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chernobyl kinsman posted:do not take mantell’s extremely sympathetic portrayal of Cromwell as historically sound it was shocking to me when I realised a lot of the English love him
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Jan 9, 2020 11:53
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The Art of God of War by a lot of artists My wife got me this for Christmas since God of War on the PS4 was one of my favorite games in a long, long time. I never cared for the previous God of War games (I suck at them), but this latest game had such a fantastic story and the artistic style and vistas presented still has my jaw sitting on the floor. I devoured this game from start to finish when it was released. The last time I had done this was Bloodborne a few years prior. Anyways, the book itself is about as any other art book, it's quite thick, 230 or so pages just filled to the brim of concept art for the game. There is some commentary on decisions made, but it's not much. It's 99% art, which I guess makes sense. I love all the art, even the concept art sketches are fantastic to look at. I would have loved more commentary, but it's a top-notch product regardless.
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Jan 9, 2020 19:58
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You Look Like A Thing And I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane. You Look Like A Thing And I Love You managed to be light in tone yet informative without getting bogged down in specialist AI terms and doomsday scenarios most other recent books about Artificial Intelligence usages in modern society do. If you like bizarre AI generated recipes, phantom giraffes, cute drawings of robots, cockroach farming parables and amusingly presented data set/image recognition training methods, read this book. "Spartan Gandalf" and "Mordenkainen's Pie" are my favorite out-of-content AI generated concepts from that book.
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Jan 11, 2020 07:05
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quantumfoam posted:You Look Like A Thing And I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane. That sounds cool; I'm always looking for approachable books on topics like that. Have you read Dawn of the New Everything? It's a series of essays by a pioneer in VR and covers that plus AI, big data, and more.
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Jan 11, 2020 14:29
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Jack B Nimble posted:That sounds cool; I'm always looking for approachable books on topics like that. Have you read Dawn of the New Everything? It's a series of essays by a pioneer in VR and covers that plus AI, big data, and more. Yes, I did read it back when it came out in 2017. 2 and half years later my main recollections of "Dawn of the New Everything" are it being 50% Jaron Lanier autobiography, at least 15% Ralph Baer style "I was the first doing this/I was the father of XYZ technology" humble-brags, with the rest of the book being about past trends in bleeding edge tech adoption, future-guessing about social-medias future and VR and weird-weird tidbits like the coworker who built a custom full-body VR-sim suit for his pet chicken so he could remotely "pet" the chicken while at work.
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Jan 11, 2020 15:44
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Sugar: The World Corrupted: From Slavery to Obesity by James Walvin. Pretty good history of the sweet stuff, with a UK focus. Sticks to his thesis without getting into the weeds or sounding like a scold. Most interesting parts were about how so much of the world didn’t use much sugar until it was mass produced. Fascinating that Roman skeletons from Pompeii had decent teeth but those in 18th century France with tons of sugar got annihilated.
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Jan 12, 2020 01:46
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Sugar: The World Corrupted: From Slavery to Obesity by James Walvin. Pretty good history of the sweet stuff, with a UK focus. Sticks to his thesis without getting into the weeds or sounding like a scold. Most interesting parts were about how so much of the world didn’t use much sugar until it was mass produced. Fascinating that Roman skeletons from Pompeii had decent teeth but those in 18th century France with tons of sugar got annihilated. Interesting. I was in Pompeii a few months ago and was told that they had horrible teeth, since they used volcanic rock for millstones which was soft enough that pieces got into the flour. The rock in their bread led to them having bad teeth compared to other romans.
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Jan 14, 2020 20:03
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High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing by Ben Austen. Pretty interesting look at the infamous Cabrini-Green housing complex in Chicago and the way people used to try to make ends meet there before it was torn down a couple years ago. Recommended if you'd like to read about the development of urban poverty and/or the history and politics of the city of Chicago.
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Jan 15, 2020 16:56
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sleez posted:High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing by Ben Austen. To add to this, you can check out Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh. Sudhir befriends a bunch of gang members who control the Cabrini-Green complexes (and surrounding area). He dives into the poverty, how members helped each other, and had many interactions with the families there. It's been a few years since I read it but really enjoyed it. It has a Wire feel to it in a lot of ways in that you get to really know both sides of the equation.
