Reading Tab
→ in Games and Tabs
Reply to Topic
Finally finished Foundation. Seems more like a setup for the other novels. And I feel like Asimov's idea of psychohistory, cool as it is, is more wishful thinking than anything. I think it's his way of grappling with the ubiquity of religion, given the way it factors into the story.
The book didn't really do anything, since my last post, to change any of my opinions. I like the concepts, it started great, but after that it didn't spend the right amount of time in each era, and the individual confrontations just weren't quite compelling enough to stand on their own.
And I still laughed every time someone exclaimed "Oh Space!" or "For Galaxy's sake!"
The book didn't really do anything, since my last post, to change any of my opinions. I like the concepts, it started great, but after that it didn't spend the right amount of time in each era, and the individual confrontations just weren't quite compelling enough to stand on their own.
And I still laughed every time someone exclaimed "Oh Space!" or "For Galaxy's sake!"
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
Finished 334 by Thomas Disch. This futuristic sci-fi novel is often cited as his best and it certainly has some beautiful prose and a complicated structure -- shuffling time, voice and characters around to create a fragmented image of an overpopulated, technocratic New York (part of the appeal is how well fleshed out and familiar Disch's depiction of the city is). Disch even created a seemingly arbitrary diagram mapping the second half of the story on those three axes (character, date, and narrative voice). Good, though it's harder and possibly more devastating than his other novels that I've read so far (The Priest and The M.D.). Last weekend I traded in some paperbacks (including most of my Vonnegut) at a used bookstore, and picked up an autographed first edition of another Disch book: The Businessman: A Tale of Terror.
A while ago I finished Desolation Alley (by Roger Zelazny) and Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum (by Tyler Anbinder.)
I started but didn't finish two books. The first was Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair - a scholarly study of primary sources trying to identify the heretical Italian philosopher and poet as an Elizabethan spy in the French Ambassador's home in London. The inundation of primary source documentation and evidence was somewhat over my head, but the author did provide a pretty entertaining close reading of some of Bruno's most famous works. The other one was The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence, by Gavan McCormack, which I borrowed the for the early chapters about the history of Japan's post-war construction state. Since the book was published in 1996 much of its discussion of and prescriptions for Japanese politics is probably rather out of date today, which is why I didn't stick out the more current-affairsy chapters.
I'm still reading Macbeth, Philosophical Investigations and The Inverted World.
A while ago I finished Desolation Alley (by Roger Zelazny) and Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum (by Tyler Anbinder.)
I started but didn't finish two books. The first was Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair - a scholarly study of primary sources trying to identify the heretical Italian philosopher and poet as an Elizabethan spy in the French Ambassador's home in London. The inundation of primary source documentation and evidence was somewhat over my head, but the author did provide a pretty entertaining close reading of some of Bruno's most famous works. The other one was The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence, by Gavan McCormack, which I borrowed the for the early chapters about the history of Japan's post-war construction state. Since the book was published in 1996 much of its discussion of and prescriptions for Japanese politics is probably rather out of date today, which is why I didn't stick out the more current-affairsy chapters.
I'm still reading Macbeth, Philosophical Investigations and The Inverted World.
Last edited by linespalsy; 07-28-11 at 03:34 PM.
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
Just started the Wheel Of Time series again, hoping after I've read all 12 again that 13 will be on it's way.
We have lost 2 great authors in the last couple of years, I am sure we've lost more then that but for me the hardest hits were Robert Jordan and Michael Crichton.......
We have lost 2 great authors in the last couple of years, I am sure we've lost more then that but for me the hardest hits were Robert Jordan and Michael Crichton.......
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
Economics in One Lesson
by Henry Hazlitt
Sadly, I couldn't find an image of the edition I have, which came out around 1978 and is horrendously typical of the design philosophy of the time; bright green on the top half and website link blue on the bottom. Yikes.
But there are, thankfully, epigrams about judging books based on these sorts of things. Economics in One Lesson is fantastic. Like, really fantastic. Not just because it makes its arguments so very, very well, and is so incredibly thorough in anticipating almost any possible objection to them. No, what makes this book great is that it's clear. It's a book about economics written 65 years ago (though updated a few decades later) that someone today who knows very little about economics can pick up and understand with a relatively modest amount of effort. That, in and of itself, is a remarkable achievement.
Or is it? On one hand, it seems impressive because it is so rare. But as you read the book you might begin to suspect that it's not rare because it's impossible, but because an awful lot of people and industries stake their livelihoods on making core economic concepts seem far more confusing than they sometimes are.
