Books Thread

[Hertzian56]

I was adding a books thread here, anything about books really, which ones you like, are reading etc Links to ones if you like, tons of free ebooks on gutenberg, archive.org and all over the internet etc, reviews, etc etc wide open. I have a handful of physical ones now, used to have a sizable store on scamazon and had a large collection myself but moving and mobility made me discard most of them and just keep to special and rare ones in my physical library. I've had an old 7" Samsung Tab 3 for reading ebooks only for years, thousands of books in epub, pdf, txt etc forms. All on a 32gb microsd. I use Moon+ reader app.

 

I just finished the original Dracula last night from a gutenberg epub and since I also have watched the so called "bram stokers dracula" by the coppolamafia I just wanted to mention the messages they added in that are not in the book at all. Stoker, if still alive, would probably sue them for putting his name on it and it's a blatant fraud to do so. Similar to what is presented as history by paid for experts.

 

First of all Mina is NOT some reincarnated lost love of Dracula as shown in the movie, dracula does NOT get the way he is by the cursing and renouncing as shown in the first 5mins of the movie, it's not clear how he got that way in the book but that he comes from a long line of invaders guerilla warfare and is somehow connected to Atilla the Hun ancestry. So there is no link to fighting Muslim invaders, Mongol invaders and such shown in the movies prologue. I don't think Dracula was ever Christian to begin with nor his ancestors so the crusader stuff is falsehood. There is never any romance sequences in London between Mina and Dracula etc

 

In the book Mina describes Dracula as a criminal with a criminals childlike materialistic mind and slave of habit/pavlovian, as does Van Helsing in his memos. Dracula is never presented as the tragic figure as in the movie who is some good guy underneath. There is no final battle other than the chase to beat Dracula to his stronghold castle in the remaining native coffin of earth from TRANS-sylvania, they catch him and dispatch him. And there is other stuff that Van Helsing does at the castle before then that would prevent Dracula from triumphing anyways. Mina is just bitten by Dracula and is slowly turning into one of his slaves but Van Helsing and the others have ways of delaying it until they dispatch Dracula, freeing the ones that are in process of turning and have not died yet. In the so called "host" cut of the movie(another subtle insult) reincarnated Mina and her love go into the castle and you see the end with some priests absolving or something. I think the release version just showed the final actions by reincarnated Mina to dispatch her love etc. Renfield is NOT a former employee that previously went to Draculas castle for the same business that Jonathan did in the book, the movie puts that in and really it makes some sense to do so otherwise how does Renfield have a specific link to Dracula? Idk maybe I missed that, I admit the long winded expositions got pretty tedious so I did skim a bit.

 

The early part with Jonathan in Draculas castle is the best part of the book and really of the movie but much better in the book, very suspenseful and more complete for obvious reasons.

 

The book is over long and gets a bit too ponderous with expositions all over, similar to frankenstein which I also recently read. Seems to be a problem with romantic era literature what we'd call monster classics now. I liked the movie don't get me wrong and there is a lot of dialogue and other things true to the book but there is almost as much added on stuff to serve other purposes.

[ryan]

last book i read was a hypnosis book. not big into reading unless i benefit

[Hertzian56]

2 hours ago, ryan said:

last book i read was a hypnosis book. not big into reading unless i benefit

Lol.

[ryan]

picture books count?

[Hertzian56]

sure why not

[ryan]

good night moon. 9/10

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight_Moon

 

and

 

8/10

 

https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Bananas-Pajamas-Simon-Hopkinson/dp/0679886001

[ryan]

Just bought a brief history of time by stephen hawking. I hope its as good as they say. has diagrams which will help with understanding, with only a grade 12 level education/

[Hertzian56]

Yeah not everyone's into reading that much, my dad barely does despite being a professional in his field he doesn't read much outside of that, maybe newspaper and internet though that does count of course but not quite the same as enjoying it and making time for it exclusively. The modern popular style of writing being pretty open and plain kinda makes it a bit hard to read some old stuff. Victor Hugo does get pretty fanciful and annoying like the rest of the romantics/encyclopediasts etc I find St Augustine still crystal clear to this day, and he wrote 1600 years ago. Anyways hope you enjoy the book!

