What books are you reading?
person
Don't believe everything you thinkThe liminal space Veteran
Odd how this thread hasn't been created yet.
Anyway, this winter I read a non fiction series. It had been a while since I got into one, but it looked like a slower winter, and it was for a couple months. I read the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, it comes up in lots of top 10 fantasy series lists and I think it delivered. I also got Steven Kings Gunslinger series, but have only gotten part way through the first book, it seems good I've just been distracted.
The non fiction books I've read in the past year are, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth by Jonathan Rauch which is about the institutions such as journalism, law and academia and the systems and methods they use to establish what is true and what isn't and how they are deteriorating or under attack.
The Cancelling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Riki Schlott. The title is a play on Greg's previous book with Jonathan Haidt, the Coddling of the American Mind, which I read when it came out a few years ago and can also recommend which is about the dangers and harms of "safetyism". Cancelling is similar to the Constitution of Knowledge in that it tackles the deterioration of thought and knowledge production. Even though I think "cancelling" is popularly thought to be a left thing, the right are the original cancellers and the book spends just as much time going into their oppressions on free thought and expression.
At the moment I'm working through Yuval Noah Harari's newest book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks. He goes through human information technologies, from face to face group interaction to the printing press, radio and now the internet and AI and how the changes in technology disrupted social systems and allowed for both positive and negative changes, such as radio allowed for both modern autocratic regimes like USSR and modern democracies with a much greater voter franchise than in their origination. He's fairly pessimistic about the likely changes the internet has brought and the potential of AI, which is different than past techs in that they are more than passive tech, they are agents capable of influence themselves. But he does believe there is a path to a positive future.
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@Tozan started a similar threat back in 2021 @person .
https://newbuddhist.com/discussion/26878/which-book-are-you-reading
Since the last thread, I have joined the library and have a book on Linux out at the mo.
Do not really read anything but the endings, which in this case, has tips on bash/terminal scripting (whatever that is).
Also, have ordered a book by a Tree
Wilding – the Return of Nature to a British Farm ~ Isabella Tree
meanwhile...
https://secularbuddhistnetwork.org/the-lotus-library-free-buddhist-ebooks-on-the-internet/
Thanks, I'm going to bump that one up and repost. Please ignore this one, so I don't add unnecessarily to my notifications.
Illustrated Guide To Luxor And The Valley Of The Kings by Kent Weeks
I read a fantasy trilogy about a young soldier Rin in a series of wars in a fantasy setting based on China and Chinese history. The fantasy elements include the protagonist who becomes a martial artist and shaman. Along with other fantasy elements, though the supernatural keep a low profile sort of like vampires in Anne Rice keep a low profile. The wars described are described as horrific rather than glamorized. Written by RF Kuang in her early 20s and found by me in a bookstore.
I think you’re going to have to ask @federica to close this thread…
Yes, if you see this @federica please do close it.
At the moment I'm reading Cittaviveka: Teaching from the Silent Mind. It's a deep, yet simple explanation of the Four Noble Truths. I feel like this is a good read on the subject. I always thought that desire = attachment and as a Buddhist one should be letting go of desires. But here it writes that desires are not good or bad, only the attachment to them is to be let go of and letting go is not the same as ridding oneself of, but patiently spending time with it, observing it, understanding the suffering. It writes about how meditation can be difficult at first, because of all the things we tried to avoid through our lives reappear in our minds and being free means being free of avoiding as well. (I'm obviously paraphrasing, it's my understanding of it, not a word-by-word quote). I'm glad I found this book, hopefully a lot more good reads will follow, Bhikkhu Bodhi's The Noble Eightfold Path was among my favorites from a long time ago as it was a very on-point summary of things most other books would deal with in detail.
I was reading Only Fear Dies by Barry Long. It was an interesting book, the early chapters were about how personality is formed by mimicking the responses of parents in childhood and how emotional pain forms almost a separate kind of body inside one’s energy.
It reminded me a lot of Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now, which contains a lot of similar ideas, which is not surprising because Eckhart Tolle learnt from Barry Long at one point in his career as a spiritual teacher.
Later chapters in the book contain a history of the world in terms of the mind of unhappiness. Barry holds that primitive man was a lot happier and largely free from likes and dislikes, and that the rational mind evolved almost like a parasite and contains a powerful mechanism taking it towards unhappiness.