What are you reading now?

[anna09]

The Expanding Circle by Peter Singer

[Schneibster]

A Storm of Swords

its amazing...

I remember when I read Sand Kings. I knew he'd be great.

[apophenia]

The expanding Circle came up in discussion tonight among one of my philosophy groups. I was surprised to learn he is more a utilitarian than a n atural rights proponent. (I didn't have a chance to read the background material beforehand as I was busy fixing a bollocksed workstation.) We have tentatively scheduled to revisit the topic of animal rights again at our next meeting in January, so I should have ample time to prepare to rake any such opinions over the coals.

Alas, I let too much of this evening's discussion focus on side issues not directly relevant to the core claims. One of the original founders of this group has a predilection for not being able to see past his own point. Knowing that, now, I should avoid allowing such pointless digressions in future.

[Monster]

"English Detective Stories". I'm currently reading a Sherlock Holmes story within that collection.

[Clinton Huxley]

Just finished The Secret Life Of Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay, a social history of those called to work to break the German and Italian Enigma codes in WWII. If the RAF kept Blighty in the fight in 1940, Bletchley Park kept us in the fight in 1941. Without this madcap assemblage of boffins, weirdos, Egyptologists, WRENS, engineers, spies, crossword addicts and Alan Turing, the war may well have been lost.

They just don't make em like that any more.

[JimC]

Starting on Swords against Wizardry, vol 4 of Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar books.
I do ithink it's the very first time I'm reading it in the original English.

An excellent series...

Re-reading The Shadowline by Glen Cook

[Clinton Huxley]

Now turning my attention to Imprimatur by Monaldi and Sorti. A disparate bunch of characters get sealed in a tavern in Rome after an outbreak of plague. What are their motives and is it really the plague? Is there a murderer in their midst? Probably. 600 page potboiler, slow-paced, atmospheric, keep me out of mischief for a while.

[Brian Peacock]

.

Bit dull.

[Geoff]

[Tero]

That's one of them words I never use. Arguably.

[Brian Peacock]

That's one of them words I never use. Arguably.

What are some of the other?

[Tero]

Joskin. It is a confusing way to say though in Finnish. It is invented recently.

[apophenia]

We had to read Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations for one of my philosophy groups. After wading through 3/4 of it, I was so fucking bored that I literally could not go on. His gedanken may have been interesting when they were written, 60 years ago, but both philosophy and science have moved on, and his observations then, are rather underwhelming today. Maybe someone else might get more from it than I did. I had not intended to read Witt for a long time to come; it was just a fluke me reading him now. After my experience with the latter Wittgenstein, I'm understandably hesitant to dive into the Tractatus.

[JimC]

Re-reading old SF books by Glen Cook...

Attractively dark...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

A book about a man who is being released from a psychiatric hospital after being confined for a year for believing he lived in 2011 instead of 1911. He gets his old clothes back along with his other possessions, one of which turns out to be a leather bag with a cell phone in it. When he opens it up the screen flashes: 365 calls from "Mom".