The book has a single core "lesson," and it shows incredible restraint by bringing things back to this core lesson again and again. That lesson is that the bad economist looks at only the immediate effects of an action, and/or only for one group. The good economist, however, considers the secondary and tertiary (and so on) effects of an action, and considers these effects on all groups. At first it sounds like a good but slightly simplistic summary. But with each passing section, you realize that Hazlitt is right: that his little lesson really does encompass almost all of the major economic fallacies. It's remarkable.
The reason this book is timeless is that it uses simple deductive reasoning, rather than date itself with scads of statistics (though it uses a few). It uses simple deduction to tear town the myths of government spending stimulus, minimum wages, the demonization of profits, trade tariffs, and particularly inflation. And it does it definitively, so that it is difficult to imagine what possible response could be offered in defense of these things.
The thing I was left with above all after reading it, though, was how brilliant and adaptive capitalism is. How the liquidity of money (if kept stable) can change and morph along with our cultural to reflect the things we want dynamically, in a way we could never come close to achieving if we were trying to manage it directly. An elegant order emerges. It's kind of beautiful.
And best of all? This book about the virtues of capitalism is freely and legally available, and it's broken up into separate sections so that you can learn about a specific subject at your leisure:
Economics in One Lesson.
This is how the world works, people. It's worth knowing, and a brilliant man has written a brilliant book in plain English, for the layperson, and it's freely available by clicking a link. All the excuses have been removed! Have at it!
by Henry Hazlitt
Sadly, I couldn't find an image of the edition I have, which came out around 1978 and is horrendously typical of the design philosophy of the time; bright green on the top half and website link blue on the bottom. Yikes.
But there are, thankfully, epigrams about judging books based on these sorts of things. Economics in One Lesson is fantastic. Like, really fantastic. Not just because it makes its arguments so very, very well, and is so incredibly thorough in anticipating almost any possible objection to them. No, what makes this book great is that it's clear. It's a book about economics written 65 years ago (though updated a few decades later) that someone today who knows very little about economics can pick up and understand with a relatively modest amount of effort. That, in and of itself, is a remarkable achievement.
Or is it? On one hand, it seems impressive because it is so rare. But as you read the book you might begin to suspect that it's not rare because it's impossible, but because an awful lot of people and industries stake their livelihoods on making core economic concepts seem far more confusing than they sometimes are.
The book has a single core "lesson," and it shows incredible restraint by bringing things back to this core lesson again and again. That lesson is that the bad economist looks at only the immediate effects of an action, and/or only for one group. The good economist, however, considers the secondary and tertiary (and so on) effects of an action, and considers these effects on all groups. At first it sounds like a good but slightly simplistic summary. But with each passing section, you realize that Hazlitt is right: that his little lesson really does encompass almost all of the major economic fallacies. It's remarkable.
The reason this book is timeless is that it uses simple deductive reasoning, rather than date itself with scads of statistics (though it uses a few). It uses simple deduction to tear town the myths of government spending stimulus, minimum wages, the demonization of profits, trade tariffs, and particularly inflation. And it does it definitively, so that it is difficult to imagine what possible response could be offered in defense of these things.
The thing I was left with above all after reading it, though, was how brilliant and adaptive capitalism is. How the liquidity of money (if kept stable) can change and morph along with our cultural to reflect the things we want dynamically, in a way we could never come close to achieving if we were trying to manage it directly. An elegant order emerges. It's kind of beautiful.
And best of all? This book about the virtues of capitalism is freely and legally available, and it's broken up into separate sections so that you can learn about a specific subject at your leisure:
Economics in One Lesson.
This is how the world works, people. It's worth knowing, and a brilliant man has written a brilliant book in plain English, for the layperson, and it's freely available by clicking a link. All the excuses have been removed! Have at it!
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
City of Ruins - Kristine Kathryn Rusch - 5/5
Sequel to Diving the Wreck, set in its universe's near future - advances the storyline quite a bit. It feels almost like a fusion of Firefly and Stargate: Atlantis in that you have a rogue operation dodging the "Empire" as outlaws, meanwhile searching for Ancient military technology. In this novel Rusch just takes you right up to the edge and delivers the promised goods, because they find the mother of all they've been searching for. Throw in a little time travel, and youve got your somewhat formulaic sci-fi read. True to her personal style, prepare to sit through detailed tedium about the diving/digging process, planetary legalities, chain of command both military and civil, etc. One thing I like about her writing style is that she's so rigidly detailed that her theories require less suspension of disbelief, though I would admit I think this series is less precise and a bit more rough around the edges than the Retrieval Artist series. Who knew she was married to Dean Wesley Smith?
