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 please post below if interested, I'll delete thread if there are no takers I've found myself re-reading lots of books and realized that I feel intimidated by starting something new if I don't have a recommendation from someone I trust or a group of people to discuss with. Let's see if we can herd some Goons into selecting a book once per month to read and discuss. If this works, I plan on handing out next month's duties to someone who participates this month. Book rules: 1. Must involve politics somewhat 2. The book should be easily accessible for most people and can be finished in a reasonable amount of time 3. Ideally, I'd like to see a rotation between non-fiction and fiction books and novels. I'd like to propose that we read "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry. It's a fictional novel set in Mumbai, India in ~1975. I selected this book for a few reasons:  1. It's extremely easy to read 2. It's very good. Touching, funny, sad, the works 3. It taught me a ton about class dynamics in India Where to get it? 1. Amazon has it for $14 on kindle or paperback, with used copies starting at $5 https://www.amazon.com/Fine-Balance-Rohinton-Mistry/dp/140003065X 2. This book is commonly available via local library ebook sharing portals 3. If you really want to read this but can't afford to get a copy, email me at fourteenwaffles@gmail.com and I'll hook you up with a physical or digital copy, free of charge The author of the book is Rohinton Mistry, who was born to a moderately wealthy Parsi family, and emigrated to Canada in 1975. His class is important to the novel because at times he does fall into navel gazing and occasionally imbues magical or mystical properties on the downtrodden castes. It's not overly hamfisted or obvious but it is something to look out for and discuss The main villain of the novel is Inidra Ghandi, the right wing PM of India from 1966-1977 and again from 1980-1984, which ended when she was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. Her reign was characterized by civil unrest and an explosion in globalism and capitalism. Mistry makes the interesting choice of never naming Ghandi in the novel. She exists as a bureaucratic force, omnipresent throughout every facet of society. It is very clear throughout the novel that Mistry does, um, not think very highly of her. So by that virtue, this book seems right up CSPAM's alley. The events of the book take place during the Emergency of 1975-1977. Wikipedia has a good primer on it. This article isn't a must read or anything but it is a good place to learn about the basics for discussion. There are 4 main characters, all of lower Castes. It is a story of how these people meet, learn to love each other, and then go separate ways. That's all you need to know Other Stuff: -I am not an expert on India. The country has a mindbendingly complicated history and the societal rules and customs are complex, to say the least. I enjoyed the book on its own merits my first read but it led me down the path of trying to learn more about the country. READING SCHEDULE June 1-7: Chapters 1-5 June 8-15: Chapters 6-10 June 16-21: Chapters 11-16 only discuss stuff up to the dates listed above, put spoilers in tags if you must reference ahead
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May 24, 2020 20:04
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this is a cool idea OP and I’d definitely like to participate, I’ll order a used copy ASAP. I feel decently prepared to read this because up until recently I knew almost nothing about Indian politics but fortuitously I just finished The Indian Ideology by Perry Anderson which I’d recommend to anyone looking for some easily accessible background information on 20th century India from a marxist perspective
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May 24, 2020 20:39
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I’m in and hoping we can manage to make this a regular thing. Thanks for taking the initiative.
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May 24, 2020 22:16
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Excellent, glad I have some takers! I think you will really enjoy this novel, it's a very unintimidating read, and it appears to be one of the few non YA/Fantasy/SciFi books on Goodreads with a 4.5 rating
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May 24, 2020 22:22
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Sounds interesting, I'm in
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May 24, 2020 22:26
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I'm in.
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May 24, 2020 22:27
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I'm in also Trump
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May 24, 2020 23:52
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In. Very cool. I read this in college and would love to read it again.
