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What are you reading?

I'm two chapters into Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature, by Richard Lewontin,, Leon Kamin, and Steven Rose. It's a classic, originally published in the 80s, but in a revised edition (2017). Actually, in the Preface they say not all that much has changed since they wrote it, so heavy revisions were unnecessary.

I'm really enjoying it. Each of the authors is/was a heavyweight in his field. They go after a lot of sacred cows involving biological determinism, evolutionary psychology, and the like. They share a strongly political perspective on how much science works, claiming that many current widely accepted "scientific" paradigms have at their basis social and economic assumptions that are far from established fact. No, they don't go after particle physics or claim that mathematics is a reflection of the patriarchy. So far, it makes a lot of sense.

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About a week ago I found myself having another go at Cohen's Parasites of Heaven, his fourth poetry book. It's one of his strangest, but I've always found myself drawn to it. It's hard to interpret, but I'm pretty sure he was trying to highlight the disingenuousness of his prior work with it (hence 'parasites'). After it his poetry made a huge shift for the better. Before (really before Flowers of Hitler) there was too much influence from Irving Layton.

I've also pulled a few other poetry titles from my shelves lately and have been studying them more deeply. Something to do in lieu of having anything to write about.
 
Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir.

''An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could imagine it, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian''

Half way through, the book is living up to its review.
 
DBT said:
Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir.

''An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could imagine it, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian''

Half way through, the book is living up to its review.
Click to expand...
Funny. I'm reading the exact same book. Am half the way through it also! Love it so far. His writing is different. Unique. I don't think that it will make as good of a movie as The Martian. But it's a great book so far.
 
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I am just starting The Last Days of the Dinosaurs,” by Riley Black. I’m finding it very well written and an easy read. Judging from the chapter titles, it’s as much or more about the rise of mammals than about the last day(s) of the dinosaurs, and I’m finding it really fascinating. Here are the chapter titles, just to give a glimpse of the topics it covers:

  • Before Impact
  • Impact
  • The First Hour
  • The First Day
  • The First Month
  • One Year After Impact
  • One Hundred Years After Impact
  • One Thousand Years After Impact
  • One Hundred Thousand Years After Impact
  • One Million Years After Impact
 
The Norton Anthology of Poetry. A compilation of all well known (English) poets dating back to the early middle age. About 2000 pages in total.

I mainly bought it for everything past the 17th century, but am determined to go through it from start to finish with ample amounts of speed reading. It'll let me check out a lot of the big names without a significant investment in individual books.

And I found it for 15 bucks at the local counter-culture bookshop.
 
Tharmas said:
I am just starting The Last Days of the Dinosaurs,” by Riley Black. I’m finding it very well written and an easy read. Judging from the chapter titles, it’s as much or more about the rise of mammals than about the last day(s) of the dinosaurs, and I’m finding it really fascinating. Here are the chapter titles, just to give a glimpse of the topics it covers:

  • Before Impact
  • Impact
  • The First Hour
  • The First Day
  • The First Month
  • One Year After Impact
  • One Hundred Years After Impact
  • One Thousand Years After Impact
  • One Hundred Thousand Years After Impact
  • One Million Years After Impact
Click to expand...

Now on my to-read list, thanks.
 
Health at Every Size by Lindo Bacon. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel and Starship Titanic by Terry Jones.
 
I have an unplanned week off (with an unplanned wee cough), and am prohibited from leaving the house.

So I just finished the utterly awful, poorly written, and uninspiring 'The Great Nuclear War of 1975' by William Stroock, who was badly misinformed by whoever told him he could write a novel; The excellent and wonderfully written 'Project Hail Mary', referenced by others (above); And am now re-reading 'Resurrection Day' by Brendan DuBois, which I first read long enough ago to make a repeat worthwhile, and which is the book Stroock wishes he was competent to write. DuBois is to Stroock, as Neil Armstrong is to my little brother (who, aged three, glued a lego propeller from a 'Spirit of St Louis' model kit to the coffee table and genuinely believed it might fly). If I wasn't condemned by the Queensland Department of Health to waste seven days of my life, I would be mourning the wasted time spent on Stroock's turkey.

I expect to get through a lot of books (many, inevitably, junk) this week.

This thread will be a great help in avoiding some of the worst travesties of the novelist's art.

I am currently on an apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic theme; Sadly there's a vast amount of very poor work in this genre (including a large subset of Evangelical Christian pap; The one pitfall the hapless Stroock managed to avoid).
 