Star Risk, Ltd. - Chris Bunch - 3.5/5
Another sci-fi novel from a guy who apparently wrote TV series stories for 20 years. Perhaps that explains why he more so builds upon the personal characters and interactions rather than the technicalities - which isnt to say that the technicalities arent present and accounted for, its just that they are less precise, and more taken for granted. There was also an unabashed romantic slant that I thought put this novel into more of a softie romance category- and it kind of threw me, first because I expect that more from female writers, and second because he's billed as a "hardcore" sci-fi writer. All in all a very entertaining read - and I'd say Bunch was more like watching Firefly with its outright comedy, whereas Rusch is like watching Battlestar Galactica - laughing, but VERY serious.
Literary Theory, An Introduction - Terry Eagleton - ?/5
Scored this the other night at B&N because I picked it up on a moment of boredom and couldnt put it down. Not done with it yet, but Im already ROTFL at a bit in the introduction which explained a minor point about "What is Literature?" like so:
I'm going to like this book - I know it already!
Sequel to Diving the Wreck, set in its universe's near future - advances the storyline quite a bit. It feels almost like a fusion of Firefly and Stargate: Atlantis in that you have a rogue operation dodging the "Empire" as outlaws, meanwhile searching for Ancient military technology. In this novel Rusch just takes you right up to the edge and delivers the promised goods, because they find the mother of all they've been searching for. Throw in a little time travel, and youve got your somewhat formulaic sci-fi read. True to her personal style, prepare to sit through detailed tedium about the diving/digging process, planetary legalities, chain of command both military and civil, etc. One thing I like about her writing style is that she's so rigidly detailed that her theories require less suspension of disbelief, though I would admit I think this series is less precise and a bit more rough around the edges than the Retrieval Artist series. Who knew she was married to Dean Wesley Smith?
Star Risk, Ltd. - Chris Bunch - 3.5/5
Another sci-fi novel from a guy who apparently wrote TV series stories for 20 years. Perhaps that explains why he more so builds upon the personal characters and interactions rather than the technicalities - which isnt to say that the technicalities arent present and accounted for, its just that they are less precise, and more taken for granted. There was also an unabashed romantic slant that I thought put this novel into more of a softie romance category- and it kind of threw me, first because I expect that more from female writers, and second because he's billed as a "hardcore" sci-fi writer. All in all a very entertaining read - and I'd say Bunch was more like watching Firefly with its outright comedy, whereas Rusch is like watching Battlestar Galactica - laughing, but VERY serious.
Literary Theory, An Introduction - Terry Eagleton - ?/5
Scored this the other night at B&N because I picked it up on a moment of boredom and couldnt put it down. Not done with it yet, but Im already ROTFL at a bit in the introduction which explained a minor point about "What is Literature?" like so:
On this theory, literature is a kind of writing which, in the words of the Russian critic Roman Jakobson, represents an 'organized violence committed on ordinary speech'. Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech. If you approach me at a bus stop and murmur 'Thou unravished bride of quietness,' then I am instantly aware that I am in the presence of the literary. [...] Your language draws attention to itself, flaunts its material being, as statements like 'Don't you know the drivers are on strike?' do not.
__________________
something witty goes here......
something witty goes here......
X
User Lists
Crash, by JG Ballard
In the Blink of an Eye, by Walter Murch
Shot by Shot, by Steven D. Katz
In the Blink of an Eye, by Walter Murch
Shot by Shot, by Steven D. Katz
__________________
Touching from a distance, further all the time.
Touching from a distance, further all the time.
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
Crash, by JG Ballard
__________________
"I know, honey. Look at the map. We go your way, that's about four inches. We go my way, it's an inch and a half. You wanna pay for the extra gas?"
"I know, honey. Look at the map. We go your way, that's about four inches. We go my way, it's an inch and a half. You wanna pay for the extra gas?"
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
Finished Macbeth, The Inverted World, Philosophical Investigations, and Hong Kong Babylon (which I read a while ago and forgot to tab).
Shakespeare and Wittgenstein, it's been a highbrow month. I confess the latter was far too subtle and complicated for me to take much in on a single reading, not because his prose and rhetoric that's difficult/obfuscatory but from the ideas themselves.
Hong Kong Babylon has four parts: 1) a fascinating article about the Economic and Cultural history of the Hong Kong film industry, 2) profiles / interviews of assorted directors, actors and other players (including Chris Doyle and Tsui Hark, which I wish was the full several-hour interview mentioned by the author, instead of six pages of excerpts from it, but that might have made its own book), 3) an alphabetical film guide (dated to 1997 when the book was published) and 4) a meta-list of recommendations from an international collection of film critics and scholars (the only one I recognized was Tony Rayns). Kind of all over the place but with the range of material culled from first-hand interviews it should have something new for the aficionado, as well as the casual viewer of Cantonese cinema.
