cspam book club II -- edification via obsolete mediums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > cspam book club II -- edification via obsolete mediums

Idia: Apr 26, 2010; Fun Shoe

Pluto Books is having a half off sale till tomorrow!
I got a few books but is there any recommendations you guys have for any of their books?

# ? May 15, 2019 00:24

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 3, 2024 10:04

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

Idia posted:

Pluto Books is having a half off sale till tomorrow!
I got a few books but is there any recommendations you guys have for any of their books?

Thanks for sharing this! I'm still looking through and there's a lot of neat looking stuff here, but I haven't found anything I absolutely have to have yet. I'd like to hear recommendations as well if anyone's got some.

# ? May 15, 2019 05:09

ScrubLeague: Feb 11, 2007; Nap Ghost

i wish they had fiction, it all looks like non-fiction to me. really jonesing for like some anarcho-communist short stories or something.

# ? May 15, 2019 05:42

Eat This Glob: Jan 14, 2008; God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Who will wipe this blood off us? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?

is there a good book on 20th century Chinese history? im more or less interested in WWII-1980s, but something more comprehensive would also be cool. I know that is one broad category that could be a 10k page volume, but i know very little about the occupation period, and a more nuanced look at the history of the communist revolution, great leap, cultural revolution, opening up the country etc

# ? May 17, 2019 20:10

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

Eat This Glob posted:

is there a good book on 20th century Chinese history? im more or less interested in WWII-1980s, but something more comprehensive would also be cool. I know that is one broad category that could be a 10k page volume, but i know very little about the occupation period, and a more nuanced look at the history of the communist revolution, great leap, cultural revolution, opening up the country etc

I'm glad I still have access to my student email from years ago! I pulled my syllabus for my East Asian foreign policy class and came up with the following:

Thomas J. Christensen, The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power
Jian Chen, Mao�s China and the Cold War
Harry Harding, A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China since 1972

I read all of these for class and still have copies of the first two. I remember Mao's China and the Cold War being an interesting one and my favorite of the three. I don't remember a whole ton of the details but I do remember reading and thinking "this Mao guy is pretty cool, actually." I made several annotations while reading, so that signals to me that it was engaging at the very least, so I can probably recommend it. I also have multiple annotations in The China Challenge but it is certainly less memorable. I don't really remember A Fragile Relationship all that much either, but given that it was on my syllabus and my professor is an expert in the field, I'd say it's worth taking a look at. If you have JSTOR access presently I think you can even read it on there, which I think is how I did it instead of buying a copy like I did with the other two.
Sorry that I couldn't give any recommendations more specific to your time frame, but most of what you're looking for should be covered within the scope of these books.

# ? May 17, 2019 21:31

Eat This Glob: Jan 14, 2008; God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Who will wipe this blood off us? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?

im on the net me boys posted:

I'm glad I still have access to my student email from years ago! I pulled my syllabus for my East Asian foreign policy class and came up with the following:

Thomas J. Christensen, The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power

Jian Chen, Mao’s China and the Cold War

Harry Harding, A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China since 1972

thank you! a great place to start and some good insights. very appreciated

# ? May 17, 2019 21:41

an actual dog: Nov 18, 2014

ScrubLeague posted:

i wish they had fiction, it all looks like non-fiction to me. really jonesing for like some anarcho-communist short stories or something.

fiction is bourgeoisie

# ? May 17, 2019 22:04

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

ScrubLeague posted:

i wish they had fiction, it all looks like non-fiction to me. really jonesing for like some anarcho-communist short stories or something.

It's not a short story, but Walkaway by Cory Doctorow is ancom as hell

# ? May 17, 2019 22:15

Annie Chickenstalker: Oct 12, 2005; Of course you dont know, YOU dont know because only I know; Grimey Drawer

Inline with other scifi people here like (Blindsight, Three Body), check out The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. It's in the far future, after the singularity. The characters use technology that crosses the line between biological and artificial. It's very hard sci-fi and also insane. Rajaniemi does a good job creating horrifyig scenarios that are plausible for the far future. It's like Blindsight in that implications for personal identity and society are shocking. but in the story, those things are treated as if they're nothing special.

Reading it makes you anxious about the how the future won't resemble anything we can conceive of today. It's like how people from 300 years ago would be confused and terrified of the technology we use daily now.

