This book looks interesting:
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Have you ever read much William Manchester? Iām currently midway through The Glory And The Dream. A little light reading there. Four decades of mid-20th Century US history in only 1400 pages! Seriously though, it isnāt boring, and itās actually really eye-opening. Itās interesting how much things change, and how much they stay the same. Manchester is a guy who definitely saw Trump coming a mile away.
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No, Iāve not read him at all, much less heard of him. Any recommendations?
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If you read The Glory And The Dream, it might take you forever to get through it, but it will really tell you a lot about the factors that shaped the US as it is today. It was published sometime during the Nixon administration, but boy does it ever hold up. I would also recommend A World Lit Only By Fire about medieval Europe, but I havenāt read this book yet. It just happens to be one of his better-known works.
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Ah, a challenge! I devour books like the current POTUS tweets. Thanks!
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In that case here is one I am between half to three quarters through and have left on the shelf for a while.
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I still havenāt decided which of these I should read: Joyce, Mann, or Proust?
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at what point did you say-- āfuck this math, Iām going to skip to a chapter where I can read about Black Holes?ā
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Thats generally the point where they fuck you with the tensors.
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Watching for this oneās release
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Just finished the last volume of the series.
āSo was it worth it?ā you might ask.
I suggest reading the first three books 
Wait a long time, like a year, and then read 4 and 5 if you want. Books 4 and 5 are sufficiently similar to 2 and 3 that the amount of redundancy and repetition will become tedious if you read all five in a row.
Either way, donāt bother with 6, the one I just finished. Itās not terrible, but itās not necessary either. The end of book 5, Shelters of Stone, is probably the most satisfying conclusion of any of them.
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About 2/3 of the way through Keith Yatsuhashiās Kojiki.
I bought it and its sequel together based on nicely designed covers (not the ones shown on Amazon) and blurbs andā¦ well. Itās kind of a hot mess. A novel based on Japanese mythology that basically says āfuck the mythology, we made that up as a cover story for what really happenedā and then runs off and does its own thing. And its own thing happens on a weird scale, sort of a Lucifer/Morgoth trope where mad science meets elemental magic, and a lot of it is told through flashbacks. It has its moments, though, so Iām sticking with it.
Keiko nudged a foot forward and stopped, intimidated. āI donāt think I can go in there.ā
Yui smiled encouragingly. āWhy not? Walk through. What could be easier than that?ā
āBut. Thereās a god in there.ā
āReally?ā Yui blinked mockingly, peered about the room, and then pressed her lips to Keikoās ear. āThereās one out here, too.ā
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This series starts out normal, but slowly slides into porn as it goes onā¦
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Romance novel tropes will be in effect. There will be contrived misunderstandings. There will be excessively detailed sex scenes. The heroās greatest flaw will be that he FEELS TOO MUCH.
Auel didnāt invent this stuff. Apparently thereās a market for it.
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I keep hearing this. This has been on my āto-readā pile (which is literally 200 books deep) so it might move off of itā¦
I just read the following (I had a week of vacation in New York City) and loved all three.
Ruin of Angels was Gladstoneās best book yet. Autonomous was phenomenal (as expected) and deserves its praise. Infomocracy was really good and different but not as good as I had expected based on its praise.
Currently, Iām reading:
Which is dull and very much a product of its time. Iām 10% from finishing it and basically bored of pretentious talking men and the women with little agency (or if they have it, theyāre a ābitchā) that they revolve around. Less science fiction than there should be and too much arguing over drinks by fucked up men.
On the non-fiction front (I always read fiction and non-fiction together), Iām reading:
This is pretty good so far but then Iām a Buddhist of sorts.
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Having just completed watching The Expanse, season 2, (6 stars out of 5; i.e., best sf Iāve ever seen on TV), Iām rereading Leviathanās Wake by James S.A. Corey, and hope to go through the sequels, to catch up (only read the first 2 last time, I think). I donāt think I grasped the full story the first time; itās extremely complex (for me anyway). But excellent space opera. Consistent, characters are really interesting, and the plot is fascinating. And such a great (but grim) parallel to our own fucked-up world.
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After the first season I went and got all the books. I devoured 1&2, got bogged down in 3 but finally made it through. Ran through 4 and now Iām on 5, but I hate whatās going on so I put it down for a while.
So good.
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Donāt worry too much about catching up. At the current rate book 3 wonāt start until half way through the next season.
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have you noticed there is a lot of things with Naomi that seem innocuous if you havenāt got that far but just shout Marco
Potential spoiler from later books.