Books! The good Reads thread

[Allentown]

Well, I thought they were better. I liked the Rain Wilds so much that I made my wife read them so I could talk to her about them.

[OrderInChaos]

Steve Magness is someone whose name has no doubt circulated here. I'm really digging his newest book with Brad Stuhlberg, The Passion Paradox. Where Peak Performance was maybe more focused on the granular and day-to-day best practices towards success, PP presents a pretty compelling approach to pursuing things both of interest to you and of practical value, while also moderating any tendencies that could derail you in harsh ways despite making good progress in the short term.

Basically how to combat "hopeful first run through NLP so eat 6k/day" mentality, and also applicable to the more relevant parts of one's life like career, education, etc.

[SeanHerbison]

I calculated my to-read list a few days ago and came up with 108, not including things I want to re-read. Then I realized I was failing to count three of the books on my book-shelf and several digital books I have. You guys are not helping me bring that number down.

I've gone through 18 books on Audible since 1 August, which I would say is helping bring it down, except that those books sometimes lead me to other books, so it's kind of a wash.

[LexAnderson]

How is Audible @SeanHerbison ? I have thought of trying it out, do they have almost everything a person could ask for or is it limited?

[SeanHerbison]

How is Audible @SeanHerbison ? I have thought of trying it out, do they have almost everything a person could ask for or is it limited?

Probably 80% of the books I want to read are on there. Almost all new books seem to be.

[hsilman]

Resurrection time, inspired by the Dune thread.

Read A Farewell to Arms. I can see why Hemingway is a master and why this is often considered his magnum opus. Peak Hemingway.

Read the first book of Discworld. It was good, enjoyable light read. Currently reading the 2nd book and it's also good.

Reading a lot of comic books:
Y: The Last Man. Good except the ending.
Preacher. Above average, but got kind of dumb.
Sandman. Good overall.
Fable. Read a bunch and it's all been good.
Darkest Night(DC wide event from a few years back). Meh.
Injustice and Injustice V.2: Some interesting parts, but go pretty bad after the 2nd year of each.

Current comics, All Marvel:
Venom. Solid, interesting title.
Doctor Doom. Really good.
Immortal Hulk. Good.

The entire new X-men line. Starting with House of X/Powers of X and now the 6(?) current ongoing titles. Freaking Fantastic. Great story concept and super solid overall. Not every comic is individually great, New Mutants and Excalibur are the weakest imo. But the overall concept is super interesting and makes for a compelling narrative.

Basically, Moira MacTaggert(Professor X's love interest, usually) is actually a mutant who's ability is she is reincarnated with her memories intact as long as she lives until 16. In all her lives, humanity basically forces evolution through technology, enslaves/destroys mutantkind, and then is devoured by larger collections of intelligence beyond our comprehension in some galactic power struggle.

So she convinces Professor X and Magneto and basically every mutant that the only way to avoid this is to stop the conflict between humans and mutants, and they have to all work together to save mutantkind to do this. So they establish Krakoa(a mutant homeland), declare sovereignty, and there are no longer good guys and bad guys among mutants. They all are on the same team.

It's created a cool dynamic where you get to see things like Apocalypse and Gambit working together. Wolverine and Kid Omega. Stuff like that.

[5hout]

Future: The Expanse series, most likely followed by the Witcher books.

Current: Battleaxe Book 3, Starman. Would not recommend.

Recently Finished:

Battleaxe Book 1/2. Writing is very mid-90s YAF. There's some interesting world building and the magic system is non-standard (not to my tastes, very mystical magic).

Aubrey-Maturin. Re-read the first few books of this series in the summer (went to Boston and saw the USS Constitution, so figured some sailing books would be fun to go back to). More recently I continued again through the middle of the series. The writing is fine, the characters are ok, not great. I like this for the immersion in age of sail, I've heard it described as Jane Austen with cannons. Not having read Jane Austen I can't evaluate that statement, but it draws you in and you feel like you're on an sloop, cruising the Mediterranean, looking for French prizes to snap up.

Gentleman Bastards. Re-read book 1 in the hopes that it would function as an act of sympathetic magic and induce the author to finish the fucking series. This series has an amazing book 1, a good book 2 and then sort of wanders off, but I still want to see the end dammit.

Brent Weeks's recently published the last book in his Lightbringer series. It's a strong fantasy series, in a year with no Brandon Sanderson flagship books it could compete (in my head) for series book of the year. The magic in this book is incredibly well done. It's strongly based on colors, so you the reader can guess the shape of the system before the characters. It also features Magic: The gathering/lightbringer version as a plot element. The technical writing is above average for fantasy and the plot/character arcs are non-standard. The last book has a bit of Indigo Prophecy Syndrome*. The first few books feature a strongly mechanical (as opposed to mystical) magic system. The middle of the series gets a bit more mystical, and by the end it is highly mystical. It's handled well, and for this kind of fantasy might be required, but was a slight let down to me.

