The Core

major audiobook binge

Any favorites?

I have been reading a fair bit. Favorites so far:
 - Solitary, the story of Albert Woodfox's 40+ years in solitary confinement. Sounds like a grim Covid read, but I thought it was a worthwhile read and opened my mind.
 - Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy. Not a happy book either, but beautifully written and a powerful story. I really loved this book.

Without giving too much away, here's an excerpt from PoT

We, the people of Colleton, left like sheep, docile and banished to unspeakable newly created towns without the
dark resonance of memory to sustain us. We walked the Carolina earth without the wisdom and accumulated
suffering of our forebears to instruct us in times of danger or folly. Set adrift, we floated into the driftless
suburbs at the edge of cities. We left not like a defeated tribe, but like one brushed with the black veils and
garments of extinction. Singly and in pairs, we left that archipelago of green islands that had been spared the
worst disfigurements and indemnities of our times. As a town, we had made the error of staying small—and
there is no more unforgivable crime in America.

Philosophy : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Awakening-Intelligence-J-Krishnamurti/dp/0060648341

I just this minute finished listening to "Upheaval" by Jared Diamond and would highly recommend it.

I'll say more later.

Please do.

Have you read Yuval Harrari's "Sapiens," I would strongly recommend it. I think Rupert read it too if I recall.

If you like a bit of Fantasy

Not usually, but I am actually looking for something light. I've been reading a lot of dense, heavy stuff lately. Which is great, but I'm sort of in the mood for a page turner. I'll check it out. If not me, sounds like a good choice for my wife.

>> I am a slower reader

Me too. Quite slow. That is why I initially gravitated toward philosophy and paleography. Everyone has to read slowly in those cases. A long book is a big investment for me, so I often do not finish books. Many people have recommended David Allen's Getting Things Done. I just could not get it done. It was very effective at putting me to sleep though.

>>Krishnamaurti

I tried to read Krishnamaurti during a period of intensive reading of "eastern" philosophy and could never quite get into his writing. It always felt very in the "intellectual" register. But in perhaps a similar vein, I just heard a long interview with Jack Kornfield and it made me want to read "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry."

What did you get out of it? Why do you like it?

When I looked up the Krishnamaurti book, by the way, it had some suggestions in the "you might like" which reminded me... If you have any interest in poetry, I would recommend Marie Howe,
 - What the Living Do
 - Magdalena

She is literally my favorite poet since Homer. A few years ago when I decided to memorize a poem each month, I started with the title poem of What The Living Do.
 - https://poets.org/poem/what-living-do

That has been bumped as my favorite now, though, but the publication of The Affliction.
 - https://poets.org/poem/affliction

I think she is an utter genius.

Two books that are great as audio

1. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, read by Sherman Alexie. His reading with his "Indian" narrator voice (not the voice the author usually has in interviews) adds a lot to the nuance of the language. It's a beautiful mostly autobiographical story of trying to escape the reservation and what he gives up to do it. Funny and heartbreaking.

2. Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk. Also very funny. Not heartbreaking. A great peek into the US. The whole novel takes place during the span of a Dallas Cowboys football game where Billy Lynn's unit is being honored because of a video of them that went viral. This was recommended to me by a West Point grad who was a US Army Ranger with combat experience and I suggested it to a friend who was a Marine enlisted man who served in Iraq. To me it felt true to life, but I have no way to judge, but it got their imprimatur. Again, the audio version is really well read.

Juicy thread, too many things to learn already!

Regarding just mine and quoting ergo  :

">>Krishnamaurti

I tried to read Krishnamaurti during a period of intensive reading of "eastern" philosophy and could never quite get into his writing. It always felt very in the "intellectual" register. But in perhaps a similar vein, I just heard a long interview with Jack Kornfield and it made me want to read "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry."

What did you get out of it? Why do you like it?"

It was the first thing i read that made me step right outside of myself and give an honest appraisal, i liked it for it's honesty - just look at yourself, watch quietly and see all your biased mechanisms at work, as well as your harmonious ones! I was just floating along until i read it, as we mostly are at that age, and it was good to find something simple and demonstrably useful.

I've been enjoying Blinkist, which gives you a short version of popular books in text or audio. 10-20 minute versions. I love the ability to highlight text and save it in a "highlights" catalog forever.

Nothing high brow or challenging here.  I bought a 20 pack of "traditional British" mysteries by Carola Dunn on Kobo.  Set in the early 1920's and mostly manor house mysteries.

It's an interesting time period and you can tell the books are traditional British because when a character has had a shock, like finding a dead body in the library, they fetch one a brandy.

Quote from: Rupert on May 10, 2020, 05:11:07 AM

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If not me, sounds like a good choice for my wife.

  forgot to say Theresa will love it then I promise you.

$4.99 Kindle version. I'm already a handful of pages into it.

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It was the first thing i read that made me step right outside of myself and give an honest appraisal, i liked it for it's honesty - just look at yourself, watch quietly and see all your biased mechanisms at work, as well as your harmonious ones! I was just floating along until i read it, as we mostly are at that age, and it was good to find something simple and demonstrably useful.

Ah, okay. That sounds like what drove my period of intense reading in mystical literature of many traditions. For better or worse, I actually quit my computer science curriculum in my junior year of university and ended up taking a degree in comparative religion.

This may be wrong, but to me, Krishnamaurti seemed more on the intellectual side than the mystical side and, to be frank, I felt like my intellectual side was already too strong (one friend accused me of "living inside my own head too much" and she was certainly correct. He's heavily on the Theosophist side of things (though he broke from them), and I couldn't get into Steiner or any of the Theosophist stuff either.

Again, that may be a misperception. I know he described his transformative experience as "mystical union." I may give it another try. I am reading some philosophy too right now - a book on Foucault, who I met and became sort of friends with (gave me his address and phone number and told me to call him if I was ever in Paris). But I don't know his philosophy well. Obviously, very, very different from Krishnamaurti. I only mention them together since they both take some attention to read.

I've found that the calm of Covid life has me more willing to tackle challenging books than I have been in recent years.

Krishnamurti was less mystic yes, tht's why i liked him, but not overly intellectual, he spoke pretty plainly for the most part.

A friend of Foucault, check you out!

". the calm of Covid life .." i like that

A friend of Foucault, check you out!

That's an exaggeration. Even my "sort of friends" is an exaggeration. I had the chance to have several conversations over the course of a month and he was very kind. It's possible he was looking for sex. I don't know. I was clueless.

But we were certainly not friends as one would normally mean that. But meeting him was pivotal. I was getting top grades, but was really disillusioned with my studies and talking to him was inspiring. I'm not sure I would have stayed in college if not for that. At the time, was majoring in computer science but had an interest in philosophy so I went up and started talking to him in the library one day and he was so gracious and kind. I then had a half dozen occasions to talk to him. One evening just me and a friend for about six hours, drinking wine and eating ice cream with him until 2:30am. I was 19 years old.