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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3386 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 15, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I’m still on The Conquest of Bread and Future Shock.

Picking up Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms, a book about the inner universe of a 16th century miller who was executed by the Inquisition. The title is a reference to his belief that the world was created from a chaos “just as cheese is made out of milk” and “worms appeared in it, and these were the angels.” The man himself sounds like a decent man, not particularly crazy, concerned with the money-making aspects of the Church and the apparent absurdity of its teachings, preferring a simplified, natural religion of doing good deeds.

I'm reading Surface Detail, the 8th culture novel. I'm pretty far in and fairly disappointed so far. I'm comparing it to Matter which I just finished. It's apparently poorly thought of, but I'm comparing the vivid imagery of the eternal, subterranean war in the latter with the simplistic, extended exposition for each new element in Surface Detail.

I'm close to finishing the series at this point, hoping that Hydrogen Sonata isn't a poor sendoff.

yeah I love the Culture series but sadly some of the later ones are pretty lackluster

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