Jump to content

Brian.

Moderators
  • Posts

    3,221
  • Joined

  • Last visited

1 Follower

About Brian.

  • Birthday 11/24/1980

Profile Information

  • Reading now?
    A book
  • Location:
    SE England

Recent Profile Visitors

11,640 profile views

Brian.'s Achievements

Grand Master

Grand Master (14/14)

  • Reacting Well Rare
  • Dedicated Rare
  • Week One Done
  • One Month Later
  • One Year In

Recent Badges

  1. I've just had a look at the Folio new year sale and I can't say I'm impressed with what books they have discounted.
  2. Good to see you back, I hope you have a very productive 2024.
  3. It's about time I finished off with my thoughts about the remaining books I have left from 2023. Upgrade by Blake Crouch (4/5) I've really enjoyed anything I've read from Crouch and this was no different. His Sci-Fi always manages to get my brain working without it being too technical. I enjoyed this a lot but for me it didn't quite reach the heights of Recursion or Dark Matter. The were a few twists along the way but it lacked some of the deeper stuff that some of his other books have. So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport (3/5) Cal Newport is a computer science professor at Gerogetown University in America. Despite his expertise in computer science his books tend to lean hard towards productivity and concentration away from computers and phones. I think his best book is Digital Minimalism and this follows similar idea but looks at how to cultivate a career path by taking unusual routes. I thought the core of his arguements are good but as with a lot of authors in the productivity space his examples are outliers. These outliers achieve what most people can't or don't and that makes them poor examples for the everyday person. Soldier Five by Mike Coburn (4/5) Mike Coburn was one of the members of Bravo Two Zero, an SAS patrol who were compromised on a mission in Iraq. Of the eight men who were involved, 3 died, 4 were captured and 1, Chris Ryan, managed to escape. There have been a few books written about the partol including 2 from people who were there but this is the only one the MOD tried to ban. I thought this was a really good book and adds some more flesh to a well told story. It is very clear that Coburn feels let down by his treatment from the MOD and their lawyers and I can't say I blame him. I'll have to carry this on in another post as I've got to go to work.
  4. Anything that is translated will lose something, I think that is unavoidable. Whether it is worth reading the works in Greek is hard to say because I imagine ancient Greek differs to modern Greek language, I could be wrong though. I have read some of the Stoic works so I can offer some advice there. I think the best book to start off with is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and then probably The Enchiridion by Epictetus. I recommend these are they are an easy place to start, especially Meditations.
  5. Hi Yassine, welcome to the forum. What kind of books do you like to read?
  6. We are creeping towards the end of the year. The below is a copy and paste of Athena's guide from a few years ago but we thought a new thread would be a good idea as we have some new members. That means a bunch of us will be creating new reading blogs for 2024. Book Blogs / Reading Lists marked with '2023' in the title will be moved to Past Book Blogs on or around a week into 2024. Any that are marked as 'continuous' (or 'ongoing') will be left in the main Book Blogs forum (this one). We are only humans, so if we move your blog / list by mistake or we don't move it when we should have, please let us know by posting in this thread after the other blogs/lists have been moved. We won't start moving the 2023 blogs until mid January so there is plenty of time. When you start a new blog/list for 2024, can you please ensure you put '2024' in the topic title. Thank you! You may want to make some 'blank' posts at the beginning of your topic. We are unable to insert blank posts into a topic at a later time, so please make sure you save enough for yourself. To prevent people replying before you've finished setting up your reading blog/list, please put "please do not reply to this topic yet" or something like it, in bold in the first post and subsequent ones of your topic. When you are ready for people to reply, please make a new post telling people your topic is now ready for posting in. If you have any questions, please ask ! I promise we don't bite.
  7. Fantastic news. I wish you a swift recovery.
  8. I’m generally not a fan of someone else carrying on a series of novels and I can’t see this being up to the usual le Carre standards. It can work if most of the writing has been done and a novel just needs finishing and editing but writing a completely new work, not for me.
  9. The idea of the bookshelves is a good one but I don't use them so I wouldn't miss them. There are other sites such as Goodreads and Librarything which do the same thing in a much easier way.
  10. I've noticed that they now have 3 of Murakami's books in print and also one of the Wallander novels. I love both writers and the editions Folio produce but the prices for the standard editions seem to increase everytime I take a look.
  11. I finished Upgrade the other day so I made a start on my next book, Blood Meridian by Cormac Mccarthy. I'm not sure about the writing style at the moment but I'll stick with it as it gets such positive reviews.
  12. Starting a new book tonight, Upgrade by Blake Crouch. If it’s anything like Dark Matter or Recursion then I’m in for a treat.
×
×
  • Create New...