Annie Chickenstalker has issued a correction as of 03:22 on May 21, 2019

# ? May 21, 2019 00:01

Goon Danton: May 24, 2012; Don't forget to show my shitposts to the people. They're well worth seeing.

Oh. My. Zeus. posted:

It's like how people from 300 years ago would be confused and terrified of the technology we use daily now.

Hell, same

# ? May 21, 2019 00:10

exmarx: Feb 18, 2012; The experience over the years
of nothing getting better
only worse.

currently reading october by china mi�ville

up next is this, by the good boys of genetic science

# ? May 26, 2019 05:41

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

Hey, if anyone has some recommended reading about what sex work looks like in an anarchist society of whether it exists at all, etc. I would love to hear them. Doesn't have to be a book dedicated to this topic by any means, like a journal article or a chapter of a larger book would do nicely.

# ? May 30, 2019 01:20

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

One of my roommates left behind a book about suicidology which seemed Neat and Interesting to me but it's from the 50's which seems really outdated for something that I'd imagine has changed not insignificantly since that time. Can anyone recommend something a little more recent? I trawled through Amazon a little bit but nothing seemed great.

# ? Jun 2, 2019 01:42

IDONTPOST: Apr 18, 2018

can i get a good book recommendation on the cultural revolution?

# ? Jun 2, 2019 05:15

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Circe is a good rear end book! Kinda reminds me of Wicked

# ? Jun 2, 2019 19:41

Homeless Friend: Jul 16, 2007

I've been audiobooking kotkin stalin while at work and it owns folks

# ? Jun 14, 2019 05:44

cool dance moves: Aug 27, 2018

The latest Citations Needed had a guest on to talk about how Iran is misrepresented in the US news. I want to learn more about life under the Shah and up to the present day. Does anyone know a good primer on Iranian history post-1950s?

# ? Jun 14, 2019 12:49

mike12345: Jul 14, 2008; "Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries."

Currently reading this:

TFR made a Let's Read thread about it 8 years ago, but I never bothered to read it because :too much effort:. But now thanks to Audible, you can listen to this trash while doing chores, and boy is it good.

quote:

Former SEAL Mike Harmon, team name "Ghost," discharged with partial disabilities, was having trouble fitting in on a very liberal college campus. But when he observed the kidnapping of a coed, it was time for others to be troubled.

Because underneath his usually placid exterior, Mike Harmon was a bundle of barely controlled fury. Highly motivated, highly trained fury. And when terrorists gave him the opportunity, he became. . . himself.

A series of at the time rational decisions led him, via a raft of tortured terrorist bodies, to a facility in Syria, a "logistics warehouse" called Aleppo Four. And in the dank basement of that "warehouse" the true, horrible nature of the kidnappers' plans were revealed: if the Great Satan would not withdraw over the deaths of aid workers and soldiers, then let them see what could happen to their lovely daughters. The only fly in the ointment being one banged up former SEAL.

Now Ghost is as free to do his will as the wolf running beneath the moon. Freed of military regulations, freed of military justice. And morals and ethics were never his strong suit.

Sometimes it takes a very bad man to do a good job. In that case, they've got the right SEAL for the job.

Why would this be interesting to CSPAM you ask? Because I know CSPAM loves truth bombs like the following excerpt, depicting our protagonists thoughts on his college education.

quote:

Well, the homework wasn't actually that bad, or it wouldn't be if it weren't for the classes he had to take. History. How bad could it be? Greeks and Romans and Persians and the Renaissance. Egyptians and feudal lords and maybe memorizing a bunch of dead guys' names.

Little did he know. That was "old history." His current major course was "An Introduction to African Pre-Colonial History." As far as he'd been able to determine, his definition of what constituted "history" and the definition used by the University of Georgia History Department didn't come from the same dictionary. Sure, the old time historians made stuff up. Livy read like something written by Tom Clancy and Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars was written with political image in mind with only brief touches on reality, something like a Democratic stump speech. But it had brief touches on reality and it was at least written. Prior to the "colonization" period, Africa had no writing and, apparently, no problems worth discussing. His professor attributed every ill of Africa to the colonialism of the White Man, ignoring the ongoing tribal wars that dated back thousands of years, not to mention the Arab slave traders that benefited from them. He'd had to see the first episode of the mini-series Roots and had been loudly shushed when he started laughing in the first fifteen minutes. Slave traders didn't get off their boats and go chase bush-bunnies around. They bought them from Arabs, not loving "Islamics," Ay-rabs. And the Arabs bought them from the tribes, who were constantly at war with each other.

