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Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 6:53 pm
by wub
vishes wrote:wub wrote:
An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington


How is it??
I've got season 1 on blu-ray and I can't get enough of it

Honestly, it's a bit shit.
He comes across as a fuckwit and the way it's written ("I saw the pyramids today and they are big, bigger than I thought and there is sand") is like a slightly retarded child talking about what they did on their summer holidays. I've not seen the TV series, but I can imagine it's better when you see him acting like a twat rather than just writing like one.
That being said, it's an easy read and I burned through 100 pages the other night with no effort, so I'd recommend it as something to keep on the back of the toilet for when you're having a shit.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 6:59 pm
by vishes
Hahaha yeah I think I get what you mean.
You do have to know though that he really is like that, he's not acting it. But I agree, the things he says sometimes are extremely obvious or stupid, but by seeing his expressions when he says those things, or the way he says it, is usually what makes me laugh.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:22 pm
by AllNightDayDream
To Kill A Mockingbird is such a great book. That and the great gatsby were the only school-required readings I really enjoyed. It's unfortunate how whenever a reading is assigned to you for school, there's a good chance you won't enjoy it for that fact alone.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:36 pm
by JBoy
Kark pilkington is a fuckwit, dont see what the fascination is with him.
Anyway, interview with the vampire.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 8:47 am
by James Kofi
vishes wrote:You do have to know though that he really is like that, he's not acting it.
he's as real as the only way is essex
JBoy wrote:Kark pilkington is a fuckwit
you always save me time in threads
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 2:23 pm
by AllNightDayDream
Just finished "Alienation and Freedom" by Richard Schmitt. A very pleasant surprise, and pretty short too, 133 pages. It explores both concepts through the works of various philosophers like Hume, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, economists like Marx, Smith, Bentham, and uses literature by the likes of Tolstoy and Flaubert. It really made me want to read some Tolstoy. I originally picked it up just to gain a second-hand understanding of marx's formulations of alienation, but I got much more than that out of it.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 4:36 pm
by SCope13
I read Anna Karenina a couple summers ago, I highly recommend it.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 9:28 pm
by AllNightDayDream
I got a compilation of his short stories, they're pretty rad.
Anyone ever get that feeling halfway through a book when you realize it's complete shit? Just happened to me reading this

Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:55 pm
by cosmic_surgeon
AllNightDayDream wrote:I got a compilation of his short stories, they're pretty rad.
Anyone ever get that feeling halfway through a book when you realize it's complete shit? Just happened to me reading this

epic.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:57 pm
by Devry_Kaneda
I buy way too many books and dont have time to read any of them. feels like shit.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 11:05 pm
by apmje
apmje wrote:
Still...finally getting into it.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 2:27 am
by antipode
Girl w/ Dragon Tattoo still.. girls getting in way of reading.
But I did just get a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, can't wait to crack into it.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:04 am
by butter_man
'upanishads' on a quest for enlightenment.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:10 am
by butter_man
AllNightDayDream wrote:Just finished "Alienation and Freedom" by Richard Schmitt. A very pleasant surprise, and pretty short too, 133 pages. It explores both concepts through the works of various philosophers like Hume, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, economists like Marx, Smith, Bentham, and uses literature by the likes of Tolstoy and Flaubert. It really made me want to read some Tolstoy. I originally picked it up just to gain a second-hand understanding of marx's formulations of alienation, but I got much more than that out of it.
ive read the first volume of war and peace, its not easy reading 80 pages on a ball where they discuss the different details of there love affairs and ball gowns. that mixed with paragraph long sentences and finding you have to go back to the start of each chapter if you dont read it through in one bit, makes it a toughie.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:26 pm
by Naan_Bread
You could always start with some of the shorter ones:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy_bibliography
"Alienation and Freedom" looks really cool, but as I said in the things that pissed you off today thread: it's going to cost me about £40 (rough conversion) because it's a uni text.
Fucking disgusting, still pissing me off.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:34 pm
by fassyman
AllNightDayDream wrote:I got a compilation of his short stories, they're pretty rad.
Anyone ever get that feeling halfway through a book when you realize it's complete shit? Just happened to me reading this

