What are you reading?

Discussion in 'Geek Cave: Computers, Tablets, HT, Phones, Games' started by OJneg, Sep 30, 2015.

  1. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I'll post my translation/edition. But wife is having afternoon sleep just now, with strict instructions not to disturb!

    edit, she got up... Translation by Diana Burgin and Katherine O'Connor. Mine is a Picador Books paperback. I love the cover illustration, but it does not seem to be on Amazon, either .com or .uk, just now.

    I also read the Michael Glenny translation. I find the Burgin/O'Connor translation easier to read and more evocative. There are even bits that make me laugh!

    If you take to it, then seek out the epic-duration Russian movie, with English subtitles. Well worth watching. Not to mention more naked women (at Satan's ball) that I have ever seen in any film (that wasn't only about naked women anway).
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2017
  2. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    If you consider your work to be your calling, then work/life has an entirely different meaning: the distinction is very blurred.

    I find that I learn a lot about people by reading fiction. If you work with psychology/psychiatry, then that is going to have a different meaning for you.

    For me, work and life were always clearly separate. Except during certain new-toy periods. For instance, when I started working with computers, it fascinated me, and the Unix manuals (on paper then) were bed-time reading for a while!
     
  3. Gemini

    Gemini Facebook Friend

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    @Thad E Ginathom. Thanks for the info. I have the Burgin/O'Connor translation published by Vintage. I'm taking my copy right out the door on a road trip.
     
  4. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Enjoy.

    The Russian friend of mine that sent me a copy of the movie was amazed that anyone non-Russian could love the book so much. But it works on so many levels, of which political satire is just one. I think it is even interesting from the religious point of view --- but don't let that put you off! :D
     
  5. Senorx12562

    Senorx12562 Case of the mondays

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    Not to minimize your loss or anything but I voluntarily gave up the vast majority of my hard copy books (kept a couple-hundred of a couple thousand), and I must say I feel "lighter" by an order of magnitude. Donated them to a church. No regrets at all. Very glad to live in the Kindle age. Now if only I could bring myself to get rid of my vinyl. Never listen to it anyway.
     
  6. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Not for me. I love my electronics, but somehow print on paper is just the thing for reading, especially bedtime reading, which is when I have finally turned off, or turned away from, the screens of various sizes.

    As fro the loss... well, what good is The Moths of The British Isles, in two volumes, to a guy who has lived in India for twelve years, and probably will for ever. But it was a 15th-birthday present from my parents. My big "Shorter" Oxford English Dictionary was an 18th birthday present. For a lot of stuff, I just say, hey, I lived with it for 10 or 20 or even 40 years and now I don't. That's all there is to it. At least I now know to keep the valued stuff high up!

    I find screens highly suitable for consuming information of all sorts. I've never really tried with fiction. One day...
     
  7. Case

    Case Anxious Head (Formerly Wilson)

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    So much for work-related reading... 81w21Q8IsiL.jpg
     
  8. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Well written, concise and current enough. Do not ask me about the contents as that would start a rant against certain social phenomena of our tirme...

    [​IMG]
     
  9. HeartOfSky

    HeartOfSky Acquaintance

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    If you've read that, I'm curious to know what you'd think of this. Though written nearly 70 years ago, it's remarkably appropriate for today.
    [​IMG]

    It's a small book. I'm most of the way through, as I tend to read only in snippets. So we're all clear here, this isn't a book about religion, but about the oppressed and a political renegade.
     
  10. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Thanks, I will skip Murakami in that case.
     
  11. cizx.6

    cizx.6 Just couldn't stay away...

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  12. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    The Battle of Britain is utterly fascinating. After this slight defeat the invasion of Russia followed and the era of air warfare really started.

    Yes many years of my youth were spent on learning about the military aspects of W.W.2. Not quite depressing but it makes you very aware something: in history it is not about the winners and losers; it is about who controls the best means, the best people and in the end him/her self. Thus with some luck the allies won...

    There is this series called "The Great War" on Youtube about W.W.1. and it makes the period of 1900-1946 very interesting. That period in history has been so bloody and violent that to quote Monty Python "Peace broke out."
     
  13. Case

    Case Anxious Head (Formerly Wilson)

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    I started reading military history as a kid as well. Most of the books back then were seriously flawed, glorifying and sanitizing the bloodshed, most of it from the American/ British point of view (Operation Market Garden included of course). When I started reading about the Eastern Front, I was shocked at the scale and ferocity. On the other hand, the Communist histories ignore the massive amount of American and British aid.and as you alluded to , it's logistics and supply that get short shrift and are ultimately decisive. I sometimes think about what would have happened if the Nazis had gone to a war-footing economy at the start instead of much later. Nowadays, I'll pick up a war book if I'm in a grim mood, haha! It doesn't help that there are many e-books available from the library. Regardless, always interested in discussing this kind of stuff.
     
  14. spwath

    spwath Hijinks master cum laudle

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    1985, anthony burgess.
    very good, and interesting. Though a poor future indeed. 2+2=5.
     
  15. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    I started getting into it from the aviation perspective. We owe the revolution of the jet engine to 1940-1945. It also makes you appreciate durable technology a lot.

    Think of it as this: the P51 Mustang (my favourite) was used until the Vietnam war; in short: if it works keep using it. This thinking helped to aid the allies as their technologies (guns, tanks, air planes etcetera) proved to be more durable. The durability factor played a bigger part than we can imagine.
     
  16. DrForBin

    DrForBin Friend

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    hello,

    yet again, i am reading this: upload_2017-6-20_21-7-47.jpeg

    i know about Mexico, i know about LA, i know what nymphomania is, i know what a Portrait of Madison is, i know what being as "rampant as a stallion" means, and yet... i continue to return to this failure as the Great American Novel.

    mayhaps, it hasn't been written yet?
     
  17. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Trying to work my way through a really dense series I tried reading when I was younger, Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I was talking with a friend about it the other week and offhandedly mentioned that I'd finished the series. Now my pride and paranoia has me at odds with what I actually want to read since I had trouble with the text way back but I don't want to admit I struggled through the first two volumes before giving up at the start of the third or thereabouts.

    f**k pride.

    Roman history is cool and awesome and fun. Gibbon's writing is boring as hell. I've got a number of other, far less boring books and e-books by Brandon Sanderson, Neil Gaiman, and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (among others) on hand to cleanse my palate if I feel I'm close to falling asleep. Oh, and I've got journals to work my way through every week for grad school. WOOOOOOOO.

    [​IMG]
     
  18. DrForBin

    DrForBin Friend

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    hello,

    it just may be possible that the Great Novel from anywhere cannot be written.

    for those who try to do so, from those who read, thank you.
     
  19. cizx.6

    cizx.6 Just couldn't stay away...

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  20. elguapo

    elguapo Gringos falling from the skys

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    Agreed. Any good recommendations? I loved Mary Beard's SPQR, but would like to explore Roman history further.
     

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