What are you reading now - and then

[Stavros]

Today I'm going to order A Life of Picasso VOL IV by John Richardson.
He died while writing it, and it was supposed to come out a couple years ago, I think.
The last good book I read was The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes,
It starts with Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein walking down a street talking.

Hi Buttslinger, hope you’re doing well,and thanks for the ref to Richardson- was not aware Vol 4 had been published.

[Stavros]

Tim Marshall, The Power of Geography (2021).

Disappointing survey of ten countries that lays out some basic geography but then fails to explain the history as geography, or the geography as history, politics, economics, and so forth. If you know a fair amount about some or all of the countries you may be as surprised as I was at the errors or fact and questionable judgments. If you begin from a state of ignorance, this may be a useful start.
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Tim-Marshall/dp/1783965371

[Stavros]

In case you missed it -David Mamet sounding off. He is a clever man, knows how to write a play, but for me it is the content that falls flat. He thinks Trump did a good job, growing up in Mayor Daley's Chicago convinced him elections are rigged so what is different about 2020? And this "So people are walking around impossibly confused about what is a man, what is a woman"...hmmmm....maybe stick to writing plays?

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/20...-rigging-woods

[GroobySteven]

Just read 'American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal MasterMind Behind the Silk Road' by Nick Bilton.
Very good and easy read, he details how he did the research at the end, and it's an amazing amount of work to present it in a narrative format.
Worth a read.

[Stavros]

Just read 'American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal MasterMind Behind the Silk Road' by Nick Bilton.
Very good and easy read, he details how he did the research at the end, and it's an amazing amount of work to present it in a narrative format.
Worth a read.

Thanks for this, I bought it this morning -in a shop, not online- and will read it as soon as I can.

[Stavros]

Just read 'American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal MasterMind Behind the Silk Road' by Nick Bilton.
Very good and easy read, he details how he did the research at the end, and it's an amazing amount of work to present it in a narrative format.
Worth a read.

Read this over the last two days, and it is a fascinating read with a thrilling clmax, and not much hysteria which can sometimes ruin books like these.

The points of interest that stand out -the larger the site became, the more people Ulbrich needed to help him run it and keep secure, but the more vulnerable he became to blackmail, threats of violence and theft, leading him to make decisions that involved murder, though none was actually committed. It thus blows a hole in a key element of the Libertarian ideology Ulbrcht used to jusify an open market place free of Government control -because, as the Judge in his case pointed out, to manage and beneft from the Silk Road, Ubricht had to impose his own 'laws' on the site, this contradicting the concept of freedom he believed he was practising -but if the transactions are illegal -whether or not narcotics ought to be de-criminalized- that fact attracted genune buyers and scam artists and crooks, some of whom made thousands by exploiting loop holes in the code used to write the 'fabric' of the website.

The other point is crucial -wherever we go on the web, we leave a 'footprint' -Ulbricht must have assumed his earliest posts when creating an interest in the Silk Road had gone, but an intrepid agent of the IRS tracked them down and through other links, Ulbricht, who insisted on running everything himself and using coffee shops -or a publc library at the end- was identified and imprisoned for life.

If you don't read but want to know the story, this brief film tells it all -but the book has the detail and as it is well written I do also recommend it.

[Stavros]

Catherin Belton Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West (2020)

Belton was for some years based in Russia where she wrote for the Financial Times. The main argument of the book is that when Gorbachev became General Secretary of the CPSU in 1985 there were factions in the Party and the KGB that welcomed reform, and those who were opposed to it, and though the former won over the latter, the men who succeeded in taking over the machinery of politics had a background in the KGB. In other words, they knew who everyone was, from the corrupt party officials to its honest men and women, and most important of all, the organized crime groups who had operated an internal market in the USSR when the Centrally Planned economy was dysfunctional and enabled corruption on a vast scale to carry over into the new Russia. Thus Putin emerged as the champion of the ex-KGB elite who benefited in terms of power, and through the 'Ollgarchs' in terms of wealth, though Belton is keen to show how Putin reigned in the Oligarchs once they had attracted the foreign direct investment which overhauled Russia's antique industrial capacity. Without the capital and expertise of Shell, Exxon and BP, for example, Russia's petroleum industry would not have been able to grow as it has done.

