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33% complete! Michael Steeves has read 8 of 24 books.
It Can't Happen Here is a semi-satirical American political novel published in 1935. It's Plot centers around newspaperman Doremus Jessup's …
The story is about Willie Stark, a slick politician of humble birth, who was based on real-life Huey Long, a …
The story is about Willie Stark, a slick politician of humble birth, who was based …
A work of fiction, but loosely based on the political career of Huey Long. Wikipedia talks about some of the themes in the book but for me the central question was the thread of if you can do good and make good works from bad means (or, "do the ends justify the means")?
The ultimate answer to this in the book is "not directly" -- Willie Stark fails in his primary goal of a hospital for all, but Jack Burden manages some level of "happily ever after" though not deliberately and more as an unlooked-for byproduct of pursuing a good goal through evil means.
It Can't Happen Here is a semi-satirical American political novel published in 1935. It's Plot centers around newspaperman Doremus Jessup's …
Everyone is familiar with the fall of the Roman Republic - Caesar crosses the Rubicon, becomes dictator for life, is murdered in the Ides of March and the in the ensuing civil war Octavian defeats Marc Anthony to become Augustus the first Roman Emperor.
Mike Duncan's book looks at the history of Rome in the years leading up to the Fall (146 - 78 BC) to try and answer the question of how Rome got to the point where Caesar was possible, and the answer is a combination of ambitious men who preyed on class, corruption, and Italian versus Roman fault lines to advance their careers, men who happily would shred the mos maiorum norms of Roman society to incite mob violence to further their ambitions. The penultimate leader, Sulla, ultimately set the stage for Caesar by showing how to use your legion as your own personal army to make …
Everyone is familiar with the fall of the Roman Republic - Caesar crosses the Rubicon, becomes dictator for life, is murdered in the Ides of March and the in the ensuing civil war Octavian defeats Marc Anthony to become Augustus the first Roman Emperor.
Mike Duncan's book looks at the history of Rome in the years leading up to the Fall (146 - 78 BC) to try and answer the question of how Rome got to the point where Caesar was possible, and the answer is a combination of ambitious men who preyed on class, corruption, and Italian versus Roman fault lines to advance their careers, men who happily would shred the mos maiorum norms of Roman society to incite mob violence to further their ambitions. The penultimate leader, Sulla, ultimately set the stage for Caesar by showing how to use your legion as your own personal army to make yourself dictator, while his attempts to restore and strengthen the Republic did nothing to address the underlying issues that provided the fault lines that were able to be exploited.
There's a lot to think about here in relation to US current events -- actions of our modern-day politicians that have more than a faint echo to the things that happened and the themes that are in this book.
In his second collection of stories, as in his first, Carver's characters are peripheral people--people without education, insight or prospects, …
In his second collection of stories, as in his first, Carver's characters are peripheral people--people …
This book is a collection of Carver short stories, including the titular "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". All of them feature some sort of loving relationship, usually breaking due to dysfunction (almost always helped along by toxic masculinity).
An OK read that went fairly fast (though because I didn't keep reading consistently I had a bit of a gap after the loan expired). I'm not really sure what it was trying to say other than "There's a lot of different ways to shoot yourself in the foot" though.
The story is about Willie Stark, a slick politician of humble birth, who was based on real-life Huey Long, a …
In his second collection of stories, as in his first, Carver's characters are peripheral people--people without education, insight or prospects, …
Sequel to "Wicked", featuring Liir. It starts right after the death of Elphaba, and the first half of the story is told in flashback as Liir is found in a coma and close to death. The second half then continues his story through to the birth of his daughter. The Wizard is gone, replaced first with Glinda, then with a Scarecrow (though it's never clear if it's the Scarecrow), then to the Emperor who is also an Apostle for the Unnamed God.
Most of the story concerns Liir's development from clueless kid that views himself as being completely at the whims of fate and completely insignificant and has no responsibility to anyone or any thing to someone who maybe isn't a central character in his story but is at least someone that has agency and responsibility for his own choices and actions.
Checked out.
The story is about Willie Stark, a slick politician of humble birth, who was based …
Checked out.
In his second collection of stories, as in his first, Carver's characters are peripheral people--people …
Checked out.
