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Last post Author Topic: What books are you reading?  (Read 735553 times)

MilesAhead

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #775 on: November 04, 2016, 06:45 AM »
all your images have disappeared here :-(
Here with BBCode disabled:

I guess that's why they always said "you can't judge a book by its cover."  heh heh

wraith808

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #776 on: November 04, 2016, 01:03 PM »


all your images have disappeared here :-(
Here with BBCode disabled:

[IMG]http://i68.tinypic.com/152kot0.jpg[/img]

That is very strange for them to universally and unilaterally disappear from a service like that!  You can also get to the image URL by right clicking on the empty image and opening in a new tab.

tomos

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #777 on: November 06, 2016, 01:01 PM »
^ they now working with that machine (laptop), so may have been something to do with my location at the time :-\
Tom

wraith808

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #778 on: November 06, 2016, 09:07 PM »
They are now working with my machine also- so maybe it has more to do with Tinypic than anything else?

panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #779 on: November 07, 2016, 07:25 AM »
Probably. I didn't see them either ...

Deozaan

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #780 on: November 07, 2016, 09:10 PM »
That is why it is generally preferable to upload images directly to the DC forum itself rather than use an external image hosting service: So that images attached to posts will stick around as long as the forums do, rather than for as long as the external site keeps them around.

We've lost some good stuff due to 3rd party image hosting. :(

wraith808

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #781 on: November 08, 2016, 09:29 AM »
That is why it is generally preferable to upload images directly to the DC forum itself rather than use an external image hosting service: So that images attached to posts will stick around as long as the forums do, rather than for as long as the external site keeps them around.

We've lost some good stuff due to 3rd party image hosting. :(

For silly stuff, however, I upload it to the 3rd party.  It takes space and bandwidth from DC, and drives up costs.  There are pros and cons to both ways.

panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #782 on: November 23, 2016, 08:01 AM »
Skipped (unfinished):


panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #783 on: November 23, 2016, 08:02 AM »

kyrathaba

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #784 on: December 14, 2016, 10:14 AM »
Rick Yancey's "The Fifth Wave" trilogy.

MilesAhead

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #785 on: December 14, 2016, 10:48 AM »
I have been reading the Culture Series by Iain Banks

I haven't been able to read them in order.  I started with The Hydrogen Sonata since it was on the shelf in the local library.  Fortunately they are not tightly coupled.  The commonality is the protagonist gets involved with a group in The Culture known as Special Circumstances.  A section of the civilization's intelligence agency that influences events through clandestine action.

I am trying to finish up Surface Detail.  I have Excession on hold for a couple more days.  No way do I wish to lug both about town simultaneously.  They tend to be hardcover tomes.  :)

Needless to say, the author uses the situations and special circumstances of civilizations with technology thousands of years ahead of ours to draw some parallels to the moral quandaries we face.

Clipboard01.pngWhat books are you reading?

rjbull

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #786 on: December 19, 2016, 02:37 PM »
@panzer:

Where do you get your nice cover artwork from, please?  Clearly not from scanning actual books.

panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #787 on: December 19, 2016, 03:48 PM »
I search for them online ...

kyrathaba

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #788 on: December 20, 2016, 07:32 AM »
Finishing Book 3 of the Third Wave trilogy by Rick Yancey, and about 3/4 through The Regulators, by Stephen King.

Arizona Hot

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #789 on: December 20, 2016, 10:24 AM »
Infinite Regress (Schooled in Magic Book 9).jpgWhat books are you reading?

I am reading "Infinite Regress" by Christopher Nuttall. It's book 9 of the series, so I must like his work. I am reading the Kindle version. It makes it much easier to carry my collection with me.


IainB

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Books I am reading: The Log from the Sea of Cortez (Steinbeck)
« Reply #790 on: January 01, 2017, 09:29 AM »
Reading again a book - The Log from the Sea of Cortez - which I think with Of Mice and Men (a profoundly thoughtful book) formed my introduction to a man who became one of my favourite writers - the American author John Steinbeck (though I have not read all of his books).

02_328x499_0728023A.png

I'm not sure, but I think The Log may have been the first book by Steinbeck that I read (it was either that or Of Mice that was the first, anyway). As a child of 12 y/o I found it (a Penguin paperback) amongst the books at home, and, being interested in all things biology and including marine biology (my earliest years included living beside the sea, and later on the seaside was never far away and I was fascinated by marine pond life), I was curious enough to read the book.

