EPTI also read the sequels which are much better than the first one imo imo. Second one comes out in English in July.
What Are You Reading 2015 - Page 18
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21244 Posts
I also read the sequels which are much better than the first one imo imo. Second one comes out in English in July. | ||
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dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
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pedrlz
Brazil5234 Posts
Right now I'm a little more than half way from The Postman (post-apocalyptic USA without infrastructure or government, it is kind cool, it start kind slow but the "rewards" moments seems like the main character deserve it, it progress from a guy trying to survive against anything that moves at 2 legs to discovering small society building themselves, and I don't know why, but the descriptions of these villages organization against the cruel world is really mesmerizing and brings a smile to my face even thought is kind cliche). I read a little less than half of the first book of The Man without qualities, not really finding is so good so far. For me it fells a lot like a Hess book, these "I'm so special, look how diferent I'm! I bet you are also different from everyone else!". I read once a time someone say that Bildungsroman was middle class crashing into real world and somewhat The Man Without Qualities gives me that feel. I will probably give another chance for the book in some months, but couldn't find why would anyone find it appealing. I'm rereading Cosmicomics, it is so good, I feel like a children again reading it. So many beautiful ideas and scenes. This one is particularly good to read because are more like short stories. I probably need to find more books from Calvino to read. Also 10:04 from Ben Lerner on half, I wanted to read something more actual, I found the book good enough to finish it, but seems soulless, like if it was wrote by someone who knows how to tell a story and build a solid prose, but had no passion or intention of building this book; good, but very apathetic book. | ||
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Paljas
Germany6926 Posts
secondly, Hesse is awesome. and yeah, the man without qualities was pretty boring imo. didnt finish it | ||
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pedrlz
Brazil5234 Posts
On April 06 2015 05:36 Paljas wrote: first of all, it's Hesse, not Hess. Hess was the nazi. secondly, Hesse is awesome. and yeah, the man without qualities was pretty boring imo. didnt finish it I know it is Hesse, I just misspelled, sorry. I read and reread demian and steppenwolf tons of times when I was a younger, I don't if it is because of that or because I become older but I can't enjoy Hesse anymore, all his book seems almost comic to me. Also, I didn't even knew that there was a nazi called Hess lol. | ||
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21244 Posts
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pedrlz
Brazil5234 Posts
On April 07 2015 07:54 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: I mean, Hesse himself called Steppenwolf the most misunderstood of his works or something to that effect, and Demian is a realtively early work. Have you read Narcissus and Goldmund or Journey to the East or The Glass Bead Game? All of those are more "mature" works and markedly different in tone and philosophy than Demian/Steppenwolf, much more similar to Siddhartha. The only books that I read from him was Steppenwolf, Demian, Siddhartha and Gertrud, actually. I don't have many good memories about Sidartha, but I read almost 10 years ago and was really young, maybe I should give another try with Bead Game/Siddhartha. | ||
Falling
Canada11426 Posts
On March 25 2015 15:17 Roe wrote: hey guys, haven't really been posting a lot here but I have been continuing to struggle through LotR. I'm at the part where Gandalf takes Pippin to Gondor... and I'm starting to realize that I've been struggling through it to get to the 'good stuff' when I never really found it. Maybe I was expecting better after reading the Hobbit (bad movie, good book). I'm not really even sure what I was looking for in this book, and now I'm wondering whether I should just lay it to rest or push on through and finish the thing. I don't like the thought of being an 'accomplishmentarian' (where you just read books so you can say you've read them and check that off some list), but I have put a lot of time into it, and I still want to know what happens and what the book is like in complete. If you haven't enjoyed it up until now, I think you are crazy, but I don't think anything you will read in the final book will suddenly change your mind, so it's up to you. I love everything about the series, songs and all, but it certainly isn't a series for everyone. Speaking of fantasy, I've started reading Atlas Shrugged. I'm not sure if it'll be a fast or slow read or if I'll get distracted by a Robin Hobb book I just signed out. I'd finished The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. I mostly wanted to read it for the scene where the main character runs from battle, but then decided to read the entire thing as I was only vaguely familiar with the story from Wishbone, haha. Very strange how the author is quite reticent to name his protagonist. Prior to that, I had finished Jennifer Fallon's trilogy Warrior and Warlord books. And even before that I had slugged my way through Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. I did very much like it, but it still took me a long time to get through, whereas with Crane and Fallon I flew through. | ||
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Inkblood
United States463 Posts
![[image loading]](https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1400322851l/22055262.jpg) A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab I didn’t like this quite as much as Vicious. Vicious felt like it had more depth, whereas this was a very well-executed, fun romp. Usually I’m not a fan of books that I feel like that about, but I enjoyed this. Also I really liked the balance it struck with wrapping up the story nicely, but leaving a few questions unanswered. The world hopping was cool, but I felt kind of disappointed that so few people had that ability. Maybe Schwab will play with that more in future books? ![[image loading]](https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344318831l/15793094.jpg) The Six-Gun Tarot by R. S. Belcher (Mmmm, look at that gorgeous cover. Delicious.) I’ve been looking for this kind of book. I didn’t love everything about it, occasionally there were bits that could have been written more cleanly, and the climax could have been executed better. But overall, the writing/prose was good. The characters were interesting, and despite being stylized at times, felt real. And the dark/horror aspects of this weird western were done in a really cool style. (Oh, and Jon Highfather is a badass.) I’m definitely going to pick up the next book, though I’m hoping it will be a little better, just clean up those rough spots. ![[image loading]](https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1413220816l/15704459.jpg) Firefight by Brandon Sanderson I really didn’t like that he opened with a long action sequence. I guess that’s the kind of stuff Sanderson does sometimes, and it is the second book in this series, so that gives him a good reason to do that. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. Other than that . . . I liked it, I felt reasonably emotionally invested, and Sanderson’s plotting is good. It’s not a book that will stay with me, and my fondness for the few characters that I care about in this book is enough to keep me reading, but it was a fun experience. ![[image loading]](https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389881089l/18248435.jpg) Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett It makes me really sad that out of this batch the Terry Pratchett book is the one I liked the least. Terry Pratchett was the one who got me really into reading, and reading fantasy. My absolute love for his works even spurred me on to aspiring to be a writer. His struggle with Alzheimer’s made me very sad, and his death really rattled me. Rest in peace, Terry Pratchett. That said, this book was disappointing. I looked back and picked Thud! (my favorite Pratchett book) off my bookshelf, because I thought to myself that my tastes have changed a lot, and are changing even more these days, maybe I just don’t like Pratchett anymore? Not the case, the writing in Thud! is fantastic. Characters in this book often didn’t feel like themselves, and the plotting felt kind of weirdly structured and tensionless, but the biggest flaw was the writing in general. The craft just felt like it wasn’t there. Worse yet, characters seemed to communicate to each other solely in three paragraph long monologues, and the narrative felt little better, like he was summing up events most of the time, rather than portraying them. I still enjoyed the book; there were flashes of the old Pratchett, a clever joke, a cutting, astonishingly true insight, a bit of great non-monologue back and forth between characters. And maybe, just maybe, the point was for it to be tensionless. Perhaps the story was more about the inevitability of change and progress. *shrug* But overall, it was a disappointment. I hear there’s one last Discworld book. I don’t know if I’ll read it. Probably someday, out of curiosity. But for now I think it would just make me sad. | ||
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Surth
Germany456 Posts
Next up: either From Hell by Alan Moore or Capote's In Cold Blood. I also started on Ulysses but I can't read that with my current level of concentration. | ||
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
wikipedia is poor on current philosophy so i'd not recommend that as a source of review. the only public review i could find that's decent is this one http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=5170 | ||
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farvacola
United States18854 Posts
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
"Metzinger, in the first sentence of the book, states his aim straightforwardly as "to convince us that there is no such thing as a self" because, "contrary to what most people believe, nobody has ever been or had a self"" All of this depends on the assumption that we have an ontology which is based on the idea of "objects" - it's assumed by the grammar of "Being" and "Having". You can "be" someTHING, you can "have" someTHING. But there aren't any things in the world, only processes: everything which we experience as an 'object' is only such in virtue of the fact that it is a process which is always reproducing itself more or less successfully (i.e. we mistakenly believe that *attractors* are *objects*). In formal logic you have these entities called "logical objects" which are empty pegs on which you can hang predicates (the "x" in F(x)), but there's nothing in a (correct) ontology to which this "logical object" corresponds (as Hegel showed in the beginning of his Phenomenology). So once you realize this, it's sort of an empty claim to say that there's no such "thing" as a self, because we already know that there's no such "thing" as a "thing." There are, however, *processes of becoming* and therefore there are "becoming-selves" - which is no different from the realization that all things are actually processes of becoming-themselves. which is not to say that he's wrong, just... duh! but maybe i should read the book | ||
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farvacola
United States18854 Posts
Let it all hang out there. | ||
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the review does not pay sufficient care to ontological deflation vs eliminativism, and metzinger is really engaged in the former. process here is a dry neurological sense. (this should move up one, phone posting is hard) it is not a book about ontology in general, and your discussion is pretty much irrelevant and also will not stand in for metzinger's project. much like armchair metaphysics cant stand in for actual scientific theories. Heidegger and continental approach to metaphysics, which is what im assuming you are going with here, would offer u little guidance on understanding the particular problem of consciousness. you will not be able to explain or diffuse the strength of intuitions such as the cartesian self. metzingers opponent is basically david chalmers | ||
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