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Last post Author Topic: What books are you reading?  (Read 678511 times)

panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #900 on: August 16, 2017, 09:14 AM »
« Last Edit: August 16, 2017, 10:38 AM by panzer »

panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #901 on: August 23, 2017, 05:06 AM »

Contro

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #902 on: August 24, 2017, 04:46 PM »
The Trajan Trilogy by Santiago Posteguillo

The Lost Legion

https://literaryramb...on-3-trajan-trilogy/

https://en.wikipedia...Santiago_Posteguillo


4wd

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #903 on: September 03, 2017, 01:42 AM »
41+TM8emr5L.jpg

In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead Mountain. Eerie aspects of the incident—unexplained violent injuries, signs that they cut open and fled the tent without proper clothing or shoes, a strange final photograph taken by one of the hikers, and elevated levels of radiation found on some of their clothes—have led to decades of speculation over what really happened.

mouser

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #904 on: September 03, 2017, 02:20 AM »
That looks like a great book.  One of my favorite books of all time is "Into Thin Air", so it sounds like I might like Dead Mountain.

Into Thin Air:
thinair.jpg

Contro

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #905 on: September 07, 2017, 04:15 PM »
I am reading "The Information" by Martin Amis.
Is a book selected in one ot the reading clubs I belong.

https://en.wikipedia...e_Information_(novel)

Usually the books selected are good and full of question to debate.
 :P

Note : Ejem, the reading club all books in spanish, but lately if the book is written in english I try in english.

« Last Edit: September 07, 2017, 04:20 PM by Contro, Reason: Note »

wraith808

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #906 on: September 07, 2017, 06:11 PM »
The Expanse Series by James S. A. Corey.  Currently on Cibola Burn.

cibola_burn.jpg

Pretty good sci-fi.  Got involved after seeing the second season and then the first season on SyFy.  Very good grasp of physics, even in the inventions and liberties taken.

But got interrupted by the new Mitch Rapp book, Enemy of the State.

enemy_of_the_state.jpg

Kyle Mills seemed to reach his stride in the last book, so I've been looking forward to this more than the American Assassin movie.  That could be good- but I've already seen changes, so bracing myself for it not to be.

Contro

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #907 on: September 28, 2017, 03:28 PM »
I have finished Fear and Trembling

Is more easy to read than The Information by Martin Amis.

Is about mobbing in the work.
 ;D

SteveT8

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #908 on: September 29, 2017, 05:25 AM »
just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

MilesAhead

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #909 on: September 29, 2017, 07:29 AM »
https://www.amazon.c...ius+theodore+dreiser


The Genius by Theodore Dreiser.  Not an adrenalin read but insight into the maturation of an artist.

panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #910 on: October 12, 2017, 03:54 PM »
Dropped:


panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #911 on: October 12, 2017, 03:58 PM »

wraith808

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #912 on: October 12, 2017, 04:23 PM »
Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan.  Just as good as the first series, IMO.

sinsofempire.jpg

panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #913 on: October 26, 2017, 06:14 AM »
Dumped:


panzer

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #914 on: October 26, 2017, 06:18 AM »

erikts

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #915 on: November 02, 2017, 12:21 AM »
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
22816087.jpgWhat books are you reading?

TaoPhoenix

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #916 on: November 19, 2017, 10:06 PM »
Yum books!
Bumping this, so I might see it better and post to it soon!
I've been reading like a fiend this year...


Attronarch

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #917 on: November 20, 2017, 02:25 AM »


Riveting.

IainB

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #918 on: December 22, 2017, 12:27 AM »
READ THIS BOOK! I found it a really interesting, educational and absorbing book.
Trigger warning!: This is not about a political statement, though one might want to think that it is.     :o

Spoiler
Flat Earth News:

An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media
by Nick Davies  (Author)
This is the paperback – February 2, 2009 - but I had the Kindle edition.

