What are we reading lately?

[zoze]

Non-fictional "Homo Deus" by Harari was a great read.

 

[Badgertooth]

Also William's two other novels "Butcher's Crossing" and "Augustus".

High on my list. Stoner broke me.

 

[TheCaptain]

Way Station by Clifford Simak. Working my way through the Hugo winners.

 

[Mucho Bocho]

Big Magic Elizabeth Gilbert

 

[DamageInc]

Big Magic Elizabeth Gilbert

Is she a fat wizard?

 

[Mucho Bocho]

S, go easy with me, your far more read than I

 

[DamageInc]

Just started Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

Truman Capote - In Cold Blood . That guy could write until drugs & booze finished him off.

 

[ecchef]

Just started In My Own Way; Alan Watts autobiography.

 

[Badgertooth]

The Heart Goes Last - Margaret Atwood

 

[malexthekid]

Slowly rereading The Lord of the Rings...

And I know people will laugh, but will probably reread the Harry Potter series when I am finished with that

 

[DamageInc]

And I know people will laugh, but will probably reread the Harry Potter series when I am finished with that

But why?

 

[TheCaptain]

Nothing to laugh at. I've read the Lord of the Rings series four times now (12yo, late teens, late 20's and early 40's). Even though it's the same story, obviously, it read very differently based on my different stage in life.

Good idea on Harry Potter, time to give those another spin and see how they feel different now that I know the whole story line.

 

[Seqmt]

The wind up bird chronicle - Murakami, not quite sure what the hell is going on...

 

[tripleq]

Engineering mathematics (John Bird), A couple of photography monographs - Sebastiao Salgado, Steve McCurry, Constantine Manos, Fred Herzog, a book on the history of the Galapagos Islands and Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

 

[Seqmt]

Carl Sagan is amazing, I just finished watching cosmos last night. Lost count how many times I have seen it now.

 

[tripleq]

They did a wonderful job with the new series. As for what you're reading Murakami is a great author but The Wind up Bird Chronicle was not one of my favourites. I did like the May Kasahara character. I found May representative of a recurring motif in Murakami's fiction that I appreciate.

 

[Seqmt]

Yes there are definitely recurring motifs with with many characters in most of his books. I love his short stories.

 

[DamageInc]

 

[StonedEdge]

Ah economists...the hornor guard of academia, they look and sound good but get them out in the field and they're useless

 

[DamageInc]

Ah economists...the hornor guard of academia, they look and sound good but get them out in the field and they're useless

 

[StonedEdge]

I respect the businessman and the author but not the pontificating, data manipulating, and over-generalizing economist. One of the many academic endeavors of little actionable value in the real world (along with political science and all that other nonsense). Show me an economist and I'll show you someone who should do something more worthwhile with their time and resources.

Edit: apologies in advance if you're a career economist, I just find they're glorified statisticians with a personal point of view to push through specific ways of handling data. That, and if economists didn't exist the world wouldn't be any different without them.

 

[DamageInc]

Edit: apologies in advance if you're a career economist, I just find they're glorified statisticians with a personal point of view to push through specific ways of handling data. That, and if economists didn't exist the world wouldn't be any different without them.

I'm studying for my master's degree in Supply Chain Management. I need to take a course in international macroeconomics as part of that degree. My exam is on Friday. I don't like macroeconomics much as close to none of it is practically applicable, it's just pure theory. Need those ECTS points though.

 

[StonedEdge]

Not digging at you by any means good sir, just having fun digging a little at the career economistst of this world. Supply chain management is something with real world value and practical applicability to solve real, actual problems. The world would be a different place without it.

As someone who had to take many political economics courses throughout my degree I feel your pain. One thing we can learn from economists is research methodology because those people tend to be good at pushing a narrow point of view through the use of data.

The trouble with them is that they actually believe they can comprehensively explain things that are far too complex in nature and usually their work is riddled with bias. Perhaps the most recent or noteworthy example is Thomas Piketty winning a Nobel Prize in Economics with a work based largely on raw data that actually contradicts his thesis. Just another day in the office of an economist.

 

[DamageInc]

Nobel prizes don't mean much nowadays. Obama got one before he even really did anything. Bob Dylan got one for literature.

I think of them more as the Academy Awards / Oscars. Winning is nice and all, but it doesn't mean what you did was any good.

 

[DamageInc]

Wait a minute, Thomas Piketty hasn't won a nobel prize as far as I can tell.

 

[StonedEdge]

Obama winning the peace prize is a complete joke in the purest sense of the word. Dylan, I can kind of understand even tho there are hoards of better writers in any language still kicking today.

You're correct tho (thank God!!), that charlatan Piketty hasn't won a Nobel...don't know where I got that notion.

 

[DamageInc]

Dylan getting a Nobel Prize while Pynchon is still breathing is so bonkers.

 

[LifeByA1000Cuts]

As much as Patricia Highsmith is seen as a "just crime stories" author often - "Tremor of forgery"

 

[DamageInc]