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Topic: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't (Read 12641 times)

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #25 –
Death by wallpaper was a peculiar Victorian vice, up there with vitriol attacks. The latter having a revival lately.

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #26 –
Basically re this thread my point would be that when a subject is raised that i have an interest in I tend to buy a book.........
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #27 –
Quote from: ersi on
And I've done a pretty good job staying away from Dan Brown.
Dan Brown is not a writer, he's a fraud for idiots to buy. The first three chapters were enough for realize it.

It comes to my mind two completely different books that maybe I should read but probably I'll never do - Mein Kampf and Kama Sutra.
A matter of attitude.

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #28 –
Quote from: Belfrager on
Dan Brown is not a writer, he's a fraud for idiots to buy. The first three chapters were enough for realize it.
Three chapters? You read that long? He must be disguising his badness very well.

I recently attempted to read an essay titled Are economists basically immoral?. First there was a nice long intro relating the bio of the author and stating that the position of the author was that economists are not immoral, despite common perception to the contrary. Then began the main text.

The very first page made it lucidly clear that the author was immoral. The second page started with a hypothetical illustration about an IC (international conglomerate) trying to argue that it's not immoral to go producing in a country where labour is cheaper, but that illustration painted a clear picture of an immoral IC. I doubt I will read more to find the author's arguments about actual economists.

So that took just two pages to settle.

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #29 –
Quote
As a baptized and confirmed economist I would say that if the Malaysian workers know what the risks are, then IC is not behaving unfairly to anyone. It is providing gizmoes to people who value them, providing profits to the shareholders of IC, and providing income to the Malaysian workers; everyone wins, or at least everyone with the right to be consulted. No one is exploited or treated unjustly.
"No one is exploited or treated unjustly." W. T. F. Oh sure, I'll just go starve to death instead of facing those terrible risks…

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #30 –

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #31 –
Now reading the latest edition of an American published book on the shocking level and practices of the US military towards German soldier prisoners after WW2. Shocking and disturbing truths. Just prior to that got a very fascinating book on Russia pre-1917. The author was very clever and acted as if he had been there visiting and staying with a comfortable family in St Petersburg. He then related stories about the different classes and visiting contrasting parts of the city and so on. He was "staying" with a wealthy family and taken about to see the facts of life good and bad. Even the worst aspects were covered and was ingenious in it's composition.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #32 –
Steven Seagal co-authored a novel. From a review it sounds like an interesting book that I most likely won't touch even if I by some weird coincidence come across it in real.
Quote from: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/21/steven-seagal-deep-state-novel-shadow-wolves-joe-arpaio-217031
Obama is in cahoots with a motley assortment of evildoers, including his Islamic terrorist brethren, a murderous Mexican drug cartel and the shadowy Deep State—forces that would be only too happy to replace the Constitution with sharia law. All that stands in the way of this sinister cabal, with their hashish-fueled and hooker-laden sex-murder orgies, is a godly, morally pure assemblage of “Shadow Wolves,” Native American lawmen uniquely adept at tracking drug dealers and illegal immigrants. (I was shocked to discover that Shadow Wolves actually exist and are a real unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, because they’re portrayed here as the ultimate romanticized fantasy of Native Americans: real-life Jedi whose heritage gives them borderline supernatural powers and allows them to live in perfect harmony with nature.)
Enjoy.

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #33 –
Quote
As cautionary warnings go, this is the socio-political equivalent of Reefer Madness in terms of unintentional laughs. Instead of being a terrifying dispatch from tomorrow, it reeks of high camp.

That reminds me of the parody in That '70s Show. :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHqjHFrzGwk

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #34 –
The important thing here it's Krake's post  -  My Library.
It's even better than my own posts...

Course no one wants / has the capacity for discussing it.
It menaces a few, it is not understandable by the rest.
Truth is always uncomfortable.

Our relationship with books, that's the essence we should be discussing, not "what" we read or not.
Krake presents nine different ways we look at our books. Well done.  (A little bit too much German way...)
A matter of attitude.

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #37 –
Have had a book for a while recommend to me by my brother entitled "Other Losses" by James Bacque and a second issue as he got even more information about the hard fact that America wilfully murdered hundreds of thousands of Germal prisoners at t the end of WWS. The chief guilt party was Eisenhower. He not only lowered the level of food below 2000 and no shelter or help. He hated the Germans whether SS or regular military. Even when a couple of generals earmarked prisoners for simple release that brutal git over-ruled them. The French were involved but Ike's corner was the distinct leader. Not only the statistics shown but the hard facts of deliberate starvation to the lowest possible then cart lorries of bodies away for burial.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #38 –
Dresden, RJ, Dresden… :(
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #39 –
Body-swerving Yank.

Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers died appallingly. Eisenhower actually reduced the food supplies as low as he could and the content below 2000. It was disgraceful and actually happened smug man.  On top of that the shocking conditions, infections along with the mass deaths all suitably ignored. Disgusting for a so-called democracy. We used to get the stuff about what the Soviets did whilst wonderland got away with mass deaths. Maybe you should get a copy of the book organised in nutjobland instead of using satire as a swerve thing. Ike was a rat bag.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #40 –
Quote from: Belfrager on
Quote from: ersi on
And I've done a pretty good job staying away from Dan Brown.
Dan Brown is not a writer, he's a fraud for idiots to buy. The first three chapters were enough for realize it.
I agree 110%. I tried to read Angels & Demons. It's the most annoying piece of author wank I've ever seen.

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #43 –
We have the Da Vinci Code in the house I believe. (A gift of some sort.) I saw the movie over a decade ago and for what I assumed to be a relatively braindead adventure type movie à la Tomb Raider or The Mummy[1] it was surprisingly dull.

It's in a different category. Something like "a book I might almost consider reading to understand what everyone's talking about."
1 Wait, are we in the year ~2018 or ~2001?↵

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #44 –
Three out of three for figuring out the would be code!  :up:
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #45 –
From a review of Isaac Newton: The Asshole Who Reinvented The Universe
Quote from: https://nypost.com/2018/09/01/isaac-newton-predicted-the-world-will-end-in-2060/
In his new book, “Isaac Newton: The Asshole Who Reinvented The Universe,” author Florian Freistetter depicts Newton as a thoughtless genius with no social skills and a harsh demeanor who, despite his scientific acumen, was also devoted to alchemy.

“Alchemy was . . . not merely a hobby [for Newton],” he writes. “If anything, it would be closer to the truth to call Newton’s research into physics a ‘hobby’ that he fitted in between his theological and alchemistic studies.”

[...]

Based on extensive studies of biblical texts, he estimated that the world would “reset” in 2060, when “the Kingdom of God” would prevail on the Earth, Freistetter writes. Meanwhile, Newton castigated other doomsday prophesiers for foretelling a more imminent apocalypse.

“It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner,” Newton boldly proclaimed.

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #46 –
It's not really clear to me why we're supposed to be quite so dismissive of alchemy. Sure, there was some idée fixe about making noble metals out of base ones, but just about everyone from Newton to Leibniz was into that. Perhaps in a few centuries someone will sit there pointing fun at the Large Hadron Collider. What a ridiculous idea, building particle colliders; can't they tell a false hypothesis when they see one…

Or as they put it on Wikipedia:
Quote from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoscience
Isaac Newton contributed to the dawning sciences of chemistry and physics, even though he was also an alchemist who sought chrysopoeia in various ways including some that were unscientific.

That chemistry mentioned there — that was alchemy too…

Put another way, I wonder how ridiculous Newton's writings on physics might look if you actually read them. (I haven't.)
 

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #47 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
It's not really clear to me why we're supposed to be quite so dismissive of alchemy.
Clearly enough scientists (and this particular science historian) are ashamed of the roots of science.

Quote from: Frenzie on
That chemistry mentioned there -- that was alchemy too...
Chemistry is alchemy where the spooky aspects such as spiritual and immaterial have been cut off. Modern scientists cut much of the context away and assume they have a more advanced science at hand. In some sense modern science is more sober, but at the same time it's more callous, soulless, purposeless, and dangerous due to too much de-contextualisation.

In my view, the heart of science is analysis. A scientific analysis is always analysis of something. Analysis in the abstract would be pure logic, but even in the abstract it would occur in the mind (not in mid-air like a "useful fiction" which is neither here or there), so it's properly coupled with the analysis of mind.

Analysis or logic cannot stand contextless by itself. It requires a mind, as a minimum, and a commitment to the nature of the mind, whether it's material, immaterial, mechanical, or what not.

In old times, scientists were more properly philosophers whose aim was to connect everything. Nowadays scientists tend to assume their little field (little because it's a radically reduced version of a historically more full-blooded version) of expertise extrapolated without expertise on anything else kind of is all there is to reality.

Re: Books I would like to read but (probably) won't

Reply #48 –
Quote from: ersi on
Chemistry is alchemy where the spooky aspects such as spiritual and immaterial have been cut off.
Yep. The same happens with old and modern ("scientific") medicine.
I was reading a XVIII century medicine text and got very surprised with the extreme lucidity of thought and rigor of analysis. What have basically evolved in medicine were the machines for every and all diagnosis.

Old doctors discussed if fever was a fluid or a humor, moderns ones have no idea about the whys and they don't care, enough to know that fever appears as a body reaction and some particular substance makes it to go down.
A matter of attitude.