Books! The good Reads thread

[JonA]

Sanderson finally comes clean about his state of mind during the pandemic



GRRM also gives an update on his Not a Blog. You'll never guess...

[alek]

Anyone else reading/read Atomic Habits by James Clear? I've just started it as part of my dive into Stoicism.

I've got some ideas about different habits to start and stop, but I'm interested if anyone has thought about their habits with respect to parenting. Anyone start any good habits or stop bad habits with respect to parenting after reading Atomic Habits?

kthxbai

[EricK]

Anyone else reading/read Atomic Habits by James Clear? I've just started it as part of my dive into Stoicism.

I've got some ideas about different habits to start and stop, but I'm interested if anyone has thought about their habits with respect to parenting. Anyone start any good habits or stop bad habits with respect to parenting after reading Atomic Habits?

kthxbai

I managed to start playing the guitar that I had had for 15 years without ever touching and eventually learned to play a few songs. I also went from reading a couple books every few years to several dozen a year since 2019. It's hard to say how much that one book made a difference, because it was one of many I read during that time, but I do believe there are helpful ideas about how to cross the barrier from deliberate practice to consistent habit.

ETA: forgot the parenting part, sorry... I started writing about past interactions with my son and assessing whether I thought they were positive or not and what I really wanted to achieve with them to improve over time or apologize and discuss it with him instead of letting the bad example lie. Unfortunately, I didn't really apply the suggestions in the book all that diligently and haven't turned it into a consistent, daily practice. Thanks for reminding me.

I'm currently reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and I find it very interesting. It's the first time I've come across a compelling argument about the evolution of religion that doesn't make it out to be a side effect of other adaptations. Our ability to develop and believe in imaginary ideas like religion is how we (sapiens) managed to cross the Dunbar limit for unifying much larger groups towards a common goal and completely dominated other hominids in a relatively short period of time. Other examples include money, human rights and culture.

[alek]

I managed to start playing the guitar that I had had for 15 years without ever touching and eventually learned to play a few songs. I also went from reading a couple books every few years to several dozen a year since 2019. It's hard to say how much that one book made a difference, because it was one of many I read during that time, but I do believe there are helpful ideas about how to cross the barrier from deliberate practice to consistent habit.

That's cool. I'm starting to take some of the advice and stack habits. We'll see how it goes.

ETA: forgot the parenting part, sorry... I started writing about past interactions with my son and assessing whether I thought they were positive or not and what I really wanted to achieve with them to improve over time or apologize and discuss it with him instead of letting the bad example lie. Unfortunately, I didn't really apply the suggestions in the book all that diligently and haven't turned it into a consistent, daily practice. Thanks for reminding me.

^That's really cool and sounds like a good idea.

Another book that I've recently finished that I got a lot out of is The Power of Showing Up. It's another book by the authors of other books I've hocked on the forum--The Whole Brain Child and No Drama Discipline. It feels like a culmination of their other books, and is probably where I'd start if I hadn't read any of their other stuff.

[EricK]

I read A Man by Keiichirō Hirano back in 2020 and thought it might be a book @Hanley would like. It's a story about a lawyer in a struggling marriage hired by a former client to investigate the client's deceased husband, because she discovered after her husband's death that he had been living under and assumed identity. Interesting premise and story.

[Allentown]

Not sure I ever mentioned them, but The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest were both fantastic sci-fi

[GrainsAndGains]

I just finished reading The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber (RIP) and David Wengrow.

It's a pretty enjoyable read - if you enjoy sweeping histories of humanity like Sapiens and Guns, Germs and Steel, you should definitely check this out. The scope is similar, but Graeber and Wengrow are writing from a left anarchist perspective, and boy have that got an axe to grind.

They've got a grand statement they're trying to make with the book, and I don't think they adequately support it, but there's a ton of fascinating history along the way about ancient and pre-Columbian human societies arranging themselves in ways we might find totally alien, as well as some really interesting stuff about state formation.

