{"id":6913,"date":"2011-08-19T02:29:57","date_gmt":"2011-08-19T09:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=6913"},"modified":"2011-08-19T02:29:57","modified_gmt":"2011-08-19T09:29:57","slug":"good-reading-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/19\/good-reading-roundup\/","title":{"rendered":"Good reading roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, not exactly a roundup because we’re talking only two books here. But two good ones.<\/p>\n

First, we’ve got three new segments of Jake MacGregor’s novel The Advisor<\/i> this week, beginning with Chapter 29<\/a>. We’re reaching the point where a few mysteries are starting to be resolved. (Always like that part of a book — especially when the author has been so artfully, maddeningly withholding in the early going.)<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

The second book, I want to mention before I have to send it back to the library. I’ve been conniving to keep this little volume in my hands much longer than the library usually allows because it’s so full of voice-of-experience observation about hard times.<\/p>\n

I’m talking about Dmitry Orlov’s Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Experience and American Prospects<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don’t think I’ve ever crammed one tiny book so full of bits of torn paper to mark passages that are quotable, startling, funny, or useful.<\/p>\n

You may remember Orlov<\/a> from 2005 or so when he predicted that the U.S. was heading for a Soviet-style collapse. He was in a position to know, having lived in the U.S. for many years but also having watched the USSR’s disintegration up close and personal. A blog reader (thank you, J) reminded me about Orlov earlier this summer.<\/p>\n

This book is the continuation of his original observations — now that the house of cards has begun to fall.<\/p>\n

Orlov is no libertarian and certainly no anarcho-anything. (He’s all for universal health care, for one thing.) But he is a sharp observer and often a scathingly witty writer. He compares the U.S. and Soviet systems, explains their shaky similarities, but also points out key differences.<\/p>\n

Differences that don’t work in our favor in hard times.<\/p>\n

In short (to paraphrase, and I hope not misinterpret) Orlov says the U.S. will suffer more from its collapse because … well, read the book and see. I can’t do him justice in a few paragraphs.<\/p>\n

You almost certainly won’t agree with every word he writes. But it’s a fun read despite its subject, and there’s a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, not exactly a roundup because we’re talking only two books here. But two good ones. First, we’ve got three new segments of Jake MacGregor’s novel The Advisor this week, beginning with Chapter 29. We’re reaching the point where a few mysteries are starting to be resolved. (Always like that part of a book — especially when the author has been so artfully, maddeningly withholding in the early going.) —– The second book, I want to mention before I have to send it back to the library. I’ve been conniving to keep this little volume in my hands much longer…<\/p>\n

Continue readingGood reading roundup<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-and-movies","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}