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vagabond wrote:Wow, BFC full of old school sf nerdz. ;-)
Anyone read the new Neal Stephenson, "Reamde", yet?
http://www.themillions.com/2011/09/play-it-again-neal-stephensons-reamde.htm
http://www.omnivoracious.com/2011/09/exclusive-excerpt-neal-stephensons-reamde.html
Midnight in Sicily, On Art, Food, History, Travel and La Cosa Nostra by Peter Robb
A vivid report from Italy's glorious, corrupt and troubled south, this book combines interviews, journalism and essays on Sicilian history and culture. Robb focuses, in part, on the career of Giulio Andreotti, the seven-time prime minister of Italy recently accused of Mafia associations.
friendlyskies wrote:Just finished "Don Pepe, A Political Biography of José Figueres of Costa Rica."
http://www.amazon.com/Don-Pepe-politica ... 082630480X
First off, there are no good books about Don Pepe, which is a fucking tragedy because the guy belongs on more T-shirts than Che Guevara. In a nutshell, the guy was a prodigy who was accepted to MIT, dropped out because it was boring, taught himself electrical engineering and everything else at the Boston University library, then moved back to Costa Rica where he started an engineering firm and a commune called "The Fight Without End."
The guy hated communism and was less than impressed with capitalism, and in the 1940s the two groups made an unholy pact, basically to turn Costa Rica into a "dictatorship," (but the mellowest dictatorship ever) rationalizing it as an echo of the Soviet-US pact during WWII. After some fixed elections, Don Pepe threw a revolution against the communist-capitalist govt, re-wrote the constitution (ending apartheid, making it legal for Jews to own land, disbanding the military, and expanding public education and health care as part of social democracy). Then he handed power over to the drip who should have won the elections, ran against him, won fair and square, and began the first of three terms that basically transformed Costa Rica into Central America's wealthiest, most peaceful, most prosperous country.
Anyway, like I said, there are no good books about him, at least not in English, and this one is supposed to be the best. It's academic, dry, boring, leaves out most of his childhood and formative years (which would have been nice to know, since one wonders how people can be so fucking gifted and charismatic yet still not thirst for power for its own sake - he could have been dictator no problem but didn't want it, like Washington). Oh well. But, worth reading if you want to know about a hero who has been forgotten while bloodier-minded tyrants get all kinds of ink. Bummer. I should write a book about him.
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