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May 25, 2020 00:38
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oxsnard posted:Excellent, glad I have some takers! I think you will really enjoy this novel, it's a very unintimidating read, and it appears to be one of the few non YA/Fantasy/SciFi books on Goodreads with a 4.5 rating i was wary of picking this up because most goons' taste in fiction is ya/fantasy/scifi poo poo. but after i saw he won the neustadt prize, i decided i'm in
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May 25, 2020 00:50
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I'm in, sounds like a good read
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May 25, 2020 01:22
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Yeah ok
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May 25, 2020 01:53
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Finicums Wake posted:i was wary of picking this up because most goons' taste in fiction is ya/fantasy/scifi poo poo. but after i saw he won the neustadt prize, i decided i'm in Yeah the Book Barn is crazy because like 90% of the traffic is a handful of genres/authors and the rest is super serious English majors. I'd like to read some real literature but not take it super seriously and discuss it in a political context. If it works it works. I've recommended this book many times over the years and no one has ever told me they didn't like
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May 25, 2020 02:48
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oxsnard posted:Yeah the Book Barn is crazy because like 90% of the traffic is a handful of genres/authors and the rest is super serious English majors. I'd like to read some real literature but not take it super seriously and discuss it in a political context. If it works it works. there's 1 good literature thread in the book barn and then a good books thread in phiz, if you're looking for other places on these dead gay forums to chat about literature
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May 25, 2020 04:24
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I will read this, starting to tonight
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May 25, 2020 05:51
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Sure why not, adding it to my list
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May 25, 2020 15:52
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I'm in, it's been forever since I've read any books for fun and I used to be voracious.
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May 25, 2020 18:13
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it's not on any likely reading lists for this but The Left Hand of Darkness is on Audible as their daily deal today and it's a great book by the greatest American author
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May 25, 2020 18:22
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Epic High Five posted:it's not on any likely reading lists for this but The Left Hand of Darkness is on Audible as their daily deal today and it's a great book by the greatest American author I've been meaning to read this one, thanks. I'm not opposed to science fiction per se in settings like this. Like you could have a leftist discussion about Dune or even something like MaddAddam by Atwood (libs ruined the Handmaid's Tale for me). It's mostly, for me, that SciFi, dystopian fiction and fantasy have completed dominated popular culture in recent years and I'd like to specifically focus on something else here. But I'm open to other ideas. Like I said, if this works, we'll give someone else a shot next month
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May 25, 2020 18:32
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oxsnard posted:I've been meaning to read this one, thanks. I'm not opposed to science fiction per se in settings like this. Like you could have a leftist discussion about Dune or even something like MaddAddam by Atwood (libs ruined the Handmaid's Tale for me). It's mostly, for me, that SciFi, dystopian fiction and fantasy have completed dominated popular culture in recent years and I'd like to specifically focus on something else here. But I'm open to other ideas. if this goes well maybe have people submit suggestions then run a poll to pick between them. that's how tbb does their book of the month
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May 25, 2020 18:38
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oxsnard posted:I've been meaning to read this one, thanks. I'm not opposed to science fiction per se in settings like this. Like you could have a leftist discussion about Dune or even something like MaddAddam by Atwood (libs ruined the Handmaid's Tale for me). It's mostly, for me, that SciFi, dystopian fiction and fantasy have completed dominated popular culture in recent years and I'd like to specifically focus on something else here. But I'm open to other ideas. Le Guin's scifi stuff is very, very much not like normal scifi, I usually call it "speculative fiction" which is basically just short hand for "scifi but it's actually good on its own merits." Her stuff is heavily informed by her socialism and anthropology background and is very good for discussion. The last session of the in person one I ran locally was to discuss The Word for World is Forest the reason I said it's not likely to enter into here is because it's pretty long and is fiction which is two strikes in leftist book clubs. It's an incredible book tho, and she's got more short or serialized discussion friendly books like Lathe of Heaven and The Birthday of the World
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May 25, 2020 18:38
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Finicums Wake posted:if this goes well maybe have people submit suggestions then run a poll to pick between them. that's how tbb does their book of the month Im no dictator but popular polls usually leads towards herding, which is why I prefer an "everyone takes a turn" approach, personally
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May 25, 2020 18:46
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oxsnard posted:Im no dictator but popular polls usually leads towards herding, which is why I prefer an "everyone takes a turn" approach, personally that's true. i was thinking that, with a poll, you at least get rid of the risk that someone would pick a book no one wants to read. but cspammers, or at least the ones who'd want to put together a reading group, generally have good enough taste that it's probably not an issue just ordered my copy btw 
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May 25, 2020 19:19
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one speculative book I read recently was called American War and it was amazing, it uses a climate change ravaged America as the backdrop for a story about radicalism and imperialism. The author is a journalist who covered Syria and it informs the entire book.
