No.54506
Finally got around to "reading" The picture of Dorian Gray.
It was alright. Better then the two movies.
No.54537
>>54504I was expecting uncle Ted's predecessor, but it turned out to be just sillyv a larp.
Now that I've suffered through all of it I'm convinced he was actually a retard but nobody ever told him.
No.54538
>>54537I downloaded this when recommended it here years ago. Incredibly overrated.
No.54539
>>54537There are stories of how his mother would come over to his cabin to do laundry or he would regularly be given food by Emerson. I think your theory that he was retarded but nobody told him holds merit.
No.54540
What is Murakami's best book, 1Q84?
No.54541
>>54537Yeah, Thoreau and Kaczynski are much different than each other. I don't think Thoreau wanted to burn down society and start over, like Kaczynski. It was more about self-reliance and independent thinking, like Cynicism. It's more about what he was doing for his own life, rather than how society should be structured. I remember he did criticize contemporary society for pussifying everyone.
Though he was not totally self-reliant, it doesn't come through in his writing. I think the reason that Walden was so popular is that a lot of young men fantasize about going off into the woods and surviving on their own. Walden, and especially the first chapter, appeals to that fantasy.
Thoreau was Emerson's protege. Emerson does not focus as much on nature or survivalism, but is a better writer, philosopher and activist than Thoreau. Check out Emerson's "Self-Reliance." It is a short read.
As to the allegation that Thoreau is a retard, well, he was highly educated and well-read. He worked as a land surveyor, so must have been math-literate (unlike most Americans today). He even did some measurements and calculations just out of curiosity. Plus, his writing was good. Thoreau, like Kaczynski, was fairly book-smart and had a scholarly attitude.
However, he thought that he could train cold tolerance to the same extent as the Fuegians described in The Voyage of the Beagle, which may have resulted in his early death. So maybe not that smart.
No.54735
>Our House Is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis
Overall I really liked this memoir written by the Thunberg famiy. It's written in short, blog-like chapters, but it is still engrossing much of the time. Greta and I have some of the same disorders, so I've always had a soft spot for her. It was interesting to see how Greta's affluent, intelligent, and caring parents dealt with her and her sister Beata's many mental issues. My parents are the exact opposite of Greta's, so there was a lot for me to think about. The Thunbergs completely re-ordered their lives to help their troubled young daughters. I wonder how their kids would've fared if they grew up a century earlier. In some ways old-fashioned, tough parenting strategies may have partly helped, but in other ways I think it probably would've been counter-productive and maybe traumatic.
There are a lot of sad details about just how much Greta was suffering in the years before she began her school strike, especially with regard to her eating disorder and her Asperger's. Her climate activism really does seem to have helped her climb out of a very dark hole.
>Then Greta has her first panic attack. She makes a sound we've never heard before, ever. She lets out an abysmal howl that lasts for over forty minutes. We haven't heard her scream since she was an infant.
>(Greta and her dad go to an end-of-term ceremony at her school.) "Do they always look at you that way?" "Don't know. Think so." When students openly point and laugh at you–even though you're walking alongside your parent–then things have gone too far… Being bullied is terrible. But being bullied without understanding that you're being bullied–that's worse.
>Everything we suggest [to Beata] is answered with a "Shut up, you fucking idiot." Meanwhile Greta can only eat a few things that have to be prepared in a special way in our kitchen. She can't eat around other people and even if her weight has increased and stabilised, she can't afford to miss any meals.
No.54737
>>54735>It was interesting to see how Greta's affluent, intelligent, and caring parents dealt with her and her sister Beata's many mental issuesYou mean how they thrust her into a global spotlight to act as a sockpuppet and human shield for their political views? It's reprehensible and disgusting. This is not doing her any good at all. You can see multiple videos where she has mini panic attacks and freezes up at simple questions. that is not how you treat an anxiety disorder.
No.54752
>>54737Well said. I wouldn't be surprised to hear she attempts to kill herself in the years to come. At least materially she's all set, she'll be sitting in some corporate or NGO board and make millions. Not like it matters though, her family's already loaded lol.
Anyhow, what's with that poster and autistic females? This is very suspicious.
No.54754
>>54735I read a review on goodreads of that memoir.
>The book is actually written by her mother Malena Ernman and though there are a few climate change facts sprinkled throughout, the book is largely about their family… especially her. I was put off by her narcissism in the beginning. I stuck with it however, thinking that the book was a family endeavor since all of their names are on the cover, that each would have a section they wrote. Incorrect. I think the only reason Greta's name was listed first (or at all) is because the publisher knew it would get more readers.
>Ms. Ernman uses this book to constantly inform us that she is a celebrity (perhaps she is well known in Sweden but I had never heard of her. Sorry, Malena but you're not such a big celebrity everywhere).
>Here are a few of Malena's many boasts:
>"In many cases, they can be a superpower, that out-of-the-box thinking you so often hear performers, artists and celebrities talk about. Performers like me, for instance."
>"Most parents don’t have 250,000 followers on social media like I do"
>"One ‘Good morning from Tokyo’ [selfie posted to social media] and tens of thousands of ‘likes’ rolled in to my brand-new iPhone."
>"I embody the ‘superpower’ that everyone talks about. The one which is often mentioned but which unfortunately only a few possess"Greta's mom seems more like a persona instead of a human being, but perhaps this is an illness that affects all succubi.
No.54755
>>54546I-is that w-what i think it is?
No.54769
>>54737Can you post some of those videos?
No.54771
I got myself a nice two tomes copy of the Inman diary and almost finished the first one already. Non-fiction. Pretty amazing. Autist pervert from the first half of the 20th century living a blackened room and putting ads in the papers for people to come talk to him, whom he was keen to fondle. As an "invalid" proto-neet, lifestyle was supported by his rich family. Eventually kills himself with a bullet to the brain.
No.54772
>>54546>>54521Normal People, Vol 1 and 2
No.54773
>>54770What, that wasn't anxiety my wizza, that was a crack journalist baiting her into saying something inflammatory. Please post some real evidence
No.54775
>>54773then look closer retard
it's obvious her evil parents are exploiting their mentally ill daughter for their own gain
No.54777
>>54773He asked her what her message was. Not exactly a hard question to answer.
No.54886
>>54537chris knight's a better hermit, although he did steal to survive
No.54901
It took me a month but I finally finished to read The Arabian Nights, or One Thousand and One Nights as it's originally called. What a journey wizzies. This was my second attempt to read through it. First one was about 10 years ago and I failed it pretty badly. I wasn’t ready for it I guess. This time though I have so much to talk about, let's hope I manage to give you a hint of how interesting of a journey it was. The book itself has so much history that it becomes a whole source of entertainment on itself. This is going to be a very long post, I'll try not to mess it up too bad.
So the book is called One Thousand and One Nights but for the longest time it only had about 300 nights in it. This "core" Nights stories had been circulating apparently since 8th century or so, maybe it’s even older. As time went on, the title served as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, as people began to feel like the content should match with the title, and so scribes from all around the Arab world began to insert stories from other books in an attempt to complete it. This went on for hundred of years, each scribe coming up with their own collection of Nights. Versions by Egyptian scribes have more stories about Egyptian kings and cities for example. Those in Baghdad usually would try to include stories about the Abbasid Caliphate, and so on. By the 18th century the book came to the attention of a guy called Antoine Galland, who translated it from a Syrian manuscript (the oldest, core stories) and made his own selection from Egyptian manuscripts, and even picked up some stories from a Maronite storyteller he met in Paris called Hanna Diab. Interestingly, two of the most famous stories we know, Alladin and Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves are from Diab and are not found in any manuscripts. Galland published his version in 12 volumes from 1704 to 1717 and that became sort of the “canon” version of the work. I’m just giving you the ultra short version of the history behind it really, each surviving manuscript has a whole record and paper trail behind it, you will likely find all about it in the introduction or preface to the book itself. I checked several versions, from Burton’s to the recent Penguin version, and all of them have a lot of pages dedicated to the history of the text.
Now for the stories themselves, as you might expect from a book that took centuries to be compiled without a particular goal other than trying to get enough stories to reach 1001 nights, they’re all over the place in theme, passing, length and literary quality. First thing that surprised me is how many stories have no fantastical elements at all. If you’re like me, the first thing you think about when you think about the Arabian Nights are the Jinns and the Ghouls and the magic lamps (only one), magic swords (there’s none!), magic rings (a couple) and so on. Well, many, many stories don’t have any of that. A lot of them are long comedy sketches. There’s a lot of stories that are simply funny stories. There’s also plenty of wisdom literature type of stories, sayings, short jokes and so on. The deeper you go into the book the clearer you can see the stitching of the scribes picking these stories whatever they could find and inserting it in the book. I went in not expecting the chaos this book is but somehow it actually works on its favor. Once you’re past the Syrian core, you never know what you’re going to get.
Speaking of not knowing what you’re gonna get, let me tell you a little bit about the heroes of the Arabian Nights, because they were the biggest obstacle for me to get used to. These men and succubi are, for the most part, not the type of people you would like to be friends with. To put it bluntly, many of those heroes are complete pieces of shit. They’re not nice, not good, a lot of times not even neutral. A bunch of them are even worse than the old Greek heroes, like Hercules. If you ever read about Hercules, you know we call him a hero not because of how nice of a guy he is. In fact he’s a murderer and a rapist. He’s a hero because he’s a demigod capable of great deeds. Superman is a hero because he’s capable of great deeds, but also he’s the lawful good guy. The upstanding, self-sacrificing Christ figure. The main character in most Nights tales though? They’re awful. Let’s just say their moral compass would lead them to be in prison today. They go out of their way to be cruel to their servants. They kill, berate, maim and rape and don’t think much of it. To illustrate this, let me tell you what one typical prince in the Nights, I think his name is Sayf, Barzad or something else (get used not remembering the names, there are hundreds of characters and the names are all complicated and barely mentioned, you get their names once and the rest of the story he/she is called by profession or rank. The prince, the merchant, the porter and so on.) Anyway, this typical prince character gets really drunk one night, see a female slave walking by and decides to have sex with her. She tries to run away but he overpowers her and when she refuses, he rapes and accidentally kills her. When he sees the blood he sobers up a little bit and realize this succubus is actually the favorite concubine of the Sultan, his father. Upon realising he fucked up big time, he flees the palace and hides in the desert. While in a cave, he laments the fate God gave him. He’s sorry, but not because he’s the cause of a person dying in a very cruel fashion, not because he’s a vicious murderer. No, he’s sorry because he killed a favorite of the Sultan and now he’s on the run. This is not that uncommon. Often you’ll see main protagonists in those tales showing the worst humanity has to offer and many times, they get the happy endings anyways, when there’s one.
No.54902
>>54901I find this fascinating, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The behaviour and morality of a lot of those characters really challenged me on a personal level. I could feel my mind trying to put them into pre-made hero categories or whatever, but they refuse to be classified to my modern standards. I found myself not wanting to follow this awful person around. I’m not talking about these characters being anti-heroes or even villains. They’re not the charming, ultimately redeemable people you see nowadays in fantasy. Once I stopped and just read it for what it is, it became a wild, fascinating read. You never know what those bastards are going to do. They’re like really wild, really cruel teenagers sometimes. You know when you read Tolkien and Tolkien clones and you already know exactly what a character will be? They’re clear as day to you because you and the writer share the same standards on morality most times. You know how an anti-hero reacts, you know how a hero reacts. You know everything about the villain before he’s even there. You probably know the wise old man’s advice before he says it. No here though. The old man might advise the merchant to cheat the Sultan, the wise vizir might advise the Sultan to throw the innocent man down the well to avoid his honor to be tainted. They’re crude, they’re harsh and they’re fascinating. A hero will be all tough and courageous at one time but once he realizes the tide turns against him, he will throw himself onto the ground and cry like a little succubus, pounding on his chest with sorrow. It’s just very different from what you’re used to. Can you even imagine Aragorn pulling his hair and crying like a child by the gates of Mordor? This is the type of stuff you’ll be getting here. A lot of times those characters find themselves going through great adventures, stuff of legend that only heroes go through, but here the guy is just not a hero and he’ll be shitting his pants. It’s not that he wanted any of this, it happened by accident. And this is another interesting aspect of it
They happen to be in the situation they find themselves in by fate and accident. A lot of times the main characters are victims of forces beyond their control, because this is the world they live in, they’re often staunch fatalists. Often you’ll hear them say “There’s no power nor strength except with Allah”, which really is something you say when things are beyond your control. The peoples in the Nights will find themselves in such situations all the time. And I mean ALL the time. Often they’re saved by accident, coincidence or luck, it really gives the full force of pre-determination and fatalism of those stories. If you ever read Lovecraft, you probably have some idea what I’m talking about. In Lovecraft, humanity is nothing but a little, hopeless thing in a very terrible, old, mysterious universe. In the Nights you have a much more profound realization of this. In the Nights, the universe has an agenda, and it’s against all living creatures. You’re powerless. You’re powerless against the thief that kills you. The thief is powerless against the Mamluk soldier, who kills him in his sleep. The Mamluk is powerless against the Sultan who cuts his head off. The Sultan is powerless against the Angel of Death, who comes and takes all his male heirs and himself. They’re all dragged by the hands of fate and there’s nothing they can do but cry, and they will cry. There are so many tears in this book. If I may say so, it’s a much more effective horror than Lovecraft’s, who seems naive by comparison. Lovecraft is an immediate thing, you look at the abomination and go crazy. In the Nights the abomination slowly eats you away and make you watch as it slowly rots everything you love. No wonder they keep throwing themselves at the mercy of God all the time.
