• Jamal
    9.1k
    Getting back into Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I find it relaxing, like watching snooker at the Crucible on TV on a Saturday afternoon. But it's better than snooker:

    But then, even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is created by the thoughts of other people. Even the simple act which we describe as "seeing some one we know" is, to some extent, an intellectual process. We pack the physical outline of the creature we see with all the ideas we have already formed about him, and in the complete picture of him which we compose in our minds those ideas have certainly the principal place. In the end they come to fill out so completely the curve of his cheeks, to follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the sound of his voice that these seem to be no more than a transparent envelope, so that each time we see the face or hear the voice it is our own ideas of him which we recognise and to which we listen. — Proust
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    Currently reading: The Blade of Tyshalle, book 2 of the Acts of Caine quadrology.

    I stopped reading philosophy or anything serious since I already read contracts or legislation at least 8 hours a day. I go bonkers without an escape into Scifi or Fantasy.

    Look forward to philosophically useless updates by me in this thread! :B
  • Sentient
    50
    Derrida's 'The Parergon' in which he excellently deconstructs Kant (one my absolute least favorite philosophers).
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    De Rerum Natura - Lucretius (re-reading this, greatly enjoying it!)
  • shmik
    207
    Nietzsche Naturalism and Interpretation - Christoph Cox.
    I'm having some difficulties understanding Deleuze's Nietzsche and Philosophy and I happened across this book while searching for an explanation of the way Nietzsche uses being and becoming.
    Extremely clear and nicely argued.
  • The Great Whatever
    2.2k
    An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic - George Boole
  • S
    11.7k
    I think I'll go back to Kant's 'Prolegomena' again. It has been a long time since I last delved into it. And maybe I'll start reading Russell's 'The Problems of Philosophy' too, at some point.

    There are still some of the 'great philosophers' of which I know so very little, but I'm still focused on the one's that I know a bit more about.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Erin Manning - Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy
    Erin Manning - Always More Than One: Individuation's Dance
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    I'm slowly reading the following:
    Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin--Ostler
    Studies in Ancient Society--Finley, Ed.
    The Life and Riotous Times of H.L. Mencken--Manchester
    The Wall: Rome's Greatest Frontier--Moffat
    Spinoza and the Stoics: Power, Politics and the Passions--DeBrabander
  • _db
    3.6k
    I'm ordering Hume's An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
  • Phil
    20
    Capital in the 21st Century- Pikkety
  • BC
    13.1k
    Terry Jones, Barbarians (an alternative history) - so far, B+ / A-
    Harlan Ellison, Deathbird Stories - so far, A
    Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism - so far A-
    Christian Wolmar, The Great Railroad Revolution (finished: B+) about American Railroads, from the beginning to 2000.
    Peter Gay, Modernism: The Lure of Heresy - so far, B+ / A-
    Victor Navasky, Naming Names - so far, C- for boring; put it down.
    Gerard Colby, The DuPont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain - so far B+ (page by page I am enraged)
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Francois Zourabichvili - Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event & The Vocabulary of Deleuze
  • The Great Whatever
    2.2k
    It's really great. When you're hankering for the deep shit, go back to the Treatise, and then if you want to go deeper go back to Berkeley's Principles.
  • _db
    3.6k
    I'm excited to start reading it. I ordered a used copy of it and it is arriving some time this week, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.
  • shmik
    207
    Decided to give Difference and Repetition a go as a summer project. Not sure how long I'll stick with it. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Have you done any secondary reading on it? It's a very, very, very hard book.

    Regardless, preliminary advice would be this: start with chapter 3 on the Image of Thought.
  • shmik
    207
    Damn I was hoping it would only be a hard book. I haven't started yet, for now I'm looking for ways to approach it. I'm part way through Nietzsche and Philosophy which to be honest has not been a walk in the park. Also I've grabbed Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide - James Williams, from the library and plan to read it before hand.

    .
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    JW's reader's guide is pretty good, it's a very nice companion to have on you while making your way through the book. Otherwise, I dunno - I've been dipping into D&R for years now and every time I think I 'get it', something else reveals itself to me. If you can make it past the discussion on the 'blockage' of concepts in the introduction (warning: requires a basic grasp of Leibniz and Aristotle), you'll be doing OK.
  • shmik
    207
    Thanks for the advice, it's unfortunate that I'm attracted to books which can be difficult. I don't really want to spend 3 months bashing my head against it and going nowhere. For yourself did you find it worth the effort?
  • S
    11.7k
    I read 'Seven Brief Lessons in Physics' by Carlo Rovelli. Only 50 pages. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Interesting stuff. Didn't expect to see Heidegger, Kant, and possibly a few other philosophers - the names of whom I don't recall - be mentioned.

