Discovered The Complete Robot by Isaac Asimov a few months ago. Since then I've read some of his other shit, including: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and now The Gods Themselves.

So what are you guys reading now? Any recommendations?

Has anyone else here read any Asimov stuff before? His stuff is brilliant. Haven't read anything bad by him yet.

I want to read "Basketball Diaries". I just saw the movie and loved it alot.

I never read amy Asimov although I do have an anthology of Russian science fiction. What I gathered from it is that Russians are crazy fucks.

Asimov was born in Russia, but his family immigrated to the U.S. when he was 3, so technically he is considered to be an American author.

Anyway, if you're a fan of sci-fi at all, I'd definitely recommend you check him out. I'd probably recommend starting wit Foundation and Foundation and Empire. Good shit.

As for Russians being crazy fucks, I'm inclined to agree. I think it's the vodka and extreme temperatures there, but who the fuck really knows.

"The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand - proving how manipulating books can be.

good book.

" A Problem from Hell" by Samantha Powers.........genocides over the past century. Very interesting.

Interesting how a book purported to be about individualism v collectivism can be utilized through the generations as a bullwork for corporatism.


Yeah it is. Dawkins goes to significant lengths to be an apologist for great minds of previous generations and to reveal the nakedness of religiosity. Yet, he also manages to unwittingly make an argument for blind faith, simultaneously.


Or, Life In Hell?

If you like the God Delusion, which I did, try reading:

Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant?
Edited by Preston Jones.

It's a discussion between a "Christian Libertarian" and a Phd of evolutionary biologu. Good back and forth

I love how Ayn Rand is somehow the basis for the neo conservative economic policy viewpoint, kind of ridiculous.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

I mean I went into reading this book without knowing anything about Ayn Rand. All I know is that it's beginning to change my perspective, which I'm leery about.

Isn't that what books are all about? If the foundation of your education is sound then the evolution of your perspective can only be built upon it.

My problem with Rand's objectivism is not in its core Pursuit Of Happiness, but in its arrogant defense of Laissez Faire capitalism as the logical vehicle to realize it. It is a perspective that could only be conceived by the privileged and/or the ruthless psychopath.

You will never hear the clambering for laissez faire from a factory floor on the outskirts of Da Nang.

Rand is so wrapped up in her own Pursuit Of Happiness that she has no time to consider the same individual rights for those who have none.

Life (food + water + shelter + health care + education) + Liberty ( the rule of law + equal justice) = The Pursuit Of Happiness.

It is what books are about. But nobody should ever take the message of a book blindly, which I was unconsciously doing, and what I was feeling leery about. (I should have phrased it better)

And I wasn't belittling you, Snoop. I was only pointing out that the reason that you sensed the power of the message is because of the foundation of education.

The greatest danger to humanity is the rationing of education and knowledge.

All good man. I didn't feel belittled, but what you say is true. Our respective realities are created by our experiences and how we're taught to interpret those experiences. Denying education and knowledge to a people is the easiest way to rule a society. Tricking people into voluntarily denying education and knowledge from themselves makes it even easier.

I still say that was Leo's best acting performance to date and he was just a kid.

Agreed...my 2nd favorite is Shutter Island. But amn Leo played the depressed, druggie so well.

And on page 578 of The Fountainhead, she finally drops in her economic perspective. Fucking crafty bitch.

Well, to be fair, there aren't many authors who are able to write from a perspective contrary to their own. So I wouldn't exactly refer to Ayn Rand as a "crafty bitch." But then again, I've never actually made it through an Ayn Rand novel before, so what do I know?

If you guys want to read a good novel, I would recommend most of James Clavell's stuff. For those of you who don't know, Clavell was captured by the Japanese during World War II and sent to Changi, one of the worst prison camps in the world at that time.

After the war Clavell returned home a broken man, unemployed, spending most of his time at home on the couch in a hyper-depressed stupor. His wife finally threatened him with divorce if he didn't get up and do something with himself.

Clavell decided to write the novel King Rat, a thinly-veiled autobiographical account of his time in Changi Prison camp. This was actually the second novel I read by Clavell. And it is a novel that stayed with me for days after I finished it.

