Books and whatnot

War and Peace, Pevear translation (Tolstoy)
Best new translation, supposedly very close to the original flow / wording of the Tolstoy text.  I thought it was much better than the old translation I read a few years ago, but I'm sure that was published before people really regarded translating an art form and not just an attempt to get the plot across.   If you haven't read War and Peace, its about the way war affects a few different families and russian society during the Napoleonic wars.    It is incredibly long, but is really not bad to read since it keeps you interested the entire time.  My only complaint is the intense amount of military strategy that he goes off about, but this is all necessary to show how people act under pressure and how history moves forward as a force that cannot really be shaped by individual actions or people.

The Moon is Down - Stienbeck
About the reactions to the Nazi invasion in a small town in Norway.  Very short but good book I thought.  Its very typically Stienbeck, and I love his writing style so I kind of knew I would enjoy the book before I started.  It is kind of a Cannery Row in another country, just a tiny snapshot of a town by briefly following tiny bits of the town peoples' lives.

The Once and Future King - T. H. White
Retelling of the Arthurian saga.  I knew nothing really about this legend other than that Guinevere had somehow managed to screw everyone over, so I really enjoyed reading this.   It was very well written, and despite being a long book it was never a struggle to get through it.  All the characters are very well developed for a book about a legend, I feel like a lesser author would have made them very one dimensional because they are not completely invented from imagination.

Outliers - Tipping point guy
A short read a la Freakenomics, Hidden Order, etc.  Tries to disprove the "naturally gifted" idea by analyzing the circumstances surrounding the rise to prominence of many "outliers".  For clarification, an outlier is not just someone who is good at something, it is people like Bill Gates and the Beatles.  Good fast read.  Probably not completely accurate all the time, but gives you a few good things to think about.

Cousin Bette - Balzac
About mean people and the revenge that a marginalized old spinster has on her rich relatives.   I liked the book, but thought that the ending was not the best it could have been.   One of the most interesting/shocking features of the book is that it treats as completely normal 50 year old men offering patronage for girls as young as 13, which other books of the time period also mention but they never throw out specific ages like this one did, which make it sooooo much more wrong and shocking.