tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-109704282024-03-18T03:00:04.123+00:00ResoluteReaderOne man's odyssey through the world of booksResolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.comBlogger1444125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-56571551544852830042024-03-17T22:41:00.001+00:002024-03-17T22:41:38.753+00:00Seishi Yokomizo - Death on Gokumon IslandSeishi Yokomizo's Death on Gokumon Island is the second outing for his famous detective Kosuke Kindaichi (though oddly in the English translations its the fourth book published). Kosuke is returning from his military service during World War Two in the Japanese army when his friend Chimata Kito dies on the repatriation ship. Chimata entrusts Kosuke to return to bring the news to his wealthy Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-39532046427812174472024-03-17T11:14:00.002+00:002024-03-17T11:14:23.049+00:00Donny Gluckstein & Janey Stone - The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, resistance fighters & firebrandsThe introduction to Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone's important new book locates the work exactly in contemporary debates. They make the point that there are two views of Jewish history, the "lachrymose" one (yes, I had to look it up too, it means 'sad or mournful') and one that celebrates the struggles and contributions of Jewish people to the fight for liberation and freedom. In the first, Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-2286267466459224032024-03-12T18:17:00.000+00:002024-03-12T18:17:00.172+00:00Clark C. Spence - Montana: A HistoryThe States and the Nation series was a collection of books commissioned to mark the bicentennial of the United States. There were 51 in total, one for each state plus one for the District of Columbia. They were intended to be a lasting account of the states, but not comprehensive, rather a "summing up" of the history. Clark C. Spence's account of Monata is very much a summing up. Readers will Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-71115705517479364602024-03-11T17:16:00.003+00:002024-03-11T17:16:57.161+00:00A.B. Guthrie, Jr - The Big SkyThe Big Sky is part of a loose trilogy of books that A.B.Guthrie wrote about the opening up of the American West by European colonists and descendents. It follows the adventures of Boone Caudill, who runs away from his violent and abusive father at the age of 17 and makes his way to the frontier where he becomes a trapper. Attracted by the romaticism and the adventure, Caudill goes through a Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-25357406897889747692024-02-29T20:11:00.005+00:002024-02-29T20:15:57.763+00:00Landworkers' Alliance - With the LandThe Landworkers' Alliance (LWA) is a British based union that links small producers, farmers, landworkers and others to fight for a more sustainable, equitable and healthy food and land system. With the Land is a fascinating book that marks the first decade of the LWA's work, It is first and foremost a celebration of the ideas behind the LWA, the work of its members as well as a discussion about Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-82246036794280450712024-02-27T19:10:00.004+00:002024-02-27T22:04:41.048+00:00Kohei Saito - Slow Down: How degrowth Communism can save the EarthKohei Saito is one of the key figures on the left who are exploring and developing ecological thinking through the lens of Karl Marx's ideas. Saito's book Karl Marx's Ecosocialism deservedly won the Deutscher Prize for its exploration of Marx's ecology through his notebooks. His book Marx and the Anthropocene examined what Saito has dubbed Marx's "Degrowth Communism" and has been much discussed. Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-24661456779627272342024-02-25T14:27:00.001+00:002024-02-25T14:27:41.299+00:00Adrian Tchaikovsky - IroncladsIn the not to distant future, US troops use the British Isles as a jumping off point to fight a violent, internecine war on the European landmass. It is a savage conflict, with high tech hiding a brutal reality. Ordinary troops die, or are maimed in their thousands, while an elite officer class sit safe in their 21st century armoured "scion" skins, directing and effectively playing at being Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-63596683842406163762024-02-23T17:38:00.001+00:002024-02-23T17:38:06.602+00:00Hal Draper - The Dictatorship of the Proletariat from Marx to LeninIn preparation for writing my book Socialism or Extinction I read all five volumes of Hal Draper's books on Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution. It was an exciting and informative experience and links to reviews of each volume can be found below. For each book I was struck by how Draper's deep grasp of the material allowed him to draw out the revolutionary heart to Marx's ideas and give fresh Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-86087267611576019702024-02-22T17:14:00.001+00:002024-02-22T17:14:00.137+00:00Arthur