Recommend books in this thread

[Corvid]

Any recommendations for books on maritime history? I've got a kick for it at the moment. Preferably stuff from after the steam turbine.

[oyakodon_khan]

I must recommend "Beasts, Men and Gods" by Ferdinand Ossendowski to anyone that hasn't read it.
It is both an adventure novel, a non-fiction wartime diary, and also one of the only first-hand accounts of Baron von Ungern.
A mystical experience and a fun read all the way through.

[Zmey]

The recommendation above reminded me of Peter Hopkirk's "Setting the East Ablaze". A significant part of it is also dedicated to von Ungern but it also covers the general struggle for power in the region in the period after the Bolshevik revolution. It talks about the clashes between the red and white armies in the Soviet Tashkent, the basmachi muslim resistance, and the Chinese and British involvement with the region's affairs. It is fun and easy to read whilst remaining faithful to its sources and an excellent analysis of events in one of the more important yet overlooked parts of the world.

[Reverend Moon Immortal]

I need someone to recommend me books on the Third Reich. About how the National Socialists were able to take power. Also just a book that would cover interesting developments at the time, recondite anecdotes that give the reader a fuller look into the personality of the Third Reich.

[Sanae]

I highly, highly recommend reading A Clockwork Orange. Aside from it being a pisstake on the degenerate youth of post-war Britain and on behaviouralism, its writing is among the most interesting I've seen in a novel. Throughout the novel, slang known as Nadsat is used casually; a weird mix of gypsy, Russian and Cockney slang. It's not introduced or anything, it is simply spoken like the book is from an alternate timeline and this is simply common vocabulary that developed organically. Initially it's totally foreign and you'll find yourself consulting the glossary at the back constantly. But then it clicks; you end up reading the book as if you've known Nadsat all your life. No other book I know of does this effect so well. It's absolutely brilliant.

[Spingebill]

I need someone to recommend me books on the Third Reich. About how the National Socialists were able to take power. Also just a book that would cover interesting developments at the time, recondite anecdotes that give the reader a fuller look into the personality of the Third Reich.

I recommend Rudolf Jung's National Socialism which details both the ideology and the men behind it, all the way from its humble origins in 1900s Austria to the rise of Hitler. As for anecdotes, here's a collection of essays by various SS members.

I figure now's a good time to shill Fren Library, a digital archive run by the FrensChan admins which is full of stuff like this.

[Zmey]

I need someone to recommend me books on the Third Reich. About how the National Socialists were able to take power. Also just a book that would cover interesting developments at the time, recondite anecdotes that give the reader a fuller look into the personality of the Third Reich.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is biased but thorough.

[Guest]

Anybody here read Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy? I'm about to finish it, thoughtful depiction of one of the most keyed points in Western history

[Spingebill]

Mike Ma - Gothic Violence

"Pretty good" is the best way I can think of to describe it. When he's not monologuing or self-inducing hallucinations through sleep deprivation, Mike Ma* and his Männerbund go on wacky adventures across the state of Florida. Though it still has his signature detached, all-over-the-place writing style, it's significantly more coherent and enjoyable than his last book.
The most important detail about this is that in the time between said last book and this one, judging by social media posts, he found a group of irl White friends who he could be racist with. This seems to have, unsurprisingly, greatly improved his outlook on life. Underpinning everything else in the whole book is this: When sensitive young men work together, it creates a force strong enough to shift the orbits of planets. Gothic Violence is about the Power of Friendship.
It's a short read, and while it is low-brow pulp fiction, it's worth remembering that Harry Potter and The Handmaid's Tale have had a greater effect on public policy than any non-fiction in the past decade.

That said, I very strongly do not recommend Harassment Architecture. It's nothing but Siegetard Tedpost doomer coal, and I felt like my time was wasted once I finished it. Though GV is the sequel, you don't lose anything narrative-wise by not reading HA.
So, just read Gothic Violence. I recommend it, it's pretty good.

*The main character is very clearly Ma's self-insert. Nothing wrong with that though, given the book's content.

[Verlion]

Mike Ma - Gothic Violence

"Pretty good" is the best way I can think of to describe it. When he's not monologuing or self-inducing hallucinations through sleep deprivation, Mike Ma* and his Männerbund go on wacky adventures across the state of Florida. Though it still has his signature detached, all-over-the-place writing style, it's significantly more coherent and enjoyable than his last book.
The most important detail about this is that in the time between said last book and this one, judging by social media posts, he found a group of irl White friends who he could be racist with. This seems to have, unsurprisingly, greatly improved his outlook on life. Underpinning everything else in the whole book is this: When sensitive young men work together, it creates a force strong enough to shift the orbits of planets. Gothic Violence is about the Power of Friendship.
It's a short read, and while it is low-brow pulp fiction, it's worth remembering that Harry Potter and The Handmaid's Tale have had a greater effect on public policy than any non-fiction in the past decade.

