What are you reading?

kay · Post by **kay** » Mon May 28, 2012 11:08 pm

It explains a lot, but I found some of the explanations lacking or using a poor choice of words. It's ok for topics which he understands somewhat, but the bits he doesn't understand (and it's very clear that he doesn't understand them) he just tends to splurge out stuff and try to rush through as quickly as possible. I suppose it's ok as a primer, but I'd take everything in the book with a handful of salt.

wub · Post by **wub** » Tue May 29, 2012 6:53 am

Chewing through this...lost me for about 50 pages in the middle where it gets deep into American Politics past the level of what I can fully understand...has come out nicely the other side with his letters from travelling across south America.

Great cover picture too...

Disco Nutter · Post by **Disco Nutter** » Wed May 30, 2012 5:37 pm

Kochari wrote:
Disco Nutter wrote:Just started:
The Inimitable Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse
Love a bit of Wodehouse

"“She fitted into my biggest armchair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight about the hips that season.”

Yeah, he is an amazing author!

RE: A short story of nearly everything by Bill Bryson

@kay @DiegoSapiens
I liked it a lot. Gave it 5/5!

Neuromancer
by William Gibson

Half way through this one. Took me some time to get into it.

DRTY · Post by **DRTY** » Wed May 30, 2012 5:40 pm

Disco Nutter wrote:

RE: A short story of nearly everything by Bill Bryson

I liked it a lot. 5/5

Been meaning to read this for ages

magma · Post by **magma** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:12 am

^^ Really worth it. I understand kay's point, but if it's taken as an introduction to a vast array of subjects rather than an authority on any of them, it's absolutely fantastic. I got to the end and immediately bought about 10 other books on the subjects it raised, but beforehand I wouldn't have known where to look - it was the best set of signposts I could've hoped for.

Interestingly it wasn't the physics bits that most excited me in there, it was the human evolution stuff. There's a chapter about two sets of australopithecus footprints found preserved walking side-by-side in the ash of a volcano... the image he paints has stuck with me ever since.

Anyway, I've just had two weeks off work:

A few years old, so a couple of chapters could do with updates (most obviously the bit on creating new life which only gives Craig Venter's work a fairly minor mention as he'd only just started it)... but a great read giving just enough to get to grips with some of the biggest cul-de-sac's in modern science and tantalising nuggets on the people trying to cope with them.

The Wow Signal gets me everytime...

I'm a sucker for British histories. This book does the pre-history of England better than anything else I've read and gives as good a feel as I think you can really get for the incredibly blurry centuries prior to Romanisation.

It's made me want to fall in love with an Iceni warrior princess and bring peace across the tribes once again.

And the award for "Book read in quickest time" goes to...

He pretty much starts at one word then connects it to another, another, another... for an entire book. The chapters are all about 3 pages long and he always finished one with a leader into the next... try putting it down! Unfailingly interesting to a geek like me!

SCope13 · Post by **SCope13** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:26 pm

Disco Nutter wrote:
Kochari wrote:
Disco Nutter wrote:Just started:
The Inimitable Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse
Love a bit of Wodehouse

"“She fitted into my biggest armchair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight about the hips that season.”
Yeah, he is an amazing author!

RE: A short story of nearly everything by Bill Bryson

@kay @DiegoSapiens
I liked it a lot. Gave it 5/5!

Neuromancer
by William Gibson

Half way through this one. Took me some time to get into it.

Think I might read Neuromancer sometime this summer. I've heard great things about it.

Camu · Post by **Camu** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:45 pm

Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse

Brilliant

Disco Nutter · Post by **Disco Nutter** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:05 pm

magma wrote:Interestingly it wasn't the physics bits that most excited me in there, it was the human evolution stuff. There's a chapter about two sets of australopithecus footprints found preserved walking side-by-side in the ash of a volcano... the image he paints has stuck with me ever since.

Then read this if you haven't done it yet. Absolutely amazing, stunning.

NickUndercover · Post by **NickUndercover** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:19 pm

Hervé Bazin, "Un feu dévore un autre feu" (a fire devours another fire). Condemned romance in a fascist republic, really enjoyed it. I'm not usually one for love stories but it is really well written

François Mauriac, "Thérèse Desqueyroux". A noble woman poisons her husband without any apparent reason and the book tries to bring some explanations (based off a real story.) I've read it like 4 or 5 times and it's a classic.

