Books I'm reading etc.

[gumpzilla]

El D is rocking the recent Pulitzers.

I'm in the middle of The Road. So far, I find it makes me moody and tense; my fiancee interjecting while I was reading it made me grumpier than usual.

Recently read The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. At the end, I wasn't a huge fan, but it's quick and I found it difficult to put down at the time. It's basically a pretty short first person narrative of a few days in the life of a psychotic teenager inclined towards murder and torture. Not much plot to speak of, and the whole thing seems calculated to shock. It has its moments.

The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell: pretty well-written introduction to epistemology. It reminded me of college. Philosophy seemed a lot cooler back then; now, seeing how even Russell decides to resort some non-rigorous steps in his arguments for the reality of the external world, I wonder why people bothered with this stuff. The distinction between perception and the perceived is interesting but it seems like it's the whole ballgame.

In fits and starts, I'm reading Subtle is the Lord, a biography of Einstein focusing on his science and its context. I've read about a third of this and will probably finish it over my next couple of flights.

I started trying to read The Recognitions by William Gaddis, but I got about 60 of 1000 pages in and felt like it was a pretty unenjoyable slog thus far, which was a bad omen for the next 940 pages. No more.

In the pipe:
The Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson. He rants about the U.S and the military-industrial complex for a while.

[roaaahhh]

energy at the crossroads vaclav smil

[mikeczyz]

couldn't hack the golden braid so i instead read crimes against logic. finished it and am going to start the corrections by franzen tomorrow.

my four hour daily commute gives me ample reading time.

[DannyOcean_]

[ QUOTE ]
books i didn't like enough to finish

the black swan - nassim taleb
this is a book on skeptical empiricism. although i like and agree with some of the ideas, i really hated this book. the author seems just way too into portraying himself as an intellectual / academic. there are a ton of strange parable/anecdotes that don't really seem as relevant as maybe the author thinks they are, often the book is self-referential, he develops vague philosophical-sounding titles for concepts he barely talks about, and he has factually incorrect examples. what made me put the book down was the part about the swimmers body, where the author explains that swimming/running/weightlifting don't actually change your body type, but that people who are pre-disposed to having those body types will participate in those events.

fooled by randomness - nassim taleb
i thought, after putting down the black swan, that maybe this book would be better. it is about the same book. i actually like the ideas, and i think it is a shame that the writer is more into himself than he is into careful writing or research.

[/ QUOTE ]

I read about 1/3 of fooled by randomness and didn't continue. His basic premise is very good, but also not that hard to understand. I don't know how he fills all those pages with the simple premise 'things happen very randomly, lol'. Plus his writing is not very engrossing, and can make you a little bored at times. I'm going to try to pick it up and finish it at some point though, to see if he takes the idea anywhere.

[testaaja]

I'm currently reading
Come into my trading room (only 30 pages so can't really say yet).
Next I will read Trading for a living. Both from Elder.

Last book I read was The Godfather, that is the best single book I've ever read in my life. Fear and loathing in LV sharing the place [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[zyrrth]

Recently read:

White Line Fever - Lemmy
A bit to short for my liking, spreading almost 40 years of rock n roll over 300 pages, also not too many interesting stories iirc.

Hell's Angels - Hunter S. Thompson
Entertaining read, but I don't know if I'd recommend it if you're not interested in HST or the Hells Angels in the first place.

A compilation of the gonzo papers by Hunter S Thompson
I don't think this has been released in the US

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
I think everybody has read it/knows what the fuzz is about by now.

Next up:
Glamorama - Bret Easton Ellis

[Slow Play Ray]

I just read Utopia by Lincoln Child and Relic by Child/Preston while on vacation...mindless entertainment FTW.

[Sciolist]

[ QUOTE ]
the black swan - nassim taleb
this is a book on skeptical empiricism. although i like and agree with some of the ideas, i really hated this book. the author seems just way too into portraying himself as an intellectual / academic

[/ QUOTE ]
I had this problem too. I also felt it looked like the jokes were just inserted at random - his publisher said "Nassim, we need a joke on page 123, please insert one".

Good premise though, and I will finish reading it.

[Sciolist]

[ QUOTE ]
Recently read The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. At the end, I wasn't a huge fan, but it's quick and I found it difficult to put down at the time. It's basically a pretty short first person narrative of a few days in the life of a psychotic teenager inclined towards murder and torture. Not much plot to speak of, and the whole thing seems calculated to shock. It has its moments.

[/ QUOTE ]
This was one of the first "dark" book I read, and I read it twice in one sitting. I agree that it's probably not that good on reflection... Most the rest of his books are very good too though, well worth checking some of them out if you haven't already.

[oe39]

has anyone read 'The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science' by Natalie Angier?