Now reading (The Book Thread)
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eclipse by stepanie meyers (the third book in the twilight series)
TaleofGenji
Registered Senior Member
Currently splitting my time between 2
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
and
Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T. Hallinan
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
and
Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T. Hallinan
Brown—Life Against Death
Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death. Heavy, deep, and fascinating. Strangely, though, I'm having a hard time reading it because it is thematically familiar. I've had the same problem with other books before. It took me something like ten years of starting and stopping before I finally put away the Communist Manifesto in one pass. The Myth of Sisyphus was similar, although I finally did figure out I was reading it wrongly. But this examination of human psychology, the connections between individual and group behavior, the power of Freud, and the disaster of neo-Freudianism is so thematically familiar to me that I have to stop and read through things a second and third time to make sure I'm not missing something. It would be tragic to miss something of great importance for its subtlety by erroneously presuming I know where this one is going. Written in 1959, it is still relevant even today, as we see certain processes—e.g., the closing of the gap 'twixt symptom and taboo—in mass behavior taking place before our eyes. For instance, if one wishes to understand just how the political voice of Christianity in the United States has become so perverse, destructive, and antithetical to its underlying faith, Life Against Death is a good place to start.
Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death. Heavy, deep, and fascinating. Strangely, though, I'm having a hard time reading it because it is thematically familiar. I've had the same problem with other books before. It took me something like ten years of starting and stopping before I finally put away the Communist Manifesto in one pass. The Myth of Sisyphus was similar, although I finally did figure out I was reading it wrongly. But this examination of human psychology, the connections between individual and group behavior, the power of Freud, and the disaster of neo-Freudianism is so thematically familiar to me that I have to stop and read through things a second and third time to make sure I'm not missing something. It would be tragic to miss something of great importance for its subtlety by erroneously presuming I know where this one is going. Written in 1959, it is still relevant even today, as we see certain processes—e.g., the closing of the gap 'twixt symptom and taboo—in mass behavior taking place before our eyes. For instance, if one wishes to understand just how the political voice of Christianity in the United States has become so perverse, destructive, and antithetical to its underlying faith, Life Against Death is a good place to start.
I'm reading "A Game Of Thrones" again.
Fantasy rules. All this intellectual bullshit is basically confirming everything I already know.
Why bother reading a grade 1 math primer?
I suppose the main thing about that is that the intellectual stuff regarding human nature is a confirmation of what I already know. The only real respect I have for it is that these guys have made money out of doing what I can't do - writing.
Bummer, that. I'd like some money.
Fantasy rules. All this intellectual bullshit is basically confirming everything I already know.
Why bother reading a grade 1 math primer?
I suppose the main thing about that is that the intellectual stuff regarding human nature is a confirmation of what I already know. The only real respect I have for it is that these guys have made money out of doing what I can't do - writing.
Bummer, that. I'd like some money.
Revenge of the Rose: Michael Moorcock - another of his Elric/ Eternal Champion novels.
The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the simple and the complex: Murray Gell-Man - a series of essays on physics and the sciences by a world-class physicist.
Flying Guns (vol 1) World War 1: Anthony G. Williams & Dr. Emmanuel Gustin - the development of aircraft guns and ammunition.
[Edit] Oops, forgot my bath-time reading!
Dreams of a final theory: Steven Weinberg - another rather good physicist, on beauty, philosophy and physics.[EndEdit]
The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the simple and the complex: Murray Gell-Man - a series of essays on physics and the sciences by a world-class physicist.
Flying Guns (vol 1) World War 1: Anthony G. Williams & Dr. Emmanuel Gustin - the development of aircraft guns and ammunition.
[Edit] Oops, forgot my bath-time reading!
Dreams of a final theory: Steven Weinberg - another rather good physicist, on beauty, philosophy and physics.[EndEdit]
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Albert Camus: L'étranger
Tyagatschi: Jochen Vollert,WWII Soviet Army Artillery Tractors and Variants. Design, development and use of (mainly tracked) vehicles used to tow artillery pieces of the Soviet Army in WWII.
The Number Sense: Stanislas Dehaene, fascinating book on what numbers really are and how humans see and use them.