Ransome - Great NorthernRereading Arthur Ransome's Great Northern led me to decide that it is perhaps the finest of the Swallows and Amazons stories. Yet when I read these books as a child I was not that found of it. Looking back I think that this is due to the tense final few chapters, when the Swallows, Amazons and Dick and Dorothy are pursued by multiple enemies as they seek to protect the titular birds. It is much Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-72759790189605732572024-02-16T19:08:00.001+00:002024-02-16T19:08:32.338+00:00Kent Nerburn - Neither Wolf nor DogThis book begins with a phone call. Author and artist Kent Nerburn gets contacted by the grandaughter of an Native American elder, who wants him to write his story. Nerburn has already published several books that present the stories and memories of Native Americans who lived on the Red Lake Ojibwe reservation, and Dave Bald Eagle (Dan), a member of the Lakota, feels that Nerburn can deliverResolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-41212499545814776952024-02-13T20:53:00.001+00:002024-02-13T20:53:16.653+00:00Christopher Shaw - Liberalism and the Challenge of Climate ChangeChristopher Shaw opens his book by quoting from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2022 report, which argued that "fundamental changes" were needed to society's "underlying values, world views, ideologies, social structures, political and econommic systems and power relationships." Those of us who have spent the last few decades arguing that capitalism cannot solve the environmental Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-11471675759679790012024-02-12T21:34:00.004+00:002024-02-12T22:26:29.677+00:00Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding SweetgrassBraiding Sweetgrass is one of those books that defies easy categorisation. I picked it up expecting a book that distilled indigineous knowledge about plants, perhaps imaginging a discussion about what plants made for good food, medicine or had other benefits. The book definitely has this within it. But it has much more. It is also part autobiography, part reportage, part biological discussion. Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-53692043416034960502024-02-08T10:36:00.000+00:002024-02-08T10:36:01.528+00:00Sylvain Neuvel - Until the Last of Me*** Spoilers ***This is the second volume of Sylvain Neuvel's Take Them to the Stars trilogy. It is an alternate history of the 20th century, focusing on two groups of human like aliens that live among the wider population. For three thousand years they have fought each other. One group, the Kibsu, have tasked themselves with getting humanity to space so that they can escape Earth. These women, Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-35434813615168165282024-01-30T19:18:00.001+00:002024-01-30T19:18:06.929+00:00Kenneth Austin - The Jews and the ReformationThis is an engaging book about European Jews and the Reformation. It mostly examines how Jews were perceived and treated before, during and after the Reformation. Author Kenneth Austin begins with a survey of Jewish life before the great changes of the 16th century, and quickly moves into what the Reformation meant for Christians - he says that this frames how they thought about Jews. The Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-51540024376179996582024-01-28T20:46:00.003+00:002024-01-28T20:46:15.918+00:00Michael Collins - Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's JourneysMichael Collins was the third man on Apollo 11. He was the bloke that stayed in lunar orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin landed, and the one who was routinely described as the loneliest human in the universe for being the most isolated from other people. This biographical account of his life before Apollo 11, and the years afterward was published in the early 1970s. It is, by far, the best of the Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-28325729852328875582024-01-27T12:56:00.003+00:002024-01-27T12:56:38.949+00:00Sebastien de Castell - The Malevolent SevenRiffing off The Magnificent Seven, the The Malevolent Seven is a fantasy story of a group (coven) of mages who do quests for cash, violently protecting or attacking anyone who they are paid to. The narrator, mage Cade Ombra, opens by telling the reader that "real mages don't wear funny hats". Rather they are violent, angry and dirty killers for hire. There are few "long scraggly beards" here, andResolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-71366396216633419592024-01-24T20:00:00.001+00:002024-01-24T20:00:00.132+00:00William Morris - The Pilgrims of HopeThis little book is simultaneously a piece of art and a historical document. Of the 108 pages, just forty or so are given over to the piece of the title, William Morris' poem The Pilgrims of Hope. This, as Michael