I'm still on that Hiroshima book. It initially was a bit of a tedious read, primrily focussing on US intelligence (which was incredibly tight,
the last the Japanese intelligence picked up was in late 1944, that it would take years until the US had a working atomic bomb), and now it's a
very difficult read for a different reason. Eek eek eek eek eek eek eek eek.aquagoat - 8-7-2014 at 20:53
wow, it's been such a long time since I read a book, i ain't got the time anymore.polydigm - 9-7-2014 at 01:19
Having returned to study the only books I have time to read are maths and physics books. Any spare time I get, which is not a great deal, I socialise
with family or work on my music. It's mid year break at the moment and I'm working on a jigsaw puzzle of Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette by
Renoir with my wife, who's pretty damn busy herself most of the time.BBP - 9-7-2014 at 10:55
Hey, Dad and I did one of that exact painting!
I recall I started with the lady in the striped dress in the middle, and that we ended with a lot of black pieces; as a joke I put on a wallpaper on
my father's desktop while we were working on it. Definitely a two man's job.polydigm - 12-7-2014 at 17:11
We finally finished that one yesterday afternoon. The next one is a Turner and I'll swear that entire painting is made of three shades of brown.
It will be a hard one. A while back we tried doing Blue Poles - a sure recipe for a nervous breakdown - we gave up on it.BBP - 12-7-2014 at 20:40
Xa! I know that, I know that... My favourite painting is Monet's Bridge over the garden pond, and I have a jigsaw of it... but it's nigh
impossible, so pixellated... so little focus points...
There's an online jigsaw game that's nothing but white, but at least all the pieces are shaped significantly different, so it's
solvable.BBP - 24-5-2015 at 22:29
Just finished 1Q84 by Murakami, it's awesome!aquagoat - 25-5-2015 at 07:23
Currently reading Spinoza's Ethics.aquagoat - 25-5-2015 at 07:25
seems interesting, I'll have to read that.BBP - 30-8-2015 at 15:46
Rest in peace Oliver Sacks... aquagoat - 6-11-2019 at 09:06
Yesterday, I started reading Clair de Femme by Romain Gary. It starts pretty well.
Just bought:
Carl Jung's Symbols of Transformation and Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self.
Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.
Michel Houellebecq's Souimission et Serotonine.
And Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem and Responsibility and Judgment.
polydigm - 6-11-2019 at 18:24
BBP - 6-11-2019 at 21:14
So great when you're able to finally read those books that have been on your to read list for a long time, enjoy!aquagoat - 7-11-2019 at 08:31
That's exactly that, Bonny. I had stopped reading, years ago, but my ex-girlfriend put me back to it a few months ago. It was a bit difficult, in
the beginning, cause I had lost the habit, but now it's ok. I can't stop reading the stuff I already have, and I have to buy some more.BBP - 9-11-2019 at 08:20
Haha! I just found a verse by Annie M.G. Schmidt (who was one of the greatest Dutch children's books and TV show authors) called Literatuur,
relating how her lovers introduced her to Hemingway, Ibsen and others, while bemoaning she hasn't had one yet who was into the Iliad. Moral: the
more lovers one has, the more we develop intellectually!
Not that I have much experience in the field but I think I can still play all the reggae Niki once taught me. And I still listen to some of the music
he gave me way back when.aquagoat - 9-11-2019 at 08:51
That's true. I often listen to bands my ex lovers introduced me to. Or watch movies they like. I even, sometimes, remember reflections they
shared with me, and act accordingly.
For example, my recent quitting my job was directly resulting from thinking about what Sylvie told me a few months ago: "When are you gonna stop
working for these people who don't know how to manage their businnes?" I finally decided she was right, so I quit.punknaynowned - 10-7-2022 at 03:35
I'm reading "them" by Joyce Carol Oates. It won the US National Book Award in 1970 and is the third title in a series called 'The
Wonderland Quartet'. Essentially a four volume series on social aspects of Americana from the 1930's thru the 1960's. I really enjoy
her styles and voices. "them" is the story of a poor family raised in Detroit from the '30's to the '60's. She employs
several inner voices to tell her story of a single family, begun with that of a teenage girl who becomes a mother, and then carries on with her kids
who grow into adulthood.
