Blog in use once again HMTP to be revised soon

This is to announce that the readers of this blog can expect to see more frequent postings in the future. I have been neglecting this forum for quite some time. I read some of the old postings had realize the value of keeping some kind of record of opinion here.

Current status. We are out of synch. R.M. is doing some exploratory reading. He is tackling Gene Wolfe's ENDANGERED SPECIES. Next he will be reading Gene Wolfe's PIRATE FREEDOM. I read this independently and think it is worthy of the attention on the full membership of the Fictionados. Lastly he will be reading John Calvin Batchelor's THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF ANTARCTICA, one of the few unread survivors of the Great Purge.

I am trying to complete 1948, by Benny Morris. After that I will be moving on to Gene Wolfe's HOME FIRES, a book that R.M. read accidentally when he was supposed to be reading something else.

The HMTP is, of course, now out of synch. The reading now being done will necessitate a revision of the list. It will be updated soon after we decide what is to be the new priority. The update will reflect the status of the reading list after we have resynched.

D.E.

Word Counts GALILEO WAS WRONG Tops New List

Update 05/01/10

Since we are currently reading a very weighty tome, I decided it was time to calculate just how long this book, THE GLORY AND THE DREAM, really is. I will also calculate some other books for comparison. The Method: [Number of Pages] x [Lines per page] x [Words per line] = Total words. The number of pages does not include the index, but does include all appendixes. Words per page are calculated by (1) Counting the number of lines per page. (2) Finding the average number of words per line by counting at least 100 words and dividing that number by the number of lines containing those 100+ words. (3) The calculated number should be considered a maximum (+ zero, - 5%). It does not try to account for illustrations, chapter breaks. I do try to choose a representative page when I count the 100 words. For example, Gene Wolfe utilizes a lot of dialog in his fiction. And since many of the conversations contain short sentences I try to include them in the count so as not to overestimate too greatly. This also means, that for books containing a lot of prose, like a Manchester or Churchill, I will look for a page that is typical for that type of work. The results indicate that not only is THE GLORY AND THE DREAM the longest (mundane) book we have read, it is the longest book we currently plan to read. Note that the King James Bible is the longest book I have ever read. An interesting thought is that we will be reading a THE GLORY AND THE DREAM in 3-5 months. Could we read the Bible that quickly?

Sungenis GALILEO WAS WRONG 905818 words
Kings James Bible - 788280 words. See King James Bible Statistics.
Manchester - Glory and the Dream - 1302 pages / 744449 words
Tolkein - Lord of the Rings - 1191 / 652965
Calvin - Institutes - 1521 / 648084
Wolfe - Book of the Long Sun - 1450 / 581318
Rothbard - Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought - 1039 / 523656
Wolfe - Book of the New Sun - 950 / 503737
Churchill - Memoirs of the Second World War - 1016 / 489021
Rothbard - Man Economy and State - 1369 / 479150
Shirrer - Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - 1147 / 461719
Durant - Reformation - 940 / 451826
Manchester - Last Lion - 883 / 436005
Manchester - Arms of Krupp - 833 / 427606
von Mises - Human Action - 881 / 419355
Brown - In the Beginning - 432 / 404509
Tooze - Wages of Destruction - 676 / 268912
Black - IBM and the Holocaust - 454 / 198700
Wolfe - An Evil Guest - 301 / 127444

Is there a one million word book out there? We should read it.

Update 04/24/09 I did a little research. Apparantly there is a 17 million word novel listed on Wikipedia. Many of these books listed are series. I have only included books that I consider to be one book or novel, even though some are spread over more than one volume; such a LOTR and TBNS.

Here is one man's list of some very long books. The quest is on for the mangest tome on the planet.

HMTP Synchronicity

I haven't posted anything in a good long while, but now its time to get back on the horse. I have been doing a lot of exploratory reading lately. I do this often and sometimes the books find their way into the HMTP; but only after months of delay. I have been reading a book on GEOCENTRISM, and while it may sound like a waste of time, it has proved to be anything but. Books like this make it difficult to avoid becoming conspiratorial, when it comes to anything scientific or even religious.

So the HMTP has changed again. This time, though, more than one cause produced the effect. For one, we are faced with acquisition problems. Money is tight these days and the books we need are expensive, or scarce, so availability is a problem. The PPLD does not have the Geocentrism book and the Austrian Economics book had to be obtained through interlibrary loan. So, for two of the books we want to read, we only had one copy of each. Second, I read one of the books already and Rick finished the other. This makes for a disjointed discussion. We prefer to be reading the same book at the same time. Third, the Geocentrism book was so eye opening that Rick wants to read it immediately.

