What are you currently reading?

[Garlichead]

Bookclub is reading the last short story anthology of the year. We are reading stories about artists this time.

 

It includes some works from Rudyard Kipling, O'Henry, Kim Herzinger among others. Have not been able to read anything outside the book club due to the end of college semester.

[ducon]

I read:

 

I first thought that it was a book about integers with original, special, bizarre properties.

No, the book is also about irrationals like e, complex numbers like i and about numbers in civilizations (Greece, China, India…) or even how numerologists compute (falsely of course).

As usual, translation errors like séquence instead of suite (yes, sequence in English is suite in French).

 

Now:

Edited November 21, 2022 by ducon

[LadyMistDragon]

Red Plenty. It's a sort of fictionalized account of Khrushchev's Russia that takes a good hard look at life during that time while also satirizing the attitudes present in the country during that time. Prose might be slightly denser than it needs to be though.

[Trupiak]

6 hours ago, akerry said:

I'm currently rereading The Great Gatsby. My favorite book. 

Great book. I lent it to a girl and actually bugged her five times in total for her to give it back. Perhaps unnecessarily, but hell, I want my Gatsby!

My current reading:
Wine for dummies
Debating the Ethics of Immigration
Teach Yourself Mathematics (if you can call it ''reading''...)
The Little Black Dress: How to dress perfectly for any occassion (it's good to know about basic women fashion I think)

On hold (I have no access to these currently but I'm in the middle with them):
Hugo's ''Miserables''
Stephen King's Dark Tower, part four, I think. I don't have access to it currently so it's on hold

I also just got through ''goodbye things'', a minimalism guide and inspiration book. Minimalism is really inspiring for me - I'm slowly getting rid of my books currently and only keeping valuable, rare ones, books I wanna return to, or books I can't get at any library. I don't plan to keep or actually purchase any of the books I mentioned here.

(edit) I forgot to mention, but I was disappointed ''goodbye things'' didn't end with the author telling you to throw his book out.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Trupiak
Post scriptum

[ducon]

1 hour ago, Trupiak said:

Stephen King's Dark Tower, part four, I think. I don't have access to it currently so it's on hold

I’m reading it too.

[Thelokk]

Kinda liked Hyperion, read two of the three sequels and I'm utterly disappointed. It's so sad, when an author's sequels read like fanfictions of their own work. 

[beast]

Since my last post, September, I read

• After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress,
• The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts

and started, and am still reading

• The Fate of Mice by Susan Palwick
• Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games by Matt Barton

I so enjoy Watts's writing. Dark and despairing, just how I like it. Palwick's short stories offer appreciable twists. My love for classic CRPG's took hold (again) when I saw "the history of" on offer.

 

As an aside, my interest in interactive fiction has taken hold of my attention lately (sorry Doom!)

[Trupiak]

23 hours ago, ducon said:

I’m reading it too.

I see that you haven't forgotten the face of your father. Good ;)

[ducon]

I read this book:

 

This one is about logic in mathematics, but for about the last two centuries.

There’s nothing about Aristotle’s logic, only paradoxes (from Zenon to Russell), Frege’s ideography, Gödel and Turing.

 

Next one is:

[ReX]

Broken Frontier Anthology

[ReX]

Alaska Sourdough: The Story of Slim Williams

[D0M0]

Too many news articles. It may as well be an unhealthy obsession at this point

[HeatedChocolate]

On 11/16/2022 at 8:11 AM, HeatedChocolate said:

Metro 2033, I'm riding on a Russian sci fi kick that started when I read Roadside Picnic not long ago.

Now onto 2034, took some finagling, but I've found a pdf.

[ducon]

Read this book:

 

About polyhedrons, platonic or not, convex or stars, a few formulas (like V−E+F is 2), their patterns and applications in design and architecture.

 

Now:

[ducon]

I finished:

I already read it a long time ago, I remembered it burning end but not the details.

Roland’s telling his beginning as pistolero (a wandering knight with western guns), his first love and how it ended.

It’s a strange melting pot of Roland’s mythology and king Arthur’s mythology in a dying western world with pinches of technology, multiverse, Wizard of Oz, Crimson king (who’s that guy?) or The stand (from Stephen King).

