Books - What are you reading?

[slopes]

hairykrishna said:

slopes said:

Finished Exoskeleton and despite the promise and lots of reviews about it making people feel genuinely creeped out or uncomfortable, i have to say it was just another novel that promised so much, yet delivered so little.
.

It's free on Kindle unlimited at the moment so I'll give it a go I think.

Give it a read, you might get a different view to me.
By the way, it’s a four book series.

[grumbledoak]

Virtual Light by William Gibson. A bike courier pickpockets a package. An ex cop now security guard is tasked with recovering it. So are others, more murderous, and now they are on the run together in a near future San Francisco.

Book 1 of the Bridge trilogy. Very good. A plausible near future setting, this side of cyberpunk. Decent characters. Tightly written.

[Desiderata]

We had a wee break in the North East of Scotland recently and my wife mentioned that she'd like to read Lewis Grassic Gibbons' "Sunset Song" which was written in and about the area we were staying in.
I'd read it (as part of his "Scots Quair" trilogy) whilst back in college about 40 years ago and was sure I still had a copy laying about somewhere...two weeks later and after some interesting rummaging about, I found it. But she's not getting it quite yet, I picked it up for a quick squaatch earlier today and , a couple of hundred pages in, I'm finding it a lot more entertaining than I did the last time. She's going to have to wait a day or two longer.

[slopes]

Infinite and Infinite 2 by Jeremy Robinson..... what ever he was smoking/imbibing when he wrotes these...i want some!
The first one deals with a guy who wakes up on a ship travelling to Kepler 425-b at FTL and is promptly murdered. Then wakes up blah blah immortal yada yada.
It then deals with his attempts to gain control of the sship from a former friend who was a hacker and went somewhat nuts, before veering off into a real tangent and mind melting abstract area.
Not too bad to read, bit weird but okay.

I quite like him as an author, i think his Mind Bullet was great and that started me researching some of his work and the Infinite Saga.
Infinite 2 - holy stballs, where to start with this one? It jumps around all over the place and i still don't think i grasped the concept. If the first book was a mind melt, then this one is THE Holy stballs, what was he smoking?? novel.
Didn't enjoy these as much as some of the other books in this saga, The Tribe was okay, Flux was good but these two are way out there but all heading towards a single event in a book called...funnily enough....Singularity. Hopefully it explains everything

Edited by slopes on Monday 11th July 07:38

[droopsnoot]

I've just finished "Box 88" by Charles Cumming. A member of a very secret Anglo-American intelligence group is being followed by MI5 when he is kidnapped by someone who wants information from the eighties. A good read, I don't normally like flashback stuff but this was OK.

[droopsnoot]

I've just finished "Gallery of the Dead" by Chris Carter. Another featuring detective Robert Hunter, the team join forces with the FBI to hunt down a serial killer. A decent enough story that I am unable to summarise in a way that makes it sound like anything other than a thousand other serial killer novels. I enjoyed it, though, I've read another with the same character and I'll look out for more.

[droopsnoot]

I've just finished "Stop at Nothing" by Michael Ledwidge. A fisherman witnesses a plane crash, dives down to look for survivors and finds a suitcase full of money and a bag of diamonds. He gets puzzled when the crash is announced with the wrong details, then the people who owned the money start to look for him.

It starts off a little like "A Simple Plan" but the found money doesn't really play a big part in the story, which I enjoyed. This is another author who has partnered with a more well-known one - James Patterson in this case - but I've read a few of his own novels and enjoyed them.

[Desiderata]

Desiderata said:

We had a wee break in the North East of Scotland recently and my wife mentioned that she'd like to read Lewis Grassic Gibbons' "Sunset Song" which was written in and about the area we were staying in.
I'd read it (as part of his "Scots Quair" trilogy) whilst back in college about 40 years ago and was sure I still had a copy laying about somewhere...two weeks later and after some interesting rummaging about, I found it. But she's not getting it quite yet, I picked it up for a quick squaatch earlier today and , a couple of hundred pages in, I'm finding it a lot more entertaining than I did the last time. She's going to have to wait a day or two longer.

I'm taking my time with this one, usually if I get into a book I'll binge on it and finish it that same day or the next.
This one's a bit different, just nibbling away at it a few pages at a time, enjoying the detail, the thoughtfulness, the subtle humour, the poetic prose. I can see why it didn't really gel with me in my impetuous youth, but I'm loving it now.

[biggbn]

Finished James Robertson's 'And the Land Lay Still' the other day, epic start spanning generations intertwined with Scottish modern history. Really enjoyable, recommended

[SistersofPercy]

Decided to go for a bit of nostalgia and started reading Bill Brysons notes from a small island. Surprised I’ve not done this before, but I find myself nodding and chuckling at most of what he describes.

[biggbn]

About to start Merchant of Venice as I'm teaching it this year, not read it since I was at secondary school myself!!