Rosen says in his introduction is a "fascinating piece of work" in which the author struggles to depict a contemporary class struggle through a long, descriptive poem. For someone like Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-63326340657443995302024-01-21T16:50:00.001+00:002024-01-21T16:50:33.996+00:00Liz Carlisle - Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in AmericaAhead of a trip to Montana I was intrigued to find Liz Carlisle's book Lentil Underground. Montana is known for it's agriculture, with thousands of farms farming almost 60 million acres of land. That farming is dominated by highly industrial agriculture, high in inputs likes fertiliser and pesticide, vulnerable to drought, and highly carbon intensive - while producing a huge percentage of Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-19500972278397294802024-01-19T20:00:00.001+00:002024-01-19T20:00:00.144+00:00Lee Child - Killing FloorA recent bout of sickness left me temporarily unable to concentrate on books, so I watched the first Reacher series. I chose it precisely because what it seemed to offer was what my brain needed - a strong story line, simple plot and plenty of bad guys being punched by the good guys. Having watched it, I decided to read the book it is based on, the first Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child, Killing Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-56217407451769168502024-01-15T20:00:00.002+00:002024-02-12T22:26:57.919+00:00Peter Cozzens - The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American WestIn 1869 General William Sherman, one of the Union Army's most successful Civil War commanders wrote to his brother Senator John Sherman, "The more I see of these Indians, the more I become convinced that they all have to be killed or be maintained as as species of paupers... Their attempts at civilisation are simply ridiculous". The irony of this statement, which serves as a summary of the Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-31029122098838444232024-01-14T15:56:00.003+00:002024-01-14T19:34:52.876+00:00Andrew Drummond - The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas MüntzerThomas Müntzer is one of the great, near forgotten heroes of the radical tradition. Karl Marx said that the German Peasant War, the struggle that Müntzer was to play a leading role in and give his life to, was "the most radical fact of German history". But today, as we approach the 500th anniversary of the start of that great rebellion, and indeed, the half millenium since the death of Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-65711099118974877952023-12-31T12:02:00.005+00:002023-12-31T12:02:50.329+00:00Seishi Yokomizo - The Inugami CurseSeishi Yokomizo published seventy-seven detective novels featuring his Japanese detective Kosuke Kindaichi. This is the second to be translated into English, though it is the fourth in the original order, Kindaichi is disheveled and slouching - more Colombo than Poirot. But like all great literaru detectives he saves up all the information in his head until one final piece clicks into place.The Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-10871855547571229072023-12-29T16:15:00.008+00:002023-12-29T16:15:52.393+00:00Reg Groves - The Strange Case of Victor GraysonVictor Grayson was a radical socialist who was elected in a stunning victory as an Independent Labour candidate for the Colne Valley in West Yorkshire in 1907. Today Grayson is barely remembered. If he is known it is more likely for his unexplained disappearance in 1920, rather than his politics. Over the years there have been several biographies of Grayson, which have tried to explain his life. Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-28458423627153633812023-12-28T16:38:00.003+00:002023-12-28T16:41:33.581+00:00Walter Klaassen - Michael Gaismair: Revolutionary and ReformerMichael Gaismair was one of the most significant radical thinkers and revolutionaries of the era of the Peasant War. In 1525, when the peasants rose up in South Tyrol, Gaismair was chosen as the movement’s leader. From then on, he fought to transform Tyrol into a radical Utopian society, based on equality framed by the “Word of God”. Despite his importance, Gaismair is not as well known as Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10970428.post-24842308315506571572023-12-27T19:37:00.002+00:002023-12-27T19:37:49.865+00:00Terry Pratchett - A Stroke of the PenThis collection of early stories by Terry Pratchett as been tracked down by fans from his early, anonymised stories, published in local newspapers in the 1970s. Reviewers, and Neil Gaiman in his introduction, have enthused about the detective tale about how they were tracked down, and emphasised how they demonstrate the younger Pratchett's developing talent for comedy fantasy.This is indeed true,Resolute Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05543167556221747469noreply@blogger.com0