Author Topic: What are you reading? (Read 752871 times)

Mr. Magoo · « **Reply #325 on:** June 27, 2012, 07:12:37 PM »

finished Mill's Subjection of Women, now i'm rereading Rawls's Theory of Justice, then I'll read Law's Empire by Dworkin.

Mr. Magoo · « **Reply #326 on:** June 27, 2012, 07:40:28 PM »

Quote from: syntaxmachine on June 27, 2012, 07:27:54 PM

How about balancing out Rawls with Anarchy, the State, and Utopia right after?

already have it (and read it).

EDIT: Oh and the reason I'm rereading Rawls is for his egalitarian conception of the person and compensation of chance versus choice that I'm writing a paper on.

Mr Nobody · « **Reply #327 on:** June 27, 2012, 08:03:11 PM »

Rip Van Winkle. I am trying to figure out how to sleep 20 hours a day and still make money.

Mr. Magoo · « **Reply #328 on:** June 27, 2012, 08:16:49 PM »

Quote from: syntaxmachine on June 27, 2012, 08:12:08 PM

Isn't school out? That seems like serious stuff for a summer course.

In all honesty, this is what I do for fun.

dr.chimps · « **Reply #329 on:** June 28, 2012, 04:05:14 AM »

Just finished Elmore Leonard's 'Djibouti.' What a turd. Book was on the bargain table, and I figured Elmore Leonard: I can't lose. Wrong. Hard to follow plot, silly goal, forgettable characters, all in a foreign city. A rare clunker from the master. Get us back to Detroit, Elmore.

_bruce_ · « **Reply #330 on:** June 28, 2012, 04:31:29 AM »

Quote from: JBGRAY on June 21, 2012, 04:32:05 PM

The sickest, nastiest, FREAKIEST book I've ever read....needed to read it on an empty stomach....def. a Getbigger's Book of the Month Club.

So Stark hired a ghost writer...

garebear · « **Reply #331 on:** July 04, 2012, 05:41:57 PM »

Just finished this. Very good book about Afghanistan.

JBGRAY · « **Reply #332 on:** July 04, 2012, 07:01:32 PM »

Quote from: irongrip400 on June 25, 2012, 04:12:26 PM

What is the book about? Looks like the same artist that did "The Wall".

Its about an alien race of goblins that utilize Nazi-era symbology and style and kidnaps children from the world kidland. They use the children as brutalized slaves to make toys...the children are also melted down and used as a cider-like drink for the goblins to consume. The goblins are also ever on the lookout for the "freshest assholes." It is rather difficult to fully explain, lol.

Its Bizarro fiction.....kind of a dark closet at the end of the dark forgotten hall of modern-day horror literature.

JBGRAY · « **Reply #333 on:** July 04, 2012, 07:46:47 PM »

But.....back to more serious reading.

CalvinH · « **Reply #334 on:** July 06, 2012, 12:27:41 PM »

Just finished "Spartacus" by Ben Kane.

....very well done.

Benny B · « **Reply #335 on:** July 09, 2012, 04:07:34 PM »

Mr. Magoo · « **Reply #336 on:** July 10, 2012, 12:04:28 PM »

Euclid in the Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth in Logic and Math

it was free.

dr.chimps · « **Reply #337 on:** July 10, 2012, 01:30:22 PM »

Finished Claire Letemendia's 'The Best of Men,' a historico-fiction about the English Civil War. A big book, with a kind of dashing protagonist, and battles, and intrigue and spycraft...and it all falls kind of flat. The historical background is unexciting/muted and the hero has all the boxes checked but is two-dimensional, and the intrigue was, well, unintriguing. I kept checking to see how many pages I had yet to read, rather than hoping that it would continue.

Mr. Magoo · « **Reply #338 on:** July 10, 2012, 03:02:23 PM »

Quote from: dr.chimps on July 10, 2012, 01:30:22 PM

Finished Claire Letemendia's 'The Best of Men,' a historico-fiction about the English Civil War. A big book, with a kind of dashing protagonist, and battles, and intrigue and spycraft...and it all falls kind of flat. The historical background is unexciting/muted and the hero has all the boxes checked but is two-dimensional, and the intrigue was, well, unintriguing. I kept checking to see how many pages I had yet to read, rather than hoping that it would continue.

