Whatcha reading?

[Silent Majority]

5) Meditations - Marcus Aurelius. Audiobook. Completed 180. Lives on down the millennia as a self-improving man talking to himself. And, via himself, to all of humankind. Some of his stoic philosophy reads harsh at first gaze, but what he's really preaching is a kind of zen, at heart. Of course, I don't agree with this long-dead man on everything - that would be mad - but the tenor of the book, its overall message, strikes the right notes for me making this a rewarding and absorbing read which I'll return to.

Would appreciate a steer toward any other Greek or Roman classics that people on here found good.

[Flex]

5) Meditations - Marcus Aurelius. Audiobook. Completed 180. Lives on down the millennia as a self-improving man talking to himself. And, via himself, to all of humankind. Some of his stoic philosophy reads harsh at first gaze, but what he's really preaching is a kind of zen, at heart. Of course, I don't agree with this long-dead man on everything - that would be mad - but the tenor of the book, its overall message, strikes the right notes for me making this a rewarding and absorbing read which I'll return to.

Would appreciate a steer toward any other Greek or Roman classics that people on here found good.

I don't have any other recommendations, but I keep a copy of meditations at the side of my bed as a matter of practice

[eumaas]

5) Meditations - Marcus Aurelius. Audiobook. Completed 180. Lives on down the millennia as a self-improving man talking to himself. And, via himself, to all of humankind. Some of his stoic philosophy reads harsh at first gaze, but what he's really preaching is a kind of zen, at heart. Of course, I don't agree with this long-dead man on everything - that would be mad - but the tenor of the book, its overall message, strikes the right notes for me making this a rewarding and absorbing read which I'll return to.

Would appreciate a steer toward any other Greek or Roman classics that people on here found good.

Have you read Plutarch's Lives?

[Silent Majority]

5) Meditations - Marcus Aurelius. Audiobook. Completed 180. Lives on down the millennia as a self-improving man talking to himself. And, via himself, to all of humankind. Some of his stoic philosophy reads harsh at first gaze, but what he's really preaching is a kind of zen, at heart. Of course, I don't agree with this long-dead man on everything - that would be mad - but the tenor of the book, its overall message, strikes the right notes for me making this a rewarding and absorbing read which I'll return to.

Would appreciate a steer toward any other Greek or Roman classics that people on here found good.

Have you read Plutarch's Lives?

No, I'll get to it, though

[Silent Majority]

6) Perchance to Dream – Charles Beaumont. Published 2015, stories written prior to 1965. Audiobook. A friend of and a better writer than Ray Bradbury, while working in the same fields, Beaumont is best known for his Twilight Zone episodes which are among the best. There are some of the best speculative stories I’ve yet encountered in this collection as well as some so tragically uninspired, so unworthy of inclusion, that I suspect they came from the period when the poor bastard’s brain started to fail him. However, even the unreadable dreck has its own cigarette-clamped-in-teeth-at-the-typewriter charm. On the whole, though, we have an unmissable fiction book with what I’ll decide to mentally file as some deleted scenes in its bonus features.

[Dr. Medulla]

Audio:
Almost finished that book on anonymity, speech, and the internet. I'm not certain it's moved my uncertainty on the issue one direction or the other. Some days I lean to the value of greater anonymity to encourage dissent, other days I feel it's not worth it given how much it empowers monsters and those who would ultimately eliminate our freedoms.

Next up:

Drew Magary, The Hike. I read this when it came out but recently found an audio version, so I'm going to revisit it as a lighter experience. I like the book well enough the first time around, a Twilight Zone story of a man who, on a business trip, goes out to stretch his legs and ends up in a surreal world, desperately trying to make it back to his family.

Bedtime:
Finished Tracy Flick Can't Win. Flat and pointless. All growed up, Tracy is an assistant principal who, ambitious as ever, seeks to the top job. There's more to it, but it's all quite pointless. None of the characters are worth feeling invested in. Unless the film adaptation drastically alters things, it's going to be a dud.


Stephen Wertheim, Tomorrow The World. Heard some hype (academic circles hype, anyway), so I'll give this a spin. Not really a foreign policy guy, so I might not get thru this, but I'll try.

[Kory]

I hate audiobooks but I have a free one coming to me for Xmas so I figure I should get one where the narrator is integral to the experience. Any ideas? I'm leaning toward a Stephen Fry something or other.

[Marky Dread]

I hate audiobooks but I have a free one coming to me for Xmas so I figure I should get one where the narrator is integral to the experience. Any ideas? I'm leaning toward a Stephen Fry something or other.

Not a big fan of audiobooks either.

But this one was good.

Mythos – Stephen Fry

Written by Fry himself, Mythos is the tale of Ancient Greece and how it came to be. Learn the stories of the Minotaur, Medusa, and King Midas whilst Fry airs the cosmic squabbles and love affairs of the twelve Olympians. Witty, clever and in some parts shockingly gruesome, Fry’s retelling of the myths and legends are well worth a listen.

[Kory]

I hate audiobooks but I have a free one coming to me for Xmas so I figure I should get one where the narrator is integral to the experience. Any ideas? I'm leaning toward a Stephen Fry something or other.

Not a big fan of audiobooks either.

But this one was good.