Fear is very present. The moments of fear far surpasses the moments of courage, understandably. This is another very interesting aspect of several of those stories. Because the world is beyond your control, because the world and men and demons are cruel, fear is ever present. There’s no defense against it. Several stories you see men trying to avoid a disgraceful event just to see all the meaninglessess of their efforts. It’s in vain. A King is told by geomancers his daughter will be his doom. He builds a palace for her far away, in the middle of the desert. Fate happens and she really is his doom. Another king is told by prophets his son is going to die at an young age by the hands of a man from kingdom such and such. So he builds an underground vault in the middle of an abandoned, forgotten island. The son still dies at an young age by the hands of a man from kingdom such and such. And the guy didn’t wanted to kill him, it was a total accident. An accident written long ago as fate. You know how fate and luck favours the brave in a lot of western stories? Here it often favours no one, and even when it does, the writer reminds you that they had their happy moments but soon came the Angel of Death, “the ender of communities, the destroyer of delights, the builder of tombs”.
The world is beyond your grasp and anything can happen. You spit a seed out of your mouth, it kills the son of a powerful Jinn, who wants revenge. Three old men passing by delights the Jinn with weird tales and let you go. It’s almost fairy tale logic, but not quite. It’s just your death or salvation really is up to fate and you just have to hope it’s not your day yet. Not even devils and demons themselves are beyond this, often they’re victims of these forces pretty much like humans are.
For every aspect that I mentioned here, there will be stories that goes against the trend. There are heroic characters that solves situations, there are men and succubi who hold to their courage and prevail against all odds, etc. Like I said, it’s a lot of stories. Let’s talk a little bit about that. The amount of stories and how badly organized they are. You probably know the Nights are all within a frame narrative. That’s the one character everybody knows. Scheherazade, the wise vizir’s daughter that every night tells a haunting tale to her husband, the king Shahryar. So far so good, but she’s not the only one telling the tales. Often she’s telling a story of a merchant that’s telling a story to someone else. You can already see how this can get very confusing. Sometimes you get Scheherazade telling a story of a merchant telling a story about a king telling a story about a porter, telling a story about his adventures at sea. It’s almost like it’s on purpose. You’ll get lost at some point and it’s a weird feeling to be drowning deep inside all those storytellers and their tales. It gives you an almost physical relief when you manage to reach the other side of it. It’s ocean deep and it’s really interesting.
It will take you a while to get out. The latest translation released by Penguin a few years ago is about 2600 pages long. If you ask me it’s a very worthy read though. You’ll be bored at times, at times you’ll find yourself reading a story that has the same tropes with a story you already read 800 pages ago, but all in all, it’s a very interesting 2600 pages. I vouch for every story. I really learned something with this, I’m not sure exactly what yet, but it was quite an experience. Instead of picking up some Tolkien clone, try this for a change. More or less the same amount of pages. If anything, it will be a very different read. I could go on but I’ll contain myself for when some wiz give this one a try and post about it.
No.54914
>>54901>>54902sounds good wizzy, I've always wanted to read it someday
No.54992
>>54984Thanks tupacwizzie, these are comfy
I hope you are creating a tupac archive to share with us all one day :)
No.55121
I liked it. The chapter on how cancer patients are practically shamed into maintaining an upbeat attitude was the most interesting to me. The embed is a talk by the author.
>Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America
Americans are a "positive" people – cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: This is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive is the key to getting success and prosperity. Or so we are told.
In this utterly original debunking, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the false promises of positive thinking and shows its reach into every corner of American life, from Evangelical megachurches to the medical establishment, and, worst of all, to the business community, where the refusal to consider negative outcomes–like mortgage defaults–contributed directly to the current economic disaster.
With the myth-busting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of positive thinking: personal self-blame and national denial. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best–poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.
No.55122
>>55121Interesting, will check it out. A somewhat similar book I've read a few months ago is "The Happiness Industry" by William Davies. Maybe you already know about it? It's pretty short and accessible.
No.55124
>>55121>worst of all, to the business community, where the refusal to consider negative outcomes–like mortgage defaults–contributed directly to the current economic disasterSo history and economics isn't this writers strong suit I see. Because that ain't what happened and isn't what caused the big crash in 08.
Banks/busness weren't allowed due to government policy to reject people who they knew full well weren't able to pay them back, but went along with it on the assumption that when it blows up that they would get a bail out, which did happen.
And the people who took out those loans just assumed that due to rising housing cost once the debt caught up to them they would be able to sell and make a profit at the expense of the bank, but they guessed really fucking wrong because the housing bubble collapsed before they could cash out and ended up having to file bankruptcy.
All the people involved were rational actors behaving such a way as a direct result of government interference in the market. They incentivized the behavor that lead to the great resection.
It wasn't positive thinking leading people astray.
No.55127
>>55122>"The Happiness Industry" by William DaviesI'll check it out. Thank you, wiz.
You may like this. This article is sort of in keeping with the theme of the book. What a time to be alive! I haven't worked in almost a decade and I still have bad dreams and intrusive thoughts about my old job in corporate America.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/business/remote-work-spiritual-consultants.htmlhttps://archive.is/k9Www No.55132
>>55127This is absurd and gross, but less harmful I believe as anyone can see right through it, for now. Just look at the comments… The more 'subtle' kind of integration of a type of pseudo-spiritual mentality via seemingly harmless practices and thinking is a lot more worrying. It has become par for the course and nobody's questioning it, at best they're making fun of it or requesting that they are toned down a little… things like 'happiness officers', mandatory behavioural interviews, corporate seminars and team building, yoga and meditation courses etc. The modern workplace is a twisted parody of religion. I think it would be worth looking into the history of management (it is weird that a lot of people take it for granted, as if it had always existed) from a philosophical perspective to see how we got to that point.
No.55134
>>55122Has anyone watched it and can recommend? I dunno if i can look upon a groid for a whole talk
No.55135
>>55125Explain the book and give summary
No.55141
>>55121Unsurprising given how feminised western culture has become, what's more surprising is a succubus talking about this but even retards are sometimes helpful.
No.55146
I am thinking about writing a book piece by piece serial style. I know there's subreddits for that but i don't want to get shamed for writing shit content, also it will have wizard/neet themes. what's the best board here to put it on in a thread?
No.55236
>Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century
The author wasn't able to interview Grigori Perelman, but she spoke to nearly all of his closest contacts in the math world, including his former mentor. There aren't a lot of interesting biographical tidbits to be found in the book, since he rarely ever discussed anything besides math with people. The author makes a good case that Perelman is probably autistic or at least has many traits of the disorder. I'm happy to report that nothing in the book challenges our assumption that he is a wizard. Perelman is shown to be a world-class mathematician, but it is not really due to creativity or originality. He is great because of his ability to relentlessly focus on a problem and see it through to the end. This is a solid book, but just know before going in that Perelman will remain a mysterious figure to you even after you've finished reading it. Here are some reading notes.
>"He was never interested in succubi." (30)
>"He was very, you know, eccentric," said Cheeger (a mathematician), citing the [long] nails, the hair, the habit of wearing the same clothes everyday–most notably a brown corduroy jacket–and his holding forth on the virtues of a particular kind of black bread that could only be procured from a Russian store in Brooklyn.
>While he used money and had some appreciation for it, he felt little need and, certainly, no desire for it.
>"At a certain level you could say he lives absolutely by his principles… but he is certainly not entirely open about his motivations, and in particular I believe he's quite an emotional person. And he uses his powerful mind to sort of explain his emotions after the fact."
>[T]he proof of the Poincaré Conjecture will probably aid science greatly in learning the shape and properties of the universe, but…[Perelman] emphatically did not care about the physical shape of the universe or the experience of people who inhabited it; mathematics had given him the liberty to live among abstract objects in his own imagination, which was exactly where this problem had to be solved.
No.55273
Currently reading "Time of the Magicians" an intellectual history/biography of Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Cassirer, and Walter Benjamin. It's a nice light read, that goes into the intellectual and historical context within which these philosophers were working/forming their ideas, and glosses over some of their major ideas. As someone reasonably familiar with the works of Heidegger and Wittgenstein, there is nothing too enlightening about their ideas in there, but I have learnt some of the rudiments of the thoughts of both Benjamin and Cassirer and have been inspired to go directly to these thinkers after I finish the book. I recommend it to anybody interested in 20th century philosophy or intellectual history.
No.55296
>>55294just go to your university's library unikid
No.55298
>>55294You should look for that kind of book in spanish speaking normie social networks, like fb, for there are almost no webpages focused on technical spanish books… or you should buy it; since it costs 16 usd, it's affordable for everyone (Porrúa solds it).
No.55299
>>55296Closed for corona. (As if it would be a risk place)
No.55316
>>54783Thank you, interesting. Will check this out.
No.55317
>>55121>>55122On this theme, I would also recommend Burnout Society. It is a short non-fiction book about burnout, and the process whereby a disciplinary society ("you must") has been replaced by an entrepreneurial society ("I must") to the point where people feel pressured by themselves to burn themselves out to attain perceived normal standards of behaviour and success. It asserts that widespread depression is partly the result of an over-optimistic society which places too much emphasis on positivity.
No.55330
>>55317Interesting thank you. Another "lighter" suggestion (it's not "hard" sociology or anything too serious) I have read is "Going postal" by Mark Ames. To be honest I was upset by how "sympathetic" the author was to some of the killers he speaks of, like David Burke, but it was a fun read nonetheless.
No.55464
>The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)
Really enjoyed this. The material is presented in a clear and charming manner. Astrophysicist Katie Mack explains several possible ways the universe could end–"the Big Crunch, Heat Death, the Big Rip, Vacuum Decay (the one that could happen at any moment!), and the Bounce."
I like that for the most part she doesn't pull her punches in the way that scientists like Richard Dawkins and Sean Carroll tend to do. They will write passsages describing the world that would make Schopenhauer or Cioran jealous and then follow them up jarringly with mushy and insincere platitudes.
Here is one of my favorite passages:
>Vacuum death is special in that it could technically happen at any moment, even if the chances are astronomically low. It also comes with a uniquely extreme, almost gratuitous finality. In 1980, two theorists… calculated that a true vacuum bubble would contain not only a totally different (and lethal) arrangement of particle physics, but also a kind of space that is, by its nature, gravitationally unstable. Once the bubble formed, they explained, everything inside would collapse gravitationally within micro-seconds.
>Then they wrote: "This is disheartening. The possibility that we are living in a false vacuum has never been a cheering one to contemplate. Vacuum decay is the ultimate ecological catastrophe; in a new vacuum there are new constants of nature; after vacuum decay, not only is life as we know it impossible, so is chemistry as we know it. However, one could always draw stoic comfort from the possibility that perhaps in the course of time the new vacuum would sustain, if not life as we know it, at least some structures capable of knowing joy. This possibility has now been eliminated."
No.55465
>>55236Its a shame there isn't more written about him that I could find. I don't trust that dyke succubus.
No.55582
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
>[A] step-by-step history of Theranos, a Silicon Valley startup that became almost mythical, in no small part due to its young, charismatic founder Elizabeth Holmes. In fact, Theranos was mythical for a different reason, because the technological promise it was founded upon—that vital health information could be gleaned from a small drop of blood using handheld devices—was a lie.