 

Now:

Edited December 14, 2022 by ducon

[Jello]

I'm re-reading Catch-22.

 

 

I read it back in high-school and it's always been one of my favorite books, and one that I've been meaning to go back through a couple of decades later. And re-reading it, I can remember why I loved it. It's so wonderfully whimsical, sarcastic, and nihilistic. I would highly recommend it.

[Thelokk]

Currently reading L'Image by Jean De Berg. Boy it was a hassle to get my hands on a physical copy of this one - sold out everywhere. Sontag, I believe it was her, listed it as one of five erotic novels that could be said to have 'artistic value', and one can see why. It reads as if the bastard daughter of Baudelaire and Foucault had decided to write erotica. It puzzles me how anyone could have fallen for the male pseudonym - only a woman could have written something this layered, ambiguous and complex. Highly reccomended for 18+, and if you actually manage to find it. 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Thelokk

[Garlichead]

4 hours ago, Jello said:

I'm re-reading Catch-22.

 

 

I read it back in high-school and it's always been one of my favorite books, and one that I've been meaning to go back through a couple of decades later. And re-reading it, I can remember why I loved it. It's so wonderfully whimsical, sarcastic, and nihilistic. I would highly recommend it.

One of my favorite american novels. Great black humor on that one. 

[LadyMistDragon]

The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie

[ducon]

I read:

 

This one is about probabilities, but simple ones (mostly in finite sets), counting and their relations with statistics and sampling.

 

Now:

Edited December 17, 2022 by ducon

[Redneckerz]

Not what i read, but what i bought:

Featurings:

• David Kushner – Masters of Doom

• Eiko Kadono – Kiki’s Delivery Service

• Genzaburo Yoshino – How Do You Live?

• Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun

• Mary Wollstonecraft – A Vindication Of the Rights Of Woman

• Matt Haig – The Midnight Library

• Mizuki Tsujimura – Lonely Castle in the Mirror

• Osamu Dazai – No Longer Human

• Soseki Natsume – I Am a Cat (Trilogy)

• Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books

• Walter Isaacson – Einstein

• Yevengy Zamyatin – W.E

• Yoko Ogawa – The Memory Police

[Sena]

Just so happens I bought Eugene Ionesco's The Hermit today, after being unable to find it at a non-outrageous price for at least a year and a half. 

[Garlichead]

Currently reading Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. My nephew is learning English and trying to get through it. I am reading it simultaneously to help him practice.

 

I had not read them before, nor seen the movies so I am experiencing them for the first time.

[ducon]

Good choice: The seven books are readable by a 10 year old child whose native language is English.

I read them three years ago in English and maybe one day, I’ll read them again.

 

My wife offered me this book for Yule/Saturnalia/Christmas. I love her.

 

I read:

 

About maps and map making. Yes, the Earth is round and maps are flat.

It’s a history of map making, of projections on the Earth on maps (cylindrical, conical, bizarrical…). No, there is no perfect map.

 

Now:

 

That I finished. It’s about beauty in mathematics. Oh really? Iä really. Beauty in demonstrations, in connecting theories (geometry and algebra, for example), in figures (oh, there’s nearly nothing fractals), in using mathematics elsewhere (painting, art, music…)

 

Now:

 

About curves in a plane (not curves in space that can not be included in a plane), like conics, lines, sine, cosine, hyperbolic sine and so on, Lissajous curves, polar or parametric curves, flowers and even a heart.

But, no, the exponential is not the only function f that is equal to its derivative (the null function is another solution).

 

Now:

 

I red Le pavillon des cancéreux (Cancer Ward):

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/3GUAAMXQHO9Re0iK/s-l500.jpg

 

A strange novel about the author’s experience (he had tumours and he was exiled, as one of the characters) in a hospital.

Relations between patients, between patients and doctors, thoughts about curing people (or not, or how), about life and death, politics, about camps (Karaganda), justice or not (Beria, Stalin, NKVD), even animals and their condition… it’s more than just about hospital and cancer.

 

Now:

 

I finished this one:

 

About mathematics and astronomy (and a bug in the centuries’ writing). Actually a few mathematics, but beautiful photographies (novae, clouds…)

 

Now:

 

I finished Didier Pourquery’s book (Sauvons le débat).