...If you haven't read that one I suggest you get on it. Eye-opener.

magma · Post by **magma** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:27 pm

Disco Nutter wrote:
magma wrote:Interestingly it wasn't the physics bits that most excited me in there, it was the human evolution stuff. There's a chapter about two sets of australopithecus footprints found preserved walking side-by-side in the ash of a volcano... the image he paints has stuck with me ever since.
Then read this if you haven't done it yet. Absolutely amazing, stunning.

Yeah, this was decent.

I put off reading it for quite a while though because The God Delusion really pissed me off. Not that he was wrong, I just hate his tone... but my housemate had a copy of this in the bathroom for ages so I ended up reading it. It's really good when he's sticking to explaining science rather than getting on his soapbox about Creationism, but I felt like he was trying to whip me up into being angry with people who disagree... people who probably aren't even reading. I don't care what other people think, I just want to know what the author thinks.

Tbh, nobody's got close to Jared Diamond for writing on human evolution and development in my eyes... 'The Third Chimpanzee' (evolution, future-evolution), 'Why Is Sex Fun?' (human sexuality) and 'Guns, Germs and Steel' (evolution of civilisation, I suppose) are all the best books I've ever read on their subjects. I've really got to find time to read Collapse...

ehbes · Post by **ehbes** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:44 pm

Ordered this last night should be here in time for the weekend

dubfordessert · Post by **dubfordessert** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:48 pm

just finished reading the part where a freudian gets his knickers in a massive twist that foucault doesn't like psychoanalysis. seriously dude chill

zerbaman · Post by **zerbaman** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 12:49 am

Terry Glavin - the Sixth Extinction
Steven Chobsky - the Perks of being a Wallflower
Alodus Huxley - Brave New World
Kafka - Metamorphosis

Also have a few more titles to get started on this friday with summer and all

Disco Nutter · Post by **Disco Nutter** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:53 am

magma wrote:... 'Guns, Germs and Steel' (evolution of civilisation, I suppose) are all the best books I've ever read on their subjects. I've really got to find time to read Collapse...

Guns, Germs and steel was really, really good! Enjoyed it quite a lot too!

nousd · Post by **nousd** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 4:18 am

God is a bullet
Boston Teran
1999
there is some very dark experience channelled into this novel

Shum · Post by **Shum** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 10:08 pm

Light Years by Brian Clegg.

A great pop science book on the subject of light. Top notch writing, I only wish it had more diagrams.

cosmic_surgeon · Post by **cosmic_surgeon** » Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:46 pm

The title might make it appear like a "specialist" or "dry and dusty" academic text but make no mistake, this is an absolute gem which is far too valuable to be a strictly academic book. Brilliant critique of rationalism, very relevant to the educational/social context we're living through right now. Large parts of it deal with an Italian philosopher named Giambattista Vico who was an insightful critic of Descartes and in fact predicted much of the damage we're seeing to our ways of thinking/teaching which Cartesianism would result in. Stressing the priority of the creative discovering faculties over the rational, critical faculties he felt that ignoring rhetoric (the understanding he and Grassi offer of rhetoric is very eye opening - if you've ever read any Ancient philosophy you'll be v. surprised) and laying emphasis on rationality exclusively led to stagnation and a lack of creativity. After all, the premises of a logical deduction/induction/abduction require the initial discovery of premises and fundamental principles, something which logic cannot produce out of itself by necessity (as logic needs them to begin, how could it begin without this initial discovery?).

Not heavy-handed romanticism or a "destruction" of rationality by any means, but a lucid and engaging insight into the being of rationality itself and its misunderstood parent, rhetoric. Essential reading for anyone concerned with turning the tide on our culture's choice to stoically endure a joyless calculative life. Highly recommended!

Shum · Post by **Shum** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:41 am

RIP Robert Hughes

"The shock of the new" is one of the best books i've ever read.

SCope13 · Post by **SCope13** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 3:03 am

Just started Naked Lunch by Burroughs.

wub · Post by **wub** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 11:47 am

In the last week;

Missus hadn't read a Discworld for a while and suggested we start at the beginning of the series

Was buy one get one free so made the most of it

Hadn't read a Jack Reacher book before, so decided to give it a crack. Nothing too substantial, good enough story/decent plot to keep me guessing, not close to Connelly's work with the Bosch series though IMO.

Just started on this, hadn't read it before and it was on sale so thought I'd give it a punt.

Just ordered this as a follow up to Jingo for the Vimes story arc

Also on order as follow up to Great Shark hunt which I've just finished a third readthrough of.

Got a couple of business trips coming up so need something disposable for the airport/plane.

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