[Brackish]

Not sure I ever mentioned them, but The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest were both fantastic sci-fi

Read the trilogy. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I needed Google to understand some of the science in it. Still a fantastic series.

[5hout]

Section 1: Bernard Cornwell:

I read Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Chronicles/The Last Kingdom series. The broad strokes is that it follows the formation of something recognizable as England from the pre-England states of Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. If you've read The Hammer and The Cross by Harry Harrison this is roughly set in the same time period (lateish Viking age). The writing is improved from his earlier works, but (compared against his Sharpe's series) some of the characters are (imo) a little weaker. I also read book one of Cornwell's Arthur series, and I think one issue I have with his writing is that the further in the past the setting the less real his characters feel and the more they feel like storybook characters.

The Saxon Chronicles is still very good, and it's a great excuse to dive into a bunch of wikipedia pages for a period of history we almost never touch on in the US and (according to Cornwell) is also neglected in the UK.

One thing that's interesting to me about history is the way we imagine/picture battles is often wildly out of scale. LotR/modern fantasy often features massive armies colliding. However, periods of huge armies (especially pre-Napoleonic era) were actually quite rare. Battles that decided the fate of a nation might have 20k total participants (eg The Battle of Bosworth Field (battle functionally ending the War of the Roses) had maybe 20k people involved). Smaller battles/sieges/raids might have ranged from 50 to a few hundred people combatants. This is a good look into smaller raids/historical fiction where not every battle is a some massive Roman era sized army.

Section 2: Jeff Sturgis/Hunting:
I read Mature Buck Success by Design, Food Plot Success by Design, Whitetail Success by Design (all by Jeff Sturgis of Whitetail Habitat Solutions). The books are fairly good, however if you're looking for a fully synthesized/generalized theory of Whitetail behavior and how to apply it to your circumstances in a textbook style tome, it's not here. They were published between 2012 and 2015, and slightly show their age vs his more recent youtube content. The tone of the books is more "here's a collection of blog posts that I've edited and put in logical order" rather than "here's a textbook on this deer topic".

He's also improved/refined/broken out his ideas in the last few years, and so the books are somewhat dated. However, I don't think any of this recommendations have substantially changed, rather his understanding has grown and he's better able to communicate small nuances/generalized (but applicable) ideas.

Would I recommend them? I'm not sure, if you reallllly hate youtube videos, than maybe. But I think you'd be better off putting together (via searching his channel) a list of ~40 videos on topics that interest you and watching them (or, possibly, buying his new webseries (which I have not done)).

The exception here is the food plot book, if you have land to put a food plot on I'd say you need to read the book, and watch videos. Land is too expensive, and it's too easy to screw up and ruin your hunt (and you're out piles of money). As I've learned more, I can see family/friends making many of the mistakes detailed in his youtube channel/books (especially re food plots) and it's confusing to me why people spend tons of money/time on land and equipment, but zero time/money on making sure their property design actually helps them out.

tl;dr: Deer feed five times in 24 hours. In early/mid/rifle season hunt temperature drops and cold fronts. Do not let deer see/hear/SMELL you unless you only want to shoot middle aged does and younger. Do not generally hunt on food or bedding, but hunt well defined trails between food and bedding (taking into account rhythmic pattern feeding).

[ObiWanJabroni]

I finished two books from John Scalzi recently: Old Man's War, which I thoroughly enjoyed and Kaiju Preservation Society, which was just OK
I don't read a lot of fiction but do enjoy some Sci-Fi and have been trying to branch out more. I picked up another one of his books called Lock In which I've read good things about.

[slowmotion]

Not sure I ever mentioned them, but The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest were both fantastic sci-fi

Read the trilogy. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I needed Google to understand some of the science in it. Still a fantastic series.

I just about managed to read about 75% of The Three-Body Problem before I gave up. Not for me.

[EricK]

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.

