What are you reading now?

[mikeymad]

and 

These are not happy books, but they are not meant to be.

[blessingx]

Is this next? It’s been sitting here unopened for a year. 

[mikeymad]

Added to Queue. I like Katie Mack, I didn't know that she wrote a book. Seems like ideas that I have explored with Brian Greene and of course Neil deGrasse Tyson. But I will be interested to hear her take and see how she writes. 

[mikeymad]

On 10/18/2022 at 8:49 PM, blessingx said:

Is this next? It’s been sitting here unopened for a year. 

This.

Just finished Katie's book. It was good and I got more out of it than I thought. I didn't know much about 'vacuum decay' and 'big rip' before, so there was new science here for me. She used analogies and humor well, it is written in her voice as I know her. 

[mikeymad]

• "What would happen if the Solar System was filled with soup out to Jupiter?"
• "I was wondering whether there's a way to use my welder as a defibrillator?"
• "How much water to you have to drink to become 99 percent water?"

....and many more. I enjoyed the first book enough to jump into the second. Now while I really enjoy the physical/reader version because of all the great cartoons/illustrations by Munroe (of xkcd fame), I could not pass up being read to Wil Wheaton. So, my recommendation (like I did) is to have the audio book in one app as you read along in another. :}

And I can never get family guy out of my head.

 

 

[en480c4]

On 10/15/2022 at 7:46 PM, n_maher said:

Almost done with this, definitely have enjoyed. Can't believe that @en480c4 has not posted about it.

Finished this up last night.  Thoroughly enjoyed it.  I can see how it was an unplanned addition to the three-book series, and it does a great job of filling in a lot of gaps.  Just a minor issue...

 

Spoiler

I have to admit I didn't love the last chapter or epilogue.  I didn't think the action was particularly easy to follow in the last chapter, and while I like the different writing styles to differentiate points of view, the epilogue was a challenge and requires at least one re-read before the series goes away until Alecto.  

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by en480c4

[swt61]

Brushing up on the poems of Robert Service. I learned of his work very early in childhood, as he's quite popular in Alaska. My High school was named Robert Service High.

We had a local TV celebrity in Anchorage named Larry Beck, who went to all the grade schools reciting Robert Service poems.

[swt61]

https://www.anchoragememories.com/the-mother-moose-tv-show.html

[Dusty Chalk]

On 11/4/2022 at 9:46 AM, en480c4 said:

Finished this up last night.  Thoroughly enjoyed it.  I can see how it was an unplanned addition to the three-book series, and it does a great job of filling in a lot of gaps.  Just a minor issue...

 

  Hide contents

I have to admit I didn't love the last chapter or epilogue.  I didn't think the action was particularly easy to follow in the last chapter, and while I like the different writing styles to differentiate points of view, the epilogue was a challenge and requires at least one re-read before the series goes away until Alecto.  

 

Not going to argue with any of that.  I, too, thoroughly enjoyed it; I, too...

Spoiler

...think I may have missed something, but have yet to re-read, for reasons totally unrelated.

Started this:

[mikeymad]

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

- Fun bit of pop science. I enjoyed it. He went into topics that I don't follow and gave them some history and context with humor. 

and another Short (Brief) history book.

A Brief History of Black Holes by Dr Becky Smethurst

Dr. Becky is someone that I follow on YouTube to keep me updated on my Astronomy news (all things JWST). And she wrote a book. It is overall a good read. It only suffers, like most physics (astro or otherwise) books, for me in that there is a lot of time spent in history and background before getting to the few new ideas and concepts. Like the Katie's book above, I did get a few new things and I enjoyed her writing. She writes as she speaks, which I always enjoy. 

An example of a recent post. 

So, I mostly read non-fiction. I don't mind novels and can enjoy them now and then. 

