Whenever you finish a book, post it here

[Grow Bag]

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book set in Russia during the Middle Ages. The book, which is about the life of healer and ascetic Arseny, covered themes such as temporality, prophecy, holy fools and redemption. Recommended as a good read, especially for the Orthodox among us.

 

[cosine]

Diversity and Exclusion by Lindsay Shephard.

As a TA in a Canadian grad school she airs a Jordan Peterson clip debating a pro-Trans activist about the whole pronouns thing. It's a Communications class. She gets reprimanded and ends up battling the university administration. Lindsay is very liberal, but to the Inquisition even the slightest whiff of nonconformity is penalized aggressively. It was nice to see the whole story fleshed out, although all the fallout is rather predictable and shouldn't be surprising to anyone here.

 

[BasedStefan]

I finished "The Retro Future" By John Micheal Greer.

The Topics disused in the the Book our; Revival of old technology, The search for progress, Steampunk, Consumerism, The roads that lead to a post-peak, post-decline (collapse) world and peak oil. Greer is not blackpilled about the world that we are entering, but looking for small ways that people can keep civilization alive with older forms of technology. Greer goes in to some criticism of Christianity from a secular perspective Greer himself is a Druid, but also gives Christians like Issac Newton credit for their discoveries. This is the second Greer Book I've read, the first being "Dark Age America". Greer notices the faultine's in the technological over socialized west and presented alternatives to be a cushion to land on as decline happens over the next few decades. John Micheal Greer could be viewed as one of the four horseman of Collapse next to Oswald Spengler and Dmitry Orlov. it's a solid read for anyone who reads about Collapse.

 

[Grow Bag]

I finished "The Retro Future" By John Micheal Greer.

The Topics disused in the the Book our; Revival of old technology, The search for progress, Steampunk, Consumerism, The roads that lead to a post-peak, post-decline (collapse) world and peak oil. Greer is not blackpilled about the world that we are entering, but looking for small ways that people can keep civilization alive with older forms of technology. Greer goes in to some criticism of Christianity from a secular perspective Greer himself is a Druid, but also gives Christians like Issac Newton credit for their discoveries. This is the second Greer Book I've read, the first being "Dark Age America". Greer notices the faultine's in the technological over socialized west and presented alternatives to be a cushion to land on as decline happens over the next few decades. John Micheal Greer could be viewed as one of the four horseman of Collapse next to Oswald Spengler and Dmitry Orlov. it's a solid read for anyone who reads about Collapse.

I occasionally listen to JM Greer, but his self-assured tone is a bit annoying. The same can be said for Orlov, who is probably more intelligent than Greer, but rarely admits he's wrong. This lack of humility does seem to be huge character flaw of those of 130+ IQ. I was listening to Keith Wood pontificate on the Great Reset, never once mentioning he's sorry for calling those who called out the Convid narrative as conspiritards. Pride is the greatest of the 7 deadly sins, being as it blinds us from the rest of our imperfections and estranges us from God.

All that said, these people have a lot of good things to say and are worth listening to.

 

[AdveniatRegnumTuum]

I finished "Interventions 2020" by Houllebecq. Easily my favourite contemporary author. He captures postmodern life like none other.

 

[Viktor Zeegelaar]

It's funny when I was in my red pill days before I came to get the grace of Christ, the Father and the Holy Spirit I would read a lot. Now I do not have any need or hunger to read any more book after my Orthodox study bible. Everything one needs to know about history, the now, the future, yourself, how to live and the purpose of life is in there

 

[powertower]

I just finished No Colours or Crest by Peter Kemp.

Kemp fought for the nationalists in the Spanish Civil War then for his home country of Great Britain in WWII. I preferred Mine Were of Trouble (his book on the SPanish Civil War) but mostly because the communists didn't win at the end. Kemp was deployed as a commando in the Balkans and then in Poland but places where the non-communist resistance (who did most of the heavy lifting) was sold out at the end of the war.

Great book which described the hardship of war and what's at stake if a cultural revolution ever kicks off in America. The communists were outclassed at the tactical level, but in the Balkans they just built their power and hoarded supplies meant to kill Nazis and used them to kill their countrymen after the war was over.

Next up is his third book ALms for Oblivion.

 

[Jünger]

Review here:

REVIEW: No Colours or Crest – Peter Kemp (1958; Mystery Grove Publishing, 2020) - The Pillarist

From the frozen barracks in northern England and the stony shores of France, to the treacherous mountains of Albania and the snowy tracts of Poland: No Colours or Crest details Kemp’s assignments as part-Commando, part-insurgent across the fields of some of World War II’s least-talked about regions.

thepillarist.com

 

[JayR]

"The Bitcoin Standard" by Saifedean Ammous. Doesn't give you any practical information about how to get or use or invest in bitcoin, but provides a fascinating history of money that helps you understand why Bitcoin and blockchain is such an important, potentially disruptive invention.

