What are you reading right now?

[Shhon]

Thanks for asking! I'm pleased to report that they were some of the highest-attended events we've ever held, and each inspired vigorous conversation. The community response was overwhelmingly positive.

I've launched a subsequent new event series where we screen conspiracy theory themed films and debunk/debate their validity. It's just a little trickier because we have to secure screening rights for each film.

You're welcome

Congrats on it going well! The lecture on Cosmic Inflation and the Beginning of the Universe with Will Kinney, looks very interesting.


https://cfiwny.org/lecture-series/

[innerspaceboy]

The short story, "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury has long been one of my favorites, up there with Asimov's "The Last Question," "The Last Answer" and Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." Today someone mentioned Bradbury's "Kaleidoscope" as being similarly impactful as "Summer."

I pulled out my signed complete Bradbury hardcovers and dug up "Kaleidoscope." Bawled like a child, just like "Summer." I needed that.

[Lucem Ferre]

After reading the book about Washington, a huge take away I got is all the people arguing that Amercans couldn't have intentionally spread small pox to the natives are utterly full of shit because it's very clear that they did understand that you could spread the disease through infected items.

Not only that but they were inoculating people back then, too.

It was a very good and interesting book. Learning how most of the founding fathers abhorred slavery, how the French revolution was inspired by America and the birth of blatantly false & inflammatory propaganda by the Replubican movement against the Federalists.

[innerspaceboy]

I grabbed this Pictorial History of Science Fiction oversized coffee table book by David Kyle at a library sale this week. Brimming with beautiful illustrations from the golden age of sci-fi. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells are featured. I may scan a few for party and event flyers. ❤

Spoon for scale.

[Guybrush]

Nice find, @innerspaceboy 🙂

I am still reading the Stormlight Archive series, now on book three.

The last book I bought was Mein Kampf! for like.. a quarter of a dollar. It was nearly for free and so I thought why not. I could think of some reasons why not, but also some for.

So I'm not a nazi, but I thought it might be interesting to get a look into the mind of such a notorious figure.. although I assume it may be more marketing / propaganda than anything actually genuine.

[Lucem Ferre]

I read the Hitler book. I don't have much to say about it other than his religious takes were interesting.

Other than that and his geopolitical perspectives, everything else was predictable.

It got really redundant by the end, too.

[Lucem Ferre]

Nice find, @innerspaceboy 🙂

I am still reading the Stormlight Archive series, now on book three.

The last book I bought was Mein Kampf! for like.. a quarter of a dollar. It was nearly for free and so I thought why not. I could think of some reasons why not, but also some for.

So I'm not a nazi, but I thought it might be interesting to get a look into the mind of such a notorious figure.. although I assume it may be more marketing / propaganda than anything actually genuine.

Coincidental post.

But if you want to crawl in that Austrian bastard's head more, the book SGR recommended definitely is a book that does that.

Edit: It's called "Hitler's Table Talk" it's a catalogue of different things he's said and ranted about in private.

[SGR]

Coincidental post.

But if you want to crawl in that Austrian bastard's head more, the book SGR recommended definitely is a book that does that.

Edit: It's called "Hitler's Table Talk" it's a catalogue of different things he's said and ranted about in private.

Yeah, that was the main draw of the book to me - what the hell is going on in the head of a guy like Hitler? What does he talk about to people when he's in private? Unfortunately, Hitler did know that all the stuff he was saying would be transcribed, so there's an element of open honesty that may be missing, but I definitely found it interesting - for better or worse, you mostly get what is advertised.

I too once tried to read Mein Kampf out of curiosity (hoping to get similar kinds of insights into the man's mind), but I never managed to finish it. Too often it gets stuck in tedious minutiae like the obscure history of Austria and Hitler's personal grievances and rivalries. I expected it to be a hateful screed (sort of a trainwreck you couldn't look away from), but instead, at least as far as I got into it, it was more of a boring yawn-inducing screed. I'd have to force myself to finish it, and I don't see it ever happening.

[Lisnaholic]

^ My personal take on all the Hitler stuff:-

Joking of course, but given that we have only a limited lifetime to explore all the world's books, why go rooting around in the ragbag of Hitler's mind?
____________________________________

Here's a book of stories I'm reading:-



Actually, it's not his best tbh, as a couple of the stories are over-long and fall a bit flat. But I'd recommend these three collections, written when he was at his prime as a story teller:

The Day We Got Drunk on Cake and Other Stories (The Bodley Head, 1967)
The Ballroom of Romance and Other Stories (The Bodley Head, 1972)
Angels at the Ritz and Other Stories (The Bodley Head, 1975)

Why should you check these books out? Because they tell (to quote a reviewer of WT) "Extraordinary stories from ordinary lives". He writes with affection about people who are often overlooked, and takes you into the secret mindset of ordinary, but marginalised people. That solitary guy in the park, that girl at work who never says much, that woman in the supermarket queue with a far-away look in her eyes. They all have a story, and WT is there to suggest what it might be - and in doing so, he teaches us to respect and tolerate our fellow man, even those who don't seem that interesting at a glance. It's all fiction, of course, but his stories "are always true to the human heart" (to quote another reviewer), which means there are plenty of "aha!" moments as you read, and recognise character traits, small habits, etc, that you have surely encountered yourself irl, but never put into words.   

