Metal Reviews

Michael Moorcock - The Chronicle of the Black Sword.

Can't go wrong with any of the Elric books. God, how intensely awesome.

Just ordered from various online sources

Paul Mason - Live Working or Die Fighting
Karl Popper - The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol 2
Jean Paul Sartre - Critique of Dialectical Reason Vol 1 and 2
Vic Allen - Social Analysis: A Marxist Critique and Alternative

I'm now reading:

Condensed Capitalism
Marx - Capital: Volume One
Sartre - Nausea
Nietzsche - Genealogy of Morals
Railton on Moral Realism

Excellent! The Mason is written in a pretty "pop", journalistic style (he's the BBC's Economics correspondent), but it's a seriously, seriously good history of trade unionism, and very fun to read. Some of the chapters are completely fascinating as well, like the one on the Jewish Bund and its fights with the Zionists pre-WWII.

And yeah, the Allen is massive. It totally changed the way I thought about what is meant by "Marxist methodology" etc. The best explanation and defence of dialectical materialism I've read. It's the thing to turn to if you want some arguments for pwning Popperians. As a guy he's perhaps not that awesome... He was a prof at my Uni, before some of his insalubrious political connections were unearthed.

The intro is great... talking about how he was locked up in a Nigerian prison for undertaking revolutionary activism there. Whilst banged up he read a load of books on organizational theory by empiricists, and in a totally humourless tone declares that reading them caused him more suffering than being incarcerated in a Nigerian prison.

Oh, and:



Good luck, dude!

Hopefully not all at once! That would be a dreadful strain on your eyes there.

Currently reading: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

No matter how many times I read the name 'Joachim von Ribbentrop' it remains a funny name. It sounds like a Tom Pynchon name. Ribbentrop! Ribbentrop!

It's excerpts but still pretty dense.

This book about the Campbell's Soup Co. and their union is really interesting. The struggle is the epitome of union struggles in America.

Growing slowly -> Success -> McCarthyism -> Losing power -> Automation -> Capital flight to a non-unionized area.

That's the funny thing about Pynchon. As absurd and crazy as it all is, it's almost plausible.

Will try to find that. So far I've only found The history of torture by him, which should be interesting too but still.. Too bad I have little time for books outside the subjects for several papers. Didn't choose the Classical Age so I doubt I'll get time to read up on subjects from that period.

Edit: Always a laugh when I tell people that "Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant" was only used once in a gladiator fight, and it was a frigging naumachiae. You wouldn't believe how much douches get ashamed because they think they knew something about it.

just finished The Master an Margarita. seriously can't see what all the fuss is about.

this weekend i'll try to order Palace of Dreams by Ismail Kadare.

Sacked Frankenstein for now and read the George RR Martin novella The Hedge Knight in about 3 sittings. Typically good, but too short to be fully satisfying.

Got Plato's Symposium for my birthday, reading through that whenever I have a spare minute.

Had some money saved so decided to buy a book:

Gert Gielis- Verdoelde schaepkens, bytende wolven( Lost sheep, biting wolves): Inquisition in the Low Countries).

Pretty interesting read so far, though I probably better check some standard works on the subject as well.

Don't like that one at all.

V. L. Allen ~ V. I. Lenin? Hmmmm. The back of this book has me so damn excited. My girlfriend is a sociology major and it kinda perturbed her that he thinks he can debunk it.

How could you not love the Symposium? It's a bunch of old men getting wasted and talking about love and gay sex. Good times for all!

haha. Vic Allen reaps all sorts of destruction on those he disagrees with. Which is virtually everyone.

So I promised myself I wouldn't do this, but I found the new Jordan (well, written by Sanderson) book, The Gathering Storm, on sale for 40% off, so I caved and impulse bought it. How I hope it doesn't suck.

I'm not the biggest Plato fan in the first place. It just seemed so tedious. Maybe I missed something.

Currently working through Battle Circle by Piers Anthony. It's pretty entertaining, provided that I don't take the fairly rampant sexism too seriously.

Also read "Death: The High Cost of Living" by Neil Gaiman at the bookstore.

We should have more pictures here...



What better way to try and grasp critical theory than with some funny little cartoons. Works for me!

Critical Theory is the best topic to grasp with comics. I took an english course on Critical Theory and I wrote my midterm paper on a Robert Crumb comic with a psychoanalytic and marxist critique.

What's the book tackle? Freud, Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, Marx, Said, race theory, feminism?

Yep, all of the above and plenty more. Its about 140 pages, and on average spends 4-6 pages on each topic. Basically from Marxism through to post-Modernism via Frankfurt, structuralism, feminism, Said, Fanon, Lacan, and on and on... pretty thorough.