book thread

[minty]

macchiavelli had quite the reputation amongst the people of florence so ppl who knew him already formed an opinion on him without even reading the treaty, then church put it on the banned list so nobody could print or copy it and actually familiarize themselves with the work so the infamy grew

they mentioned the church censorship (they read the footnotes in the book! with the sources!)... attributed it to the part where he said "sure go to church and pretend to be all this good shit, but drop it as soon as you need to to stay in power"

i love teenage stepdad. he's a solid dude. his seize the memes show is cool as hell too waitin' for season 2 to come out rn (he has chickens i've seen them!)

 

[Quence]

i have finished android book, and am thoroughly in agreement with the main character that the purchase of a goat would be life-changing, and bring joy to myself and those around me, and my joy about my goat purchase could even prevent weaker people from committing suicide
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View attachment 17243View attachment 17244

Goats have freaky eyes….almost demonic in appearance.

 

[minty]

halfway through the slavoj books

finished these, started and finished eric fromm's 'to have or to be?' and the follow up 'the art of being'
liked slavoj's pandemic and pandemic 2, but it's a little sad hearing how optimistic the man was that having life upended would stop the "bleeding people dry for cash" machine
fromm is always classy. "to have or to be?" is as the title suggests: do you define yourself as a collector of stuff/a consoomer, or are you a human being with dignity? the art of being has some nice exercises in it for learning how to concentrate on things (all those people on social media who talk about how they can't visualize an apple should probably practice this, honestly), some meditation basics... he talks about spinoza's ethics in there quite a bit. nice to know he liked spinoza too
i then dove deep, listening to heidegger's "being and time" which was a soul-crushing 23 hrs and 18 minutes. it wasn't bad but it also wasn't anything profound or illuminating. existentialism, existential dread and anxiety are just the norm for a lot of people these days?

i am also officially halfway through the potato book. it has some overlap with one of my favorite books: john Big Kells's the graves are walking, about the irish potato famine. the history of the potato book does a bit more outlying how the wars and english laws crippling irish export in the previous century led to great dependence on the potato (why plant corn when cromwell's men will burn it, why have cows when cromwell's men will kill them, etc) but dependence on the potato, irish export of most corn was demanded by england, and arthur young's tour of ireland are mentioned in both books.
i am excited for the next few chapter's n the angl* hatred that is sure to come

 

[minty]

as an aside since i just noticed it's been a month since i've started this, i've made it through about 20-24 books since july started?
i think ima take another short philosophy break before starting kant and... hegel

i am downloading wind in the willows, brave new world, and paradise lost

 

[George_Ramirez_1997]

not enough of an intellectual for philosophy books or these old epics

idk how you all can read this stuff, I had to go through Paradise Lost for university and listened to my peers ramble about bullshit while thinking about how he seemed more like a tragic hero than anything else... No problem with any of shakespeare's dumb tragedies

 

[lurk]

not enough of an intellectual for philosophy books or these old epics

idk how you all can read this stuff, I had to go through Paradise Lost for university and listened to my peers ramble about bullshit while thinking about how he seemed more like a tragic hero than anything else... No problem with any of shakespeare's dumb tragedies

read what you want, bro. doesnt have to be le epic deep thonking.

 

[minty]

not enough of an intellectual for philosophy books or these old epics

idk how you all can read this stuff, I had to go through Paradise Lost for university and listened to my peers ramble about bullshit while thinking about how he seemed more like a tragic hero than anything else... No problem with any of shakespeare's dumb tragedies

eh, the philosophy books aren't insanely deep n it's not like i digested it all (think i need to get a physical copy of the wittgenstein one, as word problems are the worst type of math)

i'm reading or listening to it simply because i can. my job is driving by myself n an audiobook makes me feel like i'm back on my g.i. bill where i'm getting paid to learn (minus the essay writing). as for the books themselves, i don't know if i'm going to enjoy them or not before i listen to them.
tbh i hated english class all through school. we had to do an essay on a shakespeare play every year and i was never a fan of any of them. i hated the great gatsby too, and never got past 10 pages in the scarlet letter because nathaniel hawthorne's writing was boring and dull. "classics" are overrated and for the most part i'm just picking what i'm interested in. i don't like not finishing what i start tho, so even tho being and time started to drag ass i sped up the audiobook to compensate for my lack of interest.

