I don't know shit about books but I'd like to give them a try so I don't know where to start. I'm not very interested in fantasy to be honest, more like science, philosophy, psychology, communication or culture, stuff like that. I already read a lot on the internet so I may like this reading books thing. Recommend!
Interested in reading books
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He's Dead, Jim
Member
El_Gato
I love this gain
By your description, almost anything by Noam Chomsky fits in all of the topics you're interested in all at once.
Thanks guys. I was actually watching some big think videos and found chomsky on there. Will check these guys out.
So...anymore suggestions?
So...anymore suggestions?
He's Dead, Jim
Member
lanky noob
Member
I know you said you're not really interested in fantasy.... but I'd still recommend he lord of the rings trilogy. I know plenty of people who hate fantasy, but it's absolutely their favourite series ever.
Kellii
Member
Though I guess theses are all fantasy/scifi/Horror so probably not helpful my fav books are War of the worlds by HG Wells (Marshan s invading London),Pet Sematary Stephen King(Without giving too much away a cemetery kids buried there pets, then it gets fucked up) and Cell by Stephen King (Zombies at first... Kinda).
Plus like LankyNoob said Lord of the rings.It is fantasy but you won't regret it.
Plus like LankyNoob said Lord of the rings.It is fantasy but you won't regret it.
B36arin
Member
- Dec 1, 2008
- 896
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I just started reading In the Heart of the Sea. It tells the tale of the crew of the whaleship Essex which was attacked by a sperm whale in the 19th century. Really fascinating if you ask me.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/In-Heart-Sea-Tragedy-Whaleship/dp/0141001828"]http://www.amazon.com/In-Heart-Sea-Tragedy-Whaleship/dp/0141001828[/ame]
It's a narrative based on the account of two of the survivors of the wreck.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/In-Heart-Sea-Tragedy-Whaleship/dp/0141001828"]http://www.amazon.com/In-Heart-Sea-Tragedy-Whaleship/dp/0141001828[/ame]
It's a narrative based on the account of two of the survivors of the wreck.
anotherpaul
Member
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Publications
This guy.
I would recommend to start with Cosmos, Demon-Haunted World or Pale Blue Dot. He also has a novel called Contact (which has been also made into a movie).
Also this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins#Selected_publications
And this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#Popular_publications
That's your basic "pop-sci nerd kit".
Keregioz
Kimon Zeliotis
I get the impression he meant that he is not interested in ficiton in general, not just fantasy.
Purely stirring the waters, because typically I find merit in things in general but have found a total lack of everything interesting in one particular classic...
Barf.
Have to come out of the closet on this one... my nerd credibility is beyond reproach, and I still cannot get anything out of the entire thing at all. Especially for someone not into 'fantasy'... it's quite troubling when everyone's idea of a 'fantasy' is basically 'Middle ages technology, but there's magic so it's totally awesome', and that the genre is largely predicated on the idea that that's largely the extent of imagining the unreal, and to nominate the thing that is largely responsible for defining the fantasy cliche is just begging to make another person who will be forever free from the horrible addiction of books.
"Whee, we're in a world that's largely based on the time period where diarrhea is the most fatal thing that people can almost spell, but clearly what we have to do is invent a super-duper-evil megabastard with malignant tendencies that actually could have been a lot worse with a little more creativity than 'basically just make another lord of our faultily-planned hierarchy that's evil because it enjoys eating cute things slightly more than the last guy and has a scary name and magic and stuff!"
It is nothing short of disappointing that so many ideas of 'escapism' boil down to 'the same existence that we happily grew out of, but with a dim child's play as a deus ex machina' and thoroughly neglect 'well, if space wasn't three dimensional we wouldn't even be able to tie our shoes, let's run with the consequences of that *actual departure from both the common and the common-plus-things-slightly-uncommon-but-useful-only-for-advancing-plots-and-never-examined-in-a-light-that-would-truly-expose-interesting-consequences-to-alterations-in-our-view-of-reality-that-are-basically-just-how-people-thought-stuff-worked-before-they-knew-anything*'.
