What are we reading?

[Lara]

I am reading all about the Open Source and free software movement for an essay for college: looking at the gift economy at work in open source alongside the political economy of that pesky porno-writing philosopher Georges Bataille.

Here are some interesting PDFs online I have been looking at:

Open Source - Weber (http://e-conomy.berkeley.edu/publications/wp/wp140.pdf) (not Max)
New Hacker Class - Wark (http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html)
The Multitudes - Virno (http://www.generation-online.org/c/fcmultitude3.htm)
Political Economies based on Gift Exchange - Bataille (http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpbataille2.htm)
Free Software Movement - Richard Stallman (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf)

What is everybody else reading? Highbrow of lowbrow, skool or home or even podcasts that you're listening to etc.

[Lara]

I'm also reading McSweeney's 18 quarterly journal of American short story writers writing strange and brilliant fiction and watching their new DVD 'magazine' offering the Wholpin. (http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.detail/object_id/2AF2AE97-8E22-4F9C-AC58-FA31F8D5347F/DVD.cfm)

[bridd]

Lately, I've been reading The Corporation by Joel Bakan, and reading Pratchett/Gaimen's Good Omens for the first time (kicking myself I hadn't read it sooner). Also a whole load of comicbooks, the latest issues of X-Factor written by Peter David being my favourite reading from that particular publisher at the moment.

I'm slowly working my way through some Cinema4D tutorials as well :)

The comicbooks are making me want to design and animate some giant robots :D

[vjair]

ahhh.... robots.... im curently working my way back through Isaac Asimovs foundation novels, plenty of quality robots in there. Read them all loads of times, but just cant get enough of Asimov's writing, he rules :D

[karl]

I just finished most of Asimovs "Foundation" series, he rules but I can get enough of his writing after the last Foundation novels.

I'm also reading "The Right To Be Hostile" by Aaron McGruder and Howard Zinn's "A People's History Of The United States"

[ToxicOrange]

I've just finished Dan Simmons ~ Ilium (SUPERB!!), with China Mieville ~ Iron Council (none too shoddy) and am currently engrossed in Peter F. Hamiltons ~ Pandora Star. So it's been a bit sci-fi recently ...

[KillingFrenzy]

I just read Stanislaw Lem's "Solaris" and am ready to pick up some more of his work. The math/desciptive stuff about the planet really stuck in my head, so I'm going to try and figure out how to relate that to some sort of visuals experiment. But I think it might be getting a bit "mathy" for my understanding of Jitter.

I'm reading "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" by George Orwell, but finding myself unmotivated because the weather has been getting nice. I haven't really latched onto anything about the characters. If it gets much worse, I might have to jump to a collection of short stories I have by Paul Bowles. But that sounds like perfect summer/lounging on the veranda reading, so I don't want to get ahead of myself.

[spaceman]

currently reading "Siva Sutras-The yoga of supreme identity" by Jaideva Singh.

which basicaly says that the first distortion in perception in when you separate the self from the non-self and then goes on to explain how to get rid of all distortion in perseption to attain enlightment....
I might not attain enlightment but it sure is enlightning reading

[hamageddon]

Edward N. Luttwak:
Turbo-Capitalism : Winners and Losers in the Global Ecomony

Joe Kelly / Christopher Priest
Deadpool No.01-67

Magdalena Holzhey
Vasarely

Christopher Vogler
The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters

[Anyone]

"Take Off in Japanese " Oxford University Press

sorry practical non-philosophical reading ATM

[InsideUsAll]

read kpax II lately which was great, apparently theres a third too which i must get hold of..

also reading the elegant universe by brian greene which is pretty heavy going but really interesting.

read the 2nd book of the 'number one ladies detective agency' series 'tears of a giraffe' recently that ones real heart warming down to earth lovelyness about life in botswana.

also read 'brave new world' recently which was wicked [aldous huxley]

'High Society' by Ben Elton I read a while ago too and thats phenomenal, such a great point of view on the fact that governments all over the world have already lost the war on drugs - so why don't we just legalise and tax them?

I got half way through corporation and it seemed great, but I got into something else and lost the book..

Paulo Coelho - The Zahir - more spiritual malarky from the love meister

and Holy Cow - a book about an ozzy womans travels around india. Really good for me as she lived in some of the places I lived so it was nostalgic, would be interesting for anyone who has never been to india who wonders what its like too.

[MrJustin]

"Take Off in Japanese " Oxford University Press

...Being a language study book as opposed to a Japanese flight manual?

Poe's collected anthology and essay on the rationale of verse... (exams on their way!)

London Fields by Martin Amis (for pleasure)

Slowly working my way through an After effects tutorial book, too.

[BIOPTIX]

'Dead Air' by Ian Banks. (Just getting started, it's a slow beginning but Ian Banks always seems to gather a steady momentum as he goes, by the end of the book I'm sure I'll be gripped).

'The Process' by Brion Gysin. (Feels like I've been reading this book for months now! It's very hard to 'latch into' which is ironic when the review by William S. Burroughs reads "start to read it and you will find that it reads itself" I wish it would get a bloody move on! Inspiring wilderness walk none the less).

[famouswhendead]

速成汉语初级教程， Intensive Chinese Comprehensive Text

[PilotX]

just finished The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (again).. possibly the semi-fictional book ever.. possibly the best explanation of why capitalism is so shite.
and am probably going to strart on of the three Philip K Dick books I got given for my birthday shortly.. although the final part of Neil Stephensons mosr recent trilogy is available to me at the moment.. the first two books (and his one before that) are probably the best things Ive read in the last couple of years..
nothing too serious atm though..

[dansmachine]

Leni Riefenstahl - Memoiren

Fascinating woman!

[USE]

buddhada by anne donovan. about a glaswegian painter and decorator trying to find enlightenment. not as good as it should be, but worth a read.

my fave book recommendation: "the electric kool-aid acid test" by tom wolfe

[deepvisual]

The great war for civilisation - the conquest of the middle east
Robert Fisk.

not for the faint hearted.

[signal55]

henry miller - sexus

[evomedia]

I've been reading in the last month, I have 4 hours on the train each day so a fair few;

'The unbearable lightness of being in aberystwyth' by Malcom Price
Also 'The Restraint of Beasts' by Magnus Mills
and 'The curious incident of the dog in the nightime' by Mark Haddon

Must have a thing for authors begining with M this month

[Grim]

Hell's Angels - Hunter S Thompson. He spent a year with Hell's Angels. Very interesting read.

[krapolaux]

I just finished most of Asimovs "Foundation" series, he rules but I can get enough of his writing after the last Foundation novels.

I'm also reading "The Right To Be Hostile" by Aaron McGruder and Howard Zinn's "A People's History Of The United States"


Last time that I read the triologi of "foundation" I got in loved with one of the main characters.....she was such a nice woman, coming from a "gaia" world where the houses didnt have doors, everything was just a collective flow, she said.
Does any body know the name of dat gurl. She was together with one old wised man...

F/

[krapolaux]

read kpax II lately which was great, apparently theres a third too which i must get hold of..

also reading the elegant universe by brian greene which is pretty heavy going but really interesting.

read the 2nd book of the 'number one ladies detective agency' series 'tears of a giraffe' recently that ones real heart warming down to earth lovelyness about life in botswana.

also read 'brave new world' recently which was wicked [aldous huxley]

'High Society' by Ben Elton I read a while ago too and thats phenomenal, such a great point of view on the fact that governments all over the world have already lost the war on drugs - so why don't we just legalise and tax them?

I got half way through corporation and it seemed great, but I got into something else and lost the book..

Paulo Coelho - The Zahir - more spiritual malarky from the love meister

and Holy Cow - a book about an ozzy womans travels around india. Really good for me as she lived in some of the places I lived so it was nostalgic, would be interesting for anyone who has never been to india who wonders what its like too.


Coelho I thought that I got the last one: 11 minutes? I never heard about Zahir? is it good? :Smoking:

[Nema]

All books from Terry Pratchett (Discworld Novels!)

[krapolaux]

Life of PI by Yann Martel really deep book!...

[VGA]

I just read my council tax bill, it had an unhappy ending.

[revjrbobdodds]

Rubicon Beach - Steve Erickson

[InsideUsAll]

Coelho I thought that I got the last one: 11 minutes? I never heard about Zahir? is it good? :Smoking:


yeah its an interesting read, pretty personal for the author - but so are many of his books... its about his wife vanishing whilst doing some news report in the middle east, and his quest to discover whether she was abducted or she chose to teach him a lesson in love... to be honest it was a bit fanciful but if ur into that its cool :)

[Grim]

I, Lucifer - Glen Duncan. Just bought it, only forty pages in and shaping up to be a classic....:up:

[chumpnunkey]

just read this post in its entirety as it stood when I sat but I should be reading "Deleuze: Cinema 2" which is very good, and I am wanting to be reading the "electric cool aid acid test" after being reminded of it by USE at the top of the page.