[Hertzian56]

oh and before I forget I was researching the hbp thing since I had some high readings but feel fine. Dr Rogers has a whole book about it called The Blood Pressure Hoax and another one called The Cholesterol Hoax. I have not got either among her other works but found this interesting blog post about the hbp thing. https://louisaenright.com/tag/the-high-blood-pressure-hoax/

 

This blogger quotes some others that say 120/80=1.5 a ratio which rings more accurate to my engineering background than absolutes. One of them says that if your ratio is 1.5 that you're fine but if the absolute numbers are higher you're dehydrated which definitely does raise your heart rate among other effects. So drink more water, make sure you're in a relaxed state, no coffee, meds etc or food within a couple hours at least THEN take your readings. She also has some info on magnesium deficiency being key to some as well.

 

I saw a huge difference taking it in a quiet room in the morning Vs. at the store or with the tv going talking to people having eaten within 2 hrs and coffee within then too, HUGE. BPM was also way lower, mid/low normal. Some people get nervous during Dr visits and thus get warning or more levels, not accurate.

 

So take it in the morning before anything or before bed, rest of it's usually not accurate. The meds they give you make it worse not better but they're profitable no doubt. Borderline/high normal used to be 140/90 but about 6 years ago the ptb lowered it to 120/80 and borderline 130/90, millions more meds sold. The high readings I got had a 1.5 ratio or lower usually btw but higher heart rate duh.

[Sandy Bridge]

5 hours ago, ryan said:

Just bought a brief history of time by stephen hawking. I hope its as good as they say. has diagrams which will help with understanding, with only a grade 12 level education/

I'll be curious to hear what you think of it.  I haven't read it yet, but I'm curious how approachable it is for the average person.  Is it a book that people can read and follow and gain insight from, or is it a book that you read 10 pages of and display it on your bookshelf as a conversation piece that makes you appear well-read?

 

2 hours ago, Hertzian56 said:

Yeah not everyone's into reading that much, my dad barely does despite being a professional in his field he doesn't read much outside of that, maybe newspaper and internet though that does count of course but not quite the same as enjoying it and making time for it exclusively. The modern popular style of writing being pretty open and plain kinda makes it a bit hard to read some old stuff. Victor Hugo does get pretty fanciful and annoying like the rest of the romantics/encyclopediasts etc I find St Augustine still crystal clear to this day, and he wrote 1600 years ago. Anyways hope you enjoy the book!

Augustine of Hippo... IIRC, one of our required readings in college was Augustine's Confessions, or part of it at least.  I still to this day remember how every other sentence he invoked the deity, and while I am sure it was well-intentioned as a display of his piety, it made it extremely difficult to stay focused on the philosophical/theological argument as someone used to works from the past few hundred years.  Or to translations of classical Roman authors, for that matter.

 

If I'd had a translation that omitted most of his pious invocations of God, I might have enjoyed it, but at least the translation I had was a bear to get through.  Its only real rival in that regard in my college repertoire was Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which might have been fascinating if I'd never heard of the theory of evolution before, but as it was, was an extremely detailed argument for something that I already knew about conceptually.

 

---------

 

Currently I'm reading Candice Millard's River of the Gods (2022), about the European discovery of the source of the Nile.  Millard is my favorite non-fiction author, and it does not disappoint.  Adventure non-fiction is her specialty, she used to work for National Geographic, and always travels to the locations where the events happened to have first-hand familiarity.  Combined with a knack for picking interesting but not-that-well-known topics and great writing skills, and I'll always pick up her new books.  I could see her being her generation's David McCullough, in terms of being a very popular and effective history writer for the populace at large, albeit with a somewhat different focus than McCullough (another of my favorite authors).

[Hertzian56]

1 hour ago, Sandy Bridge said:

I'll be curious to hear what you think of it.  I haven't read it yet, but I'm curious how approachable it is for the average person.  Is it a book that people can read and follow and gain insight from, or is it a book that you read 10 pages of and display it on your bookshelf as a conversation piece that makes you appear well-read?

 

Augustine of Hippo... IIRC, one of our required readings in college was Augustine's Confessions, or part of it at least.  I still to this day remember how every other sentence he invoked the deity, and while I am sure it was well-intentioned as a display of his piety, it made it extremely difficult to stay focused on the philosophical/theological argument as someone used to works from the past few hundred years.  Or to translations of classical Roman authors, for that matter.

 

If I'd had a translation that omitted most of his pious invocations of God, I might have enjoyed it, but at least the translation I had was a bear to get through.  Its only real rival in that regard in my college repertoire was Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which might have been fascinating if I'd never heard of the theory of evolution before, but as it was, was an extremely detailed argument for something that I already knew about conceptually.

