Getting an EReader has increased the rate at which I read drastically. Reading becomes less of a task and more of a convenient way to spend time.
Reading Marx and Engels is also a great primer for anyone getting into Leftist theory.
Have you read any Domenico Losurdo? I want to, but am afraid it will be a dense read.
Not yet, getting an EReader has really accelerated my reading, but I really want to hammer in the basics before moving on to the likes of Parenti and Losurdo. Plus, I have queer theory like Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink and Blue as well as Fanon’s works on colonialism I want to visit before then.
Man seconding this. My reading goal was 20 books and I have smashed it before half of the year was over. Few years ago I couldn’t even read got in a year
Yep, same! Not quite at that pace but it totally reversed my years-long spell of not being able to finish a single book in a year
I do recommend audiobooks! If you haven’t tried one yet, please do so.
The noun doesn’t matter after an adjective like ‘multiple.’ Nothing good ever follows ‘multiple.’
-Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
Including fornication capable products derived from wood cellulose.
If you want to read more, don’t listen to others with recommendations. Find something that you like and find books about it. Don’t like it, find another and sell or giveaway your first one. Everyone can read, but not everyone is made to read heavy tomes and they also don’t need too!
those are my favourite kinds of books!
Does multiple research papers count? All of them related to the Relational Model, the foundation for relational database management systems. I’m also currently digging through the Postgres manual (only 3000 pages short).
Highly recommend:
Crucible of War Einstein’s Telescope. 1176 BC The other side of history: daily life in the Ancient worldWould recommend Aeon Legion by J.P. Beaubien
Multiple fucking books? Like “Lady Chatterley” or “Joy of Sex”?
Sorry Carl, I ain’t reading shit. I might listen to an audiobook, but I’m not promising anything
Audiobooks take away the imaginative ideas of the readers experience of the tales. I like to imagine for myself the feelings of the characters in their given situations.
Audiobooks are also passive listening which is not cognitively absorbed as thoroughly as active reading. IMO you have not “read” a book if you just listened to someone read it to you. Reading with your own eyes engages more thinking processes, forcing the reader to think more about what they’ve read.
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More people need to read “1984” and understand that it’s a warning, not a “how-to” guide.
1984 is still a work of fiction, and one that is not really making suggestions on how to combat dystopia. It’s a warning, sure, but reading leftist theory that actually makes analysis and provides suggestions on what to practically do is more useful.
1984 doesn’t have a happy ending, unless your idea of a happy ending is a man going insane. Oceania was always a lost cause. The point of warnings is that you’re supposed to avoid the thing they’re warning you against.
The Oceania itself could not be reformed from the inside, it had to be dismantled, and ultimately isn’t by the end of the book, yes. Orwell never tries to show how to fix the problem, nor does he explain the mechanisms or forces that led to Oceania. Thus, 1984 is a depiction of what could be, in order to say “avoid this,” without recommending a course of action.
Leftist theory on the other hand does focus on mechanisms, existing material conditions, frames of analysis, and propositions to enact change and what change to enact.
1984 is a fine book to read for enjoyment, but not for changing society.
The only rebellion shown in the book is Goldstein’s manifesto and even that turns out to be a lie. The State invented Goldstein’s rebellion to weed out Thought criminals. And Winston fell for it.
Yep, it does a great job of just being doomer and fun to engage with on the basis of story, but not applicable to reality.
The point (which I guess I needed to point out) is that this isn’t a work of fiction, anymore. Government has been granted unprecedented power to conduct surveillance on innocent people with no warrants or accountability. Companies carry out data harvesting and location tracking in nearly every consumer product connected to the Internet. Microsoft has literally incorporated spyware into Windows 11 (CoPilot / Recall). We are living in a real life surveillance state right NOW and our government and corporations are clearly fine with it. And that’s where the “how-to” guide comes into it. That’s the BAD THING. I really didn’t think I needed to spell it out, but damn.
Yes, we already live in a dystopia, reading 1984 does not tell people how to escape that in any capacity nor does it suggest how to prevent it.