The Truth About The WunderWaffe: Igor Witkowski, starts off with hard data and information on WWII German developments, but rapidly deteriorates into serious woo woo territory (Witkowski is one of the people used as a "source" in Nick Cook's The Hunt For Zero Point).
The Number Sense: Stanislas Dehaene, fascinating book on what numbers really are and how humans see and use them.
The Truth About The WunderWaffe: Igor Witkowski, starts off with hard data and information on WWII German developments, but rapidly deteriorates into serious woo woo territory (Witkowski is one of the people used as a "source" in Nick Cook's The Hunt For Zero Point).
shaunsummoned
Registered Member
A Brief History of Time: Stephen Hawking, really enjoying a broad overview of Physics and the fundamentals looking for books to delve deeper with...
"Prometheus Unbound by Percy Bysshe Shelley", if you can believe that! I just finished reading "An Introduction to Greek Mythology by David Bellingham".
Also I'm looking at "The Great and Secret Show By Clive Barker".
Also I'm looking at "The Great and Secret Show By Clive Barker".
The gayest demon?
Clive Barker, Mister B. Gone.
Clive Barker, Mister B. Gone.
I think this is the shortest novel Barker has ever written, although I'd need to dig out my copy of The Thief of Always to check that. And it is, of course, a wicked delight as all Barker's endeavors seem to be.
Take one ego-dystonic, closeted homosexual demon, add in trickery, confessions, a great technological advancement in human history, and a secret of divinity and myth, add in Barker's masterful storytelling, and you're there. Then again, I'm hard pressed to recall a novel that makes a point of threatening the reader.
A 2007 publication, I completely missed this until a trip to the bookstore earlier this week, and the trade paperback is an attractive, readable (easy on the eyes) volume. Barker has undertaken minor experiments in the presentation of his books—for instance, the Abarat quartet, of which only two are available, contains reproductions of approximately 220 oil paintings by the author, and are unconventionally printed in order to accommodate these images, which appear as plates as well as being intermingled with the text—and this is no different. The only real difference between the presentation of Mister B. Gone and, say, any other novel, is that the paper is made to look old, as if you are reading a time-wearied volume marked by intrusive spots where moisture and age appear to discolor the pages. Simple in its appearance, yes. The effect, however, is tremendous.
Take one ego-dystonic, closeted homosexual demon, add in trickery, confessions, a great technological advancement in human history, and a secret of divinity and myth, add in Barker's masterful storytelling, and you're there. Then again, I'm hard pressed to recall a novel that makes a point of threatening the reader.
A 2007 publication, I completely missed this until a trip to the bookstore earlier this week, and the trade paperback is an attractive, readable (easy on the eyes) volume. Barker has undertaken minor experiments in the presentation of his books—for instance, the Abarat quartet, of which only two are available, contains reproductions of approximately 220 oil paintings by the author, and are unconventionally printed in order to accommodate these images, which appear as plates as well as being intermingled with the text—and this is no different. The only real difference between the presentation of Mister B. Gone and, say, any other novel, is that the paper is made to look old, as if you are reading a time-wearied volume marked by intrusive spots where moisture and age appear to discolor the pages. Simple in its appearance, yes. The effect, however, is tremendous.
Barbarians to Angels: the Dark Ages Reconsidered, by Peter S. Wells, W.H. Norton & Co., New York, 2008-- essentially saying that the transition from Roman times to Charlemagne (roughly 400-800 AD) weren't anywhere near as 'dark' as they've been traditionally made out.
Anathem - Neal Stephenson.
Another mile-thick tome from Stephenson, a science fiction story that covers mathematics and philosophy, the nature of reality and "beginners' guides to phase spaces".
Also includes the wonderfully memorable line “Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,” I said. “We have a protractor.”
Another mile-thick tome from Stephenson, a science fiction story that covers mathematics and philosophy, the nature of reality and "beginners' guides to phase spaces".
Also includes the wonderfully memorable line “Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,” I said. “We have a protractor.”
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
I thought the term "the Dark Ages" was usually applied to a much longer era, from the "light" being extinguished at the collapse of the Roman Empire, until the Reformation and Renaissance turned it back on.