NoahLutz

I thought you left! Welcome back! I actually have really come to appreciate Presto in recent years. I wouldn't put it above 2112, but I probably do get more enjoyment listening to it simply because I've listened to it far fewer times than 2112. Presto Superconductor

Perelandra by CS Lewis. It is the second book in his space trilogy. I finished the first with my kids about a year ago, but we moved to Star Wars and then a lot of stories where dogs die and built quite a backlog, so I’ve decided to finish the trilogy on my own.

After picking it up and putting it down for 2 years, I finally finished Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. It's just a collection of diary entries of him reminding himself of the principles of Stoicism as he understands them. It was interesting, but required a lot of flipping to the end notes and back to understand the context.

It was short and funny (and free on Audible). Now I'm on the similarly short and free (but decidedly unfunny) How to Be a Friend by Cicero. Just in the few weeks I've turned into an Audible junkie. Listening to Geddy (and Alex and Cliff) on his memoir cemented it for me. The bad news is that I'm not listening to as much music now and I'm often buying an ebook or real book version to read along to the spoken word.

How to Tell a Joke by Cicero with a modern and funny translation.

I never heard of this book so I looked it up. I saw this: "Sue K. Hurwitz wrote in her review for the School Library Journal that it is "a catalog of Heinlein's sins as an author; it is sophomoric, sexist, militantly right wing, and excessively verbose" and commentary that the book's ending was "a devastating parody of SF conventions—will have genre addicts rolling on the floor. It's garbage, but right from the top of the heap."" Maybe I'll try it.

I wish I waited to buy this My Effin' Life, as it is 50% off ($12.60) now.

For those of you who use Audible, there is an insane sale going on right now. Most audible books are on sale for between $2.50 and $7.50, with my average book price being about $4 (I got 25 books at between 86-50% off for $103). The sale seems to be going on for the next 3 days, so you have time. But I'm stocking up now.

Nice work on this. What were you other albums?

My daughter is performing in a play version of this for Drama at school. So great.

Presto 2112

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome It is an odd book as it jumps around a lot through history, and jumps around by topic. This means that you have to have a core knowledge already to follow the book, which is fine for me. But it also treads a lot of well-known areas, which means that I already know much of what the author is telling me. I'm certainly learning new things, and I'm also getting new perspectives on things I knew, which is great. But the author a lot of times just says that she doesn't really know the answer to a question she poses or offers a revisionist analysis without much foundation. Still, if you know the basics of Ancient Rome and want to learn more, this book has been largely entertaining and often informative. It's a long book and I'm about half way through, so we'll see how it goes from here. Needless to say, I took a break from Poetic Diction (about 60% in)...I'm researching a bit of philology and poetry so I can understand a little bit more of what I'm reading.

Available Light Presto

The Pass Available Light

How It Is Open Secrets

How It Is Where's My Thing

How It Is What You're Doing

It could have been worse: it could have been brought to you by a funeral home.

I ended up starting Owen Barfield's Poetic Diction. I think I understand about 20% of the book so far. Barfield seems about 10 times smarter than I am, which makes it hard for me to understand him, and he is a poor writer, which makes it even harder for me to understand him. This one is going to go slowly.

I go on fits and spurts. I can go months without reading anything, but then start devouring a few books a week. As my body breaks down and my interests move away from things involving screens, books are becoming a more frequent part of my recreation. But Plato’s dialogues aren’t much work: they are immediately understandable and accessible, unlike some concepts in The Republic or virtually anything by Aristotle. I’m a bit of a completionist, so I can understand wanting to finish a book you started. However, I would recommend just ditching Dorian Gray. Once the conceit of the novel is introduced, there is almost nothing that happens from a narrative standpoint that is interesting, and almost nothing to make you think. You can just skip to the last 5 pages of the book, read the Wikipedia entry, and save yourself 5 hours. James Joyce is almost the opposite. For Ulysses I had to read the Cliff’s Notes (are those still a thing?) for every chapter before reading the text because it was so dense and obscure that I had no idea what was happening without the study guide. However, unlike Dorian Gray, Ulysses could spur on philosophical, epistemological, aesthetic, and moral conversations. But for me, all that would have been inaccessible without both a study guide and some people to talk to about it. But all this is in the category of “one for the brain”. There are few joys like being sucked into a “one for me” book and being carried away by it. Enjoy The Way of the Bear and wherever that may take you.

The Enemy Within What It Is

On a related note I started listening to Plato’s dialogues today. It looks like I keep pushing off the next big book (but not of bass).

I’ve been using audiobooks more and more myself. I sometimes have separated books (one print, one audio like you), but sometimes I jump between reading a book and listening to it. Moby Dick was like that for me. The cetology chapters were tedious, and I’m not sure I would have gotten through them without the audio. But the ending is so beautifully written and exhilarating, I wanted to see the printed word as I finished the book.

My Effin’ Life is a long read, and I’m trying to decide whether to read a book for me (My Effin’ Life) or a book for my brain (East of Eden) next. I could also read a short book next, but my last couple have been quite short already.

The Picture of Dorian Gray was a big disappointment. Wilde’s writing is often brilliant, but he uses a common Faustian trope and doesn’t develop it enough. The characters are all hatable, ignorant, rich dandies, and while that is largely the point, it gets boring to hear obviously untrue epigrams passed off as wisdom for a complete (if short) novel.