I say it is the third in the series but the other two that come before it have nothing to do with the characters in this third title. The second one
called "Expensive People" is a first person narrator, also a teenager who confesses in the first line that they are a child murderer. That
is, a child who killed someone. This act of violence is typical of Oates work. She writes A LOT about crime, violence, and the criminal mind set. So,
yes, a reflection of a great swath of American reality in the 20th century, and beyond. Remarkable insight she brings to that field! Well worth
reading, her descriptions of everything are amazing and I envy her wide ranging skills. But yes, she does get around to some sort of violence
happening, but there is so much more along side those episodes. I highly recommend her work. And she is SO PROLIFIC! Hundreds of books, short stories,
poetry, essays over the last sixty years. And she is still alive! BBP - 10-7-2022 at 07:44
Been on a serious reading trip this year, read classics like Hunchback of Notre Dame, Max Havelaar, Anne Frank's Diary, The Tea Lords and Oeroeg
by Hella Haasse, Val van de Vredeborgh, Oliver Sacks's autobiography...
that book is a serious commitment!BBP - 13-7-2022 at 16:53
Wouldnt't say that, I find Hugo to be very accessible, much more than most 19th century authors I've read.
When I was on the train to my friend for the tea party I had to interrupt reading at a very tense part, where one of the main characters, Jean
Valjean, escapes in a coffin but the plan turns a rough corner when the guy who nailed him in, who was banking on his ability to get his gravedigger
friend to go on a drink with him so Jean has enough time to escape - and upon arrival at the cemetary he learns that the gravedigger friend has died
and is replaced by a new gravedigger who doesn't drink. BBP - 21-7-2022 at 20:29
Agree that Les Miserables is a masterpiece.
Finished reading a very well annotated edition of "Gulliver's Travels" (published by Norton) by Jonathan Swift. The 18th Century Zappa
in terms of satire; he despised almost everyone and everything, particularly groups and is hilarious about how ridiculous life is. Plook - 2-3-2024 at 22:12
How you doing my friend?polydigm - 3-3-2024 at 04:03
I've been looking for support for the idea that human nature is not fundamentally bad. We do have a psychology that, with a combination of wonky
genes and negative nurture, can produce psychopaths of varying types, but those cases are only about five percent of the human population, with none
the less a disproportionately huge potential to bring about all kinds of potentially extinction threatening outcomes.
Easter last year I read Crimes Against Nature, Capitalism and Global Heating by Jeff Sparrow, wherein he takes a much more positive view of human
nature and tries to show how we get trapped in the constructions of a small number of privileged powerful individuals and how the myth that we're
all just basically bad is perpetuated by them in support of their self centred, empire building world views.
I recently obtained a copy of Debt by David Graeber wherein he tries to show how debt has taken a hold of the human psyche and looks at the entire
history of how this came about. I've read a little of that so far, but I'm keen to continue when I finish the following book. He is now
sadly deceased, having fallen fowl of a nasty disease around the age of 39. A huge shame, he was quite the character.
I'm currently reading The Dawn Of Everything, coauthored by David Graeber and David Wengrow wherein they try to show that both ends of the
spectrum of views, the noble savage (Rousseau, precursor of the left wing) and the brute savage (Hobbs, precursor of the right wing), about pre state
human beings, are just wrong. The basic fact is that scientists have shown very clearly that our DNA is not that different at all from human beings
who lived more than sixty thousand years ago. They were just as capable of using their brains to solve food production problems and work out practical
social relations.
For example, Native Americans arrived in America around 25,000 years ago and had plenty of time to work out solutions to their food production and
social organisation problems and a lot of the detailed evidence of their capabilities has been outright lied about in order to dehumanise them at the
time of the arrival of Europeans to justify trying to wipe them out and has continued to be used in that way retrospectively. Native Australians
arrived around 50,000 years ago and showed particular ingenuity in the face of a much more limited environment than in the Americas and had developed
quite complex social relations and methods for managing their environment to maximise food production by the time Europeans arrived. Similar
obfuscations of the true nature of life in Australia before their arrival have been engineered by many academics and leaders through the years.
It's fascinating, I'm really enjoying it, it's quite the eye opener in some ways but also confirming much of how I've come to
think of the human race in recent years and the current predicaments we find ourselves in, based on my own investigation.
