What are you reading right now?

[jadis]

1000%

[Toy Revolver]

i just finished the story of b by daniel quinn

it's a novel - it's called a "philosophical novel" on wikipedia

basically it boils down to using the socratic method to argue in favor of abolishing agricultural (at least as it's practiced today)

it's a follow up to ishmael which actually influenced me considerably

if you haven't i recommend reading ishmael even though i'm sure some of you will find it lacking in nuance and overly simplistic

the story of b was first published in 96

[jadis]

Not because I want to read it necessarily. But because I can't tear myself away. Brilliant book by a brilliant historian, whether you can overcome the horror and revulsion as she advises to (I can't)  https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801488795/castration-and-the-heavenly-kingdom/#bookTabs=1

[Toy Revolver]

Not because I want to read it necessarily. But because I can't tear myself away. Brilliant book by a brilliant historian, whether you can overcome the horror and revulsion as she advises to (I can't)  https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801488795/castration-and-the-heavenly-kingdom/#bookTabs=1

😳

it's on the list

[Psy-Fi]

I discovered this book via YouTube where it's been uploaded as an audio version. The Youtube narration is via an AI-generated male voice which I find rather lacking, so I decided to find a copy of the book. I'm about halfway through it and find it to be as interesting as it is horrifying. A fascinating but brutal account of the war in the Eastern Front from a German soldier's perspective.

Participating in every key campaign on the Eastern Front, a young German soldier keeps a private uncensored diary as he battles the Red Army to conquer Russia.

This book presents the remarkable personal journals of a German soldier who participated in Operation Barbarossa and subsequent battles on the Eastern Front, revealing the combat experience of the German-Russian War as seldom seen before.

Hans Roth was a member of the anti-tank (Panzerjager) battalion, 299th Infantry Division, attached to Sixth Army, as the invasion of Russia began. Writing as events transpired, he recorded the mystery and tension as the Germans deployed on the Soviet frontier in June 1941. Then a firestorm broke loose as the Wehrmacht tore across the front, forging into the primitive vastness of the East.

During the Kiev encirclement, Roth's unit was under constant attack as the Soviets desperately tried to break through the German ring. At one point, after the enemy had finally been beaten, a friend serving with the SS led him to a site where he witnessed civilians being massacred en masse (which may well have been Babi Yar). After suffering through a horrible winter against apparently endless Russian reserves, his division went on the offensive again, this time on the northern wing of "Case Gelb," the German drive toward Stalingrad.

In these journals, attacks and counterattacks are described in "you are there" detail, as Roth wrote privately, as if to keep himself sane, knowing that his honest accounts of the horrors in the East could never pass through Wehrmacht censors. When the Soviet counteroffensive of winter 1942 begins, his unit is stationed alongside the Italian 8th Army, and his observations of its collapse, as opposed to the reaction of the German troops sent to stiffen its front, are of special fascination.

Roth's three journals were discovered many years after his disappearance, tucked away in the home of his brother, with whom he was known to have had a deep bond. After his brother's death, his family discovered them and quickly sent them to Rosel, Roth's wife. In time, Rosel handed down the journals to Erika, Roth's only daughter, who had meantime immigrated to America.

Hans Roth was doubtlessly working on a fourth journal before he was reported missing in action in July 1944 during the battle known as the Destruction of Army Group Center. Although Roth's ultimate fate remains unknown, what he did leave behind, now finally revealed, is an incredible firsthand account of the horrific war the Germans waged in Russia.

[Toy Revolver]

on the list

that looks wild

[Psy-Fi]

on the list

that looks wild

About as wild as it gets.

Reading through all of the intense combat he was in, it's astounding to me that he managed to survive as long as he did.

[Marie Monday]

Psy-Fi I keep thinking you're Exo because of the Gene Wilder avi ffs

[Psy-Fi]

Psy-Fi I keep thinking you're Exo because of the Gene Wilder avi ffs

I was thinking that someone over at MB might've used a Gene Wilder avi at some point but I couldn't remember for sure or who it might've been.

[Toy Revolver]

I just finished Welcome to Hard Times by E. L. Doctorow first published in 1960.

This is a rock solid western. Wild and meaningful with wicked tight story telling.

[Janszoon]

I just finished Welcome to Hard Times by E. L. Doctorow first published in 1960.

This is a rock solid western. Wild and meaningful with wicked tight story telling.

That's a good one. I finally read that book a few years ago after meaning to get around to it for like 25 years.

[Toy Revolver]

today i also finished reading Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World by Louis Fischer (1950)

i highly recommend this biography

i've read and watched a fair amount on gandhi but this book more than anything else i've come across explains the methodology of his nonviolent approach and the reason it was so successful

even if sometimes it doesn't sound like it i've always been drawn to radical pacifism as an approach to achieve radical change

this book, without being dogmatic, makes a great case for the power of nonviolent action even against a violent regime

it also makes a good effort to put the uk into a fair light - gandhi was very candid in his criticisms of the colonizers but was also quick to point out ways in which they were morally more advanced than india

i doubt an honest approach to this subject would be published today but the author met with gandhi before he was assassinated and only used direct quotes from gandhi to bring in the realities of the colonization and the resistance and lack of resistance to the independence movement

like i said, i highly recommend this book and i doubt it was ever improved upon

[Toy Revolver]

from the latest issue of the new yorker

this is good enough to nod to here

[jadis]

from the latest issue of the new yorker

this is good enough to nod to here

I'll read that. Always had a prejudice against quantification, being a humanities guy, but I'm trying to overcome it lately... both cause I'm thinking of becoming a tech bro and also because, per Kafka, in the battle between yourself and the world, second the world. AND YET... the more I dip into the world of data and stats, the more it seems that it promotes a lamentably narrow view of the world where all the parameters are set in advance by people who actually like The Big Bang Theory

[Marie Monday]

AND YET... the more I dip into the world of data and stats, the more it seems that it promotes a lamentably narrow view of the world where all the parameters are set in advance by people who actually like The Big Bang Theory

this is true, but that's all the more reason why it needs more people with a solid humanitieas background. The same goes for AI