What are you filthy heathens reading atm?

25-10-2012 7:35pm

MagicMarker wrote: »

Has anyone read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid?

I got my copy in the post today, it looks absolutely fascinating, here's a brief synopsis...

I read it about three years ago. It's a brilliant book, and one I must read again to refresh my memory of it. From what I remember, it's fairly interactive — by that I mean I spent a lot of time with a notepad attempting puzzles and so on that Hofstadter suggests readers attempt. Doing so gives you a real feel for what he's discussing, especially when he's discussing logic or number theory and so on. There's so much information contained in the book that it demands a slow and, at some points, painstaking reading, because, being almost like a textbook, each chapter is built on preceding chapters, and without a firm understanding of what is being discussed at all times a reader will eventually get lost.

Edit:

If you enjoy GEB, I'd recommend its follow-up book I Am a Strange Loop. It deals with the central idea of GEB and examines it in more detail, without getting lost in related subjects and ideas, which GEB does to a small degree. He has another book, a compendium of articles written for Scientific American, Metamagical Themas, which deals with a whole host of subjects, discussing everything from artificial intelligence to fonts. If you enjoy his other two works I'd recommend this, too.

robindch · 25-10-2012 9:13pm

MagicMarker wrote: »

Has anyone read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid?

Yes, I picked it up at some point during the early eighties in a small bookshop in Ballydehob and read it from cover to cover in a few weeks, a cram session from which I may not yet have recovered fully. It's like no other book on earth.

His longer and more diffuse work, Le Ton beau de Marot, isn't as well known as GEB, but it's just as interesting for people interested in the intricacies of language, translation and expression in a very general sense.

I can't give any praise higher to these two books than saying that each of them changed the way I think.

25-10-2012 9:23pm

Beruthiel wrote: »

Robin Hobb I have read.
But not those two.

What book would you recommend first?

Daggerspell by Kerr and King's Dragon by Elliott. Both the first books in great series. Which to start on? No idea which you'd prefer! Get both!

Sulla Felix · 25-10-2012 9:46pm

MagicMarker wrote: »

Has anyone read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid?

I got my copy in the post today, it looks absolutely fascinating, here's a brief synopsis...

Hmmm, have to put that on the to read list. It does look good.

bluewolf wrote: »

Yeah, she's brill
Her and kate elliott and katharine kerr.

Have to second Kate Elliott. Glen Cook is good in a similarly character driven direction.

MagicMarker · 25-10-2012 11:57pm

Just finished Ender's Game, absolutely brilliant!!

Andrewf20 · 26-10-2012 1:48am

pauldla wrote: »

I went through a big Orwell phase years back, read and reread everything I could get my hands on by him.

I didn't particularly like most of his novels (A Clergyman's Daughter put years on me, in particular), but I really enjoyed most of his other work. I picked up his Collected Essays again there recently, and wow, I had forgotten what a good writer he was.

I had an interesting conversation with a former student about 1984. After reading it, she said (in awe, I might add) that Orwell understood China. No higher praise can I think of...!

The Hitch mentioned it a few times so I said I must give it a blast. It certainly sounds like North Korea. 61 pages in at this stage.

Andrewf20 · 26-10-2012 1:51am

Just finished The Caged Virgin. Good read, fascinating, shocking, just the right length. Read Mortality before that by Mr Hitch and before that - Left for Dead (story of the 1979 Fastnet race storm disaster).

DazMarz · 26-10-2012 3:44am

Recently finished:

The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The General by Paul Williams
Avenger by Frederick Forsyth

and am currently on Badfellas by Paul Williams

Yeah, crime and thrillers feature highly on my list of books that I read.

I would highly recommend the first 3 as cracking good reads, and the last one is shaping up to be a cracker too.

kylith · 26-10-2012 9:40am

MagicMarker wrote: »

Just finished Ender's Game, absolutely brilliant!!

Told you! Now on to Speaker for the Dead with you.

pauldla · 26-10-2012 10:02am

Andrewf20 wrote: »

The Hitch mentioned it a few times so I said I must give it a blast. It certainly sounds like North Korea. 61 pages in at this stage.

Great stuff, let us know what you think of it!

Dades · 26-10-2012 10:12am

DazMarz wrote: »

I would highly recommend the first 3 as cracking good reads, and the last one is shaping up to be a cracker too.

I went through a Freddie Forsyth phase many years ago. Read all his 70's and 80's stuff. The Dogs of War - what a cracker! Didn't realise he was still putting stuff out.

robindch · 26-10-2012 10:28am

Forsyth doesn't only write fiction in books, he also writes for the British right-wing press:

http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/320923/Frederick-Forsyth

...and the local equivalent:

http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/320923/Frederick-Forsyth
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/new-deal-is-a-charter-for-the-fourth-reich-2829834.html

etc, etc, etc.

Mickeroo · 26-10-2012 7:16pm

bluewolf wrote: »

Daggerspell by Kerr and King's Dragon by Elliott. Both the first books in great series. Which to start on? No idea which you'd prefer! Get both!

Since ye seem to like Dragons and such I must recommend Temeraire (AKA His Majesty's Dragon) by Naomi Novik. There's a whole series but I've only read the first one, it's set in the Napoleonic Wars except the opposing sides have an air corp made up of dragons, think Master & Commander with dragons. Whats not to love?

swampgas · 26-10-2012 7:44pm

kylith wrote: »

Told you! Now on to Speaker for the Dead with you.

NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Ender's Game is epic, but Speaker for the Dead is truly awful, and a massive let down after Ender's Game. Even Orson Scott Card has admitted as much.

MagicMarker · 26-10-2012 7:49pm

I'll save Speaker of the Dead for a later date...

Right now I'm going to start on The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.

swampgas · 26-10-2012 7:55pm

MagicMarker wrote: »

Has anyone read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid?

I got my copy in the post today, it looks absolutely fascinating, here's a brief synopsis...

Read it years ago, pretty mind-bending stuff. Funnily enough, a reference to it (and its author) popped up in a book I'm just reading now, "The Psychopath Test", which is a cracking read.

26-10-2012 7:55pm

Mickeroo wrote: »

Since ye seem to like Dragons and such I must recommend Temeraire (AKA His Majesty's Dragon) by Naomi Novik. There's a whole series but I've only read the first one, it's set in the Napoleonic Wars except the opposing sides have an air corp made up of dragons, think Master & Commander with dragons. Whats not to love?

Read the first one, was pleasant while not rushing out to read the rest. I might order them sometime

DazMarz · 27-10-2012 12:38am

Dades wrote: »

I went through a Freddie Forsyth phase many years ago. Read all his 70's and 80's stuff. The Dogs of War - what a cracker! Didn't realise he was still putting stuff out.

Oh yeah. I'm a huge fan of his. Have nearly all his books. I highly recommend you give Avenger, Icon and The Fist Of God a go. They're his later ones. His latest one, The Cobra is... ok. It takes too long building up, then whips through a lot of action far too quickly. It's like it goes plodding along in 2nd gear for 2/3 of the book, then flies into 5th for the final 1/3. It's an intriguing story, but not as flawlessly executed as his earlier works. He's still my favourite author. I re-read so much of his stuff. It's all so insanely read-able.

robindch · 30-10-2012 2:26pm

Barack Obama reckons that Ayn Rand is for angsty teenagers and Republicans:

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/cultists-lose-their-minds-after-barack-obama-says-ayn-rand-teenagers

Obama wrote:

Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we'd pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we're only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we're considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that's a pretty narrow vision. It's not one that, I think, describes what's best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a "you're on your own" society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.

30-10-2012 2:31pm

Reckon mr obama may have missed the point

robindch · 30-10-2012 2:36pm

We'll agree to disagree on that point

ShooterSF · 31-10-2012 6:26pm

So my hardcovered copy of Arguably has arrived. I can't wait to sit down with it but first I better dig up a dictionary to keep beside it.

Turtwig · 31-10-2012 6:54pm

ShooterSF wrote: »

So my hardcovered copy of Arguably has arrived. I can't wait to sit down with it but first I better dig up a dictionary to keep beside it.

See on a kindle the dictionary and book are the one thing.

[-0-] · 31-10-2012 6:55pm

ShooterSF wrote: »

So my hardcovered copy of Arguably has arrived. I can't wait to sit down with it but first I better dig up a dictionary to keep beside it.

I find it hard to read Hitchens when I'm not reading him on a Kindle. Such a huge vocabulary!

31-10-2012 7:12pm

Jernal wrote: »

See on a kindle the dictionary and book are the one thing.

Where's the fun in that?

