What are y'all reading now?

[72gmc]

To borrow a reviewer's comment from Goodreads, "This is a delightful mess of a book, one I might not have approached were I not in [the Netherlands]"

I'm enjoying the subject matter but the style can be a little odd ... in fact, the sideways image feels about right. I don't know the author well enough to hear his voice as I read, but it's definitely like a narrative told in a pub or over a meal rather than in a history book.

[mtb_frk]

Originally Posted by redir

Currently reading:

Just started reading this today. Read it years ago, felt like it was time to see how it aged.

I read all of Sagan’s (Carl) books in the past. Might be time to read them all again. I just wish I had bought them back in the day. I tried to download it from my library but there was only 1 copy and 60 people in the queue.

[reuben]

The Peregrine

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...book-1.3333957

http://www.amazon.com/Peregrine-Anni...dp/0008216215/

“Wherever he goes, this winter, I will follow him. I will share the fear, and the exaltation, and the boredom, of the hunting life. I will follow him till my predatory human shape no longer darkens in terror the shaken kaleidoscope of colour that stains the deep fovea of his brilliant eye. My pagan head shall sink into the winter land, and there be purified.”

FYI peregrines (females are called falcons, males are called tiercels) routinely reach 100mph when stooping (diving) to kill prey. They've been clocked as fast as 240mph. Passenger planes typically fly at 300mph.

Woe be the starling that's slashed in midair by that rear talon at 100mph.

[Carbonita]

A Gentleman in Moscow was recommended to me so many times that I finally had to at least start reading it, though I prefer nonfiction lately. A page turner of a wonderful tale with great language use.

Everything is predictable, on the history of the Bayesian model, and statistics in general. Yeah, dry at times but not bad.

[robin3mj]

I also stick to nonfiction but delve into spy novels occasionally.

Just finished the Peacock and the Sparrow.
Worth reading.

I tend to read books on modern Irish history and Say Nothing and Four Shots in the Night are recent must reads.

[schwa86]

I read a lot of non fiction for work so tend to fiction for bedtime. I have been working my way through the atlantics list of great American novels, and just finished The Dog of the South by Charles Portis (true grit author). Sort of a Ken Kesey/John Kennedy Toole mash up — I really enjoyed it and had no awareness of it…

[redir]

Originally Posted by mtb_frk

Just started reading this today. Read it years ago, felt like it was time to see how it aged.

I read all of Sagan’s (Carl) books in the past. Might be time to read them all again. I just wish I had bought them back in the day. I tried to download it from my library but there was only 1 copy and 60 people in the queue.

I have never read anything of his before but as a child I remember The Cosmos show. As a family we used to watch it. I remember his 'billions and billions' fondly. I am only a few chapters in. It's definitely 'dated' in it's writing style but the content seems to be ageless. It's worth a read for sure.

[marciero]

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

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)

I should have clarified that I only started GEB. Perhaps I read selected sections. I had just started grad school in mathematics and it was one of a few general audiences type mathy books that was popular at the time. Plus, like you, I was and am a musician, so there was that. It is a bit reaching and sprawling for sure. But the idea that there is no completely consistent logical system was intriguing.

Maybe I will take another stab at Dennett.

[dcama5]

Originally Posted by robin3mj

I tend to read books on modern Irish history and Say Nothing and Four Shots in the Night are recent must reads.

Robin,
I read Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland about 4 or 5 years ago. It was very good and I have been thinking about it lately.

[reuben]

Originally Posted by robin3mj

I also stick to nonfiction but delve into spy novels occasionally.

Try this for a true story.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0385537603

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by robin3mj

I also stick to nonfiction but delve into spy novels occasionally.

Just finished the Peacock and the Sparrow.
Worth reading.

I tend to read books on modern Irish history and Say Nothing and Four Shots in the Night are recent must reads.

For modern Irish history, Fintan O'Toole's We Don't Know Ourselves is outstanding.

[robin3mj]

Originally Posted by reuben

Try this for a true story.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0385537603

Yep, read that one. Really wild and worth the read.

[superbowlpats]

Originally Posted by marciero

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.

With a couple of family members having gone off the deep end, I just ordered this. Probably a rabbit hole I may regret

[mcteague]

Originally Posted by redir

I have never read anything of his before but as a child I remember The Cosmos show. As a family we used to watch it. I remember his 'billions and billions' fondly. I am only a few chapters in. It's definitely 'dated' in its writing style but the content seems to be ageless. It's worth a read for sure.

Definitely worth a read. My copy got lost when I loaned it out. Here is a taste… tell me it is not 100% valid today.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. ~Carl Sagan

[reuben]

Originally Posted by robin3mj

Yep, read that one. Really wild and worth the read.

It's one of the ways the sausage is made. More than that I cannot say.