The Inverted World, by Christopher Priest (The Prestige) is some pretty good British "new wave" science fiction with a strong plot that turns around some unique ideas, such as worlds with incompatible shapes and physics superimposed on each other. Maybe I'll put together a list of highly recommended Sci-fi books some day.
I've read Macbeth before, but not since High School Language Arts class, which doesn't really count since I spent most of my senior year being an atrocious delinquent and little assigned reading I did was accomplished in class before the test. It's awesome, but not my favorite Shakespeare (those would be Hamlet and Lear).
Shakespeare and Wittgenstein, it's been a highbrow month. I confess the latter was far too subtle and complicated for me to take much in on a single reading, not because his prose and rhetoric that's difficult/obfuscatory but from the ideas themselves.
Hong Kong Babylon has four parts: 1) a fascinating article about the Economic and Cultural history of the Hong Kong film industry, 2) profiles / interviews of assorted directors, actors and other players (including Chris Doyle and Tsui Hark, which I wish was the full several-hour interview mentioned by the author, instead of six pages of excerpts from it, but that might have made its own book), 3) an alphabetical film guide (dated to 1997 when the book was published) and 4) a meta-list of recommendations from an international collection of film critics and scholars (the only one I recognized was Tony Rayns). Kind of all over the place but with the range of material culled from first-hand interviews it should have something new for the aficionado, as well as the casual viewer of Cantonese cinema.
The Inverted World, by Christopher Priest (The Prestige) is some pretty good British "new wave" science fiction with a strong plot that turns around some unique ideas, such as worlds with incompatible shapes and physics superimposed on each other. Maybe I'll put together a list of highly recommended Sci-fi books some day.
I've read Macbeth before, but not since High School Language Arts class, which doesn't really count since I spent most of my senior year being an atrocious delinquent and little assigned reading I did was accomplished in class before the test. It's awesome, but not my favorite Shakespeare (those would be Hamlet and Lear).
Last edited by linespalsy; 07-27-11 at 07:51 PM.
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
the ideas themselves
And that Priest novel sounds awesome.
__________________
"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."
"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."
My current idea is that the snippets are mostly a kind of prefigured proof for Austin's speech act theory.
And that Priest novel sounds awesome.
And that Priest novel sounds awesome.
Try to check out Inverted World, I want to recommend it more but don't want to spoil it.
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
It's not ostensibly connected; that's just my take. In other words, if PI is saying that language is more complex than just accurate representation, and exploring some of the various innumerable ways in which language can work, I think Austin is the one who actually enumerates the ways we use language. Apparently, for him, there are only five ways.
I'd probably try reading it just to find out if you're the kind of person who could get through it. You know, like, for fun. I've tried countless times, but I can't handle the vagaries and leaps. PI isn't just a rejection of the Tractatus in content, it's also a rejection of that entire pseudo-proof style, which I think is cool, but confusing as hell. The Tractatus is all ideas, almost no examples. PI is pretty much all examples.
At this point, I myself almost always start off with secondary literature.
not sure if I want to read the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus first just for more background.
At this point, I myself almost always start off with secondary literature.
I am reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I've seen the movie and want to see the remake so I thought it was about time to read it. I have to say that I think Daniel Craig will play a more fitting role of Mikael Blomkvist then played by Michael Nyqvist, and I think they did a great job of casting Lisbeth Salander in both films even though I haven't seen the remake obviously but it will be hard to beet Noomi Rapace. I just hope they show more of the town of Hedestad then they did in the original movie, because it's mentioned in quite detail in the book, but that's just my opinion. Great Book Great Movie
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
I'd probably try reading it just to find out if you're the kind of person who could get through it. You know, like, for fun. I've tried countless times, but I can't handle the vagaries and leaps. PI isn't just a rejection of the Tractatus in content, it's also a rejection of that entire pseudo-proof style, which I think is cool, but confusing as hell. The Tractatus is all ideas, almost no examples. PI is pretty much all examples.
At this point, I myself almost always start off with secondary literature.
At this point, I myself almost always start off with secondary literature.
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
I am reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I've seen the movie and want to see the remake so I thought it was about time to read it. I have to say that I think Daniel Craig will play a more fitting role of Mikael Blomkvist then played by Michael Nyqvist, and I think they did a great job of casting Lisbeth Salander in both films even though I haven't seen the remake obviously but it will be hard to beet Noomi Rapace. I just hope they show more of the town of Hedestad then they did in the original movie, because it's mentioned in quite detail in the book, but that's just my opinion. Great Book Great Movie
X
Favorite Movies
X