Picked up any good reads at the bookstore?

[marechal]

Doubting the verdict of the government is hardly wanting to believe in conspiracies.

Ballistics and Ruby's motives alone haven't been credibly explained, not that I follow it too closely.

[mids]

I would say that: eye-witnesses aren't very good; you can always find oddities in complex events and people make assumptions while being very inexpert at stuff. Thinking about the direction of travel of him/his head after he was shot for the last one.

[voice]

I think JFK conspiracies are, for a lot of people, the gateway drug leading to faked moon landings and 911 truthers and antivax loons, but as Watergate showed, when there is an actual real conspiracy, they are leaky ships and it doesn't take much to unravel the truth. Quite simply, people talk. Don't remember who said it, but once two people know a secret, it's a secret no longer

[marechal]

I thought this was pretty cool. Borges is a great writer.

[unclejunior]

muswell-press.co.uk/product/from-mohair-suits-to-kinky-boots/
Written by an old friend of mine….
Full of great memories 😉

[marechal]

Musashi, about Japan's most famous samurai. Great writing and storytelling but at almost 1000 pages it did start to drag a bit by the end.

Roadside Picnic, the book that inspired the movie Stalker. For as good as it was touted to be, it was fairly underwhelming. I had the same reaction to Cat's Cradle.

[flatandy]

I loved Cat’s Cradle. But I read it as a 16 or 17 year old, which might be the perfect age for it.

[voice]

Been reading the "Murderbot Diaries" by Martha Wells, while its not exactly high literature they are well written and quirky, I'm quite enjoying them. My only moan is they are all quite short less than 200 pages and could really have been one book rather than 7 small books.

[marechal]

Recent reads:

A Moveable Feast - good but I like his other stuff better. Ezra Pound was a gem (this was in the 20s), Gertrude Stein not so much.

Dark Matter - recently published SF book. Insipid writing, lots of padding even to the point of having one sentence per line. Hated it. So quite naturally they made it into a movie.

He Died with his Eyes Open - British crime noir from the 80s. Some clunky dialogue but then some really beautiful writing as well, quite good overall.

The Last Legends of Earth - another by the same author who wrote Radix (Attanasio). The premise, the storytelling, the imagination - all off the charts. A top 3 SF book for me.

[voice]

Providence Lost, the rise and fall of Cromwell's protectorate

Well worth a read, dispells many of the myths that have grown up round the great man. He was far more complex a figure than he's often portaid, military genious, ruthless when he needed to be, decisive and no where near the religious extremist he's accused of being.

I've long thought the protectorate was a lost opportunity, but the book explains why England didn't have a framework to sustain a republic, it was before it's time in many ways, but Cromwell despite working for a settlement for years never achieved it.

I know it's fashionable these days to denigrate him, but he was man of his time and really if you compare his campaigns to say the 30 year war, they were actually not bad by comparison, and where cities surrendered the citizens and opposing forces were treated with respect.

Anyway worth a read

[marechal]

The Grapes of Wrath, which I somehow managed to miss in all my English Lit. classes. That was a good read.