EPTWhat Are You Reading 2014 - Page 74
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farvacola
United States18821 Posts
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
 Seconding Braudel, DeLanda interests me a lot, so does Mille Plateaux but it's like 40$ in French :'( | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
Mémoires (Retz) Retz is witty and very intelligent, and was in a central position during a pivotal period. If you want to understand the relationship between aristocrats and Louis XIV for it. He likes himself to much though^^ The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology (Hansen) Brilliant history book, easy to read and always lively. Also hugely important if you're interested in direct democraty. Discourses on Livy (Machiavelli) Tons better than the Prince. A philosophy of history trying to reach action. La distinction (Bourdieu) The worst book of the bunch imo, but "intellectuals" should read it, as it does pose a lot of uneasy questions for them. Very annoying to read, but extremely interesting. Water Margin (Shi Nai an) As awesome as the summary says. Best fiction of the year imo. Jacques le Fataliste (Diderot) Very well-known, but I liked it too much to pass it up. The Scholars (Wu Jingzi) A great painting of "scholars", how horrible they could be, and how great too. Deeply relevant. Novel with Cocain (M. Ageyev) Best novel about a teenager I've read, by far. Les Deux Etendards (Rebatet) Despite obvious annoying stuff, this is extremely well-written and has moments of almost unparalleled brilliance. Penthesilea (Kleist) Violence, love and poetry. Vanity Fair (Thackeray) Well-known, but not that read I think. It's funny and intelligent, and has great pacing. Locus Solus (Roussel) Still can't describe it. Surrealism before it existed, and better than almost all of it I guess. Aphrodite (Pierre Louÿs) Love (and sex) in Alexandria at its splendor. Beautiful. Edit : still best history book I've read remains Thucydides' ^^ | ||
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Surth
Germany456 Posts
On December 25 2014 09:19 bookwyrm wrote: James MacDonald - A Free Nation Deep in Debt Andro Linklater - Owning the Earth I still have to write a paper on debt in US culture -- i was gonna write about language/money/law as operating by the same procedure (a non-existent transcendent (god/gold/law) while in reality all three are floating), but these two books sound interesting, and they sound like theres something in there more suited for 15 measly pages, so cheers! also, I think I do need to get a legal copy of mille plateauXXX. its difficult enough to read already, on a kindle with a badly converted pdf its hell | ||
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
This paper is due like... soon? What you really have to look at are ancient temple credit systems  On December 25 2014 19:50 corumjhaelen wrote: The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology (Hansen) Brilliant history book, easy to read and always lively. Also hugely important if you're interested in direct democraty. I've not bought this a couple times, so I will pick it up now | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/APerfectVacuum.jpg) Don't know if anybody here has read this, but this is actually a hilarious book. It contains about a dozen fictitious reviews about books that have never been written (but most of them are allusions to well known works), and it starts out with a review from a fictional Stanislaw Lem about the book itself. It's pretty great. | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
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Sub40APM
6336 Posts
The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China. A travelogue through Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunan and then a bolted on piece on the far North East because I guess his book editor suggested he needed to do 4 corners of the Empire. It was interesting-ish but the writer is a bit of a dude bro who prefers retelling you his glorious exploits -- he literally counts the number of times he got laid -- over the underlying topic. Of all the travelogue books I've read on China its the weakest but it also deals with areas no one yet has written on so *shrug* http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594205221/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking. Math pop science book. My book of the year. Singlehandedly re-kindled interest in math. Actually caused me to load up khan academy and start re-learning calculus and probability. Made me very sad that when I was at optimum learning ability -- high school -- I did not have math teachers who were both as passionate and as good at teaching mathematics as this guy is. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812994329/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Asia's Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific. Kaplan is famous for writing these fly-by-history-traveloguy-books. But he is also a neo-con. And each new outing of his gets more neo-conny, less historical. So here he covers some but not all of South East Asia -- spectacularly ignores Indonesia! -- and comes to the conclusion that neo-fascism is the way forward because it worked in Singapore, Taiwan, China and Malaysia while decadent American and democratic Philippines are doomed (doesnt really elaborate why Philippine and Cambodian fascism failed though, probably because it would break the rhythm of his book). Again, his neo-connism telegraphs his love of effective authoritarianism while at the same time preventing him from asking questions like 'If Authoritarianism is so awesome how come everytime it spews out a shit dictator everything falls to shit' https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374175349/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. Another pop-math science book. Lays out why things that you would think are 'improbable' are actually probable. Essentially highlights how bad people are at intuitively understanding probability. Enjoyable but just like the other mathy book it realyl depressed me about my past. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374280746/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China A great book on modern China. Theoretically it has these 4 thematic mega-chapter headers that are divided into religion, money, culture and corruption but really its just like reading 30 great articles on China written by a knowledgeable author whose style isnt stilted or boring. Great entree into trying to get at least a taste of modern China https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594486352/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human Pop science on birds. I enjoyed it because I could look up on youtube the various phenomenon about birds he was describing. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691144028/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Beautiful Game Theory: How Soccer Can Help Economics Mostly game theory and soccer. Discusses with examples the way a player might approach taking a penalty, some absurd episodes like a game being delayed for a week on the last penalty kick and what that means for both the goalkeeper and the penalty taker. Also talks about inter-period betting in soccer. Pretty heavy on math so probably wouldnt recommend it as an entry book in soccer. On the other hand, if you are already a relatively math literate person it has some fun ideas. For a generally 'better' soccer econ book I'd recommend Soccernomics. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081479629X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Pranksters: Making Mischief in the Modern World. Like it says, its a history of famous pranks or hoaxes. Pretty interesting and tragic in the sense that some of the hoaxes then go onto spawn conspiracies that actually cause real damage to people. Ie Protocols of the Elder of Zion is probably the most persistent hoax, but also illuminati and so forth. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307956989/ref=od_aui_detailpages02?ie=UTF8&psc=1 China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa. Travelogue of China's impact on Africa. There have been at least 3 other books that I've read that cover the same topic. This one is neither the best nor the worst, it covers some but not all new places. The funny thing is all of the books I've read mention Zambia pretty prominently, and with a tight focus on one stadium and how abusive the Chinese are to the African workers. Still, its fun in general. | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