Sometimes it was all Mike could do to not stand up and punch the stupid bastard, especially when he got started on "modern colonialism," by which he meant the War on Terrorism. Mike wanted to scream "Have you ever been in Mogadishu you ignorant son-of-a-bitch?" Hell, the conditions in Africa were better when the English and the Germans and even the French and the Belgians had been in charge. He'd read Conrad's Heart of Darkness a couple of times during down time on the teams. And he'd been in Congo, not that there was any trace of it going in or out. And Congo now was "Heart of Darkness" on loving steroids. The only thing worse than having the Belgians in charge was having the loving gomers handling things.

But, of course, the problem with the gomers wasn't that they were totally hosed up gomers. Oh, no, the problem with the gomers were all the fault of colonialism and "western military adventures." Well, he'd been on one "western military adventure" in Congo and as far as he was concerned the best thing to do was spray the whole damned place with anthrax, including the loving gorillas, shoot anyone that tried to leave and start over.

There's lots more where that came from, but frankly you should read the TFR thread (with plenty of quotes), if you're interested. There's a link to the free epub from the publisher in that thread.
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3385144&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

Oh yeah, there's also this important nugget of information you should know before delving into the world of xxxXXXXGhostXXXxxx

quote:

He knew that, at heart, he was a rapist. And that meant he hated rapists more than any "normal" human being. They purely pissed him off. He'd spent his entire sexually adult life fighting the urge to use his not inconsiderable strength to possess and take instead of woo and cajole. He'd fought his demons to a standstill again and again when it would have been so easy to give in. He'd had one truly screwed up bitch get completely naked, with him naked and erect between her legs, and she still couldn't say "yes." And he'd just said: "that's okay" and walked away with an amazing case of blueballs. When men gave in to that dark side, it made him even more angry than listening to leftist bitches scream about "western civilization" and how it was so hosed up.

Rape gets featured more than once, as well as BDSM. All in all it feels like Tom Clancy meets 70s Grindhouse meets a John Waters film. A mindfuck experience of what it feels like to be high on berders and masturbating to Fox News. Directed by Cecil B. Demented, written by Decker.

(sorry if this was already mentioned in the thread, because it seems like CSPAM material)

# ? Jun 18, 2019 18:31

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

mike12345 posted:

Currently reading this:

TFR made a Let's Read thread about it 8 years ago, but I never bothered to read it because :too much effort:. But now thanks to Audible, you can listen to this trash while doing chores, and boy is it good.

Why would this be interesting to CSPAM you ask? Because I know CSPAM loves truth bombs like the following excerpt, depicting our protagonists thoughts on his college education.

There's lots more where that came from, but frankly you should read the TFR thread (with plenty of quotes), if you're interested. There's a link to the free epub from the publisher in that thread.
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3385144&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

Oh yeah, there's also this important nugget of information you should know before delving into the world of xxxXXXXGhostXXXxxx

Rape gets featured more than once, as well as BDSM. All in all it feels like Tom Clancy meets 70s Grindhouse meets a John Waters film. A mindfuck experience of what it feels like to be high on berders and masturbating to Fox News. Directed by Cecil B. Demented, written by Decker.

(sorry if this was already mentioned in the thread, because it seems like CSPAM material)

I could've sworn I Don't Even Own a TV did a podcast on this, but yeah this and the thousands of books churned out every year exactly like it are extremely dreadful and problematic

From what I gleaned from the podcast that discussed it, Ghost is basically just a no-poo poo rapist wandering around raping and killing people being presented as a hero, like American Psycho without the twist

# ? Jun 18, 2019 18:48

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Yeah I was laughing along at the TFR thread until the bit where the protagonist violently rapes a teenage prostitute and it was just too much to even be ironically funny

# ? Jun 18, 2019 18:50

Eat This Glob: Jan 14, 2008; God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Who will wipe this blood off us? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?

cyranos descent into madness was pretty funny imo

# ? Jun 18, 2019 19:23

cool dance moves: Aug 27, 2018

StashAugustine posted:

Yeah I was laughing along at the TFR thread until the bit where the protagonist violently rapes a teenage prostitute and it was just too much to even be ironically funny

It owns that this post could apply to at least a few different books by John Ringo

# ? Jun 18, 2019 23:30

ScrubLeague: Feb 11, 2007; Nap Ghost

mike12345 posted:

love to take my pen name from the bad guy from tombstone

# ? Jun 19, 2019 04:47

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

Verso has two books on sale 40% off right now, one of them being titled Fully Automated Luxury Communism. Not sure when I'll read it but it sounds fun.