22_328x499_6CD53FFC.png

Synopsis Review notes:
After years of working as a respected journalist, Nick Davies broke the unwritten rule of the media by investigating the practices of his fellow colleagues. In this eye-opening exposé, Davies uncovers an industry awash in corruption and bias. His findings include the story of a prestigious Sunday newspaper that allowed the CIA to plant fiction in its columns; the newsroom that routinely rejects stories about black people; the respected paper that hired a professional fraudster to set up a front company to entrap senior political figures; as well as a number of newspapers that pay cash bribes to bent detectives. His research also exposes a range of national stories that were in fact pseudo events manufactured by the public relations industry and global news stories that were fiction generated by a machinery of international propaganda. The degree to which the media industry has affected government policy and perverted popular belief is also addressed. Gripping and thought-provoking, this is an insider’s look at one of the world’s most tainted professions.
________________________
Copied from: Flat Earth News: An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media: Nick Davies: 9780099512684: Amazon.com: Books - <https://www.amazon.com/Flat-Earth-News-Award-Winning-Distortion/dp/0099512688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513916742&sr=8-1&keywords=Book+Flat+Earth+News>

This reader review (below) says much of what I thought, so it saves me the trouble, though, as an exiled Pom I felt quite at home with what the reviewer called the book's "parochial view" (i.e., being UK-oriented).
Great investigation into how news is made
Reader: Grue
December 2, 2012
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
If you're like me, you know that the news is "biased", but you haven't really thought much about specially which forces shape the news and how. After reading this book you will have a much better idea of how news organizations function and what they do and don't do. The main parts of the book are:

1. Economics of newspapers - why pressure to publish is often not conducive to truth
2. News ecosystem - describing the roles of journalists, newspapers, and suppliers such as the Associated Press
3. Outsiders - how companies, lobbyists, and politicians can manipulate the media by exploiting (1) and (2)
4. Details about English newspapers - mostly about how some newspapers in England do illegal stuff

Not being British, I didn't care much about section (4), even though the author is arguably most famous for precipitating the whole Murdoch/Daily Mail scandal. However, the other three sections are excellent and I know of no better book covering similar material. The author clearly has an insider's point of view, not an academic's, but despite some heuristic thinking and proof-by-example, the reader will be forced to admit that there is no reason to believe that the output of the current news system is even roughly true. In short, I was vaguely skeptical before; now I look at most news as being little more than entertaining fiction.

In my opinion the main two faults of the book are that
1) it is parochial and only describes British newspapers in any detail
2) it offers very little constructive guidance on how people _should_ stay informed.

Still, a very thought provoking book. Anyone who reads or watches news (i.e. basically everyone) should read this book or one on the same topics.
______________________________
Copied from: Flat Earth News: An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media: Nick Davies: 9780099512684: Amazon.com: Books - <https://www.amazon.com/Flat-Earth-News-Award-Winning-Distortion/dp/0099512688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513916742&sr=8-1&keywords=Book+Flat+Earth+News>

The book (published in 2009)  encouraged me to think and research around the subject, and my research looked around initially at current affairs, and then later I looked for patterns in history (always a good teacher). I was part-way through the book when I pasted together the amusing cartoon (below) and posted it in the silly humour thread. However, having now finished the book and done some more research, I suspect I didn't make the cartoon "strong" enough.

5 steps in The evolution of The Three Wise Monkeys
09_674x1878_AAE012C9.pngWhat books are you reading?

The book's methodical analysis doesn't really say much different to the cartoon ("a picture's worth a thousand words"), except it removes the element of doubt about how the various forces are behind and driving the fake news, and the attentive reader - having read the book - would probably thus be better-placed to "think for oneself" when the selfsame purveyors of fake news try to tell him/her how and what to correctly think about fake news, because the methods that they employ are now become transparently obvious (from the book), if they weren't already. Fake news and propaganda are essentially one and the same thing. The book could relieve one's ignorance to some extent, and could reduce one's credulousness and susceptibility to being manipulated by the media and politicians, but it also helps to retain a natural healthy skepticism - and this is certainly what history shows, for example:

...So the gatekeepers of knowledge and culture in 1530, on losing their gatekeeper position over the narrative, didn’t counter with higher-quality reporting, but instead attacked the technology enabling competition, calling it out as spreading misinformation and irresponsible fake reports. Does any of this seem… familiar?

