Thursday Reading and Recommendations is intended as bookish free-for-all, for the discussion and recommendation of all books historical, or tangentially so. Suggested topics include, but are by no means limited to:
Asking for book recommendations on specific topics or periods of history
Newly published books and articles you're dying to read
Recent book releases, old book reviews, reading recommendations, or just talking about what you're reading now
Historiographical discussions, debates, and disputes
...And so on!
Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion of history and books, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.
Few days ago I was inquiring about a book here and I received a really great reply by u/Kochevnik81. However he also mentioned an interesting thing I have been wondering for a while.
"the book list...needs some updating. This is something the flairs are discussing."
The booklist is arguably the best thing about this subreddit, pretty much always before I get a new book to read I go through the booklist for recommendations or just to see which authors are credible and good. Hearing that there are discussions about getting it updated is really great, there are couple of books that are missing or should be removed in my opinion.
I was wondering however, is the updating really going to be done just by those who have earned flairs here on this subreddit? Perhaps it would be a good idea to pin a megathread here for few months where everybody could contribute and discuss what books should be added or removed. I have seen many interesting, in-depth answers to questions here made by people who are clearly professionals in their field without having any flairs whatsoever, it would be sad to see then being unable to contribute to the booklist.
Is there a good introduction to the Warring States period in China, or the 8th to 3rd centuries BCE more generally?
What's a nice book for getting into historical geography/demography?
I was considering picking up 'The Dead Hand' by David Hoffman but wanted to know if it is a book worth reading on the cold war? I'm quite interested in the Eastern European impacts of the Cold War and how events through the 20th century has landed Eastern EU where it is today.
I did a separate post on this, but does anyone know any general history in English of or more of these countries: Bahrain, Benin, Burkina Faso, CAR, Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, The Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Nauru, or Senegal.
Any books about the Trung Sisters revolt or the general time period in Vietnamese history?