anyways, the wind in the willows was fucking delightful. i know it's the precursor to all the frog and toad books, but i prefer rat and badger character-wise as toad is a giant asshole 90% of the book. i do enjoy the line used to describe him before he steals a motorcar it calls him "gay and irresponsible" and even tho i just bashed shakespeare it's a phrase that sticks in my head like othello's "bold and saucy wrongs"
pleasantly surprised by huxley's brave new world i was not prepared for electroshocking infants but i am ready for the rest of this book

 

[minty]

pleasantly surprised by huxley's brave new world i was not prepared for electroshocking infants but i am ready for the rest of this book

i was wrong

this was a beautiful and depressing book, and it got harder to read further on... as someone who was also their pillpopping whore mothers' mistake, and who spent childhood diving into books to escape a lot, i resonate possibly a bit too much with the main character. i'm not upset i read it, although i did tear up a little listening to the dialogue between john and mond.
the desire to be left alone by normies n harlots to garden, the joy of crafting things with your own hands instead of purchasing new shit from a store, feeling a profound spiritual weakness when using any mood-altering substance...

i finally understand tumblr's desire to hug fictional characters

 

[Lovecraft]

i was wrong

this was a beautiful and depressing book, and it got harder to read further on... as someone who was also their pillpopping whore mothers' mistake, and who spent childhood diving into books to escape a lot, i resonate possibly a bit too much with the main character. i'm not upset i read it, although i did tear up a little listening to the dialogue between john and mond.
the desire to be left alone by normies n harlots to garden, the joy of crafting things with your own hands instead of purchasing new shit from a store, feeling a profound spiritual weakness when using any mood-altering substance...

i finally understand tumblr's desire to hug fictional characters

Huxley did hit the mark in a way in his description of exile from the retard masses as a de-facto award.

 

[Quence]

I’m listening to this audiobook which also happens to have moving images. It’s about Sigmund Fraud Freud’s nephew and daughter who endeavoured to shape the psychological aspects of advertising towards thought manipulation.

 

[Dildo Baggins]

 

[Lovecraft]

View attachment 18209

Looked it up, and seems a lot better than the similarly titled

Which seems to be some shite Young Adult novel about sparkle-vamps, furries and sparkly furry vamps.

 

[lurk]

Looked it up, and seems a lot better than the similarly titled

Which seems to be some shite Young Adult novel about sparkle-vamps, furries and sparkly furry vamps.

twinklight twilight was a mistake, shouldve never been written.

 

[Lovecraft]

twinklight twilight was a mistake, shouldve never been written.

I don't mind that some mormon wench wrote it, I'm just very disappointed that so many people actually read it.

 

[chuj]

I don't mind that some mormon wench wrote it, I'm just very disappointed that so many people actually read it.

people consume tones of much worse quality fiction every day, please look up booktok if you wanna learn what women are up to this day

 

[Lovecraft]

people consume tones of much worse quality fiction every day, please look up booktok if you wanna learn what women are up to this day

I know.
I buy a lot of audiobooks and pirate even more, and some of the shite that gets adapted these days is absurd. I hate the fact that everything has to be a series now as well.
It is quite astonishing the amount of "Bride of the pastel coloured alien space barbarian with poorly photoshopped horns" fiction there is out there, not to mention Chuck Tingle's gay dinosaur republican erotica.

 

[chuj]

Bride of the pastel coloured alien space barbarian with poorly photoshopped horns

i hate the fact i'm aware of the series you are referring to

 

[Lovecraft]

i hate the fact i'm aware of the series you are referring to

900% Sure it is the gay dinosaur erotica you are aware of and not the space barbarian smurfs

 

[chuj]

900% Sure it is the gay dinosaur erotica you are aware of and not the space barbarian smurfs

are you sure????

 

[Lovecraft]

are you sure????

I stand by it.
Also, that is not a series I was referring to. Turns out there are a hecking lot of them that are basically all the same.
Saw one series about romantic shirtless cowboy cyborgs on Mars that gave off enough gay vibes to drown out gaydar readings even in central San Francisco.