That said, I very strongly do not recommend Harassment Architecture. It's nothing but Siegetard Tedpost doomer coal, and I felt like my time was wasted once I finished it. Though GV is the sequel, you don't lose anything narrative-wise by not reading HA.
So, just read Gothic Violence. It's pretty good.

*The main character is very clearly Ma's self-insert. Nothing wrong with that though, given the book's content.

Thank you for this post. I've been put off by Ma from flipping through Harassment Architecture. Its non-quality should be expected however of something written in early 2019. I think we can all agree how fast everything in the "sphere" has matured. I myself remember exactly in 2019 when Kaczysnki and SIEGE were avant-garde. I do think if Ma wants to reach the Sensitive Young White Man, he should look into turning the book into a video game.
He should also change his surname so he stops sounding like a Chinaman.

[anthony]

I put down Harrassment Architecture because it opened with a backhanded apology for having been written. I don't have the patience for that kind of anxious work that doesn't even know why it exists.

On a more positive note, I read Thomas777's Steelstorm recently and had a great time with it.



Thomas, on the other hand, knows exactly why he's writing.

The great Japanese poet, dramatist, postwar dissident, and (as some would
argue) De Sadean madman, Yukio Mishima, described the political realm as
the natural domain of the artist, and the artist as first and foremost a
Partisan. Of course, to the Western observer, even if one is charitable in his
critique, such a view appears profoundly eccentric. To those not so
charitable, it appears positively deranged if not deliberately macabre,
particularly in the context of Mishima’s oeuvre. What is less controversial is
the suggestion that the novel—incidentally, Walker Percy referred to the
novel as the last “sovereign” art form, and thus a medium uniquely
accessible to American audiences—and the novelist bring something
essential to political discourse in conceptual terms. A well-structured,
lovingly crafed philosophical novel can provide the reader with an
experience of fantastic vistas that are both remote and unknown, yet
intimately relatable and implicitly familiar. Such phantastic settings not only
are cathartic—nobody need feel ashamed of their need for occasional
escapism so long as it does not become an essential coping mechanism—but
they provide for the exploration of values, ideas, motifs, and aesthetic
renderings without resort to pedantic abstraction or absence of plausibly
human ontologies.

In the English-speaking world, and especially within the American cultural
context, science fction always occupied a peculiar niche, resonant with men
possessed of certain conceptual biases and ethical sympathies. Jules Verne
quite clearly appealed to the original modern era “Progressives” who, owing
to their self-conception as a natural and benevolent aristocracy, had a
penchant for purposeful anachronism that had a deeper psychological
signifcance than mere quirky aesthetic pleasure. Cold War America, unable
to confront the reality of strategic nuclear war (and its macabre victory
metrics)—a cultural reality that was parodied in an adept if overwrought
manner in Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove—could be explored through the
counterfactual scenarios presented by Robert Heinlein, whose protagonists
were biomechanical infantrymen deployed by starship to hostile worlds with
lakes of hydrochloric acid, carcinogenic atmospheres, and indigenous
populations of 12-foot sentient insects. Heinlein’s unsubtle metaphor
resonated with an audience that was then quite singularly oriented,
consciously as well as subliminally, towards the very real prospect of global
nuclear combat wherein their lives would quite likely be cut short along with
millions of others of the Mega-Dead who would perish in the wake of
countervalue assault by Soviet or Chinese atomic weapons. As the 1950s
became the 1960s and the counterculture became mainstream—to the
chagrin of thoughtful people who recognized the source and implications of
the deliberate subversion of the dominant culture—more “holistic”
viewpoints became prominent in the better science ?ction o?erings. Frank
Herbert’s seminal classic Dune addressed not merely the pitfalls of
technological society in Heideggerian and Spenglerian terms, but also
posited a brilliant critique of social engineering. He showed how the most
successful or insidious (depending on the observer’s perspective) regimes
attempt to direct the course of cultural development, racial survival, and
eugenic improvement over not merely generations but centuries, and how
such e?orts simultaneously complement, collide with, and intentionally and
inadvertently sabotage the best laid plans of noble houses, technocrats, and
priestly orders (literal and metaphorical). He also held up the cruel fact that
even the most heroic and virtuous lives of great men are condemned to
resolve in tragedy, both for themselves and for their acolytes. Which brings
me to an explanation of my own ambitions for this ?rst volume of
STEELSTORM.