Sure, there's a lot of deviation from the norm involved in 'here are a bunch of people, except they're not like real people because these guys are shorter, these are also shorter and somewhat thinner, these guys are also shorter but in a different way and also some stuff, and this guy isn't shorter at all but he has a stick and also some spells and things', but I think we can do better if we're going to convince anyone that fiction truly escapes the common in order to describe things beyond our imagination. If someone's turned off by 'fantasy', LOTR is quite likely why - if not because he already read it then because his other dives into 'fantasy' were so plagued by such total lack of the actually fantastic that the whole idea has turned uninteresting.
Yeah, yeah... 'He invented a new type of world!' 'He invented a new language just to add authenticity and enable immersion!' 'Blah-dee-doo-dee-dah!' 'I still eat Fruit Roll-Ups!' Shut up. Those are *homework exercises*, not fundamental alterations to our perceptions of things in general. If you want fiction, go *completely* past that. Doctor Who has more invention, more truly bizarre, more pure detachment from the ordinary than any of that... and it stars, for the most part, a British guy surrounded by British people in costumes made in the UK doing stereotypical things in a stereotypical manner and escaping through what is a magical blue box, full stop, end of discussion... *on TV*. If your idea of 'fantasizing' involves 'I'll be the one lucky guy in a society predicated on 'we're going to die before half of today's college students know what they want to do with their lives, so how about some Renaissance Festival play and an occasional I'm-Your-God-Now bunch of handwaving' and not 'I'm going to bend every possible rule of reality because I can', then your imagination is dead and you're going to die alone with a lot of cats.
Historical and cultural significance aside - and while we're at that we're probably not turning anyone on to literary enjoyment with the Magna goddamn Carta, so that has limited relevance here - Lord of the Rings has quite limited value to a reader who explicitly stated that he was not into fantasy *as the first thing that he said about his tastes*.
Jef
Barf.
Have to come out of the closet on this one... my nerd credibility is beyond reproach, and I still cannot get anything out of the entire thing at all. Especially for someone not into 'fantasy'... it's quite troubling when everyone's idea of a 'fantasy' is basically 'Middle ages technology, but there's magic so it's totally awesome', and that the genre is largely predicated on the idea that that's largely the extent of imagining the unreal, and to nominate the thing that is largely responsible for defining the fantasy cliche is just begging to make another person who will be forever free from the horrible addiction of books.
"Whee, we're in a world that's largely based on the time period where diarrhea is the most fatal thing that people can almost spell, but clearly what we have to do is invent a super-duper-evil megabastard with malignant tendencies that actually could have been a lot worse with a little more creativity than 'basically just make another lord of our faultily-planned hierarchy that's evil because it enjoys eating cute things slightly more than the last guy and has a scary name and magic and stuff!"
It is nothing short of disappointing that so many ideas of 'escapism' boil down to 'the same existence that we happily grew out of, but with a dim child's play as a deus ex machina' and thoroughly neglect 'well, if space wasn't three dimensional we wouldn't even be able to tie our shoes, let's run with the consequences of that *actual departure from both the common and the common-plus-things-slightly-uncommon-but-useful-only-for-advancing-plots-and-never-examined-in-a-light-that-would-truly-expose-interesting-consequences-to-alterations-in-our-view-of-reality-that-are-basically-just-how-people-thought-stuff-worked-before-they-knew-anything*'.
Sure, there's a lot of deviation from the norm involved in 'here are a bunch of people, except they're not like real people because these guys are shorter, these are also shorter and somewhat thinner, these guys are also shorter but in a different way and also some stuff, and this guy isn't shorter at all but he has a stick and also some spells and things', but I think we can do better if we're going to convince anyone that fiction truly escapes the common in order to describe things beyond our imagination. If someone's turned off by 'fantasy', LOTR is quite likely why - if not because he already read it then because his other dives into 'fantasy' were so plagued by such total lack of the actually fantastic that the whole idea has turned uninteresting.