[Desiderata]

biggbn said:

Finished James Robertson's 'And the Land Lay Still' the other day, epic start spanning generations intertwined with Scottish modern history. Really enjoyable, recommended

Just googled that, it looks interesting. I'll give it a try. Thanks for the recommendation.

[coppice]

biggbn said:

About to start Merchant of Venice as I'm teaching it this year, not read it since I was at secondary school myself!!

I did it for A level but dint see it on stage until my forties . We saw it at Stratford , with the late Anthony Sher as yer man - who was magnificent, and convinced us that he we was the reasonable guy who'd been wronged .

Tell me , what challenges does the play's anti semitism present to teaching a modern class ? When we did it ,in the late 60s, nobody at our school (including our English teacher I suspect ) had ever even met anyone Jewish and casual anti semitism was rife .

[Desiderata]

Desiderata said:

Desiderata said:

We had a wee break in the North East of Scotland recently and my wife mentioned that she'd like to read Lewis Grassic Gibbons' "Sunset Song" which was written in and about the area we were staying in.
I'd read it (as part of his "Scots Quair" trilogy) whilst back in college about 40 years ago and was sure I still had a copy laying about somewhere...two weeks later and after some interesting rummaging about, I found it. But she's not getting it quite yet, I picked it up for a quick squaatch earlier today and , a couple of hundred pages in, I'm finding it a lot more entertaining than I did the last time. She's going to have to wait a day or two longer.

I'm taking my time with this one, usually if I get into a book I'll binge on it and finish it that same day or the next.
This one's a bit different, just nibbling away at it a few pages at a time, enjoying the detail, the thoughtfulness, the subtle humour, the poetic prose. I can see why it didn't really gel with me in my impetuous youth, but I'm loving it now.

Well, I really enjoyed it this time around. A book to be absorbed slowly to fully appreciate it.
I do wonder whether someone unfamiliar with native Scots or Doric would be able to fully appreciate it. Any sassenachs on here read it and able to comment?

[biggbn]

coppice said:

biggbn said:

About to start Merchant of Venice as I'm teaching it this year, not read it since I was at secondary school myself!!

I did it for A level but dint see it on stage until my forties . We saw it at Stratford , with the late Anthony Sher as yer man - who was magnificent, and convinced us that he we was the reasonable guy who'd been wronged .

Tell me , what challenges does the play's anti semitism present to teaching a modern class ? When we did it ,in the late 60s, nobody at our school (including our English teacher I suspect ) had ever even met anyone Jewish and casual anti semitism was rife .

As I said, I have never taught it, but the antisemitism will be a big part of the lessons, it is integral to the play. This is actually manna from heaven for a teacher as the prejudices exposed open up avenues for discussions and tasks regarding different types of prejudices whilst identyfying a historic one that is still, sadly, prevalent. It gives pupils ideas for essays and other quick write tasks perhaps comparing prejudices in different eras, encourages pupils to research using computers or the library thus showing them acceptable ways of doing so for the essays they will write throughout their academic careers.

I have now taught Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and various plays centred around indentity, prejudice and class and they have all allowed and encouraged teaching far beyond the actual content of their pages. I'm new to all this but love the way these 'cliched' books still work on many levels and inspire pupils to find out more

Edited by biggbn on Friday 22 July 08:10

[biggbn]

coppice said:

biggbn said:

About to start Merchant of Venice as I'm teaching it this year, not read it since I was at secondary school myself!!

I did it for A level but dint see it on stage until my forties . We saw it at Stratford , with the late Anthony Sher as yer man - who was magnificent, and convinced us that he we was the reasonable guy who'd been wronged .

Tell me , what challenges does the play's anti semitism present to teaching a modern class ? When we did it ,in the late 60s, nobody at our school (including our English teacher I suspect ) had ever even met anyone Jewish and casual anti semitism was rife .

I have the Pacino and Irons version to watch, it seems to have been recieved well.

[andy_s]

A few from the past few months. Max Stirner was in the same sort of set [The Free Ones] as Engels and Marx, but as these post-Hegelians developed their own philosophies they split apart due to growing fundamental disagreements, so Marx and Engels went one way, the Feuerbach's another and Max, arguably, on his own with a pure distillation of what it is to be unfettered by, well, anything. Max was max egoism; provocative, polemical, unrelenting - "All things are nothing to me" should perhaps be the tagline of The Ego and His Own. [And may be one to set as a class text if you really want to prompt, er, 'discussion' ]



[If you want to read something similar but without the ego [phnar] then Emerson's Essays, particularly Self-Reliance maybe a gentler entrée.]



Not really an 'easy' read, this isn't a pop-sci one really and seems more textbook, however The Evolving Self by Kegan has quite a simple idea at its core, about the self evolving over time, a sort of meta-psychology underlying the idea of autopoiesis [which sort of links back to Stirner in his own developmental ideas]. A very interesting one but a bit of a trudge.