[lowRes]

just finished reading P.K.Dick's Time out of joint, this afternoon.. so one more for the enlarging sci-fi list!

now i'm getting courage to start The Semiotic Engineering of Human Computer Interaction by Clarisse de Souza's.. heehheeh!


r_x
* )

[many2]

I am reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons - I am halfway through it and I am completely addicted :) I am not a big fan of science fiction usually, even less so of space opera (I prefer anticipation) but this one book is really good. I hope the end will be up to my expectations (I hate books with poor endings). It is also one of the first litterature books I am reading in english.

[devonmiles]

thomas transtroemer: selected poems.
lavinia greenlaw: minsk
michel houellebecq: wiedergeburt

always in search of fresh poetry. good poetry is so rare, one out of hundred is a great average. recommendations are welcome.
btw: why would someone call bataille a "pesky porn writer" ? I would think its great expressionist literature with erotic content tracing its roots back to lenz, klabund and the other german expressionists while clearing the road for fouceault, miller and others. it was supposed to be porn when it first was published, but hey, "gulliver" was on index too.

[Lara]

btw: why would someone call bataille a "pesky porn writer" ? I would think its great expressionist literature with erotic content tracing its roots back to lenz, klabund and the other german expressionists while clearing the road for fouceault, miller and others. it was supposed to be porn when it first was published, but hey, "gulliver" was on index too. :roll:

YUP and it's pretty dirty... :moon:

[dansmachine]

Bataille's thoughts on various forms of sacrifice are still interesting, and one way to illustrate them was his prosaic pornography. 'Dirty' doesn't really cover his intentions...

[Kyle]

DMT "The Spirit Molecule" by Strassman...and the VJ Book.

[Lara]

Bataille's thoughts on various forms of sacrifice are still interesting, and one way to illustrate them was his prosaic pornography. 'Dirty' doesn't really cover his intentions...

Yeah I know - it was a joke, I am writing a 5000 word essay about him. Looking at his version of the general economy and gift economy and open source software development.

[dansmachine]

Yeah I know - it was a joke, I am writing a 5000 word essay about him. Looking at his version of the general economy and gift economy and open source software development.

That's interesting, will you publish it online when you finished it? I'm sincerely interested, though it has been a while when I studied on Bataille so it might be tough to crawl under his skin again.

[Lara]

Yeah for sure I'll upload it here as a pdf or something. It has to be finished for Monday as you don't have long to wait, lol. Can't promise it will be any good tho... ;)

[dansmachine]

Hehehe, good luck, lots of inspiration and I'll let you know my thoughts after reading (wednessday back after short trip abroad).

[turkish]

'The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 and 3/4's' interspersed with 'Dantes Inferno' for a bit of light reading....

[devonmiles]

which translation of "inferno" did you choose? I am always a bit ambigous about stefan georges translation which was supposed to be the most exact concerning the metric structure yet sustaining the poetic quality of the terzine by the use of free rhymes.

[BIOPTIX]

'Dead Air' by Ian Banks. (Just getting started, it's a slow beginning but Ian Banks always seems to gather a steady momentum as he goes, by the end of the book I'm sure I'll be gripped).

Finished reading it today. I lost interest for a while but got back into it about halfway through, the last couple of days I found it hard to put down. Definately well worth reading, not one of Banks' best but still better than a lot of stuff around at the moment.
Next on the list is 'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides which was highly recommended to me by my girlfriend, should be an interesting read...

[silvio]

I've been reading the "World Is Flat" by I can't remember who, for the last two, great book but not enough time in the day to actually be able to read it.

[synoptics]

I've just finished the first three Musashi books - way of the samurai, art of war, and way of the sword. Gonna start Gai-Jin next, one big ass book. Reading about samurai's has altered my outlook on life and certain people, and my business methods were improved greatly by Sun Tzu's art of war (Which I've read about 9 times)

Also been flicking through masters of photography, which is a bit more on-topic I guess :shrug:

[turkish]

I have mostly been reading -

The Insider - The Diary of Piers Morgan..... which utterly unputdownable (is that a word.... it is now!)

and 'His Way' unauthorized biography of Frank by Kitty Kelly

[dansmachine]

Yeah for sure I'll upload it here as a pdf or something. It has to be finished for Monday as you don't have long to wait, lol. Can't promise it will be any good tho... ;)

Did you succeed to finish it?
Still curious....

