Just finished Homo Dues by Yuval Noah Harari.
Now I am doing my best to ward of the existential crisis it caused.
Just finished Homo Dues by Yuval Noah Harari.
Now I am doing my best to ward of the existential crisis it caused.
Finishing up The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry. I really like the static of transgenics as described by the author. It's like, always in the backseat of my mind as I read the book. Suggesting anything and everything in the context related to genetics and virology is possible in a scifi envieroment that is still heavily defined by occurances in the here and now. Giving off a sort of blurred line to reality.
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El-Saadawi. "based on a true story" about an Egyptian woman facing execution for murder, the horrible trials of her life, and what led her to that point. The authors style of prose and the way she kept repeating certain things didn't really do it for me, but it was still a well written and very emotionally engaging book. I think I gave it 4 stars.
The Family by Mario Puzzo. A fictional rendering of the life of the Borgia pope and his family. I don't really get into the dry, matter of fact style of writing. I was moved along by the twisty, fast moving plot, out of curiosity, even without caring much one way or the other about what would happen. I had trouble keeping track of the various allegiances, fights, and significance of all the cities and leaders in the book. I gave it 3 stars.
Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates. A woman is murdered, and her son and the daughter of the accused are drawn into each other's lives. At times in the first half, I got impatient because I felt like it hovered too long sucking every last drop of meaning out of every mundane event, but as the book progressed I fell more deeply into the story. The prose is pretty incredible and quotable and I can't remember the last time I've read a book with characters that felt so full and "real." I gave it 4 stars but it made me want to read more Oates.
So, First Love by Joyce Carol Oates. A Gothic short story, marketed on the back cover as " incestuous forbidden love" but actually about child molestation. So beautifully written,which i expected. A lot is hinted at and skirted around, engaging the imagination for better or worse. A very distinct mood. My only complaint is that it felt sort of light and one dimensional for a book with such a heavy and disturbing topic. But to be fair Im not sure how much more could have been accomplished in 70 some pages. 4 stars again, but I was considering giving it 5.
Awesome. I started American Gods, but had to take a break to read A Storm of Swords. I will make my way back to it though. I also read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. I thought it was really good. Much better than the movie, as is usually the case. Glad to meet a fellow horror fan!
i'm reading The Stand for my third time, loving the ominous creep of the superflu through the first section of the book (and savoring the foreshadowing of things to come).
The "Knowledge Trilogy" (The Discoverers, The Creators, The Seekers) by Daniel J. Boorstin is incredible. I've read few books greater, and many books lesser. It is a history and biography of knowledge in "Western Civilization", with many biographies and histories of notable people intertwined. It is like an encyclopedia in terms of its scope, but something you can actually read from beginning to end.
Improving your happiness and changing your personality for the better
Jungian theory is not grounded in empirical data (pdf file)
The case against type dynamics (pdf file)
Cautionary comments regarding the MBTI (pdf file)
Reinterpreting the MBTI via the five-factor model (pdf file)
Do the Big Five personality traits interact to predict life outcomes? (pdf file)
The Big Five personality test outperformed the Jungian and Enneagram test in predicting life outcomes
Evidence of correlations between human partners based on systematic reviews and meta-analyses of traits
I journey onwards into the realms of Jonathan Maberry. Only to follow Joe Ledger. Reading Assassin's Code right now. The Narrative is close to what Alex DeLarge would describe as ultra-violence.
Time to tackle Dostoyevsky
I read White Oleander by Janet Fitch and liked it a lot. I would love to read more fiction but I find it difficult to predict what I would enjoy.
Think I'll try Vernor Vinge next, in the mood for sci fi.
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (who won the Nobel prize) is one epic book. It has more insight into the human mind than the entirety of Socionics.
It also explains why we tend to believe in Socionics explanations.
Reviews:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/...-slow-tributes
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...aniel-kahneman
I haven't been reading much lately because I started interview with the vampire by anne rice which is like, just interesting enough for me to not want to ditch it, but not interesting enough to usually be in the mood to read it....
anybody able to tell me if pretty much stays at the same level throughout or if it picks up? I'm on about page 40 or so.
