What are y'all reading now?

[robertbb]

The End of the World is Just the Beginning - Peter Zeihan

https://www.amazon.com/End-World-Jus.../dp/006323047X

Highly recommended. Be sure to have a beer (or three) handy, it's brilliant but heavy reading on where this world is all headed.

[brockd15]

Currently I'm on Great Expectations.

I started listening to audiobooks regularly earlier this year and have been going through a lot books I've always wanted to have read but haven't taken the time to actually do it. Mostly classics but other stuff as well.

[Hilltopwalters]

Originally Posted by robertbb

The End of the World is Just the Beginning - Peter Zeihan

https://www.amazon.com/End-World-Jus.../dp/006323047X

Highly recommended. Be sure to have a beer (or three) handy, it's brilliant but heavy reading on where this world is all headed.

This is definitely going to the top of the pile I'll be getting into while on Winter Break. Much of my area of study has to do with environmental degradation and its glaringly obvious impact. So consider me curious.

[dustyrider]

Maybe someone could combine the threads!? William also started a good one on movies but my search-fu is weak…

Forgot to add what I’m reading:

The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest by Alvin M. Josephy, JR.

It’s my second reading. I found the book in late ‘99 at a take one leave one book exchange. It was a huge influence in my many backpacking trips in the PNW.

[Idris Icabod]

Bad Blood Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.

The story of Theranos. Incredible stuff!

[C40_guy]

Went looking for a couple of recommendations...found them!

Just borrowed a couple of Richard Feynman books via Libby for a solo roadtrip this weekend.

Recently read Will It Make The Boat Go Faster. This is a great story on many levels!

[bigbill]

I've probably mentioned it before, but Ned Blackhawk's Rediscovering America looks at American History from the Native perspective. This book inspired me to write a thesis about the root cause of the American Revolution by combining the view looking west with the view looking east to find a more accurate way of describing history instead of relying on the winner's pov.

[dcama5]

Most books I read are nonfiction dealing with the civil war or antebellum south. But right now (on the recommendation of our daughter) I am reading The Gulf: The Making of a American Sea by Jack Davis. It won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2018.

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jack-e-davis

[XXtwindad]

Great thread!

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

I'm currently re-reading Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea
...[snip]...
I love Dennett's writing but find it almost always requires a second (or third, or fourth) reading to completely grasp his ideas and insights. This will be my second time through this book...

Continuing my tradition of re-reading Daniel C. Dennett books multiple times, I am currently about halfway through his From Bacteria To Bach And Back for what I believe is the third time. (!)

[marciero]

Here is the latest


1, Once they moved like the wind. Am re-reading. Read this about 25 years ago. Very colorful and detailed history of the Apache wars late 19th century. As a kid I lived in Fort Sill Oklahoma, where Geronimo is buried, and his presence loomed large.

2. When Pride Still Mattered. Just finished. (may have posted already?) Vince Lombardi bio. Is portrait of the legend but also the human. This is the flip side of Instant Replay, which I read as a child.

3. "Erasing History: How fascists rewrite the past to control the future", This is hot off the press by Yale philosopher Jason Stanley. Lets just say its timely.

4. "Son of Hamas". 2010 but relevant. Mosab Hasaan Yousef. Interesting description of life growing up Palestinian, and as son of a Hamas founder no less. The author eventually flipped sides. I read about half then lost interest

5. My Eff'in Life. Geddy Lee. Great read even as a non-fan.

[marciero]

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

Continuing my tradition of re-reading Daniel C. Dennett books multiple times, I am currently about halfway through his From Bacteria To Bach And Back for what I believe is the third time. (!)

Dennet?? I read one of his about 20 years ago. At least I started it. I think that was another I didnt finish. I am seeing that he wrote one with Douglass Hofstaeder. I read one of his a while back- Godel, Escher, Bach, speaking of Bach

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by marciero

Dennet?? I read one of his about 20 years ago. At least I started it. I think that was another I didnt finish. I am seeing that he wrote one with Douglass Hofstaeder. I read one of his a while back- Godel, Escher, Bach, speaking of Bach

I have tried reading Godel, Escher, Bach two or three times...the farthest I've gotten is 150 pages in. The problem for me is twofold: I don't get the math at all, and I don't have the patience to work through the problem-solving thought experiments, so the bulk of his premise is completely lost on me. And yet, I find the "Dialogues" chapters insufferably cloying and patronizing. I finally sold my copy to the local book store a couple months ago, conceding that I would never read the entire book.

Conversely, Daniel C. Dennett may well be my favorite non-fiction writer of all time. I highly recommend Consciousness Explained as a first foray*, though I will confess that it took me four or five readings before I could get all the way through to the end. But it is just so thought-provoking that I kept trying, and ultimately I'm very glad I did.

*(although Darwin's Dangerous Idea might be the tiniest bit easier to swallow in the first pass)

[redir]

Currently reading:

[sg8357]

Rudolf Diesel, history/mystery, true story.
Fun fact, Diesel's first engine ran on peanut oil.
Diesel figured Germany & Britain would run their diesel engines on coal tar.
Energy independence 1899 style.

Big Kerosene aka John D. Rockefeller was not fan,
gasoline was an unwanted by product of kerosene production at the time.