What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Rivendell_librarian]

Recently finished The Hobbit and The Ascent of Man by Jaob Bronowski: watching the 1970s TV series on DVD. This was a personal view of the History of Science. Other blockbuster documentaries at this time were Clarke's Civilisation and Cooke's America.

There are some standout visuals in The Ascent of Man. One was filming from a tram on the route Einstein would have used on the way to work, There was a tower with a clock behind the tram visible through the back window - and Bronowski described Einstein's thought experiment about what you would see if riding on a beam of light. The more famous one is Bronowski scooping up the mud from a mass grave in Auschwitz - apparently this was spontaneous with only one take. Some of the science is out of date now and the production values are dated, but it's still a remarkable documentary series.

 

[The ringbearer]

I'm reading now the hitchhiker's guid to the galaxy ... When I will finish this I will read The two towers

 

[Olorgando]

I'm reading now the hitchhiker's guid to the galaxy …

I quite quickly became a Douglas Adams nerd almost as badly - but nothing really compares to JRRT - as soon as I bought "Hitchhiker", "Restaurant" and "Life" in German translation in one raid on my favorite local bookstore. I then went on something of a "completist rampage" that kept the folks at said store on their toes - including one gaffe that made it necessary to re-visit the store to rectify (I kept the "wrong book" anyway). I'm still missing the book that Adams was most fervent about, the 1990 "Last Chance to See" co-authored with (zoologist and) photographer Mark Carwardine about endangered species. Not what his "fans" were expecting, to his disappointment.

I'm guessing that I have just now probably fallen into a typical nerd trap. You are reading the first book, which gave that entire fantasy cosmos its name? Not the following five, four of which Adams wrote himself, and the family-approved sixth volume "And Another Thing …" from 2009 written by Eoin Colfer (appropriately subtitled "Part Six of Three" - Adams himself had been making jokes when books four and five had broken the "trilogy" mold - started by some obscure Oxford Professor whose tome actually wasn't one …)

 

[Olorgando]

More on topic: just finished that brick of a book I mentioned in earlier posts here. Things are not going to get "better" in ease of reading with the one I ordered together with the previous one and will now start reading. A kind of "Old Testament" for a specific demographic, almost exclusively one from University circles, and specifically economists:

Adam Smith's 1776 (!!!) book "The Wealth Of Nations" in original (not a German translation - some of these seem to have been defective in a non-trivial sense). I have noticed that in topics that are controversial, both sides of an argument (but one especially) have indulged in more or less extreme forms of "cherry-picking" of "ancient texts" to "prove" their point of view. The extreme form of such "cherry-picking" is taking quotes entirely out of context. Like when an author quotes another's statements, then taking that point to launch on a massive destruction of it. The "cherry-pickers" point to that quote of an author they don't agree with in 99% of his (very few hers in such arguments) of the time, but ignore by selective "quotation" that this author proceeded to run the quoted argument through a massive shredder. I have become seriously not amused by such lying tactics.

 

[The ringbearer]

I quite quickly became a Douglas Adams nerd almost as badly - but nothing really compares to JRRT - as soon as I bought "Hitchhiker", "Restaurant" and "Life" in German translation in one raid on my favorite local bookstore. I then went on something of a "completist rampage" that kept the folks at said store on their toes - including one gaffe that made it necessary to re-visit the store to rectify (I kept the "wrong book" anyway). I'm still missing the book that Adams was most fervent about, the 1990 "Last Chance to See" co-authored with (zoologist and) photographer Mark Carwardine about endangered species. Not what his "fans" were expecting, to his disappointment.

I'm guessing that I have just now probably fallen into a typical nerd trap. You are reading the first book, which gave that entire fantasy cosmos its name? Not the following five, four of which Adams wrote himself, and the family-approved sixth volume "And Another Thing …" from 2009 written by Eoin Colfer (appropriately subtitled "Part Six of Three" - Adams himself had been making jokes when books four and five had broken the "trilogy" mold - started by some obscure Oxford Professor whose tome actually wasn't one …)

I quite quickly became a Douglas Adams nerd almost as badly - but nothing really compares to JRRT - as soon as I bought "Hitchhiker", "Restaurant" and "Life" in German translation in one raid on my favorite local bookstore. I then went on something of a "completist rampage" that kept the folks at said store on their toes - including one gaffe that made it necessary to re-visit the store to rectify (I kept the "wrong book" anyway). I'm still missing the book that Adams was most fervent about, the 1990 "Last Chance to See" co-authored with (zoologist and) photographer Mark Carwardine about endangered species. Not what his "fans" were expecting, to his disappointment.

