Watchmaker
Sep. 21st, 2010 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tortoisegirl30 Day Meme
Day 14 → A non-fictional book
Last year I had a class on the Cold War and one of the assigned books was one the professor himself wrote, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev by Vladislok Zubok. And I thought that was pretty conceited, assigning your own book. I mean, it was cool to have a class with someone who's enough of an authority on the subject to have published a book on it, but it was certainly weird having to cite my own prof in papers. The book itself has some cool content, with actual correspondences between Stalin and Mao and all those big communist-type folk. But, it's pretty badly written. To the point where I had a lot of trouble getting through it (which wasn't the case with the other hardcore Cold War book we had to read). I pretty much only read it to get through the class so I can't really comment on its quality in terms of historical non-fiction - maybe it does have info and insights you won't find anywhere else and I simply missed them. But for casual reading about the Soviet Union I'd recommend something else. I wouldn't call this one good reading.
Went to a flea market on Sunday hunting for a new bookbag. Sadly there were none to be found, but I did get two very cool things...
A pocketwatch! I think pocketwatches are really cool and I'd considered buying a cheap one on ebay, but someone had a table of them! Sorry for the slight picspam, but I'm just so happy with it and it's so pretty :3
And it's functional! It's on a necklace chain, which is nice and I've been wearing it as a necklace, though I'll have to keep an eyes open for a chain you clip to a belt loop so I can keep it in my pocket all traditional-like. And a top hat and monocle to complete the look :3
OWL FIGURINE. For 50 cents I couldn't resist it. Hard to tell from the pic but inside the body is another owl (you can see one of its eyes). At first I though oh, it's a pregnant owl...but owls don't do live births so that should be an egg. Which means it's a...CANNIBAL OWL.
The joys of the flea market!
Day 14 → A non-fictional book
Last year I had a class on the Cold War and one of the assigned books was one the professor himself wrote, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev by Vladislok Zubok. And I thought that was pretty conceited, assigning your own book. I mean, it was cool to have a class with someone who's enough of an authority on the subject to have published a book on it, but it was certainly weird having to cite my own prof in papers. The book itself has some cool content, with actual correspondences between Stalin and Mao and all those big communist-type folk. But, it's pretty badly written. To the point where I had a lot of trouble getting through it (which wasn't the case with the other hardcore Cold War book we had to read). I pretty much only read it to get through the class so I can't really comment on its quality in terms of historical non-fiction - maybe it does have info and insights you won't find anywhere else and I simply missed them. But for casual reading about the Soviet Union I'd recommend something else. I wouldn't call this one good reading.
Went to a flea market on Sunday hunting for a new bookbag. Sadly there were none to be found, but I did get two very cool things...
A pocketwatch! I think pocketwatches are really cool and I'd considered buying a cheap one on ebay, but someone had a table of them! Sorry for the slight picspam, but I'm just so happy with it and it's so pretty :3
And it's functional! It's on a necklace chain, which is nice and I've been wearing it as a necklace, though I'll have to keep an eyes open for a chain you clip to a belt loop so I can keep it in my pocket all traditional-like. And a top hat and monocle to complete the look :3
OWL FIGURINE. For 50 cents I couldn't resist it. Hard to tell from the pic but inside the body is another owl (you can see one of its eyes). At first I though oh, it's a pregnant owl...but owls don't do live births so that should be an egg. Which means it's a...CANNIBAL OWL.
The joys of the flea market!