*Indigo Prophecy Syndrome as coined by Yahtzee in a Zero Punctuation review, a series that starts off with just a bit of magic or mysticism and by the end is full blown magic and wizards. This is something, IMO (stealing this example/opinion from Brandon Sanderson's podcast Writing Excuses) is about expectation setting. If you tell me I'm reading a sword and shield hack/slash book, I am properly upset if it turns into Harry Potter.

[aurelius]

I hear @Savs highly recommends Dune. Says it is a must read for anyone that is intelligent.

[Hanley]

I hear @Savs highly recommends Dune. Says it is a must read for anyone that is intelligent.

He told me that a life without Proust is not worth living.

[jake241983]

I'm currently listening to the sixth of seven Dark Tower audiobooks. Ive read the entire series three times before this, so its my fourth time through. My girlfriend isn't a big reader, so we're listening on trips and sometimes during dinner. It's my favorite book series and I'm wanting her to experience it before the series comes out. If it ever actually does. Movie was a terrible adaptation, so hopefully they make up for it.

I'm also waiting on the fourth book in the Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson to come out. I discovered him from reading The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Also good, but slow at times and definitely not for everyone Stormlight Archive has been great so far. Very interesting world he creates. It also ties into another book of his called Warbreaker. All worth a read if you're into fantasy.

Besides those I've not been reading as much the last couple years as I normally do. This has not slowed down my book hoarding much though. Still go to used book sales and buy anything that looks interesting. One of these days I'll get back on a book kick and get through everything.

[Bcharles123]

“Towing Jehovah”

God dies and falls into the ocean. He’s very large. The church is pissed because God is dead, the Atheists are pissed because there is proof they were wrong, and the Feminists are pissed because it’s proof God was a man.

Perfect idea, not too long. Perfect.

[aurelius]

Sandman. Good overall.

Read Mike Carey's Lucifer comic. His Lucifer is one of the most interesting characters I have read in fiction.

The entire new X-men line. Starting with House of X/Powers of X and now the 6(?) current ongoing titles. Freaking Fantastic. Great story concept and super solid overall. Not every comic is individually great, New Mutants and Excalibur are the weakest imo. But the overall concept is super interesting and makes for a compelling narrative.

House of X/Powers of X is what happens when you let talented people do what they want.

[Savs]

I hear @Savs highly recommends Dune. Says it is a must read for anyone that enjoys fondling themselves in public.

Don’t @ me, you fucking twat. At least you got the rest of your post correct.

I hear @Savs highly recommends Dune. Says it is a must read for anyone that is intelligent.

He told me that a life without Proust is not worth living.

Wrong. Starting Strength is the most important thing in life. Read Wittgenstein. You’ll see.

3 Jan. I give up on my New Year’s resolution. Fuck it. Better luck next year.

[Hanley]

Read Wittgenstein.

If I want to convey the idea that "you should go fuck yourself", I need to convey that idea in a language-payload - a metaphor -- so I might suggest that you "blow me".

I think I've got this Wittgenpretension down.

[Hanley]

“Towing Jehovah”

God dies and falls into the ocean. He’s very large. The church is pissed because God is dead, the Atheists are pissed because there is proof they were wrong, and the Feminists are pissed because it’s proof God was a man.

Perfect idea, not too long. Perfect.

Sold

[Savs]

Read Wittgenstein.

If I want to convey the idea that "you should go fuck yourself", I need to convey that idea in a language-payload - a metaphor -- so I might suggest that you "blow me".

I think I've got this Wittgenpretension down.

You should write an article. Draw some diagrams.

[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.”

Another one I recently reread in part was Brad Warner’s “Don’t Be a Jerk!”, which is his paraphrase of Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Lots of fun, and really eye-opening. It’s a nice easy entry into Zen. For something a little weightier, Tich Nhat Hanh’s “Zen Keys” is brilliant and thorough, though still accessible.

[hsilman]

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.”

Another one I recently reread in part was Brad Warner’s “Don’t Be a Jerk!”, which is his paraphrase of Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Lots of fun, and really eye-opening. It’s a nice easy entry into Zen. For something a little weightier, Tich Nhat Hanh’s “Zen Keys” is brilliant and thorough, though still accessible.

Read a bunch of Rohr last year, and saw him speak a few months ago

[Hanley]

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.”

Another one I recently reread in part was Brad Warner’s “Don’t Be a Jerk!”, which is his paraphrase of Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Lots of fun, and really eye-opening. It’s a nice easy entry into Zen. For something a little weightier, Tich Nhat Hanh’s “Zen Keys” is brilliant and thorough, though still accessible.

Read a bunch of Rohr last year, and saw him speak a few months ago

And I drink at brewery that takes its name from a Dogen quote.

[Skander]

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.