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woolf woolf

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    Athena's Reading List 2015

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    You were open and honest, thank you. I agree with your viewpoints. I think everyone is free to change their gender, if they want to or feel they need it. However, I think a part of those who change their gender aren't really certain of it, given that they only do it based on what a man or woman should do and eventually face a crisis of identity, or regret. I think we should have the sense to discern how to act according to our gender, by accepting and doing what we should do regarding our own sex. This means the different ways we maintain our health and hygiene, dress and act in public, and assuming our gender's set of rules. After this, we must understand that many of the things a man or a woman are supposed to do are mere social conventions, and that we have the freedom to ignore them. We should also note and discuss which rules for different genders are sexist and which ones have a true needed purpose. What a man should and shouldn't do, as well as a woman, is what ignites many of the desired sex changes; only when people pass through this change and live some years in their new role is that they're able to understand if what they've done was right or a mistake. However, many people see transsexuals as inferior, and treat them as such. I can only imagine the public shaming, discriminations and exclusion that a gender change brings, especially considering it's an expensive, slow, difficult, character-changing and ugly process. I believe everyone is free to do as they please as long as it doesn't hurt others, and shouldn't be excluded or discriminated by their feelings and choices.

    woolf woolf reads

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted · Edited by Sousa

    Thanks, muggle not. I've been reading the issue 26 of a magazine, Aviation Classics, about a german aircraft fighter named Focke-Wulf Fw190. It's almost all about history and a few about technical aspects, when I halfheartedly expected it to be more explanatory than historical. However, it's still interesting to read. There are also little stories inbetween, some of them worth a mention. This one I read on the train a few minutes before; the context is the eastern front of the Second World War, a conflict between Nazi Germany and the URSS.

     

    Unteroffizier Gerhard "Emmes" Schwarz, a pilot of 2./JG 51, wrote in his diary of an encounter with one particularly surprising russian pilot. He had set off at 9.30am on March 18 as wingman to Leutnant Joachim Brendel.
    "In my aircraft I felt very superior to the LaGG-3 which I was chasing. He was already in a steep turn on his wing-tip. Although my turn was matching his, my control stick had only moved a little. Then I thought I'd have some fun by slowly out-banking the ivan to shake his nerves. If one could have traced our flight course, they would have seen we were flying an ellipse. I could see him in his cockpit staring at me. 'Boy, you've got long hair,' I thought. I couldn't see exactly but I thought the hair stuck out from under his helmet. Nevertheless, he flew quite smartly and banked cleanly. Finally, I got in the right position with the crosshairs of my gunsight a little in front, and I pressed the firing buttons. My tracer bullets hit the side of his engine, but my ammuniyion was now exhausted, 'Empty!' I thought. 'Damn.' But black smoke began to pour from his aircraft, so I stayed behind him. His engine must soon seize. We continued to bank with me very close behind him. Then the smoke cleared and I saw the russian airfield about 5km away. I should have broken off the action, but the devil was riding with me.

    I pulled closer to the russian, but he must have realised that I was no longer a dager to him and he stopped banking. With the utmost shock I now realised that this ivan was a rather pretty girl. I saluted her and her rather pale face nodded in return. I pointed to the airfield, but she did not understand and shook her head, lifting her shoulders enquiringly. I lowered my undercarriage to show her that she could do the same and pointed again to the airfield. Now she understood, but she still looked at me doubtfully. I pointed to my guns and crossed my arms. This was the international sign that I had no more ammunition. We saluted each other and I pulled away as she began her landing approach."

    Hand on heart: is your TBR pile too big?

    in General Book Discussions

    Posted

    My shelves have some books to be read; they amount to forty, give or take. However, I buy books frequently, so this figure will only grow. I intend to read all of them, but I'm not stressing about it. When I want to read one, I look around me and choose one. I want to have evergrowing choice possibilites. I'm not as worried about reading them as I am about not preserving them right. I live in a country with plenty of bugs, especially in summer, and the books attract some undesired paper-eating, page-dirting hosts. In winter the room hummidifies a lot, so that's even worse for books. I guess that's why I keep a lot of decoy-books in the back of the shelves and the good books are spread throughout the shelves extremities and the desk. I should buy a bat.

    First Line of Current Book - 2015

    in General Book Discussions

    Posted

    "Well, prince, Genoa and Lucca are now nothing more than estates taken over by the Buonaparte family. No, I give you fair warning. If you won't say this means war, if you will allow yourself to condone all the ghastly atrocities perpetrated by that antichrist - yes that's what I think he is - I shall disown you. You're no friend of mine - not the "faithful slave" you claim to be.. But how are you? How are your keeping? I can see I'm intimidating you. Do sit down and talk to me."

     

    War & Peace, Vol. 1 by Leo Tolstoy

    woolf woolf reads

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted

    I'm glad you enjoyed this series, though it's a shame it was perhaps not as nice as you'd hoped. Good review :).