[Guybrush]

^ My personal take on all the Hitler stuff:-

Joking of course, but given that we have only a limited lifetime to explore all the world's books, why go rooting around in the ragbag of Hitler's mind?

It's because I have morbid interests 😄 but I've put it on the to-do pile and shuffled some ways down on my list of priorities, somewhere behind 120 days of Sodom.

[Lisnaholic]

I like a book that's exciting enough to be a page turner, and a genre that does it for me every time is the travel book. I always want to know where the travellers are going next: how they get there, who they meet, and what the place is like.



This book delivers on its promise of a difficult journey through a mysterious land; Tim Butcher heads into The Heart of Darkness, but rather than Conrad's journey up river, he follows in the footsteps of Stanley, who took a boat down the Congo River from the highlands around Lake Tanganyika to its estuary on the Atlantic coast. Tim Butcher toughs it out, sometimes by local dugout canoe, sometimes on the only option available: on the back of someone's motorbike, struggling along muddy jungle paths, while dodging armed rebels and murderous militia.

Not only is it a great adventure, but TB does his journalistic job really well by explaining Congo's colonial past and how the country has just gone from one misery to another, with today's Congo being a variation of the same:  a land that is largely without law and order, hospitals or electricity. The place has been so bad for so long that the world's conscience suffers from "Congo fatigue" while (in an estimate from The Lancet medical journal) 1,200 people die there every day "as a direct result of endemic violence and insecurity".

Aid organizations working in the Congo are ineffective because it is such a kleptocracy that it's impossible to get resources intact through to the people who need them. As one guy says, "If you think you can solve Congo's problems with money then you are a bloody fool. You solve Congo's problems by creating a system of justice that actually works and by making the leaders accountable for their actions." That opinion caught my attention because they are precisely two things that America, of its own volition, is currently walking away from.   
     

[SGR]

So I went back and checked my book, which I made a note in at the end as to when I finished it (back in college for me), it was on 12/18/16 that I finished Jean Edward Smith's biography of President Grant.



My brother bought me a new biography on Grant, which I've had on my wishlist for a while now, for my birthday. From the excellent biographer, Ron Chernow (who wrote an excellent biography on Washington and Alexander Hamilton):



So this biography on Grant is nearly 1000 pages in length (longer than the JES biography on him), but I'm gonna stick with it! Grant himself is one of the presidents I admire the most, and I think more recent contemporary historians unfairly dismiss him as a drunk and as an incompetent executive. When you learn more about the man though, and his emotional depth, his courage, his obligation to duty, and his fearlessness in the face of a terminal illness in an effort to not leave his family destitute, you come to find that popular history often misses the measure of people. He is not flawless, but his flaws humanize him to me. And considering his background, what he achieved is utterly remarkable. He may not crack my list of top 5 presidents objectively, but to me, he will always be one of the presidents I most revere, if not the president I most revere.

[Lisnaholic]

Happy Birthday SGR !    

I hope you enjoy your new Grant biog, though for me 1000 pages on one president sounds a bit daunting, especially if I'd already read another biog of the guy previously.
I find military campaigns more interesting than politics, and that interest sustained me through my deepest dive into US history:-



I learnt a lot of fascinating info about the long-drawn-out tragedy that was the American Civil War but, although I still have the books on my shelf, I 'm not sure that I'll ever reread them. Recommend them, though, I certainly would.

[SGR]

Happy Birthday SGR !    

I hope you enjoy your new Grant biog, though for me 1000 pages on one president sounds a bit daunting, especially if I'd already read another biog of the guy previously.
I find military campaigns more interesting than politics, and that interest sustained me through my deepest dive into US history:-



I learnt a lot of fascinating info about the long-drawn-out tragedy that was the American Civil War but, although I still have the books on my shelf, I 'm not sure that I'll ever reread them. Recommend them, though, I certainly would.

Thanks Lisna! 

Grant's life fascinates me, and Chernow writes so well, that I think I'll be invested all the way through the book - though that was part of my concern...since I'm already familiar with many of the details, hoping that I don't lose interest halfway thru - I'm around 50 pages in though, and very much enjoying it.

I guess I'm the opposite of you - I much prefer politics over the detail-ridden minutiae of long military campaigns. The longest book on purely politics I think I've ever read was Richard Nixon's Memoir, which clocked it in at a cool 1,111 pages. I somehow found time in college to read through it all - at points, it felt like a marathon sprint. 

That said, I'll add that series to my list, as I do read books on military campaigns occasionally, though they usually are about WW2.

[Meatwad]

Mind Your Brain - Dr Kailas Roberts (book on dementia)
Good Arguments - Bo Seo
Win Every Argument - Mehdi Hasan
Indistractable - Nir Eyal
Declutter Your Life - Gil Hasson
Speak With Impact - Alison Shapira
Sand Talk - Tyson Yunkaporta
Passing Exams for Dummies - Patrick Sherratt (quite a bit better than I was expecting)
Chaos Kings - Scott Patterson