I don't see how you can read so much fiction

dr.chimps · « **Reply #339 on:** July 10, 2012, 04:27:28 PM »

Quote from: Mr. Magoo on July 10, 2012, 03:02:23 PM

I don't see how you can read so much fiction

I read non-fiction as well, but people tend to get a little 'personal' when it comes to non-fiction, so I generally just do fiction. $:-\$

Jack T. Cross · « **Reply #340 on:** July 10, 2012, 05:27:42 PM »

I stopped reading reading fiction several years ago, and now cannot stand to even consider reading a single page of fiction. Don't know why.

Maybe I'll dig through this thread for something good, from a trusted poster.

Jack T. Cross · « **Reply #341 on:** July 10, 2012, 06:36:50 PM »

Judging by some of the claims made on here, and looking at the poster who makes the claim, I'd say the thread itself could be the biggest piece of fiction to be found anywhere.

FighterLover · « **Reply #342 on:** July 11, 2012, 12:06:36 AM »

Danielle Steele...A Long Way Home...

syntaxmachine · « **Reply #343 on:** July 11, 2012, 02:48:04 AM »

Mr Magoo, I'm hoping we can have a conversation on logic textbooks. Do you have a single favorite book or combination of books? What logics did/do you decide to focus upon and do you ever deploy it on other texts you read or do you just go through the logic books for fun?

I'll start by saying that for me the perfect set of books is:
1. Logic and Philosophy by Hausman et al. (2009)
2. Logic for Philosophy by Sider (2010)
3. Schaum's Outline of Logic by Rohatyn and Varzi (2011)
4. Any basic intro on set theory

1. has the most accessible and practical treatment of the standard propositional logic + quantification theory (with identity) that I am aware of, and of course this package is the first step in mastering logic. I'm also happy with 2.'s treatment of modal logic, which I'm sure you know is a very popular (if not universally accepted) extension of standard logic and one full of important concepts. Finally, I felt 3. had a set of great chapters (and I was surprised by this, as I was expecting the book to be crap) on inductive logic, second-order logic, the probability calculus, the logic of functions, and the logic of definitive descriptions. The book really meshes well with the others because these enhancements to first-order logic are powerful, and yet they are not covered as a group in 1., 2., or any other text I am aware of. Finally, the basic concepts of set theory are helpful for a more complete understanding of logic. There are a bunch of cheap introductory books that could fill slot 4.

It seems like after all of this is synthesized, one has a more or less complete system in place for handling anything related to logic. Any further study boils down to reinforcing/refreshing one's knowledge of the system by doing problem sets in the other textbooks.

Mr. Magoo · « **Reply #344 on:** July 11, 2012, 06:56:47 PM »

Of the books you listed, Sider is the only one I have read. I enjoyed it very much. Logic is just a hobby, but it's very useful in my regular work and it keeps me sharp. I've read most of the intro books like Lemmon's Beginning Logic, Lepore's Meaning and Argument, Quine's Methods of Logic, Grayling's intro to philosophical logic, Grovier's practical study of argument, Sandford's If P then Q, The Logic Book (did all the problems in that one), etc. I'm not really enjoying Euclid in the Rainforest, the logic is too basic. Next I'm going to work through Priest's intro to non-classical logic. What I enjoy most is Modal Logic.

phreak · « **Reply #345 on:** July 16, 2012, 03:49:45 AM »

Read a lot of fiction lately, especially zombie fiction. I've tentatively started on my first book, which should address all fuckups that always irk me about other peoples' zombie books and movies. So reading this was more work than play. Read 27 of them in the last 60 days (according to my cc statement), so I have no idea about authors/titles.

Also, Tribal Leadership by Logan, King, Fischer-Wright. My thoughts: Meh.

funk51 · « **Reply #346 on:** July 16, 2012, 12:16:13 PM »

this

garebear · « **Reply #347 on:** July 17, 2012, 12:57:45 AM »

Anyone read this?

Pretty good.

dr.chimps · « **Reply #348 on:** July 17, 2012, 09:24:34 AM »

Finished HHhH, by Laurent Binet. Came with a lot of advance praise, and details the rise and the and death of Reinhard Heydrich, at the hands of Czech/Slav resistance fighters. HHhH, or, 'Himmler's Brain is called Heydrich,' is an odd mix of historical fact with an omnipresent narrator, and it all works surprising well. The author has done his history homework, and is up front about the limitations of fiction with regards to his narrative. Kind of Nazi meta-fiction. Author has won the big french book prize with this novel. Usually this is a warning signal to me. In this case, it could be warranted. Solid 8/10

Agnostic007 · « **Reply #349 on:** July 17, 2012, 09:37:34 AM »

Stephen Kings "The Long Walk"..just finished "The Dark Half"