Mythos – Stephen Fry

Written by Fry himself, Mythos is the tale of Ancient Greece and how it came to be. Learn the stories of the Minotaur, Medusa, and King Midas whilst Fry airs the cosmic squabbles and love affairs of the twelve Olympians. Witty, clever and in some parts shockingly gruesome, Fry’s retelling of the myths and legends are well worth a listen.

Yeah I have the book version of that, maybe I'll get the followup.

[Dr. Medulla]

I hate audiobooks but I have a free one coming to me for Xmas so I figure I should get one where the narrator is integral to the experience. Any ideas? I'm leaning toward a Stephen Fry something or other.

Not a big fan of audiobooks either.

But this one was good.

Mythos – Stephen Fry

Written by Fry himself, Mythos is the tale of Ancient Greece and how it came to be. Learn the stories of the Minotaur, Medusa, and King Midas whilst Fry airs the cosmic squabbles and love affairs of the twelve Olympians. Witty, clever and in some parts shockingly gruesome, Fry’s retelling of the myths and legends are well worth a listen.

Yeah I have the book version of that, maybe I'll get the followup.

The only Fry book that I've liked is his novel Making History, about making sure Hitler is never born. It ain't deep or nuthin', but it's a decent tale.

[Silent Majority]

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business – Josh Kaufman. Audiobook. 2010. This book claims that it will provide you, along with a continuing self-education and improvement program, with all the benefits of a years-long degree in business school with none of the cost. In fact, it kills its entire first chapter on this fact, selling the reader the book after the reader has bought the book. Oh, well, it’s a cheerfully written foundational run-through of concepts like sales, value creation, working with others, and all that other stuff. Which is what I expected it to be. I haven’t looked, but I bet there are thousands of furious reviews saying that this 400 page book somehow doesn’t manage to provide what an MBA would. To those imaginary but all too plausible people, I say: how credulous are you? You’ve learnt something about business right there.

[Dr. Medulla]

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business – Josh Kaufman. Audiobook. 2010. This book claims that it will provide you, along with a continuing self-education and improvement program, with all the benefits of a years-long degree in business school with none of the cost. In fact, it kills its entire first chapter on this fact, selling the reader the book after the reader has bought the book. Oh, well, it’s a cheerfully written foundational run-through of concepts like sales, value creation, working with others, and all that other stuff. Which is what I expected it to be. I haven’t looked, but I bet there are thousands of furious reviews saying that this 400 page book somehow doesn’t manage to provide what an MBA would. To those imaginary but all too plausible people, I say: how credulous are you? You’ve learnt something about business right there.

Sure, you could go to school for years and spend thousands of dollars, or you spend $40 and a day on this book. Or, if you're smarter yet, this 15-minute video on youtube will tell you everything you need to know to be as much of an expert on law, business, politics, and history as those phony elites.

[Silent Majority]

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business – Josh Kaufman. Audiobook. 2010. This book claims that it will provide you, along with a continuing self-education and improvement program, with all the benefits of a years-long degree in business school with none of the cost. In fact, it kills its entire first chapter on this fact, selling the reader the book after the reader has bought the book. Oh, well, it’s a cheerfully written foundational run-through of concepts like sales, value creation, working with others, and all that other stuff. Which is what I expected it to be. I haven’t looked, but I bet there are thousands of furious reviews saying that this 400 page book somehow doesn’t manage to provide what an MBA would. To those imaginary but all too plausible people, I say: how credulous are you? You’ve learnt something about business right there.

Sure, you could go to school for years and spend thousands of dollars, or you spend $40 and a day on this book. Or, if you're smarter yet, this 15-minute video on youtube will tell you everything you need to know to be as much of an expert on law, business, politics, and history as those phony elites.

You'll never go broke appealing to the lazy and greedy! Lesson the second.

[Dr. Medulla]

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business – Josh Kaufman. Audiobook. 2010. This book claims that it will provide you, along with a continuing self-education and improvement program, with all the benefits of a years-long degree in business school with none of the cost. In fact, it kills its entire first chapter on this fact, selling the reader the book after the reader has bought the book. Oh, well, it’s a cheerfully written foundational run-through of concepts like sales, value creation, working with others, and all that other stuff. Which is what I expected it to be. I haven’t looked, but I bet there are thousands of furious reviews saying that this 400 page book somehow doesn’t manage to provide what an MBA would. To those imaginary but all too plausible people, I say: how credulous are you? You’ve learnt something about business right there.

Sure, you could go to school for years and spend thousands of dollars, or you spend $40 and a day on this book. Or, if you're smarter yet, this 15-minute video on youtube will tell you everything you need to know to be as much of an expert on law, business, politics, and history as those phony elites.

You'll never go broke appealing to the lazy and greedy! Lesson the second.

Appeal to people's Dunning-Kruger impulses and use that to your advantage.

[Silent Majority]

8) Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne - Katherine Rundell. Audiobook. 2022. A brilliantly written biography with a tart style and the ability to take you back to the life of this poet, lawyer, ambassador, preacher and everything else this man was. Best known for his gorgeous and unexpected love poetry, Donne (pronounced here as Dun) was a guy who lived over a transitional time and usually had the ability to know which way the wind was about to blow.