Author: seanv2
-
Hamilton’s The Secret Race
The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France Tyler Hamilton This is one of the best book on the culture of pro-cycling. It’s also one of the best books on the mechanics of doping, especially, in endurance sports, and on the psychology and pressure that can lead a good kid far…
-
Goodwin’s Lords of the Horizon: A History of the Ottoman Empire
Lords of the Horizon: A History of the Ottoman Empire Jason Goodwin Jason Goodwin is perhaps best known as the author of a detective novel series set in Ottoman Istanbul and featuring eunuch detective named Yasim. I’ve read a couple of those books and enjoyed them enough to pick up his much more serious history…
-
Bolano’s Nazi Literature in the Americas
Nazi Literature of the Americas, Roberto Bolano The first book I read by Bolano and it got me hooked. Ostensibly, a review of literature written by various Latin American fascists, it is, like much of work, occasionally funny, slightly surreal, and in the end disturbing and brilliant. One of these vignettes was expanded into…
-
Raymond’s He Died With His Eyes Open
Dude, WTF did I read? He Died With His Eyes Open (Factory 1), Derek Raymond The first book in the Factory series of so called “exestensialist noir” following the nameless detective who works in the unsolved crimes division and sees the deepest underbelly of British society. In this book, he’s on the case of a…
-
Fishkoff’s The Rebbe’s Army
The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch, Sue Fishkoff “Excuse me sir, are you jewish?” If you live in New York and you look even remotely like an Ashkenazi jew, you’ve been asked this question. The people doing the asking are members Chabbad Lubavitcgh, the largest, most outwardly looking movement in Hasidic Judaism. This…
-
Steve Bannon: A Reading List
This site’s mostly archives now. I’m writing fresh things over at Substack — come say hi: www.miloandthecalf.substack.com There’s a lot of talk about Steve Bannon being the intellectual force behind the Trump administration. With Harvard Business School and Goldman Sachs on his resume, he’s certainly a smart guy. He’s also profoundly dangerous if you…
-
Poundstone’s Prisoner’s Dilemma
Prisoner’s Dilemma: John von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb William Poundstone Part biography of the genius John Von Neumann, part story of the development of game theory, and part history of the relationship between the academy and the defense department in the cold war era, this book (and everything else Poundstone…
-
Your Occasional Stoic — Only Children Fear Death
How quickly all things disappear, our bodies lost, in time even the memory of them will disappear, what is the nature of the things we experience, and particularly those which attract with the bait of pleasure or terrify by pain? How worthless, contemptible, sordid, perishable, and dead they are — all this is part…
-
The BQ(Q) – Stephen
Name Stephen Sex: Male Age (at the time of first BQ): 30 Height: 5’6″ Weight (at the time of first BQ): 135 lbs At which marathon did you get your first BQ? Indy monumental Tell us a little about the race. Flat and fast race in November. Weather is usually very good and race is…
-
My Idiosyncratic Guide to Books on Postwar Fascism
I’m a little puzzled myself at how many books on post-war fascism I’ve read. What’s the allure? Perhaps its a fear that these ideas, which never went away, would one day resurface into the mainstream? Perhaps its trying to grapple with how anyone can be filled with this kind of hate and paranoia? However you…
Milo and the Calf 