@ warsprite

Yeah, Draugnar's right. The F-104 wasn't in service when the book was published.

L'Etranger by Albert Camus, in the original French.

@ Spyman:

I really like it. I'm only in the 8th chapter - I don't have time for much reading now that Christmas break is over, but it's really interesting. It's a very anthropological view of capitalism.

What turned me on to it was reading Genome, also by Matt Ridley, which I absolutely loved.

Has anyone read any Tom Clancy books recently?

I use Tom Clancy books as paper towels.

@spyman

my veiws on his book is very interesting but i think it will be germany china japan mexico and canada that will be world powers. i think germany becuase they are one of our major source of our wepon imports and its happened twice witch leads me to mexico and canida. the united state have been the source of their defeat twice and i dont think they will make that mistake three times so they become allys with mexico and canida to invade the u.s. china is a major source of all imports and exports of all major countrys and they have the largest population in the world at 1.3 billion people. japan is the most advanced in technology.

can't afford papers towels huh? Just how poor are you Putin? I have this image of the unabomber in a shack, stealing wireless internet time.

lol, I live off a grad student stipend that's about to run out, and my wife's slightly higher than minimum wage job as a nurse's assistant.

I don't actually use Clancy books for towels, but I think that's how they'd be put to good use.

Agreed.

My sisters a nurse and rakes in the british pounds. Tough job tho.

I have just finished reading An Outline of the History of Economic Thought by Ernesto Screpanti and Stefano Zamagni. Some would probably say the authors are subject to liberal bias as various post-Keynesian and Marxist streams of thought received considerable coverage (Screpanti being a heterodox Marxist and Zamagni being a progressivist might be of some importance :) but their approach is simply eclectic and therefore thought provoking. After all, homo economicus receives serious jabs from both leftist and rightist economists.

@ fiedler and Putin33

What are you guys talking about? Clancy's emphasis on characterization and setting make his books very memorable.

Clancy is fun pulp fiction. I won't put him in the class of Fleming or Tolkien, but he is better than reading the Twilight series or Harry Potter.

@ Draugnar

That's not saying a whole lot. Twilight and Harry Potter are just expensive toilet paper.

Well, I'm sorry but I put Ludlum's Jason Bourne above Jack Ryan and Jack Ryan is the best thing Clancy ever wrote.

Jack Ryan isn't a book. It's a major character, but Clancy has many major characters. What about John Clark and Domingo Chavez? Their exploits are legendary. You can't judge a book (or a series of books) by just looking at one character. Besides, Jack Ryan is a completely realistic character. It is plausible for someone to go from low-level analyst and college professor to President in a relatively short amount of time. It didn't take Obama long to get from community organizer to POTUS.

@TMW - I know he is a character. Ask any writer (like my friend, Martha Busken, may she rest in peace, who wrote the Matriarch of Sullivan Lane) and they will tell you that you write *characters*, especially when the character is a principle in multiple novels. Jack Ryan is the best he has written and Jason Bourne (also a *character*) is far superior. Jack Ryan has some depth, but not nearly as much as Jason Bourne amd Jason Bourne is weak compared ot, say, Aragorn, Son of Arathorn, aka Strider the Ranger or Gimli, son of Glóin or Frodo Baggins of Bag End in the Shire or Samwise Gamgee or Legolas of the Woodland Elves of Mirkwood. Hell, Bourne isn't even James Bond, 007, in so far as Bond has much more depth in the novels and short stories of Ian Fleming.

A story without characters is two dimensional and every good writer writes the characters and the story comes out of them.

On a popular-histories-written-by-slumming-academic-historians kick. Just finished Overy's "1939," now working on "The Isles" by Davies.

@Spyman, re Poland the nascent superpower: It's a very nice thought given the last 220 years of Polish history, but I am reminded of Krusty the Clown's famous lament:

"I thought the Generals were due!"

@ Draugnar

Yeah but what I'm trying to say is that Jack Ryan is not as much of a main character as Jason Bourne or James Bond. Clancy didn't give him as much depth as Fleming did to James Bond because there are other characters that are emphasized as much as Jack Ryan is.

OK, then The Hunt for Red October is no From Russia With Love, Bourne Identity, or Raise the Titanic (Cussler's Dirk Pitt) and none of those four comes close to Return of the King, Master and Commander, Hound of the Baskervilles, Gulliver's Travels, or Tale of Two Cities.

The Hunt for Red October isn't even his best book.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you on this one, Draugnar.

Obsessed by Ted Dekker
Prey by Michael Crichton
& The Empty Chair by Jeffery Deaver

ok, name a book of clancy's better than the last four i mentioned. you do that, i'll read itand give a critique and, if i'm worng, i'll even admit it.

Last four? The only one you mentioned was The Hunt for Red October.

Would you like to read a flat-out military thriller, or a more military/political novel? Because my favorite Clancy book might be different than your favorite Clancy book, just because of differing personal preferences pertaining to genre.

Gurdjieff

^?

TMW - I said to name a clancy novel better than the last four novels I mentioned. I should have said Five, but the implication was the non-clancy novels I mentioned. Last four means literally the last four. I didn't say last four clancy's I mentioned because I didn't mentioin four clancy novels. Geez. Comprehension much?

@ Draugnar

Sorry, I misunderstood.

Well, none of Tom Clancy's novels can top the four you mentioned, but you have to admit that some of Clancy's novels are on the high end of excellent and the low end of classic.

I just don't see any of them equalling an Ian Fleming 007 novel or Ken Follett (Eye of the Needle is simply incredible) or Frederick Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal). Maybe Clive Cussler or Robert Ludlum, but not the greats of the spy genre.