 

---------

 

Currently I'm reading Candice Millard's River of the Gods (2022), about the European discovery of the source of the Nile.  Millard is my favorite non-fiction author, and it does not disappoint.  Adventure non-fiction is her specialty, she used to work for National Geographic, and always travels to the locations where the events happened to have first-hand familiarity.  Combined with a knack for picking interesting but not-that-well-known topics and great writing skills, and I'll always pick up her new books.  I could see her being her generation's David McCullough, in terms of being a very popular and effective history writer for the populace at large, albeit with a somewhat different focus than McCullough (another of my favorite authors).

Funny thing is that Confessions is the only one I've not been able to get through, it's a bit too sing songy mellodramatic for me. I was primarily thinking about City of God which I've read several times and Exposition on the Psalms and the other stuff. I read that Darwin was not the first to suggest what he did he even despaired about it in his private letters, he was just the one pushed probably the Beagle drama to give a flourish for the popular mind. Probably the greatest Kiwi of all time A.N. Field would interest you, wrote several great NF books in the early to mid 20th century.

[Hertzian56]

I re read the first part of Dracula, when jonathan is trapped in his castle the best part really most suspense and horror. The book is vague about a lot of stuff though and he escapes by simply climbing out the window of a castle on a high peak then finding his way through a wolf infested forest to get help isn't explained hm ok then. The  part about being in the bowels of the castle and having to search the sleeping count for keys is hair raising. After moving scenes it does come back to him and his being in a convent or such getting treatment and Mina joining him there though. Similar to Frankenstein it's vague, the movies add stuff in like the mad scientist using electrical gizmos and such but that's not in the book at all, it never goes into any details.

 

So moving on I decided to read some Philip K Dick which I've read in the past but it's been years. First up is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which Blade Runner is based on and noticed that Decker has a wife and a real robot sheep lol Movies based on his work take a VERY wide berth, not a surprise. A bit of Nesta Websters Surrender of an Empire etc

[Reciever]

Oh! A books thread! Could almost have a forum on that alone lol 

 

My favorite fiction probably has to be The Legend of Drizz't. Gave me a love of adventures in fiction and also tempered how I think about things instead of merely reacting to them. I am quite thankful to Salvatore for writing that series. Haven't read anything in some time but probably read up to volume X and completed some of the side stories. 

[Hertzian56]

Yeah definitely a lot different from bladerunner movie, PKD definitely can get very whacky remember that from when I read some of his stuff last.

 

On another note I was converting some epubs to pdfs and came across a couple of free programs that do it and also a few other formats back and forth. Calibre is one and works but is not the best GUI out there that's for sure, it will do batch converts and all for free. One note about it though is that I got the rare windows notification of a non-microsoft approved app, meaning it's not off their app store so I had to go figure out how to turn that off so I can decide myself what to install and not M$. It does say "install anyway" but never does it just sits there, so you have to turn off their nannyware. Calibre has a portable option which is nice, M$ bully still came along though until I turned off the app warning and set it to from anywhere, no more big brother.

 

Any ebook converter is also free but won't do batch for free, only one at a time which is totally fine for my needs. The GUI is MUCH better and works fine, looking at the install it seems to use calibre as the converter but has the sensible UI. I don't know if I would have got the M$ big brother thing or not since I turned it off before trying it. Both of the ones mentioned are free to download and use, about 144mb dl and 400mb installed.

 

I used to use Hamster which is even more simple and free but the latest one requires some dotnet or other update that is out of the ordinary, or I have not got it since I turned off all updating a couple of years ago, so if you have a newer OS version etc that would probably be good to get.

[Hertzian56]

Have been reading, concurrently with the PKD stuff, a book called The Cholesterol Myths by Ravnskov and it's really good didn't think it would grab me as much as it did as he goes through the fallacies and fraud that result in billions for drug makers(and the food industry and the doctors and various testing labs and......) and lots of grief/cost for regular people over largely nothing. He goes through the various studies and their results(largely skewed in favor of heat-diet idea) and the ones that have been ignored that have the "wrong" results.

 

I'm only about 1/3 through but from the various large studies over the decades all over the world the data points to some other cause of CHD than blood cholesterol numbers as a direct cause. They are all over the place with all sorts of diets etc. And one interesting fact he states is that the cholesterol in the food you eat does NOT mean it somehow transfers to your blood ie eating high cholesterol foods, like eggs, does not raise your blood cholesterol as the body manages a steady level in the blood regardless, it adjusts to it's needs. Lifestyle and cultural factors seem to be more important than diet or drugs.

