looking to expand my horizons. My last 2 books: the power of introverts and the subtle art of not giving a f*ck.
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For non fiction I’m reading The Concept of Mind by Gilbert Ryle, and can highly recommend. Short, thought provocative, and engaging. For fiction, Children of Strife is great, latest instalment in Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series which I really enjoyed overall.
Children of Time is great. I also thought Alien Clay by Tchaikovsky was interesting. Although I’m a little skeptical about how aliens work in that one.
I was gonna say, it was a neat concept, but he didn’t really spend the time to make it convincing or explain the mechanism for how life would evolve to be like that. It’s like he just had this idea that life could be more modular, but didn’t bother fleshing it out past that. I actually enjoyed Shroud a lot more, I feel like he put more work into making it plausible. Can recommend if you missed it.
I haven’t read Shroud. I will put it on the list, thanks.
Will definitely check those out
Non-fiction:
- The Demon-Haunted World
- The Fourth Turning is Here
Fiction:
- There is No Antimemetics Division
Did you like Antimemetics Division? I saw the Short video with Jasika Nicole (Astrid from Fringe), and it felt like a mix between bad sci fi that took itself too seriously and a dumb joke.
I did like the book, it’s not a 10/10, but it’s fun and I like weird fiction. I think both SCP and the Remedy Connected Universe are delightfully mysterious.
I hadn’t watched that short yet, just did. I see what you mean, but it was relatively true to the first chapter of the book. It’s really hard to do this genre justice in video form I think. Partly due to budget, but partly because what you didn’t like about it is a perfect description of the entire SCP universe: a giant, very serious conspiracy theory that fans swear is completely true and “THEY” don’t want you to know about it…while obviously being a absurd work of fiction. It’s like 80s horror, you have to embrace the campiness to enjoy it.
The notion of an anti-meme is interesting to think about too. Not really in a supernatural sense, but in a sociological/anthropological one. Are there things in this world that people have trouble wrapping their head around, things we can’t seem to pin down and understand and assign an easy-to-proliferate name to, but nonetheless hurt us?
Demon Haunted World is very timely
Always has been :(
I had put off reading it because I assumed it would be mostly preaching to the choir, but there are some challenging chapters to think about.
Ex. the idea that all the people who believe in aliens, and reject vaccines, and wear tinfoil hats, they’re all doing the first step of science: which is to doubt. The problem is that people are generally untrained on what to do next.
The question is whether this modern era of science is an anomaly, or if there’s something about the scientific method that gives it an advantage. If we fell completely into a dark age, is it inevitable that we find our way back? Or was this time period just a fluke?
It notes that throughout history, the dominant nation has always been the one who wields science most effectively. And the US wouldn’t be the first to fall because it failed to.
I wish Carl were still around. He had a knack for cutting through bullshit we could really use right now
We are legion we are Bob
Not exactly a new book, but All Quiet on the Western Front was a fantastic read. It’s a grotesquely frank depiction of the unfortunate "Have Not"s fighting a meaningless war for the "Have"s in society, set in the german trenches of WW1.
From the same author, Erich Maria Remarque, “A night in Lisbon” is also very good.
I’m currently on book 5 of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, I started book one In January.
It’s all so good
Book 5 is my next read. I try and stagger them with other things to draw it out some and make sure I don’t burn out.
The audiobooks are amazing, super-talented narrator who does a while host of voices.
In the same genre: Brene Brown: Dare to lead; Connor Beaton: ManTalks, Lindsay C Gibson: Adult Children of emotionally immmature parents, Kelly McGonigal: The Willpower instinct, and Thais Gibson: Learning Love.
Fiction: James SA Corey: The expanse series, and Sofia Oksanen: The dogpark. I also just started Dimitry Glukhovsky: Metro 2033 (Don’t know if its good yet)
Liberalism: A Countrr History, by Domenico Losurdo. Mostly so far looking at how all the liberal revolutions and theorists ended up being at least lukewarm to slavery.
I have trouble keeping up a reading habit, but I’ve read 5/6ths of the Lord Of The Rings over the last year. Just can’t seem to find the time/motivation to finish it, although I quite enjoyed it and I expect Tolkien to focus even more on the inner struggle of the ringbearer in the final book. That was the biggest advantage of reading the books thus far, over watching the movies.
Apart from that I’ve read the German Romantic (as in era) novella “Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts” by Eichendorff. But despite it checking the boxes for that era and adding to my canon of bourgeois education, it didn’t give me much. It was rather shallow lighthearted entertainment.
But I guess you could say I lean towards the classics. I don’t know if I’d recommend it, for finding stuff that is actually good. But skimming through modern books in my library, I’m often already put off by their covers.
If you are into fantasy, then I need to recommend you the books of Brandon Sanderson, especially the Stormlight Archive series. It’s so epic, nothing else comes close
New Scientist magazine, the paper version so that I can put it down, think about it, and come back a week later. I’m not a scientist, and not highly educated, but I’m curious about the world, and many of their articles are easy to read at my level.
Kaiju battlefield surgeon
I like Dungeon Crawler Carl but Kaiju felt like torture porn to me. I did not enjoy it.
Yeah I’m almost done with Dungeon Crawler, I thought I would check out other things by that author, and yeah it very much is torture porn. But it’s also pretty damn good. It’s a struggle to get through some of the gore though
Thinking fast and slow - Daniel Kahneman
The only thing I am reading rn is Capital but I don’t think you came her for political theory so I will recommend The Hot Zone. It’s the last book I read and it’s about the discovery of Ebola, its investigations, and how it got to the US.
Recently read Piranesi. Wonderful book in a unique setting. A page turner which can be finished in a day.
Pick any of the Asimov’s books if you’re into science fiction.