Yeah, yeah... 'He invented a new type of world!' 'He invented a new language just to add authenticity and enable immersion!' 'Blah-dee-doo-dee-dah!' 'I still eat Fruit Roll-Ups!' Shut up. Those are *homework exercises*, not fundamental alterations to our perceptions of things in general. If you want fiction, go *completely* past that. Doctor Who has more invention, more truly bizarre, more pure detachment from the ordinary than any of that... and it stars, for the most part, a British guy surrounded by British people in costumes made in the UK doing stereotypical things in a stereotypical manner and escaping through what is a magical blue box, full stop, end of discussion... *on TV*. If your idea of 'fantasizing' involves 'I'll be the one lucky guy in a society predicated on 'we're going to die before half of today's college students know what they want to do with their lives, so how about some Renaissance Festival play and an occasional I'm-Your-God-Now bunch of handwaving' and not 'I'm going to bend every possible rule of reality because I can', then your imagination is dead and you're going to die alone with a lot of cats.
Historical and cultural significance aside - and while we're at that we're probably not turning anyone on to literary enjoyment with the Magna goddamn Carta, so that has limited relevance here - Lord of the Rings has quite limited value to a reader who explicitly stated that he was not into fantasy *as the first thing that he said about his tastes*.
Jef
Gödel, Escher, Bach is incredible. It seems like it'll take forever to go through it, but everything just flies by... Hofstadter has some other great books, like Metamagical Themas (the title is an anagram for someone else's classic series Mathematical Games...), that should be in your library if you're into the list of things you mentioned.
Jef
Jef
xTomx
Member
Christopher Hitchens has a beautiful writing style - incredibly easy to read at pace if you have short gaps in which to read.
A People's History of The United States by Howard Zinn is incredible too (but suitably huge).
If you hate conspiracy theories (like myself) then check out Voodoo Histories by David Aaronvitch and How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World by Francis Wheen. Both debunk that idiot shit but also look into why people buy into it etc.
A People's History of The United States by Howard Zinn is incredible too (but suitably huge).
If you hate conspiracy theories (like myself) then check out Voodoo Histories by David Aaronvitch and How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World by Francis Wheen. Both debunk that idiot shit but also look into why people buy into it etc.
LeSedna
Mat or Mateo
I dont care about what people might think of the LOTR books. I was a kid when I opened the first book and read the trilogy three times. It had something unique I never found in any other book. And back then i didnt know anything about LOTR, just my father who heard about it and thought it would be a good gift for a young kid. And thanks god I still have the same images in my head I had back then; now when I read a line they don't get replaced by the movies' which disappointed me so much when they came out ten years later.
I have to read Godel Escher Bach now, from what I have read about it it might captivate me.
I have to read Godel Escher Bach now, from what I have read about it it might captivate me.
He's Dead, Jim
Member
Freakonomics is also awesome:
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/0060731338/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371860539&sr=8-1&keywords=freakonomics[/ame]
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/0060731338/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371860539&sr=8-1&keywords=freakonomics[/ame]
Genius Gone Insane
http://www.¯\(°_o)/¯.com
If you want to learn about what science will be like next century you'll consider reading The Electric Universe by Wallace Thornhill and David Talbott.
El_Gato
I love this gain
Actually, I didn't read the book you suggested but, by the description, you couldn't pay me enough to read that pseudo-mystical-religious, self-help thing if that's the case Actually, I take my suggestion back. Chomsky may be a little dense, complex so counter-productive for first readers, maybe.
This is a light and very interesting reading about the tv and manipulation:
http://books.google.es/books/about/On_Television.html?id=ULkSUBPvrpIC&redir_esc=y
