What book are you reading?

Which is why I LOVE Poe's "A Cask of Amontillado". Read it over 50 times and have recited portions in parties. In fact, people told me that I sound exactly like the real Montresor.

 

read Brave New World - amazing how similar its conformist society is so much like today's Republican party fanaticism

 

Thanks, I'll check it out.

 

True. It should be required reading in every classroom.

 

Read “Timeless” by RA Salvatore.
Meh.....

 

What country are you referring to the Russia new empire perhaps that is returning thanks to the aid of Trump?

 

I read "Discovery of Witches', and found it rather lacking. Perhaps I was expecting something....more.

 

yeah....I know what you mean I read them on the train going to work so they were basically time fillers...but I enjoyed the trilogy...better than the Wheel of Time series....

 

Anyone read the Sky Stone series? It is a historical fiction built around what could have been the basis for the Arthurian Myths. Another series I really enjoyed was "Chronicles of the Nephilim" , a 'swords and sandals type".

 

Odd Thomas, by dean koontz.
Odd Thomas is the main character in the book. He's a 20 year old short order cook in a shole town. He loves his job and doesn't have much ambition to be anything more. He is a very unmaterialistic person who is an idealist.

He has a special power that allows him to see and talk to dead people. He has the power to foresee impending doom and death by evil people. One of his favorite dead people that he talks to is Elvis Presley.

He has a girlfriend named "stormy" who he loves passionately who works at an ice cream parlor.

It is a sad love story with a lot of violence.

Koontz can take a story that sounds unbelievable make sense with lots of strange characters. I like Koontz better than Stephen King, although they are a lot alike.

 

Lord if I am remembering correctly as a young person I read that book under bed covers in my parents home by flashlight an I am now 70 years old.

The source had been around a very very long time.

 

I had an army buddy who took an overseas discharge and was in the mideast, living in a hotel at the time of the war, while he was reading the book.

One thing I remember from the book is that the enemy and it's soldiers were so corrupt that they would steal and sell their own equipment while it was being transported to the battlefield.

I took an overseas discharge and lived in morocco for six months. I agree with him. A person had to pay a bribe to rent an apartment.
they were so corrupt that you could not except to get any kind of money sent to you at poste' restrante (general delivery). My soldiers' savings deposit check that my mother sent to me there was stolen.
Non sequitur: The cafes where they had dancing boys was very popular among them.

 

the "The Shadow Wars" book two in the Demi- Monde Saga by Rod Rees.

This book explains everything. It's awesome.

 

Just finished reading this book for the second time:



It's still as powerful and relevant as when I first read it over 35 years ago.

 

All of Michener's books are awesome. Never boring.

 

Just bought and downloaded it.. Bridge at Andau.

 

Have you read it before, Todd?

I was pretty young when I first read The Bridge at Andau and it was a real eye-opener for me on so many levels. To this day I don't think I've read a book that was so inspiring, heartbreaking and brutal at the same time.

One of the most interesting and relevant things about re-reading it after all these years was looking back at Michener's musings about communism in the late 1950s and what would happen if it ever overtook our own country. I'm not going to reveal what he wrote so you can read it for yourself but I will say that he cut right through some of the comforting illusions/lies that Americans like to think about themselves.

 

Read the book a while ago but don't remember it being some moral lesson about Americans. Instead, it was a study about the good character and determination of the Hungarian people in the face of uneven odds because of Soviet imperialism.

The "thaw" where tensions between the USSR and West lessened began in the mid 1950s when Khrushchev revealed the evils of the Stalinist regime. Because of that nobody in the West was under the illusion that Soviet communism was benevolent in any way. It was brutal, it was repressive, and it was utterly sterile with no progress or good coming out of it. Michener so far as I recall was revealing what was now becoming common knowledge - the Soviet regime was brutal and resorted to repression in order to maintain and expand its evil empire. He showed how enterprising the people were by resorting to clever tactics in order to fight off the Soviets. I won't say more as I don't want to reveal the final outcome of the book.

Watch Freedom's Fury about the Hungarian water polo team and its valiant efforts to defeat the Soviets. It tells much about the character of the people in that country. The documentary and the book go well together if you want to learn more about those people. However, neither says anything about the USA and how people responded to the Cold War so far as I recall.

 

It will be my first read, Talon.. cruised the first two chapters so far.. it's good reading!

 

Freedom's Fury:





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom's_Fury


makes me wanna shout = Power to the People!!!

 

It really is. I blew through it both times.

Here's a photo of the bridge (and canal) today:



It's now part of the Iron Curtain Trail in central and eastern Europe (you can see one of the historical markers at right):



http://www.eurovelo13.com/

And here's the simple monument nearby - "Memento 1956" :

 

I had forgotten many of them myself, but Michener teaches several scathing moral lessons about and for Americans in The Bridge at Andau, and it makes for some extremely disheartening reading. Quite frankly, we had a lot to be ashamed about, and to make matters worse we would later repeat some of the mistakes we made in 1956. Since Todd is currently reading the book I don't want to give them away.

To be fair, Michener didn't limit his criticism to America and its people. Britain, France and others got their fair share of admonishment, too.

(If you're interested, the paperback is on sale at Amazon for on $13.16.)

One of my wife's best friends in high school went to Hungary with her husband recently, and of course they visited Budapest, so she sent them a copy of The Bridge at Andau since they would recognize some of the landmarks in the city. I'm sure they would agree it's one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

 

water hockey.

 

Awesome. Thanks - I'll have to check that out.

 

Some old footage - I guess I should warn that there are a few graphic shots in here: