Books

One of my favorite places to go when I lived in L.A. was The Museum of Jurassic Technology. It’s an almost impossible to describe museum of just weird stuff (unfortunately only open by appointment these days). One example is an exhibit of the parts of the late magician Ricky Jay’s dice collection that were disintegrating because of the material they were made of.

But one of my favorite exhibits was a collection of letters cranks had sent to Mount Wilson observatory from its opening in 1915 until 1935. Happily, I discovered recently that the whole thing was transcribed and I can now read it and, even just flipping through it, I forgot how hilariously funny it is. The addition of photos of the original letters and telegrams along with the transcriptions adds to how much fun it is. The transcriptions are as accurate as possible, including misspellings and sometimes a total lack of punctuation.

Basically, it's what insane people used to do before there was an internet and they could amass a following who would go out and harass anyone who dares to suggest that Saturn is not, in fact, a chili cheese burrito. They just bothered the poor scientists directly.

At least they had to buy stamps.

My favorite so far has been a long screed which begins with, in all caps, "I HAVE THE KEY TO ALL EXISTENCE," and a Christmas card from a Jewish person who stated that Jews would rule the world because of people like Einstein was a real head scratcher.

I'm too lazy to type in what's in the book, but someone on a website transcribed this telegram:

GENTLEMEN. ARE YOU INTERESTED IN SEPARATING VALUABLE CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS FROM THE SUNSHINE RAY? WORTH BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. APPRECIATE AN AIRMAIL REPLY.

The link is to buy it directly from the museum, which is one of the coolest places you can go in Los Angeles, but it's available elsewhere.

Where did the Tuesday go? Well, as the power vested in me as a mod of this community, I am declaring today a Tuesday! So, without further ado:

Finished The Crystal Shard by R. A. Salvatore. First book of The Icewind Dale Trilogy, and The Legend of Drizzt / Forgotten Realms series (publication order).

Loved the book. A quick and very enjoyable read. If rest of the trilogy is similar, going to get the whole series.

Read Small Favor by Jim Butcher, 10th book in the Dresden Files series. Liked in much better than the previous book White Night. Full of action, without much dull moments. Stakes keep getting higher and higher, but we are starting to see some bigger picture.

Currently reading Side Jobs by Jim Butcher. It's short stories in Dresden Files universe. I started it after White Night, but only reading stories that are before the book I have read, so this will not be completed for quite a while.

These don't cover any Bingo squares, except maybe Eazy, Breazy, Read-zie

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?

There's a Midyear Bingo check-in post, do take a look. Even if you haven't started this year's Book Bingo, you can still join, as there are still 6 months remaining!

For details, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and it's Recommendation Post . Links are also present in our community sidebar.

Hey everyone!

We're about six months into our first books@lemmy.world Book Bingo challenge. If you didn't know about it, or if you've been debating joining, there's still plenty of time to participate! You do not need to fill a whole card to complete the challenge: 'bingo' is only five squares in a line.

If you're already working on bingo, how's it going so far? Doing any fun challenges? Having trouble with any squares or rules? Any and all feedback is welcome and appreciated!

We'll be doing another post in a few months for 2025 bingo suggestions, and a turn-in post at the beginning of April.

On behalf of myself, Dresden, and JaymesRS, thank you for being here, and happy reading!

Two soldiers declare a fight to the death, and give each other a year to plan. One starts a mercenary troupe, the other starts a domestic terrorism cell.

Meanwhile, a paralyzed billionaire invents robot bodies and becomes a cyborg. He tries to share this technology with disabled people everywhere, but instead his tech becomes a global arms race between those two soldiers.

https://terranomicon.com

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21506018

Literary Arts’ Portland Book Festival, presented by Wells Fargo, returns Saturday, November 2 to ten stages at six partner venues in downtown Portland’s south Park Blocks. The festival will feature on-stage author discussions with over 100 authors and interviewers, drop-in writing workshops, pop-up readings, an extensive book fair, and local food trucks in this city-wide celebration of books and stories.

One doesn't simply "walk into Powell's for one book..."

$550 later...

("They come in SETS?")

After my grandfather passed, my grandmother decided to move to an apartment and so wanted to downsize. She asked the family to take whatever they wanted.

I went for the old and the odd. Some books are over 200 years old.

This one is maybe 100 and odd.

Still reading The Crystal Shard by R. A. Salvatore. First book of The Icewind Dale Trilogy, and The Legend of Drizzt / Forgotten Realms series (publication order).

