Books! The good Reads thread

[JlHorsley]

Won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve been pretty into books on spiritual contemplation lately. Finished Franciscan mystic Richard Rohr’s “The Universal Christ” a couple weeks ago, and am now working on his book on contemplation, “Everything’s Belongs.” I also highly recommend Merton’s “New Seeds of Contemplation.”

He did a long interview on the show On Being. Listen to the unedited version, it's got more actual content. Just an FYI in case you like that sort of thing. My wife told me to listen to it as part #1952 of my multiyear series "wtf is this Christianity religion anyway"- she liked his idea that the Trinity is supposed to be impossible to understand in a single resolved way.

Nice! Just bookmarked the interview. Thanks for the heads-up. I really dig both Rohr and Krista Tippet.

Rohr is definitely outside the mainstream, but he’s got some great perspectives that are not strictly beyond the bounds of the tradition writ large. Most mystics in most traditions are like that. His writings on the Trinity were actually what got me interested in him.

[5hout]

https://www.gwern.net/GoodReads

"What books are hardest for a reader who starts them to finish, and most likely to be abandoned? I scrape a crowdsourced tag, abandoned, from the GoodReads book social network on 9 December 2019 to estimate conditional probability of being abandoned.

The default GoodReads tag interface presents only raw counts of tags, not counts divided by total ratings (=reads). This conflates popularity with probability of being abandoned: a popular but rarely-abandoned book may have more abandoned tags than a less popular but often-abandoned book. There is also residual error from the winner’s curse where books with fewer ratings are more mis-estimated than popular books. I fix that to see what more correct rankings look like."

I think this might be relevant to this thread and a lot of the Dune discussion. If you had a crystal ball for viewing the past and looked around the release of various Dune TV/Movie attempts I'd bet Dune would be highly abandoned.

[Idlehands]

https://www.gwern.net/GoodReads

"What books are hardest for a reader who starts them to finish, and most likely to be abandoned? I scrape a crowdsourced tag, abandoned, from the GoodReads book social network on 9 December 2019 to estimate conditional probability of being abandoned.

The default GoodReads tag interface presents only raw counts of tags, not counts divided by total ratings (=reads). This conflates popularity with probability of being abandoned: a popular but rarely-abandoned book may have more abandoned tags than a less popular but often-abandoned book. There is also residual error from the winner’s curse where books with fewer ratings are more mis-estimated than popular books. I fix that to see what more correct rankings look like."

I think this might be relevant to this thread and a lot of the Dune discussion. If you had a crystal ball for viewing the past and looked around the release of various Dune TV/Movie attempts I'd bet Dune would be highly abandoned.

Dune was awesome.

[hector]

https://www.gwern.net/GoodReads

"What books are hardest for a reader who starts them to finish, and most likely to be abandoned? I scrape a crowdsourced tag, abandoned, from the GoodReads book social network on 9 December 2019 to estimate conditional probability of being abandoned.

The default GoodReads tag interface presents only raw counts of tags, not counts divided by total ratings (=reads). This conflates popularity with probability of being abandoned: a popular but rarely-abandoned book may have more abandoned tags than a less popular but often-abandoned book. There is also residual error from the winner’s curse where books with fewer ratings are more mis-estimated than popular books. I fix that to see what more correct rankings look like."

I think this might be relevant to this thread and a lot of the Dune discussion. If you had a crystal ball for viewing the past and looked around the release of various Dune TV/Movie attempts I'd bet Dune would be highly abandoned.

Dune was awesome.

Strongly agree.

[hector]

Reading "How to Hide an Empire".

It's a fun, if unflattering, history of America that might challenge what you think of America and who you consider American. At least if you're as under informed as I am.

How the founding fathers denied basic rights to those in the territories, and that America always had territories filled with people denied basic rights was new to me. The Founding Fathers saw those in the territories just as the King George has seen his subjects. Some of the federally appointed governors even called those in the territories "subjects" rather than "citizens".

[Allentown]

I guess it comes as a bit of a surprise to me that people are surprised the founding fathers were kind of shitty people.

[Allentown]

Started Dune on Tuesday. 160 pages in and I really like it so far.

[BenM]

For the Ben Folds fans out there... I kinda forgot he'd released a memoir until my wife (bless her) got me an autographed copy for Christmas.

I just started reading it and... yeah. Only a few chapters in, but I am impressed by his writing, and already finding his background really interesting. Well worth a look.

[Wingspan]

Dune is Fucking great!

I highly recommend the Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris. I knew absolutely nothing about the man or the Roman Republic and was blown away by the story, a real page turner. I had to Google at some points as I thought the author had take an artistic liberty but In fact the events were as they happened as far as I can tell.

Will try to get my hands on some of Cicero's philosophy as I'm now fascinated my the man.

[Idlehands]

For the Ben Folds fans out there... I kinda forgot he'd released a memoir until my wife (bless her) got me an autographed copy for Christmas.

I just started reading it and... yeah. Only a few chapters in, but I am impressed by his writing, and already finding his background really interesting. Well worth a look.

Ben Folds is awesome. His cameo on "you're the worst" made me smile


Books:
Children Of Time

Wow, this was really good. Very unique and sucked me in. I haven't been reading as much lately and i tore through this on two 8 hour flights. 9 hour? who knows.

[SquatsALot]

Children of Time was great. Children of Ruin (the sequel) is ok, but IMHO it was too much like the first one.

Also, +1 on Dune being great.

I might have to look into that Cicero trilogy. I love stuff about Rome. I read Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy and it was very interesting to learn how things ran on status and patronage, though not entertaining.