 

[augustinus]

Last book I finished, although not really a book per se, was the Captivity Narrative of Mary Rowlandson. Interesting perspective into colonial life with an ardently Christian bend. Even though the author was a Puritan it still provides some solid exemplary work at integrating faith with personal experience and helping to see the work of God in everything. It also had a great deal of detail into the savagery of the colonial frontier, echoes of which can be heard now albeit different in more ways than one. Good read nonetheless, a burden to get through at sometimes due to the archaic English though.

Saw some good books over at the Unz I might move on to next, most are available on Amazon. I'll admit that I'm not sure about the ethics of buying something from the big Globohomo though, even if it is for personal benefit.

 

[augustinus]

Finished reading through a collection of T.S. Eliot's poems. I can't say I got much out of them, but there is a sort of sickening or demented feeling that comes after reading them. Can't say I've experienced this in the past, but I would compare it to a sort of despairing influence. I found it to be the most severe with "The Waste Land." Not really sure how to explain it, but can't say I honestly feel like touching any of Eliot's work in the future. Appears to be a waste of time.

Pax Christi.

 

[iop890]

Two Paths by Michael Whelton

Puts forward a pretty strong case and isn't just an out-of-context quote mine. Quick, easy read too. I'd recommend it for inquirers. Thanks to @MichaelWitcoff for the recommendation.

After a lot of reading I'm pretty much set on Orthodoxy. Now maybe I can actually start moving forward, and also read more saints and church fathers instead of endless apologetics and opposing quote mines. Just ordered a few books from St. Theophan the Recluse.

 

[MichaelWitcoff]

Just re-read "On The Incarnation" by St. Athanasius. Short, powerful, edifying read.

 

[Grow Bag]

Just finished the second book in the Emigrants series, Unto a Good Land by Vilhelm Moberg. Moberg is no Knut Hamsun, but he did a lot of research into the early Swedish settlers in the US and these books give an accurate account of life of the Swedes of Minnesota. Just started on book 3 The Settlers.

 

[Cervantes]

I recently finished re-reading George Orwell's 1984.

It was a very formative book for me when I read it the first time in high school, and I kept the old copy that I read back then.

It doesn't hold up nearly as well as I remember.

Some of it is still excellent. Orwell predicts a lot about the world we live in today: constant surveillance, the control of media, the obsession of the state on policing what people think much more than what they do, the interest the state has in controlling the middle classes and relative lack of concern with what the working classes think and do.

Some of it is a combination of comical and sad when you consider that in many aspects our world is way worse than what is depicted in 1984: children are still raised in families, there is no sexual degeneracy (no gay stuff). Even the people described as being the dumbest and most insufferable are depicted as more intelligent than the average modern person. No diversity.

The totalitarian state depicted is willing to kill and torture anyone to hold on to power. It is at worst uncaring about the welfare of the people, but on the other hand it does not appear to actively hate them as our government does.

The part that was most disappointing is the degenerate framing of the moral challenge: Winston hates the government mostly because it infringes on his personal freedom. When he rebels against the party it is to do something very boomery: to have a sterile affair with a young woman.

In many ways this book fits in perfectly with the trajectory of western decline as it was in the 1940s: no defense of, or even appreciation of God, family or children. Every single reference to family life is negative. The "good guys" are simply oppressed modernists who want the freedom the have casual sex, travel and consume.

Its an easy read and worth the investment of a few hours, but it is by no means a critical read.

 

[stugatz]

I just finished the abridged version (817 pages) of Stephen King's The Stand. I began reading it last year when this Chinavirus hysteria kicked off, and had to restart it twice. (When you have no job and have no motivation to be productive, reading is hard to do!)

This is my third time reading it - I read the unabridged 1150 page version while abroad in 2015, and read the abridged one previous time in junior year of high school. Because I'm currently looking for work and falling in love with this book all over again, I decided to do something loopy - I'm going to read the unabridged as a follow-up. I want to see what the differences are side-by-side.

(Before his writing went downhill in the late 1990s, King really was a good pulp writer, if a little degenerate at times. It's a shame he's gone so nuts these days, but I'd go crazy too if I was as rich and isolated as he was...he hasn't been relevant in years, and he knows it.)

 

[unit414]

...he hasn't been relevant in years, and he knows it.)

Hey, keep me out of this conversation

 

[stugatz]

Hey, keep me out of this conversation

Nice to see you join the team Stephen King, you should go back to writing short stories again. Those were better than any of your books.

 

[MichaelWitcoff]

Almost done with “War And The Bible” by St. Nikolai Velimirovich. It’s very good, though presented through the odd vehicle of “what he heard from a friend on a boat ride” that I suspect is just a literary device, and full of examples from Scripture and the modern world demonstrating how, when, and why God chooses who wins and loses in war.

 

[MRAll134]

I just finished the abridged version (817 pages) of Stephen King's The Stand.

I read this way back in my teens, when I was super focused on everything Stephen King. I liked the 1990s Mick Garris version of "The Stand," a TV mini-series; it is worth a watch. Still, I want to see the new version (2020-21) with two seasons. Only Amazon Prime has it for Canada, so will have to take the dive - sooner rather than later.