Non fiction

Discussion of fine arts and literature.
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Nin
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Nin »

I am through..... what a week this has been!

"Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction. Is there anything more dangerous that dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they war?" (these are the last words of the book)

I would love to read his next book, Homo Deus - but I have decided this year to buy nothing for two months before allowing myself to consume during the third. So, I'll have to wait until march.

Oh, another great non-fiction read of last summer was a book by Sven Beckett: Empire of Cotton. A history of global capitalism.
"nolite te bastardes carborundorum".
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Impenitent
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Impenitent »

I still have some way to go before finishing it. I am finding it very thought-provoking. I have still to finish three biographies on my bedside table.

Sent from a tiny phone keyboard via Tapatalk - typos inevitable.
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Nin
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Re: Non fiction

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A friend was so kind as to offer me Home Deus... I'm really hooked with those two books. So thought provoking.
"nolite te bastardes carborundorum".
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Nin
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Nin »

On Monday, I finished "Debt. The first 5000 Years" by David Graeber and I hardly ever felt so much smarter after having read a book. What a read! It's a book which changes your conception of guilt, sin, debt, economy, slavery and many other things. I wanted to yell out to the world to read it!
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Jude
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Jude »

Thanks for the recommendation. I've placed a hold at my library.

(17 weeks estimated wait time!)
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Nin
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Nin »

Give it a slot tomorrow. It’s worth it, promised.
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Jude
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Jude »

I mean there's a 17-week wait time for it at my library - I have no choice but to wait until it becomes available :D
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Re: Non fiction

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Considering it's not a new book 17 weeks is a long wait. Our library has it in hardcover or an eaudiobook but I have a feeling I'd have a hard time absorbing it in audio form. For a 'dry' (to me anyway) topic it seems interesting.
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Jude
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Jude »

According to Libby: "You are 16th in line. 3 copies in use. 25 people waiting in total. 8 people waiting per copy."

Does that mean 9 people reserved it after I did a couple of hours ago? A lot of people must be reading this thread!
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Re: Non fiction

Post by RoseMorninStar »

Perhaps it was recently mentioned in a reading list, that's how I sometimes find books to add to my list. Nin, what inspired you to read it?
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Frelga
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Frelga »

My library just says "several months wait" but I can find something else to read while I wait. ;)

Although, and I don't want to sound like an annoying know it all, but is this really such a "stunning" insight as the blurb makes it sound?
a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

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Re: Non fiction

Post by narya »

"Debt" is now on my list, as soon as I finish David Graeber's other book - "The Dawn of Everything - A New History of Humanity". It's very nutrient dense ;)
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. ~ Albert Camus
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Nin
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Nin »

Actually, I wanted to read "Dawn", but there was no Paperback Copy which I could buy at that time (that was in octobre, I think) and they offered "Debt" at 1$95 on the Kindle app, so I thought, what the heck for that price, I can give it a try - I found it very compelling, but quickly realized that I needed a paper copy to look up vocabulary (my English is not that good). As I was extraordinarily busy for school (I am currently giving an entirely new course about the representation of history in cinema and comics which meant a lot of preparation), I bought myself a paper copy when I thought that finally I would have time to read it. What was impossible on Kindle for me, worked perfectly on paper and I was through in something like ten days. There are quite a lot of stunning insights, the one about debt being only one, there is also the idea that money - or rather currency- has always had a virtual side to it, how money can be interpreted as a perpetual debt that humans owe to the universe or the Gods and pay to the state as representative of them or in contrary as a purely mercantile creation and how money, racism and different forms of slavery and debt are related (which is not necessarily in any way I would have thought it before). Anyway, it just makes you think about questions, I for instance, never thought about before.

Graeber, the author has died rather young and unexpectedly, his last book, written with David Wengrow "Dawn" has quite a hype about it, so that may explain the interest in his older books too. He is also the creator of "Bullshit Jobs".

