Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

[Oysters Rockefeller]

Just finished Down Under by Bill Bryson. Excellent as always. I have a man-crush on the man.

Next on my list: a rereading of Victoria by Knut Hamsun and Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

Something Wicked is an interesting one. I always fall in love with Bradbury's concepts, and am subsequently disappointed by his actual stories. But I was a lot younger when I read it, so it might have just gone over my head. Definitely let me know what you think.

[Eater of Clowns]

Just finished Down Under by Bill Bryson. Excellent as always. I have a man-crush on the man.

Next on my list: a rereading of Victoria by Knut Hamsun and Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

I loved A Walk in the Woods, but when I read I'm a Stranger Here Myself I just felt like the whole book was a series of "why can't people be more like me" essays.  It really annoyed me.  I'd love to read more of his stuff, but which is more representative of his style, the former or the latter?

[EK WAFFLR]

Just finished Down Under by Bill Bryson. Excellent as always. I have a man-crush on the man.

Next on my list: a rereading of Victoria by Knut Hamsun and Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

I loved A Walk in the Woods, but when I read I'm a Stranger Here Myself I just felt like the whole book was a series of "why can't people be more like me" essays.  It really annoyed me.  I'd love to read more of his stuff, but which is more representative of his style, the former or the latter?

I haven't read Stranger , but none of his other books reads like what you describe it as. A Short History of Nearly Everything & The Lost Continent are my current favourites.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Finished "Get Up, Stand Up" by Bruce E. Levine a few weeks ago. It was pretty good, and he makes a decent case for the value of protesting. The most insightful nugget I got from the book is that these gatherings/rallies/protests are a way of recognizing a group's strength, which is important in terms of evaluating what it can reasonably accomplish. My own retarded spin on this is that a collective consciousness that continually fluxes in size and morale needs a level of collective self-awareness to navigate through the world. We take our individual self-awareness for granted—we know about how strong we are and where we sit in space. When we don't connect with people with shared values we get a sense of alienation and helplessness that doesn't accurately represent our actual numbers or collective power.

Protests may not cause immediate change, but the social bonds and collective self-assessment can be instrumental in selecting goals that do result in meaningful accomplishments.

Recently I've been slogging through "The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It" by Scott Patterson. I'm halfway deep and not feeling like I've learned much useful information. To his credit, he lists many dates, organizations and names of people I wouldn't be able to track down easily, but he doesn't quite cut to the point or heart of the matter like Matt Taibbi. Patterson seems like he might be setting up a bunch of red herrings and scapegoats over an almost apologetic undercurrent.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Just finished book one of John Shirley's trilogy A Song Called Youth. The writing is good, but it's a bit preachy. One of the things I tend to like most about cyberpunk is the moral ambiguity, and a story written in the cyberpunk style with the enemies being neonazis therefore breaks some of the draw. However, the writing is beautiful, so I'll probably finish it.

[Bu🤠ns]

http://robertgreene.net/the-descent-of-power-ebook.pdf

Robert Greene: The Descent of Power ebook

[Cain]

Daniel Kahneman's Slow and Fast Thinking.

If you're a fan of Less Wrong, Nassim Nicholas Taleb or learning about how people think and the cognitive defects that can arise from certain modes of thinking, then you will enjoy this book.  If you are not already aware, Kahneman has a Noble Laureate in Economics, precisely for his work on decision making and psychological biases.  His work is spread among a number of papers and lectures, in fields such as business and political science, but this book brings them all together for the first time.

[Placid Dingo]

Finished Don Quixote. Part two was a lot better but it didn't quite meet the hype I think I'd built up fr it. It was still very good.

Moving onto Shakespeare's sonnets.

[Triple Zero]

Daniel Kahneman's Slow and Fast Thinking.

If you're a fan of Less Wrong, Nassim Nicholas Taleb or learning about how people think and the cognitive defects that can arise from certain modes of thinking, then you will enjoy this book.  If you are not already aware, Kahneman has a Noble Laureate in Economics, precisely for his work on decision making and psychological biases.  His work is spread among a number of papers and lectures, in fields such as business and political science, but this book brings them all together for the first time.

I think I need to acquire this book, then.

[Cain]

If you do, you'll notice I used the representative heuristic in order to convince you to buy it.

[hirley0]

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26/04/2012 | Argentina Argentina in brief
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u might have accidentally double clicked {sum times i /-/Appens

[Triple Zero]

If you do, you'll notice I used the representative heuristic in order to convince you to buy it.

[EK WAFFLR]

I postponed Victoria and Something Wicked.. for The Castle by Franz Kafka.

[Lenin McCarthy]

Under the Frangipani by Mia Couto. Very surreal. Very... African. I really liked it, but I'm afraid a lot got lost in translation from the Portoguese original.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Daniel Kahneman's Slow and Fast Thinking.

If you're a fan of Less Wrong, Nassim Nicholas Taleb or learning about how people think and the cognitive defects that can arise from certain modes of thinking, then you will enjoy this book.  If you are not already aware, Kahneman has a Noble Laureate in Economics, precisely for his work on decision making and psychological biases.  His work is spread among a number of papers and lectures, in fields such as business and political science, but this book brings them all together for the first time.

Hell yeah, I'm bumping this to the top of my reading list.