What are you currently reading?

[vale-aroma]

Just like the threads we have for music & video games, what books are you currently reading?

I'm currently reading Everyday Chaos by Brian Clegg. Kind of a popcorn book, pretty sparse on any deeper understanding of the topics at hand, but sometimes it's fun & can lead your thoughts into new directions to "take a step back" & look at the world from a bird's eye perspective before going back to being enmeshed in details. Very beautiful design too, one of the most beautifully put together books I've ever picked up.

 

[Deleted member 2040]

Journey to the West Vol 4 is my mainstay. I'm fumbling around with The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Zhuangzi's Outer Chapters, and have picked up a book by Chogyam Trunga and a new book of poetry, reading a little bit of those every now and then with no expectations of finishing them quite soon, as my life is stuff full of other things as well.

Surveillance Capitalism is quite repetitive, in the good sense that you can read it over a long period of time without having to go back and refresh ones' self with the concepts presented earlier.

IMO Surveillance Capitalism will become a classic of the field with time of course for the word to spread. The author has accurately depicted what is going on now and in the very near future.

 

[VHSMARONITE]

Haven't actually picked up this book in like a century, but one that's maintained my interest has been Theory of Colours by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It's a pretty deep rundown of color science and theory (well, as deep as you can be for a book written in 1840). I have no idea why this ancient nonfiction tome is so fascinating to me, but I guess it's not interesting enough to read every single day lol.

 

[vale-aroma]

Haven't actually picked up this book in like a century, but one that's maintained my interest has been Theory of Colours by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It's a pretty deep rundown of color science and theory (well, as deep as you can be for a book written in 1840). I have no idea why this ancient nonfiction tome is so fascinating to me, but I guess it's not interesting enough to read every single day lol.

Have you ever read any more detailed material on color? My favorite magazine had a long-running column in each issue spotlight individual colors you might appreciate.

 

[VHSMARONITE]

Have you ever read any more detailed material on color? My favorite magazine had a long-running column in each issue spotlight individual colors you might appreciate.

I have not, but after reading the first article from this writer, I am definitely open to it. I don't know why this subject fascinates me, but it does.

 

[kultra]

Spent Saturday cooped in an apartment that wasn't my own while the owner worked overtime, so I used the occasion to blast through PsychoPolitics and In the Swarm by Byung Chul Han.

Interesting takes but it's embarrassing how much he cites Google Glass as a nefarious example of tech. That thing was a joke from the moment it was announced. Disagree with his criticisms of anonymity given it's the post-facebook profile and twitter checkmarks that gives more way to the narcissistic tendencies he gripes about in all his work. Agony of Eros is probably his best essay out of all the ones I read, save Burnout Society which is on the tentative reading stack. It could just be that AoE fit in well with the isolation I was dealing with in my life at the time. Though if I pick him up again it will probably be a newer essay so I don't have to cringe e.g. mentions of G**gle Fucking Glass.

Started Heroes: Mass Murder and Suicide - Franco "Bifo" Berardi from the same publisher last night and wound up having a dream about a rabid pokemon fan shooting up my window, so hopefully I'm in for some deeper explanations to the phenomenon.

IMO Surveillance Capitalism will become a classic of the field with time of course for the word to spread. The author has accurately depicted what is going on now and in the very near future.

Been eyeing this one, hope it proposes some decent solutions other than pure analysis

 

[Idoria]

The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times by Rene Guenon. It covers the detraction from a quality based society, where the group and a person's place in it was more valuable than individual success, and how that change brought about a sterilizing generality to all parts of social life, manufacturing, and individual talent. Very interesting, but a bit difficult to understand until you learn his writing style.

 

[ResidentRemilia]

Right now I'm "reading" The Complete Far Side by Gary Larson, which is just a compilation of his comics that he did from 1980 to 1994. It's not an intellectual read at all; it's a picture book with punchlines under some of them. But this is coming after a pretty busy point in my life, so it's pretty cozy and gives me some chuckles every now and then.

 

[GeneralOfPsychicWars]

Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. Serves as kind of the inspiration behind the Stalker games which I am also playing as well.

 

[Deleted member 2040]

Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. Serves as kind of the inspiration behind the Stalker games which I am also playing as well.

Dude the film is one of the greatest films of all time! I hear they are great writers too.

 

[mercuriata]

Right now I'm reading a biography of Ada Lovelace. I'm at the point of her life where she moves to the big city to learn math from a couple of brilliant people of the time. Her childhood was absolutely crazy (it would take me many paragraphs to go over why). I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.

I'm also reading 'Ignition!' by John D. Clark. Really fascinating recollection of the development of the rocket fuels we use (and don't use).

From time to time, I try to get through some of 'Hamlet' translated to esperanto to learn the language, but I'm terribly slow.

 

[Deleted member 2040]

Right now I'm reading a biography of Ada Lovelace. I'm at the point of her life where she moves to the big city to learn math from a couple of brilliant people of the time. Her childhood was absolutely crazy (it would take me many paragraphs to go over why). I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.

I'm also reading 'Ignition!' by John D. Clark. Really fascinating recollection of the development of the rocket fuels we use (and don't use).

From time to time, I try to get through some of 'Hamlet' translated to esperanto to learn the language, but I'm terribly slow.

Esperanto? Very interesting choice of language! What made you want to learn esperanto?

 

[vale-aroma]

Starting a classic - The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Ligotti.

 

[Shinpoochy]

Right now, reading an introduction to the thought of Frithjof Schuon by Harry Oldmeadow, great so far.

 

[spaceghost]

i've been picking up "Think Like A Monk" By Jay Shetty, this book has something in it for everyone, its rich in valuable information and i got it at target discounted. pretty good

 

[Deepwaterjew]

I'm currently reading both the bible and scouting for young men, if I finish either I will go on to reading synchronicity: and accausal principle, by Carl jung, my main hoe

 

[και ο λογος σαρξ εγενετο]

the bible

Which translation?

 

[Strontium]

I'm currently breezing through the "So I'm a spider, so what?" series by Baba Okina. Absolute trash, but in a good way. It's reminded me about how I used to be to pound through translated fantasy as a teenager. I thought I had become a slower reader, but it turns out what I normally read nowadays is more complicated.

 

[mercuriata]

Esperanto? Very interesting choice of language! What made you want to learn esperanto?

I love what it represents! The humanistic values it agrees with imo. Global cooperation. It's also incredibly easy to learn relative to other languages I've studied, especially considering I'm fluent in french and english.

 

[Deepwaterjew]

Which translation?

new international, but just because it was the one that was at the bookstore. I know there are some stuff that's missing or made up, but hey it was 3 euros and had belonged to a priest and had a virgin of the candelarias stamp on it, so I'm keeping it