Which Book Are You Reading Now? Volume XII

[EnglishEdward]

So, is there any current british author who is considered to be a serious writer and writes psychological fiction?

I tend to read about five or six books at once, switching between them according to my mood.

One of these that I am currently reading is: "A Man of Shadows" by

Jeff Noon

who was born in Manchester.

it is an odd, but interesting, combination of detective, horror, sci-fi and psychological fiction.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

A History of the Low Countries by Paul Arblaster is a decent historical survey of its subject, well-balanced from the ancient to contemporary periods. The only complaint is some weird issues with the author's English, such as an "amphibian operation" happening on the shores of Frisia.

 

[JollyRoger]

 

[Arent11]

Continued from this thread. All reviews and recommendations welcome!

The funny thing is, after a long time, I actually took up "pride and prejudice". I mean, if there are that many women who like it, there has
to be something, right? And I liked Keira Knightley So I figured I just should take a look. I found it was ok, fluently written. And it's free anyway

 

[JohannaK]

What is this collection, JR? I am loving the covers.

Rant: Kubrick should have gotten co-author credit there.

 

[JollyRoger]

Penguin Galaxy.

 

[Ajidica]

Finally got around to finishing Battleground Africa: The Cold War in the Congo, about the Congo Crisis of 1961 with a focus on the role international actors played (notably the US, USSR and UN). Excellent book but a bit of an infodump at the start unless you already have a familiarity with the parties and individuals in the Congo. I also don't think the author spent enough time on the secession of Katanga, but the author did however do an excellent job on covering the negotiations between Adoula and Tshombe along with the sheer scale of the Simba Rebellion.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Knight & Magic
Lazy Dungeon Master
Overlord
The world after the Fall
Hunter of the Ruin world

 

[Zkribbler]

Jeff Noon

I've read Noon's Vurt several times. It was first loaned to to me by a friend of mine who raved about it even tho he admitted he couldn't understand it. I helped him a lot by explaining to him about it's five main sentient races: humans, robots, shadow creatures, vurt creatures and dogs. Then they interbred. So robot + shadow = shadow cop, Robot + dog = robodog. He later loaned it to another friend, who responded with a two-word email: "Oooooooooooh, Vurt!'

 

[EnglishEdward]

I will add Vurt to my list to look out for.

Having just finished A Man of Shadows" my main read of the monent is:

"The Doomed City"

by

Arkady & Boris Strugastsky

 

[Traitorfish]

A history of Germany identity, or a study of how German's imagine their history, rather than of Germany itself. Only a couple of chapters in, but interesting stuff so far. The "history of [blank] in [x] objects" format came as a bit of a surprise, not being familiar with the radio series, but it puts an interesting spin on things.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Other Writings, written by David Hume and edited by Stephen Buckle. The main work is Hume's revised contribution to empiricism and epistemology. It raises the issue of the problem of induction, and posits that we form beliefs about the world through custom and experience. One measure of its influence on future philosophy is that its groundbreaking observations now seem trite: three wordy chapters may be summarized as "correlation does not imply causation". One of my favorite parts is the first chapter about the two main strains of philosophy, natural and moral. The former is more difficult, but it is needed to improve the latter.

This book also contains letters and other essays by David Hume. Most memorable of these essays is Of Suicide, a defence of the rights of men to kill themselves. Suicide is not a crime against providence, it is no more morally objectionable than prolonging life. Most of the letters concern Hume's philosophical correspondence, but the last is about the American colonies. Specifically, why it would be wiser to just grant them independence and part as friends. Of course, this did not happen.

 

[Kyriakos]

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Other Writings, written by David Hume and edited by Stephen Buckle. The main work is Hume's revised contribution to empiricism and epistemology. It raises the issue of the problem of induction, and posits that we form beliefs about the world through custom and experience. One measure of its influence on future philosophy is that its groundbreaking observations now seem trite: three wordy chapters may be summarized as "correlation does not imply causation". One of my favorite parts is the first chapter about the two main strains of philosophy, natural and moral. The former is more difficult, but it is needed to improve the latter.

This book also contains letters and other essays by David Hume. Most memorable of these essays is Of Suicide, a defence of the rights of men to kill themselves. Suicide is not a crime against providence, it is no more morally objectionable than prolonging life. Most of the letters concern Hume's philosophical correspondence, but the last is about the American colonies. Specifically, why it would be wiser to just grant them independence and part as friends. Of course, this did not happen.

I feel i should note, having read some Hume, and having read critiques against Hume by Kant, and having read earlier philosophy, that philosophy didn't start with Hume re examination of causation and correlation. Furthermore, his conclusions that we somehow form notions due to reacting to external stuff was not that difficult to attack, and an attack on it is generally the preface of Kant's equally boring philosophical work ^^
Briefly, Kant argued (which, again, was nothing new in philosophy; i mean even in post-classical western philosophy this was inferred by Descartes) that we don't react to external stimuli in a manner which carries into our thoughts something strictly external, given we automatically internalize anything external so as to have a grasp of it. (which, of course, is an argument already there some centuries before Plato). Therefore the empirical angle is already inherently notional and non-defined.

 

[JollyRoger]

I Kant buy that.

 

[Kyriakos]

I Kant buy that.

To err is humean.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I still value Hume's advice that you never go full Pyrrho.

 

[Birdjaguar]

"A war Like No Other" by Hanson. It's a detailed look at the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Detailed, interesting and well written.

 

[JollyRoger]

 

[JollyRoger]

 

[Kyriakos]

Neil Gaiman. The Pewdiepie of the writing world