Just starting Voices from Chernobyl, which was a big inspiration/source material for the HBO series.
Also need a new audiobook since I just finished Good Omens. Debating between Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom, and The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy by David Graeber.
Finished Jack Reacher The Enemy. That was good!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Finished the 4th book in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Also read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell for Yoyo Book Club
Join Yoyo Book Club!!
The one I was reading when I signed up here. Be Here Now. Just stumbled upon it in a bookstore as much as you can stumble upon such things. Thought the drawings on paper sack pages were neat and it sounded like an interesting story on an interesting persons life. But it was that last sentence in the forward I remember hooking me as there was a truth most intellectuals I knew were not obliged to tell. Ah books.
From the book…
I was at perhaps the highest point of my academic career… visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley with a position held for me at Harvard. I held appointments in four departments at Harvard – the Social Relations Department, the Psychology Department, the Graduate School of Education, and the Health Service; I had research contracts with Yale and Stanford. In a worldly sense, I was making a great income and I was a collector of possessions.
I had an apartment in Cambridge that was filled with antiques and I gave very charming dinner parties. I had a Mercedes-Benz sedan and a Triumph 500 CC motorcycle and a Cessna 172 airplane and an MG sports car and a sailboat and a bicycle. I vacationed in the Caribbean and was living the successful bachelor professor is supposed to live in the American world of “he who makes it.” I wasn’t a genuine scholar, but I had gone through the whole academic trip. I had gotten my Ph.D.; I was writing books. I had research contracts. I taught courses in Human Motivation, Freudian Theory, and Child Development. But what all this boils down to is that I was really a very good game player.
My lecture notes were the ideas of other men, subtly presented, and my research was all within the Zeitgeist – all that which one was supposed to research about.
…
My colleagues and I were 9 to 5 psychologists: we came to work every day and we did our psychology, just like you would do insurance or auto mechanics, and then at 5 we went home and were just as neurotic as we were before we went to work.
…
Something was wrong. And the something wrong was that I just didn’t know, though I kept feeling all along the way that somebody else must know even though I didn’t. The nature of life was a mystery to me. All the stuff I was teaching was just like little molecular bits of stuff but they didn’t add up to a feeling anything like wisdom. I was just getting more and more knowledgeable. And I was getting very good at bouncing three knowledge balls at once. I could sit in a doctoral exam, ask very sophisticated questions and look terribly wise. It was a hustle.
On the use of semicolons above from another book, A Man without a Country…
“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
what book did you just finish reading just got done with the first hunger games and it is so far the best book I have ever read along with Harry Potter
Most recent reads include Invisible Man and Nausea (finally - wow), Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, and re-read The Gateless Gate by Mumon-ekai. I just started this:
Durfee for mod 2020
Just finished Words of Radiance by Branden Sanderson. Pretty awesome, definitly a page turner. My favorite book from the Cosmere universe so far. Around 60 % done with Edgedancer. The main character is annoying for me. Just trying to get it over with so I can jump into Oathbringer.
Just finished “Origin” by Dan Brown. It’s an interesting read, but I was able to figure out the plot too soon this time.
Just started “The Outsider” by King… update in a week or so.
H2G2 is one of the best things to ever happen to radio, books, and television. I HIGHLY recommend listening to the original BBC radio series!
Also, for the sake of all things hoopy, make sure to include “And another thing” to the end of the series. It isn’t by Adams, but it’s written using his notes, plot lines, and by his family’s request.
“Starship Titanic” is another that’s not really in the series, but is in the series. Certainly worth the time.
Just finished book 4 of the “Chronicles of the Nephilim” series, and started on book five today.
This!
Also if you end up going on a bit of an Adams binge don’t forget to check out the Dr Who serial City Of Death from 1979, the script of which was also written by him under the pseudonym of David Agnew. It is fantastic and one of the very best Dr Who stories!
Found that at the local library recently. I haven’t read it, but plan to.
Also, let’s not fail to mention Dirk Gently or Long Dark Teatime!
Oooh I’ve not read the book I meant the Television episode!
The book is basically a transcript, from what I can tell.
Classical dynamics of particles and systems by Jerry Marion.
Yes I’m studying physics for fun
DC Black label series are pretty good.
Just finished A Game Of Thrones.
Will be starting the next book (A Clash Of Kings) here shortly.
You may think Hemingway is overrated, but he served as an excellent example of how to write with precision and succinctness.
A lot to discuss for literature and writing classes, you have to start somewhere.