Currently working on the Otherland series by Tad Williams. Not a page turner, but I always finish things. Neal Stephenson's Fall seems to be a total ripoff of Otherland.

[Idlehands]

Children of Time was great. Children of Ruin (the sequel) is ok, but IMHO it was too much like the first one.

Also, +1 on Dune being great.

I might have to look into that Cicero trilogy. I love stuff about Rome. I read Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy and it was very interesting to learn how things ran on status and patronage, though not entertaining.

Currently working on the Otherland series by Tad Williams. Not a page turner, but I always finish things. Neal Stephenson's Fall seems to be a total ripoff of Otherland.

man i was going to read children of ruin and now i'm like maybe not, damnit

[SquatsALot]

Children of Time was great. Children of Ruin (the sequel) is ok, but IMHO it was too much like the first one.

Also, +1 on Dune being great.

I might have to look into that Cicero trilogy. I love stuff about Rome. I read Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy and it was very interesting to learn how things ran on status and patronage, though not entertaining.

Currently working on the Otherland series by Tad Williams. Not a page turner, but I always finish things. Neal Stephenson's Fall seems to be a total ripoff of Otherland.

man i was going to read children of ruin and now i'm like maybe not, damnit

If you're like me, you'll read it anyway, because you already started the series, and you are compelled to.

[BenM]

For the Ben Folds fans out there... I kinda forgot he'd released a memoir until my wife (bless her) got me an autographed copy for Christmas.

I just started reading it and... yeah. Only a few chapters in, but I am impressed by his writing, and already finding his background really interesting. Well worth a look.

Ben Folds is awesome. His cameo on "you're the worst" made me smile

I'll have to look it up!

I've been a fan for years. Was lucky enough to meet him very briefly a few years back. I absolutely fangirled out. But he seems a genuinely nice, humble guy in person too.

[Wingspan]

I might have to look into that Cicero trilogy. I love stuff about Rome. I read Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy and it was very interesting to learn how things ran on status and patronage, though not entertaining.

My wife just started reading it and she's tearing thru.

I had a vague interest in rome prior to reading the trilogy now I can't get enough. That era was so tumultuous and luckily for us very well documented.

Also read a book on Cato straight afterward, another amazing character.

I'm also keen to read a biography on Caesar so I'll check out the Goldsworthy book. Cheers.

[SquatsALot]

I might have to look into that Cicero trilogy. I love stuff about Rome. I read Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy and it was very interesting to learn how things ran on status and patronage, though not entertaining.

My wife just started reading it and she's tearing thru.

I had a vague interest in rome prior to reading the trilogy now I can't get enough. That era was so tumultuous and luckily for us very well documented.

Also read a book on Cato straight afterward, another amazing character.

I'm also keen to read a biography on Caesar so I'll check out the Goldsworthy book. Cheers.

I have no idea if it's the best book on Caesar available - it was one of the used ones at Powell's (giant bookstore in my town) and picked at random based on its cost and size

[Wingspan]

I might have to look into that Cicero trilogy. I love stuff about Rome. I read Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy and it was very interesting to learn how things ran on status and patronage, though not entertaining.

My wife just started reading it and she's tearing thru.

I had a vague interest in rome prior to reading the trilogy now I can't get enough. That era was so tumultuous and luckily for us very well documented.

Also read a book on Cato straight afterward, another amazing character.

I'm also keen to read a biography on Caesar so I'll check out the Goldsworthy book. Cheers.

I have no idea if it's the best book on Caesar available - it was one of the used ones at Powell's (giant bookstore in my town) and picked at random based on its cost and size

It's got good reviews, so it's definitely in the running

[hector]

I guess it comes as a bit of a surprise to me that people are surprised the founding fathers were kind of shitty people.

Idk. As I get older I increasingly think anyone with the desire to rule over populations is a shitty person.

I've avoided reading a biography of Lincoln because I if I switch my assumption of leaders from "most" to "all" my cynicism would be a little much.

[Idlehands]

Children of Time was great. Children of Ruin (the sequel) is ok, but IMHO it was too much like the first one.

Also, +1 on Dune being great.

I might have to look into that Cicero trilogy. I love stuff about Rome. I read Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy and it was very interesting to learn how things ran on status and patronage, though not entertaining.

Currently working on the Otherland series by Tad Williams. Not a page turner, but I always finish things. Neal Stephenson's Fall seems to be a total ripoff of Otherland.

man i was going to read children of ruin and now i'm like maybe not, damnit

If you're like me, you'll read it anyway, because you already started the series, and you are compelled to.

No way. I bailed on sword of truth series after the 3rd maybe forth book. I was one further than a friend that gave up but 3 less than another friend that go along with it.
I did have one that I lost respect for when I heard he read them
All

[brkriete]

I might have to look into that Cicero trilogy. I love stuff about Rome. I read Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy and it was very interesting to learn how things ran on status and patronage, though not entertaining.

My wife just started reading it and she's tearing thru.

I had a vague interest in rome prior to reading the trilogy now I can't get enough. That era was so tumultuous and luckily for us very well documented.

Also read a book on Cato straight afterward, another amazing character.

I'm also keen to read a biography on Caesar so I'll check out the Goldsworthy book. Cheers.

I have no idea if it's the best book on Caesar available - it was one of the used ones at Powell's (giant bookstore in my town) and picked at random based on its cost and size

It's got good reviews, so it's definitely in the running

I read Pompeii by Robert Harris a few months ago and thought it was great.

If you liked Adrian Goldsworthy, he wrote a series of historically based novels in Roman Britain starting with Vindolanda that I loved and cruised through.

I'm working my way (rapidly) through the David Wolf novels by Jeff Carson. Basically a slightly less intellectual Longmire. They are quick reads, perfect for the train.