As a youth I was both blessed and burdened with something of an
unusually vivid imagination. By that I do not mean to suggest an inspired
creativity, but rather that the fantastical vistas I imagined contained an
emotional and aesthetic depth that rendered them very “real” in the way that
distinguishes dreams (in waking life or slumber) from more regular thought
patterns and narratives. ZARTAX originally appeared to me in such dreams
—and even at 12 or 13 years of age, I recognized in some basic if as yet
undeveloped way that his emergence was signi?cant. He was the
embodiment of something profound, an archetype for which I did not yet
possess the conceptual vocabulary, save for that which could be rendered in
purely symbolic iterations.

In a very real way, ZARTAX was both an avenging executioner (in
symbolic psychological terms I realized much later in life) and a nightmare
creature. He was a childhood terror of inevitable nuclear Armageddon—
nourished by the strategic landscape of the era and the collective
subconscious manifestation of what To?er called “future shock”—rendered
into a terrifying personage, as menacing for its exaggerated human
characteristics and need for violence (both redemptive and impassioned) as
for its utterly alien, mechanical con?guration of both physicality and mind.
In other words, ZARTAX emerged at a moment in my psychic development
when I could survive his emergence, melodramatic as that may seem.
As the night of November 9, 1989, came and went, I could—as could
millions of other Americans, young and old—re?ect upon the form and
meaning of my nuclear war nightmares. In abstract terms, ZARTAX cast a
no less ominous shadow, but what he symbolized—his ability to emerge into
“our” (or at least my own) world—receded abruptly. I came to contemplate
potentialities—what could have been. Not merely what could have occurred
in those most dangerous ?nal days of strategic brinksmanship, but the
possibility that other futures—alternative outcomes and realities—did in fact
exist.
?e possibility of such things is far outside the scope of my expertise, a
capacity to thoroughly understand I am not ashamed to admit. I remain
however a student of philosophy, as much as it is possible to pursue such
things in this 21 st century. ?is prompts me to consider that potential pasts
(and futures) can be said to “exist” so long as they can be imagined,
anticipated, and can determine the decisions of men (great and small alike)
and thus outcomes prosaic and profound. ZARTAX and his world have been
with me virtually my entire life—I could go as far as to say he has been and
remains my constant companion. ?e vistas that he inhabits, and those
wherein his absence is conspicuous, have determined the course of my life
and provided a context, in myriad subtle iterations, of mortal decisions that
have been forced upon me. ?us, so long as I live, so does he. So long as he
features in the imaginations of those who read of him, his great and terrible
acts, he shall endure. I have tried to lock him away in a proverbial ice
cathedral, and when that failed to subdue him, I chose to document his
many lives—as a man, as a machine, as a Messiah, as the Demonium
Pejorative—and to describe, and allow those who read of him, his strange
worlds. I thank you for your interest in the ongoing story of Victor Von
Leers, the man who became ZAR-TX. May God bless and keep you in your
journeys by ZARTAX’s side.

[Spingebill]

This just occurred to me, and I figured this would be the best place for this:
Gothic Violence has the exact opposite problem that Turner Diaries has. Captain Pierce is great at writing political commentary but not at writing action, and Mike Ma writes awesome action and awful political commentary.

[Elfenlied]

Would highly recommend Journey to the End of the Night. Anything by Celine is great.

[JohnTrent]

Recently, I have been looking through a bilingual translation of Giacomo Leopardi's Canti. When I had heard of Leopardi years before, he had always been presented as a fatalistic poet, though few ever tended to discuss any of his poems in particular. This image of the idle pessimistic poet tends to overshadow any actual work of his (which is of course no surprise, since most Internet circles would rather prize the personal intrigue of a writer than their actual merits), and inspires people to haphazardly connect Leopardi to less interesting figures in a milieu of pessimists.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that some of these poems actually expressed a sentiment of national sorrow, a conservative resignation at the state of Italy. This is nothing unique to Leopardi, it is almost a perennial attitude of Italy, as can be seen in this quote by Machiavelli centuries earlier:

"left lifeless, Italy is waiting to see who can be the one to heal her wounds...See how Italy beseeches God to send someone to save her from those barbarous cruelties and outrages..."

The first part of the Canti centers around the subjection of Italy and the decline of its national life: those who are born within its domain are forced to endure humiliations and troubles, and a deep lament bleeds through the text about how the once-existent glories of the nation can only be gleamed in history, rather than life itself. The part that I'm on now extends into more personal territory of heartbreak and love, but this initial beginning of the work struck me as prescient (especially the repeated image of barbarian invasion). I've heard that a later poem Palinodia al Marchese Gino Capponi is one of the more overt attacks on the 19th century and its turn toward progressive attitudes, but I have not gotten there quite yet.

[Ack!robatty]

What Maisie Knew - Henry James. Highly overlooked compared to Portrait or James' late works like Golden Bough and The Ambassadors, but I think it's his greatest work.

---

"The Golden Bowl*," obviously did not mean the Frazer work...

