What are you currently reading?

[daveb]

6 hours ago, Bruce Wayne said:

Ever Since Darwin from Stephen Jay Gould, one of the most important evolutionary biologists of the last 50 years.

I enjoyed some of his books back in the day. It's been decades since I read them though.

[Bruce Wayne]

12 hours ago, daveb said:

I enjoyed some of his books back in the day. It's been decades since I read them though.

He was great, wasn't he? If only he could still be around today... he would have been a force to be reckoned with.

[daveb]

7 hours ago, Bruce Wayne said:

He was great, wasn't he? If only he could still be around today... he would have been a force to be reckoned with.

Yeah, it was sad that he died too young. Great mind, entertaining and informative writer.

[Visenya]

The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, by Esther Perel.

 

It's an odd choice of book since Pride and Prejudice left me feeling sentimental and romantic, and that's not the kind of mood that makes one go "hmm, how about reading something about cheating?". But here I am... lol

 

The book is very interesting and informative, although it's hard to emotionally detach myself from it so I can try to be understanding. I've never been cheated on and was never the other woman, but the visceral reaction I get while reading some anecdotes makes me feel overwhelmed, depressed, and cynical.

 

Maybe I'll have to read another Jane Austen book afterwards. At least in fiction it's easier to believe in love

[asexualien]

I started on “Queen of Shadows” by SJM. I see why it’s a lot of people’s favorite in the TOG series. I’m on chapter 30, and I am loving it. 

[everywhere and nowhere]

Marcin Strzyżewski - "Russia. The superpower of absurd and nonsense"

The title sounds very judgemental, but it is in fact a popular, but in-depth analysis of systemic problems which plague the russian federation. The authorstudied Russian and later started a YouTube channel with interesting materials about russia, which after the full-scale russian aggression against Ukraine turned more towards analysis of current situation and became hugely popular. The author supports Ukraine, organises fundraising for the Kalinauski Regiment, a group of Belarusian volunteers who fight on the Ukrainian side, with the long-term goal of also returning to democracy in Belarus after the Ukrainian war is over. But he also distances himself from those who attempt to blame Russians as a whole society. And this is the kind of approach I support most. I don't believe that "Russians are all the same as putin, they support him!" - no, reliable results of public opinion polls are impossible in a totalitarian system such as russia these days.

Some quotes from the book...

Quote

We are talking about federal reserves and the budget, which in principle - maybe with the exception of 2020 - was implemented with surplus or only a small deficit. What if the budget was reconstructed a little? (...) Altogether this allows savings of almost 100 billion dollars a year. I think that 15% of this could be used for a "CRPE program" (Complete Russian Pipe Exchange). (...)

It's easy to recognise that for a lot of Russians, employment in the public sector was, for many years, a way to achieve stable and full-time emplyment without being forced to cheat. It also explains some political phenomena. Those in power have repeatedly used emplyees of administration, schools and state-owned companies as political backup. This fully meets the definition of clientelism. A large part of Russian society has for decades treated the authorities as their patron and benefactor, who guaranteed better employment conditions that the private sector. In exchange, however, the authorities expected proper voting, participation in state-organised mass events, and - first of all - silence, taking care not to step out of line, boycotting street protests and giving no support to the opposition. (...)

In large cities good earnings outside the structure are possible, but in smaller towns getting sacked for expressing inappropriate political views means a real possibility of becoming blacklisted (...) you must have thought many times (and you probably will continue thinking this way as you continue reading): "Why do they consent to all of this? Why doesn't anyone do anything about it?". Of course it is not fully true - many Russians tried to do something, change something or at least show resistance. (...) Of course situation in the labour market is not the only explanation for why it happened. But it surely is one of the factors which influence the political situation overall. (...)

The Russian political system, fully knowingly and deliberately, keeps a majority of its citizens in poverty and insecurity. At the same time it offers a way of improving one's situation: all one needs to do is to join the pyramid. On its lowest level - as a clerk or teacher - you won't earn a lot, but your employment will be secure. And over time, if you prove your loyalty, you will have a chance of advencement, and maybe even of using the main highlight: participation in the great feast of devouring the state budget. (...)

Apart from those Russian soldiers who will remain forever in the steppes of Kherson or collapsed buildings in the Donbas, there are also those who will survive and return. Deficit of men will mean that many women will form relationships with PTSD sufferers, with war criminals who have learned to solve problems with violence, and with those who will try to drown war trauma in a liquid ersatz of therapy. Add to this serious economic transformations, which won't bypass Russia, and we will come to the conclusion that all negative phenomena described here will rather tend to intensify in the coming years.

 

[Enubilous]

I am currently reading Infinity's Shore by David Brin, the second book in his "Uplift Storm" trilogy.

[victorian221b]

I just finished “They Both Die At the End” by Adam Silvera. Now I’m trying to read “The Sun Sets in Singapore” by Kehinde Fedipe. 

[everywhere and nowhere]

Jagoda Ratajczak - "The gap. How embarassment and anxiety pierce our tongue"

I have previously read her earlier book "Lingual". This one is, as the title shows, about being embarassed to speak foreign languages, about influence of the school system and those who love examining others in their linguistic fluency...

This fragment very much rings a bell for me as a perfectionist in my native language... and even more than that - my rich diary language, my philosophical passion - which is, too, expressed through diary entries, plus other factors which allow me to appreciate my mind, such as my polyglotism - are the reason why I have a high self-esteem despite not being a professionally / financially particularly successful person.

Quote

It is particularly hard for those of us who speak their native language with extraordinary proficiency, perhaps even use it in a creative way, by writing poetry or prose, and the bar is set very high. If you are able to speak and write beutifully in your native language, you cannot imagine a compromise in your second language. When speaking it, you want to ensure not just correctness and communicative efficiency, but also the same plasticity and power, to which you are used in your native language. (...) If speaking a splendid, brilliant native language is already a challenge, it's even more of a challenge to catch up with this level in one's second language.