed of lessons learned in the past. In my opinion, in some ways it's just as good (for different reasons) as physical travel.

[O Really]

What a surprise to find that non-American countries also have histories and that those histories have nothing to do with the US.

Yes and I highly suggest others broaden their horizons as well. Literature is a great way to do this. Especially in helping take heed of lessons learned in the past. In my opinion, in some ways it's just as good (for different reasons) as physical travel.

And enhances, as well as encourages, physical travel. And it's not just foreign history - in our travels around North America, we often dug into the history or culture of an area. Made the visit a lot more meaningful.

[Whack9]

Fascism: A Warning by Madeline Albright

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism:_A_Warning

Albright raises concerns about a decline of liberal democracy, in reflections based on her early life in Czechoslovakia and career as a diplomat and academic.[1] Speaking with Vox in 2019, Albright explained: "...fascism is not an ideology; it's a process for taking and holding power."[2] The root causes Albright identifies as creating the condition for fascist leaders to rise include economic decline, social disorder, and disjointed opposition.[1]

Leaders analyzed by Albright include in the book cover the years from the 1920s to the 2010s, including Hugo Chávez, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Benito Mussolini, and Donald Trump.[3][2]

Written in the early stages of the first Trump presidency. A good overview of other authoritarian movements.

[Vrede too]

Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America (2000)
by journalist and U of Iowa journalism prof Stephen G. Bloom, a transplant from San Francisco with his law student wife and infant son.

... The book documents the struggle between the small town of Postville, Iowa, and a group of new arrivals: Lubavitcher Hasidim from New York City who came to the town to run Agriprocessors, the largest kosher meat plant in the United States.

The book was published by Harcourt and was named a Best Book of the year by MSNBC, The Chicago Sun-Times, the Rocky Mountain News, The Chicago Tribune, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It was also made into a documentary.

As a Reform Jew who the Hasidim wished to convert, Bloom had special access to their community of a few hundred. After the initial caution afforded anyone from a big city, the Christian Iowans were also eager to talk about themselves and the Hasidim - praise for economically rescuing their dying town or disfavor with their disdainful separatism.

The book almost reads like a novel, not that it's fictionalized, but in its pacing, character development and conflict progression.

... According to the jacket, the book tries to the answer whether "the Iowans [were] prejudiced, or were the Lubavitchers simply unbearable?"

Bloom chooses sides in the culture clash. In the book, Bloom voices his ... condemnation of the Hasidic community (whose behavior towards the local native Iowans he frequently describes as "despicable", and whose beliefs he characterises as "racist").

I found myself feeling about the Lubavitchers much the same way I do Christian fundies - appalled and disgusted not by their religion, but rather by their extreme conservatism and arrogance. The Hasidim embodied some of the worst stereotypes of Jews - insular, rude, uninterested in engagement with the wider community, greedy, conniving, etc.

The book does not feel dated at all and it has particular relevance today given Israel's very conservative government led by Nuttyyahoo in alliance with the orthodox party, and the solidarity from US RW evangelicals led by NuttyDonOLD.

We're screwed.

[Whack9]

Damn what a fascinating book

Secondhand Times: The Last of the Soviets

Deals with the period between 1991 and 2012. Featuring interviews with people from all walks of life and their thoughts and struggles with the consequences of living in an age of upheaval and societal changes.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/302 ... dhand-time

From the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Svetlana Alexievich, comes the first English translation of her latest work, an oral history of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia.

Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive documentary style, Secondhand Time is a monument to the collapse of the USSR, charting the decline of Soviet culture and speculating on what will rise from the ashes of Communism.

As in all her books, Alexievich gives voice to women and men whose stories are lost in the official narratives of nation-states, creating a powerful alternative history from the personal and private stories of individuals.

[Vrede too]

Damn what a fascinating book

Secondhand Times: The Last of the Soviets

Deals with the period between 1991 and 2012. Featuring interviews with people from all walks of life and their thoughts and struggles with the consequences of living in an age of upheaval and societal changes.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/302 ... dhand-time

25 32 Years Ago: The Day The Russian White House Was Shelled
"... allowing Yeltsin to create the strong presidency that exists to this day."

Stephen King pens 'Hansel and Gretel' adaptation with illustrator Maurice Sendak

Iconic horror writer Stephen King has reimagined a classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale: “Hansel and Gretel.” But King says he might never have done so if he hadn’t seen illustrations of the story by the late Maurice Sendak, best known for his work on “Where the Wild Things Are.”