Yesterday I pulled my copy of Harold Driver's Indians of North America off my shelf. A dated, but very good overview of North American Indigenous culture.

I was mainly interested in reading passages on famine and malnutrition, and it made for a pretty fascinating (and sad) read. According to Driver, starvation was a constant source of anxiety for the Indigenous, at times protein sources could be a problem, and occasionally infants needed to be killed, or just flat out died due to famine.

It really makes you see the modern era in a different light.
 
He does list a few pages of sources and cites throughout, it seems to be a lot of anthropology ca 40 - 60, but some a little earlier. He seems sympathetic, and the cover digs in a little further:

'in combining this literature with the published research of anthropologists, he has been careful not to draw unsubstantiated inferences, but to offer only those historical interpretations which are supported by an overwhelming body of evidence'

How factual the book actually is, is hard to say, but it's an interesting read. And I should add that the protein comment looks related to European contact.
 
That's fine, it's just that when I'm accusing people of murdering their own children to save on food bills, I'm usually pretty careful about citing my sources. I've heard such stories in the context of forced marches or panicked refugee situations, where parents were in some cases obliged to sacrifice a doomed child to save the lives of the others still living, but those were extreme circumstances. It is not in human nature to address food insecurity by leaping to infanticide while other options are still on the table.
 
Yea that was the impression I got, only under extreme circumstances. I'd dig the references out but.. 5 week old. It's a good point, though, I'd be interested in checking out what he's citing.
 
rousseau said:
Tharmas said:
I am just starting The Last Days of the Dinosaurs,” by Riley Black. I’m finding it very well written and an easy read. Judging from the chapter titles, it’s as much or more about the rise of mammals than about the last day(s) of the dinosaurs, and I’m finding it really fascinating. Here are the chapter titles, just to give a glimpse of the topics it covers:

  • Before Impact
  • Impact
  • The First Hour
  • The First Day
  • The First Month
  • One Year After Impact
  • One Hundred Years After Impact
  • One Thousand Years After Impact
  • One Hundred Thousand Years After Impact
  • One Million Years After Impact
Click to expand...

Now on my to-read list, thanks.
Click to expand...
This turns out to be very unusual writing for a pop science work. First, it’s very well written, but it’s not what I was expecting. While it may not be for everyone, I rather like it.

Each chapter is a somewhat fictionalized narrative, although not fanciful. For instance, the first chapter describes the death (from natural causes) of a Triceratops, and all the creatures that come to feed on the remains, featuring a Tyrannosaurus rex, until there is nothing left or the carcass. There is plenty of descriptive detail, down to the parasites that infect the T. rex.

Then the book contains a lengthy Appendix which, chapter by chapter, details which elements of the narratives are factual, which are educated guesses, and which, if any, are invented.

The cover blurb says: “This is pop science that reads like a fantasy novel, but backed up by hard facts. Blake is pioneering a new genre: narrative prehistorical nonfiction.”

As I said, I like it.
 
One of Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen mysteries, Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron. Jane Austen makes a surprisingly good detective.

Rob
 
Politesse said:
That's fine, it's just that when I'm accusing people of murdering their own children to save on food bills, I'm usually pretty careful about citing my sources. I've heard such stories in the context of forced marches or panicked refugee situations, where parents were in some cases obliged to sacrifice a doomed child to save the lives of the others still living, but those were extreme circumstances. It is not in human nature to address food insecurity by leaping to infanticide while other options are still on the table.
Click to expand...

I should also add that I was paraphrasing about ten different, somewhat unrelated pages after reading the book on three hours of sleep. Complete accuracy of my short summary not guaranteed.

It did mention that this sometimes happened when something like a parent death occurred, so I may have mistaken that for famine (which may have just been a cause of infant mortality).
 
The Raven Steals the Light by Bill Reid and Robert Bringhurst - AFAIK they made some of the Haida myths a little more readable
How Not to Die by Micheal Greger - I didn't think I needed it, but for ten dollars it's been a good read
Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition - I read this about six years ago from Gutenberg, but have been looking for a readable hard-copy. Finally, one appeared. I may drop everything and do a summer read through of this.
 
Children of Time. I hope it's good. I just finished Project Hail Mary. Excellent read. Now I've been reading sample after sample and everything seems so low energy. ;)
So I didn't bother with a sample of Children of Time.
 
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