I've mostly been reading classics I missed doing engineering and law or books already recommended in this thread. Finished up a couple Shakespeare plays before I started Capital Vol 1 and read A Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich on the plane a couple days ago. Solzhenitsyn and Marx pair well. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17238 Posts
Pretty damn good. I'm not a big fan of young adult fiction but this stuff made me churn through it at the rate of 300 pages/day at the least. | ||
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Sub40APM
6336 Posts
On December 26 2014 04:46 IgnE wrote: Did you not do math in college? I've mostly been reading classics I missed doing engineering and law or books already recommended in this thread. Finished up a couple Shakespeare plays before I started Capital Vol 1 and read A Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich on the plane a couple days ago. Solzhenitsyn and Marx pair well. Nope. High school teachers drove me out of math, the LSAT has no math portion and I only took macro econ courses which didnt require much beyond algebra, I guess some calculus. Forgot this one: The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Putin. The author finds people Putin worked with when he was in St. Petersburg's mayors office as well as the writers who put together the first Putin Biography as part of his election campaign. Well researched on the relatively narrow time period between the late 1980s and early 2000s. Just hit order on this list: Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648 Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood--A History in Thirteen Centuries The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 The Undercover Economist Strikes Back: How to Run—or Ruin—an Economy The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (America in the World) Proof: The Science of Booze What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia Bad Paper: Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise Understanding Probability Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman (Helix Books) The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
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Surth
Germany456 Posts
On December 26 2014 03:01 bookwyrm wrote: Well Surth I could give you a whole reading list about that topic, I have been working on that question for a couple years now. how's your Lacan? This paper is due like... soon? What you really have to look at are ancient temple credit systems I've not bought this a couple times, so I will pick it up now Go for it! moar reading is good! my lacan is barely existent, I'm afraid to say. Paper is theoretically due at some vague point in history. if i write it before i go abroad, i'd have to write it by the end of january. if not i could probably write it at some point in july or so | ||
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dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
I also really liked Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth. It's by far the funniest book I've ever read(on the way to work people kept staring at me because I was laughing alone). In the field of non-fiction I'd recommend Montaigne's essays, though they are very well know. And last but not least, everyone(absolutely EVERYONE) should read Proust. But that is already known. Also, can anyone recommend a biography of Joan of Arc? | ||
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Paljas
Germany6926 Posts
it was ok i guess. not really my cup of tea | ||
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123Gurke
France154 Posts
On December 26 2014 04:11 Sub40APM wrote: Made me very sad that when I was at optimum learning ability -- high school -- I did not have math teachers who were both as passionate and as good at teaching mathematics as this guy is. I don't think there is an age with optimum learning ability for math. There is no age limit for it although some people like to tell you for some reason. My highschool years were a long time ago and still I am learning new math all the time, and I really believe that I am a better mathematician now than I ever was before. And I know people who are only a few years from retirement and they also still learn new math all the time. So if you enjoy doing math (and I see no reason not to), don't be sad. Be happy that you found out about it and go for it. | ||
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Shiragaku
Hong Kong4308 Posts
On December 27 2014 01:39 Paljas wrote: A Quiet Life by Kenzaburō Ōe it was ok i guess. not really my cup of tea I would recommend reading Seventeen and J. It is the most intense thing I have ever read and it may be the same for you. EDIT - Here is a fan translation of the novel. http://www.mediafire.com/download/c2cjkmx7ylzxn7u/SEVENTEENrtf.rtf I would still heavily recommend buying the official translation. | ||
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packrat386
United States5077 Posts
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AKnopf
Germany259 Posts
![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EsM7basEL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-v3-big,TopRight,0,-55_SX324_SY324_PIkin4,BottomRight,1,22_AA346_SH20_OU03_.jpg) It's a book my great aunt gifted to me when I was 12 or so. Since then I've read it about 20 times. It's a book I keep returning too because every time I read it, there seem to be new things in it. It's some kind of an anchor to me and it shows me how I have changed over the years. Apart from that, it's a rather quiet and subtle book about a frustrated painter and ex planet explorer, who learns slowly that he and few others can read others peoples minds. A fragile network among those characters begins to unfold while the world government tries to control them in one way or another (maybe?). I really like the fact that there is a poem that accompanies the book and find its way into the story here and there. It's funny how, to some degree, the story seems to be written around that poem. | ||
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Paljas
Germany6926 Posts
On December 28 2014 11:31 Shiragaku wrote: I would recommend reading Seventeen and J. It is the most intense thing I have ever read and it may be the same for you. EDIT - Here is a fan translation of the novel. http://www.mediafire.com/download/c2cjkmx7ylzxn7u/SEVENTEENrtf.rtf I would still heavily recommend buying the official translation. thank you | ||
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