Read Conspirata and I'm both surprised and disturbed by the parallels to our modern political environment...thanks for the recommendation.

[Brackish]

Not sure I ever mentioned them, but The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest were both fantastic sci-fi

Read the trilogy. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I needed Google to understand some of the science in it. Still a fantastic series.

I just about managed to read about 75% of The Three-Body Problem before I gave up. Not for me.

It's definitely not your typical sci-fi type stuff, but I really enjoyed it. Learned a bunch of stuff about physics and other things that I will never use but found fascinating anyways.

[5hout]

This is a re-recommendation, but Michael J. Sullivan's Legends of the First Empire (especially books 5/6 Age of Death and Age of Empyre are very, very good. The problem is you kind of have to (at some point) grind through Theft of Swords (The Crown Conspiracy & Avempartha). The series (really 3 different) series's starts weak, and then gets super strong. I'd read Legends of the First Empire 1st, but at some point reading the "original" books is good to.

That's the setup. I was acquiring books off the web for a trip and realized he publish a few new books, so I went back to see what I had read and what was new and when I checked I saw Age of Empyre instantly had a happy/sad cry b/c of the ending. I read this book ~2 years ago. So, it's good (or at least provokes a very strong emotional response). I will say the author recommends reading by publishing order, and if you do that you'll certainly get a good experience (but the 1st couple books will be a grind).

[GlasgowJock]

I'm currently reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and I find it very interesting. It's the first time I've come across a compelling argument about the evolution of religion that doesn't make it out to be a side effect of other adaptations. Our ability to develop and believe in imaginary ideas like religion is how we (sapiens) managed to cross the Dunbar limit for unifying much larger groups towards a common goal and completely dominated other hominids in a relatively short period of time. Other examples include money, human rights and culture.

I read that book a couple of years ago. I actually quite enjoyed his explanation of various concepts as you've alluded to despite the fact quite a few of his peers have lambasted this literary work as being lightweight or sketchy on details/ academic rigour.

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond is of a similar genre if you enjoyed Sapiens.

[EricK]

I'm currently reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and I find it very interesting. It's the first time I've come across a compelling argument about the evolution of religion that doesn't make it out to be a side effect of other adaptations. Our ability to develop and believe in imaginary ideas like religion is how we (sapiens) managed to cross the Dunbar limit for unifying much larger groups towards a common goal and completely dominated other hominids in a relatively short period of time. Other examples include money, human rights and culture.

I read that book a couple of years ago. I actually quite enjoyed his explanation of various concepts as you've alluded to despite the fact quite a few of his peers have lambasted this literary work as being lightweight or sketchy on details/ academic rigour.

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond is of a similar genre if you enjoyed Sapiens.

Thanks for the recommendation. That book has been on my list for a while. I was leery of Sapiens before I bought it but I'm glad I finally read it.

I just finished The Stand by Stephen King. I enjoyed it. It was very long without seeming long, although I feel like important parts leading up to and during the climax of the story were a little weak. Right now I'm reading Effortless by McKeown and Dune. Effortless is a fairly typical self-help book, which has helpful perspectives on life things and self actualization that mesh well with a lot of other ideas I've read elsewhere.

Dune is interesting so far but I'm less than a quarter of the way through it.

[JonA]

I'm currently reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and I find it very interesting. It's the first time I've come across a compelling argument about the evolution of religion that doesn't make it out to be a side effect of other adaptations. Our ability to develop and believe in imaginary ideas like religion is how we (sapiens) managed to cross the Dunbar limit for unifying much larger groups towards a common goal and completely dominated other hominids in a relatively short period of time. Other examples include money, human rights and culture.

I read that book a couple of years ago. I actually quite enjoyed his explanation of various concepts as you've alluded to despite the fact quite a few of his peers have lambasted this literary work as being lightweight or sketchy on details/ academic rigour.

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond is of a similar genre if you enjoyed Sapiens.