I find I soon forget words that I look up on a Kindle or something similar. When I use a proper dictionary, and have to thumb through its pages to find what I'm looking for, the word permanently lodges in my mind. There's something about getting the definition of a word without effort that lowers its value; when you have to "work" to find it it becomes worth remembering, if only because the thought of having to find it again, in a tome of a dictionary, while using up valuable seconds and minutes, is displeasing. I'm just old fashioned, I guess ...

I'm currently attempting to read Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad. After reading about three dozen pages I think I'll have to resign myself to the fact that it's too challenging and resort to a more modern translation. Any recommendations?

Aenaes · 31-10-2012 7:15pm

gvn wrote: »

I'm currently attempting to read Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad. After reading about three dozen pages I think I'll have to resign myself to the fact that it's too challenging and resort to a more modern translation. Any recommendations?

I read it 5 or so years ago, think it was Penguin Classics version. Might be an easier entry into it for the story element (which is great), then take another crack at Chapman's?

Might as well say what I'm reading. Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano, an account of Naples mafia called the Camorra. Interesting how you think these organisations might have faded away as they are no longer in the limelight but then reading stories of how they supply armies and warlords (ETA for example) and how a dress Angelina Jolie wore to an Oscars was made in a Camorra controlled underground garment factory.

Nodin · 31-10-2012 7:18pm

....christ, the last time I needed a dictionary the shaggin words weren't in it. "Hitler - The Fuhrer And The People" by JP Stern, many years ago. Dragged out the biggest one in the house (and the largest I had access to) which was a two volume hardback edition of the Oxford English and not a sign....Might try it again now though, seein as I have the interweb

31-10-2012 7:21pm

Aenaes wrote: »

I read it 5 or so years ago, think it was Penguin Classics version. Might be an easier entry into it for the story element (which is great), then take another crack at Chapman's?

That's the plan. Once I've read a modern translation, and have a grasp of the story and its characters, I can return to Chapman's version with an idea of what's happening. I find it difficult to simultaneously parse Chapman's verse and comprehend what's happening in the story; the former takes up so much cognitive effort that the latter becomes secondary in importance. I haven't read much Middle (I believe it's Middle, but I could be wrong) English before so that's my problem. I'll check out the Penguin Classics version, thanks.

MagicMarker · 31-10-2012 7:33pm

Nobokov is a bitch to read as half the feckin words aren't in the dictionary.

Beruthiel · 31-10-2012 8:14pm

I am going on holidays in a couple of days. \0/
I'll be bringing a couple of Sherlock Holmes books with me as I've never gotten around to reading Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Mad Hatter · 31-10-2012 8:38pm

Beruthiel wrote: »

I am going on holidays in a couple of days. \0/
I'll be bringing a couple of Sherlock Holmes books with me as I've never gotten around to reading Arthur Conan Doyle.

I'd say stick with the early stuff. A Study in Scarlet is pretty good. Or at least the first half is - the second half, as parodied brilliantly by Mark Twain in A Double-Barrelled Detective Story (which also features Holmes) seems for the first few chapters(!) to be unrelated. The Hound of the Baskervilles is great too. I wasn't too fond of The Sign of Four or The Valley of Fear. For short stories, stick with the first two sets: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. There are some good later stories, but Conan Doyle had grown pretty sick of the character, and sometimes it shows.

31-10-2012 9:07pm

Just ordered Cryptonomicon, Never Let Me Go, Fahrenheit 451, Inverted World.
Hurray!

Bannasidhe · 31-10-2012 9:26pm

bluewolf wrote: »

Just ordered Cryptonomicon, Never Let Me Go, Fahrenheit 451, Inverted World.
Hurray!

Cryptonomicon - loved it.
Haven't read the others yet.

MagicMarker · 31-10-2012 9:33pm

I have a phobia of reading books when I can't pronounce the title.

The Mad Hatter · 31-10-2012 9:44pm

I have to say, when I finally read Fahrenheit 451, I felt pretty massively let down. I admire Bradbury for his imagination (some of the stories in The Illustrated Man are unforgettable), but I've never liked his writing.

keane2097 · 31-10-2012 9:54pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

I'd say stick with the early stuff. A Study in Scarlet is pretty good. Or at least the first half is - the second half, as parodied brilliantly by Mark Twain in A Double-Barrelled Detective Story (which also features Holmes) seems for the first few chapters(!) to be unrelated. The Hound of the Baskervilles is great too. I wasn't too fond of The Sign of Four or The Valley of Fear. For short stories, stick with the first two sets: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. There are some good later stories, but Conan Doyle had grown pretty sick of the character, and sometimes it shows.