Overall this was really good and very engrossing. It's just shy of 300 pages, but I read it in two sittings. Elizabeth Holmes is fascinating and enigmatic and I wonder if she was born a psychopath or if she slowly developed into one as her ambition continually led her to do ruthless things.
I don't have any big complaints. The author injects himself into the story around the last fifty pages, which hurt the flow of the book. And there were a few interesting, sort of politically incorrect aspects to the story the author mentions but then quickly moves on from. For example, the role of the media in propelling Elizabeth Holmes to fame because she fit well into their progressive narrative. Also, there are two brief references that suggest Indians had taken over many key roles and heavily favored their own race when it came to hiring and promotions. Did this affect company culture and decision-making?
No.55599
>The Extended Selfish Gene
I don't know if I'm going to finish this, because I have to return it soon, but so far this has been interesting. It does feel a bit dated here and there, in content and style, but it's still very accessible. This was his first book, so it's not as well-written as his later ones that I've read.
This is one of my favorite passages so far:
>I have been a bit negative about memes, but they have their cheerful side as well. When we die there are two things we can leave behind us: genes and memes. We were built as gene machines, created to pass on our genes.
>But that aspect of us will be forgotten in three generations. Your child, even your grandchild, may bear a reasonable resemblance to you, perhaps in facial features, in a talent for music, in the colour of her hair. But as each generation passes, the contribution of your genes is halved. It does not take long to reach negligible proportions. Our genes may be immortal but the collection of genes that is any one of us is bound to crumble away. Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of William the Conqueror. Yet it is quite probable that she bears not a single one of the old king's genes. We should not seek immortality in reproduction.
>But if you contribute to the world's culture, if you have a good idea, compose a tune, invent a spark plug, write a poem, it may live on, intact, long after your genes have dissolved in the common pool. Socrates may or may not have a gene or two alive in the world today, as G.C. Williams has remarked, but who cares? The meme-complexes of Socrates, Leonardo, Copernicus and Marconi are still going strong. (258-259)
No.55611
The Three Body/Dark Forest trilogy. Shit's good.
No.55648
>>54783I read this after your post. Sad to see how Poe treated others really.
No.55649
>>55612I loved this book when I first read it. Found it so funny.
No.55653
"As I got more used to having a car of my own to drive, I frequently went on what I called “night
drives” around my mother’s neighborhood. They almost replaced the long walks I used to take in the
afternoons. Staying in my room all the time only increased my depression. It was suffocating. To ease
this suffocation, I frequently got in my car at night, turned on the radio, and went on a drive with no
particular destination. The song “Two Is Better Than One” always played on the radio when I went on
those night drives. It made me feel sad, though it was soothing at the same time. That song will always
remind me of the loneliness I felt during those experiences."
-Eliot Rodger "My twisted world"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRGeQvA4Vvw No.55659
>>55653Thank you for posting this! It's one of many examples of Elliot's inherent humanity which are entirely overlooked by normals. I'm also reminded of the video he made while driving with the song Higher Love by Steve Winwood playing in the background. Unfortunately it has since been removed from YouTube.
No.55660
>>55659this song also reminds me a lot of him.
lyrics:
Took my father's rifle
And shot up my school
He said he never saw it coming
But everyone knew
And now all those kids are dead
And I'm no longer here
But in the grand scheme of things
It was just fine
It was just fine
No.55884
>Prisoner's Dilemma: John von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb As far as I can tell there isn't a standard John von Neumann biography in English, so I'm working my way through a few books like this one. About a third of this is dedicated to von Neumann's life. The other two-thirds are about game theory and nuclear weapons. The author says most of the work that made von Neumann a living legend is so specialized that it cannot even be summarized for layman in the way that (for example) Gödel's and Einstein's can. Overall I enjoyed this. Here is a link to Life magazine (February 25, 1957), which did a wonderful and informative obituary of von Neumann.
>Passing of a Great Mind (p. 89)https://books.google.com/books?id=rEEEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Life+magazine+feb+25+1957And here are a few passages from the book:
>"Einstein's mind was slow and contemplative. He would think about something for years. Johnny's mind was just the opposite. It was lightning quick–stunningly fast. If you gave him a problem he either solved it right away or not at all. If he had to think about it a long time and it bored him, his interest would begin to wander. And Johnny's mind would not shine unless whatever he was working on had his undivided attention."
>An element common to many of the von Neumann anecdotes is the portrayal of him as not merely brilliant but as capable of solving in a flash problems that other bright and educated people cannot solve with long drudgery.
>Game theory was the brainchild of a cynic. Some commentators have suggested that von Neumann's personal cynicism influenced the theory. It is conceivable that von Neumann's personal cynicism led him to explore game theory rather than something else. It is wrong to think that von Neumann concocted game theory as a "scientific" basis for his personal beliefs or politics.
>Von Neumann's sense of hopelessness extended to the human race itself. He saw technology putting ever more power in the hands of individuals. The technology of war was an example, but by no means the only one.
>Edward Teller on von Neumann's last days: "I think that von Neumann suffered more when his mind would no longer function than I have ever seen any human being suffer."
>[While dying of cancer], Von Neumann suffered profound depression. At times he could discourse on mathematics or history, or remember conversations word for word from years ago; other times he would not even recognize family or friends… "Then came complete psychological breakdown; panic; screams of uncontrollable terror every night." No.55912
>>55884Can you summarise more passages from the book? I found them comfy, thanks
No.55923
>>55912>When the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study opened in 1933, von Neumann was named a professor… The institute was headquartered in an unimpressive building often compared to a Howard Johnson's. Most new memebers did, and still do, go through a "shock of recognition" phase in which they find that the most ordinary-looking of people are famous (to professionals) figures. "We had to pinch ourselves at times to be certain that it was all real," mathematician Raoul Bott recalled… "Imagine a place where the suspicious-looking vagrant whom the police try to arrest turns out to be Jean Leray; where around eleven each morning it is quite easy to chat with Einstein about weighty subjects such as the weather or the tardiness of mail delivery. Where the friendly but very silent neighbor in the midst of a raucous group of young lunchers turns out to be P.A.M. Dirac, and so on and so on."
>[Von Neumann's wife] Klara told Good Housekeeping: "He has a very weak idea of the geography of the house, by the way. Once, in Princeton, I sent him to get me a glass of water; he came back after a while wanting to know where the glasses were kept. We had been in the house only seventeen years… He has never touched a hammer or a screwdriver; he does nothing around the house. Except for fixing zippers. He can fix broken zippers with a touch."
>As the end neared, von Neumann converted to Catholicism, this time sincerely. "One morning he said to Klara, 'I want to see a priest.' He added, 'But he will have to be a special kind of priest, one that will be intellectually compatible.'" A Benedictine monk, Father Anselm Strittmatter, was found to preside over his conversion and baptism. Von Neumann saw him regularly the last year of his life.
>Of this deathbed conversion, Morgenstern told Heims, "He was of course completely agnostic all his life, and then he suddenly turned Catholic–it doesn't agree with anything whatsoever in his attitude, outlook and thinking when he was healthy." The conversion did not give von Neumann much peace. Until the end he remained terrified of death, Strittmatter recalled. No.55988
recommendations for comfy, easy books? i'm just getting back into reading <|:^)
No.56000
>>55988The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
No.56001
>>56000better not to read at all than to read such trash
No.56002
>>56001It was pretentious garbage when I read it, but at least the atmosphere was pretty nice(until the last pages).
No.56003
>>56000The Alchemist is feel good self help book disguised as a novel. Might as well read a real self help book while you're at it.
No.56005
>>56000Listened to the audio book version of it.
Was a fun ride, very comfy imagery throughout.
While I don't agree with the philosophical message underpinning the work nor it's conclusion, I highly recommend the book for it's wonderful and vivid imagery and excellent use of symbolism when setting scenes.
It is just overall a really enjoyable read/listen.
No.56030
>Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius
I liked this, but it was a bit dry, which is a real shame. I appreciated that the author based the book mostly on primary sources instead of just doing a synthesis of the many previous Tesla biographies. He grants that Tesla was celibate throughout most of his life, but he thinks that Tesla may not have been a virgin. He never shows concrete proof that Tesla wasn't a wizard; in fact, you get the impression the norman author just couldn't wrap his head around the wizard mindset. With that said, Tesla definitely did have very close platonic relationships with succubi. Would Tesla have advocated for the creation of a /witch/ board? Who can say for sure, but I think it likely. It was sad to read how Tesla was mistreated and robbed by ruthless scientists and businessmen, but you also see how the highly eccentric Tesla could be his own worst enemy at times.
Here are some passages I liked.
>Part of the drama of his life is that he was a man who not only revolutionized the generation and distribution of electrical energy and made basic contributions to many other facets of modern technology but that he did so without the specific aim of amassing great wealth. This altruism, which is often criticized as "poor business sense," imposed a monetary limitation on future experimentation to test his new innovations. Who knows what advances might have been possible if he had been able to validate them through rigorous experimentation.
>… Tesla began to have what today are known as out-of-body experiences, although he never ascribed anything mystical or paranormal to them. "Blurred [at first]… I would [see]… on my journeys… new places, cities and countries–live there, meet people and make friendships… and however unbelievable, it is a fact that they were just as dear to me as those in actual life and not a bit less intense in their manifestations."
>He had come to see the human body in its essence as a machine, one that could be efficiently regulated by the stern application of willpower, and so Tesla exerted his will to reduce his sleeping to a minimum and his eating to the bare necessities. Although over six feet tall, he kept his weight to a scant and unvarying 142 pounds. The strain was beginning to show, but the Serb was on a quest; his goal was nothing short of saving the whole of humanity through the application of his fertile brain.
>[From the Niagara Gazette, July 1896.] In fact, he has given as his opinion that inventors should never marry. Day and night he is working away at some deep problems that fascinate him, and anyone that talks with him for only a few minutes will get the impression that science is his only mistress and that he cares more for her than for money and fame.
>[1919] Now, really alone, the wizard continued his slide from public scrutiny. Copied, mocked at, and ultimately abandoned by the world he helped create. Tesla tried to keep his life in perspective and contain his anger by doing his best to transform it; but over time the irony of it all took its toll and caused an already eccentric individual to exaggerate already strange ways. Tesla would become more fanatical about cleanliness and spend more time walking the streets after hours, circling his block three times before entering the St. Regis and avoiding stepping on cracks on the sidewalks.
No.56046
>>56031>>56030>he thinks he may have been not a virginI remember reading that Tesla, in spite of being very gregarious, had severe inhibitions against physical contact of any kind. Correct me if I'm wrong. That would preclude sexual contact, right? So, confirmed wizard by the technical definition, right?
No.56047
>>56031
>succubus will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress.
with their progressive-ness
No.56055
>>56031
>Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world.
This is quite terrifying. I would like to read a book on this issue if anyone is aware of one.
Thank you for the Tesla book recommendation.
No.56057
>>56055I enjoyed this. There are also several good interviews with the author on YouTube.
>The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our EyesCan we trust our senses to tell us the truth?
Challenging leading scientific theories that claim that our senses report back objective reality, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally. How can it be possible that the world we see is not objective reality? And how can our senses be useful if they are not communicating the truth? Hoffman grapples with these questions and more over the course of this eye-opening work.
Ever since Homo sapiens has walked the earth, natural selection has favored perception that hides the truth and guides us toward useful action, shaping our senses to keep us alive and reproducing. We observe a speeding car and do not walk in front of it; we see mold growing on bread and do not eat it. These impressions, though, are not objective reality. Just like a file icon on a desktop screen is a useful symbol rather than a genuine representation of what a computer file looks like, the objects we see every day are merely icons, allowing us to navigate the world safely and with ease.
The real-world implications for this discovery are huge. From examining why fashion designers create clothes that give the illusion of a more “attractive” body shape to studying how companies use color to elicit specific emotions in consumers, and even dismantling the very notion that spacetime is objective reality, The Case Against Reality dares us to question everything we thought we knew about the world we see.
No.56062
Jens Peter Jacobsen - Niels Lyhne
It was all right, I guess. It is a danish book about a guy who takes atheism a little way too seriously and who is a failed artist. Also, it portrays succubi as worthless creatures who only care about belonging to society and can't break free from its values completely which is true. There are kind of few dialogues in this, most of this book consists of describing the emotions, thoughts of characters and nature/the environment. 6/10.
Clive Barker - The Hellbound Heart
This was too raw, too rushed in my opinion. I know it was originally part of some anthology but still, it could have been longer and more detailed because the atmosphere was interesting. It feels like a screenplay for a movie instead of an actual literary work. 6/10. Above average horror.