Thanks for the recommendation. That book has been on my list for a while. I was leery of Sapiens before I bought it but I'm glad I finally read it.

I listened to both of those books as audio books during commutes. They both provoked the same reacting out of me. First, a "yeah, that does make sense!" followed by a "wait, but what about...." and a long internal monologue with myself before I realized that I had completely missed the last 20 minutes of content (and driving. Oops, how'd I get to here?)

[hector]

I'm currently reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and I find it very interesting. It's the first time I've come across a compelling argument about the evolution of religion that doesn't make it out to be a side effect of other adaptations. Our ability to develop and believe in imaginary ideas like religion is how we (sapiens) managed to cross the Dunbar limit for unifying much larger groups towards a common goal and completely dominated other hominids in a relatively short period of time. Other examples include money, human rights and culture.

I read that book a couple of years ago. I actually quite enjoyed his explanation of various concepts as you've alluded to despite the fact quite a few of his peers have lambasted this literary work as being lightweight or sketchy on details/ academic rigour.

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond is of a similar genre if you enjoyed Sapiens.

Thanks for the recommendation. That book has been on my list for a while. I was leery of Sapiens before I bought it but I'm glad I finally read it.

I listened to both of those books as audio books during commutes. They both provoked the same reacting out of me. First, a "yeah, that does make sense!" followed by a "wait, but what about...." and a long internal monologue with myself before I realized that I had completely missed the last 20 minutes of content (and driving. Oops, how'd I get to here?)

I thought I was the only one!

[5hout]

I finished two books from John Scalzi recently: Old Man's War, which I thoroughly enjoyed and Kaiju Preservation Society, which was just OK
I don't read a lot of fiction but do enjoy some Sci-Fi and have been trying to branch out more. I picked up another one of his books called Lock In which I've read good things about.

I liked Scalzi enough to go see him speak live a while back, the only author I've ever bothered to do this with. IMO, he went from "instant buy" to "I don't even acquire his books without asking off irc" around the time of his big contract. On his old blog he had some great articles about wanting to write what the market wanted and all this stuff about how he decided to write great mil sci fiction. Then he got the bag and holy shit did his writing (IMO) crawled up his own asshole and died.

-- Unrelated-

Just finished the Expanse. A strong finish, very happy I read it. It's a good example of finishing something without answering questions, but where you feel ok with it. Sopranos (imo) has a shit finish. They wrap up a bunch of plotlines, and then the ending happens and they forgot to have foreshadowing on who or why. To me it's just bad writing not some special mystery. Expanse on the other hand ends, and a bunch of questions aren't even close to answered, but you're happy and the plot is nicely concluded more or less.

Starbuck Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell: Pretty good exploration of early Civil War. Probably would get him labeled a facist racist now if he added to the series. If you like historical fiction, you'll like it. It follows my personal theory that he's much better at writing near-modern people. The further back in time the series is set the shittier the characters. Some of this series (b/c it's fairly early in his career) is still a bit rough, but damn good.

Grail Quest by Bernard Cornwell: Good, borderline great. Really interesting take on grail quest idea and awesome having it not be a TH White ripoff.

Arthur Series by Bernard Cornwell: This series was a bit of a struggle bus for me. Many of the characters are basically thin, the magic is unfulfilling/has strong Indigo Prophecy Syndrome and the only saving grace is that the end is good. Way to much tell not show. Ends up being 1 good book split into 3, his weakest work imo.

[aurelius]

I just finished The Stand by Stephen King. I enjoyed it. It was very long without seeming long, although I feel like important parts leading up to and during the climax of the story were a little weak. Right now I'm reading Effortless by McKeown and Dune. Effortless is a fairly typical self-help book, which has helpful perspectives on life things and self actualization that mesh well with a lot of other ideas I've read elsewhere.

IMO, Stephen King struggles to have good endings. Creates amazing worlds, super interesting and complex characters...can't stick the landing. Reading King is about the journey and not the destination.