Reply to: CUK Book Club: Currently reading...

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Doomsday Men" by P. D. Smith, being the story of Szilard, Teller, von Neuman, et al.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Included lots about gas warfare in WWI too, with Fritz Haber featuring quite a lot.

Next: "Chocolate Wars" by Deborah Cadbury or how Kraft bought Cadbury and shut factories left right & centre. Fecking septics.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Robots of Dawn" by I. Asimov. The third book in the Lije Baley/Daneel Olivaw cannon, and, aside from a short story, the last. £2.50 in 1985 and 477 pages to boot.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. It seemed loooong, being a joining up fixup tale between the Robots, Galactic Empire, and Foundation.

Next: "Robots and Empire" by I. Asimov. This one was 508 pages & £2.95. .

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: Confidence Man by Maggie Haberman. The life story up to 2021ish of the Orange Moron. A curiously easy read compared with some of my earlier tomes. I bought it about 6 weeks ago so it hasn't mouldered.

Done at last: off to Oxfam with it & good riddance: how that Orange Mother****er got elected again is a mystery wrapped in dollar bills from the chief autist. And a kid who came pretty close but not close enough. Ho hum.

Next: "Doomsday Men" by P. D. Smith, being the story of Szilard, Teller, von Neuman, et al.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Elephant to Hollywood" by Maurice Micklewhite.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. What a long career he had, retiring, finally, in 2023.

Next: "... and a hard rain fell: a GI's true story of the war in Vietnam" by John Ketwig.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Naked Sun" by I. Asimov. Got to get my £9.99 value out of this one. NYPD's Lije Baley on Solaria.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Stalled a bit but I got there in the end.

Next: "The Robots of Dawn" by I. Asimov. The third book in the Lije Baley/Daneel Olivaw cannon, and, aside from a short story, the last. £2.50 in 1985 and 477 pages to boot.

Stone me, that's 40 years ago. Dunno why that should be more alarming than "The Caves of Steel" being 1952. Even odder is the concept of a world population of a mere 8 billion needing caves of steel to live in. But there you go. I suppose that 8 billion seemed a lot in 1952.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Hiroshima: the world's bomb" by Andrew J. Rotter. This one was £17, not 80p.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "The Elephant to Hollywood" by Maurice Micklewhite.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The caves of steel" by I. Asimov. This cost 50p. In or around 1977. The recent purchase of "The Naked Sun", on the other hand, cost £9.99. Only 20x the price.

Done. Off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "The Naked Sun" by I. Asimov. Got to get my £9.99 value out of this one. NYPD's Lije Baley on Solaria.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Hiroshima" by John Hersey: A Penguin Special: price (1958): 2/6d (12.5p), price to me (2nd hand): 80p.

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/wa...hiroshima-1946

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Apparently there's a post 1989 version with an additional "what happened next" chapter.

Next: "Hiroshima: the world's bomb" by Andrew J. Rotter. This one was £17, not 80p.

I'm often reminded of a chap by the name of Glyn who I worked with half a century ago.

He'd been a POW in Japan and was near Nagasaki when that went off.

In the 1970s Management had to hide him away when Japanese visited the plant.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Tesla: the modern sorcerer" by Daniel Blair Stewart. Remaindered at £1.50 in Waterstones as "obsolete". .

Turns out this epic is more a novel than a biography. Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Hiroshima" by John Hersey: A Penguin Special: price (1958): 2/6d (12.5p), price to me (2nd hand): 80p.

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/wa...hiroshima-1946

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Smoke and Mirrors" Neil Gaiman. Currently it's rivalling the Sladek epic for innerest. And, unlike the Sladek, there's another two of his tomes on the bookshelf.

On further consideraton & probably in a better mood: some of it is quite good in a sort quite good sort of way, as it were.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Bit of a curate's egg. "The Price" (the one about the cat's nightly fight protecting a family) will remain with me*.

Next: "The caves of steel" by I. Asimov. This cost 50p. In or around 1977. The recent purchase of "The Naked Sun", on the other hand, cost £9.99. Only 20x the price.


*No it didn't: I had to look it up. .

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Who-ology: the official miscellany". BBC, 2013. Fiftieth anniversary. No idea where this came from, but I know where it's going. If the previous Who tome was moderately tedious, this one is tedium personified. Fortunately there's a lot of tables & suchlike that I don't bother reading due to lack of innerest. . What sort of saddo writes crap like this? What sort of saddo would enjoy reading crap like this? Goodness me, I'm not that sort of saddo, which much be a plus.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Tesla: the modern sorcerer" by Daniel Blair Stewart. Remaindered at £1.50 in Waterstones as "obsolete". .

Tesla may have been responsible for the death of his even brighter brother, whereas Thomas Alva Edison was plainly some kind of sociopath.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Churchill: Four faces and the man": Essays from A. J. P. Taylor, Robert Rhodes James, J. W. Plumb, Basil Liddell Hart, Anthony Storr.

Liddell Hart was unimpressed with some of his strategy. .

Done: off to Oxfam with it, it's extremely ex libris so I'm sure they'll be pleased (ex Merthyr public library).

Next: TBD.

[GregRickshaw]

Vulture Capitalism - Grace Blakeley

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "A Nuclear Family Vacation: travels in the world of atomic weaponry" by Nathan Hodge & Sharon Weinberger.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Churchill: Four faces and the man": Essays from A. J. P. Taylor, Robert Rhodes James, J. W. Plumb, Basil Liddell Hart, Anthony Storr.

Liddell Hart was unimpressed with some of his strategy. .

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Dark Lady" by Mike Resnick. Galactic art hunt.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. I like that book: a good tale.

Next: "Who-ology: the official miscellany". BBC, 2013. Fiftieth anniversary. No idea where this came from, but I know where it's going. If the previous Who tome was moderately tedious, this one is tedium personified. Fortunately there's a lot of tables & suchlike that I don't bother reading due to lack of innerest. . What sort of saddo writes crap like this? What sort of saddo would enjoy reading crap like this? Goodness me, I'm not that sort of saddo, which much be a plus.