Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

[Cain]

Black Company series by Glen Cook.  Nearly finished.

CAN'T TALK.  MUST READ.

Once you're done with that, you really should read The Malazan Books of the Fallen.  It's the Black Company cranked up to 11.

[Freeky]

Black Company series by Glen Cook.  Nearly finished.

CAN'T TALK.  MUST READ.

Once you're done with that, you really should read The Malazan Books of the Fallen.  It's the Black Company cranked up to 11.

I shall do that as soon as I get to a connection that I don't care about torrenting things over. 

[Bu🤠ns]

Perdido Street Station - China China Miéville -- need a break from history and biographies.  I've been working my way down the president line. I last read John Adams but thought i'd take a break at Madison. 

Although, I'm also nearly done with vol 1 of Battlecry of Freedom by James McPhearson. My old man's a civil war buff and I thought it'd be good to get better acquainted for better conversation.

[Reginald Ret]

Perdido Street Station - China China Miéville -- need a break from history and biographies.  I've been working my way down the president line. I last read John Adams but thought i'd take a break at Madison. 

Although, I'm also nearly done with vol 1 of Battlecry of Freedom by James McPhearson. My old man's a civil war buff and I thought it'd be good to get better acquainted for better conversation.

Mieville is fantastic, one of my favourite writers.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Black Company series by Glen Cook.  Nearly finished.

CAN'T TALK.  MUST READ.

Once you're done with that, you really should read The Malazan Books of the Fallen.  It's the Black Company cranked up to 11.

I never thought of it that way, but it totally is. I suppose the glowing endorsement by Glen Cook on the cover of the Malazan paperbacks should have made me realize that.

[Cain]

Black Company series by Glen Cook.  Nearly finished.

CAN'T TALK.  MUST READ.

Once you're done with that, you really should read The Malazan Books of the Fallen.  It's the Black Company cranked up to 11.

I never thought of it that way, but it totally is. I suppose the glowing endorsement by Glen Cook on the cover of the Malazan paperbacks should have made me realize that.

That and Erikson basically admitting much the same in the intro to Gardens of the Moon.

Alternatively, if you want a "shorter" series, you could always try Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and The Last Argument of Kings).  It's intensely cynical, grim and hilarious as a series, with a pretty decent plot to boot.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I just started reading a book about thinking styles called "Collaborative Intelligence", and I'm not even a chapter in and can already tell that it's complete bullshit.

So far, the author has talked about her father, a high-powered Chicago CEO who was also completely illiterate and would pay her a quarter to record readings of the documents he had to read every day after school, and also, in the 1970's, spending a semester working in a classroom for special-needs children in Harlem, "many of whom" came to school with rat bites on their cheeks. Even when the rat problem in Harlem reached epidemic proportions in the 1970's, the number of annual rat bites was estimated less than 1000 per year for the entire city of New York, with facial bites making up about ten percent of non-work-related bites but occurring almost entirely in children below the age of five. While she never says what age these allegedly rat-bitten Harlem children were, she does mention that she tested them using written material, which indicates they were of reading age, or at least second grade. The statistical probability that she saw more than one child in a classroom of 40 7+ year olds with facial rat bites in the 1970's is VERY SMALL, let alone that she saw "many".

Her actual theories about attention and learning styles seem equally to be made-up bullshit.

[Cain]

Is that the Dawna Markova one?

I'm instantly suspicious of anyone who puts "Ph.D" on the cover of their book.  That suspicion is reconfirmed when it appears all she does is peddle "self-actualization" bullshit at CEOs.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Is that the Dawna Markova one?

I'm instantly suspicious of anyone who puts "Ph.D" on the cover of their book.  That suspicion is reconfirmed when it appears all she does is peddle "self-actualization" bullshit at CEOs.

Yep, that's the one. She has all this bullshit about learning that appears to be backed up by nothing but wishful thinking and a sales pitch, and her entire argument for why it's valid seems to be "because lots of people use my method".

[LMNO]

IIRC, SlateStarCodex did a bit on something like that. I'll see if I can find it.

[Cain]

Recent reads:

Galverston by Nic Pizzolatto.  It's like a story of cliches, but because Pizzolato a) is very aware of the tropes he is deploying and b) can actually write it doesn't feel that way at all. 

Half a King and Half the World by Joe Abercrombie.  Classic Abercrombie, with bastards, scheming and guile "heroes" galore.  Not set in his First Law universe, and intended for a young adult audience (didn't realise until buying) but still worthwhile if you like his stuff.  Yarvi, the main character, is a more likeable, less crippled Sand dan Glotka, which is never a bad thing.

The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross.  Another Laundry Files novel.  Interestingly, the first one to focus on Mo, aka Agent CANDID rather than Bob Howard.  Seems like the CASE GREEN NIGHTMARE is continuing to build up steam, and as a consequence, reality is starting to get really frayed at the seams.  Includes a team of superheroes, a sentient violin which thirsts for blood, and a marital breakdown.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I just picked up Cloud Atlas, but have not begun reading it.

[LMNO]

I was wrong; SSC did a series on "Growth Mindset":

...the belief that people who believe ability doesn't matter and only effort determines success are more resilient, skillful, hard-working, perseverant in the face of failure, and better-in-a-bunch-of-other-ways than people who emphasize the importance of ability. Therefore, we can make everyone better off by telling them ability doesn't matter and only hard work does.

Spoiler alert: He doesn't approve.

[Reginald Ret]

I was wrong; SSC did a series on "Growth Mindset":

...the belief that people who believe ability doesn't matter and only effort determines success are more resilient, skillful, hard-working, perseverant in the face of failure, and better-in-a-bunch-of-other-ways than people who emphasize the importance of ability. Therefore, we can make everyone better off by telling them ability doesn't matter and only hard work does.

Spoiler alert: He doesn't approve.

Can I just say: False dichotomy.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I was wrong; SSC did a series on "Growth Mindset":

...the belief that people who believe ability doesn't matter and only effort determines success are more resilient, skillful, hard-working, perseverant in the face of failure, and better-in-a-bunch-of-other-ways than people who emphasize the importance of ability. Therefore, we can make everyone better off by telling them ability doesn't matter and only hard work does.

Spoiler alert: He doesn't approve.

That's such a gross oversimplification of the performance and cortical processing differences that have been measured in growth vs. fixed mindsets that I'm not even sure what to say. I would have to read his whole article to really refute it, but from  that quote it sounds like he's badly misinterpreting/misrepresenting the actual research into the effect of mindset on learning. Nobody, at least nobody credible in learning & memory research, believes that "only effort determines success" or that "ability doesn't matter".