Improving your happiness and changing your personality for the better
Jungian theory is not grounded in empirical data (pdf file)
The case against type dynamics (pdf file)
Cautionary comments regarding the MBTI (pdf file)
Reinterpreting the MBTI via the five-factor model (pdf file)
Do the Big Five personality traits interact to predict life outcomes? (pdf file)
The Big Five personality test outperformed the Jungian and Enneagram test in predicting life outcomes
Evidence of correlations between human partners based on systematic reviews and meta-analyses of traits
Improving your happiness and changing your personality for the better
Jungian theory is not grounded in empirical data (pdf file)
The case against type dynamics (pdf file)
Cautionary comments regarding the MBTI (pdf file)
Reinterpreting the MBTI via the five-factor model (pdf file)
Do the Big Five personality traits interact to predict life outcomes? (pdf file)
The Big Five personality test outperformed the Jungian and Enneagram test in predicting life outcomes
Evidence of correlations between human partners based on systematic reviews and meta-analyses of traits
George Orwell- 1984. Read and wonder and think and analyse.
I love Jack London- White Fang, Martin Eden and stories. He is one of my favourite writers.
Paris Wife- Paula McLain- story of one of Hemingways wifes.
Hard Times in Paradise by David and Micki Colfax
"A man with a definite belief always appears bizarre, because he does not change with the world; he has climbed into a fixed star, and the earth whizzes below him like a zoetrope."
........ G. ........... K. ............... C ........ H ........ E ...... S ........ T ...... E ........ R ........ T ........ O ........ N ........
"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the Church, is often labeled today as fundamentalism... Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along
by every wind of teaching, looks like the only
attitude acceptable to today's standards." - Pope Benedict the XVI, "The Dictatorship of Relativism"
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Even though I am an Agnostic, I am reading this Hitch book because I LOVE Hitch.
Also....
.....because it looked interesting
My ADD progression right now is:
Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger - exploring how the self manifests
Deep Learning by Goodfellow et al - well-written exposition of "deep" learning concepts
Adults in the Room by Varoufakis - talking about the Greek Debt Crisis and the way the insider politics worked during that
Plus about ten other books as I cycle through unfocused interests.
Then I just got Peterson's 12 rules yesterday.. all good so far.
I'm "reading" a book of essays by Camille Paglia but it's taking me 12 million years bcuz I don't want to let my team down in tri-peaks solitaire.
Her arrogant trolliness makes her an entertaining writer, though, and she's thought-provoking, even when her essays are reviews of books I've never heard of.
https://community.qvc.com/t5/Book-Cl...t/td-p/3434898 ? .... except the conversation's a little old.
A recent one: https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_we...ut-time-travel mumsnet haha, no idea if the conversation is indepth at all.
I am about done reading this and I think the main character's POV is Fi (or at least introverted feeler) https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/48253660-borne
@ouronis, I started reading a book in the trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer and got to page three before I abandoned it. I thought it might be a fluke and felt I should give his writing another chance and I found this: https://www.tor.com/2017/11/08/this-...l-of-monsters/,
but this time I again only got about to page three.
Even though the guy seems to be getting awards, I find him to be unreadable.
I don't think the problem is his Fi-base, if he is Fi-base. I picked up a book called "Linger" by Maggie Stiefvater and immediately recognized it as a clear window into the mind of an ESI. VanderMeer's writing is just unreadable to me.
I found the writing to be stilted, not the best I've ever read. The story too. The setting is mostly mangled tropes. But ultimately I was able to immerse anyway. All in all I've enjoyed it as a light read.
The character's pov reads like Fi, with the character being EII and the author interjecting the vivid descriptions of things.
Ultimately, I read for edification and I prefer that the author have some style and grace. The number of authors whose stories meet those criteria for me is almost nil now.
Snow Crash and The Diamond Age and Interface were the last books I read that approached that standard.
I just read a short story by Neil Gaiman which was very readable and meant nothing.
Gun, with Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem, is a tour de force of style and is lots of fun, but is just a pleasant way to waste time.
