Let's Talk About Books

[Astreja]

Recently finished:

• Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (mentioned above by downbeatplumb)
  
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Penguin Classics, translation by Martin Hammond).
  
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.  Not recommended -- it starts out with an interesting hypothesis about why we resist doing important work, but ends up doing an epic face-plant into a pile of spiritual woo-woo.
  

Currently reading Stolen Lightning: The Social Theory of Magic by Daniel Lawrence O'Keefe.  Difficult read initially due to a lot of sociology/anthropology namedropping, but starting to get the hang of it.

I also have the 2018 Observer's Handbook from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada on the go, and am gradually expanding my knowledge of the field thanks to many short essays in the book.  Yesterday I learned why it's important to set up a telescope a couple of hours before you want to use it (it needs to adjust to the outside air temperature to prevent thermal currents messing up the image), how to align an equatorial mount for tracking stars, and that there's such a thing as "astronomical twilight" (night, and a truly dark sky, doesn't happen until the geometric centre of the sun is 18° below the horizon).

[Puke Skywalker]

I recently read Artemis, the 2nd novel by Andy Weir (author of The Martian). An excellent read: it's like a heist gone wrong, only it takes place on the moon's only city. Plenty of science and humor, just like The Martian.

A screenplay is being developed. Read it before it hits the big screen.

[Shell B]

It must have killed the Post to run this story!

https://nypost.com/2018/01/05/barnes-and...-tell-all/

Barnes and Noble misses out on bombshell Trump tell-all

At a Midtown Barnes & Noble, the first delivery of the book, about 90 copies, came at about 1 p.m. and sold out in 20 minutes, according to a store clerk.

Trump is losing his mind over this. It could be a coloring book and I’d have bought it just to add to his misery. This is great.

[TwoKnives99]

Reading His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman again

Probably going to move on to the Simillarion and Fahrenheit 451 after that

[Minimalist]

It must have killed the Post to run this story!

https://nypost.com/2018/01/05/barnes-and...-tell-all/

Trump is losing his mind over this. It could be a coloring book and I’d have bought it just to add to his misery. This is great.

Read the first chapter last night.  Fantastic stuff.

[GrandizerII]

Recently finished Introduction to the History of Religions Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV. It was a terribly dry read and not what I expected when I first saw the title on Goodreads, but it was nevertheless very informative and is free to download to your Kindle to read.

Currently, I'm about to finish An Introduction to Philosophy. The author has this tendency to make the same points over and over again, so it sometimes gets tiring. And it's not exactly the best read for anyone wanting to get into an introductory book on philosophy. But at least the author makes an effort to be stimulating in his writing, and so his work is not as dry as the previous book mentioned above. Also, free to download and read on your Kindle.

Once I'm done with the above book, I plan to go back and finish "Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In" (by Bernie Sanders) and "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome" (Tony Attwood).

[Whateverist]

Finishing Toni Morrison's Beloved. Sure does give you a gritty, real sense of what slavery would be like .. my new worst nightmare.

All the supernatural stuff was putting me off until I started seeing it as one more fallout of being kept like an animal with no opportunity for education. Horrible.

[chimp3]

Reading "The Ocean at the End of the Lane"  - Neil Gaiman

"A History of the Devil" - Gerald Messadie

One of these is fiction, the other an analysis of a fiction.

[Shell B]

Trump is losing his mind over this. It could be a coloring book and I’d have bought it just to add to his misery. This is great.

Read the first chapter last night.  Fantastic stuff.

I actually hate this guy’s writing style a lot. We’re still reading it (in the middle of a lot of books), but sometimes I want to punch him. That’s just me, though. I think Tibs isn’t fond of the slew of editing mistakes either.

---

Finishing Toni Morrison's Beloved. Sure does give you a gritty, real sense of what slavery would be like .. my new worst nightmare.

All the supernatural stuff was putting me off until I started seeing it as one more fallout of being kept like an animal with no opportunity for education. Horrible.

Keep meaning to read that because of its popularity.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

'The Snarkout Boys And The Avocado Of Death':

Walter and Winston set out to rescue the inventor of the Alligatron, a computer developed from an avocado which is the world's last defense against the space-realtors.

Boru