What book are you reading?

[Philbo King]

I've been reading these ebooks for quite a while. Sci-fi with expired copyrights.

Books: Science fiction (sorted alphabetically)

Project Gutenberg offers 74,926 free eBooks for Kindle, iPad, Nook, Android, and iPhone.

www.gutenberg.org

 

[Timcognito]

"In The Real Work—the term magicians use for the accumulated craft that makes for a great trick—Gopnik becomes a dedicated student of several masters of their craft: a classical painter, a boxer, a dancing instructor, a driving instructor, and others. Rejecting self-help bromides and bullet points, he nevertheless shows that the top people in any field share a set of common qualities and methods. For one, their mastery is always a process of breaking down and building up—of identifying and perfecting the small constituent parts of a skill and the combining them for an overall effect greater than the sum of those parts. For another, mastery almost always involves intentional imperfection—as in music, where vibrato, a way of not quite landing on the right note, carries maximum expressiveness. Gopnik’s simplest and most invigorating lesson, however, is that we are surrounded by mastery. Far from rare, mastery is commonplace, if we only know where to look: from the parent who can whip up a professional strudel to the social worker who—in one of the most personally revealing passages Gopnik has ever written—helps him master his own demons."

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

I hadn't realised that Farce, in the novel form could exist.
A Good man in Africa, and Stars and Bars, by William Boyd, laugh out loud good!
Possibly not read in the company of ones Missus, when she is trying to concentrate on her Thriller!

 

[Andysu]

still not finished reading maritain book , the movie rubbish , actually the sound mix 7.1 was waste of my listening time , dialog centre channel , boring
rather read , Tom Holman book , look up index and find chapter to read , too scary Tom Holman THX is , find book too scary

so maritain has laid where is as first two pages after the movie dreadful 7.1 if atmos atmos is rubbish can't stand atmos on rest of rubbish dc marvel rubbish mixers , can't take there mixes serious anymore , other than , gravity 2013 way better directional dialog

 

[Multicore]

The Great Psychic Outdoors - Lo-Fi Music and Escaping Capitalism by Enrico Monacelli​

I recommend that you read it and then explain it to me.

The author helpfully put together this playlist

Badly Recorded Boy: Author Enrico Monacelli’s Lo-Fi Playlist | The Quietus

Image courtesy Jonas Ahrentorp. CC 2.0 I just published a book. It’s published by Repeater, and it’s called a The Great Psychic Outdoors. It’s a genealogy of lo-fi music. And right about at this point is where a slight sting of embarrassment gets me right there between where the two sides of my...

thequietus.com

 

[Wicky]

 

[Timcognito]

The Great Psychic Outdoors - Lo-Fi Music and Escaping Capitalism by Enrico Monacelli​

I recommend that you read it and then explain it to me.

The author helpfully put together this playlist

Badly Recorded Boy: Author Enrico Monacelli’s Lo-Fi Playlist | The Quietus

Image courtesy Jonas Ahrentorp. CC 2.0 I just published a book. It’s published by Repeater, and it’s called a The Great Psychic Outdoors. It’s a genealogy of lo-fi music. And right about at this point is where a slight sting of embarrassment gets me right there between where the two sides of my...

thequietus.com

Thanks for Quietus, a mile wide and mile deep in a sea of mostly boring music internet reviews. I like this https://kfjc.org/music/ where brevity leads to lots of listening and new music.

 

[caught gesture]

 

[Andysu]

still have THX Tom Holman book , too scary to read

 

[JeffS7444]

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/676736/out-there-screaming-by-edited-by-jordan-peele/

 

[JeffS7444]

The Great Psychic Outdoors - Lo-Fi Music and Escaping Capitalism by Enrico Monacelli​

I recommend that you read it and then explain it to me.

Maybe if you do the same for me and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" or "Gravity's Rainbow".

 

[Count Arthur]

I'm catching up on Neal Asher, just read...

The Bosch: A Novella (Far Future Polity) eBook : Asher, Neal: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

The Bosch: A Novella (Far Future Polity) eBook : Asher, Neal: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

www.amazon.co.uk

Now reading...

Amazon.co.uk

Up next...

