Quite an easy read, covers a lot and like the writing style.
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I remember as a kid back in the day, curling up on the floor in dark upper levels of the library reading stuff like that.
Just finished listening to The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck, read by Richard Armitage.
Currently listening to Dune. Looking forward to rewatching the movies with a deeper appreciation.
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Just started the Harry Dresden series, I must say so far damn good and read very well by James Masters (spike from Buffy)
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One of my favorite books I was ever assigned to read in school. I was always a reader, so I never had trouble knocking out a reading assignment. I picked up Grapes of Wrath intending to just read a chapter or two before lunch, and read it straight through.
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“Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. 1) Because as I guy I am supposed to think about Rome at least once a day, and 2) Because I wanted to know what classical stoicism is and someone told me that this is the place to start. Reads like you’d image. Halfway through and I’ve learned nothing other than the attention span needed to read page-long sentences.
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For me it is ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. It was one of the books we had to read in Year 10, that and Julius Caesar (Skakespeare) I have also re-read… Mockingbird I must have read 6 or 7 times over the years.
Currently working my way through Asimov’s Foundation series. Last time I read it was as a young teen. Holds up really well for a story that is over 70 years old and I’m old enough for the language (e.g. He was a gay old chap) not to bother me. If you have watched the recent TV series you will realise that the only similarities are the names of the characters.
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Found it incredibly dull. Nothing like the books
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I think classic stoicism only “works” for a modern perspective if you contrast it with some Aristotle or Plato. Without that it runs into danger of becoming a bunch of platitudes.
The other main author of classic roman stoa, Epictetus, was a slave while Marcus Aurelius of course was an emperor. Quite the difference in social economic status eh 
I like both. Like stoicism. There’s a lot of overlap with Zen Buddhism there.
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Reading this, and boy is it a fun read!
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Before christmas I started listening to the Harry Dresden books, now I am just about to finish book 3
so far very good, also very good narration by James Masters (spike from Buffy)
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It’s no secret here that AI scares the living **** out of me. The author has been on the front lines of developing and nurturing machine learning systems at Google and elsewhere. It isn’t light reading. And it doesn’t (or at least hasn’t yet at the halfway point) make any predictions. The book is what it says: a deep dive on intelligence. What is it and what qualifies to be called intelligent. He backs up his claim that everything that computes is intelligent. So bacteria and electric tea kettles qualify. What is very new to me from reading is how important was the early work of “cybernetics” thinkers and engineers in the mid-fifties. The basic neural-network structures that they envisioned then are what makes data centers possible today. By the 1960’s they were laughed out of all serious discussion regarding computing. Only 50 years later did the horsepower exist to build what they had largely already figured out.
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Another series I have been meaning to read but have never got around to. I will have to remedy that. I remember a short lived TV show from over a decade ago that was based on the books.
Meanwhile I am working my way through Adrian Tchaikovsky’s ‘Shadows of the Apt’ saga. These are his first books and you can see (read?) how his writing has matured since then, but I don’t think he could write a bad book if he tried.
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I can’t break out of my John Scalzi streak. My brother and his girlfriend heard me saying I finished all his books I got from a Humble Bundle a few years ago (20 or so books) and promptly got me “When the Moon hits your eyes”.
I might never break free, he’s a genius. Loving it so far, 1/4 in the book.
I loved his Old Man’s War series. Some of his other work.. eh. Red Shirts was hilarious tho XD
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That book touched me… absolutely fantastic. Deserves much more praises than the already abundant he’s receiving.
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You must read Starter Villian if you haven’t already. The part where the protagonist meets the dolphins for the first time had me almost wetting myself with laughter.
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