[rockfish]

North American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence. Illuminating book on the history of conflict in pre-contact North America. A collection of ten essays from various anthropologists that detail and examine the sociocultural mechanisms of violence in native societies all across the continent. Would highly recommend.

[Verlion]

Just finished Early Medieval Europe: 300-1000. Nice book on the transition from Late Antiquity to the Dark Ages up to the formation of the Ottonian HRE. Structured semi-chronologically but the chapters are split up thematically as well: for example in the middle it surveys the new barbarian kingdoms of Visigothic Spain and Merovingian Gaul, then focuses in on Britain after Imp. Honorious' abandonment of it, and then the Lombard acquisition of Italy, before finally focusing on the religio-cultural distinctions between Latin and Greek Europe and the growth of the monastic traditions in the former, all within a general timespan of 400 to 900. It's quite dry and tough, and definitely more of a reference book, but it did inform me of the gradual transformation of the Roman system of governance into the feudal system we all associate with the time period, emphasising the local flavours.
If there were two faults I would mention it would be:

• the constant meandering over the sources available on said topic and why such and such is unreliable or whatever (obviously showing its position as a more academic work),
  
• and the fact that it failed to adequately discuss the more "common day" aspects of the time periods, at least for me, choosing rather to discuss the high politics and religious situations at the time.
  

[GraalChud]

I recommend the following:

“The Ancient City” by Foustel de Coulanges
Plotinus’ Enneads
“The Germanisation of Early Medieval Christianity” by James C. Russell
“Christianising the Roman Empire: 100-400 AD” by Ramsay MacMullen
“Early Christianity & Greek Paideia” by Werner Jaeger
“The Final Pagan Generation” by Edward Watts
“On the Gods and the World” by Sallust (Thomas Taylor translation)
The Library of Apollodorus
“The Passing of the Great Race” by Madison Grant
“Culture of Critique” by Kevin MacDonald
“Against the Galileans” by Julian the Apostate
“The Turner Diaries” by Dr. William Luther Pierce
Aratus’ Phaenomena (of interest because Paul cited this work in his sermon at the Areopagus to prove that the Greeks had been worshipping YHWH all along in Acts 17, despite the fact that Aratus treats Zeus as God in the poem)
“The Mystery of the Grail” by Evola
Heraclitus’ Fragments
Hesiod’s Theogony & “Works and Days”

[Verlion]

I recommend the following:
...

“The Ancient City” by Foustel de Coulanges -- have not heard of
Plotinus’ Enneads -- ack! neoplatonists and all entropy haters go to hell. no, you don't get points for hating the gnostics, you're barely an inch better in your denial of the world
“The Germanisation of Early Medieval Christianity” by James C. Russell -- i have it on my list, seems good
“Christianising the Roman Empire: 100-400 AD” by Ramsay MacMullen -- sounds interesting
“Early Christianity & Greek Paideia” by Werner Jaeger -- sounds interesting
“The Final Pagan Generation” by Edward Watts -- sounds interesting
“On the Gods and the World” by Sallust (Thomas Taylor translation) -- sounds interesting
The Library of Apollodorus -- isn't that the pagan version of Jesus?
“The Passing of the Great Race” by Madison Grant -- idk
“Culture of Critique” by Kevin MacDonald -- baby's first steps
“Against the Galileans” by Julian the Apostate -- i find the worship of Julian by Pagan/Neoplatonist circles to be quite soy. Why pick the nerd who got rekt by the Persians a year into his reign as your 'martyr'?
“The Turner Diaries” by Dr. William Luther Pierce -- this is not "literature"
Aratus’ Phaenomena (of interest because Paul cited this work in his sermon at the Areopagus to prove that the Greeks had been worshipping YHWH all along in Acts 17, despite the fact that Aratus treats Zeus as God in the poem) -- interesting
“The Mystery of the Grail” by Evola -- overhyped
Heraclitus’ Fragments -- based
Hesiod’s Theogony & “Works and Days” -- based



You *may* like Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible by Russel E. Gmirkin if you're interested into more discussions around the connection between the Israelites/Jews and ancient Greek philosophy. It does a 180 on the statements made by the likes of Philo who claim that the Greeks copied the Jews, and instead states that "Israel" was intentionally rewritten in the Second Temple Period to seem more "Platonic".

[gipazugos]

I need someone to recommend me books on the Third Reich. About how the National Socialists were able to take power. Also just a book that would cover interesting developments at the time, recondite anecdotes that give the reader a fuller look into the personality of the Third Reich.

Late but John Toland's Hitler is pretty good. He conducted lots of interviews with figures actually assosciated with the 3R and he's not totally unsympathetic. He mostly deals with Hitler himself and diplomatic history so for social/doctrinal history look for other books. 
Also another good Hitler book (THOUGH not about the 3R): Hitler's Vienna, of which there's a long review on Counter Currents.