What book are you reading?

[vive le beau jeu !]

Robert Guillain - Orient Extrême, Une vie en Asie (autobiography)

very interesting so far (and a pleasant read)... he gives a different perspective on many major historical events of the XXth century.

 

[EddieBrock]

What do you think of that one? I'm interested in how everyday objects work

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Well, lately, being more/less locked in/down,
have been reading 2 or 3 books a week...

A Terrible Splendor- Marshall Jon Fisher: about the famous Davis Cup match between von Cramm and Budge.
Lots of information about world events and personalities. Worth reading.

A Handful of Summers- Gordon Forbes: about his life from childhood and as touring player.
Had some amusing anecdotes, but, for some reason, I found him irritating as a person.

Crocodile on the Sandbank- a "mystery" by Elizabeth Peters: was recommended by someone who knew I
read mysteries. It was dull, trivial, and, basically, stupid.

The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness- Erich Fromm: an overview of the psychological, sociological, anthropological and historical factors that help mans aggression and how it differs from other animals. Worth reading.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Almost forgot-
Currently reading
The World of Jeeves
a collection of stories by P G wodehouse.

One of the best writers ever.
Not necessarily profound, but amusing enough
to compensate for its lack of depth.

 

[Vcore89]

What do you think of that one? I'm interested in how everyday objects work

An amalgam of mechanical objects, its inner workings elucidated: how they're made, operate and the myriad iterations through the ages presented with stunning photography.

 

[Vcore89]

 

[Vcore89]

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Just started Death and the Maiden
a mystery novel from the 1940s
by Gladys Mitchell.
The "detective" is Beatrice Bradley a psychoanalyst
and amateur sleuth.
I almost gave up on it after a few pages- the situations
were silly and improbable and the interactions seemed unnatural.
However, I am still reading it. There is just something good natured about
it (so far) that I am hoping for an interesting outcome???

Just finished The World of Jeeves by P G Wodhouse- over 650 pages
of stories about the same characters, but the writing is so excellent
it never get tiring. Possibly the best stylist ever.

Read Dune (Frank Herbert) a while back- liked it- especially the fact that it was not over-explained
and left room for mystery and wonder. So, I bought the next volume in the series, Dune Messiah.
Right off the bat, it started explaining things away. I stopped reading after 50 pages and may
never go back.

After the Jeeves book, I read Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination.
Written in the mid 1950s, it is still one of the best scifi novels ever- well crafted,
interesting characters, marvelously inventive. Maybe a bit "preachy" toward the end.

And, just before that- read a book called Brilliant Blunderes
by Mario Livio (found it at a thrift store) It looks at varios scientists, Darwin, Lord Kelvin, Linus Pauling,
Fred Hoyle, and Einstein (I may have forgotten a few)- and looks, not so much at their
success, as at their mistakes and blind spots- was an interesting way to learn
about some major ideas in science history.

 

[Vcore89]

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Just found (at a thrift store) a copy of Cortina's Spanish Conversational Guide.
The first publication date was 1928, revised in 1942, and it contains a lot
of handy phrases, model conversations in various situations and lists of words and idioms
that might be handy to a traveler of that period. Do people still say, "to care not a fig"? The book says,
"no importarle a uno bledo". I'm sure I will forget that by tomorrow- but I care not a fig!

 

[Vcore89]

 

[Deleted member 771911]

Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah.

So, what do you think? I barely made it through Swan's Way,
Yet he is considered among the best. What do you think?

 

[Deleted member 771911]

So, what do you think? I barely made it through Swan's Way,
Yet he is considered among the best. What do you think?

I prefer it to the previous one, The Guermantes way. That one was a real slog towards the end. This one has a quicker start with an intriguing story concerning M. de Charlus. I've only got to page 50.
I highly recommend book 2. You could even just read a summary of book 1 and then go to book 2.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Just finished Death and the Maiden
by Gladys Mitchell

She was once considered one of the "big three"
mystery writers of England, during her time, and this was considered
one of her best novels.

Though it had some interesting observations, and I kept expecting
a clever ending, it was, basically, a waste of time- mostly silly.

