Reading Material

[stylofone]

I think I had to make the page public

http://ramblingreaders.org/user/AvonVil ... fd85d4e499

[pipbarber]

https://www.readings.com.au/product/978 ... 1526685599

Timely! Bregman's Humankind: a Hopeful History was an absolute masterpiece of myth debunking. A reality affirming joy. One of the best critical/historical commentaries i've ever had the pleasure to read.

Great timing for a new book. Available from April 29. I can't wait.

[stylofone]

https://www.readings.com.au/product/978 ... 1526685599

Timely! Bregman's Humankind: a Hopeful History was an absolute masterpiece of myth debunking. A reality affirming joy. One of the best critical/historical commentaries i've ever had the pleasure to read.

Great timing for a new book. Available from April 29. I can't wait.

I am between books at the moment and at the end of a massive fantasy binge. I will have a look at Bregman, looks like an ideal circuit breaker before I get back to my usual diet of aliens, time travel, magic etc..

I am waiting to see if the 60% chance of a US recession turns into a 90% chance of a global depression. Then we'll all get to exercise our innate compassion when calamity is upon us.

Actually that could be a best-case scenario. If the economy holds together then I worry that we'll end up with a whole bunch of nasty wars instead.

[nutmeg]

https://www.readings.com.au/product/978 ... 1526685599

Timely! Bregman's Humankind: a Hopeful History was an absolute masterpiece of myth debunking. A reality affirming joy. One of the best critical/historical commentaries i've ever had the pleasure to read.

Great timing for a new book. Available from April 29. I can't wait.

Thanks for this info. My local library has a copy of Humankind, which I have borrowed and am about half way through. I will try to persuade them to order Moral Ambition

[stylofone]

https://www.readings.com.au/product/978 ... 1526685599

Timely! Bregman's Humankind: a Hopeful History was an absolute masterpiece of myth debunking. A reality affirming joy. One of the best critical/historical commentaries i've ever had the pleasure to read.

Great timing for a new book. Available from April 29. I can't wait.

I just finished Humankind. I had some doubts as I was reading it, but by the end I was won over. His style is really interesting, the way he questions his own claims and admits that he previously advocated a completely opposite view. The Hararis and Dawkinses of this world have a take-no-prisoners approach as they launch a conquest of ideas.

There's a certain neurological satisfaction you get from finishing a good book. It might even release some sort of special endorphin, a bit like falling in love... and I did fall in love with this book a little bit.

If you have a good book-friendly lifestyle (and I do right now), you think about your next book while you have the warm glow of turning the last page. "Humankind" was an overwhelmingly positive, optimistic take. Very quickly my eye fell on "Overshoot" by William Catton... the opposite! But in a way they could end up being complementary, that was the vibe I got from the first few pages. IIRC I first heard of Catton here, in a post by our now departed compadre wadeye.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(book)

[stylofone]

I think I've seen this before, but I didn't realise it was the same person. Fantastic!

[pipbarber]

I finished Moral Ambition today. It's not as weighty as Humankind, but it's very inspiring and it's a must read for younger people starting out in a career, in my opinion.

Early on he poses a question which gets to the gist of the whole book. Why do 80% of Harvard law graduates go on to represent corporate power, in its various forms, in order to defend it, reduce it's tax and serve it unquestioningly? What if there was another option, what if fighting corporate power was a possibility that Harvard graduates were presented with in their final year of study? Part of his aim in this book is to subvert the conveyor belt of highly educated smart kids away from the capitalist pig trough and into something more meaningful.

Anyway, i'm going for The Pickwick Papers next. It'll be my 10th Dickens. Only four to go (of his finished novels) after this one. It's actually his first novel and many consider it his most comical, and i love Dickens for his humor, he makes me laugh out loud.