I tried to read this the other day: (no pic) 

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

This came after watching - Midnight in Paris (2011). It got me thinking, how much Hemingway have I read? Not much. So I picked this at random. And I have to say that I didn't get very far. The writing and voice were okay, but the use of the term, nigger, was so pervasive and derogatory, that I just couldn't continue. I thought of it is this way, what if he was saying, 'filthy whore', over and over, would I continue? Nope. I may try something else at some point, but I was done with that book. 

So, now I am reading:

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients by Sheldon B. Kopp

Good luck all..

 

[MoonShine]

^ That Bryson is one of my all time favorite books.

[robm321]

^ I bought it awhile ago. It's one of the few physical books I've purchased in the last few years. I know what I'm reading next. 

Edited December 19, 2022 by robm321

[MoonShine]

I wanted to read this before watching the movie.

Perhaps a mistake. It is one of the best written books that I have read in a long time and I fear that there is no conceivable way that the movie is going to do it justice.

This is my 2nd Delillo after Underworld which I also liked but not nearly this much.

The characters and dialogue are stellar. I am savoring it.

Excerpt:

Bee was quietly disdainful of wisecracks, sarcasm and other family business. A year older than Denise, she was taller, thinner, paler, both worldly and ethereal, as though in her heart she was not a travel writer at all, as her mother had said she wished to be, but simply a traveler, the purer form, someone who collects impressions, dense anatomies of feeling, but does not care to record them.

[ktm]

Crucible of hell.

Details the invasion of Okinawa.  Lot's of detail from people that were

there on both sides. One of the worst battles of the war. 

I was stationed in Okinowa for a year in the mid 70's.  It was an eye

opening experience for a 19 year old from a rural area of Iowa. 

[blessingx]

Planning out my future with a tangping attitude.

https://madeinchinajournal.com/2023/01/08/lying-flat-profiling-the-tangping-attitude/ 

 

[HiWire]

Greg Bear – Queen of Angels

[Dusty Chalk]

I actually need to read that next.  I read Slant, not realizing it was book 4 in a series, and thought it was great.

 

[HiWire]

I read Slant first, too. Finally getting to Queen of Angels.

[Dusty Chalk]

On 2/10/2023 at 10:10 PM, HiWire said:

I read Slant first, too. Finally getting to Queen of Angels.

They must've promoted it differently more accurately targeting its market.

Success!

[TMoney]

Robin Hobb - Farseer Trilogy

I read some interview saying that these books were one of the best fantasy series in the last 30 years. George R.R. Martin seemed to agree, as he is blurbed on the back cover.

So I picked the first one up. It started ok. I figured I'd put it down if I got bored and move on to something else. But I kept going. The more I read the more I started really getting in to the world the author has created. There is some really great stuff here, and Ms. Hobb has the prose of a seasoned writer.

Now I just finished the second book and am on to book 3! I'm all in. If you at all enjoy fantasy game of thrones-ish type series, this one is a winner.

(sadly I got ebooks from the library and am not reading those amazing looking folio society hardcovers)

[recstar24]

 

nice surprise! Picked up at the Harvard Book store while visiting 

[blessingx]

Chris Miller’s Chip War 

[blessingx]

Tim Carpenter’s To Photograph is to Learn How to Die 

[blessingx]

Seeing Beyond the Beauty of a Vermeer

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/25/magazine/vermeer-beauty-brutality.html?src=longreads 

“I am still moved by the quiet miracle of that boyhood afternoon. But my relationship with art has changed. I look for trouble now. No longer is a Vermeer painting simply “foreign and alluring.” It is an artifact inescapably involved in the world’s messiness — the world when the painting was made and the world now. Looking at paintings this way doesn’t spoil them. On the contrary, it opens them up, and what used to be mere surface becomes a portal, divulging all kinds of other things I need to know.”

[Dusty Chalk]

Been reading a bunch of self-help books:

The Four Agreements -- excellent!  Highly recommended to everyone, spiritual or otherwise

The Fifth Agreement -- in progress, but same

Atomic Habits -- pretty great so far, we'll see if it sticks