[Jarhead]

Sort of getting back into reading after not doing much fiction reading since high school. Last 2-3 years I've been reading the Overlord light novels as they come out and are translated, currently reading volume 14 (pictured). Also just finished In the Land of Leadale volume 1 (pictured) and probably going to start on the Spice & Wolf and Youjo Senki light novels once I'm finished with the Leadale series.

 

Current bookshelf is full of physical books I currently own and figured that instead of having to buy/build a bigger bookshelf and continue buying physical books, I'll switch over to ebooks. Have set up my home server with a Calibre container and recently bought an ebook reader (see Last Purchase thread) to this end.

 

 

 

 

 

[Hertzian56]

1 minute ago, Jarhead said:

Sort of getting back into reading after not doing much fiction reading since high school. Last 2-3 years I've been reading the Overlord light novels as they come out and are translated, currently reading volume 14 (pictured). Also just finished In the Land of Leadale volume 1 (pictured) and probably going to start on the Spice & Wolf and Youjo Senki light novels once I'm finished with the Leadale series.

 

Current bookshelf is full of physical books I currently own and figured that instead of having to buy/build a bigger bookshelf and continue buying physical books, I'll switch over to ebooks. Have set up my home server with a Calibre container and recently bought an ebook reader (see Last Purchase thread) to this end.

 

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

 

Yeah if you move or don't have the room for storage or shelf space books can be a pain, I have half a dozen or so and a few in my storage unit, rare books, but I mainly use an old android tablet and a microsd card, thousands of books and archive.org and guttenberg etc have millions of free ones, epubs also way smaller so tons of books on the microsd card. Had a kobo a few years ago e-ink but it was junk.

[Jarhead]

25 minutes ago, Hertzian56 said:

Yeah if you move or don't have the room for storage or shelf space books can be a pain, I have half a dozen or so and a few in my storage unit, rare books, but I mainly use an old android tablet and a microsd card, thousands of books and archive.org and guttenberg etc have millions of free ones, epubs also way smaller so tons of books on the microsd card. Had a kobo a few years ago e-ink but it was junk.

 

Nah, have the room for it and probably will stay here for a while. Just a question of "why bother?".

[Hertzian56]

Minority Report was a short story by pkd which is actually much more interesting than the movie that took it's base from. Androids Dream ends a lot different from bladerunner and is almost completely different and more interesting as well. The man in the high castle is freaky, pkd betrays his real background pretty clearly in this and also in most of his books with the slang, his books are a form of propaganda like most "science" fiction. For instance Heinlein was navy/oni, and a whole generation of them just showed up in publishing. This is similar to L Ron Hubbard who was navy/oni and the scifi genre turning it into a skewed reality that live humans believe is real. Similar to Jack Parsons/JPL occultists.

[ryan]

@Hertzian56 are you still around?

 

The book thread is dead if your gone buddy, no one seems to be posting theres like 4 members actively posting now

 

 

sometimes it feels so quiet it's like im the only person here. I'm not spamming theres just a lack of engagement and im trying to add something to a thread to perhaps spark an open discussion.

 

as for books the book by stephen hawking a brief history of time is too complex for me, I would think you would need to be a doctor or be studying physics at the university level

[ryan]

bought (NLP for dummies) and (Sleight of Mouth). two interesting books to take over the world muahahaha. lol should be good

[TreeTopsRanch]

Presently reading 'The Templars'.  If you enjoy historical stories then this one fits the bill. So far I am into the first chapter and it is holding my interest.

 

[Eban]

On 12/25/2023 at 5:52 AM, TreeTopsRanch said:

Presently reading 'The Templars'.  If you enjoy historical stories then this one fits the bill. So far I am into the first chapter and it is holding my interest.

 

 

I first read The Holy blood and the Holy grail by accident. I found the book on a train while backpacking around europe in my 20's.

 

Anyway if your into Templar lore you might like this. If you have seen the movie with Tom Hanks The Da Vinci Code its basically following the books general outline.

[TreeTopsRanch]

I did see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code_(film)

but the movie was a bit tame compared to the actual history of the Templars.

[ryan]

Just got slight of mouth by robert dilts in a mail today. should be cool learning word magic, the ability to change perceptions and percieved reality with just words