Next, I intend to read Arsene Lupin, Gentelman-Burglar
by Maurice Leblanc-
the French answer to Sherlock Holmes. Fingers crossed.

 

[chrischris]

Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson

About how to lose capital for ever.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Also recently read The Demolished Man
by Alfred Bester. A scifi novel about a future where
ESP makes crime/murder nearly impossible.

One of the best in the history of scifi writing.

 

[natalia]

 

[Raul_SJ]

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

..........

 

[Dedans Penthouse]

.
Second go around with The Trial by Franz Kafka

 

[Bagumbawalla]

.
Second go around with The Trial by Franz Kafka

One of my favorite books!

 

[Sudacafan]

So, what do you think? I barely made it through Swan's Way,
Yet he is considered among the best. What do you think?

I prefer it to the previous one, The Guermantes way. That one was a real slog towards the end. This one has a quicker start with an intriguing story concerning M. de Charlus. I've only got to page 50.
I highly recommend book 2. You could even just read a summary of book 1 and then go to book 2.

It’s worth the task to read the seven volumes.

 

[Sudacafan]

Has anyone printed and bound all the pages of the closed Srsh thread?
It’s a must read of more than 1,100 pages

 

[graycrait]

"Audience of One", Poniewozik, 2019. God, Buddha, Shiva, something, save us from ourselves...

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Has anyone printed and bound all the pages of the closed Srsh thread?
It’s a must read of more than 1,100 pages

Not quite as many pages as Les Miserables, by Hugo-
but, possibly more exciting.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

While browsing through the books at a thrift store, I found a copy of Hyperspace, by Michio Kaku
who tries to explain that it is easier to comprehend subatomic vibrations and string theory
if we think of them as occuring in ten-dimensional space.

I am about halfway through it and comprehending it less and less, page by page. On hold for the time being.

 

[Sudacafan]

The Responsibility of Intellectuals, by Noam Chomsky.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

The Responsibility of Intellectuals, by Noam Chomsky.

Looked it up- sounds good.
Can we self-rate as intelectuals,
or do we need to take a test?

 

[EddieBrock]

Very interesting read. Especially from the perspective of someone who grew up poor in India that had been devastated by effects of socialism. Goes through it's history, comparisons over time, examples of its failure and why people would try to import something with a track record of failure into a successful country.

Haven't finished it yet, but I've learned a lot from it.

 

[Sudacafan]

Looked it up- sounds good.
Can we self-rate as intelectuals,
of do we need to take a test?

If what you’re gonna do if the test result is positive or negative is exactly the same, don’t take the test.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

If what you’re gonna do if the test result is positive or negative is exactly the same, don’t take the test.

I took your advice- I am now the President of the United States, although no one will ever know it.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

It seems, lately, that I've been picking up random books at thrift stores.
Today I found a copy of The Thousand and One Nights (1909 copyright).
Probably will just read a few stories at a time in between other works.
Also found a copy of In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays, by Bertrand Russell.
It has 15 essays on various social, political and philosophical issues. I may also alternate these essays
between other reading.
Just finished Arsene Lupin Gentelman Burglar, by Maurice Leblanc and, basically, it is just light reading-
sort of like a detective story, but from the vantage point of the criminal- somethng to read before nodding off to sleep.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Well, I've read about 25 pages or so of each book (see above).
First 1001Nights- What I am finding interesting so far, more than the "stories" themselves,
is the framework of telling stories, within stories, within stories- that and some of the interjected
"words of wisdom" sprinkeled throught the tales. Here is one example (wise) that would apply
to tennis jitters during a close match-

"Tell him who is oppressed with anxiety, that anxiety will not last:
As happiness passeth away, so passeth anxiety".

Of the other book, In Praise of Idleness, Bertrand Russell seems to have a sort of
glib, possibly wry, style as he skips from conclusion to conclusion without
much development- I go from thinking "how stupid" to "how brilliant" to "well
he's just like me" in the space of a couple sentences.

"Leisure is essential to civilization, and in former times leisure for the few
was rendered possible by the labors of the many. But their labors were valuable, not
because work is good, but because leisure is good".