I just read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which was both readable and enjoyable. I think the girl is clearly ILI and Mikael Blomkvist is clearly SEE. I enjoyed spending time with them, but I didn't learn anything.
A friend gave me a copy of The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378) by Ammianus Marcellinus, and I found it to be not that great stylistically, but was very interesting from the standpoint of what the author thought was worth reporting. It is very hard to find books which combine style and information.
The problem might be with me.
Last edited by Adam Strange; 03-08-2018 at 03:02 AM.
I've gotten back into the habit of reading for the last few days and I finally finished paglias "sex, art, and American culture." I've talked about her in a few posts already so maybe it's overkill but I like the closure of talking about something after I read it. She's a good author for where I am internally right now, wanting to kinda shake some dust bunnies loose in my head, get things moving, you know, because she's challenging and her polarizing, hyperbolic style makes her impossible to brush off or read without thinking. The thing I really took away from the book as useful in that respect is this idea of eclecticism and historical context, seeing things as they have developed and continue to within this huge timeframe of human history and accounting for the things you feel in your gut, the sex of it, less intellectualized, and pulling from various areas without too much specialization. I guess this is why she focuses so goddamn much on her generation in the 60s and how the postmodernist French intellectuals in the 70s fucked everything up, blah, blah, but it can feel kinda like the 50 yr olds I know who only listen to 80s music and just can't get over their youths lol. My favorite part of the book was the transcript of people asking her questions and her answers because seeing her in a position where she's sort of defending her ideas in a dialogue in a way where she's not being *totally* polarizing bcuz of due respect to the people listening to her I felt like I was getting where she stands better than when she's waving her arms around to get attention. As entertaining as she is when she's being a complete bitch, I wish there was more of that.
Last edited by ashlesha; 03-13-2018 at 01:03 PM.
This year:
Against the Ethicists by Sextus Empiricus
Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb
The Master and His Emissary by Iain Mcgilchrist (re-read but did not finish re-read)
Aesop's Fables (currently reading)
Last edited by leckysupport; 03-21-2018 at 01:36 PM.
ἀταραξία
Many thanks, @aster. Now I have something else to read.
It is really interesting and odd to spend time inside the head of a dual.
I've been really enjoying Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Idea" especially since it inspired Jung to create his typology.
Finished James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk. I'm not blown away by his novels as much as I am by his social essays (with the important exception of Giovannis Room), but of course it was solid. I found myself oddly relieved when it ended before the resolution and then realized I didn't really want to know what was going to happen.
About to start Petersons 12 Rules and find out what the big deal is about lobsters.
War and peace - it's like watching a period TV show but a lot better.
@aster When I read the first Throne of Glass book, I almost sent one of the romantic banter scenes to my SLE friend b/c I felt she would love it. It is actually exactly like how her real relationships are.
I'm reading the Burrow and other short stories by kafka, I love kafka. He is like a spiritual guide, artistic mentor, parent figure all in one. When I read him I feel nourished beyond anything I've ever experienced. The most moving things I read of his were actually his diaries and Conversations with Kafka by Gustav Janouch. Both of them had me breaking down and laughing out loud in cafes.
the shadow of the wind by carlos ruiz zafón
I love Asian literature. I finished The House of Sleeping Beauties by Yasunari Kawabata. Now I'm reading:
Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto
I also love books on self-improvement & psychology. I enjoyed Don't Shoot The Dog by Karen Pryor, and I'm also reading Marsha Linehan's work on DBT on people with BPD.
Other authors I like are Kurt Vonnegut and Milan Kundera.
the biography of James de Rothschild (lol I can't drop it!)
Osamu Dazai is the Japanese Bukowski - short novels about loser protagonists with ... life ... problems. Anyway, I find that sort of novel a very compelling read and I blazed through No Longer Human and then picked up The Setting Sun, which I'm reading now.
The decisive thing is not the reality of the object, but the reality of the subjective factor, i.e. the primordial images, which in their totality represent a psychic mirror-world. It is a mirror, however, with the peculiar capacity of representing the present contents of consciousness not in their known and customary form but in a certain sense sub specie aeternitatis, somewhat as a million-year old consciousness might see them.
(Jung on Si)