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What books are you reading?

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x16wda:
Getting ready to start "Alive, Son Of Awake". Brief article on it here. Excerpt from the article:

In this age of anxiety, anger and contestations between the West and the Islamic world, many epoch-shaping stories of intellectual exchanges between our cultures are often forgotten.

A powerful example comes from literature. Millions of Christian, Jewish and Muslim readers across the world have read that famed tale of the man stranded alone on an island: “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe, the 18th-century British pamphleteer, political activist and novelist.

Few know that in 1708, 11 years before Defoe wrote his celebrated novel, Simon Ockley, an Orientalist scholar at Cambridge University, translated and published a 12th-century Arabic novel, “Hayy ibn Yaqzan,” or “Alive, the Son of Awake,” by Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Tufayl, an Andalusian-Arab polymath. Writing about the influence of Ibn Tufayl’s novel on Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe,” Martin Wainwright, a former Guardian editor, remarked, “Tufayl’s footprints mark the great classic.”

Ibn Tufayl’s novel tells the tale of Hayy, a boy growing up alone on a deserted island, with animals. As he grows up, Hayy uses his senses and reason to understand the workings of the natural world. He explores the laws of nature, devises a rational theology and entertains theories about the origin of the universe. He develops a sense of ethics: Out of mercy for animals, he turns vegetarian, and out of care for plants, he preserves their seeds.

...

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Of course there is more, sounds very interesting. This is generally not my style of book at all, I prefer the SF that I gorged on in the 60s and 70s, but I have less time and often just pull out the Kindle. That said, my SIL referenced this article in a post and I am now committed to reading this so we can all discuss it when we meet this summer.

I am looking forward to it but it will be more work than I am used to...

MilesAhead:
She sees them as a precursor to writing.

-tomos (April 23, 2021, 01:26 PM)
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It goes to show you that long before there was such a thing as text, there was pretext.  Sorry, I could not resist.   ;D

Arizona Hot:
What books are you reading?

Project Hail Mary: A Novel Kindle Edition

I plan to read this after finishing my current book.

velaris:
Hi! I'm currently reading The Great Gatsby although I'm not very far along yet. The book is not very exciting but it isn't supposed to be. I've seen the movie so I thought why not read the book? Maybe it gets better.
Greetings

MilesAhead:
I just enjoyed The Serene Invasion  by Eric Brown.  Not your usual "countries unite to fend off the external enemy" type of story.  A bit different.  Good food for thought.

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