[Lara]

Hellooo yes I did finish it - ended up to be part Bataille part Multitudes and postworkerist theory which is really interesting if anyone gets the chance... It's not really ready for public consumption - I'd like to sort it out a bit and then put it up on First Monday or summat. Dnas PM me and I'll send you a copy :)

[Lara]

And I found this paper that people might be interested in it's got a great title but I haven't read it yet. Inscription of the Girly Man: The Politics of Stupidity in the Age of Intelligent Machines. (http://www.onetwothree.net/borevitz/text/essays/borevitz_inscription.pdf)

[xangadix]

I've been re-reading scott mcloud's 'understanding comics', which for me stays an amazing read (go get and read that book!), I've also been enjoying Wil Eisners 'graphic storytelling' which I found very insightful but not as thourough as McLouds book.
For fun I've been reading past mortem by the very funny Ben Elton :)

[Wraith]

I have been reading Angels and Idolatry by Voltare.

Good stuff its about how we hold some things sacred for the wrong reasons. I don't think you New Agers out there would dig.

Been in and out of Betrand Russels's Skeptical Essays grand , grand stuff.

But I really can't put down "A Feast for Crow's" book 4 of a series by George RR Martin. Its basically fantasy's answer to Six Feet Under. It frikin' rules. If you like Epic fantasy this is the shznit.

I have read Asimov's foundation series as well, it rules

-kmaloney380@hotmail.com
Calgary

[Lara]

I've just finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hunder Years of Solitude, and it blew my mind. It's stupidly good. Now I am reading The Master and Margarita by Bugakov which is more magical vibrant worlds much better than real life stuff...

Theory I am reading De Certeau The Practice of Everyday Life and Latour Reassembling the Social on Actor Netowrk Theory both of which are very interesting.

[many2]

I've just finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hunder Years of Solitude, and it blew my mind. It's stupidly good. .

One of my favorite books ever :) I just wish I could forget everything I know about it and read it again for the first time ;)

On my side, I have almost finished the whole Hyperion series and it is still amazingly good.

[johnnylocust]

I just wish I could forget everything I know about it and read it again for the first time

WOW!! That's passion enough for me. I have no idea what it's about, but if it can inspire that, I'm gonna look into it.:kiss:

[many2]

I remember I had to read One Hunder Years of Solitude as an assignment in a literature class and I was sure it was going to be to dullest book ever : hundred years of solitude doesn't sound like there is going to be a lot of action and excitement in there ! Having read it I can testify now that it's probably the book I have read which has the most things happening on each page. It is epic !

[BIOPTIX]

One hundered years of solitude was definately an involving read. I wouldn't rate it amoungst my personal favourites but I highly recommend it.

I just finished reading Carlos Castaneda's Journey to Ixtlan which is actually the first Castaneda book I've read. I know a lot of controversy surrounds his writings but I got really into his reality and have found that my outlook on daily life has been altered slightly as a result. There are not many books that have that effect.

I also finished reading Childhood's End by the legendary Arthur C Clarke today. His was way ahead of his time and for a science fiction writer he possesed incredible knowledge and experience in many different fields. This book has it's weaknesses but was a pleasure to read. I must read more of his work, any recommendations?

[sleepytom]

Just finished "The Corporation" by Joel Bakan - Interesting explanation of the history and current role of corporations in our lives

[bridd]

Just finished "The Corporation" by Joel Bakan - Interesting explanation of the history and current role of corporations in our lives

I just finished that recently myself, very good read. I appreciated the history side of things, as it certainly helped to put a lot of things into better context and order in my head ("..How did this all start?!" etc)

[Grim]

Just finished Redemption by Stanley 'Tookie' Williams. I found it to be a great book and very hard to put down. Written by Tookie himself whilst on death row. I would definatey recommend it.

[dreamteck]

Not any particular book but....

been reading about the sacred mathematics in the geometrically perfect greek alphabet which is steeped deep in ancient mysteries (pagan pre-christian times) For example I didn't know that ancient greek is the only language to cause brain activity in both spheres of the brain and that physical healing was achieved simply by singing the secret orphic hymms. Basically i read anything on the hellenic religion before constantine the great slaughtered all pagans and introduced christianity (constantinople, modern day Turkey)