These different issues affected the HMTP so badly that there is simply no way for us to be reading the same books at the same time for the next several months. We, therefore, had to resort to creating two temporary reading lists, posted at the bottom of the HMTP page, to focus our efforts so that by early next year we will be back in sync.

So the HMTP list that you see isn’t much more than a general guideline for the actual reading that will be going on with members of the group. It will, however, allow any hangers on to keep up with our progress.

1302 Page Milestone THE GLORY AND THE DREAM

Rick and I have both finished reading THE GLORY AND THE DREAM (TGATD) by William Manchester, his one thousand three hundred and two page opus on twentieth century American History. I am such a fan of Manchester that it required constant vigilance not to be seduced by his liberal slant. He can make the most egregious liberal policies seem beneficent. Having recently made the move to Austrian Economics, and not really understanding it at anything above the fundamental level, reading a Statist History was an exercise in caution. TGATD came out before the books that would cement his reputation for all time, namely THE LAST LION. I think that his political views became less overtly progressively later. In this book he wears his heart on his sleeve. For example, his brief portrait of Douglas MacArthur differs from his later extensive treatment in AMERICAN CAESAR. He went in to the MacArthur project as a hostile biographer but wrote a very sympathetic book. I would like to think that he came closer to reason later in life when he sets his gaze on the world forces that threaten America. Looking inward reveals too many warts and forces the writer to advance his agenda. I prefer to read Manchester when he is unequivocally on our side; when America is fighting for survival. Due to its brevity it lacks the depth of character that I have come to love in his biographies. Even at 750,000 words TGATD must be read as a mere glimpse of American life, and that with a pronounced liberal slant. But it filled in many gaps in my knowledge and for that I appreciate it.Nevertheless, Manchester's prose soars in many places.

Summer Doldrums

The beautiful Summer weather has kept me from making any updates. This, and he continuing reading of THE GLORY AND THE DREAM, now in hiatus in between months three and four of the Pay Paul system, make for a slow news cycle. We will be discussing Morgan's MARKET FORCES at the next meeting on July 25th.

THE STEEL REMAINS by Richard K. Morgan review

This Richard K. Morgan book is the opening volley of a trilogy. In it we are introduced to Ringil the Eskiath warrior; with some unseemly personal habits. But boy can he swing a sword. Ravensfriend, Ringil's sword, is of fine Kiriath steel, of which there are scant remains. He is the hero of Gallows Gap and the much vaunted blade slinger of his village. He is sent away on a mission by his mother, to rescue his cousin. This novel is the recounting of his mishaps along the way. The novel also tracks two other characters: Egar the Dragonbane, is one of Ringil's former comrades in arms and a leader of his clan. He has made one too many enemies, his brothers, and finds it best to leave when magical forces rescue him, by killing his brothers. The third member of Ringil's troika is Archeth, a female Kiriath half-breed. All are united in the end for a fending off of the dreaded Dwenda, a humanoid alien race of dimension jumping, half-crazed, would-be world conquerors.

This book is best during the action sequences, of which there are many. Morgan's forte is in recounting the violent exploits of his more misogynous characters such as Ringil, and Takeshi Kovacs. I found some of the early sequences so unfamiliar that I could not easily track the story. And it took me about half of the book to latch onto the plot. But once it got going it was quite good. It is difficult to judge this novel since it is clearly just the introduction to a broader story. My opinion of it will either be elevated by the sequels or lowered by them. I could recommend it to you if you like Sword-and-Sorcery books like Conan. But if you are looking for Tolkien, beware. This book is rated NC-17. So, as it stands after reading only the first, THE STEEL REMAINS gets an OPTCS rating of 65567.

Word Counts

Since we are currently reading a very weighty tome, I decided it was time to calculate just how long this book, THE GLORY AND THE DREAM, really is. I will also calculate some other books for comparison.

The Method:
[Number of Pages] x [Lines per page] x [Words per line] = Total words.

The number of pages does not include the index, but does include all appendixes.
Words per page are calculated by
(1) Counting the number of lines per page.
(2) Finding the average number of words per line by counting at least 100 words and dividing that number by the number of lines containing those 100+ words.
(3) The calculated number should be considered a maximum (+ zero, - 5%). It does not try to account for illustrations, chapter breaks. I do try to choose a representative page when I count the 100 words. For example, Gene Wolfe utilizes a lot of dialog in his fiction. And since many of the conversations contain short sentences I try to include them in the count so as not to overestimate too greatly. This also means, that for books containing a lot of prose, like a Manchester or Churchill, I will look for a page that is typical for that type of work.