I am interest in "Dawn" too (Matthias is currently reading it in the optic of a theory of speech he is working on as well as Wengrow's shorter essay about the question "What is Civilization?".

But my next stop on the road is "Human. Kind. A hopeful history" by Rutger Bregman, but I will be reading it in a German translation (as the original is in dutch, I have to read a translation anyway, so I took the easiest accessible for me).

This summer I also read a very compelling book in Spanish: El infinito en un junco. La invencion de los libros en el mundo antiguo. It might be translated under the title of "Papyrus" in English as it is in German. I am rather on a non-fiction reading trip in the last years.

I usually buy the non-fiction (and many ficition) books I want to read, first because in a library here I usually don't get them in the language in which I want to read them - which is rarely French. And then I want to be able to take notes in the books.
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Re: Non fiction

Post by RoseMorninStar »

Oh my, Nin. That sounds quite ambitious, and accomplished. I've only read one book in a foreign language, The Little Prince, in French, long ago.
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Frelga
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Frelga »

Nin, it's so lovely to see you. :hug:

I am a Kindle convert now. In part exactly because of how easy it is to look up a translation or vocabulary. I caught myself trying to click on a paper page once. :doh:

And a nice thing about borrowing Kindle books through Libby is that the notes remain even after I return the book.

I'm reading Drive by Daniel H. Pink. He talks about intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, but it's mostly being aimed at the managers who have control over incentives. And also the insights that were fresh in 2011 have been developed upon in the decade since, so the volume of evidence he brings along feels excessive. I think I'm going to scan through the rest of it for anything that applies to my life.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

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Nin
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Nin »

I read with a pencil in my hands, I fear beyond easy fiction, Kindle will never do it for me. I need paper and our house is slowly becoming too small for all the books. If a book is written in French, German, English or Spanish, I will always read the original. For other languages, I have to read translations, unfortunately.

We came back from holiday today and I’ll start Human.Kind.
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Jude
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Jude »

"Red Land, Black Land" by Barbara Mertz, the same person who is also Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels. It's about life in ancient Egypt, and has the same quirky tongue-in-cheek style as her fiction. If you enjoyed Amelia Peabody, you'll enjoy this, too.
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Re: Non fiction

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From "Red Land, Black Land" which I mentioned above:
I cannot resist a digression here. There are war trumpets in several museaums, but the most famous are those of Tutankhamon. One was of silver, the other of copper alloy. The funnel-shaped bell was attached to a slender tube almost two feet long. They were in such good condition that the temptation to play them was irresistible. In a 1939 BBC broadcast a bandsman blew several blasts on the silver trumpet before it unexpectedly shattered. One can only imagine the poor man's consternation - especially since, as some critics have suggested, it was the insertion of a modern mouthpiece that caused the disaster. What did it sound like? Raucous, according to some; but I've listened to the recording, and the very idea that I was hearing an instrument that had been silent for over three thousand years made chills run up my spine.
So naturally I had to find out if the recording was available on the Internet. It was, and I also got chills running up my spine:

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Frelga
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Re: Non fiction

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I am torn between being upset that they destroyed the instrument and thrilled that we get to hear that ancient sound. Chills indeed.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

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Frelga
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Re: Non fiction

Post by Frelga »

Re Debt as mentioned above.
Frelga wrote: Fri Feb 24, 2023 1:01 am

Although, and I don't want to sound like an annoying know it all, but is this really such a "stunning" insight as the blurb makes it sound?
a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt
OK, yes, I can see what they meant.

He has an interesting model to replace the usual "Frelga needs shoes which Narya makes but Narya wants yarn and Frelga has apples" theory of pre-currency banter. It's funny to me because the system of favors he describes is exactly how my mom and her friends operate. "N's husband caught a salmon so she brought half of it to A, and A cooked it and took some to D who picked up some stuff at the store for her last week." It's never a trade, but there's a mental balance being maintained anyway.

I haven't finished before it had to be returned, because it required a higher mental effort than I could generate, and also it's depressing how often people have been used as currency.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
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