Which Books Do You Read? What Is Your Favourite Book?

[Gareth Davies]

Guns, Germs and Steel is a pretty interesting read and overall interpretation of why global history on a macro-scale turned out how it did.

The Gormenghast Trilogy is also a compelling, visually rich world to dive into, if slightly dry to read.

And a pinch of Stoic essays here and there.

 

[Rosco99]

I haven't done much reading since developing T which has been terribly sad as I used to read 40-60 books a year. The last book I did read was Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth about the creation of money under modern capitalism. Incredibly eye opening..

Same. Two of my favorite things: music & books... down the crapper! I've also always loved audiobooks but I haven't even wanted to do that lately.

 

[Rosco99]

Some of my favourite books, in no particular order:

- The portrait of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
- The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
- Behind God's Back, by Zsigmond Moricz
- Junkie, by William Burroughs
- The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
- The Woman from Sarajevo, by Ivo Andric
- Pere Goriot, by Honoré de Balzac
- The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery
- 1984, by George Orwell
- Cien Años de Soledad, by Gabriel García Márquez
- Los detectives salvajes, by Roberto Bolaño

Good list. Haven't read them all but I hope to someday!

 

[ShaunR]

Hey,

Currently reading:

-Lord of the Flies... Never read it at school. Not really getting into it.

-Exoskeleton series

-Hal Spacejock series

-Just finished Five Chimneys... Very Interesting read from an Auschwitz survivor.

I don't really have a particular genre... Generally see books advertised on Facebook and give them a go. Kindle has been a blessing.

Shaun.

 

[LindaS]

Book recommendation:

If you haven't seen the movie or read the book, "Catch Me If You Can" is a great read.
It's the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr., one of the greatest con artists in history.
He impersonates a: copilot, doctor, lawyer, sociology professor, FBI agent, and U.S. Bureau of Prisons agent.
A good read!

 

[Ava Lugo]

Same. Two of my favorite things: music & books... down the crapper! I've also always loved audiobooks but I haven't even wanted to do that lately.

Does music sound distorted to you now? It does to me

 

[Rosco99]

Does music sound distorted to you now? It does to me

Somewhat, yes. Although I have only listened at low volumes lately. I'm generally in a grumpy mood the last 7-8 months because of the ringing so music isn't giving me what my soul needs right now

 

[Leila]

I have a hard time, too, when it comes to reading or doing things that need a certain amount of quiet and it really makes me sad, because reading and writing have been two of my most treasured pastimes.

I really like "A Brief History of Humankind" and "A Brief History of Tomorrow" by Prof. Yuval Noah Harari.

I bought the books because I wanted to learn a little bit more about history but was in for quite a surprise because instead of isolates events and dates I got an amazing overview of how we got to where we are today and where, possibly, we are going form there and how it is all connected. Prof. Harari has the amazing ability to not just brush on a thought but think it through to the very end.

I also love the "Ender's" series (not so much the movie they made from the first book) by Orson Scott Card.

I got the whole e-book bundle when it was on special without knowing what it was about (I missed the movie when it came out) and immediately loved the author's slow but precise way of storytelling and how he manages to connect his books even though there are thousands of years in between the individual stories he tells.

 

[aot]

A book recommendation for those of you who love Historical Mystery Fiction: March Violets, by Philip Kerr is a decent whodunnit set in 1936 Berlin, following an ex police man turned private eye (he left the force because he opposes the Nazis) hired to investigate a mysterious arson/double murder. Little over 80 pages now and I can't put it down.

I'm also fond of The Alienist (as @Shera can attest) which is about a secret manhunt for a serial killer in 1899 New York.

 

[Peter Q]

Anyone with tinnitus might be interested in reading Mack Hagood's "Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control". He has a chapter in the book about tinnitus.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/hush

 

[Peter Q]

These are two good books on hearing issues I have read this year:

- Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks
- Volume control, by David Owen

@Juan, as you mention Oliver Sacks, I would highly recommend the excellent documentary about his life. It's called "Oliver Sacks: His Own Life" and is directed by Ric Burns.

 

[DaveFromChicago]

Kafka's "The Trial" because I have the same sense of desperate bafflement about my tinnitus as did the protagonist Joseph K. about the reason for his arrest.

"The Woman in the Dunes" by Kobo Abe, because a man is trapped at the bottom of a sand pit and cannot get out; this is also a metaphor for this condition.

 

[Jazzer]

"A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle.