The results indicate that not only is THE GLORY AND THE DREAM the longest (mundane) book we have read, it is the longest book we currently plan to read. Note that the King James Bible is the longest book I have ever read. An interesting thought is that we will be reading a THE GLORY AND THE DREAM in 3-5 months. Could we read the Bible that quickly?



Kings James Bible - 788280 words. See King James Bible Statistics.

Manchester - Glory and the Dream - 1302 pages / 744449 words

Tolkein - Lord of the Rings - 1191 / 652965

Calvin - Institutes - 1521 / 648084

Wolfe - Book of the Long Sun - 1450 / 581318

Rothbard - Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought - 1039 / 523656

Wolfe - Book of the New Sun - 950 / 503737

Churchill - Memoirs of the Second World War - 1016 / 489021

Rothbard - Man Economy and State - 1369 / 479150

Shirrer - Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - 1147 / 461719

Durant - Reformation - 940 / 451826

Manchester - Last Lion - 883 / 436005

Manchester - Arms of Krupp - 833 / 427606

von Mises - Human Action - 881 / 419355

Brown - In the Beginning - 432 / 404509

Tooze - Wages of Destruction - 676 / 268912

Black - IBM and the Holocaust - 454 / 198700

Wolfe - An Evil Guest - 301 / 127444

Is there a one million word book out there? We should read it.

Update 04/24/09
I did a little research. Apparantly there is a 17 million word novel listed on Wikipedia.
Many of these books listed are series. I have only included books that I consider to be one book or novel, even though some are spread over more than one volume; such a LOTR and TBNS.

Here is one man's list of some very long books. The quest is on for the mangest tome on the planet.

Austrian Curricula Approved

We have officially altered the HMTP to include several Austrian Economics books.

Austrian School of Economics Alters the HMTP

The Central Planning Committee has recently discovered Austrian Economics. We feel we need to play catch-up. As a result, the HMTP has been modified to include the Austrian Economics texts that we deem to bee most educational. I have posted the proposed additions as revision 8.8, but since this is a radical change, I have retained the post of revision 8.7 in case we decide we are not yet ready for such an aggressive program.

HMTP Updates & DEATHCLOCK

The HMTP has suffered a few afterchocks from the emergency caused by news of a local visit by author Thomas Woods. (1) As a result, the book MELTDOWN has been inserted right in the middle of THE GLORY AND THE DREAM Pay Paul schedule. (2) The two volume Murray N. Rothbard set on economics has also been added. It, too, will be read on a three-way-split Pay Paul schedule. Maybe we should call it a Pay Ron Paul system; since Ron Paul is of the Austrian school. (3) Lastly, since it took us longer to get through HERE I STAND and IN THE BEGINNING than anticipated, I have corrected the month-book alignment to make us match the current reality.

The HMTP now extends out to November 2017; still years away from the Deathclock limit. Speaking of which: there is another site whereby you can include 22 risk factors into your life expectancy date. I haven't done the math yet but it might be enlightening. Here is a diffenent take on death prediction that you may find amusing.

Murray N. Rothbard AUSTRIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT

Next to be added to the HMTP will be Murray N. Rothbard's two volume magum opus ECONOMIC THOUGHT BEFORE ADAM SMITH and CLASSICAL ECONOMICS. These represent his AUSTRIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT. The two volumes total 1084 pages.

They are now available free online, from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, in PDF form. This online version may prove a useful search tool, but I plan to read them in print form. The printed word causes me less eye strain, and I prefer the heft of a good book to a TFT screen any day. This is, however, a low cost option.

The hardback edition is only $47. And the leather edition is only $110.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute publishes many books on the subject of Free Market Economics. Look at their Ten Must Haves.

MELTDOWN by Thomas Woods

STOP THE PRESSES

We had already agreed to read MELTDOWN by Thomas Woods as a primer to the Austrian School of economics but had not settled on a date. Recent information has come to light that places the reading of this book into a high priority:

Author Thomas Woods is coming to town in early April.

This new development necessitates that we try to read the book before going to see him in person. This may be a seismic disturbance for the HMTP but I think the situation demands that we do this.

Update [03/17/09 9:05 am]:
Thomas Woods, of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, will be in Colorado Springs April 4th, at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort as part of a seminar titled, "The Great Depression: What We Can Learn From It Today;" sponsored by the Limited Government Forum of Colorado Springs. This event costs $75. I had been told that a lunch with Thomas Woods would be held on April 3rd, and that it was free, but my source may have had the wrong date. Stay tuned.

Click this link if you want to know more About Thomas Woods. He has a favorable view of the Roman Catholic influence on the free market.

Film at eleven.