What book did you read last and what book are you currently reading? Would you recommend either of those books?
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Last book I finished was Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Solid read, get it done before the movie comes out.
About to start the Kaiju Preservation Project by John Scalzi, no idea on that one yet, but Scalzi does good work in general.
Last one I can't reccomend is The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville and Keanu Reeves. I'm a big fan of the BRZRKR comics so I jumped at the chance for a novel in that universe... aaand it's largely unreadable.
Project Hail Mary is one of my favorite audio books of all time! Second your rec!!
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Last: Pièrre Hadot, "Filosofie als een manier van leven" , the Dutch translation of "Qu'est-ce que la Philosophie Antique?" , or "What is Ancient Philosophy?"
Current: Caroline Criado Pérez, "Invisible Women"
I would definitely recommend Hadot for a clear overview and an interesting read on filosophical history. Invisible women is kind of a must-read to learn about the data gap in statistics of women.
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Last book: Human Phoenix, current one Human Man, both from an author with the handle "Refusenik". Human Man is basically the second part of Human Phoenix, kind of "coming of age" with a bit of mystery and scifi.
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Last book: The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
This book is really informative if you want to learn the history of the Palestinian struggle for liberations. It makes an effort to recognize its successes and its faults as well as how they can do better. Fantastic book but it will break your heart. I had to read it pretty slowly because I could only stomach so many pages a day.
Current book: The Conquest of Mexico & The Conquest of Peru by William H. Prescott
I'm only 100 pages in and while it is good and most of the history holds up it has some faults. main fault is that the guy is kinda a white/euro supremacist by modern standards. He refers to many of the natives as barbarous and examines their worth by how "civilized" they were in one aspect or another. Does some pompous moralizing etc. I will give him that he doesn't necessarily attribute this to race and often refers to Spainish history as equally if not more barbarous, especially the inquisition. Credit where credit is due I guess. It was written in the 1840s so this is to be expected. Another flaw I'd like to mention is that the author tells the history as a sort of romantic narrative. Everything is heavily cited and like I said most of the history is accurate but due to the format he leans into the great man theory of history. Historical materialism was in its infancy at the time so he can't truly be blamed for this but his books must be read with an understanding of this limitation.
the guy is kinda a white/euro supremacist by modern standards. He refers to many of the natives as barbarous and examines their worth by how "civilized" they were in one aspect or another. […] It was written in the 1840s so this is to be expected.
There's still people around saying that Native Americans deserved to be… displaced because they didn't use the land "properly".
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I am reading Moon Zappa's autobiography, I just finished 1000 Acres by Jane Smiley, which I REALLY recommend, and I'm also reading the collected Wendell Berry, Margaret Atwood's latest short story collection Babes In The Woods, and the book about the Toronto Gay Village murders. All very good, I am decidedly not into true crime but it happened close to me and one of my friends was part of the Village and they told the cops several times that people were going missing. I feel awful for all the victims, but especially for the very closeted religious ones whose wives and children got to find out their fathers were queer because they found parts of them in a planter, and the whole world got to find out too. It's not nice to posthumously out someone even under the circumstances when it will have such a profound effect on their families.
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Currently I'm not reading anything but listening to the Magnus protocol podcast (which I highly recommend, but you should start with the Magnus Archives). It's a horror podcast, where each episode a character is reading a horror story that happened to someone, and in the long run stuff starts to happen with the characters who are reading.
Before starting that I read some of the Dexter books, honestly? The TV show is WAAAAY better, the first book is very similar to the first season, but then it goes off the rails, to the point where there are supernatural entities in the books, not to mention the absolutely horrible Spanish from the author, in one book he a character realizes someone knows he's there because he gets a happy birthday card, except the card says "Feliz Navidad" (Merry Christmas).
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Last book: Children of ruin. I didnt really like this one, while i was in awe of the brilliance of Children of time.
Currently reading a non-fiction book called The genius of birds.
I already knew from direct experience how smart birds are, including ones that people perceive as dumb, like pigeons.
But this book really gives a different perspective in how birds are complex creatures that adapt to their environments in intelligent ways, and how other birds will instantly copy these novel ways.Sounds like you should read Children of Memory next then.
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Would you care to share any examples of the math questions?
I can give you the first one!
The book opens up with "Why does 1 + 1 = 2?", and goes on to explain an answer to the question, including ways where "1 + 1 != 2" and why.