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Jan 15, 2020 17:34
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The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living A daily devotional with a snippet from Seneca, Marcus Aurelius etc. and then a few short paragraphs of interpretation for each day of the year. If you have read any other Ryan Holiday stuff (Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key etc) you know what you're getting into. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth Advertised as a biography of Jesus the man, not Jesus the Christ. Really more of a lesson on the history of Jerusalem. As someone who has never been religious and only has a layman's knowledge of the gospels, I found the account pretty compelling. Especially the theory that Paul pretty much hijacked the entire movement after the crucifixion. The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance Essentially an extend advertisement for the TB 12 Sports Therapy Centers and products, which I knew going in. The pliability stuff is somewhat interesting, if scientifically unproven. He does make good points about tailoring your training for the activity you wish to excel at and the diet / hydration advice is pretty solid.
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Jan 15, 2020 19:32
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Philthy posted:To add to this, you can check out Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh. Sudhir befriends a bunch of gang members who control the Cabrini-Green complexes (and surrounding area). He dives into the poverty, how members helped each other, and had many interactions with the families there. It's been a few years since I read it but really enjoyed it. It has a Wire feel to it in a lot of ways in that you get to really know both sides of the equation. That one's been on my reading list for quite a while now, gotta finally check it out. Thanks for the encouragement. I was going to say, High-Risers also has a certain Wire-vibe to it, but it focuses a lot less on gang operations in their own right. I was surprised to read about the positive influence certain gang offshoots were having on Cabrini-Green, somehow that was never reported on during the Chicago media frenzy of the 80s. Got any experience with An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago by Alex Kotlowitz? It's more of a collection of stories about people living amidst the violence and death in Chicago, supposedly it's pretty good.
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Jan 15, 2020 19:55
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Sock The Great posted:Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth Advertised as a biography of Jesus the man, not Jesus the Christ. Really more of a lesson on the history of Jerusalem. As someone who has never been religious and only has a layman's knowledge of the gospels, I found the account pretty compelling. Especially the theory that Paul pretty much hijacked the entire movement after the crucifixion. it's poo poo scholarship. his portrayal of jesus is not in step with current scholarship or consensus, his textual work is rear end, and the book as a whole is basically a simplified sparknotes version of one or two previous works of actual scholarship. it's a bad book. it was written to piss people off and sell a lot of copies, and it achieved that so good job, but it's not a serious work. chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jan 15, 2020 |
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Jan 15, 2020 20:11
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chernobyl kinsman posted:it's poo poo scholarship. his portrayal of jesus is not in step with current scholarship or consensus, his textual work is rear end, and the book as a whole is basically a simplified sparknotes version of one or two previous works of actual scholarship. it's a bad book. it was written to piss people off and sell a lot of copies, and it achieved that so good job, but it's not a serious work. Is there another book you'd recommend instead, I thought it sounded really cool and put it on my reading list.
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Jan 15, 2020 20:16
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sleez posted:Got any experience with An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago by Alex Kotlowitz? It's more of a collection of stories about people living amidst the violence and death in Chicago, supposedly it's pretty good. I haven't! I noticed he also wrote There Are No Children Here, which I own, but haven't read yet. One other book that I think is worth mentioning and is sort of related, but deals with Baltimore rather than Chicago, and what ultimately spawned The Wire is The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood by David Simon & Ed Burns. It looks at the gangs, drug users, and impoverished. David spent a year or more with the same people following their lives, into the drug dens, on to the corners, into the hospitals, etc. I read it before I even knew what The Wire really was, or who David Simon was. My wife gave it to me and said to check it out. I only have two books I've read that I would consider to be put on a bucket list so far, this is one of them. The Corner was made into a mini-series by HBO and David Simon actually got some of the people who are in the book to play parts. After this was a success he pitched The Wire which took elements of The Corner and his other popular book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and merged them. The guy who got the newspapers for the bowtie hitman in The Wire was one of the drug dealers he tried helping and is one of the main characters he followed in The Corner. Ultimately he fell back into drug dealing and got murdered. It's really loving sad. Philthy fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Jan 15, 2020 |
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Jan 15, 2020 20:53
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The Hidden Life of Trees. Found the info really fascinating and, while it seems to be a common dislike on Goodreads, I liked how he anthropomorphised the trees and described them as very slow animals or people. He writes about trees communicating, leaning on one another to survive storms and old age, sharing food and water, raising their young, and changing their environment to suit themselves - just in ways that are so slow or hidden to us that we don’t notice any of it. After reading I still have no ability whatsoever to look at a tree/forest and divine how healthy it is, but I did gain a new appreciation for the importance of dead or dying trees.