Book is pretty fast paced and full of action. Really enjoying it.

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?

A regular reminder about our Book Bingo, and it's Recommendation Post . Links are also present in our community sidebar.

Beyond just marking up an e-book, are there any devices that would also allow you to edit the file itself?

Does this book ever pick up? I’m about a quarter of the way in and so far ‘The Adventures of Mary Sue As She Looks For A Date’ is just not doing anything for me. I remember tears ago hearing of it and thought it’s political world building, but so far it seems to be nothing more than ‘theater kids rule the world but- no touching.’ It seems like it wants to dive into the politics, but then again very other page it derails itself itself with ‘those damn eyes.’

Idk, I guess I’ve probably already made up my mind, but would be interested to know if it ever gets out of its own way.

More info on their About page. But essentially, they take a small cut to cover operating expenses, and the rest of the profit from the book sale goes to whatever local bookshop you choose, as long as it's participating.

They also operate in the UK here.

They appear to be pretty legit, though one downside I've read is returns are more clumsy than other storefronts.

Finished The Twelve by Justin Cronin. Book 2 of The Passage trilogy! Finally!

It was interesting read, but too long. Too much back story and details that could have been condensed quite a bit. As it is, I didn't like the fist quarter, second quarter was okay, third was interesting, and really enjoyed the last one.

Still one book remaining in the trilogy, but need a break, will come back to after a little while.

Read some more stories from The Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft.

Now reading The Crystal Shard by R. A. Salvatore. First book of The Icewind Dale Trilogy, and The Legend of Drizzt / Forgotten Realms series (publication order).

It's my first Drizzt, and first D&D novel and has been on my wishlist for a very long time. Just started it so can't really say much about it, but enjoying it so far.

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?

A regular reminder about our Book Bingo, and it's Recommendation Post . Links are also present in our community sidebar.

She is the first South Korean winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Vegetarian is her best known novel.

Internet culture loves nothing more than adopting half-understood academic jargon. And more and more I'm seeing the phrase "media literacy" to mean: being smart enough to come to the correct interpretation, or even worse: being able to decipher authorial intent.

I'm a 'death of the author' kind of guy, but we all should agree that any text will have multiple valid interpretations, so long as you can back it up with the text.

I wanna stress that I'm not gatekeeping the phrase, I just want to promote the idea of media education over the smug notion that one person reads books better than another.

• October 15th: An Instruction in Shadow releases in the US & Canada in paper, ebook, and audio formats.
• October 17th: An Instruction in Shadow releases in UK and the rest of the world in paper, ebook, and audio formats.
• October 22nd, 12 noon GMT: Reddit AMA begins
• October 23rd, 12 noon GMT: Reddit AMA ends

So far, I’ve read a poetry book on Libby called El Regalo that goes ‘yo soy alegría que tu serás tu y yo soy yo’ and I’m waiting to read Don Quijote on the same app.

Anyone know what ¿libros en español yo puede leer? I read clásico ficciones.

So I recently got an e-reader and have started collecting e-books for it, but a lot of books seem to only be available through Amazon/Kindle. I don't want anything to do with that company. Where do I even start looking? I have my local library apps and have scoured Project Gutenberg and some similar sites. While this is great for classics and older stuff, I want newer books too, specifically science fiction and fantasy. Have looked at author's websites but they typically link to Amazon or physical copies.

Still reading The Twelve by Justin Cronin. Book 2 of The Passage trilogy, so no change there.

It has become quite interesting though (or maybe it's just the Stockholm syndrome talking), I am in last 1/3 or maybe 1/4th of the book, and things have started to get together, though I still don't know what's the goal in this book. From all I have read, this seems to just be a 'middle' book whose purpose is to explore the world and take us from book 1 to book 3 where everything will be concluded.

Let's see how I feel by the time I finish it.

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?

A regular reminder about our Book Bingo, and it's Recommendation Post . Links are also present in our community sidebar.

Why You Should Read The book Atmoic Habits? Here is a short podcast that will make you clear.

@neglectedbooks
@books
@CDEccleshare
https://youtu.be/1Fvymx7ZMXg

#podcast #books #review #habits #AtomicHabits

Do you feel guilty when you read fiction some times? Do you feel like it's a frivolous pursuit? Sometimes, I do, because I'd think to myself "might as well watch a TV show", and I hardly ever watch TV shows because, to me, they're a waste of time. But damn it, some of these novels are so good and I can't stop once I started reading them.