No.56067
>>55988Hobbit and LOTR are comfy
No.56073
I just finished reading Bradbury's "the Haunting of the new", prehaps better named "the haunting of the roastie". Quite funny, as I can't find text online I shall have to transcribe it:
(whore explaining why she can't live in a million dollar mansion she just rebuilt from scratch after a single night)
"there are a thousand men in me, charles. They thrust and buried themselves there. When they withdrew, Charles, I thought they withdrew. But no, no, now I'm sure there is not a single one whose barb, whose lovely poisoned thorn is not caught in my flesh, one place or another. God, God how I loved their barbs, their thorns. God how I loved to be pinned and bruised. I thought the medicines of time and travel might heal the grip marks. But now I know I am all fingerprints. There lives no inch of my flesh, chuck (sic), is not FBI systems of palm print and egyptian worl of finger stigmata. I have been stabbed by a thousand lovely boys and thought I did not bleed but god I do bleed now. I have bled all over this house. And my friends who denied guilt and conscience, in a great subway heave of flesh have trammeled through here and jounced and mouthed each other and sweat upon floors and buckshot the walls with their agonies and descents each from the other's crosses. The house has been stormed by assassins, charlie, each seeking to kill the other's loneliness with their short swords, no one finding surcease, only a momentary groaning out of relaxation. I do not think there has been a happy person in this house, charles, I see that now"
If you know about microchimerism the whole thing is ever better. succubi are absolutely disgusting
No.56075
>The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius
This is a first-rate biography. The author is a fellow physicist and does a great job describing Dirac's many achievements. I was interested to learn that Dirac was a wizard until some time in his thirties when he married Eugene Wigner's feisty sister. His lack of interest and experience with succubi as a young man is mentioned a half dozen times. And one of the Swedish newspaper headlines when he was there to receive his Nobel Prize (which he considered turning down because he hated attention) even read, "Thirty-One-Year-Old Professor Never Looks at succubi." The author also argues convincingly that Dirac was probably autistic. I really loved all of the anecdotes about his otherworldly strangeness that can be found throughout the book. Dirac knew everyone in the physics world, so this book has an exciting cast of characters that includes Eddington, Rutherford, Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, Pauli, and Feynman. Here are some passages I liked:
>One of the most revered–and strangest–figures in the history of science… Dirac was extrememly hard to read. Usually, he looked blank or wore a thin smile, whether he was making headway with one of his scientific problems or depressed by his lack of progress. He seemed to live in a world in which there was no need to emote, no need to share experiences–it was as if he believed he was put on Earth just to do science.
>Even by the standards of theoretical physics he was profoundly eccentric, a retiring figure, happiest when he was alone or listening in silence.
>Whether being praised or condemned, he looked straight ahead with his 1,000 yard stare, his entire bearing powerfully radiating his unwillingness to speak or even to be approached… Einstein [said], "I have trouble with Dirac. This balancing on the dizzying path between genius and madness is awful."
>"We can hardly conceive of anyone else having thought of [the Dirac equation]. It shows the peculiar power of the sort of intuitive genius which he has possessed more than perhaps any of the other scientists of the period."
>… Dirac's papers appeared to be impenetrable to all but the [most] mathematically adept. One reason why Dirac's approach was so puzzling was that he was an unusual hybrid–part theoretical physicist, part pure mathematician, part engineer. He had the physicist's passion to know the underlying laws of nature, the mathematician's love of abstraction for its own sake and the engineer's insistence that the theories give useful results.
>Freeman Dyson: "The great papers of the other quantum pioneers were more ragged, less perfectly formed than Dirac's. His great discoveries were like exquisitely carved marble statues falling out of the sky, one after another. He seemed to be able to conjure laws of nature from pure thought–it was this purity that made him unique."
No.56076
>>56075Oh shit Dirac like Dirac delta function!
Holy shit I did integrals with that function two weeks ago in math class.
No.56248
What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity…
No.56253
>>56075Damn it's reassuring to learn there are some knowledgeable wizards
No.56265
>>55612This was also one of the earliest book i read on my own outside of school. I own a hard copy of this and im kind of proud of it, since they are rare and hard to get by more or less. I need to reread it.
>>54506First and only audiobook i've listend to, it was 6 hours long and took me about 2 days to finish it. I think it was pretty good but nothing outstanding.
No.56271
>Giving Up: The Last Days of Sylvia Plath
I have a soft spot for Plath because she killed herself, but I haven't found most of the work by and about her that I've seen to be very interesting. This short book (73 pages) was okay, but it's essentially just a padded essay. I might read one more book about her, the similarly titled "The Last Days of Sylvia Plath." Here are some passages I liked:
>I met her after she and her husband, Ted Hughes [the famous English poet], had parted. We quickly became friends but only for the last few months of her life. She was lonely, almost friendless as well as husbandless. The flattering courtiers had departed with the king.
>She had not expected or wanted to be saved at the last moment from self-inflicted death as she had been once before. According to Mr Goodchild–a police officer attached to the cornoner's office, who personally brought me the autopsy report on Sylvia years later when I requested it–she had thrust her head far into the gas oven. "She had really meant to die," said Mr Goodchild. She'd blocked the cracks at the bottom of the doors to the landing and the sitting room, turned all the gas taps full on, neatly folded a kitchen cloth and placed it on the floor of the oven, and laid her cheek on it… When Assia Wevill [the succubus Hughes left Plath for] killed herself, she also killed her daughter Shura, Hughes' child. Sylvia almost certainly intended to hurt Hughes with her desperate death, but when the moment came she did not commit murder. Assia did.
>Fate was a big theme with both Hughes and Sylvia. I knew they were fascinated by occultism. A witch lived near them in Devon, Sylvia assured me. She and Hughes used a planchette to receive messages from the spirit world. Hughes believed he had mystical foresight, and even a degree of personal command over the future. At first I'd thought she regarded all this as something of a joke, but came to realize she was serious. Both of them believed that doing violence to reason released intuitive creativeness.
No.56273
>>562712 many tragedies for me
No.56284
>>54504 (OP)
Natsume Soseki, Kokoro. Spoilers.
Though I had resolved to live as if I were dead, my heart would at times respond to the activity of the outside world, and seem almost to dance with pent-up energy. But as soon as I tried to break my way through the cloud that surrounded me, a frighteningly powerful force would rush upon me from I know not where, and grip my heart tight, until I could not move. A voice would say to me: “You have no right to do anything. Stay where you are.” Whatever desire I might have had for action would suddenly leave me. After a moment, the desire would come back, and I would once more try to break through. Again, I would be restrained. In fury and grief, I would cry out: “Why do you stop me?” With a cruel laugh, the voice would answer: “You know very well why.” Then I would bow in hopeless surrender.Please understand that though I might have seemed to you to be leading an uncomplicated, humdrum life, there was a painful and unending struggle going on inside me. My wife must have felt very impatient with me sometimes: but you have no idea how much more impatient I was with myself. When at last it became clear to me that I could not remain still in the prison much longer, and that I could not escape from it, I was forced to the conclusion that the easiest thing I could do would be to commit suicide. You may wonder why I reached such a conclusion. But you see, that strange and terrible force which gripped my heart whenever I wished to make my escape in life, seemed at least to leave me free to find escape in death. If I wished to move at all, then I could move only towards my own end.Had to repost twice. Hate phoneposting.
No.56285
been reading history books but it's sometimes hard to get through because I'm getting mogged by the characters it's about, mostly them not throwing their youth away and stuff like that.
any advice on getting past that?
No.56294
>>56284Thanks, have been meaning to read this.
No.56296
>The New Koreans: The Story of a Nation
Solid book on Korean history and culture written by an English journalist and consultant who's lived there for decades. It's not as penetrating and incisive as other books by outsiders trying to explain a foreign country like Roland Huntford's "The New Totalitarians" (about Sweden) or Alex Kerr's "Dogs and Demons: Tales From the Dark Side of Modern Japan," but it is more wide-ranging, filled with more detail, and just plain more fun to read. There are a lot of amusing anecdotes. For example, many religious groups frequently exaggerate their membership numbers when they report to the government "so [they'll] take us more seriously." Thus the percentage of religious South Koreans in 2002 was considered to be 170%.
Here are some passages I liked, but I don't know how interesting they will be without more context.
>The shamans believed that negative emotion needed to be assuaged because, unchecked, it could cause remote damage… The unhappy dead could influence nature and bring calamities down upon the living… Such ideas live on. After a Korean airliner was shot down in 1983 by a Soviet jet the spirits of two single female flight attendants were married to two single male passengers in ceremonies arranged by the bereaved parents to ease their imagined frustrations.
>In Korea, details disappear, and memories are only triggered by anecdotes… [Near the DMZ, late 1960s] "In those days, the North Koreans were trying to create a Vietnamese-style uprising. They sent spies and saboteurs. At dusk every day you could hear rifle fire and a couple of times a week South Korean paratroopers were dropped and shore batteries would start up. Bodies of infiltrators would be displayed out in front of local police stations to show what happends to North Koreans and collaborators in the villages. If they caught one alive, they'd make the same point by hanging him from a chopper and flying over the villages. But you don't hear these stories. You only hear about the big ones, the few occasions when there was a large group of guerillas. But these incidents were constant. There was a state of semi-war for years, but it's never mentioned. I don't mean officially. I mean in conversation with the people who experienced it. Why? Because there's nothing to trigger the memory." The point is that in the Western mind, such memories would be classified in a way to give them relevance, and accessibility, so that they would be recalled more readily.
>Park Chung-hee drove his tanks into Seoul at 5am on May 16, 1961, and seized power unopposed. The prime minister hid in a convent. Citizens adjusted to the new reality, but not without nervousness. The uncertainty was perhaps best characterized by a joke that circulated at the time. It tells of a soldier on guard duty on the Han River bridge on the day of the coup. He was–typically–asleep in his hut in the early hours of the morning, when General Park's convoy rumbled onto the bridge. Awakened rudely by mutineers who burst into his hut, the guard paused and made an instant assessment of his predicament. He thrust his arms into the air and shouted in welcome, "Inmin-guk Mansei!" (Long live the North Korean People's Army).
>There is in fact a contemporary form of dropping out, of young men in particular. They are referred to as the "sampo" (three give ups) generation. They give up on love, marriage, and children… [The] sampos pull the rip cord in a school system that drives all to compete. They sponge off their parents and exist in the virtual world of computer games.
No.56299
>>56296I think I watched a documentary on national geographic in which the author itself participated in, it was mainly focused on north Korea, and its political regime, social life of its citizens and other aspects. The good thing about it, it was not some sort of propaganda like the ones we used to watch from project nightfall and other stupid people like them. The journalist even contacted a teenager for 3 days I think, as she was his guide, and they were talking about their social life, and quickly the conversation changed into politics, of course the poor teenager was feeling intimitated but she knew what to say perfectly. It was a good documentary, and it is a perfect way to help change one's opinion about North Korea.
If we are not talking about the same journalist please refer it to me, sometimes I make confusions between names
No.56313
anyone got the pdf of blood meridian
No.56462
This was bold and engaging and troubling. I'm far from convinced that they're right on all counts, but I'm certainly looking forward to finding and reading more material on the subject.
>At Our Wits' End: Why We're Becoming Less Intelligent and What it Means for the Future
We are becoming less intelligent. This is the shocking yet fascinating message of At Our Wits' End. The authors take us on a journey through the growing body of evidence that we are significantly less intelligent now than we were a hundred years ago. The research proving this is, at once, profoundly thought-provoking, highly controversial, and it’s currently only read by academics. But the authors are passionate that it cannot remain ensconced in the ivory tower any longer. With At Our Wits’ End, they present the first ever popular scientific book on this crucially important issue.
They prove that intelligence ― which is strongly genetic ― was increasing up until the breakthrough of the Industrial Revolution, because we were subject to the rigors of Darwinian Selection, meaning that lots of surviving children was the preserve of the cleverest. But since then, they show, intelligence has gone into rapid decline, because large families are increasingly the preserve of the least intelligent. The book explores how this change has occurred and, crucially, what its consequences will be for the future. Can we find a way of reversing the decline of our IQ? Or will we witness the collapse of civilization and the rise of a new Dark Age?
No.56463
>>56462Man I really don't want to read something as disheartening as that.
No.56464
>>56462Isn't this what they discussed in Idiocracy?
No.56577
>The International Handbook on Innovation is the most comprehensive and authoritative account available of what innovation is, how it is measured, how it is developed, how it is managed, and how it affects individuals, companies, societies, and the world as a whole.