I dunno about Gibson, it's stuff I should really like but sometimes he tips over into weirdness that asks for a suspense of disbelief that jars, but thought I'd give him another read after seeing a few reviews here. I decided to give Pattern Recognition a go and pleased I did. The underlying themes are well worn and interesting if you've not read the 'source' material [Baudrillard, Girard et al] anyway, but the surface trots along quite well, I enjoyed it at any rate.




ETA: And also the first 3-4 of the Thorne books, very good rec'd here!

Edited by andy_s on Friday 22 July 14:59

[coppice]

biggbn said:

As I said, I have never taught it, but the antisemitism will be a big part of the lessons, it is integral to the play. This is actually manna from heaven for a teacher as the prejudices exposed open up avenues for discussions and tasks regarding different types of prejudices whilst identyfying a historic one that is still, sadly, prevalent. It gives pupils ideas for essays and other quick write tasks perhaps comparing prejudices in different eras, encourages pupils to research using computers or the library thus showing them acceptable ways of doing so for the essays they will write throughout their academic careers.

I have now taught Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and various plays centred around indentity, prejudice and class and they have all allowed and encouraged teaching far beyond the actual content of their pages. I'm new to all this but love the way these 'cliched' books still work on many levels and inspire pupils to find out more

Edited by biggbn on Friday 22 July 08:10

Thanks - interesting , and it's reassuring, if not surprising that, the books you mention still have mileage in them. My wife is a Classics MA, and thanks to her I am a huge fan of Greek drama - it is staggering how something written over 2000 years ago can still feel so relevant .

[biggbn]

andy_s said:

A few from the past few months. Max Stirner was in the same sort of set [The Free Ones] as Engels and Marx, but as these post-Hegelians developed their own philosophies they split apart due to growing fundamental disagreements, so Marx and Engels went one way, the Feuerbach's another and Max, arguably, on his own with a pure distillation of what it is to be unfettered by, well, anything. Max was max egoism; provocative, polemical, unrelenting - "All things are nothing to me" should perhaps be the tagline of The Ego and His Own. [And may be one to set as a class text if you really want to prompt, er, 'discussion' ]



[If you want to read something similar but without the ego [phnar] then Emerson's Essays, particularly Self-Reliance maybe a gentler entrée.]



Not really an 'easy' read, this isn't a pop-sci one really and seems more textbook, however The Evolving Self by Kegan has quite a simple idea at its core, about the self evolving over time, a sort of meta-psychology underlying the idea of autopoiesis [which sort of links back to Stirner in his own developmental ideas]. A very interesting one but a bit of a trudge.



I dunno about Gibson, it's stuff I should really like but sometimes he tips over into weirdness that asks for a suspense of disbelief that jars, but thought I'd give him another read after seeing a few reviews here. I decided to give Pattern Recognition a go and pleased I did. The underlying themes are well worn and interesting if you've not read the 'source' material [Baudrillard, Girard et al] anyway, but the surface trots along quite well, I enjoyed it at any rate.




ETA: And also the first 3-4 of the Thorne books, very good rec'd here!

Edited by andy_s on Friday 22 July 14:59

Thanks for these recommendations. I confess I have not read much Philosophy except for when researching writing, almost since I graduated! Will dig em out and take a look. I have enjoyed Sisyphus by Camus, various Zizek books and I do enjoy Teilhard de Chardin but many find him a bit out there. I've always felt we shoukd treat philodphers as MMA practitioners look at martial arts, study as much as you can but find out what works for you and use it, and if it doesn't feel right, adapt it....

[biggbn]

coppice said:

biggbn said:

As I said, I have never taught it, but the antisemitism will be a big part of the lessons, it is integral to the play. This is actually manna from heaven for a teacher as the prejudices exposed open up avenues for discussions and tasks regarding different types of prejudices whilst identyfying a historic one that is still, sadly, prevalent. It gives pupils ideas for essays and other quick write tasks perhaps comparing prejudices in different eras, encourages pupils to research using computers or the library thus showing them acceptable ways of doing so for the essays they will write throughout their academic careers.

I have now taught Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and various plays centred around indentity, prejudice and class and they have all allowed and encouraged teaching far beyond the actual content of their pages. I'm new to all this but love the way these 'cliched' books still work on many levels and inspire pupils to find out more

Edited by biggbn on Friday 22 July 08:10

Thanks - interesting , and it's reassuring, if not surprising that, the books you mention still have mileage in them. My wife is a Classics MA, and thanks to her I am a huge fan of Greek drama - it is staggering how something written over 2000 years ago can still feel so relevant .

All the great tales have already been told, everything else is adaptation. My degree was English and Philsophy, a good combination and one which really encouraged me to think about why books are written the way they are rather than concentrate on how they are written!