... “Forgive me for saying this, it's a perfect Stephen King story,” King said, “in that it's about kids who are brave and resourceful faced with a situation that's terrible.”



... King stuck to the Brothers Grimm story for the most part, he said, but he also wrote around Sendak’s illustrations, so they fit into the story. For example, he said, there is no dream sequence in the original fairytale, but Sendak drew a picture of the wicked witch flying over the moon with a bag of screaming children behind her. So, King wrote a new addition to the tale to incorporate that visual.

Sendak died in 2012, and the images that appear in King’s retelling were originally drawn for a 1997 operatic production of “Hansel and Gretel.” Sendak did the set and costume designs for the Houston Grand Opera’s staging.

... Aside from the flying witch, King said an illustration that Sendak made of the witch’s house also inspired him to rewrite the classic tale. He said it highlights the duality of the story; to Hansel and Gretel, the candy house looks sweet and alluring. But in Sendak’s illustration, King said the house, “looks like a devil, sick of sin.”



While King admits the story of “Hansel and Gretel” is terrifying, he said, “kids like scary things.” Plus, he said the story teaches resilience and problem-solving to kids who see themselves in the characters.

“Hansel and Gretel are brave children. They're resourceful kids,” King said. “ I'm thinking of kids who are in abusive homes. Those are the kids that ‘Hansel and Gretel’ really speaks to: Those kids who have a hard row to hoe in life.” ...

Cool I'll read it.


https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hansel ... 1146982314

[Vrede too]

... Might check out Child of God next.

Written about me.

Opps! I was wrong twice.....McFarlane didn't work for Nixon; it was Reagan. It sure would make it easier on me if I didn't have to chase this stuff down. Besides, it's hard to remember stuff when you're on drugs. But I'll go ahead and advocate for Bannon, Flynn, Powell, Ellis, Rudy, trump, Navarro, Miller, and Meadows killing themselves. They're a shameful lot and deserve to be dragged behind a large Buick.

Thanks. I'll see if my local library has it. And with any luck, there will be a drag show for kids happening upon my arrival. Hell, I might even assume a right wing nutjob stance and gather up a bunch of books by Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity and see if I can get them banned as bullshit.

I remember when Reagan, doing his part for apartheid, vetoed Congress anti apartheid bill. His veto was overridden. Fish slap emoji.

Call me crazy, but the description of this winner's works reminds me of your style.

Hungarian master of absurdist excess László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel literature prize

neoplacebo - Syn. absurdist excess

THE WORK BEHIND THE PRIZE: László Krasznahorkai has been called a “master of the apocalypse” whose more than 20 books combine a bleak outlook on life with humor and linguistic inventiveness. Some of his novels consist of just one long sentence.

Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose surreal and anarchic novels combine a bleak world view with mordant humor, won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for work the judges said upholds the power of art in the midst of “apocalyptic terror.”

The Nobel judges said the 71-year-old author, whose novels sometimes consist of just one long sentence, is “a great epic writer” whose work “is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess.”

... The American writer and critic Susan Sontag once described Krasznahorkai as the “contemporary master of the Apocalypse.” His work has echoes of other European writers who explored the absurd tragicomedy of existence, including Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett.

Zsuzsanna Varga, a Hungarian literature expert at the University of Glasgow, said Krasznahorkai’s novels probe the “utter hopelessness” of human existence, while also being “incredibly funny.”

Krasznahorkai’s near-endless sentences made his work the “Hotel California” of literature — once readers get into it, “you can never leave,” she said.

... János Szegő, Krasznahorkai’s editor at the Budapest-based Magvető publishing house, said that the author’s works deal with “life on the periphery,” and are interested in “the techniques of power.”

“All the populist tendencies of our time can also be found in his novels — from barbarism to the manipulation of the masses,” Szegő said.

Krasznahorkai has been a critic of autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, especially his government’s lack of support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

In an interview with Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet earlier this year, Krasznahorkai expressed criticism both of Orbán’s political system and the nationalism present in Hungarian society.

“There is no hope left in Hungary today and it is not only because of the Orbán regime,” he told the paper. “The problem is not only political, but also social.” ...

See the connections I do? A slightly different path and longer essays could have made that Nobel yours.