 

[Sudacafan]

Well, I've read about 25 pages or so of each book (see above).
First 1001Nights- What I am finding interesting so far, more than the "stories" themselves,
is the framework of telling stories, within stories, within stories- that and some of the interjected
"words of wisdom" sprinkeled throught the tales. Here is one example (wise) that would apply
to tennis jitters during a close match-

"Tell him who is oppressed with anxiety, that anxiety will not last:
As happiness passeth away, so passeth anxiety".

Of the other book, In Praise of Idleness, Bertrand Russell seems to have a sort of
glib, possibly wry, style as he skips from conclusion to conclusion without
much development- I go from thinking "how stupid" to "how brilliant" to "well
he's just like me" in the space of a couple sentences.

"Leisure is essential to civilization, and in former times leisure for the few
was rendered possible by the labors of the many. But their labors were valuable, not
because work is good, but because leisure is good".

Leisure is good, but I am always wondering if I am making the best use of it.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Leisure is good, but I am always wondering if I am making the best use of it.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two different things- old proverb.

 

[AWM]

 

[chrischris]

Is it good?

 

[AWM]

Is it good?

I've only just started it.

 

[haqq777]

 

[Vcore89]

 

[Vcore89]

 

[Vcore89]

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Well, I finally finished In Paise of Idleness- and Other Essays
(see somewhere, above, as well The 1001 Nights.

Would recommend the "Idleness" book by Russell,
not because it has anything new to say about the world's ills
(it was written 90 years ago), but rather, because it is a glimpse
into a period of time with many social, political, economic and philosophical
ideas flapping about- and, now, here we are almost 100 years later- still
sloshing through the same morass of lies, power plays, greed and politics
as before.

Here is a sentence from the essay "The Ancestry of Fascism":

The two things the world needs most are Socialism and peace, but both are contrary to the interests of
the most powerful men of our time.

During this same time, I also finished a biograbhy of John Horton Conway- Genius at Play.
Years ago, when I was in high school, I used to subscribe to Scientific American- especially for the Mathematical Games
section written by Martin Gardner. In addition to being a game theorist and mathematician, Conway was an inventor of
games like Sprouts:

The game is played by two players,[2] starting with a few spots drawn on a sheet of paper. Players take turns, where each turn consists of drawing a line between two spots (or from a spot to itself) and adding a new spot somewhere along the line. The players are constrained by the following rules.

• The line may be straight or curved, but must not touch or cross itself or any other line.
• The new spot cannot be placed on top of one of the endpoints of the new line. Thus the new spot splits the line into two shorter lines.
• No spot may have more than three lines attached to it. For the purposes of this rule, a line from the spot to itself counts as two attached lines and new spots are counted as having two lines already attached to them.

In so-called normal play, the player who makes the last move wins. In misère play, the player who makes the last move loses. Misère Sprouts is perhaps the only misère combinatorial game that is played competitively in an organized forum.[3]

Anyway, it is worth a read- who knew that mathematicians could also be interesting people.

 

[Bagumbawalla]

Forgot to mention what I am reading now.
Picked up a couple books, The magnetic Fields- by Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault,
And Mad Love by Breton alone.
I have read Nadia by Breton and found it worth while.
A whole book full of automatic writing- well, we'll see.

 

[Vcore89]

 

[junior74]

It's always a pleasure reading about these guys

 

[vive le beau jeu !]

Robert Silverberg - Time of the great freeze

Peter Hopkirk - Foreigh devils of the silk road

 

[Nostradamus]

john wick chapter 4

 

[stringertom]

I’m beginning my exploration of the contemporary Scottish mystery writer Val McDermid. I have read the first in the series of private investigator Kate Brannigan novels called Dead Beat about the music scene in Manchester during the 90s. It has nice pace but it’s extremely derivative of the Agatha Christie style with multiple suspects of murder living under one roof.

Another of her series features a pair of characters that team as a police investigator and a profiler to solve a string of sadistic murders taking place in the gay community within a fictional English Midlands city. It’s called The Mermaids Singing and I’ve read just a bit of it but it’s already a page turner. The detective is named Carol Jordan and the profiler is Tony Hill.