Current / Recent Books

[sahgwa]

Mother American Night: My life in crazy times
John Perry Barlow autobiography
Short book of amazing stories...would have to be a miniseries to do it justice

Never heard of the guy. sounds fun

Barlow’s experiences include mentoring a young John F. Kennedy Jr. at the request of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, serving as Dick Cheney’s campaign manager during his first run for Congress despite being a self-confessed acidhead, and accidentally shooting Bob Weir in the face on the eve of his own wedding. He became a renowned internet guru after befriending the early hacker group the Legion of Doom and co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, often referred to as the ACLU for the Internet. The memoir is praised for its storytelling, capturing Barlow’s restless, celebratory spirit and his unique voice, likened to that of Mark Twain and Will Rogers. It is considered essential for understanding Barlow’s profound impact on American art, politics, and the digital frontier.

[fwki]

Never heard of the guy. sounds fun

Barlow’s experiences include mentoring a young John F. Kennedy Jr. at the request of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, serving as Dick Cheney’s campaign manager during his first run for Congress despite being a self-confessed acidhead, and accidentally shooting Bob Weir in the face on the eve of his own wedding. He became a renowned internet guru after befriending the early hacker group the Legion of Doom and co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, often referred to as the ACLU for the Internet. The memoir is praised for its storytelling, capturing Barlow’s restless, celebratory spirit and his unique voice, likened to that of Mark Twain and Will Rogers. It is considered essential for understanding Barlow’s profound impact on American art, politics, and the digital frontier.

Before I read it I knew he wrote like 30 Dead songs and founded the EFF, but holy smokes, everything in between blew my mind.

[sahgwa]

Before I read it I knew he wrote like 30 Dead songs and founded the EFF, but holy smokes, everything in between blew my mind.

Thanks for sharing. I will probably check it out.
There was a random purchase from this thread I will be getting this week
 Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (a literal translation of the original Polish-language title: Pamiętnik znaleziony w wannie) is a science fiction novel by Polish writer Stanisław Lem, first published in 1961. It was first published in English in 1973; a second edition was published in 1986.
Plot summaryMemoirs Found in a Bathtub starts with the finding of a diary in the distant future. The introduction dwells on the difficulties of historical research on the fictional 'Neogene Era', "the period of the heyday of the pre-Chaotic culture, which preceded the Great Decomposition". "Great Decomposition" refers to the apocalyptic event of "papyrolysis", decomposition of all paper on the planet in the pre-information-technology era, causing all records and money to turn into dust––the end of the "epoch of papycracy".
The diary, known as the 'Notes of a Man from the Neogene', was found in the lava-filled ruins of Third Pentagon within the territory of the disappeared state of Ammer-Ka. Previously, little was known about the hypothetical 'Last Pentagon'. One researcher suggested that Pentagon was a kind of military brain, the center in charge of maintaining the faith of Cap-i-Taal, dominant in Ammer-Ka in the period of U-S. This was confirmed by the finding of the diary, supposedly of an agent trapped deep within the subterranean bowels of the vast Third Pentagon, although the authenticity and authorship of the document were questioned by some researchers.
The rest of the book is the diary itself. In a Kafkaesque maelstrom of terrifying bureaucratic confusion and utter insanity, the agent attempts to follow his mission directives, conducting on-the-spot investigations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_Fo..._a_Bathtub
Seems like my kind of conspiracy novel.

[Karl12]

'The Will Of The Many' by James Islington is also very good.

[sahgwa]

I am most of the way through volume 1 (of 2) of the Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky and it is really good.
Sometimes I have not gotten enough sleep because of reading it.
His insight into male and female psychology, relationships, and just basic human existence is very deep and accurate.

I highly recommend it.

It is about familial, and romantic relationships in life, and how various psychological types deal with them and life.  Also a bit of theology and sociology. 

[sahgwa]

A quote from the above book, because
Nothing New Under The Sun:

' For the world says: "You have needs therefore satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and most noble. Do not be afraid of satisfying them, but multiply them even.' That is the modern doctrine of the world. In that they see freedom. And what is the outcome of this right of multiplication of needs? Among the rich isolation and spiritual suicide and among the poor envy and murder, for they have been given the rights, but have not been shown the means of satisfying their needs.

We are assured that the world is getting more and more united and growing into a brotherly community by the reduction of distances and the transmission of ideas through the air. Alas, put no faith in such a union of peoples.

By interpreting freedom as the multiplica-tion and the rapid satisfaction of needs, they do violence to their own nature, for such an interpretation merely gives rise to many senseless and foolish desires, habits and most absurd inventions. They live only for mutual envy, for the satisfaction of their carnal desires and for showing off. To have dinners, horses, carriages, rank, and slaves to wait on them is considered by them as a necessity, and to satisfy it they sacrifice life, honour, and love of mankind. Why, they even commit suicide, if they cannot satisfy it.

We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the poor drown their unsatisfied needs and envy in drink. But soon they will drown it in blood instead of in drink-that's where they are being led. I ask you: is such a man free ?

I knew one 'fighter for an idea', who told me himself that when he was deprived of tobacco in prison he was so distressed by this priva-tion that he nearly went and betrayed his 'idea' just to get a little tobacco! And it is such a man who says, 'I'm fighting for humanity"!

[quintessentone]

A little more Walt Whitman, Sahgwa?

"A Noiseless Patient Spider
By Walt Whitman

 A noiseless patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.


And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul."

[Maxmars]

OOOoooooh my God!!!

If you people don't stop bringing up actual honest to God impactful and inimitable classics....

I will never stop adding to my re-read list....

Dostoevsky?  Whitman?   Are you suggesting that people "grow up?"

Seriously though...

All "must read" items there...

[UltraBudgie]

This is a good thread and I am going to bump it, by posting this depressing news from the UK:

Nearly a third of kids can't use books when starting school - and try to swipe them like phones

Staff also report around 28% of children started school unable to eat and drink independently, and 25% had difficulty with basic life skills.

Almost a third of children who started reception last year were not able to use books correctly, sometimes even trying to swipe or tap them like a smartphone, a survey has found.

Around one in four were not toilet trained, amid warnings more children are struggling with basic life skills.

In an annual survey of primary school staff by early years charity Kindred Squared, teachers estimated 26% of the children in their reception class this year were having frequent toilet mishaps, rising to more than one in three (36%) in the North East.

Staff also report around 28% of children started school unable to eat and drink independently.

Over half of staff said children's and parents' excessive screentime was a key factor in children not being ready for school...

https://news.sky.com/story/nearly-a-thir...s-13497398

[Moon68]

This is a good thread and I am going to bump it, by posting this depressing news from the UK:

https://news.sky.com/story/nearly-a-thir...s-13497398

Thanks UB.

This has served as a reminder I haven't read a book in probably a month and it's past time I did.

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