     

    I'm feeling that occasional emptiness derived from finishing a book or series, missing the characters I empathized with. It's very good for its genre, and I'm yet to find a manga as good as this one (although I haven't read many manga yet).

    woolf woolf reads

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted · Edited by Sousa

    I've finished Kare Kano: His and Her Circumstances, by Masami Tsuda. It's a manga series about Soichiro Arima and Yukino Miyazawa, two top students in a japanese senior high school. Yukino is a jovial and kind young woman with excellent grades, plenty of personal qualities and a well managed presentation; however, in private she's very competitive. She works all the time off-school to both maintain top grades and an athletical form, while continually learning new elements to add to her person so that she can impress the others. Soichiro is a soft-spoken and broody young man, also with top grades and an excellent kendo fighter; but even his interactions with his family are a façade, for he has deep thoughts and dark plans, fruit of a troubled childhood. They start as rivals, but eventually find out that they are capable of nurturing for one another and develop an intimate and needy relationship. The books follow their tribulations and experiences as they learn how to ally truthfulness to their character and interaction both personal and social. I've found this book a bit irrealistic in that the characters figure out their lives right after high school (not in a frugal, but an experienced and informed way). I know my case and many others that or chose a path just because they were pressured to it or because they didn't know what to do, or are yet to choose one. I know cases of people in their thirties, forties and fifties that, with or without a family, are shattered by having no certain direction, their personalities are frail and everything seems unfair and irreversible. I think these books have almost everyone acting the right way, or in a way that leads them to a good place (except the villain), and these teenagers are never forced or blackmailed by their parents to do certain things. The story approaches far more sensible and hurtful themes, but the people who suffer either solve the question or learn how to live with it. I guess I'm criticising this story because I expected a slice of life and instead got a, albeit mature, teenager guide of life. It's a good story, everything considered, and I'm glad they found their place in society whilst remaining true to themselves. At least I've become entangled in it, for I read all the volumes in a matter of days. Thanks to Athena for the suggestion.

    Tim's Tremendous Tomes

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted · Edited by Sousa

    I'll retry to read it in a couple years. I have the feeling I'll enjoy this book like few, but it's said one must have a vast knowledge of books to understand the references and appreciate it more. And I need to get better in english before the odyssey.

    Athena's Reading List 2015

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted · Edited by Sousa

    You made a good deal, eight books for four. I'd like to have a book trade here, but there would be none in english and they would probably be tedious and uninteresting. Also, the people would likely feel the need to be noisy and expansive.

    woolf woolf reads

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted

    Thanks. I now started War & Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, it's excellent so far. It only depicted a social gathering without any major event, but the characters seem a little complex and I already caught some great quotes. And it is a great way to present the social and political context to the reader.

    woolf woolf reads

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted · Edited by Sousa

    I've finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick. It's a science fiction novel, depicting a post-apocalyptic society in a devastated Earth. Most of life perished due to polluents, radioactive dust and other elements originated from a huge and devastating war. Having a domestic pet became a sign of social status, but most people have an artificial one passing as genuine. These artificial beings are very much alike the real animals except in the case of a malfunction, so people have to maintain them well and treat them as they would treat a real one. The conditions on the planet worsened and it was decided to make people live leave Earth to one of the off-world colonies; as if the promises of a better life weren't enough, each person or family received as a gift an artificial slave to help wherever they would settle. These artificial slaves, named replicants, were very similar to humans, and with time their personalities and reactions have become even more like the human ones. However, these beings have no rights, because this is a strange and discriminating society: people are divided not only in wealth but also in intelligence, this meaning that people only received as much freedom to work and travel as their intelligence allowed (e.g. people with low IQ couldn't leave Earth).

     

    The main element people possess to unite them is a religion called Mercerism, in which they worship a god called Wilbur Mercer through a machine. This machine is believed to be some kind of portal in which anyone enters and tries to escalate a mountain while being tossed stones; people with all kinds of moods enter this machine so that people leave it with an even disposition, and also enter when they search Mercer in order to receive some answers. Only humans are allowed to this machine and religion, because they have empathy, and according to several parts from the book that is the main characteristic that distinguishes the organic from the artificial. The protagonist is Dick Reckard, a police officer with an average life and a mildly depressed wife. He's troubled because he once had a live animal, but it perished and he so far hasn't been able to find a genuine replacement. Deckard's speciality inside the police is to hunt and retire clandestine replicants that came to Earth, and he receives an assignment to find and retire six specimens from the latest and best model, Nexus-6. From here further, is the land of spoilers. I liked the book, especially the first chapters were very interesting and detailed, but from some point which I can't say everything starts to be less captivating. Even with this, it's a good book and a main option for those who want to read about a dystopian futuristic society; but don't expect it to be descriptive and critic of the world because, unlike Orwell and Huxley, Dick uses this society as a background for the main story. And for those who have seen the film, the two stories are completely different, so nothing is ruined.

     

    P.S.: Before reading it, I thought the title meant that the androids were not only receptive of human rationale and conventions, but also decided to transform it into their own. I mean, people count sheep in their heads when they can't sleep; I thought there was a doubt in the story about if the androids also thought of sheep when they couldn't sleep, and if they thought of organic ones or artificial ones. After reading it, I wonder if it's about androids wanting to be treated as equals.

    woolf woolf reads

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted · Edited by Sousa

    In the meantime I've been reading Kare Kano: His or Her Circumstances, it flows a lot and it doesn't have much occupying the pages, so it can be read fast. But some drawings are pretty cool. I can't read any physical book today because there's a party in the living room and I'm uncapable of reading prose when noisy. It's a good manga, at the beginning it was a little boring but in time it got more interesting.

     

    I haven't read the manga; I watched the anime and liked it, but I watched it just to get to Clannad: Afterstory, which I had been told was superb, and I have to agree. Not sure if you meant the end of the former or the later with your remarks?

     

    The end of Afterstory. The fourth volume ends here: http://www.mangareader.net/187-53997-26/clannad/chapter-28.html

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