The law was a complete fiasco. Once people had learned to read competing reporting, there was no unlearning it. The law was repealed shortly thereafter. England went another route to prevent the success of the printing press by establishing a censorship regime with printing monopolies, known as copyright, but that’s a story for another day.

As a final touch, let’s consider the words of Paul Graham, in his excellent essay “what you can’t say”: “No one gets in trouble for saying that 2 + 2 is 5, or that people in Pittsburgh are ten feet tall. Such obviously false statements might be treated as jokes, or at worst as evidence of insanity, but they are not likely to make anyone mad. The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true. […] If Galileo had said that people in Padua were ten feet tall, he would have been regarded as a harmless eccentric. Saying the earth orbited the sun was another matter. The church knew this would set people thinking.”

Privacy and narrative remain your own responsibility.
___________________________
Copied from: The great “Fake News” scare of 1530 - <https://falkvinge.net/2017/01/02/great-fake-news-scare-1530/>

The clip below is from a query to the Google Books engram viewer. The search was input as 1800 to 2017, but apparently the corpus only goes up to 2008 at present. Interesting that the previous biggest peak(s) in the past were around the war years - probably indicative of the moot cause of the exponential rise we have seen in modern times {i.e., it's propaganda).
Search string: <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fake+news&year_start=1800&year_end=2017&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cfake%20news%3B%2Cc0>

22_680x387_5C5F0A06.png

« Last Edit: December 22, 2017, 04:14 AM by IainB »

kyrathaba

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #919 on: December 27, 2017, 10:10 AM »
The Dreaming Void
The Fall of Reach
Halo: The Flood

c.gingerich

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #920 on: December 27, 2017, 12:39 PM »
The Martian
Harry Potter Series

MilesAhead

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The Time Axis
« Reply #921 on: April 24, 2018, 04:37 PM »
The Time Axis

An entertaining short SciFi novel.  One nice thing about the way it is written is that rather than delving into microscopic techno detail the descriptions of future tech are sufficiently vague that the plot should not seem dated.  A hundred years from now it should still be a good read.


Target

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #922 on: May 03, 2018, 05:41 PM »
just finished 'Sea of Rust' by C. Robert Cargill.

images.jpgWhat books are you reading?

It's a somewhat different take on a post apocalyptic world where our robot overlords have risen up

a very enjoyable read...


mouser

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #923 on: May 27, 2018, 12:13 PM »
Welcome, gorens.

Your post reminded me to post.

I have recently been reading a ton of "relationship" books lately.. At least a half dozen of them.  These are self-help type books with different theories of, and advice about, relationships with your significant other.

Growing up I never gave much thought to such things, and never spent significant time "working" on having a relationship.  I just figured it would all come naturally.  And I am mostly a loner, and happy that way, so I have never been overly concerned with making a relationship "last".  Now almost 50 years old I find myself shocked that these kinds of relationship and self-help subjects aren't taught in school.  Some really useful life lessons and advice...

As to why I've been reading so much about making a relationship work lately.. Well that will have to wait for another day and another post.  But in the next few days I will try to post some mini-reviews about the books I have been reading.  I encourage everyone, whether currently in a relationship or not, to read some books on making a relationship work -- the earlier in your life the better.

wraith808

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #924 on: May 27, 2018, 02:39 PM »
Welcome, gorens.

Your post reminded me to post.

I have recently been reading a ton of "relationship" books lately.. At least a half dozen of them.  These are self-help type books with different theories of, and advice about, relationships with your significant other.

Growing up I never gave much thought to such things, and never spent significant time "working" on having a relationship.  I just figured it would all come naturally.  And I am mostly a loner, and happy that way, so I have never been overly concerned with making a relationship "last".  Now almost 50 years old I find myself shocked that these kinds of relationship and self-help subjects aren't taught in school.  Some really useful life lessons and advice...

As to why I've been reading so much about making a relationship work lately.. Well that will have to wait for another day and another post.  But in the next few days I will try to post some mini-reviews about the books I have been reading.  I encourage everyone, whether currently in a relationship or not, to read some books on making a relationship work -- the earlier in your life the better.


Or go to a therapist or counselor.  It's amazing what you can find out just from having a safe space to talk about such things.  I wish I'd figured that out earlier.