What are you currently reading?

Bizet said:
Confessions of an Economic Hitman

This book exposes how the U.S. has historically exploited developing nations through strategic loans.

It's a interesting and easy read, just watch out for the 2023 revised edition of this book - it’s got an anti-Russia/Putin bias that sours the taste a bit.
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Seven months later...have you read Perkins' sequel The Secret History of the American Empire?
 
El Dorado said:
Nice! That's something I've always wanted to research: Portugal's overseas empire...particularly the East Indies and Africa.

I'd also like to find any good English-language history books on the Russian Far East...especially the Cossack exploration and conquest of Siberia and the Russian fur trade. Anybody have any recommendations?
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Yuri Slezkine's Arctic Mirrors. It's less a general narrative history and more a study on how the people of the region were perceived by Russians over the centuries.
 
I tried to see if I could get into The Wheel of Time series because the general culture seems to hold it in high regard. I honestly have no idea why people like it. I read the first two books and knew something was wrong from the very beginning with Jordan's quality of writing. Even taking direction from Tolkien (who is so much more superior as a writer and worldbuilder you'd think the two were different species) the books began and ended as a complete yawn for me. Jordan is about as interesting to me as your typical boomer who spent their life working one job and watching TV in their free time. I cannot, for the life of me, begin to describe how painfully boring the first two books were, and I tried to read them slowly to absorb this so-called excellent series, to buy into the whole world he was crafting. My primary curiosity was to see how a fantasy series could be 14 books long, and now I know, it's because nothing happens and everything is over described.

Last night I was wrestling with the decision to not finish WoT. I have a tendency to get stubborn about things I've started or invested time into. This time I'm putting my foot down. I will not waste another minute on this series, even if Brandon Sanderson's entries are apparently good (I might read the wikipedia plotlines of the next 10 books and then pick up where Sanderson is).
 
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