    I'm reading 'The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution & Revenge' by Paul Preston.

    Both available for a reasonable price on the Play Books app on my mobile. I like my relatively new mobile. It can do nifty stuff my old one couldn't.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    A hundred times yes! D&R functions for me as a sourcebook, something to continually go back to and discover new things. It's a guide to thinking, hand-manual of intellectual exploration. It teaches you how to think, rather than what to think, and going back to it - or Deleuze in general - always functions as a refresher to dislodge congealed manners of approaching things.
  • shmik
    207
    Sounds great, looking forward to it.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Carrie Noland - Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures/Producing Culture
    Gilles Deleuze - Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Tom Sparrow - Plastic Bodies: Rebuilding Sensation After Phenomenology
  • Michael
    14k
    Death Note.

    Last thing I read was The Sandman. Seems like I can only read picture books these days.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Just finished reading what'll probably be my last book of 2015, so here's the years list :D :

    Agamben or books on Agamben:

    Giorgio Agamben - Homo Sacer
    Giorgio Agamben - State of Exception
    Giorgio Agamben - The Kingdom and the Glory
    Giorgio Agamben - The Sacrament of Language
    Giorgio Agamben - The Signature of All Things
    Giorgio Agmaben - Stanzas
    Giorgio Agmaben - Pilate and Jesus
    Giorgio Agamben - The Church and the Kingdom
    Giorgio Agamben - The Highest Poverty
    Giorgio Agamben - Opus Dei
    Giorgio Agamben - Stasis
    William Watkin - Agamben and Indifference
    Kevin Attell - Giorgio Agamben

    On Francois Laruelle:

    Katerina Kolozova - The Cut of the Real
    Alexander Galloway - Laurelle
    John Mullarkey and Anthony Paul Smith (eds.) - Laruelle and Non-Philosophy
    John Mullarkey - Post-Continental Philosophy

    Phenomenology, Movement, Sensation, and the Body:

    Alphonso Lingis - Foreign Bodies
    Carrie Noland - Agency and Embodiment
    Renaud Barbaras - Desire and Distance
    Michel Henry - Material Phenomenology
    Maxine Sheets-Johnston - The Primacy of Movement
    David Morris - The Sense of Space
    Tom Sparrow - Plastic Bodies

    On Merleau-Ponty:

    Renaud Barbaras - The Being of the Phenomenon
    Jessica Wiskus - The Rhythm of Thought
    Veronique Foti - Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty

    On Deleuze and related themes:

    Gilles Deleuze - Pure Immanence
    Francois Zourabichvili - Deleuze
    Erin Manning - Relationscapes
    Erin Manning - Always More than One
    Pascal Chabot - The Philosophy of Simondon

    Politics and Ethics of Subjectivity:

    Adriana Cavarero - Relating Narratives
    Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition
    Judith Butler - Giving an Account of Oneself
    Denise Riley - The Words of Selves
    Denise Riley - Impersonal Passion
    Mari Ruti - The Singularity of Being
    Alphonso Lingis - The First Person Singular

    Other:

    Martin Hagglund - Dying for Time
    Dennis King Keenan - The Question of Sacrifice
    Peter Gratton - The State of Sovereignty
    Eugene Thacker - In The Dust of This Planet
    Eugene Thacker - Starry Speculative Corpse
    Vicki Kirby - Telling Flesh

    -

    Currently Reading: Brian Massiumi - Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation

    47 books, 14 by women (better than last year, but room for improvement), and lots learned.

    Also, I managed to do a write up on almost everything here but Lingis's Foreign Bodies.

    Goals for next year: more science, and more politics.

    Happy New Year all :)
  • WhiskeyWhiskers
    155
    SLX, the link you provided just points to the ones own product review page, as opposed to your specifically. Yours is here. Good effort though, I'd like to be able to do the same!
  • Janus
    15.4k


    Impressive effort SX! I would love to be able to read that much! How do you find the time for such voluminous reading? It makes me think you may be a professional academic, or one of those lucky ones with independent means, but perhaps you are just suitably obsessed ;) ...

    Happy New Year to you and all 8-).
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