What are you reading?

I just finished Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. It was a pretty interesting story about a dystopian future where pretty much all jobs have been automated and the New World is being run by engineers. The fact that it was written in 1952 blows my mind.

Highly recommend it to all you ID-ers/manufacturers out there

great book, I’ve read that one as well. I love a good Vonnegut read. ironically a lot of futurists are again predicting this issue.

I think the engineers can be automated too, imho.

Well. I don’t like reading books. I just like to read a small article or a short story. I don’t have much patience to read long stories. I had undergone a physiotherapy procedure in Toronto due to severe leg pain. So I am currently researching about the secret of a healthy leg. And I found a few interesting articles. One among them is:

I finished the Innovator’s Dilemma. Highly recommend it. Gives a lot of business ammunition to design arguments.

Now, I’m half way through “The Shock of the Old”. I would avoid the book and just read a review of it. It’s central argument is interesting: instead of looking at innovation as a chronological series of events, look at the use in time and space. However, the book feels repetitive and lacks the kind of insights about old technology being used today that I was hoping it was going to contain.

Just curious here. How many books per year are you reading?

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I would say about 6 books / year. I read way too many blogs (and C77 forum posts) to read more books.

I like reading, feel depressed if I can’t look forward to a few pages (or more) at night before retiring. Probably 12-20 per year. If you add in children’s books I read about 700 a year.

Just finished:
Less Than Zero
Matterhorn (brutal novel about Vietnam war)

Currently:
Martian Chronicles
Tropic of Cancer

I’m the same. I probably read about 12 books a year bit by bit before I go to sleep. All SciFi novels.

On top of that I might read a couple of business type books here and there. At least the first and last chapters :slight_smile:

If we are counting children’s books, my son and I just started Scooby-Doo Teams Up issues 1 and 2. I have fond memories of Scooby-Doo and the Batman TV series, and the comic book is giving me a few inside jokes to keep me entertained. Meanwhile, my son just loves Batman, so he is loving it.

Just read “Kill em and Leave” great short read on James Brown. Beautifully written. Just started “Wind, Sand and Stars” by Saint-Exupery. Old book about his time flying mail from France to north Africa. Im a sucker for adventure books

+1 for Wind, Sand, and Stars. Wish I knew enough French to read it in the original text. All of those St-Ex short stories are good, compiled in ‘Airman’s Odyssey’. He has a way of making strong, clear statements about the goodness in life, having courage to do dangerous work, and creating bonds between people.

Oh good to know, will check out his other work. I too wish i could have read it in the original French, really beautiful writing. Have you ever read Beryl Markham or Roald Dahls book when he was in the RAF? Both fantastic

Roald Dahl is a perennial favorite, will definitely look into that, thanks.

Short read, but super interesting

I highly recommend “Naughty Kitty”. My 15 month old daughter and I love it.

Also, about 50 pages into “To Engineer is Human”. I read a chapter in school 15 years ago. I had to skip a chapter because the beginning is so boring though. It’s getting better now though.

Finished ‘The Martian Chronicles’. It was much more whimsical and darkly humored than I was expecting. Its an allegory on human societies, stereotyping, and culture clash/shock. The next-to-last chapter was moving, describing the end-of-life procedure for a robotic house.

Now I’m onto Hawking: “A Brief History of Time”.

Oh yeah, Martian Chronicles is a great book!

recently finished The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart… it has nothing to do with Andrew Dice Clay. Written in 1971 it is about a psychologist who decides to make every decision in life based on rolling dice. It is one of those seminal books but I just didn’t like it at all. I’m a pretty voracious reader but I struggled to get through it hoping it would turn around… however Luke Rhinehart’s new book “Invasion” is hilariously awesome. It is about a group a furry spherical aliens who invade earth as playful pets originally but then hack into all of the governmental and financial systems to bring down model society because they think it is silly and illogical. Give that one a read for sure!

I tried to read Hawking in high school and didn’t get passed the introduction. I hope it’s better as an adult.