Clavell's other classic is Shogun, a novel that focuses on a shipwrecked crews experiences in Japan in 1600, most notably those of the ship's pilot, John Blackthorne. The novel is amazing, in that Clavell was able to write so beautifully and humanely of a nation that had imprisoned him just years earlier. Good stuff. These are 2 novels that I always buy as gifts for friends and family who've never read Clavell. And I've never heard from anyone yet that didn't fall in love with these books after reading them.

I only say that because up until that point, none of the book has anything remotely to do with economics. It's about an architect who doesn't give a fuck and how he's indifferent to the admiration of the masses. You grow to love this character and despise all the other spineless validation seekers in the book despite the fact that world in the book hates the former and loves the latter, with the exception of the characters that matter. This goes on for 578 pages and you get swept up in this story, this ideology and you're ready to pretty much swallow any ideological perspective she presents because her views on "not giving a fuck" make complete sense. Then she drops this whole dialogue about economic policy in regards to government housing and you're just like WTF? Most people wouldn't even notice it and I'm guessing THAT'S why this book has changed the economic perspective of so many people, as some posters mentioned earlier. That's why I'm calling her a crafty bitch. It's done so seamlessly.


Sounds interesting. I'll have to check that out next.

Gotcha. Like I said, I never got through one of her books. Tried to get through Atlas Shrugged once, and, no fault of her own, I got about 100 pages in and decided to veer off in another direction.



If you don't like it I'll paypal you the money you lost, lol.

Notes from Underground is another EPIC piece of fiction. No one does the basements of humanity the way Fyodor Dostoyevsky did.

Poe once said that if a man cold open up his soul, lay it bear on a table, without trying to justify it or himself in any way, that only then would you have the perfect author and the perfect novel. In that way, Dostoyevsky has come the closest of any man to equaling that metaphor.

Atlas Shrugged was described to me as "the book about how the world is or at least how it should be." That's how swept up people get in Ayn Rand. It's pretty nuts.

Sin Bin by John Elias. Former professional footballer who was also a career criminal/enforcer. What is interesting is how he would be out doing crime all night & then would turn up & play elite level football.

Kinda sounds like the life of Paul Briggs. His book "Heart Soul Fire - The Life of Paul Briggs" is a solid read. Not the most well written, but entertaining as hell. That dude is mad crazy if half that stuff is true.

Briggs is a legit hard man. That is what makes me laugh when some boxers surround themselves with rappers & talk a lot of smack but the reality is that they manufacture being hard. The real deal hard men don't need to brag & posture because they know exactly what they are capable of.

Some people might see Tszyu as a nice guy but he is hard as nails like a lot of the former Soviet fighters who know poverty of a kind that certain cats from the "street" will never know. Like in real life the true hard men don't need to talk it up as they know they can back it up. Insecure fighters who secretly doubt their ability are the big talkers by & large. Just look at so called gangsta fighters like Judah as a prime example. All mouth & no trousers.

Zab Judah, so hood he can't be understood!

Don't remember who said that, but it was on these boards awhile back.

The Narcissism Epidemic by Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, PHd.

Really clues you in to the MAJOR F'N issues in American Culture today and their root causes.

The Forward and Intro alone will open your eyes.

I suggest anybody read it.

Now that shit sounds interesting.

I read that shit, he's right, it's good.

If you want some good reads, try these 2 by a guy named Peter Singer:

One World: The Ethics of Globalization
The Live You Can Save

Also, I just got done reading "Man and His Gods" by Homer Smith.

Just finished "Fight Club" and "The Last Great American Man". Pretty good reads. Both of em will probably last you a weekend.

I just finished Mr. Slaughter by Robert McCammon (third part in his Mathew Corbett series)
Then I read Blaze by Stephen King (one of the Bachman books) and now i am reading King's Lisey's Story

I need to get some new things to read as I have ran through just about everything I own.

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. A book that is changing my life, or at the very least, explaining it.

Man you guys are all pretty serious, no-one reading a trashy crime thriller novel right now?

Glad someone said it. I was starting to feel inadequate!

The Time Paradox - Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd

Interesting read on the philosophy of time, how we interact with it, and the consequences it has on our lives.

Also reading "Shadow Box" by George Pimpleton. So far a good read about the sport with a funny author.