I came across this wizardly part in one of the papers included in this book called "Exceptional Creativity Across the Life Span: The Emergence and Manifestation of Creative Genius."
>[A] harmful intrusion [to realizing creative potential] is having a family life. Francis Bacon put the problem this way: "He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprise, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which, both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public."
>In support of this observation, Havelock Ellis noted from his scrutiny of British geniuses that there was a "greater tendency to celibacy among persons of ability than among the ordinary population." Not counting priests, the rate was nearly 1 out of 5. Another investigation into the lives of a more elite sample of historic figures found that 55% never married. Marriage often tends to abbreviate or depress the creative career, an adverse consequence that may mostly result from the cares and responsibilities imposed by parenting children.
No.56609
>>56603Can't tell you about astrophysics, but if you want texts I've read as good as Alberts in biology I would suggest Kandel for neuroscience, Guyton for physiology, Robbins for pathology, and Abbas for immunology.
No.56657
>>56603Astronomy by Jeffrey Bennett
No.56662
Are there any books about wizards? Not the spell casting kind necessarily, but the kind wizchan is meant for.
No.56663
>>56609Thanks for the recs, they seem oriented towards medicine, ut neural science seems interesting.
>>56657Thanks, he has one on astrobiology as well.
No.56664
>>56662"Too loud a loneliness" and "The man who sleeps" are the closest ones I know
No.56667
>>56662' A Confederacy of Dunces ' and like the guy above me said, ' The Man Who Sleeps ' ( un homme qui dort )
No.56690
>>56662I recommend How To Be Alone Forever by Anonymous (it's free, and mentions wizchan)
No.56691
>>56690I enjoyed this as well. I think there's a pdf of it in the previous reading thread.
No.56697
>>56667>A Confederacy of Duncesthe main character basically has a wife. It is hard finding literature that has a male lead who isn't married or fawning over some succubus. I'd recommend Neon Bible instead, that main character is closer to a wizard.
No.56706
>>56705Yeah. Interesting as a historical work but not as a philosophical one. Heisman wasn't well-read in philosophy, particularly French philosophy. Still a landmark book as laical as it is. He misuses Darwin and Marx to such an unbelievable degree, but that's not important since he still has coherent ideas within that misreading. I wish Heisman took another 10 years to expose himself to Nick Land, Badiou, Laruelle. I appreciate his readings of Hegel and Heidegger and think he does some very interesting things with them in line with the online philosophical zeitgeist of the late 2000's: the revived Atheism debate (see Daniel Dennett; Brassier's Nihil Unbound), the rise of SJW's and it's opposition in the Dark Enlightenment which Moldbug/Land were crafting around the same time (which the book is a masterpiece for describing historically), and discussions on posthumanism which are only beginning.
Heisman abuses everyone he reads: Hegel, Darwin, Goedel, even Nietzsche (Heisman never touched Deleuze or Klossowski). Very interesting book, but spend a few months reading Deleuze or even Hegel himself and you'll see that Heisman is ultimately a shallow thinker, yet so dedicated to "truth" that he is important. Maybe like Gorgias. As far as his ethics go there's a lot to say there. I found the ending to be beautiful and solemn.
No.56709
>>56664>>56667>>56690 I like A Confederacy of Dunces, but the guy has a gf. Thanks for the recs though.
I'm reading through Sweetland by Michael Crummey. The guy is a 70 year old virgin
No.56710
>>56709Nevermind.
>Main character starts segment about how he's technically a virgin>Gets a BJNever ruined the book, but still
No.56711
>>56705I read a few hundread pages I was finding his thoughts about the psycho-social-evolution of jews and how it has its roots and is expressed ideas ineresting but got a little bored of it.
>obama the super niggerDid this guy chan at all? lol that is the name of a chapter in his book.
I think this mans life is a work of art and speaks more about his suicide than his book could despite making explicit points as to why he was doing it. Namely he decided via reason life is truly without meaning and death the best option I think he highlights how we ought to beware of the limitations of our cognitive faculties.
No.56779
This was a bit dry at times but good and filled with many fascinating details and anecdotes. I stopped reading books by defectors years ago, because it's hard to figure out whether they're being straight with you. But I came across her on YouTube and decided to give her a chance. I haven't researched her very much but she seems honest and sincere. I was especially moved by how hard it is for some defectors to adjust to life in South Korea. Both her mother and brother even came close to returning to North Korea. Her mother was a fairly well off and prominent member of her community in NK, but in the South she was a maid at a love hotel. She also had to watch her daughter marry a White guy from Wisconsin. The part where the author describes introducing her Yankee jackal boyfriend to her family was sad but also funny. "My mother said only one thing, muttering to herself: 'I've lived too long. I'm too old for this shit.'"
>The succubus with Seven Names: Escape from North Korea
An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one succubus’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.
As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”?
Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family.
No.56780
How do I make myself focus on books? Whenever I try to read a book I get bored and uninterested and want to quit, the last time I finished a book was in high school. There's so many things I want to learn but I just can't focus.
No.56781
>>56780read a book you enjoy and also learn how to do away with needing distractions for a bit.
No.56784
>>56779that blurb is an instant turnoff.
No.56800
>>54901Reminds me of a lot of Chinese webnovel protagonists. A lot of them are awful people, but I'll be damned if I'm not surprised about what they do next. Murdering thousands of people because someone they're related to angered them is a common trope in CN.
No.56827
>>54901The difference between life and death can be as small as a sliver of hair. You don't know if the man at your front door is a sorcerer pretending to be an uncle or a lover pretending to be a sorcerer. A simple favor can save you from a literal succubus. Like you said,
The version that I read was unfortunately abridged to around 1000 pages including the footnotes, I didn't know the full unabridged version is so long. The version I read was translated by Sir Richard F. Burton and he goes over why he did that in the beginning. He mentions that a lot of the other translations (up to some point in the 1800's when he wrote it) were inaccurate or incomplete. Burton lived quite an adventurous life, and you can see that in his extensive footnotes. They contain translation notes, like explaining that some word means something in Arabic, and vulgarized to something else in Egyptian, you might see a "compare with the french x". You can see this a lot in the names of people, who are sometimes named after different things. Sometimes he will explain the way necromancy worked in the old middle east or the various horse breeds in the Middle East and their superiority. He might say in a footnote about sandstorms how its true, and he once was in a big one and it can get pretty dangerous, or that Cairoians are amiable fellows or that they make a delicious soup. He might spend time bashing the other translators Lane et al. You will see a footnote if its even remotely related to something he remembers, or citing Galland in its original French. I found the footnotes as interesting as the stories themselves! In the beginning I thought Burton quite wizardly, but throughout the story he comes across spoiled, well he was an aristocrat after all. Around the beginning of the story the writing was very plain and only listed the plot. I think as it went on, a lot more descriptions and tones were added. Another translation which was mentioned was by Galland, a French writer. Apparently, he changed a lot of things that happened and glossied it up for sensitive European readers. They talk about the inevitability of death a lot, "the sunderer of societies and destroyer of worlds", how it is inevitable and happens even to the greatest kings, in one story the father told his son three things, something about work, something about succubi, and to love death when it comes. Interestingly, some of the stories are based in China, which I guess is their faraway land. I don't think there are any stories involving Europe.
No.56833
I was thinking of reading The Fountainhead, is it worth wizzies?
No.56834
>>56833It reminds me of the type of novel I would write if I ever tried. Nonfiction philosophical manifesto thinly veiled in the prose speeches of the 1-dimensional mouthpiece characters.
No.56836
>>54504Just finished The Stranger by Albert Camus. It was a very comfy read, the main character's sense of detachment from the world is somewhat relatable.
No.56840
>>56800>>56827Thanks for responding guys, I appreciate it.
Yeah Galland and Burton are probably the most famous translations out there. The recent ones however are benefited by decades of research on the several manuscripts. I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes however, I never read them side by side.
Your responses gave me an intense desire to sink into some old books again but I decided to learn a second language before dying and it's been months since I read any literature. In fact the Nights was the last one.
>I don't think there are any stories involving Europe.If you consider many Mamluks were from the Balkans and Greece, there are many characters that are in fact Europeans, but you're right, I don't think there are stories taking place in Europe, at least I don't remember any.
No.56847
>>56840what language do you want to learn wizzie?
No.56850
>>56847Italian.
It's easier than I thought actually, lots of similar words. I don't think it will take me more than 2 years to be able to read even the old stuff.
I'm part Italian if anyone wonders why I picked that particular language, but there's lots of writers I want to read like Boccaccio, Straparola and Basile.
No.56851
>>56850>BoccaccioHe wrote in Tuscan dialect and latin, for example the book "The Decamaron" was written in Latin, but best of luck to you wizzie!
No.56852
>>56851Thanks, I'm doing pretty well, I think, I hope.
No.56982
>>56705His argument early on (I only finished a couple of chapters) about the human bias against death being a form of discrimination similar to that expressed by humans towards animals, and so on, to be very interesting.
No.57240
I tried to attach Georges Perec "A Man Asleep" with my last post but it wouldn't accept it. If you know "Un Homme Qui Dort" from the movie rec thread it's the book that's based on.
Georges Perec and Michel Houellebecq write some good stuff. I'm moving on from France with my next post haha. Oh and Houellebecq leans into some crabby territory at times fair warning alright i'm off hope you lads enjoy
No.57241
>>57239ATTENTION:
Wizzies read heights of despair it is a fantastic book not dry at all and for a translation beyond worth reading.
OP I never got into his other works despite making my way mostly through a few of them but none of them gripped me like Heights of despair.
No.57246
I'm back!
Mitchell Heisman - Suicide Note
Having decided to take his own life he then proceeded to write this 2,000-plus page bruiser about well fuck… everything! This is a fascinating book.
Qaddafi's Green Book
Today I will remind them… Libya was a NEET paradise free from the grip of Zionism, BIG OIL, and people were largely happy. So of course (((we))) had to kill him. LOL. NEET 4 life yo!!!
David Benatar - Better to not have Been
Antinatalism by the university professor. Some love it but idk Cioran was the best. This is still a solid book worth a read but is more like an introduction to AN for guys like us idk…
WELL THAT'S IT
>>57241Yeah man I couldn't put it down read the whole thing in 2 sittings. It is a masterpiece. I liked his other books but they were not as good as this
No.57251
>>57250She mentions she visited websotes with more open freedom of speech and I did see some phrases she used maybe it was meme words that led me to thinking she did actually obviously use chans.
I may be wrong but would be surprised if so.
I like her writing style she makes some flawed arguments it shows that her knowledge on mental health is lacking compared to thoseo f us that self study it etc but very nice book I got someone reading it now.
Sucks she left the antinatal scene but what more can be said I am working on my own book of the same nature that is an expansion and critique of the texts available.
No.57252
>>57251Nice, if you finished the book gives us a link (buy or free). I have some amazon coupon leftover money,nice to spend it on a fellow wizzie.
No.57253
>>57252Still working on what to write got an intial outline and some stuff written but hardly anything the thing is this.
You know Heights of despair? I want to write a book that is both using prose to illustrate the ideas and also have dry analytical philosophical arguments showing reasoning as well.
I really hated the way David Benetar wrote his books and felt it gave the philosophy a bad look.
I also want to explore the ideas and reality of instituting antinatalism political and the outcomes and why I feel it will fail etc
Thanks wizzie I should really quit shitposting and get back to writing and thinking!!
No.57254
>>57250That guy is ccposter. That's why he calls that female author a witchie. He was given carte blanche by the mods and now is saying females can be wizards and are more wizardly than men, he also wants females posting on wizchan. He's a drugaddict nutcase who came from crystal cafe and suffers from gender dysphoria and is among other things obsessed with getting an online friend so he can experience platonic love and give emotional support.
No.57255
>>57254Sorry to disappoint you but please do not involve myself in any of your drama I am unsure who that person you mentioned is and can only assume they are some discord user from the abyss. Lets try keep drama off the board we are men or at least I thought we were not teens here acting like succubus having cat fights.
No.57256
>>57255>we are menWhy are you calling that author a witchie, when she isn't even a virgin and is the exact opposite of one as that poster has told you
>>57250 Are you calling whores virgins now?
You make up bullshit and lie as usual, even when giving your opinion of a book. Literally fuck off, ccposter.
No.57260
>>57258> it is good to see how our arguments against life are presented to a wider audience.it does a good job of this I admit but still I feel that Sarah Perry every cradle is a grave would be better because it does not give off the air of a serious philosophical text as benetars does.
