101–110 of 282 posts
I haven't read a single book in 2022. Somehow, over the years, I've lost the habit of reading.
I brought back my habit of reading this year. New rule, no internet and youtube right before sleep, read instead. I fall asleep sooner and much better. And I finally read Dune, probably the best book of this year, surprisingly good, I like the writing style.
Those two books illustrate the financialization of the US and global economy over time, and although dense, are well worth the effort. She has a new book out as of Oct, "Permanent Distortion: How Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever."
Peter Anderas, Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America
A very fun historical read, covering everything from textile machinery smuggling from Britain to the American colonies, to rum and whiskey smuggling into Indian Country in the 19th century, to opium smuggling to China, to Prohibition and the modern Drug War, cotton smuggling by the South to Europe to finance the South's Civil War army, and the smuggling of people from slaves to immigrants. Very eye-opening, a lot of America's 'wealthy families' got their first pool of capital in this manner.
Also:
Junji Ito, Uzumaki and No Longer Human
William Gibson, The Peripheral and Agency
× The Cyberiad (English translation) by Stanisław Lem. It's the most hilarious science fiction I've read. It hits a special note with me, I actually immediately started reading it again from the start as soon as I finished it. × The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber & David Wengrow. An amazing rethinking of archeology, a denunciation of social orthogenesis and an invitation to dream of a better world Other mentions…
Nomi Prins, All the Presidents Bankers, and also Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World. Those two books illustrate the financialization of the US and global economy over time, and although dense, are well worth the effort. She has a new book out as of Oct, "Permanent Distortion: How Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever." Peter Anderas, Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America A very f…
I Choose Elena and My Body Keeps Your Secrets by Lucia Osbourne Crowley. Can highly recommend these to any man who is wanting to better understand issues of sexual assault against women, in terms of how normalised it is, the challenges women face in being believed by other men and the long term health effects that manifest themselves after such attacks and after hiding the truth. Wanted to mention it here because I b…
There's enough understanding that things need to be changed, now the doing is needed. > because I become more aware each passing week of the blindspots in the HN community regarding the struggles and perspectives of women That's presumptuous and plain insulting. I've no evidence many guys here on HN are keeping women down in any way - that needs verifying (though it may be true). I've personally seen too few women in…
Non-Fiction / Self-Help: No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model IFS for short. Written for normal people, not psychologists/psychiatrists. It has a very valuable core philosophy/teaching about who we are underneath all the masks of our personality(s). It closely resembles something I experienced during an Ayahuasca retreat in 2018, about the soul / inner child/god…
For fiction, my sample size this year is sadly small but probably Becky Chambers's The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, the final(?) book in the Wayfarers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet) series. A great end to the series, and given that it must have been plotted originally pre-2020 oddly contemporary.
The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. You will not see the world the same way. You can then read Industrial Society by Ted Kaczynski and understand his desperation.
Very interesting recommendation. Is it a slog to get through? Or readable?
The ideas are very interesting, strong second recommendation for Technological Society.
The Blood Oranges, by John Hawkes - he's a postmodern writer, but this short novel is pretty straightforward. The narrator is the best-written hedonist Casanova I've ever read, and the novel explores both the perks and the fallout of this outlook on life. Maybe read alongside The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams, which explores similar issues and is also extremely good.