The Antilibrary of the Living Dead

November 30th, 2012 by zen

Does America Need a Foreign Policy by Henry Kissinger

One of the more ironically-timed books ever written, coming out a mere six months before 9/11, I have had this one for 10 years + and I think I bought it in hardcover for $4 (you can it used on Amazon for one cent. Ouch!). I have read a fair amount of Kissinger, including his acromegalic, multi-volume memoirs, but I can’t muster the energy to read this one.

What are you not reading and why?

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Posted in #FAIL, Antilibrary Blog, authors, book, fun, historians, historiography, history, ideas, intellectuals, Musings | 8 comments

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  1. Pete:

    November 30th, 2012 at 5:34 am

    Shouldn’t Taleb have called it the Antelibrary instead of an Antilibrary? 

  2. Carl:

    December 1st, 2012 at 12:48 am

    Stop blogging and don’t resume until you have read ” Cpnquest”. It is brilliant book and excellently written. You don’t know what an epic story is until you have that book.

  3. Carl:

    December 1st, 2012 at 3:34 am

    I meant of course “Conquest”.

  4. LA:

    December 3rd, 2012 at 1:21 pm

    There is something to be said about the Taleb passage from The Black Swan. Maybe it seems old, or overly familiar after being passed around from John Robb, Jeff Vail, and Shlok Vaidya since early 2008.

  5. J. Scott Shipman:

    December 3rd, 2012 at 8:20 pm

    Learned Hand, by Gunther
    .
    Gladstone, by Roy Jenkins 
    .
    Swords Around the Throne, by Elting Not sure why. Elting is a good writer, his Amateurs at Arms was pretty good. 
    .
    A World at Arms, by Weinberg (read it to page 360 and change, twice—could never finish)
    .
    The Johnstown Flood, by McCullough — have had it for over 10 years and there never seems to be the right time.

  6. zen:

    December 4th, 2012 at 2:30 am

    “Shouldn’t Taleb have called it the Antelibrary instead of an Antilibrary? “
    .
    Probably, but as Taleb knows six or seven languages more than I do, I fear that if I corrected him he would then deliver a pun against me in old Syriac.
    . 
     “    You don’t know what an epic story is until you have that book.”
    .
    Considering the Iliad alone, you are setting a mighty high bar there, mister. 😉
     .
     “    There is something to be said about the Taleb passage from The Black Swan. Maybe it seems old, or overly familiar after being passed around from John Robb, Jeff Vail, and Shlok Vaidya since early 2008″
    .
    I know. I was one of the earliest of the passers. I find Taleb’s concept a useful device for discussing aspects of book collecting and intend to keep using it until something better arrives.
    .
     “    The Johnstown Flood, by McCullough — have had it for over 10 years and there never seems to be the right time.”
    .
    I will ask you about this one in 2022 

  7. Carl:

    December 8th, 2012 at 1:09 am

    It is a high bar, but Conquest is true.

  8. Eddie:

    December 9th, 2012 at 3:34 am

    Walden. A 2004 gift from my former best friend with her fieldwork notes all over it, a mix of budding entomologist wonder with insects & natural patterns & ruminations on Thoreau’s thoughts. One day I will grow up & read it.

    Scott- Seeing Like A State.

    Dorner. The Logic of Failure

    Kostof. The City Shaped / The City Assembled

    West. Black Lamb & Grey Falcon. 

    Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago.

    * I lived in Johnstown for a few years as a child.