>His little picture that was a chart with the 4 squares saying life is good vs life is bad This whole entire thing is BTFO by realizing the very real fact that subjectivity trumps objectivity and what something is does not matter if it personally appears otherwise which is obviously how many people view life.
The other reason I really disliked his writing was that he does not argue against himself and show where his points can withstand criticism and when he does it is poorly done.
I see a lot of reddit people and sers of good reads really enjoy the book without being bothered by the flaws so I have to wonder if maybe you read more dense philosophy or just think about things in a different way and that is why you disliked his approach and others seem to circle jerk him so much?
Also the book I posted in this comment is like Benetar for grown ups :D at least he comes off that way to me and even does argue against benetar a bit in his book.
A more polished book that is for sure.
If you are going for a dry philsoophical classic style of presenting your ideas you ought to do it properly or not bloody bother.
No.57262
>>57259>Avoidance of pain is noble and we should try to avoid pain sure No. Pain is a teacher. If you have a pain, and you find out why and how the pain exists, and then vanquish it, you are now immune to that particular pain. That is growth, evolution.
No.57283
I finished the Divine Comedy and it was beautiful. I've nothing new to say about it that hasn't been already commented in the ton of existing essays and analysis. I just want to share my shallow appreciations:
The nature of the ninth circle of hell was something unexpected but still frightening: eternal silence and cold, the treacherous souls will remain in that state forever, unable to catch the slightest warm and light from god. That's something really melancholic.
In my humble opinion the best fragments of the divine comedy are found in heaven, pure poetry. When Dante begins to describe the celestial rose, the empyrean, you get blown away.
No.57284
>>57283You have me interested ay details I should now before Ding a version did you need to search for a "good" version or?
No.57287
Reading Discrete Mathematics with Applications by Epp. First book in a youtube video of math books to learn math from start to finish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTnEG_WGd2Q&t=192sPic is proof that 0.121212… is a rational number (can be expressed as a ratio of two integers, as opposed to an irrational number like pi which cannot be expressed as a ratio of integers).
No.57288
>>57287How is this proof it is just a bunch of numbers.
No.57289
>>57284Dante continually cites classical literature and makes references of important persons of the Florence of his time, so try to get at well commented version. I don't know about what particular english translation is the best because I read it in spanish.
No.57290
>>57288The proof is based on the assumption that the pattern .121212… extends forever. This is basically how all rational numbers work. If your endless decimal number is a repeating pattern then it can be written as a rational number.
No.57291
>>57290>extends foreverexcept it does not and is only a reality within a purely abstract sense that the human mind has conjured.
Why are math niggers like this?
No.57292
>>57291Math is 100% of an abstraction. The number 2 doesn't really exist yet you accept the abstraction to help understand how many things are in front of you. Infinity has just as much meaning as any other natural number.
No.57295
>>57293>it will take some months>will read world as will and representationFirst you need to understand Kant by reading the critique of pure reason but before you can read that you need to read the prolegomenon.
Getting into schope takes some investment good luck wizzie.
No.57296
>>57295Damn, now it will take years.
No.57298
>>57295I don't think you have to read it in historical/ conceptual order. You can read it in the order of what most appeals to you, and that will get you more interested and enthusiastic about tackling the origins and influences.
I read Schopenhauer 1st, and then the Upanishads and eventually I plan to get to Kant. Kant will be more meaningful to me, since I will see his abstractions as the origins of Schop's epistemology
No.57564
Do you finish the books you end up not liking? Tolstoy's Resurrection got boring and forced about 2/3 in. He already said what he had to say and now he has to carry the plot to the end while the one-dimensional characters, whose role was to convey an idea, repeat what they've already said and do their thing.
No.57566
>>57564No, never. I just drop them if I am not interested.
No.57567
I read half of Brave New World, got bored and skipped to the end where the conversation between the controller (Brave New World leader) and the savage (some guy not from BNW) sum up the book messages. I would live in Brave New World. The novel is written so that the world become revolting to the reader but the people there are conditioned to be happy with their lives anyway. Maybe there is more meaning in regular lives but most people's lives aren't the Shakespeare plays that the savage loves so much. Most of people lives are banal and lack the struggles, glories, passions or divine devotion that the savage argues. Besides there are facilities there for people who break the conditioning that is implied to not be bad so you enlightened beings can still go there. I am just a loser I guess. I prefer a hedonistic terrarium to my current life where the positives argued is nowhere to be seen.
No.57575
>>57567This. I really enjoyed reading Brave New World, but I do disagree with the central premise. It seems like a pretty great world they've built for themselves, which I would enjoy. It would probably be a paradise for normies too. Drugs that make you happy with literally no negative side effects? Sign me up. Plus, the existence of reservations and Iceland for people that want a different lifestyle proves that they aren't trying to restrict personal choice. They are only preventing disruption to people that don't want to be disrupted.
Most dystopian fiction seems to take place in societies that seem like good ideas on paper, but have some sinister, hidden downsides. I've heard that with Brave New World, Huxley was trying to write a dystopian novel about a society that was absolutely perfect according to conventional sensibilities (no downsides) to illustrate that there is something more to human experience.
I haven't read the sequel. Does anyone know if it is good?
No.57580
Started reading the novel Dune because I heard it was good and I am 75 pages in and I just cannot seem to give a fuck but unsure if it is because anhedonia or the book is just not appealing to myself.
No.57582
>>57581Actually, I got the impression that the author was trying to say that no matter how perfect machines or artificial stuff we create, at the end of the day it will never be superior or as good as the real thing. The andys all lacked empathy, the most important thing we humans have. They deserved what they got.
>>57567>>57575I have yet to read Brave New World. Just saying that these kinds of novels about dystopias were born mostly out of a fear of communism. The average westerner needed to be reassured that communism is really evil, not only the form that the USSR established but all kinds of communism. So these kinds of books were created to pacify the people. "Utopias are impossible", "perfect society doesn't exist so just get back to working for your capitalist overlords", basically. I myself hold the view that utopias are possible and that we are evolving towards them. I mean, what kind of idiot can deny that modern, progressive society is better than old societies? I always laugh at people who say progress is just an illusion. Would you really prefer to live as a slave under the pharaoh or as a peasant oppressed by the nobility in the middle ages?
My point is, these anti-communism books are overrated. Like you guys said, most people aren't the struggling artist ala Nietzsche. The time is coming when the masses, we, will finally take control and get rid of the elite. The establishment of a socialist/communist/anarchist utopia is inevitable. A world where happiness for the most people is the highest goal, not some romantic or heroic ideal. A world where comfort and peace will rule, instead of the instability of human emotions and individuality.
>>57293Schopenhauer is good but his aristocratic views bring down the quality of his overall work.
No.57588
>>57582>but his aristocratic views bring down the quality of his overall work.Sounds like I should check out Schopenhauer.
No.57590
>>57582>I mean, what kind of idiot can deny that modern, progressive society is better than old societies?Peak normalgroid speak right here.
No.57593
>>57581>>57582PKD is one of my favorites. What I took from it was also
>The andys all lacked empathy, the most important thing we humans have. They deserved what they got.Don't let our digitzed Hell world beat the compassion outta you
No.57596
>>56462Really books like this are pointless since they will never touch on the actualy real world problems causing the decline in IQ like immigration from non white countries, or welfare paying black succubi to breed or high prices/feminism causing white university graduates to have only one child etc. Some book written by liberal university professors won't touch on these problems, you can't expect the people causing the problem to solve it.
No.57598
>>57597I can't tell if the people saying that trite sincerely believe it. Maybe that poster lives in the late XIXth century?
No.57599
does anybody have a copy of that How To Be Alone pdf tos share? I did have a link to it but it's 404'd
No.57602
>>57588If you are one of those pretentious people who always need to find some argument to prove how superior they are to others, then yes you will love him. Also be sure to read Nietzsche, he was the one who mastered the art of being a pretentious snob better than anyone in history.
>>57590>>57597>>57598Look, the elite has spoken! Or…wait, no. You don't actually possess any significant amount of material goods and even though you read a few intellectual things you don't have the approval of society (or rather the elite, who rules it) so you can't be a proper intellectual either. Then maybe you are an accepted artist who achieved fame and fortune thanks to his work…but no, damn, again you aren't. So the question is why would outsiders and those who stand lowest in the symbolic food-chain fight for a society with classes? How do you profit from living in a society where only a small amount of people control everything and why would you be against equality? Surely it can't be that you who have been victimized all his life by society would want to join the bullies himself? 'At least I'm not a nigger/trannie/homeless/whatever so I can sleep better at night even though society and its leaders don't give a shit about me'.
Run into your little castles of fantasy and lock yourselves up all you want but you are part of the masses, the majority who gets buttfucked hard in traditional societies. If you existed a few hundred years ago you would be enjoying working 12 hours a day in a mine for your capitalist overlords while living in small rat-infested shithole. Let's go back even before that, in medieval times you would be busy sucking the dick of your lord and noble just to be granted the right for existence. But we don't even have to go back in time, it would have been enough if you were born on another continent or even a few kms from where you live, in the slums near you.
Pray tell me, why would someone on a site for NEETs and the losers of life in general want a traditional or aristocratic society? Considering many of us here wageslave for shit just to be allowed to live relatively comfortably, many here have mental problems and find it hard to socialize (which instantly places them at a lower status than most people), considering most of us aren't born into rich families, considering etc!! Are you really this delusional or are you just contrarian shit-posting? You are part of the lumpenproletariat, don't think for a second you aren't. We are on the level of criminals, prostitutes, homeless beggars and mentally ill or addicted people who roam the streets in order to survive. Most of us just have been protected from the real world thanks to the fact that we are NEETing via family. We are what the elites of any society would consider rabble, trash, lowest-of-the-lowest, mob, dregs of society, I could go on. Just because you read some classics and some philosophy you won't become an aristocrat. Accept your place and join the revolution.
No.57614
>>57600brought to you by the foreveralone subreddit
No.57615
Either the ending of The Stars My Destination doesn't make sense or I'm too stupid
No.57647
>>54504Currently reading the Wooster and Jeeves series by P.G. Wodehouse, jolly good lark from a bygone era. It is mostly a gentle humour focused on wit rather than the crass political and cringe humour of today. Some jokes will fly over your head if you don't get the references (such as Wooster exclaiming "everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds!", referencing another idiot in Voltaire's works), while I had to google other references to understand what they were talking about (such as what "tangara statues" were). All in all, so far it is innocent fun and I'm learning things too!
>>54901I tried reading 1001 nights a few years ago but found it a slog. But it was interesting, as you said, how they portray their heroes compared to our heroes of today. A very different world and morals where life was not as sacred as it is today. Makes you think about what you truly consider important. If you are looking for other books in a similar vein, I suggest The Decameron, an Italian collection of short stories that also gets into the grittiness of human nature and life rather than some lofty ideals.
No.57648
>>57647>>54901Its super enjoyable in audio book form.
Much easier to get through it that way.
No.57685
>>57677I've read most of his novels in my late teens/early twenties and the only one I remember and truly enjoyed is the one about his life in a prisoner camp.
No.57705
If you can, read letters of Friedrich Nietzsche. It's both introduction to his philosophy and an interesting life story, very wizardly
You can find it even on wiki:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_Letters_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche No.57729
>>57685memories from the house of the dead
it was the first book of his that i read
No.57730
>>57729Yes that one. It was very entertaining from what I remember. These lenghty philosophical and/or miserabilist russian novels just bore me to tears now.
No.57732
>>57677I will read this one day… Have you read "The Idiot" ? I really liked that one and related heavily with the main character
No.57806
>>57805Should be wagie we are NEETs a lot of us
No.57807
>>57806No, it shouldn't. Samsa got the exact same parental treatment neets and hikkis do when he woke up one morning and was unable to go to work to support his family, and then became a freeloader.
It's the story of a wageslave that woke up as a neetsect.
No.57893
>>57892buy an e-reader and get everything for free
No.57909
>>57893I get most stuff from libgen like everyone else, but there are some books you have to physically own. It's as though any aesthetic defect disproportionately affects the pleasure of reading them by virtue that I buy books less often, I want them to be perfect because I want to treasure them.
No.57989
Looking for a fiction audiobook I can escape into, preferably fantasy or sci-fi, that will also inspire action within me.
