Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: What Books Are You Reading This Month?
An anonymous reader writes: Hey fellow Slashdot readers, what are some books you're reading right now, and intend to pick up later this month? Also if you would be so kind, what are some good new-ish novels (fiction / non-fiction) you recommend? Thanks!
Leviathan Wakes
Caliban's War
Abaddon's Gate
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Games
All in the last month. Can't put them down.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
I'm trying to read some classic Western literature to see what thought processes led to current Western culture. Currently I'm reading the Tragedies of Aeschylus (Agamemnon specifically). Encyclopedia Brittanica put together a list of the books they thought were most influential throughout Western history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... . My goal is to work my way through all of them, eventually. There's a good variety: literature, philosophy, history, theology, math, and science.
Now your making me feel bad for not having time to read books something more important always seems to turn up. Darn you real life, youtube and netflix!
I hate dialup so much but I often think I'd get more done of that was still my only option.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Due to my concerns that the American middle class is being decimated...
Currently reading:
The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic
Review
Previously read (related):
Why Nations Fail
Review
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It
Review
Currently reading "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Just finished "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I know Dawkins himself isn't everybody's cup of tea, but the book is excellent....I should have read it ages ago - it's really helped me come to terms with my atheism,
The internet has screwed up my text-based attention span so much, I'm not sure I could even finish a normal length book anymore.
I'm half-way through reading this one: Irresistible (Rise of Addictive technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked) by Adam Alter It's really well written.
"Opal: Advanced Cutting and Setting" by Paul B. Downing
"Gem Identification Made Easy" by Antoinette Matlins and A.C. Bonanno
"Creative Gold- and Silversmithing" by Sharr Choate and Bonnie Cecil De May
And a bunch of loose gemstone faceting diagrams (several of which have failed to render properly in GemCAD so I'm quite sure their angles and indexes are off) including the famous Lone Star Cut.
Refractive Index is a fun thing to play with if you know what you're doing.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
A Beginner's Guide to Losing Your Mind: Survival techniques for staying sane
By Emily Reynolds, formerly a writer at Wired magazine in the UK.
Not an easy read at times, but has +5 insightful bits on how to deal with mental illness, ours or our friends'.
Striking Thoughts, Bruce Lee. So far it's pretty great.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Read "Collapsing Empire" by John Scaltzi.
What's it like. Not a magic fantasy fan myself so I like to only read great books in that genere.
in the last month I read:
1) THe Girl on the Train.
Yet another novel with "the Girl" in the title. But this one holds up because of the superb point of view telling from not one but three unreliable selfish narrators, the good prose, and a reasonable intrigue. The characters are distinct and well drawn, people's personalities come across.
2) Red Shirts. After the grim Girl on the Train, I went for lighthearted. This was just laugh out loud hillarious. Great set of twists on an initial comic premise make it far more than a one-joke story. It gets meta. And has great ripping dialogue. funny funny funny and clever to boot.
3) The Spaceship Nextdoor. The art in this one is the telling of it. very wry. Humorous with a premise I'd not encountered before. It wraps up a bit abruptly but it was a fun ride all the way through and kept me curious.
4) Having enjoyed the spaceship next door I got the author's earlier book "immortal". This is crass shadow of the space ship next door and not stimulating. Not going to finish this one.
5) the pervious couple months I read Hamilton. Now that is one of the most amazing human adventure biographies I've ever read. Hamilton started out in Dickensian poverty in the caribbean and rose to be not just the most influential desginer of our government but also the one's influences on our banking system remains the most important today. I highly recommend this extraordinary work.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
30 years after I first read it.
Previous to that I read Canterbury Tales. There is something about old stuff that seems to make it better than most modern {pulp} fiction.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
Douglas Adams' "The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul" and "The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation" by Michael Perelman.
The Age of Wonder
Sapiens
The Long Earth/Long War
Yes, Please
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
And I'm trying to read the Hitchhikers Guide series of books. Starting on #1 when the neighborhood pool opens up.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm reading "Slow News Day" by "Tufuk Inglazee, Turight Anartical"
Fred S. Roberts, Barry Tesman: Applied Combinatorics, CRC Press, Special Indian Edition (way cheaper and good quality).
This book is awesome, just like all other books by Roberts. Unfortunately, I can only read it for learning some basics and taking a look the many examples, as I lack the time to really work through it. :/
Is the Notre Dam bigger than the Hoover Dam?