I recall that, initially I had somehow been expecting the book to be fictional. I discovered that it was a non-fictional account of a six-week marine specimen-collecting boat expedition that Steinbeck and a marine biologist friend (Ed Ricketts) made in 1940, along various coastal sites in the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez). The book introduced me to a few new things/ideas (e.g., that people might have the time and inclination to explore a coastal region, collecting specimens, just out of scientific curiosity) and I learned a special new word - "littoral":
littoral /"lIt(@)r(@)l/
· adj. of, relating to, or on the shore of the sea or a lake.
· n. a littoral region.
– ORIGIN C17: from L. littoralis, from litus, litor- ‘shore’.
Concise Oxford Dictionary (10th Ed.)
__________________________
I learned that what was special about this word was that, for a biologist, it described a narrow environmental band along all seashores around the planet - an environment that provided a unique ecosystem that supported a diverse collection of flora and fauna specialised to survive in that environment and not generally found elsewhere - i.e., usually only in that band between low and high tidal marks.
As a result, whenever I find myself on a seaside beach (lakes seem to be less diverse/interesting), in whatever country I happen to be, I invariably end up wandering along the beach, exploring the littoral by myself, or with my children, and it always reminds me of the book The Log from the Sea of Cortez, though I have always thought the title of the book somewhat misleading, since it is a log of a voyage along just a tiny part (the littoral) of the Gulf of California - i.e., hardly a pukka "sea" voyage per se.

I was reminded by a post - at brainpickings.org here - of something that Steinbeck wrote - in his letters, that could also be be relevant to the the New Year of 2017 which for us is just beginning. He wrote it on January 1, 1941, when the world was in the midst of the WW2 Holocaust:
"... Speaking of the happy new year, I wonder if any year ever had less chance of being happy. It’s as though the whole race were indulging in a kind of species introversion — as though we looked inward on our neuroses. And the thing we see isn’t very pretty… So we go into this happy new year, knowing that our species has learned nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing — that the experience of ten thousand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years that preceded. ..."
- but he went on in very thoughtful and philosophically optimistic vein for the future of the good in mankind.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2017, 09:36 AM by IainB »

Josh

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #791 on: January 01, 2017, 11:20 AM »
This is an interesting take on the concept of hell and tells one man's journey through this temporary plane of existence.
If you like weird stuff, you might like Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman.


Finished this one a few months ago and wanted to say thanks for the recommendation! What an interesting tale that dives into quite a few different topic areas. I kinda predicted the ending (at least the major premise behind it, not necessarily how it came to be) but that didn't take away from the journey of finding the third policeman.

Thanks again!

Josh

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #792 on: January 01, 2017, 11:21 AM »


Panzer,

How was "The Fireman"? I found this one and have it on my wish list. I am interested in hearing your thoughts on it.

panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #793 on: January 03, 2017, 04:20 AM »
I didn't like it. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I found it boring and slow paced ... But that just me; you should give it a chance ...

IainB

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #794 on: January 03, 2017, 04:58 AM »
I didn't like it. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I found it boring and slow paced ... But that just me; you should give it a chance ...
Yes, always a good idea to give a book "a chance". Maybe get a pleasant surprise. One never knows what one risks learning from a book until one reads it.     :D
It's like a kind of adventure - e.g., The Catcher in the Rye, or Mein Kampf, or The Log from the Sea of Cortez.

Mind you, I'd usually have a preference for non-fiction if I expected to learn something, though sometimes fictional stories can be quite thought-provoking, if not educational - especially SF.

mouser

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #795 on: January 03, 2017, 06:50 AM »
I Want My Hat Back by  Jon Klassen
Screenshot - 1_3_2017 , 6_51_53 AM.png

Loved it.  Made me laugh. The cover conveys it all -- if you don't laugh at the cover don't bother.

Josh

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #796 on: January 04, 2017, 06:44 PM »
I didn't like it. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I found it boring and slow paced ... But that just me; you should give it a chance ...
Mind you, I'd usually have a preference for non-fiction if I expected to learn something, though sometimes fictional stories can be quite thought-provoking, if not educational - especially SF.

Speaking of thought provoking and educational, if you want that you should check out "A short stay in hell" which I linked to previously. It was a really interesting take on the "Library of Babel".


IainB

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #797 on: January 05, 2017, 02:01 AM »
@kath-accubizbooks: That would be Katherine LaBarca. Owner, President of AccuBizBooks (Trenton, FL), I presume?

I don't know whether DC forum members would be interested in what you read (why don't you try us and see?), but I suspect that you would probably be able to pass some useful comments/tips on any accounting software we might have discussed or reviewed on this forum, and also suggest some other software we might not have known about.
I for one would always be interested in any discussions regarding financial modelling or accounting-related software, or books on same.
EDIT 2017-01-06 2300hrs: Yes, I wondered whether I was replying to spam - seems like I probably was. Pity. It would have been good to get some fresh input on the subject of financial/accounting software.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2017, 03:58 AM by IainB »

panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #798 on: February 02, 2017, 03:01 AM »
Dumped:


panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #799 on: February 02, 2017, 03:12 AM »