No.57998
>>57892Books as a whole have become shittier and less nice to look at it (it looks too smartphoneish/modernish which I despise), I suspect it's a result of people reading less due to better means of portable entertainment such as the smartphone as well as to market towards the majority who like that type of look due to the stuff they grew up around
No.58008
finished Genesis
No.58040
I am looking for a fantasy/sci-fi book about death and mortality. Any suggestions?
No.58041
>>58008How? I remember reading that a long time ago and only got through Genesis before I put it down and was genuinely put off from religion altogether because of it.
No.58064
>>58041I finished reading. The Old Testament has wisdom but it's pretty barbaric and boring a lot of the time. Most of the best stuff in the Bible is in the New Testament.
No.58065
Does it count if I just read a portion of the book?
It's not that I'm too lazy to read a whole book, but it always sets me off in new directions. Even if I often just read but the first chapter, that's usually enough to bring me new information and insights. Usually I go back to a book and start reading from page 1, other times I take it up where I left it. Of course I'm talking about non-fiction.
I started reading Mortimer J Adler's How to read a book. It was indeed helpful in clearing some misconceptions about reading that I assumed and always worked on them and which where hindering my progress. However, after some time into the book, it gradually build up more and more in-depth analysis of books, and I started feeeling if I were to finish reading the book I'd end up forgetting the first few "stages" of reading and thus end up reading ineffectively once again. I also considered for it to make sense I'd need to actually read a book with the intent described in that book to make sense of it. I half-applied the advice to the book itself, but it overall inspired me in devoting a more careful analysis on a math book I've long wanted to read in depth.
I also found somewhere a mention of the book Deep Work (the name of the author I can't recall just this moment), the prose and the exposition are not of the highest quality, but he does deliver some interesting ideas. I barely finished chapter 1 but it did call my attention to certain features of productive work and so, again, I decided to take on the advice without delay. Ultimately, books such as Deep Work, while not without merit, have a dubious kind of value. The premise itself should be enough to set the reader on the right track, more or less, and the details ought to be delivered with less need for prose. It is indeed a small book, but it could be more compact, more concise, even if the author does have a point to be made in his examples.
I am thinking of a book called As a man Thinketh, by James Allen, who delivers concisely and inspiringly, through a rather evocatove prose, but in fewer pages. Deep Work, on the other hand, well, I can't help but put it in the same category as a thousand other titles which might be more or less good, but which make up a great bulk in the shelves of the motivational section frequented by the types of Tai Lopez. In other words, it's too much meta, about how to work, how to read and whatnot, and ultimately I ought to be getting down to brass tax instead of distracting myself with pedagogy that's ultimately just going to make me feel I'm preparing myself yet never actually doing any of the intended work.
No.58149
welp, almost 4 years in and I finally reached the point I can read an actual book in Japanese. So I picked this one, 隠遁者の夜明け (Dawn of the Hermit), part of a series about chimera creatures, something I only found out later. Didn't matter though because each book is a self-contained story. Picked almost on a whim, browsing through itazura's novels section. I was reading the first few pages of severals books in there and this one had no romance and the main character is a hiki, so I went with it. It was surprisingly difficult to find a LN that doesn't have relationships in it.
The story is about a hiki that one day gets an offer to work at a biolab doing pretty much everything, from cleaning to bringing coffee. His main task though is taking care of a chimera. Right there I have a problem with this book. The very first pages are illustrations of all characters and their names, including the monsters. I know most LN do this but in this case, with a plot that's supposed to be a mystery, this is really ill-advised. They literally give away one of the key mysteries of the plot on the first page of the book. I kept thinking maybe there was going to be a twist and the thing that's supposed to be inside the box we saw earlier and the main character spends half the book wondering about is not going to actually be the creature the first page shows but nope, it was exactly that. I don't get this but what do I know.
The story itself is ok for the most part, there's a couple of twists there I didn't see it coming. The story is mostly divided between the internal monologues of the main character, Haruhara, and his daily work of taking care of a supposedly highly intelligent chimera creature. His monologues are pretty much him being extremely thankful to have a job now and how the person who hired him saved his life from being a hiki forever. This excessive gratitude plays on later into the plot but it's still not that interesting. His work with the chimera was more entertaining and somehow it didn't get repetitive while I was reading it but in retrospect I guess it is. My ability to judge the story during the actual reading of it is reduced because most of my brain is working to figure it out the language. Let's just say if this was in English I would have dropped it half way through, probably.
I would still recommend for wizards at an advanced level of their studies of moon runes though, it's a straight forward modern fantasy and there's no romance. And it's free, you can check out here;
https://itazuranekoyomi1.neocities.org/library/shousetu/volume/satu002007/satu002007.html No.58211
Can people post some novels/stories. There was succubi, and Journey to the end of the night; books like that that tell a story. Not a philosophical book, but books like the Fall is fine, something with a story. And not Kafka, A Confederacy of Dunces, or The Tartar Steppe, or Shakespeare, or ect. because I've already read them or don't want to read them. Something I haven't read… stories that aren't too popular that they'd have been mentioned a 1000 times everywhere already… Maybe I'm asking for a bit much but if someone can recommend a good book I haven't heard of I'd be grateful.
No.58213
>>58211The Ax by Donald Westlake
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Lord of the Barnyard by Tristan Egolf
No.58214
>>58213actually disregard my second recommendation
No.58229
Just finished the Anarchist's Cookbook. Not that I'm planning anything. I just like works that have a little controversy. It was a lot more grounded than I had expected, like the author would always harp on safety when working with dangerous chemicals or firearms, and advise not to attempt something if you don't have the expertise for it. Anyway, I've heard publishers removed some especially dangerous stuff from the later editions, which is weird because it still has a lot of information about making high explosives. Can't get much more dangerous than that, right? I'll probably look up the censored stuff later.
Anyway, it was pretty unique. I can see why it became popular. Some stuff is completely out of date, though. And other stuff is completely false. When I read that I could distill fully legal psychedelics out of banana peels, I was stoked, but it turns out that was a hoax. And if the author didn't fact check something simple like that, I wouldn't trust the explosive recipes, either.
Interesting read, but I hope it never comes in handy. Don't be a terrorist, gents. Don't give crabs a bad name like that.
No.58232
>>58229They already have a bad name.
No.58233
>>58229If I remember correctly most of the stuff removed was because it was based on bad info and ether didn't work or was super unstable making it super dangerous mainly to the person making it rather than anyone else.
No point in including a recipe that explodes in your face or spontaneously combust if you look at it funny while making it because it is actively decomposing into volatile compounds since the formula isn't balanced.
No.58234
>>58229That book is Mallcore / pleather trenchcoat bait. Nobody with such poor understanding of chemistry or such a lousy ability to write technical guides has the right to call any book he shits out "the Anarchist's Cookbook". It always has been a running joke in SHTF and anti-government groups. Not only because of the misinformation contained, but because declassified US Army field manuals for improvised munitions and IEDs are significantly more available, truthful, and beginner friendly. There are also guides on guerilla warfare, subversion tactics, hiding from greater powers, etc, that you can order from surplus dealers for about $10/book. The final boss of the feds has provided better info for overturning the government than some angsty suburban tax evader could ever dream of offering.
No.58239
>>58234You say tax evader like it's a bad thing.
Will agree that for actual practical use the Anarchist cookbook is shit, but culturally it's a interesting book that makes me nostalgic.
No.58286
>>58282>One of the reasons that the change from using bronze (or copper) as tool metals to using iron was so important historically is that iron is just so damn abundant. it's wrong, copper was still more abundant than iron and less difficult to mine and process, the only real reason people switched was the increasing scarcity of tin to make bronze with, tin deposits being located in only a couple regions far away from most places with unreliable trade routes
No.58295
>>58286> total amount of discovered copper to 2.8 billion metric tonshttps://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-copper-has-been-found-world?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products>About 90 percent of all metal that is refined today is iron, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry.>The reserves of crude iron ore in the United States alone were estimated to be approximately three billion metric tons in 2020https://www.statista.com/statistics/267381/world-reserves-of-iron-ore-by-country/Iron FAR more abundant then copper. You are simply completely wrong.
No.58296
>>58295you realize there's a big difference between the absolute numbers and the actual abundance back then, copper was everywhere, copper mines were everywhere, copper was the prime metal for thousands of years, meanwhile not many people knew where to find all this abundant iron, because up until they were forced to they barely paid attention to the stuff
No.58297
>>58295>statistayou just linked to the biggest paywall garbage ive ever encountered in my life
No.58309
>>58296>>58297You are welcome to provide evidence.
So far you have provided none while I have to back up my claims.
Until then everything you say is simply your empty opinions.
No.58318
>>58309your "claims" are based on what people could only determine after 3000 years of the iron age, unless you really think bronze age people woke up one day suddenly knowing how much tonnage of every metal is in the whole planet and switched to iron based on that revelation
they didn't
big difference between absolute numbers and real, known abundance
the blogger is wrong about why iron took over
No.58320
>>58318I see no supporting evidence so your claims are empty and without merit.
Good day.
No.58321
>>58320you can just google what I wrote if the logic of it wasn't sensible enough, or you can take the word of a random blogger who didn't source any of his shit
No.58322
>>58321>prove my point for meNo one is going to go out of their way to look up things you pulled from your ass.
You have nothing to support your argument but more claims made out of thin air.
There is no reason nor logical reason for anyone to take anything you have said so far as valid or factual as even at this point you refuse to provide evidence.
If you have no evidence then it is time for you to shut up.
No.58323
>>58322you googled a blogger who doesn't provide evidence, you can darn well google real historians who will tell you with sources why the bronze age ended, and they're going to say what I said
No.58326
>>58323>you googled a blogger who doesn't provide evidenceSo not only do you not provide evidence for your claims but now you are just blatantly lying.
As everyone can see by looking at this post.
>>58295 No.58327
>>58326>I didn't use a search engineyou sure didn't find that hearsay blog through a web ring
>As everyone can see by looking at this post.What they see is modern geological surveys and accounting that was simply unknown to people 3,000 years ago and not the reason why bronze was phased out for inferior, primitive ferrous metallurgy.
No.58328
>>58327>still not posting supporting evidence of any claimsYou ordinal point is wrong and you know it.
But as usual rather then just admit to being wrong you just double down over and over again hoping to "win" through argumentum ad nauseam, lies, and irritation since evidence, reason, and facts are seldom on your side.
No.58329
>>58328everyone knows the bronze age collapsed because of disruptions that cut off the supply of tin, don't expect me to personally write you an essay on stuff you were supposed to learn in school, but oh sure, everyone in the old world suddenly decided that a metal they didn't even know how to make into steel yet, took extremely more work to smelt and forge, made weapons with easily bent blades and soft edges compared to work hardened bronze, and corroded way too easily…was preferable just because it's more abundant
No.58409
>>58407>the main character is an apologetic loser who doesn't really get better but gets the job done regardlesstoo real wtf
No.58412
>>58407I don't know, Gogol's Dead Souls maybe?
Lord of the Barnyard
No.58415
>>59407>>58409I really enjoy stories like this because I relate to them so much, I don't want to feel better but I don't want to feel alone.
I haven't read a book in years but I think I've exhausted this type of plot in the other medias.
No.58416
>>58412Thanks for the tip I'll check them out
No.58450
How do you guys manage to balance reading and internet usage? Personally, I can only do one or the other. I find it really difficult to concentrate on a book for more than a page or two when I use the internet regularly, I get distracted constantly and trail off in thought while my eyes still blankly scan the text with 0 comprehension. I can't even finish a short news article, and I have to stop my eyes from jumping around to find the interesting information, instead of reading properly.
In the last 4 years in an effort to read more, I've been going through phases where I take an almost complete absence from online activities and focus on reading. After a week or more of internet abstinence, I suddenly find myself able to read page after page and not think about anything else, with my concentration only straining after an hour or so, at which point I take a short break. The problem is that, while I'd like to live like this (considering how much I love reading during these phases), I always relapse and go back to destroying my attention span by scrolling imageboards, content feeds, and refreshing chats and webpages. Then I get burned out and really down because it fries my brain, and I take another break from the internet.
I actually really hate most websites that I browse, and I dislike the majority of the internet, but I love reading. So why the fuck do I keep relapsing? Why does my brain KNOW that short term dopamine kicks are worse for me than long term satisfaction from books, yet still want them? I never remember any internet content I browse, and I forget whole days within a week when I spend my time online. But when I read, I remember the stories and characters really well.
