What are you reading?

[ich1990]

“The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli

It is in vogue for American politicians to claim that their political and military strategy was inspired by “The Prince” or that we should let the principles of “The Prince” guide our nation (a humorous statement, by the way, considering how it recommends that those subservient be beat into submission like wives). Having read “The Prince”, I can only assume they mean we should apply one of a handful of Machiavelli's pithy maxims, such as “it is better to be feared than to be respected”, to our country because that is about the only thing that could conceivably be transferable to our political climate. Machiavelli didn't write this treatise for democracies, and any attempt to make it fit one would likely make him squirm in his grave.

“The Prince” is instead written for (and derived from numerous examples of) small principalities ruled by a monarchy or dictatorship. Looking at it from that context, it is quite brilliantly written and well supported by (admittedly cherry picked) historical examples. I could see the “The Prince's” strategy working well for the time period it was written for, or maybe even modern day Cuba or a similar country. Let's just get rid of this foolishness about America needing to be “Machiavellian towards its enemies”, whatever that means. 8/10

[bigsleepj]

I've actually heard that the The Prince was never meant to be taken seriously, and that it was actually meant to be sarcastic. But that's just what I've heard. *whistle*

[ich1990]

I've actually heard that the The Prince was never meant to be taken seriously, and that it was actually meant to be sarcastic. But that's just what I've heard. *whistle*

Hm. It is possible, I suppose. Given his life at the time (jobless and financially ruined) and that he sent this off to someone who could possibly employ him, and I would be inclined to think otherwise. If it was a satire, though, then props to Machiavelli, because he played that one straight.

[FllMtl Novelist]

On a sudden whim, I read The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde today. Unexpectedly funny. XD

[Htom Sirveaux]

Reading Terry Pratchett's The Last Hero. This one is written with younger audiences in mind. It's large, it's relatively short, it's chock-fulla' excellent artwork by Paul Kidby. It reminds me of the big, hardbound, full-color-pictures copy of The Hobbit that my mom read to my sister and me when we were little.
Despite being written in a more kid-friendly style, it's certainly no less entertaining than any regular Discworld novel.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I owe CAA a debt of gratitude for introducing me to Discworld.

[Nami]

Magickeepers; The Pyramid of Souls. This is for younger youth, but still, VERY enjoyable. I love all the twists. The storyline is good and it keeps you interested, written by; Erica Kirov.

Also, a few months back I read all (and I do mean all) the Artemis Fowl books, wonderful books! I can't wait to get my hands on the latest one!

Young Samurai: The Way of the Sword- Chris Bradford. THIS BOOK WILL STUN YOU! There are so many epic moments! I adore this book and look forward to the two coming after it! If you don't know much about Samurai, you will learn amazing things through this book.

Oh and James Patterson is an instant fav to me with his Maximum Ride books! Absolutely amazing!! ^^ I almost always have new books at my bedside XD

[bigsleepj]

Hm. It is possible, I suppose. Given his life at the time (jobless and financially ruined) and that he sent this off to someone who could possibly employ him, and I would be inclined to think otherwise. If it was a satire, though, then props to Machiavelli, because he played that one straight.

Although all this is third-hand knowledge, the best reason I heard to believe the bit about satire is because (according to those who read them) most of Machiavelli's other writing written both before and during the period contradicts the politics and philosophies of The Prince several times.

Here is also a quote from the Wikipedia. Some people seem to believe that it was indeed very subversive:

There is "a widely held ... view of The Prince, namely, that the book is, first and foremost, a satire, so that many of the things we find in it which are morally absurd, specious, and contradictory, are there quite deliberately in order to ridicule ... the very notion of tyrannical rule ... (hence, the satire has a firm moral purpose -- to expose tyranny and promote republican government)."[9] According to Hans Baron (1961, p. 299),[10] Machiavelli's motive in writing The Prince was "to entice Lorenzo de Medici to commit the suggested crimes so as to reap the Florentines' harsh judgement sooner." Mary Deitz (1986)[11] writes that Machiavelli's agenda was ... "offering carefully crafted advice (such as arming the people) designed to undo the ruler if taken seriously and followed."

In The Social Contract, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said: "Machiavelli was a proper man and a good citizen]

Diderot also thought it was a satire. In fact it appears to have been the mainstream view (perhaps adopted from Spinoza) of the Enlightenment philosophes.

[Silent Seraph]

I'm reading the "Night Angel" trilogy by Brent Weeks and "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. It's the first in a trilogy, and the second books comes out soon, I hear. Just started "Night Angel", but "The Name of the Wind" is pretty awesome so far.

I LOVE BRENT WEEKS!!!! After you're done with the NA trilogy are you planning on starting the Lightbringer Series (The Black Prism)?

[Atria35]

Finished Turn of the Screw and just finished The Clockwork Angel, book one in the Mortal Instruments trilogy. Very intriguing. I'm following up with book 2 in the series.