had to double take then, read the author as Francis Fukyamomma lol
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:56 pm
by magma
epochalypso wrote:Girl w/ Dragon Tattoo still.. girls getting in way of reading.
But I did just get a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, can't wait to crack into it.
The solution to this problem is to give up on the Larsson and get into Dracula. I read it as a teenager and it's COMPLETELY FUCKING AWESOME.
Accept no substitutes. I thought Anne Rice's books (Interview with a Vampire etc) might be a good follow-up... but from what I remember, they were boring as shit.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 6:37 pm
by AllNightDayDream
butter man wrote:AllNightDayDream wrote:Just finished "Alienation and Freedom" by Richard Schmitt. A very pleasant surprise, and pretty short too, 133 pages. It explores both concepts through the works of various philosophers like Hume, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, economists like Marx, Smith, Bentham, and uses literature by the likes of Tolstoy and Flaubert. It really made me want to read some Tolstoy. I originally picked it up just to gain a second-hand understanding of marx's formulations of alienation, but I got much more than that out of it.
ive read the first volume of war and peace, its not easy reading 80 pages on a ball where they discuss the different details of there love affairs and ball gowns. that mixed with paragraph long sentences and finding you have to go back to the start of each chapter if you dont read it through in one bit, makes it a toughie.
Yeah dunno if I'm gonna dive into that haha... It's like in les miserables when Hugo takes like 200 pages to describe the Parisian sewer system. I might be wrong but I think they were paid by the page back then.
@naan bread: yeah I really only get stuff from my uni library these days. Fuck me if Im about to drop 40 bucks for a 100 page book!
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 8:27 pm
by kay
magma wrote:epochalypso wrote:Girl w/ Dragon Tattoo still.. girls getting in way of reading.
But I did just get a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, can't wait to crack into it.
The solution to this problem is to give up on the Larsson and get into Dracula. I read it as a teenager and it's COMPLETELY FUCKING AWESOME.
Accept no substitutes. I thought Anne Rice's books (Interview with a Vampire etc) might be a good follow-up... but from what I remember, they were boring as shit.
Yeah I've got Dracula on the bookstack too. I've read it before a long time ago, but thought it was about time to give it another go.
I think Interview was ok, Lestat was just about bearable. But Queen of the Damned onwards was just farcical. Might as well have dressed them up in spandex.
Re: What are you reading?
Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 8:35 pm
by kay
AllNightDayDream wrote:kay wrote:AllNightDayDream wrote:kay wrote:Just started reading this:
2 chapters in, good read so far!
Definitely wanna pick this one up at some point, brian cox is a don. This along with "A Short History of Nearly Everything" look like good crash courses on modern science.
It's going reasonably well so far, definitely have learnt a few new things. Some of it is a bit difficult to read as they write out the equations and steps in solving the equations in prose, would've been much easier if they'd just written it out in a few simple lines of equations.
I think there are maybe 1 or 2 analogies which are a bit wonky, but overall seems to do the job without needing much more than understanding basic algebra and pythagoras.
I can handle that. Post your thoughts after you're done!
Finally done. Mostly happy with the book, its explained a few things in a different light (no pun intended), pointed out a few things which other books don't really touch on. It does sometimes go off on a tangent but those diversions are usually fairly entertaining and informative about historical figures in science. I think some of the concepts and explanations will make more sense if you've read other similar but less mathematically-inclined books first (e.g. The Elegant Universe). But on the whole it's reasonably well explained with analogies. It doesn't of course show the actual mathematical proof, but it does bring you in a step-by-step way to the same conclusion.
This will happily sit alongside Warped Passages on my bookshelf.