I wish I could just stop using the internet for entertainment entirely and just read and do my hobbies, but the internet has me hooked and won't let go. It burns days of my life up and I remember nothing from that time. I hate the content I browse and it doesn't satisfy me. No matter what I do though, I always relapse after a while, despite how much I genuinely enjoy, feel satisfied by, and want to read. I've tried cutting myself off from the internet 100%, but I always end up needing it to buy stuff, use services like internet banking, or, when I get lonely, talk to friends, since being completely alone is unbearable. I don't know what to do. I'd appreciate any advice
No.59008
>>58450I don't think you'll stumble into anyone here that has the formula of internet independence.
If I had to guess as to why I still roam, it's probably because…
>Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.If I stop, I have to confront the reality around me. A reality that doesn't change, doesn't reward, has no promising future. The internet gives me an illusion that reality _does_ change, but it doesn't. It gives me the illusion that I will be rewarded, since I just maybe will stumble into some wisdom that'll change everything (which it won't). Maybe I will catch wind that the world is collapsing finally.
But if I stop, well, I would have to confront the fact that I don't have any tangible answer for relationships, for my world, for people around me, to talk, to make money, what money is for, what my life is for - there is no common thread in general, by my volition. There is no coherency to this reality. Nothing makes sense at all, beyond just trying to enjoy the days that pass.
I don't have a tangible answer for my job, to slack off or not, to have a job, to have a job one despises, to bother having a job at all, to hope to quit instead of be distracted and procrastinating, is having a job even possible to enjoy, would trying hard at my job be rewarding me at all (probably not), what are the rewards or why are they rewards anyway, why do I live. There's nothing to say, nor to fix, as to fix it, would be equally pointless, as the structure around us is… well, no point. You see, I tried to find coherency in it, and am afraid that my answer requires me to quit. To change. (Which I think it does require such things)
To stop internet addiction would be to confront the inevitable spiral of incoherence that dots, at least, my existence.
No, I come online to delay everything until somehow, magically, things will change around me.
And the unfortunate circumstances around our time is that something MAY magically change, due to the instability that I'm sure I don't have to repeat for others.
And yet… will it? It gnaws and pulls apart my illusion, it makes me uncomfortable. The silence of not seeing the outside, waiting for it to move. The fact that change is molasses and may not occur, or if it does, I am still in the same position. Or why do I hope for change anyway when the coffin awaits? Why so demanding?
So I don't know.
Factually I can acknowledge that sitting on any place online, delaying my tasks at my job until it prickles me too, and so on - do I acknowledge that, fundamentally, all of this adds to my misery.
But when I confront this, there is a deeper wound to stitch underneath.
I just don't think about it, stop the neurotic circuit before it completes, as we all do, as we sedate, continue to sedate, take your pills
Internet addiction: to unravel this is to unravel the core of today's world, or at least my world.
That there is something profoundly sick I do not want to acknowledge.
So I wait. But my patience wanes, and frankly I am becoming all too keenly aware that I am losing it.
Yet when I forget all of this, I can assure you, life is great for those that pay attention to the details.
To test one's gratitude rather than pray for circumstance to change.
So I just wait. Since nothing makes sense other than to be grateful for what you have. Maybe it'll make more sense - or when it all makes too much sense, you'll feel a despair at discovering why everything is incoherent, you will feel powerless to change such things. Which I had a peak at, and would rather not peak again.
Fundamentally every word I write is suspended above a descent into hell and I'm waiting for it, preparing, just as we wait for salvation.
No.59355
>>58450You may benefit from a web browser like Links
No.59358
I've been listening to the audiobooks of Brothers Karamazov and Gomorra
No.59367
>>54504Reading A Confederacy of Dunces currently. I'm really enjoying it.
No.59391
>>59389what is the style he uses as compared to his other works?
No.59434
Hello friends. Share good reading
No.59436
>>59434How do you feel about gothic horror?
No.59437
Hello friends.
Do you have any guides/lists/ of books related to wizardy, social isolation, hopeless, loneliness?
I particularly interested in philosophical books.
No.59438
>>59437a good guide would be
https://4chanlit.fandom.com/wiki/Depressing_Lit Do you mean pessimism? the book linked is good even if soft philosophy and proseful but another reason for reading it is to get other books on pessimism to read. The second attachment is a reading list
No.59439
>>59438Just making it clear these books are not strictly pessimism but there is a lot of crossover with antinatalist books
No.59441
>>59437I just started the book of disquiet and it looks promising for a wizardly read uwu
No.59442
>>59437Those themes come up a lot in hard sci-fi relating to deep space and space faring.
I don't have a list or guide but I would check out the genera if those themes interest you. There are more stories about people dealing with being isolated in space then you can shake a stick at. It is practically a cliche of the genera.
No.59546
Would anyone be so kind to share the forever alone ebooks?
https://www.reddit.com/r/FA30plus/comments/knp2zb/alone_forever_at_the_end_of_the_world/All google drive links are dead and it would be a shame if they were forever lost.
No.59549
>>59532But what is it actually about though?
No.59550
>>59549A man who lets everyone use and abuse him tells how he became that way in a memoir
No.59553
>>59550Doesn't sound like something I would even remotely be into, but maybe some other wizards are into that kind of thing.
No.59554
>>59553It is about giving up on life and the dangers of hope.
I thought it was wizardly even if it technically is not it is very depressing and I like depressing books.
No.59559
>>59558hope she sees this bro
No.59560
>>59559he writes like a redditor and is a feminist. Wizchan is infested.
No.59561
>>59558Now read a real book.
No.59562
>>59559>>59560>>59561Care to elaborate on what you disliked about easter parade? You have offered no valid criticism beyond some crab crying.
You have not read this book have you and the only reason you are hating on my post is because the book is about the struggle of being a succubus. why cant you enjoy things for what they are? why must your ego cloud your entire perspective.
No.59563
>>59562>the struggle of being a succubusWizchan 2021. Feminists "wizards" obsessed with succubi rights and modern succubi "struggle"
What type of crab cuck are you? It's disregard females acquire magic not the other way around.
No.59564
Do audiobooks count? Or should I make a new thread?
No.59566
>>59563The book was about the struggle of being a modern succubus in different ways and very grim.
stop being so ignorant to think wizards should not read books with female subject matter.
>What type of crab cuck are you?not a crab like yourself
No.59567
>>59564There is already a audiobook thread.
You are most welcome to post in it. It could use the activity.
No.59568
>>59562Any "book" that concerns itself with some trite and passing social issue, or is itself a social critique, isn't worthwhile as literature. Steinbeck? Lack of descriptive prose?
scenes- dialogue and characterizations are not some mere device to make a statement but are the statement?
I haven't read the book, and if your review is true to its word, I don't need to. It is no more than either a single man's soon irrelevant complaint about some insignificant portion of the world at large, or pulp fiction designed to stimulate your most base emotions.
I don't mean to insult you, but I do mean to say that the book is kindling little more than my fireplace.
No.59730
>>57677I was wondering if anyone would have posted this book in this thread. I'm not usually one to relate to book characters very much, but this book was the exception. It's like he perfectly understood my mindset. It was strange to read. Definitely would recommend.
No.59749
true devotion to the blessed virgin mary by st. louis de montfort
very good. changed how i pray now. now through mary always. not worthy to approach our lord like that
No.59806
Although no wizard (or any meme for that matter) I do appreciate that most of the people in these threads seem to be of a greater age than 4chan lit's marxist, indoctrinated, unfunny memeing, consumerist toddlers. Of the 10–20% of all threads no auto-filtered, at most 3–4 would be worthy of opening, let alone replying to, since serious discussion is shunned and/or derailed. Barren of intellectual honesty and humility, or goodfaith.
Since, mid dec '20, I've been reading and listening a whole damn fucking lot. I then began a booklog, which I later exported to a section of a personal site of sorts on neocities, open to possibly connect to somebody to learn together with, discuss something or anything. Anyways, godcock.neocities.org/lit.html is where you can find it, if you'd be interested in dropping a line.
I'm currently restarting 3 books I'd abandoned for one reason or another
>Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
Stream-of-consciousness about consul from the US in Mexico, lotsa drinking and revelry. Really to my liking.
>A Pillar of Iron, Taylor Caldwell
Novellization of the life of Marcus Tullius 'Cicero'. The lady, it seems, spent, like, 20 years studying resources to compile this thing. It's a great portrayal of Rome around 100 BCE to the end of Julius Cesar's reign (and possible til the old age of Cicero, haven't gotten there yet) one the one hand, and fucking loooong one the other, and too many characters. I'm more of an abstract idea, general stuff kinda guy, rather than human details, which don't tickle my pickle.
>Omnipotent Government, Ludwig von Mises
Real nice economy and politics books rightly predicting the totalitarian statist pushes of the future, at least in America, although it's happening nearly everywhere. How and why things work, fail and succeed, backed up with history. Heavy read, since I'm constantly thinking of arming myself and starting a spree.
This week also gonna read thru
>a perfect police state, geoffrey caine
I'm hoping for at least some new info, since Orwell's 1984 seems to be the guidebook to the dystopian utopia these cunts are promising, and that book is bleak enough already, given human nature.
>year's best hardcore horror, vol 5, v.a., randy chandler (ed.), cheryl mullenax (ed.)
Nice collections of stories, sadly, of the previous 4, most authors are so unknown or have so little published work, that libgen turns up fuckall. Some of their websites don't even work. Some actually link to myspace and such older social sites.
No.59934
>>59546also requesting this if anyone has them
No.59985
>>59916I've read A rebours, a collection of short stories (With the Flow, iirc) and some of La Cathedral. I enjoyed what I read.
No.59986
>>59806i appreciate your work
sadly i finish maybe 1 book per month since i can only bring myself to read during break time at work. and it's old scifi trash… but in my own way i am also working through a log of things im interested in, authors that have similar ideas, unofficial successors to stories i like, a heaping mess that will probably take the rest of my life at this pace
No.60148
>>59985I recommend The Desperate Man by Leon Bloy, Bruges La Morte by Georges Rodenbach, The Fiery Angel by Valery Burysov and Monsieur Phocas by Jean Lorrain
No.61993
>>54902I'm reading this almost entirely because of your recommendation. I had the three volumes of the Penguin translation but never felt like reading them until this. I'm still on the first volume, just finished the Tale of King Umar and his family. Very interesting. You almost forget it's a frame story since that one was as long as a normal novel. I really liked the story of Aziz + Aziza as well as Princess Dunya.
No.62324
Are there any literary websites anyone on here reads? I like Misery Tourism.
No.62435
I've been reading The horus heresy for the last few months, currently on book 52 heralds of the siege. I should have finished it already but I ended up browsing image boards for the last 6 hoours.
So far it did not disappoint, however. I really liked the myriad shortstory, there is something really comfy about an AI that can exorcise demons and evil spirits using math and logic of all things, to tell the entity that it was not supposed to exist, therefore causing self destruction I presume? The other stories were not terrible but failed versus reading random threads. I hope I can finish the last 8 books in the next 10 days, then I just need to wait for for the release of Echoes of eternity and The End and the Death.
I Started this series last year but due to a multitude of real life factors had to put it down, only getting back at it this trimester. Next I am planning to read non fiction books exclusively. It was fun and I think I improved my reading comprehension as well as memory and creativity, but I need to check if I can apply those to other hobbies.
No.65588
>>54902very cool, thx anon
I recently read a quite interesting review of the abridged version (
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-arabian-nights) that made some similar points, but didn’t seem to view the characters quite as cynically as you
>Scheherazade's stories are set in an idealized Middle East. The sultans are always wise and just, the princes are always strong and handsome, and almost a full half of viziers are non-evil. Named characters are always so beautiful and skilled and virtuous that it sometimes gets used it as a plot device - a character is separated from his family member or lover, so he wanders into a caravanserai and asks for news of someone who is excessively beautiful and skilled and virtuous.Do you think that’s a difference between the abridged and full version?
Also according to that guy medieval Arabs had a massive BBC fetish:
>Nights stretches from Morocco to China, across at least four centuries - and throughout that whole panoply of times and places, your wife is always cheating on you with a black man (if you're black, don't worry; she is cheating on you with a different black man). It's a weird constant. Maybe it's the author's fetish. I realize that Nights includes folktales written over centuries by dozens of different people - from legends passed along in caravanserais, to stories getting collected and written down, to manuscripts brought to Europe, to Richard Burton writing the classic English translation, to the abridged and updated version of Burton I read. But somewhere in that process, probably multiple places, someone had a fetish about their wife cheating on them with a black man, and boy did they insert it into the story.Do you think that’s exaggerated?