This is good advice. Study in Scarlet is great IMO.

Dades · 31-10-2012 11:04pm

MagicMarker wrote: »

Nobokov is a bitch to read as half the feckin words aren't in the dictionary.

But the words around them are so beautifully ordered.

31-10-2012 11:10pm

Aenaes wrote: »

Might as well say what I'm reading. Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano, an account of Naples mafia called the Camorra. Interesting how you think these organisations might have faded away as they are no longer in the limelight but then reading stories of how they supply armies and warlords (ETA for example) and how a dress Angelina Jolie wore to an Oscars was made in a Camorra controlled underground garment factory.

I enjoyed that and would recommend it to the people who I think are a little naive. :pac: Without spelling things out it's pretty obvious they and organisations in other countries have their fingers in just about every single pie.

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

I have to say, when I finally read Fahrenheit 451, I felt pretty massively let down. I admire Bradbury for his imagination (some of the stories in The Illustrated Man are unforgettable), but I've never liked his writing.

Nice idea, read like a story I'd write when I was 12 without knowing where I was going with it.

Sulla Felix · 31-10-2012 11:21pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

I have to say, when I finally read Fahrenheit 451, I felt pretty massively let down. I admire Bradbury for his imagination (some of the stories in The Illustrated Man are unforgettable), but I've never liked his writing.

I was lucky that I read it before I knew it was apparently a classic. It's good, don't get me wrong, but the way some people talk about it, it's the be all and end all.

Turtwig · 01-11-2012 12:18am

Might as well hijack this fecking thread. Any filthy heathens doing Nanowrimo?

It's almoooooost go time.

Bannasidhe · 01-11-2012 12:25am

Jernal wrote: »

Might as well hijack this fecking thread. Any filthy heathens doing Nanowrimo?
It's almoooooost go time.

Son's OH, who is staying with us, is. She's hyping up on coffee even now.
Unfortunately for her I have builders arriving at 8 a.m. tomorrow and Friday to do some minorish internal work which will involve drills, kango hammers, steel girders with assorted squeaky pulleys and the noisy like...

01-11-2012 12:42am

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Son's OH, who is staying with us, is. She's hyping up on coffee even now.

You're allowing your son's significant other to stay with you? What kind of heathens are you, CoI!?

The Mad Hatter · 01-11-2012 1:06am

Jernal wrote: »

Might as well hijack this fecking thread. Any filthy heathens doing Nanowrimo?
It's almoooooost go time.

Not this year

Life's been too busy to do much fiction writing for the last while.

Corkfeen · 01-11-2012 1:38am

MagicMarker wrote: »

Nobokov is a bitch to read as half the feckin words aren't in the dictionary.

Same applies to A Clockwork Orange, many of them may turn up in a russian dictionary though.... I spent my days reading online dictionaries for it :pac:

Gumbi · 01-11-2012 3:21am

Re-reading Foundation and Earth, by Isaac Asimov. Read it when I was 14, got me into sci-fi!

Bannasidhe · 01-11-2012 9:10am

Deleted User wrote: »

You're allowing your son's significant other to stay with you? What kind of heathens are you, CoI!?

Well she is COE....and I have an ancient Gaelic Irish attitude towards sex i.e as they are both consenting adults I don't care what they do as long as they keep the noise down, pay for any damages and don't alarm the dogs.

bytheglass · 01-11-2012 9:12am

The happy zombie sunrise home by Margaret Atwood on wattpad, haven't read in over a year and this is currently ticking all the boxes

Obliq · 01-11-2012 9:20am

Re-reading (cos I haven't got back to the library again) Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre. LOVE that book - very funny/tragic. Not very high-brow, but never mind:-)

01-11-2012 10:10am

Jernal wrote: »

Might as well hijack this fecking thread. Any filthy heathens doing Nanowrimo?
It's almoooooost go time.

Yayyyy o/

MrPudding · 01-11-2012 10:20am

Has anyone one tried Ben Aaronovich's Rivers of London series? Very enjoyable.

MrP

What are you filthy heathens reading atm?

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