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Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2022 5:27 am
by Catoptric
Was looking for a 1540 Space oddyssey ( https://1540aspaceodyssey.com/ ) recreation of:

Astronomicum Caesareum. [Faksimileausg. Ingolstadii, 1540.
by Peter Apian
https://www.thinking3d.ac.uk/Apian1524/

Download available
https://archive.org/details/astronomicumcsar00apia

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:37 am
by starjots
I still haven't read that Kropotkin...

Finished another Nick Lane book, Transformer, The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death.

Maybe I mentioned this earlier, but I just finished it. Anyway, Nick Lane is a chemist who studies the chemistry inside cells. His books are technical, full of reactions, proteins, mitochondria, membranes, molecules and so forth, as well as his analysis.

He likes to write books and is pretty good at it. His angle is energy flow, and the specific angle in this book is the Kreb Cycle (a series of chemical reactions at the heart of all life on Earth). Somehow, out of this, he spits out stuff about the origin of life, cancer, aging, and even consciousness.

Am also mostly through Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark.

Max Erik Tegmark is a Swedish-American physicist, cosmologist and machine learning researcher. The book is about artificial intelligence, specifically general AI. The book gives food for thought, but unlike Transformer, it seems heavy on the hypothetical and possible future scenarios as opposed to actual stuff (like chemical reactions). It's all well meaning, but I'm getting a bit disengaged 2/3 the way in because I can speculate on my own perfectly well, albeit from a less expert vantage point.

Also managed a fluff fan-ish fiction type book, Firefly Generations, based on the old Firefly TV series. There are more in the series, and in general, I'd say if you liked Firefly, they seem true to the spirit of the old series and so I found it enjoyable.

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 7:34 am
by aether
I am actually thinking of publishing a book. That may be the privileged Nicaraguan tradition. However, our Northern provinces (Esteli, Matagalpa, Jinotega, Nueva Segovia) heritage is Basque and Celtic, northern European as opposed to the Southern European tradition...I am of course an INTP and I may be a little English and German. :ph34r: we are the outcast thinkers in Southern Central America but well received in Nicaraguan literature, perhaps.

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 10:46 pm
by Madrigal
I got Mythos by Steven Fry but can't start reading it till next week. I got Heroes too but it hasn't arrived yet.
aether wrote:
Sat Sep 24, 2022 7:34 am
I am actually thinking of publishing a book. That may be the privileged Nicaraguan tradition. However, our Northern provinces (Esteli, Matagalpa, Jinotega, Nueva Segovia) heritage is Basque and Celtic, northern European as opposed to the Southern European tradition...I am of course an INTP and I may be a little English and German. :ph34r: we are the outcast thinkers in Southern Central America but well received in Nicaraguan literature, perhaps.
Is there a famous Nicaraguan writer you'd recommend? What's your book gonna be about?

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 11:06 pm
by aether
Ruben Dario. But ignore the anti-American stance. He was helped by the liberal Zelaya establishment and a minister from Esteli helped him go to France and Argentina and made his career. His political stance is outdated but his imagination is superb like the Queen Mab thought. You may also try Claribel Alegria, she is Estelian Salvadorian. But, the north triangle of Central America is very different than Nicaragua, Panama and Costa Rica. Nicaragua and Costa Rica have a weird relationship. It’s almost as if we are let Costa Rica be relative rich and
“white” while Nicaragua is seen the opposite while it is not...Nicaragua is like Spain + Hawaii. But the mountain areas are definitely like Antoquia in Colombia and even whiter. I’ve seen people in Esteli and Matagalpa that look like Russians.

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 11:12 pm
by Madrigal
I didn't know Rubén Darío was Nicaraguan! I used to read his poetry as a teenager.

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 11:21 pm
by aether
Yes, Nicaragua is very underrated. I am Nicaraguan but from the mountains where we are like Denver or the Appalachians. Hollywood promotes the countries that will bring the most money. Nicaragua was second in colonial after Antigua and we were settled from Colombia and Panama with more ties to South America. My my mtnda is Irish ....so perhaps the Basque race is part Celtic after all. I was in Bilbao last year and I also have relatives in Barcelona.

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2022 11:47 pm
by Catoptric
1863 edition of the “Dictionnaire Infernal”
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/d ... 8590d3852b

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:25 pm
by djm
Had a grotesque level of flying last week or two (15 flights in 12 days tour of Oz and NZ) so got through a fair chunk of reading.

SS Great Britain by Len Deighton. Decent enough alternate history / crime novel.
Kolyma Tales by Victor Shalamov - Should be force fed to anyone supporting extremism.
Never Let Me Go - Ishiguru - Good writer, subtle and gentle prose combined with hard hitting issues minus any judgement. Excellent read.

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:26 am
by Ferrus
djm wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:25 pm

SS Great Britain by Len Deighton. Decent enough alternate history / crime novel.
Have you read The IPCRESS File?