I'm guessing that I have just now probably fallen into a typical nerd trap. You are reading the first book, which gave that entire fantasy cosmos its name? Not the following five, four of which Adams wrote himself, and the family-approved sixth volume "And Another Thing …" from 2009 written by Eoin Colfer (appropriately subtitled "Part Six of Three" - Adams himself had been making jokes when books four and five had broken the "trilogy" mold - started by some obscure Oxford Professor whose tome actually wasn't one …)

I'm reading all the series (five books), but right now i'm reading the first book

 

[Olorgando]

I'm reading all the series (five books), but right now i'm reading the first book

I "only" bought the first three books in translation because book four "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish", being quite different from the other four books Adams actually wrote in the series, was not available. Book five was, but the German title (this kind of garbage also happens when either American or English books cross to the opposite shore of the Atlantic Ocean (not named for the Plato book abort, rather the other way around), when otherwise useless parasites (aka "executives") seem to feel the need to justify their exorbitant salaries) made me doubt that it was a legit Adams book. And in my opinion Eoin Colfer's (rather thicker than the other five) sixth book is at least on a par with those written by Adams himself.

 

[Olorgando]

I have now started off on Adam Smith's 1776 (!!!) book "The Wealth Of Nations". Looks quite promising. But at least the occasional sentence, as was the norm back then, would definitely explode the limits that I am aware of for SMS (dinosaur technology, or necro, in S-eS's terminology) and Twitter (though anything about the latter is pure speculation on my part).

 

[Halasían]

Re-reading Glen Cook's The Black Company

 

[Olorgando]

Re-reading Kenneth C. Davis's "Don't know much about mythology: …" in the German translation, ©2006 (original ©2005). It was the fourth book in his "Don't know much …" series which he started in 1992 (though it took German publishers a while to catch on, as that was only translated in 2000 - at the same time as Davis's 1998 second book). I have all four now, ordering the three older ones quite quickly after having first read the fourth one.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

I've just finished Arthur C Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It helps to understand the film better

plusses:
ingenious, inventive story
descriptions of space and space travel
negative:
cardboard characters
female characters all unimportant

But the plusses far outweigh the negatives and the ending leaves you nicely suspended in space.

 

[Olorgando]

I've just finished Arthur C Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
...
But the plusses far outweigh the negatives and the ending leaves you nicely suspended in space.

In space, yes … but Discovery is orbiting Saturn's moon Japetus, not between Jupiter's moons Europa and Io.
Probably confusing to first-time readers (I know it confused me). Clarke, in his later books (2010 O2, 2061 O3 and 3001 Final O) switched to Jupiter as in the film.
And the lack of women spacefarers is probably due to the film and book predating the first moon landing in 1969. This also changed with Clarke's three later Odyssey books.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

I was thinking of the Star Child contemplating earth as being suspended in space.

One apparent difference.

In the film Dave Bowman seems to age slowly and die in his odd hotel room but this is much quicker in the book.

 

[Olorgando]

I was thinking of the Star Child contemplating earth as being suspended in space.

One apparent difference.

In the film Dave Bowman seems to age slowly and die in his odd hotel room but this is much quicker in the book.

We have something of a "Council of Elrond" thing here, with part 6 of the book "Through the Star Gate", "chapters" 41 to 47, covering 28 pages. Doing this "by the book" would have used up a lot of film footage, So while some things, as you mentioned, were a bit drawn out, much was compressed - with the old saw "a picture is worth 1000 words" helping.
Only "2010 O2" from 1982 was also filmed, in 1984, starring Roy Scheider. There too, some things described extensively in the book were shortened severely for the film. But at leas they (mostly) stayed away from trying to "improve" their book source … 😒

 

[Ithilethiel]

I'm reading three books, Victor David Hanson's, "A War Like No Other," Phillip E. Johnson's, "Darwin on Trial" and "The Abolition of Man" by C.S. Lewis.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

View attachment 6228

Most relatable title ever.



CL

 

[Olorgando]

View attachment 6228

Most relatable title ever.
CL

Which I can recycle immediately … cause I don't either … 🤯

 

[Starbrow]

It's the season for A Christmas Carol.

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

Fellowship of the Ring, actually.






CL

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

Just finished an interesting biography of C S Lewis by Oxford theologian Alister McGrath: recommended.

To go with reading this book I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - and really enjoyed it.

It's not The Hobbit or the LOTR and it's more a book for children but as Lewis says in his dedication to his god-daughter, Lucy Barfield, as you get older you find you "can read fairy stories again". I especially liked the description of the rapid onset of spring which marked the end of the Witch's winter hold on Narnia.