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Jan 15, 2020 20:55
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chernobyl kinsman posted:it's poo poo scholarship. his portrayal of jesus is not in step with current scholarship or consensus, his textual work is rear end, and the book as a whole is basically a simplified sparknotes version of one or two previous works of actual scholarship. it's a bad book. it was written to piss people off and sell a lot of copies, and it achieved that so good job, but it's not a serious work. I gave up in the preface when he was very obviously taking Bible verses out of context to make his point (“I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” quoted as a literal call for violence, etc) but am interested in the idea of what he’s trying to do, so I would also be interested if you have a recommendation along the same vein.
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Jan 15, 2020 20:58
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Finished Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann, it's very good. About the bourgeoisie (or burger, I should say) family Buddenbrook in a German town in mid-late 19th century. It follows their decline from a respectable merchant house to the last grandkid who's only good at playing the piano. This book got him the Nobel prize in 1929 and supposedly it mirrors Mann's own family. Great characters, most of them are written pretty shallowly but you get these glimpses into something deeper that are fantastic.
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Jan 15, 2020 21:06
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Jack B Nimble posted:Is there another book you'd recommend instead, I thought it sounded really cool and put it on my reading list. Chuck Buried Treasure posted:I gave up in the preface when he was very obviously taking Bible verses out of context to make his point (“I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” quoted as a literal call for violence, etc) but am interested in the idea of what he’s trying to do, so I would also be interested if you have a recommendation along the same vein. basically anything by bart ehrman is really good.* he's a big figure in biblical scholarship, and his Jesus: apocalyptic prophet of the new millennium is good and presents a portrait of Christ that's much more in line with what most scholars think about the historical Jesus. ditto how Jesus became God. he also played a role in this long-running and very bizarre saga which is a pro-read *though I think he overstates his case a bit in misquoting jesus chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jan 15, 2020 |
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Jan 15, 2020 21:23
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Excellent—I really enjoyed Ehrman’s Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew when I read it last year but haven’t yet checked out his other works. I’ll have to put those on my list. Thanks!
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Jan 15, 2020 21:33
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Chuck Buried Treasure posted:Excellent—I really enjoyed Ehrman’s Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew when I read it last year but haven’t yet checked out his other works. I’ll have to put those on my list. Thanks! yeah that one's really good. the companion book Lost Scriptures contains his translation of all the texts he talks about in that book, if you're interested there is some kind of ongoing conflict between him and elaine pagels about the interpretation of the Gospel of Thomas but I dont know the specifics
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Jan 15, 2020 22:11
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"Bartleby". Melville sure loves words. I liked it because it's timeless.
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Jan 15, 2020 22:56
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Ehrman is always a good read. Currently reading through "Misquoting Jesus", and enjoying it quite a bit. Early Christianity is endlessly fascinating to me. Bartleby is a great read. I read it some 15 years ago or so but I still remember it quite vividly. I recently finished Covenant with death by John Harris, a novel about a fictional group of men joining up in a Pal's Battalion at the onset of World War I. The book's last few chapters build up to the Battle of the Somme and yeah...it's pretty  But a good read, either way.
