Sounds promising. I was put off reading it by the crappy film.

They made a film out of it?! That would be like making a movie out of Metamorphosis.

The consensus seems to be that they missed what made the book great.

Call For The Dead - John Le Carre

Quite good, actually.

A History of Japan by R.H.P Mason and J.G Caiger

All the Names, José Saramago. — javi2541997

8/10.

I liked the book. Above all, the writing style of Saramago. Original and interesting. The soliloquy of the main character was an endless but subtle paragraph.

Currently reading: Art, Yasmina Reza.

A funny and comical play about the debate between three friends on the conception of art.

Noogenesis: Computational Biology
by Alex M. Vikoulov

The Arabian Nights
Husain Haddawy (Translator)

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears

The Rules of Sociological Method: And Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method
by Émile Durkheim

I have a few things going:

Getting into Death, a collection of stories by Thomas M. Disch. The one called “The Asian Shore” is top tier. Check it out.

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, a post-apocalyptic SF novel written in its own unique dialect.

Super-Cannes by J. G. Ballard. Ballardian creepiness on the French Riviera.

Hothouse by Brian Aldiss. I read it in my teens; time for a reread.

Diseases of the Head: Essays on the Horrors of Speculative Philosophy, edited by Matt Rosen, an open access book you can download freely online. It’s “an anthology of essays from contemporary philosophers, artists, theorists, and writers working, broadly speaking, at the crossroads of speculative philosophy and speculative horror.”

Multicultural Dynamics and the Ends of History : Exploring Kant, Hegel, and Marx by Real Fillion, which is an attempt to rehabilitate speculative philosophy of history and “rearticulate a sense of the movement of history as a developmental whole,” with its own dynamics and telos.

Time and Free Will by Henri Bergson. Starts well:

We necessarily express ourselves by means of words and we usually think in terms of space. That is to say, language requires us to establish between our ideas the same sharp and precise distinctions, the same discontinuity, as between material objects. This assimilation of thought to things is useful in practical life and necessary in most of the sciences. But it may be asked whether the insurmountable difficulties presented by certain philosophical problems do not arise from our placing side by side in space phenomena which do not occupy space, and whether, by merely getting rid of the clumsy symbols round which we are fighting, we might not bring the fight to an end. When an illegitimate translation of the unextended into the extended, of quality into quantity, has introduced contradiction into the very heart of the question, contradiction must, of course, recur in the answer.

I read it in my teens; time for a reread. — Jamal

I love rereading books. It makes me feel a sweet nostalgic vibe.

Currently reading: The Tunnel, Ernesto Sábato. A classic of Argentine literature. A novel of gorgeous existentialism and a sense of despair.

I love rereading books. It makes me feel a sweet nostalgic vibe. — javi2541997

The interesting thing to me is how different they seem at different ages. I’ve read Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess three times. The first two times, in my twenties and thirties, I thought it was exciting and fun. The last time, in my forties, I found it sad and disturbing.

Currently reading: The Tunnel, Ernesto Sábato. A classic of Argentine literature. A novel of gorgeous existentialism and a sense of despair. — javi2541997

I’ve added it to my list. Argentina has been good to me so far with fiction.

The interesting thing to me is how different they seem at different ages. — Jamal

Exactly. In addition, when you read a novel again, some details which were hidden can be perceived, or you can read it with more confidence. I experienced this reading Kawabata. When I was a noob regarding Japanese culture, I was lost in the novels of this author. Later on, and after reaching respectable knowledge of Japanese culture, I started to have another sensation by rereading his books again.

Argentina has been good to me so far with fiction. — Jamal

Very nice! This book was on the shelves of my father's office because he loves Borges. So, I think you would like Sábato.

New Ways of Ontology
by Nicolai Hartmann

Super-Cannes by J. G. Ballard. Ballardian creepiness on the French Riviera — Jamal

Plodding, plot-driven, prurient, old-fashioned in a certain upper middle class colonial English kind of way, and incredibly boring. I don’t know why I keep going back to Ballard. Well, I’ll be sure to stay away from his later stuff from now on.

Re-reading The Doomed City by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

I just started that too. First time for me.

Can you recommend some good Ballard? I really liked Concrete Island.

Crash is more uncompromising and better executed than Super-Cannes, and I found it intellectually stimulating, though I can’t say I liked it. Same goes for The Unlimited Dream Company: it’s repetitive and boring, but it’s interesting in that it’s fantastical and celebratory while also apocalyptic.

I once listened to the audiobook of Concrete Island but fell asleep. From what I recall its plot and style were exactly what I expected.

But I can recommend his short story collections, The Disaster Area, and Vermillion Sands.

I read Traction, which provides a formula for running a successful business. I read it for work. What motivated me was I wanted to win the race of who got through it first.

In your face Joe.

The Entrepreneurial Operating System® is so effective it’s a wonder nobody has thought of it before.

Joe’s such a loser!

Seth Speaks - Jane Roberts

Don't judge me...

Wayyy too late. You hath been judged :razz:

prurient — Jamal

Read it ten or more years ago. The only line I remember is when the guy says to the girl, "But no shit, ok."

Or maybe that was Cocaine Nights. * Shrug *

"But no shit, ok." — Baden

Aristocracies keep alive those endangered pleasures that repel the bourgeoisie. They may seem perverse, but they add to the possibilities of life.

:meh:

I've been sipping in and out of "Miester Eckhart's Book of Secrets." It's a compilation of aphorisms, sort of a Christian version of Zen koans in a way.

Interesting. How do you like it?

India: A History by John Keay

Birth of Tragedy

In memory of Vernor Vinge, d. 2024 I'm rereading

• A Fire Upon The Deep
• "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era" (essay, 1993)