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So whatcha reading?


Ralphie

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Just finished a nice short one, The Lost Art of Doing Nothing, by a Dutch lady. The Dutch call it niksen, which in retrospect sounds a lot like Nixon.   It was enjoyable.

Currently it is Coders, which is also very enjoyable but is so big that it is going to take me a long long time to finish!  The first book was an ebook which I now sort of prefer.  Coders is a big ass physical book, which is  fine when there is sufficient light, but tough for my old eyes in less than ideal light.  The ebook makes its own light.   Anyhoo, it is interesting how much is in the hands of programmers these days.  I have always enjoyed reading about this stuff, like the many many books aboot Bell Labs and Unix in its heyday and Xerox PARC  where they invented the wimp interface and all.  It started with some interesting vignettes of where programmers come from, how they used to be so rare and then to the pc and game console and now phone era that has made the ability to start programming very widespread.

So whatchu reading, Willis? 

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Surprisingly, nothing right now.  I have been spending my time devouring podcasts the last several days.  One on the way home last night, one when I went to bed last night, one earlier this morning when I couldn’t go back to sleep and one on the commute this morning.  All different topics.

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17 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

Surprisingly, nothing right now.  I have been spending my time devouring podcasts the last several days.  One on the way home last night, one when I went to bed last night, one earlier this morning when I couldn’t go back to sleep and one on the commute this morning.  All different topics.

I really like podcasts and Ted talks, but I always wind up with music instead on dog walks.  For a while in the carpool we listened to audiobooks and that was nice - Decker was our favourite.  I do sometimes listen to Rock Solid with Pat Francis.

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So today I listened to Rock Solid with Lou Gramm from foreigner.  It was good!  Now the podcast segued  to Tiny Desk with rapper D Smoke. I hate rap, but this guy plays a nice piano so that sucked me in and I left in on. Apparently he came to fame on Netflix’s Rhythm and Flow, which I might enjoy - never encountered it. There seems to be a lot they have that never comes up when I am browsing. Weird. 

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The Android's Dream, by John Scalzi

Mobituaries, by Mo Rocca

3 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

Just finished re-reading Old Man's War.  Started The Churn last night.

We may be brothers. I LOVE OMW. What a great story. "Tell me about her." & "Sometimes, you just gotta hit the road!"

The Churn is great for the background to the main stories. Have you read any of the other novellas?

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1 minute ago, 2Far said:

The Android's Dream, by John Scalzi

Mobituaries, by Mo Rocca

We may be brothers. I LOVE OMW. What a great story. "Tell me about her." & "Sometimes, you just gotta hit the road!"

The Churn is great for the background to the main stories. Have you read any of the other novellas?

You mentioned OMW a little while back, so I figured it was time (and short enough) for a revisit. 

I read the first novella Drive, and plan to just read in the order they are listed on Wiki, so three novellas, then Leviathan, and so on.

These are on my Kindle, and will fill in as I get through to Babylons Ashes with the new ones:

0.1-Drive
0.3-Churn, The
0.5-Butcher of Anderson Station, The
1.0-Leviathan Wakes
2.0-Caliban's War
2.5-Gods of Risk
3.0-Abaddon's Gate
4.0-Cibola Burn
5.0-Nemesis Games
6.0-Babylon's Ashes

With Dune released on HBO/theaters today, I may read the next book(s) in the series to keep ahead.  I also reread Foundation a little while ago, and may punch through a few more again to stay ahead of that new series.

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I get a kick out of reading writings in historical figures' own words about what happened or the words of those who were with them. That includes Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo's account of the Conquest of Mexico and Winston Churchill's History of World War II.  I recently have read a little of Julius Caesars Commentaries, particularly the Gallic Wars.  It's interesting reading his own translated words, though the fact he writes in third person ("Then Caesar order the cavalry...") takes a little away from it.

What I'm reading now: I've recently learned that Augustus Caesar, the first Roman Emperor though he kept up the pretense of a Republic, wrote "Res Gestae," his account of his achievements.  I got an ebook version of it and, while it's got more than a little propaganda in it, it's a little more thrilling to read his report in the first person than a historians,

It begins: Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi, per quern rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi. ... Qui parentem meum trucidaverunt, eos in exilium expuli iudiciis legitimis ultus eorum facinus, et postea bellum inferentis reipublicae vici bis acie. ... Cum scripsi haec annum agebam septuagensumum sextum.

Fortunately, since I didn't actually learn the language outside of what I had to recite when I was an altar boy during the Catholic Latin Mass, the open book is in Latin on each left page and English on the right:

At the age of nineteen on my own responsibility and at my own expense I raised an army, with which I successfully championed the liberty of the republic when it was oppressed by the tyranny of a faction. ...I drove into exile the murderers of my father [Julius Caesar, by adoption] avenging their crime through tribunals established by law; and afterwards, when they made war on the republic, I twice defeated them in battle. ... At the time of writing I am in my seventy-sixth year.

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I'm close to finishing it. I'm glad to have read this Canadian author-journalist to update my understanding of modern Chinese history, recent political-diplomatic-trade/economic relations between China and Canada, U.S., Greece, Australia and Italy. 

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I read below this novel by a Cherokee-Greek Canadian author. It's a novel about a couple who are First Nations (native Indian) and they go vacationing in Europe.

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