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Jan 16, 2020 01:47
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chernobyl kinsman posted:basically anything by bart ehrman is really good.* he's a big figure in biblical scholarship, and his Jesus: apocalyptic prophet of the new millennium is good and presents a portrait of Christ that's much more in line with what most scholars think about the historical Jesus. ditto how Jesus became God. I appreciate this recommendation; I've been looking to read more about the historicity of Jesus, and these look like good places to start.
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Jan 16, 2020 04:19
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chernobyl kinsman posted:yeah that one's really good. the companion book Lost Scriptures contains his translation of all the texts he talks about in that book, if you're interested I would pay real money to watch that debate Since Harold Bloom died I've been eyeing my copy of Jesus and Yahweh on my shelf unread. I really liked The Book of J, would this rate equally?
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Jan 16, 2020 06:32
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Philthy posted:I haven't! I noticed he also wrote There Are No Children Here, which I own, but haven't read yet. Didn’t see Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond mentioned here and it was an amazing book. Less crime, more regulatory capture and systemic poo poo.
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Jan 16, 2020 08:42
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Philthy posted:I haven't! I noticed he also wrote There Are No Children Here, which I own, but haven't read yet. Out of interest, what's the other book on your bucket list?
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Jan 16, 2020 15:17
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sleez posted:Out of interest, what's the other book on your bucket list? Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - A book about everything.
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Jan 16, 2020 16:30
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The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Ever want to know what it was like being an immigrant coming to Chicago in the early 1900s? Ever want to know what it was like working before regulations were taken seriously? In a slaughterhouse? In a fertilizer plant? In a canning mill? Tractor factory? How about the effects food poisoning had on families which was a common occurrence? Or if you got hurt on the job? How about going to and from work for miles in sub-zero temperatures? Maybe take a stroll through the seedy underworld and see how the other half lived that couldn't take it any longer. There is a lot in this book, and it covers so much of early Chicago with its unions, it corrupt politicians, horrible work conditions, and it's filled with people trying to survive and support their families, those who have given up and left, and those who were at the top happily crushing peoples souls for an extra dollar or two a day. There is some sunshine throughout, but it is often between terrible storms. I really, really enjoyed this, and the characters within.
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Jan 17, 2020 00:51
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Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky, something of a roller coaster in its engagement, varied from atmospheric and memorable to dull in some sections. Orders of magnitude less spectacle than the video game it inspired.
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Jan 17, 2020 08:40
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The Dinosaur Artist by Paige Williams. A true crime story about a dinosaur fossil smuggler who was caught trying to auction a Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton in New York. Spans the globe from Mongolia to Florida with interesting characters and engaging prose. The author is fantastic at including tangents about Mongolia or harvesting old lumber from the bottom of rivers without losing the main thread, and has extensive info about the culprit without trying to be an apologist for his actions. One minor issue is the book has vivid descriptions of fossils and how assembled skeletons appear, but has no pictures. Those would have been greatly appreciated to help understand what the objects looked like. I liked learning about fossil preparation, the recent history of Mongolia, and the dinosaur bone market. Highly recommended!
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Jan 17, 2020 17:06
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Syncopated posted:Interesting. I was in Pompeii a few months ago and was told that they had horrible teeth, since they used volcanic rock for millstones which was soft enough that pieces got into the flour. The rock in their bread led to them having bad teeth compared to other romans. Interesting! I didn’t know that. I’d guess the sugar book was evaluating their teeth based on cavities from sugar intake, rather than heavy damage from eating rocks. I think they could separate those out. Kinda related, went to a traveling Pompeii exhibit a few years ago and it was fantastic and well presented. I remember at one point visitors had the option to skip the section about Pompeii brothels, as American brains are so broken kids can see the final moments of people dying in agony but cannot be reminded sex exists. Philthy posted:I haven't! I noticed he also wrote There Are No Children Here, which I own, but haven't read yet. Good summary! The Corner and Homicide are absolute top tier recommends.
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Jan 17, 2020 17:23
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Jerry Cotton posted:"Bartleby". Melville sure loves words. The Office 1850
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Jan 17, 2020 17:42
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Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker. This book has received heaps of praise, but I found it rather repetitive. Probably because I have common sense and know that sleep is an important part of your overall health. The key takeaway I had was avoiding lying in bed awake for more than 20 minutes if you are having trouble falling asleep.
