#1580

This Kraftwerk book seems to be on sale already… I am nearly finished it… a great read

#1581

I recently listened to a great interview with Becker on Sean Carroll’s podcast. Definitely a book I want to get. I read Carroll’s book on the foundations of quantum mechanics, Something Deeply Hidden. Highly recommended, too.

2 Likes
#1582

I also finished listening to this on audio book recently based on hearing about it from @neauoire’s recommendation. It touches on a lot of writers I’ve really loved in the recent past and leaves me with a lot of concepts to explore. Audio books lead to some fragmented understandings (falling asleep, distracted by other tasks) and I had to listen through a couple of times. There were several things that she said that were so resonant with me and I wanted to underline them or write them down but then they were gone… so I’ll probably buy it at some point. I want to explore more deeply: distributed web, building real community in my life, conversation, I had already been thinking I’d like to know more about the plants around me. My son is a horticulturist and I dated someone for quite a while who was a plant nerd. I don’t know the name of the big tree right outside my door (a jasmine?) and in my back yard is a Magnolia Monstrosa I live in a place full of green. I’d like to get to know the green as more than green… at least some of it. Also, I’ve made baby steps to meet some of my neighbors. It’s difficult.

3 Likes
#1583

Yeah, it seems like a sub-optimal audio book, but I’d definitely go that route over not reading it.

Again, can’t really recommend it enough.

#1584

I just finished How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu. It’s interesting, if you’ve been meaning to pick it up, I still recommend it, it reads a bit like Adams, Lem and Calvino.

I’ve been eyeing this one as my next reading:

3 Likes
#1585

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I read this just for the hell of it, kind of expecting it to just be a fine bedtime read (despite genuinely loving Mythbusters).

It was fantastic. One of the most inspirational books I’ve read in a while. This quote in particular really stuck out, but I logged a lot of lines from this in my journal. Highly recommended.

Being a better listener rather than a “wait-to-talker” is something I’m still working on, but it doesn’t change the fact that listening to people share things about which they’re sincerely enthusiastic can be both thrilling and inspiring.

3 Likes
#1587

Reading The Master and Margarita at the moment, loving how completely crazy it is.

A recent favourite is Dark Satellites by Clemens Meyer. Dreamy, almost stream-of-consciousness tales of mundane lives.

6 Likes
#1588

I finished Leckie’s The Raven Tower a couple of weeks back and I keep thinking about it. That’s about as good a review as I can give to any book. Really, if you’re tolerant to fantasy at all, this one’s probably worth your time.

Onto Agency!

2 Likes
#1589

I picked that one up out of curiosity after reading Ancillary Justice, but have yet to read it. Thanks for the recommendation.

Currently I’m reading some Cherryh, who is a big influence on Leckie.
I’m typically more a fan of expositional/ cultural/political sci fi - ideally with satirical humor - rather than action/monster or severely dystopian sci fi.

2 Likes
#1590

a lot of hit and miss so far this year but my current reading pile is nothing but hits:

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#1591

I was so blown away by this book. Was not expecting it to be so mind bending and great. Would read again.

3 Likes
#1592

That’s a really really nice read. It holds up to countless revisits

#1593

Loved it as well. When I finished it I read all the articles and analyses as well, which made me realize even more so how great it is.

#1594

So I just read through this thread from start to finish. It took me around a year but I am now caught up and my goodreads “to read” list is brimming with amazing recommendations. I have read quite a few books since I started trying to catch up with this thread, even a few I found in this thread. Now that I am caught up I wanted to get the ball rolling on a contribution, so here is some stuff I have read very recently:

This was one of the most affecting books I have read in years. Not only is it the incredible stories, of 3 amazing individuals, rendered in beautiful prose. It is also the most informative book I have ever read on the history of race relations in the USA. As someone from a pretty homogeneous European country, although I have lived in many multi-cultural cities and travelled what, I would like to think of as extensively… I have always been acutely aware of my lack of understanding and experience with the history of race relations in the US. A history directly created by my ancestors. This was an eye-opener. It really helped me move forward slightly in that understanding and it did so in telling me the story of 3 incredible individuals. I cannot recommend this book enough. Genuinely inspirational and harrowing. The arguably mundane horror of everyday life in the Jim Crow South was striking and represented so well here.


A book I had been meaning to read for some time. Very much worth the short read. Not sure anything could ever adequately portray the horror and the aftermath of the Great war but I think this goes some way.

I enjoyed this but wasn’t blown away. Having read some Steinbeck before this was touted to me as the unsung great of his bibliography and whilst I enjoyed it, it didn’t blow me away. I guess I was in a different place when I read the others.

Currently re-reading “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov for a book club. Enjoying it very much. It’s been over a decade since I read it first and I don’t think I really took it in.

5 Likes
#1596

Discovered Walter Tevis’ The Queen’s Gambit yesterday and… hoovered 2/3 of it in a day. Just great - terse, electric, and I live how he writes about chess: enough detail for the chess heads, but poetic enough for the rest of us.

1 Like
#1597

@grey @squim thank you guys for the recommendation! I’m about halfway through this book at the moment. I think she’s asking all of the right questions- the same questions most of us are asking as we grapple with the attention economy (which is a perfect label). I’m very much enjoying her thoughtful approach. I do feel that the tone of her writing takes on an unhelpful amount of smugness at times, and that the approach is rooted in a lot of privilege (she mentions this, in fact). And I’m beginning to suspect that this is one of those self help blogs that was unnecessarily converted into a book (the formula for which always seems to be Original Idea + 150 Pages of Anecdotes That Elaborate). But I hope to be wrong, because it’s an important topic that actually does deserve our attention. This isn’t meant as a dig, it happens all the time. Anyway, back to reading!

#1598

That is not what it is at all. It is building on an essay she wrote, but the book is substantially more.

1 Like
#1599

I should also say, off the back of this thread I too read, enjoyed and massively benefited from How to do Nothing by Jenny Odell

edit: although I will say I found the first half more useful than the backend overall. Still, highly recommended

6 Likes
#1601

My wife bought this for me yesterday. Looking forward to diving into it soon.

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2 Likes
#1602

I’ve read the first three of the Expanse novels (thanks public library!) and am starting in on Cibola Burn.

a bit spoilery...

I wasn’t sure at first, but now I prefer the books over the TV series, overall. I feel like the added subplots don’t make the story better, just more TV-like. Each episode has to be… episodic, with its own arc that gets resolved, which isn’t an issue in the books. I thought Anderson Dawes made a whole lot less sense, Diogo showing up everywhere is a bit weird and the “secret OPA stealth materials” angle just sort of annoys me.

OTOH, I did kind of prefer Drummer over Bull, I liked the more ambiguous TV version of Klaes Ashford, and Lang Belta is definitely better in the TV version.

At first I didn’t know whether I was going to keep reading all the available novels, or catch up to Season 4 and then wait to see the TV version first. But now I know, I’m going to read everything. I’m kind of with Miller at this point; I want to know what killed off the protomolecule makers. My current guess is: their own politics. Perhaps they too found technology alien to them, and started squabbling over it the same way Earth, Mars and the OPA did with the protomolecule, ring gate and new worlds.

5 Likes