The thesis is persuasive, but the book is marred by irritating errors of fact, and one notes Abramovich sued Belton over claims in the book, thus
"The text will now recognise that the allegation Abramovich bought Chelsea football club at the Russian president’s behest is not a statement of fact. It will include additional denials from the oligarch’s spokesperson and the club."
Roman Abramovich settles libel claim over Putin biography | Roman Abramovich | The Guardian

In addition, Americans and others will be fascinated by the detail in the chapter that details Trump's long established relationship with the Russians, most of them tied to both Putin and organized crime, with the suggestion that the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City was a money laundering operation for the Russians at a time when it was losing money for Trump. As was said with regard to crooks like Felix Sater, 'Trump doesn't do due diligence'. Ask no questions get no lies? More pertinent, had Mueller reached back into Trump's business and financial history, a deeper perspective on his Russian links, and to some extent, dependency would have, should have re-opened the question, how was a man so closely tied to the criminal underworld allowed to run for the Presidency?

So it is an interesting read, but there are errors of fact I have seen, and some may see others, but that is the peril of history being written by journalists rather than historians.

[sukumvit boy]

Yes, I was Just going to post a thread about Bolton's book and a few others cited in a recent New Yorker magazine article which I will post below.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...-bought-london
What do you Brits think? Looks like Russia has found a home for it's oligarchs and dirty money in London!

[Stavros]

Yes, I was Just going to post a thread about Bolton's book and a few others cited in a recent New Yorker magazine article which I will post below.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...-bought-london
What do you Brits think? Looks like Russia has found a home for it's oligarchs and dirty money in London!

The article you linked does point out, as I did, that Belton was sued by Abramovich over the Chelsea Football clubs claim in her book's earlier version. I don't know if Putin 'suggested' it, as I don't know if Putin follows football enough to know who or what Chelsea football club is. The claim in the article -I have seen it elsewhere- is that Abramovich is not close to Putin, thus

“At no stage is the reader told that actually Abramovich is someone who is distant from Putin and doesn’t participate in the many and various corrupt schemes that are described,” his lawyers asserted."

So who has been seen in Turkey as part of the Russian delegation to the 'peace talks' with Ukraine...? Er....Roman...
Or maybe he was persuaded to intervene by Shevchenko? The superb footballer -ex-Chelsea- from Ukraine....

London has been a key laundromat for the 'Oligarchs', and most recently, one of it's most notorious (to me) -Mikhail Fridman, has complained he can't eat out because of UK sanctions. I was amazed he was even in London, where he owns a $20 million+ home, given he has dual citizenship with Putin-friendly Israel. If the UK can't throw this shit out of London, maybe he should sell his London home and eat falafel from that guy who has a stall near Damascus Gate Jerusalem? Last time I was there, he even added some french fries! I know. To a falafel! You see how far Palestinian cuisine has fallen since the occupation!

Fridman complains-
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/r...d-b990989.html


As for Fridman's complaint he has invested in the UK...hmmm....
"Russian oligarchs from Roman Abramovich to Alisher Usmanov have brought in billions of dollars into Great Britain with most investments flowing into luxury properties or football clubs rather than industrial activities. "
https://www.reuters.com/article/brit...12B0TD20151011

And if you read the Chapter in Belton's book on Trump, you may have to admit that the US, be it Florida, or Brighton Beach, Noo Joysee, or Las Vegas, is on a par with London when it comes to money Laundering....

You are old enough, Sukumvit Boy to remember Deep Throat's immortal words...'Follow the Money'...

Up next...the FIFA World Cup in Qatar...the Russians in Dubai...sand worms....tremors....

[sukumvit boy]

The world of art and the characters that inhabit it is full of interesting people and stories.
If you are interested in what's happening now in the world of Modern and Contemporary art ,word on the street says this is the book to read.
"Boom" by Michael Shnayerson

https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/t...9781610398411/