Lockdown Tales 2 eBook : Asher, Neal: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Lockdown Tales 2 eBook : Asher, Neal: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

www.amazon.co.uk

I think I've read all of Neal Asher's books apart from the short story anthologies. I particularly enjoyed the Agent Cormac and Spatterjay series.

 

[Robin L]

Maybe if you do the same for me and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" or "Gravity's Rainbow".

Tyrone Slothrop gets it on with a lot of the "birds" of London town during the Blitz, a few days after consummation the spot where it happened gets hit by a V-2. British Intelligence catches on, sends him off to Germany to figure out the connection. Slothrop evades those from British attempting to either catch up with him or (in the case of Pavlovian nemesis Pointsman) unman him. Much dope is involved. There are murderous family feuds, some really icky sex and many moments of magical realism. Also, more than a few song and dance routines. Ultimately Slothrop fades out, the story folds into the Nixonian future and the end of the world. Probably requires multiple readings and an additional book of references and explanations. The Crying of Lot 49 is frequently recommended as a warm-up thanks to its short length and similar thematic content.

 

[Robin L]

I've been reading a couple of easier books as I attempt to get into Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children". This book is written in the mode of an East Indian speaking in the East Indian patois of English with many words borrowed from Hindi. There is a lot of good stuff in the 159 pages I've already absorbed, but meanwhile two other books have captured my attention.

Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin captured my attention about 40 years ago. I re-read it two days ago in a single day. George Orr suffers from "effective dreams": what he dreams becomes reality when he wakes up. This terrifies him, so he goes over the limit of the permitted pharmaceuticals allowed in order to prevent sleep. He is sent to therapy where Dr. William Haber grasps the power George wields and Haber starts to manipulate those dreams in an attempt to improve things. Dreams being dreams, this never works out right. One of the all-time great science fiction books.

The other book currently distracting me is Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon". I'm sure you all know the plotline of this one. But, of course, it's different reading the book instead of watching the classic movie:

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

I've been reading a couple of easier books as I attempt to get into Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children". This book is written in the mode of an East Indian speaking in the East Indian patois of English with many words borrowed from Hindi. There is a lot of good stuff in the 159 pages I've already absorbed, but meanwhile two other books have captured my attention.

View attachment 376535

Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin captured my attention about 40 years ago. I re-read it two days ago in a single day. George Orr suffers from "effective dreams": what he dreams becomes reality when he wakes up. This terrifies him, so he goes over the limit of the permitted pharmaceuticals allowed in order to prevent sleep. He is sent to therapy where Dr. William Haber grasps the power George wields and Haber starts to manipulate those dreams in an attempt to improve things. Dreams being dreams, this never works out right. One of the all-time great science fiction books.


View attachment 376536

The other book currently distracting me is Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon". I'm sure you all know the plotline of this one. But, of course, it's different reading the book instead of watching the classic movie:

View attachment 376540

Hammett is a flat out great writer. If you haven't read the Continental Op stories you're in for a treat.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

I retired 15 years ago. I more or less stopped improving my mind about 10 years ago. I read mostly science fiction and crime fiction with occasional fantasy. Right now I'm rereading Aztec. It's an entertaining look at Aztec culture at the time the Spanish invaded central America. The main character/narrator thinks of the Spaniards as barbarians who don't bathe much.

 

[Berwhale]

Currently reading this...

And here's two that I own, but i',m not reading because i'm not 20 years old anymore and can't dedicate enough time to actually understand them (maybe when I retire)...

 

[Multicore]

Maybe if you do the same for me and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" or "Gravity's Rainbow".

Plenty of people have explained those to us already, haven't they?

FWIW, my take on Monacelli's book is in the corresponding podcast episode (.sig).

 

[Eleo]

Shannon Vallor, The AI Mirror

 

[Curvature]

I have decided to learn about cooking, which I've been "intuiting" for 20 years. Not only did I refuse to read about it, I refused to follow recipes, preferring to mess up and try again. Many spoiled meals later, I put together this reading list:

• J. Kenji Lopez-Alt - Food Lab
• Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young & Maxime Bilet - Modernist Cuisine
• Stuart Farrimond - Science of Spice
• Herve This - Molecular Gastronomy
• Shirley Corriher - Cookwise
• Rene Redzipi & David Zilber - Noma Guide to Fermentation
• Harold McGee - On Food and Cooking
• Samin Nosrat - Salt Fat Acid Heat