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Jan 17, 2020 19:03
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Sock The Great posted:Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker. Interesting, what do they recommend instead? Food? Please tell me it's food.
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Jan 17, 2020 21:35
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Jack B Nimble posted:Interesting, what do they recommend instead? Food? Please tell me it's food. That would certainly be interesting. But the recommendation is to get up and do some relaxing activity (reading?) until you start to feel sleepy. The issue being if you start to feel anxious about not sleeping it'll just lead to more not sleeping. This was all in the last two pages of the book titled "Twelve Steps to Healthy Sleep"; and I honestly wish I had just skipped to that.
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Jan 17, 2020 21:48
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Good summary! The Corner and Homicide are absolute top tier recommends. Absolutely nthing Homicide. Incredible read. Another one I finished recently was A Thousand Naked Strangers by Kevin Hazzard, which is about his nine years working as a first responder on the streets of Atlanta. If you're into behind-the-scenes stuff, this is a good one: he gives a crazy intense, exceptionally well-written insider's view of emergency medicine with vivid clarity. Some of it is gross, some of it is horrifying, some of it is funny, but all of it is engaging. I've read a handful of books in this genre, if you want to call it that, written by ER doctors and ICU nurses and such (I probably should have gone to med school given my interest in this stuff, but that's another story), and the biggest problem most of them suffer from is that, as interesting as their stories may be, they're either not very well-written, not well edited, or perhaps not even edited at all. Hazzard has a degree in journalism and currently works as a freelance journalist, and he has a command of the language that the other books I've read lack. Definitely worth your time if you're interested in this sort of thing.
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Jan 18, 2020 01:56
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After having my brains completely blown out of my head by Lincoln in the Bardo I've been grabbing what I can of George Saunders' stuff. The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil is a novella steeped in Bush-Era politics and has Saunders trying his hardest to be Vonnegut. Also riffs hard on Animal Farm. I was left fairly cold. Some funny and interesting imagery but it was as smug as can be and didn't say anything new. Civilwarland in Bad Decline was light years better. Scary and wonderful and emotional and beautiful. Every short story in the collection is about a weird, terrible job and how it devastates the people who trap themselves within them. The novella at the end - "Bounty" - is about as unique a post-apocalyptic story as you're going to get. Really dug this. I also read a couple of other non-Saunders novellas: McGlue - Ottessa Moshfegh Fine enough! Dark and kind of sweet at the end. Star - Yukio Mishima Also fine enough! Covers the same thematic ground he always does - death, beauty, masks, how they're intertwined - but does so in a different setting and character archetype than what's usual for Mishima.
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Jan 18, 2020 20:29
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If you enjoyed Civilwarland (which is fantastic) I would strongly recommend Tenth of December, which follows the tone and essence of Civilwarland perfectly. Pastoralia is also quite good, but less efficient than Civilwarland or Tenth
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Jan 18, 2020 21:05
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The Call of the Wild by Jack London This is a novella about a dog named Buck. I'm not sure if this was meant to be a children's book or not, it's quite violent and completely depressing. Despite all that, it was a very nice quick read and a change of pace. It takes place during the gold rush in the 1890s in the Klondike. It's told from Buck's point of view as an alpha male, and how he learns to be a sled dog for many masters while confronting other alpha male dogs. The story goes on with Buck going from a household pet to a more wild dog that everyone fears. Kinda makes me want to go adopt a dog now to be honest. Zamboni Rodeo posted:Absolutely nthing Homicide. Incredible read. I think this will be my next read. I opened it immediately after finishing The Corner and found I couldn't focus on it since all I kept thinking about was The Corner and everything I was processing still. I needed something different. Philthy fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 18, 2020 |
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Jan 18, 2020 23:27
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Philthy posted:The Call of the Wild by Jack London One of my favorotes; if you liked this, read White Fang.
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Jan 18, 2020 23:45
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