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Last read was Closing Time by Joseph Heller. It's the sequel to Catch 22, and while not quite as dazzling as that book, I still really enjoyed it, and found some of the writing hilarious and/or deeply moving. It's got a bit of a poor reputation, but it's excellent IMO.
Have just started reading Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami - only a few chapters in, but I'm enjoying it. I've read quite a lot of HM's work, so the style is enjoyably familiar. Also, it came with some cool stickers inside for some reason
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Last book I finished was Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. Good read.
The books I'm currently reading -
Mainly 'The Three Body Problem' by Liu Cixin. Thoroughly engrossing.
Also a chapter or two a night of 'Unlock Your Comic Genius' by Adam Bloom, dipping in and out of 'Before and Laughter' by Jimmy Carr, because I'm interested in the art of stand up comedy, and 'The Lost Stories' by Terry Pratchett. Also working my way through my old Asterix comics that I dug out of storage recently.
Re 3 Body Problem - have you seen the Netflix TV series of that? And if so, what did you think?
I watched it, as the premise sounded really interesting, but I wasn't a fan of the show at all. I'm wondering if the book is better, as I believe they changed quite a lot on Netflix including adding quite a few new (and IMO annoying) characters.
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Well yes but i don't consider those people part of modernity /s
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The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein, and now onto Invasion of the Body Snatches by Jack Finney. After that I will then read Village of the Damned by John Wyndham.
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Re 3 Body Problem - have you seen the Netflix TV series of that? And if so, what did you think?
I watched it, as the premise sounded really interesting, but I wasn't a fan of the show at all. I'm wondering if the book is better, as I believe they changed quite a lot on Netflix including adding quite a few new (and IMO annoying) characters.
Not yet. I intended to watch it after finishing the first book.
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Last book : the wheel of time (#5) by R. Jordan. I don't really recommend. I mean the story's great but the way the characters are written is dull and sexist (men saying that women are mysteries, women complaining about how men are dumb and other ridiculous clichés), it feels like following people that are somewhat the worse of both teens and boomers, it takes me out of the book every single time. I prefer the king killer chronicles (P. Rothfuss) although we're still waiting for the last book.
Current book : Trapped (C. Lackberg and H Fexeus) it is a great polar, with nice twists, I recommend!
For me, the wheels came off the bus in the fourth book of Wheel of Time series. I realized I just didn’t care about another road trip where the gang becomes separated and runs off in different directions.
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If audiobooks count, I just finished listing to AlienIII by William Gibson.
It is a script for Alien III and it is voice acted by Michael Biehn and Lance Hendricksen and many more.
It was great.
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Last book: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook. It's book three in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, which I'm enjoying a lot. Sometimes the game mechanic details get a little tiring, but they're typically meaningful to the larger story, or at least the action scenes. The human drama of it is where it really shines, tons of righteous indignation and coming together against adversity. Lots of humor sprinkled in. It can be a little crude and definitely very violent, I'd recommend it as long as those aren't deal breakers.
Current book: Citadel of the Autarch, fourth book in the New Sun series. It's good so far, building on the story of the first three books, interested to see how it reaches the situation foreshadowed in the first book via the framing device of this being a memoir written by the main character. The meandering plot with occasional tangent story-within-a-story have made it a slower read for me, but the surreality of it keeps it intriguing during the slower moments. I'd definitely recommend it, it's clear why this is a well regarded series, very different from my usual read.
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Not yet. I intended to watch it after finishing the first book.
Ah, sorry, don't want to put you off (bit late for that, I guess). Hopefully you enjoy it more than me!
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For me, the wheels came off the bus in the fourth book of Wheel of Time series. I realized I just didn’t care about another road trip where the gang becomes separated and runs off in different directions.
Yeah that too, you're right. You get hooked into the rythm of one group and, at the next chapter, you're taken away from them, following another part of the story in which you are not currently invested.
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Ah, sorry, don't want to put you off (bit late for that, I guess). Hopefully you enjoy it more than me!
wrote last edited by [email protected]Honestly, I haven't really been interested in TV shows in general much lately, so I'm not sure I would have bothered anyway. I checked out the trailer and even than shows that it seems to diverge quite a bit from the book.
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Last: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Current: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Lest you think I'm bragging, the one before that was Omegaverse fanfic.