[Blacklight]

and just finished The Clockwork Angel, book one in the Mortal Instruments trilogy. Very intriguing. I'm following up with book 2 in the series.

I'd heard about this, and was considering reading it. Is it worth it?

Got The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the library; going to be reading some more classics from now on. Not exclusively, but I'll be reading more.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

bigsleepj, I've yet to read A Canticle for Leibowitz. It sounds like a very interesting book.

I'm currently reading The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker.

[rocklobster]

I posted a review of Every Soul a Star in a separate thread. I am now starting the Guardians of Gahoole series.

[the_wolfs_howl]

I'm almost halfway through Assassin's Apprentice now, and am loving it as much as I did when I first picked it up. Ahhh, I've missed really good fantasy like this! ^_^

I've also started reading One Thousand Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which is...weird. Just...weird. I don't really know what to think of it, or whether to be disgusted or amused...yeah. I'm just reading for school and hoping somewhere along the line I'll get the point to it all :/

[Htom Sirveaux]

Eats, Shites & Leaves, by "A. Parody".
Great book. The perfect companion to Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

[Htom Sirveaux]

Edit: OK, what the crap. Thought I was editing that last post. Well, surfing the Net on a PS3 at nearly 1 in the morning gets you just this kind of thing.
Would a moderator kindly delete this post?

[ich1990]

“Paradise Regainedâ€

[Atria35]

Just finished Bewitching Season, and indifferent teen over-dramatic love story with some magic thrown in. I was totally indifferent until nearly at the end of the book the main character went "Well, I know that my governness was kidnapped, and her life may be in danger, but REALLY checking up on her family is such a chore and interrupts my big plans of running away, completely abandoning my kidnapped governness who I essentially haven't given a crap about for the vast majority of this book!" Then I hated my friend who recommended this drivel to me.

Starting on Ship Breaker, a post-apocalyptic book about.... I'm not sure yet.

[rocklobster]

Started Dark River, second book in the Warriors: Power of Three arc.

[bigsleepj]

I finished A Canticle for Leibowitz. It was a great book and it will haunt me for the rest of my life, but it is extremely depressing.

[Nami]

Museum of Thieves- oh but this is a good book!~ So far, its about this city called; Jewel, which apparently, they use "guardian chains" to attach their kids to parents/Guardians (who by the way, don't deserve the names like; Hope and Comfort; ) until they are 12-it used to be older apparently-anyway, The ceremony gets canceled, dun dun dun, and apparently if a child runs away its punishable, the parents will be sent to this repentance prison and their things will be taken away. The little girl who's name is Goldie (hehe) ends up in a mysterious museum. Really, quite interesting, making me think of The Chrestomanci series.

Written by Lian Tanner, this book. ^^ She's really good.

[rocklobster]

Reading The Burning Stone, book three of Crown of Stars.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Just finished The Bone Collector by Ted Dekker, this morning. Now onto Immanuel's Veins.

[FllMtl Novelist]

Just started reading Circle of Magic book 1: Sandry's Book, by Tamora Pierce. I hope I don't lose focus and wander off like I've done with plenty other books... XD

[Atria35]

Just started reading Circle of Magic book 1: Sandry's Book, by Tamora Pierce. I hope I don't lose focus and wander off like I've done with plenty other books... XD

I hope you don't either- that's a great series!

[rocklobster]

Word of warning: Tamora Pierce is a fierce left-winger and let's just say she loves making her characters swing certain ways...

[Atria35]

Word of warning: Tamora Pierce is a fierce left-winger and let's just say she loves making her characters swing certain ways...

[spoiler]For this group of characters you don't encounter any homosexual characters or even find out the one main and two others that swing the other way until the 9th book in the series.[/spoiler]That's not loving to make her characters swing certain ways. The same goes for her other series- there's usually only one character that does, which is a fairly realistic proportion.

[rocklobster]

ok, I guess "has a tendency" is a better way to put it.

[Atria35]

ok, I guess "has a tendency" is a better way to put it.

I would still argue that means that there's a higher than normal proportion of her characters that are homosexual, when that isn't the case. Most of her books only have 1 homosexual character, usually a minor character, and they don't usually appear (or their sexual tendencies aren't known at that point) in all of the books.

So I think that the best warning would be to say that this author occasionally has a homosexual charcter (but they're never main characters)

Because honestly, while there might be one homosexual character in one book of one of her series, every series I've read of hers except The Magic Circle series has blatant-straight-sexual content. Usually in more than one of the books. Either heavily implied or outright stated (but never crossing into graphic porn context). THAT'S far worse, IMHO.

[MomentOfInertia]

I just finished And Another Thing… Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy part six of three.

It was very good. "Froody" even.

A excellent continuation of the series.

[FllMtl Novelist]

@Atria and Rock: Thanks for the heads-up guys, but I'm fine. My Mom is also reading the series and is a few books ahead of me (I sometimes read what she reads, and vice versa), and we've talked about Pierce's stuff before, so I know about content. Thanks, though. ^^

(And sorry I was slow replying! Thanks again~)