# ? Jun 20, 2019 02:58

exmarx: Feb 18, 2012; The experience over the years
of nothing getting better
only worse.

Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on the Coevolution of Nature and Society posted:

More deeply, social processes of poverty and oppression and the actual conditions of world trade were not the stuff of �real� science that deals with microbes and molecules. So a cholera outbreak is seen only as the coming of cholera bacteria to lots of people. But cholera lives among the plankton along the coasts when it isn�t in people. The plankton blooms when the seas get warm and when runoff from sewage and from agricultural fertilizers feed the algae. The products of world trade are carried in freighters that use seawater as ballast that is discharged before coming to port, along with the beasts that live in that ballast water. The small crustaceans eat the algae, the fish eat the crustaceans, and the cholera bacterium meets the eaters of fish. Finally, if the public health system of a nation has already been gutted by structural adjustment of the economy, then the full explanation of the epidemic is, jointly, Vibrio cholerae and the World Bank.

# ? Jun 23, 2019 09:22

Wheeee: Mar 11, 2001; When a tree grows, it is soft and pliable. But when it's dry and hard, it dies.

Hardness and strength are death's companions. Flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life.

That which has become hard shall not triumph.

i've been avoiding reading for too long, cspam what book should i read

# ? Jul 7, 2019 20:25

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Wheeee posted:

i've been avoiding reading for too long, cspam what book should i read

Bridge of Birds

# ? Jul 7, 2019 21:54

Wheeee: Mar 11, 2001; When a tree grows, it is soft and pliable. But when it's dry and hard, it dies.

Hardness and strength are death's companions. Flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life.

That which has become hard shall not triumph.

Epic High Five posted:

Bridge of Birds

looks fun, there's no way to purchase it as an ebook that I could find online, but somehow I've got a mobi version in an old ebook archive

Wheeee has issued a correction as of 22:10 on Jul 7, 2019

# ? Jul 7, 2019 22:01

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Wheeee posted:

looks fun, there's no way to purchase it as an ebook that I could find online, but somehow I've got a mobi version in an old ebook archive

that, then The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin to encourage you to read all of her extremely excellent books

# ? Jul 8, 2019 02:20

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

hey book people, verso is selling a bunch of good ebooks for $2.50 to $5, and they don't have DRM. Is it :filez:

if we buy them and share with each other?

# ? Jul 11, 2019 04:23

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

Nichael posted:

hey book people, verso is selling a bunch of good ebooks for $2.50 to $5, and they don't have DRM. Is it if we buy them and share with each other?

Hey fair warning, Verso puts your email address and name at the end of each chapter of any ebooks that you buy from them so... Maybe don't

# ? Jul 11, 2019 04:32

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

Also if any of you are looking at Fully Automated Luxury Communism in that sale I'd recommend you buy something else. I'm about halfway through and I can't say that I'd recommend it.

# ? Jul 11, 2019 04:33

Nichael: Mar 30, 2011

im on the net me boys posted:

Also if any of you are looking at Fully Automated Luxury Communism in that sale I'd recommend you buy something else. I'm about halfway through and I can't say that I'd recommend it.

What's wrong with it?

im on the net me boys posted:

Hey fair warning, Verso puts your email address and name at the end of each chapter of any ebooks that you buy from them so... Maybe don't

Thanks for the warning.

# ? Jul 11, 2019 04:35

Finicums Wake: Mar 13, 2017; Can't post for 8 years!

im on the net me boys posted:

Hey fair warning, Verso puts your email address and name at the end of each chapter of any ebooks that you buy from them so... Maybe don't

i think there's a way to launder the files with calibre. im no expert tho

# ? Jul 11, 2019 04:36

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

Nichael posted:

What's wrong with it?

Bear in mind that I haven't completed the book, but a great deal of what the author writes relies heavily on a lot of futuristic technology panning out. Things like asteroid mining. He says we'll enter a post-scarcity society because of things like asteroid mining being fully automated. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it does seem like a very far off thing to me and it doesn't do me a whole lot of good right now.
Other people have written more in depth critiques but I haven't read those myself either.

# ? Jul 11, 2019 04:44