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May 25, 2020 19:19
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Sounds very interesting op
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May 26, 2020 01:22
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Last chance for a physical book, if you want to read this but dont feel ready to spend  lemme know and I'll send you a copy
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May 26, 2020 18:30
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Any plan for more directly political works (like say, Conquest of Bread, AVAILABLE NOW FOR 99 CENTS AT YOUR LOCAL AMAZON) or is it more fiction based. I'd second Le Guin as having some really great leftist fiction.
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May 27, 2020 01:53
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Kaedric posted:Any plan for more directly political works (like say, Conquest of Bread, AVAILABLE NOW FOR 99 CENTS AT YOUR LOCAL AMAZON) or is it more fiction based. I'd second Le Guin as having some really great leftist fiction. I have no idea, it's month one. I'm cool with anything but let's see how this goes first
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May 27, 2020 01:58
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pretty sure the breadbook is available free on marxists.org, I wouldn't pay for it unless getting it loaded into your Kindle shared ecosystem is worth the buck for youKaedric posted:Any plan for more directly political works (like say, Conquest of Bread, AVAILABLE NOW FOR 99 CENTS AT YOUR LOCAL AMAZON) or is it more fiction based. I'd second Le Guin as having some really great leftist fiction. I'll probably be putting a selection of some short stories, with a couple I consider required reading from The Birthday of the World, half as a pitch for just this and also as a way to teach myself how to make ebooks that or just straight up The Dispossessed. It's such a perfectly CSPAM book
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May 27, 2020 02:36
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Epic High Five posted:pretty sure the breadbook is available free on marxists.org, I wouldn't pay for it unless getting it loaded into your Kindle shared ecosystem is worth the buck for you Adding anything to kindle is easy with CALIBRE
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May 28, 2020 04:44
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Got through the prologue and I am really interested in the story/time period. Book is good folks.
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May 28, 2020 09:48
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:Adding anything to kindle is easy with CALIBRE To the device yeah, but it doesn't add it to the web reader or save your notes off device It's a minor thing but used to be a big deal for me because the web reader made it a lot easier to read at work. Calibre's reader is nice now but won't save bookmarks or notes to the device
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May 28, 2020 12:53
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Who's getting excited? I'll have a chapter summary spoilered in the OP next week
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May 28, 2020 19:00
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Hey Rohinton Mistry is a good, I'll see if I can find my copy of this; I haven't read it yet
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May 28, 2020 22:29
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OP can provide copies if needed, I also have a epub link.
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May 28, 2020 22:51
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Arivia posted:Hey Rohinton Mistry is a good, I'll see if I can find my copy of this; I haven't read it yet Yeah gimme your email and I'll take care of ya
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May 28, 2020 22:54
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oxsnard posted:Yeah gimme your email and I'll take care of ya no, no, I already have a physical copy I think is the honest answer like I genuinely have a Canadian English Literature degree and have read rohinton mistry already, there should be a copy of this around
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May 28, 2020 23:31
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Arivia posted:no, no, I already have a physical copy I think is the honest answer lmao. ok lemme know if you come up short in your search
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May 28, 2020 23:33
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oxsnard posted:lmao. ok lemme know if you come up short in your search it is not in any of the immediately accessible bookcases, so I will sleep on it and decide whether I want to go digging into the book crawlspaces (yes, crawlspaces as in plural) Arivia has issued a correction as of 23:49 on May 28, 2020 |
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May 28, 2020 23:47
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I'm not sure Indira Gandhi was that right wing, espescially in comparison with what came after. She's one of the primary hate targets of the extreme right wing party in power in India today.
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May 29, 2020 00:03
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mila kunis posted:I'm not sure Indira Gandhi was that right wing, espescially in comparison with what came after. She's one of the primary hate targets of the extreme right wing party in power in India today. all that tells me is that Indians are smarter than Americans, because Ronald Reagan is still regarded as a hero to the American right.
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May 29, 2020 00:46
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