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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   3751 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 20, 2023

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 rereading Watts' The Way of Zen. It's one of the most profound books I've read, though it is an idiosyncratic view of Zen, which he admits. This time I'm taking notes.

Paper I'm reading: Riskin's The Naturalist and the Emperor, a Tragedy in Three Acts; or, How History Fell Out of Favor as a Way of Knowing Nature.

I just ordered four books from EBay: Beloved, The Count of Monte Cristo, Nixonland, and Snow Crash, the latter two of which I believe I received recommendations for on this forum. I spun the roulette wheel and started with Beloved, got three pages in and said, nope this one can wait. I pivoted to Snow Crash and also found the first 50 or so pages painfully dull. But I’m now about a quarter of the way through and am slightly more intrigued. Looking forward to all of them.

Count of Monte Cristo is in my top 5. Hopefully you got the translation by Robin Buss from Penguin Classics. The older public domain translations are very antiquated.

I pivoted to Snow Crash and also found the first 50 or so pages painfully dull.

I thought that was the intent of Hero Protagonist as a character.

Beloved is incredible but definitely not a fun read. Snow Crash i thought was mega fun but I think I was hooked earlier in.

I finally read the Anabasis, wow what a work. I don't know how I missed it up to now.

Now I'm debating diving back into Clarissa or getting back into Kapital as my new ebook.

I'm reading Emanuel Mayer's The Ancient Middle Classes - I happened to travel with Professor Mayer some time ago, and learned a tremendous amount about Classical urbanism, art, and life in that time, most of which I've not encountered in my other history reading. Heard he had a book published, so naturally decided to give it a look. Also dipping into the print version of Land's Xenosystems published by West Martian Press, a great little outlet which I encourage Urbit folks, dissidents, and internet weirdos to support.

The Ancient Middle Classes

What an interesting sounding book, thanks for the recommendation

I'm reading The Essential Jung which is a compilation of Jung's work by Anthony Storr. Jung is pretty mind-blowing, even though I've heard a lot of hype he definitely lives up to it, and then some. I'm shocked Freud still gets so much cred for his work in psychology, because my admittedly early understanding of Jung makes his work far more important and far-reaching than Freud.

I've finished all 2300+ translated chapters of Reverend Insanity and it's left me with a gaping void in my soul. I crave more, and I'm planning to start the author's other work, Infinite Bloodcore. Fuck the CCP for forcing him to terminate RI, especially at a cliffhanger.

Wait they forced him to terminate it??? Why?

They were cracking down on politically incorrect web novels, and his promoted a particularly nihilistic worldview in their opinion, leaving aside that he had thinly veiled allegories to real life and politics in there.

Baen has a DRM-free collection of Poul Anderson science-fiction stories on sale. I'm reading The High Crusade, an entertaining book where a pack of medieval Englishmen preparing to fight in the Crusades happen to catch a landed alien spacecraft by surprise, fly it back to the aliens' nearest colony, and defeat the entire alien civilization.

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