The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O'Brian. I needed a bit of quality, mindless fun after 2016.
Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently?
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Re: Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently?
#1121984, followed directly by Brave New World. Our world resembles a lot from each of these books. Much like in 1984, we have devices and companies constantly monitoring us (iOS, Android, Facebook, etc.), we have “news programs” and websites seemingly modeled after the “two minutes hate”, and we clearly have some Ministry of Truth-like misinformation getting spread around while accurate information gets lost or ignored.…
I've been doing the exact same in the last few weeks in the opposite order.
I remember reading these as a young teen and liking the stories, but thinking the concepts were so far from ever being possible.
This was the age where the brutality stories of my grandparents surviving WWII started sinking in.
I was convinced mankind would never ever allow anything to happen again that could lead to what happened in the late 30s.
Re: Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently?
#113Peopleware — Productive Projects and Teams
https://amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-DeMarc...
Re: Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently?
#114American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
Just because I needed a bit of fun fiction to break up all the non-fiction. And because it (perhaps accidentally) says something interesting about the gods of a land of immigrants and future-philes.
Re: Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently?
#115Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I highly recommend it. Takes only 4-5 hours cover to cover
Re: Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently?
#1161984, followed directly by Brave New World. Our world resembles a lot from each of these books. Much like in 1984, we have devices and companies constantly monitoring us (iOS, Android, Facebook, etc.), we have “news programs” and websites seemingly modeled after the “two minutes hate”, and we clearly have some Ministry of Truth-like misinformation getting spread around while accurate information gets lost or ignored.…
> Our world resembles a lot from each of these books. Much like in 1984, we have devices and companies constantly monitoring us (iOS, Android, Facebook, etc.), we have “news programs” and websites seemingly modeled after the “two minutes hate”, and we clearly have some Ministry of Truth-like misinformation getting spread around while accurate information gets lost or ignored. Is this a joke? Having recently reread Or…
It certainly feels like we've always been at war with R̶u̶s̶s̶i̶a̶ the Middle East.
Re: Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently?
#1171984, followed directly by Brave New World. Our world resembles a lot from each of these books. Much like in 1984, we have devices and companies constantly monitoring us (iOS, Android, Facebook, etc.), we have “news programs” and websites seemingly modeled after the “two minutes hate”, and we clearly have some Ministry of Truth-like misinformation getting spread around while accurate information gets lost or ignored.…
>Much like in Brave New World, we have soma-like drugs, distractions and trivialities occupying people while they accept the world as it is and even shy away from wanting to change things. Now hold on. There are millions of people in the streets demonstrating on a regular basis these days. How many have to be trying to change things before we stop labeling them all distracted, sleeping, over-amused sheeple?
Both you and pdog have made interesting observations, I suppose, but as I said, neither book described our reality accurately. Our reality is far more complicated. As you point out, millions have protested, but tens of millions haven’t. As pdog remarked, the world in 1984 might be described as a totalitarian hellscape, in part, but parts of our world can also be described as such; pdog needs to look outside his locale, I’m afraid. Our world really is like a combination of those two books, even if your neighborhoods aren’t. We haven’t matched the world portrayed in either book, obviously, but it feels to me like were transitioning to a world a lot like a combination of those books. Let’s review things in a decade or two and see what comes to be.
Re: Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently?
#118The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin “A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, - this…
That's a wonderful quote echoing some of my thoughts regarding the post-work economy. Does one need to read the entire "Hainish series" to enjoy this book? Or can I just jump right in?
They're not really a series --- just a shared setting that gives her an excuse to have curious but almost human aliens visit strange worlds populated by almost humans. In fact, the Ekumen barely get a cameo in _Dispossed_.
Read it; it's really good, and works well as a pair with _The Left Hand of Darkness_.
Oh, yeah --- the Old Hainish were Not Nice People.
Re: Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently?
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Much like in Brave New World, we have soma-like drugs, distractions and trivialities occupying people while they accept the world as it is and even shy away from wanting to change things. Now hold on. There are millions of people in the streets demonstrating on a regular basis these days. How many have to be trying to change things before we stop labeling them all distracted, sleeping, over-amused sheeple?
Both you and pdog have made interesting observations, I suppose, but as I said, neither book described our reality accurately. Our reality is far more complicated. As you point out, millions have protested, but tens of millions haven’t. As pdog remarked, the world in 1984 might be described as a totalitarian hellscape, in part, but parts of our world can also be described as such; pdog needs to look outside his local…
>As you point out, millions have protested, but tens of millions haven’t.
On both an absolute and per-capita level, those millions are actually record highs. These are historically large demonstrations. I'd have to check where I read this, but IIRC about 3% of a country's total population is typically the amount you need demonstrating in order to overthrow a government.
We're possibly looking at a revolution in progress, and all you guys can say is, "Why aren't there more of them?"?
Re: Ask HN: Which book have you re-read recently?
#120I separate my books into levels. Level 0 are the books that I reread steadily over the years (also the ones that I pack in my suitcase when I'm moving as opposed to shipping), so I'll just post that list here, in no particular order: 'Good Poems' edited by Garrison Keiller; 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen; 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen; Fitzgerald's translation of 'The Rubaiyat'; Ford Madox Ford's 'Parade's End'; Hafiz, 'The Gift'; Modesitt, 'Gravity Dreams'; Heinlein, 'Time Enough for Love'; Bulgakov, 'Master and Margarita'; 'Ovid in Love' (Guy Lee's translation of the Amores).
I've been revisiting a lot of Le Guin's novellas ('The Found and the Lost' is a great collection) and Borges's stories since the election. They have been a source of great comfort.
I find that I don't reread nonfiction. I'll reference something I remember in it, but I can't think of a work of nonfiction I've reread in the past few years.