It’s hard to debate in TV shows, in newspapers and even in universities, as it was hard to debate with communists just after WWII, and fascists just before. Now, it’s hard to debate with the "woke" and with the dominant class.

 

Now, reading this:

 

Finished:

This tome is about statistics (data collecting, data using, tests and so on). Good one that explains how to check if flies flee water-filled plastic bags.

 

Now:

 

I finished Christophe Guilluy’s Les dépossédés (The dispossessed). I don’t know if the title is a reference to Ursula Le Guin’s book but he talks about the common people and their revolt against the elite and their world. The book is not pessimist, because the common people are the majority, but a forgotten majority in the dominant storytelling.

 

Now (the first book, the one on the left):

Edited February 2, 2023 by ducon

[HeatedChocolate]

Starting to read the Kalevala, all 22,795 verses, Ukko protect me.

[ducon]

Yay, my wife offered me this book:

[Biodegradable]

Now that I've burned through all of David Thorne's bibliography, including his latest work Let's Eat Grandma's Pills that came out back in November, I've been exploring the work of English writer, Will Self. I've been curious about his work and have known of him for years, but never got around to reading his stuff. He was my favourite cast member in a funny old BBC show I loved called, Grumpy Old Men which I believe was more or less my introduction to him. Anyways, he's a very versatile writer who has dabbled in just about everything: novels, short stories, journalism, social commentary and even food criticism!

 

 

Since I'm still on my creative non-fiction kick, I've been exploring his various collections of journalism. So far I've read Junk Mail and am currently reading Feeding Frenzy which-as you can probably ascertain-contains some of those food reviews. Self has a enjoyable dry wit about him and a fantastic use of language. His lexicon is a vast ocean that I've thoroughly enjoyed swimming around in it and absorbing all the new words I've learned since I started reading him. My favourite so far is "mucilaginous".  I'm enjoying him so much that I've already ordered two more books of his and am waiting for the paperback edition of his newest release, Why Write to become available, which is yet another collection of journalism and other writings. Funny enough, my original copy of Junk Mail arrived water-logged. It's the middle of summer down here, so the package was dry as a bone, but look at the state of it:

 

 

 

Some stupid twat clearly dropped it in a puddle or spilled his drink all over my book and decided to package it anyways! Fortunately, I got a full refund and the second copy I ordered from someone else arrived -as you can see above-in pristine condition. I'm also planning to revisit my old friend Hunter S. Thompson once I've had my fill of Self's oeuvre. I've had my copy of Hell's Angels for years but hadn't gotten around to reading it yet. As you can tell, I also recently bought this massive compendium book that contains a little over 1000 pages of Thompson's journalism. It's basically The Gonzo Papers volumes 1 and 2 glued together. This concludes my latest book report.

 

[ChaseC7527]

"This is like George Orwell's... uh... book, Nineteen eighty ^four" - The great, OJ Simpson

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

Recently finished Fablehaven and Fablehaven II: Rise of the evening star again, and I'm strongly considering buying the third book, so far they've been quite entertaining. Coincidentally, I decided to read them again around the same time I started playing HeXen's expansion, so I guess I'm getting addicted to fantasy themed stuff. Some pics of my two books :-)

Spoiler

 

[ducon]

I read:

It’s a compilation of anecdotes that happened to mathematicians. The false (and popular) ones are mentioned but as false anecdotes.

Actually, I knew about a fourth of them all. Good job!

 

Now:

That I read. The book is about chaos theory (stability of the solar system, meteorology, climatology…) and its applications in climate change.

 

Now:

 

Finished:

After having survived the crazy train and the emerald castle, they must now fight wolves, strange wolves that steal one child of each pair of twins. It’s The magnificent seven but they are four.

 

Now book 6:

 

I read:

The history of the Hellfest French metal festival with an introduction of Kerry King (not related to Stephen King). Each session, from the Furyfest to the seven days session in 2022.

Between two sessions, people working for the festival are interviewed, most of them are in from the start.

 

I read:

About links between mathematics and artificial intelligence and artificial life. Why not but a bit empty.

 

Started:

How to count, like in Alice in wonderland, with a little help from Paul Erdős and his friends.

But we won’t count how many figures there are in the Rubik’s cube. Too bad.

 

Just started:

Edited March 2, 2023 by ducon