Metal Reviews

Just finished "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote. Hopefully this was the last book we had to read for english class. More than 50% of that book bored the hell out of me.

On to "The pillars of the Earth" then...

I haven't had a problem with it yet but I can handle a lot of ranting. He seems a little pompous but he is breaking down all the arguments for religion. I'm like uber-atheist so I'm lapping it up.

I just have a real mean streak towards religion when I think about all the problems it is causing right now (ie: Iraqi Civil War, Islamofascism, arrogant ignorant Christians arguing with me at school).

If you mean Welch, I completely agree. After about a hundred pages of Filth I was thinking "oooh Irvine, have him go to another new character and reminisce about another completely disgusting/implausible sexual experience plz it liek so funny and twisted."

Thankfully the last hundred pages of Filth are both incredible and terrifying.

I've never read Welch, so I don't think that was what I was referring to.

Dave Barry - Big Trouble

Funny, tis.

The ending was really twisted. I was completely blown away by how messed up it was. One of the most interesting endings I've ever read.

yeah, Big Trouble is a nice, light book. pretty funny indeed.

i'm 250 something pages into "A Game of Thrones" and so far it's excellent. thanks to everyone who recommended it

I guess I should read it then.

Thats what he doesn't get. "The arguments for religion." Does he not understand that the basic principle for most religious people is faith? That making logical arguments is completely besides the point and in the end irrelevant?

And yes, religion causes problems. I've always been more inclined to blame human nature for that though as opposed to religion in itself; people are dicks, and religion is one of the effective ways people use to be dicks.

Once again, I'm an atheist, but as Mintrude says, stuff like this does just make us all seem like arrogant dicks in ourselves. If you're pissed off with arrogant Christians arguing with you at school, then take into account that they might be just as pissed off about arrogant atheists.

This man speaks truths. An internets to him!

Yep. I think the problem with people like Dawkins is that they fall into the trap of getting really smug and thinking they're somehow better than religious people. Which makes them pretty much the same as them. On a completely irrelevant note I passed the 500 post mark 9 posts ago and didn't notice

A question to you bookworms here. Is "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett worth reading? I got it on my birthday, and I haven't read anything by him before.

Btw, The Pillars of the Earth is great so far. I like how it throws you directly into the action instead of boring you with a long introduction which seems to be quite common in books of that length.

"Good Omens" is probably my all-time favourite book! i've read it like 5 or 6 times, and it was great in all of them. it's very funny, great characters with very lol-filled notes at the bottom of the pages. an excellent book all-round.

plus that's where i got my screen name, Azrael is what death calls himself in that book (and all his lines are in caps, so you know he means business ).

Good Omens is indeed a hilarious and excellent book- Gaiman and Pratchett nailed that one, though my favourite Pratchett is still Small Gods.

Sounds promising I haven't read a really funny book in a ver long time.

Thanks for the help guys

Let me know what you think of that one, KBrahm. I managed to read all the interesting Lives of Plutarch as well as Suetonius' The Twelve Casears. Now I'm busy with Byzantium again, specifically The Alexiad.

I guess I should mention (in case someone cares) I also recently read Karen Armstrong's Holy War.

William L. Shirer - The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich

So I bought another copy of A Clockwork Orange. If the other one turns up, I'll be pissed. >.>

Well, I've read two "biographies" of Augustus now in the past two months, and I think I'd reccomend this one over the other (the other was titled "Augustus: Godfather of Europe and it was written by Richard Holland). Holland's book is more detailed and better written when it comes to the time between Julius Caesar adopting Octavius and Philippi, though not by much (Everitt also makes some assumptions in this section that are grating- he for example states definitely that Marc Antony knew about the Ides of March based on one source). The period between Philippi and Actium is covered equally well by both, though I'll give the win to Everitt here because his analysis is simply better. But far and away, whereas Holland's account of Augustus' reforms and principate completely sucks, Everitt's is excellent. He examines the reforms in details, gives plausible reasons for their institution, deduces Augustus' main goals, and you really get a sense of the man (all done with excellent prose). It weakens once again towards the end (and the introduction, which also covers Augustus' death) when he makes a silly conspiracy theory that in order to ensure the succession of Tiberius, Augustus had himself poisoned when he didn't die. But, it was still an excellent read, and I reccomend it over Holland's biography.

Oh yes, and Holland's central thesis (that Augustus is like the Don Corleone of ancient history) is about one of the stupidest things I've ever read. Despite the amount of detail of the Mutina campaign and Octavian and Marc Antony fighting over the Caesarion leadership early on, read Everitt.

However, once you're done reading that, and have a good grasp of the facts and the people, you'll have to read Ronald Syme's The Roman Revolution, which is an astounding piece of scholarship and probably the most influential book on the Augustan Age out there. I say that you should only read it after Everitt because in order to follow the arguments, you will need to know what exactly happened beforehand. A fascinating read.

And, now reading:

Ovid- The Metamorphoses

As always, your input is appreciated, kbrahm. I have some spending money, so I'll be grabbing the Everitt and Syme soon. As an aside, have you read Gore Vidal's Julian? I've come across Julian (The Apostate) somewhat before and he seemed like one of the most fascinating Emperors.