Which contains a brilliant chapter (5) on the presence of the 'pain body' (Freud's super ego) the condemning voice within, that seeks to destroy our equilibrium life long.

"I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings,"
by Maya Angelou, a graphic account of a young black girl's experience growing up in the Deep South. A wonderful book.

 

[Juan]

@Juan, as you mention Oliver Sacks, I would highly recommend the excellent documentary about his life. It's called "Oliver Sacks: His Own Life" and is directed by Ric Burns.

Thanks! I will search for it. It sounds interesting.

 

[buttercake]

Ficciones by J. L. Borges. I re-read it at least once a year.

 

[ALS]

I've been reading The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. It's funny and macabre, my two favorite things.

 

[Juan]

@Juan, as you mention Oliver Sacks, I would highly recommend the excellent documentary about his life. It's called "Oliver Sacks: His Own Life" and is directed by Ric Burns.

I watched the documentary. Very interesting.

That American Masters series looks very interesting too. I am having a look at other documentaries of that series.

 

[Jack Straw]

Recently read Mistborn Era 1 by Brandon Sanderson and it was fantastic!

 

[aura]

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly "

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a memoir by journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby. It describes his life before and after a massive stroke left him with locked-in syndrome."

 

[Damocles]

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly "

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a memoir by journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby. It describes his life before and after a massive stroke left him with locked-in syndrome."

Sounds light hearted and fun.

I'm going to make this the book for all my... oh. ( ་ ⍸ ་ )

 

[Juan]

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly "

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a memoir by journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby. It describes his life before and after a massive stroke left him with locked-in syndrome."

There's a great movie about it by Julian Schnabel. It's called Le Scaphandre et le Papillon.

 

[Peter Q]

I watched the documentary. Very interesting.

That American Masters series looks very interesting too. I am having a look at other documentaries of that series.

@Juan, this short clip is also worth watching:

 

[DaveFromChicago]

In 2015 Liveright Publishers came out with a new translation of Primo Levi's "Survival in Auschwitz"; the revised title is "If This Be A Man."

He was there for slightly less than 1 year and was spared, because with a Master's Degree in Chemistry he was placed in a lab that conducted experiments on producing synthetic rubber.

Widely regarded as the most psychologically insightful account of the mentality of the Nazis who ran the Camp and on the prisoners who would do absolutely anything to survive.

 

[Juan]

@Juan, this short clip is also worth watching:

Oliver Sacks was very interested in discovering how people process information, how people process hearing input, sound signals, visual stimuli...

People more or less take for granted we all see the same, as the most common vision problems may be fixed just by wearing glasses.

However, hearing problems cannot be fixed like that... even common hearing loss cannot be restored to feel like natural hearing just by wearing a hearing aid. Current technology has too many limitations...

 

[Elmer B Fuddled]

Jonathan Littell - The Kindly Ones

World War 2 as Aure looks back on his part of the Nazi regime and his duties.
I read it twice, all 998 pages. A brilliant account of massacre and destruction.

 

[Juan]

Has anyone read the book "The Soundscape" by Raymond Murray Schafer? Is it good?

 

[DaveFromChicago]

"Dispatches" by Michael Herr. Out of all of the thousands of books about Vietnam, this is unmatched in describing the brutality and insanity of that war.

 

[Maria Francesca]

My favourite italian classics:

- Cesare Pavese; "The moon and the bonfire". A book about the memory of the past, sense of belonging and nostalgia, with the background of the conflict between the fascists and partisans in rural Italy during World War II.

- Beppe Fenoglio: "A private affair". Another novel settled during Italian Resistance. The protagonist, a partisan, urges to solve its private matter, to know the truth about his loved one, this taking precedence over the fight against fascism.

- Dino Buzzati: "The Tartar steppe". A young lieutenant is assigned to a border fortress, which borders the desert, where they have to defend the country from an invasion that never arrives.

 

[Juan]

Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata. Funny and also unsettling. Very Japanese, as Tokyo and all the large Japanese cities are full of konbinis. And it also discusses the role of women in Japan and the need of people (men and women) to "fit" in society.

 

[El BUZZ]

I mostly read comics. American and European underground. Gilbert Shelton, Julie Doucet, Noah Van Sciver, Charles Burns, Johnny Ryan, Daniel Clowes... To name a few. I also dig Japanese manga but not that of superpowered stunts but everyday stories. When it comes to novels I love any Irvine Welsh book.

This pile is from my last visit to Madrid this last weekend. There's a lack of good bookstores where I live, which is a very positive fact for my economy.