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Book Club: "The Diceman" - Luke Rhinehart / "Fooled by Randomness" - Nicholas T
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I really think people should be nominating 2-3, at least 2, with a main one and then an ancillary one for people who have read it already or just don't want to.
My (real) second choice is a book that i'd say no-one has read, but which is absolutely brilliant. It's called Flat Earth News (Nick Davies, a Guardian and BBC journalist) and is about how the world's media is being dumbed down to the point where there is no real reporting on newsworthy events.
It's absolutely brilliant.
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U brainboxes luvs it!! Us big dummies not like?
Well to be fair Ted you managed to misunderstand a 2 word sentence from Mellor when he wrote "Literature fail", thinking he was agreeing with your analysis rather than having a pop at you.
Anyway this is not the best way to start our book club debating. I'm pretty sure it will be better when we start if we de-BBV the rhetoric and engage in the points being made rather than lol'ing at each other.
I for one intend reading Tight Ted's recommendation and am looking forward to it (didn't HIVEndhoven recommend that one too in BBV?).
I guess I better stick in my recommendations if we are putting up the lists for voting tomorrow.
Primary recommendation:
An introduction to philosophical analysis - John Hospers
Why? This is a fantastic introductory book to philosophical thinking as it straddles the student and layman market wonderfully. Its language is very simple and clear. Some people talk about how a novel will "change your life" and I have never understood how. But this book will change you if you read it.
Philosophy is a skill, when you grasp the fundamentals of the different areas of it you will think radically differently. Without wishing to overstate the case I consider that the difference between how a person acquainted with philosophical analysis views and thinks about things relative to someone who isn't so acquainted is similar to the difference between an adult and a child. If you read this book you will grow up intellectually and be amazed in retrospect at how fundamental your previous deficiency in framing your thinking was.
I think this may have been my first philosophy book and so I am very nostalgic about it. Anyone can read this book, it is very accessible. Please do yourself a huge favour and read this book.
Here is Amazon reviews of the 4th edition (I have read the 3rd edition):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Philosophical-Analysis-John-Hospers/product-reviews/0132663058/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Well you'll need a few laughs after that one so...
The Time Machine Did It - John Swartzwelder
Why? Many of you will have heard myself, Yuletired, LaoLao singing the praises of this author. He is the reason why The Simpsons was brilliant back when The Simpsons was brilliant. Quite simply he is the best comedy writer in the world imo. This book is the first in his Frank Burly series. They are all quite small books about a detective who is very Homeresque except more stupid, violent and even less prone to getting hurt. And you will laugh out loud on every page, often having to put the book down you are laughing so hard. Sheer unadulterated comic brilliance.
Here's the opening to the book:
"As my exciting story opens, I am being punched in the stomach. But I guess a lot of stories start that way. Most of mine do anyway."
Here are Amazon reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Machine-Did-John-Swartzwelder/product-reviews/0975579908/ref=cm_cr_pr_helpful?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0
For my third recommendation I had to pick a Freud book. The most accessible and interesting to the average reader is The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.
Why? Here Freud seems to be writing for the layman and it is a fascinating book on how the unconscious manifests itself in all the strange little ways in our lives - why we forget names or words, why we mix up the order of words and make other mistakes in speech, reading, and writing, why we forget certain things and do certain things wrong.
If you read it then you will get an insight into why it is you and others do certain things which seem like trivial mistakes but illuminate an unconscious rationale and motive. So the next time you or someone makes a slip of the tongue (the Freudian slip) you will be equipped to analyse why that happened and what it means.
It's a great book for learning simple applications of psychoanalytic thinking to everyday things. For example whenever a song comes into my head I analyse why that song or artist came into my head and I always get the answer which is sometimes interesting. Read this and you probably will end up being able to do that too, along with being able to analyse a whole range of other little behaviours.
There are too many different editions for a lot of Amazon reviews in one place.0 -
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Well to be fair Ted you managed to misunderstand a 2 word sentence from Mellor when he wrote "Literature fail", thinking he was agreeing with your analysis rather than having a pop at you.
Anyway this is not the best way to start our book club debating. I'm pretty sure it will be better when we start if we de-BBV the rhetoric and engage in the points being made rather than lol'ing at each other.
I for one intend reading Tight Ted's recommendation and am looking forward to it (didn't HIVEndhoven recommend that one too in BBV?).
I guess I better stick in my recommendations if we are putting up the lists for voting tomorrow.
Primary recommendation:
An introduction to philosophical analysis - John Hospers
Why? This is a fantastic introductory book to philosophical thinking as it straddles the student and layman market wonderfully. Its language is very simple and clear. Some people talk about how a novel will "change your life" and I have never understood how. But this book will change you if you read it.
Philosophy is a skill, when you grasp the fundamentals of the different areas of it you will think radically differently. Without wishing to overstate the case I consider that the difference between how a person acquainted with philosophical analysis views and thinks about things relative to someone who isn't so acquainted is similar to the difference between an adult and a child. If you read this book you will grow up intellectually and be amazed in retrospect at how fundamental your previous deficiency in framing your thinking was.
I think this may have been my first philosophy book and so I am very nostalgic about it. Anyone can read this book, it is very accessible. Please do yourself a huge favour and read this book.
Here is Amazon reviews of the 4th edition (I have read the 3rd edition):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Philosophical-Analysis-John-Hospers/product-reviews/0132663058/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Well you'll need a few laughs after that one so...
The Time Machine Did It - John Swartzwelder
Why? Many of you will have heard myself, Yuletired, LaoLao singing the praises of this author. He is the reason why The Simpsons was brilliant back when The Simpsons was brilliant. Quite simply he is the best comedy writer in the world imo. This book is the first in his Frank Burly series. They are all quite small books about a detective who is very Homeresque except more stupid, violent and even less prone to getting hurt. And you will laugh out loud on every page, often having to put the book down you are laughing so hard. Sheer unadulterated comic brilliance.
Here's the opening to the book:
"As my exciting story opens, I am being punched in the stomach. But I guess a lot of stories start that way. Most of mine do anyway."
Here are Amazon reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Machine-Did-John-Swartzwelder/product-reviews/0975579908/ref=cm_cr_pr_helpful?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0
For my third recommendation I had to pick a Freud book. The most accessible and interesting to the average reader is The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.
Why? Here Freud seems to be writing for the layman and it is a fascinating book on how the unconscious manifests itself in all the strange little ways in our lives - why we forget names or words, why we mix up the order of words and make other mistakes in speech, reading, and writing, why we forget certain things and do certain things wrong.
If you read it then you will get an insight into why it is you and others do certain things which seem like trivial mistakes but illuminate an unconscious rationale and motive. So the next time you or someone makes a slip of the tongue (the Freudian slip) you will be equipped to analyse why that happened and what it means.
It's a great book for learning simple applications of psychoanalytic thinking to everyday things. For example whenever a song comes into my head I analyse why that song or artist came into my head and I always get the answer which is sometimes interesting. Read this and you probably will end up being able to do that too, along with being able to analyse a whole range of other little behaviours.
There are too many different editions for a lot of Amazon reviews in one place.
Nice post thanks, I'll check those out.0
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