Either way, I don't give a dam.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I'll buy Change Agent when it is published on the 18th. The author is an IT guy, which means his books are also heavily IT influenced. I really liked the other novels he already published.
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Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life by Mark Goulston
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On Deck ---
The Complete Infidel's Guide to Iran by Robert Spencer
A Burglar's Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh
D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944 by Holger Eckhertz
Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed by Jason L. Riley
Confluence (Linesman book 3) by S. K. Dunstall
The Liberation (The Alchemy Wars Book 3) by Ian Tregillis
Finished in March ---
The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart
Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History by Dan Flores
The Rising (The Alchemy Wars Book 2) by Ian Tregillis
Alliance (Linesman Book 2) by S. K. Dunstall
The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent by Larry Correia
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
- The Four Pillars of Investing. Good begginer-to-mid-level book in investing. Slightly dated, because it came out in '02 and is aware of the dot-com bust but not the real estate one. I think the author has an updated book, but I don't think the principles will have changed much.
- The Divide (beta read). A space opera about a war between spacefaring races. Only available on BetaBooks.co, through their beta reader pool. Looking forward to seeing this one in print.
- A Crash Course in Python - just refreshing some python programming skills
- Just finished an audiobook on Brahms, his life and music.
- Just starting an audiobook on Mindfulness.
- I'm also obsessively re-reading my third novel, Stranger and Better, which is due out in the next month, just to catch final edits. Coming of age at Oberlin College, engaging in an impossible search for the meaning of life.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Do they need to have pictures or not? If anything, the question sounds like you want to do some profiling on people as what I like has nothing to do with what you like.
Go to a bookstore and browse there. Even better if it is a second hand bookstore. You will find things that are not the standard answers that you will see every time and you will be surprised by how good they might be.
Because what you are asking as what your favorite food is and the answer will be pizza. That while you will see a LOT more when you just walk around and go into restaurants and order what you like at that moment.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Music at the Limits - Edward Said
Across the River and Into the Trees - Ernest Hemingway
Shadow of the Giant - Orson Card
God Mining Boomtown People of White Oaks, Lincoln County New Mexico Territory - Roberta Haldane
love is just extroverted narcissism
By myself:
Adams - Dirk Gently 1 & 2
Plato - The Republic
Milton - Paradise Lost
With my kids:
Snicket - A Series of Unfortunate Events
Milne - Winnie the Pooh
Grahame - The Wind in the WIllows
This is about the financial derivative blowup in the 90s.
"Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it." - George Santayana
Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
I'm currently reading Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series for the first time.
I'm also writing my own science fiction series, it's a cheerful post-apocalyptic hard sci-fi adventure. With explosions.
The first book is free here: fixerbook.net
"The Medical and Surgical Uses of Electricity" (full text) by Alphonso David Rockwell. It was written in 1896, before the Internet became popular. I stumbled across it while doing research as it mentions Tesla and Edison. I am reading it because I find it interesting that the topic is about using electricity, when house outlets weren't a thing yet.
At 10% in, the author has spent dozens of pages describing what they knew then about magnetism, basic electric principles, Ohm's law (they use "C" for current!), the properties of batteries, how they are made/work, and the common chemistries of the time period. So far, this is all for doctors so they can use the information and make/maintain their batteries to treat their patients! I like the undistracted perspective of it all and am filling my decades-old electronic knowledge with stuff I've never thought about before.
The upcoming medical chapters should be interesting to this armchair doctor too, as I am not quick to dismiss the ideas/experiments of brilliant men just because time has moved forward.
"indoor veggie growing" == Best.Explanation.Ever.
Thanks for reminding me about Siddhartha! I also want to re-read this one (loved it). I didn't like Demian too much, found it quite neutral/predictable; this and The Glass Bead Game (found it boring and didn't even finish it) are the Hesse's books which I liked the less.
No idea why you are making a reference to racism when talking about a Herman Hesse book, pretty much the opposite to what this author represents (i.e., multi-culture, tolerance, peace, etc.). On the other hand, what is the meaning of words/intention anymore, mainly in internet, right? Saying whatever about anything is as good as right the contrary. For some people, using a word like racism to attack anything or anyone is as easy as saying "hi", isn't it? Additionally, what is the exact point of saying of your "There's some racism hidden in one of those"? Is this a riddle which I have to solve? (to prove what? to whom?). Are you sure that you have read these books (and/or understand them)? Your personality doesn't seem Hesse-compatible to me.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
If a book isn't currently copyrighted, you might be able to get a free copy of it at Project Gutenberg.