What are you reading?

[D.o.S.]

Slapstick or: Lonesome No More! is my favorite of his.

[Dark Barn]

not much on Vonnegut, who i think steadily got worse from the days he was writing short stories like "Harrison Bergeron." i liked "Cat's Cradle" and "Sirens of Titan," but his nothing-matters-and-what-if-it-did worldview leaves me utterly cold.

Eternally indebted to Vonnegut for the term granfalloon, of which ILF is among my favorites.

[dubkitty]

i use "karass" fairly often.

[dubkitty]

did you know that Jerry Garcia loved "Sirens of Titan" so much that he bought the movie rights and held them for decades?

[D.o.S.]

did you know that the dead stopped being awesome after Pigpen?

[dubkitty]

no, they stopped being awesome after 1974. once the heroin took hold, it was all over but the long, painful decline.

[jfrey]

[D.o.S.]

Honest question (based on jfrey's book):

Do any of us read non-fiction that's antithetical to our beliefs?

[dubkitty]

depends. i often read history that's ideologically suspect, but have no reason to read stuff like Harris which basically boils down to "everything you believe is wrong because i said so." fuck that arrogant bullshit...i have no interest in being condescended to by people who don't even understand what they're railing against.

[betacloud]

Honest question (based on jfrey's book):

Do any of us read non-fiction that's antithetical to our beliefs?

really cool thought.

[phantasmagorovich]

Honest question (based on jfrey's book):

Do any of us read non-fiction that's antithetical to our beliefs?

really cool thought.

I once started Mein Kampf (bought in NYC, lol), but I got bored superquickly. It's now gathering dust next to my collection of these:

[dubkitty]

I couldn't make it fifty pages into Mein Kampf, but read Marx when i was in high school. it was immediately clear to me that Marxism is a despiritualized religion with the Dictatorship of the Proletariat replacing the Immanent God. but here (and IMO in the case of the Prominent Athiests as well) we aren't talking about non-fiction, but rather about philosophy and political polemics.

[jfrey]

Honest question (based on jfrey's book):

Do any of us read non-fiction that's antithetical to our beliefs?

The book Free Will by Harris is - or at least was - antithetical to my beliefs until I started reading it. I'm a firm believer though in the idea that when confronted with strong evidence against what you think you have to simply discard your disproved beliefs.

have no reason to read stuff like Harris which basically boils down to "everything you believe is wrong because i said so." fuck that arrogant bullshit...i have no interest in being condescended to by people who don't even understand what they're railing against.

This makes no sense. Having read Harris' "The Moral Landscape" - prior to Free Will, which I am in the midst of - I can tell you that he more thoroughly lays out and supports his points than just about any other author I have ever read. I didn't find it arrogant or condescending at all.

[Achtane]

Finished Roadside Picnic.
IT WAS AWESOME.

[hollowhero]

Currently reading this: