Simpli Book Club

Engineering Potpourri Hobbies
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#30

“Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A little outside of my normal fare for novels, but from beginning to end I was invested and I really enjoyed it. The story of the two kids growing up in Nigeria, moving abroad as adults to different countries thinking life would be better, to later return back home was an interesting story arc to me. Some surprising viewpoints and unexpected outcomes kept me from trying to fit in preconceived notions the whole way. I think she was very good at that; knowing what people might be expecting and showing the reader that it just isn’t so.

There is so much of the story that I can not personally relate to, and yet the way she brought you into the character’s minds, and described the feelings, I felt like it is very easy for the reader to relate it to other situations than just the specific frustrations and obstacles the people of the story experience.

The quest to find oneself and development from childhood, to young adult, to an adult secure in their own person is something I felt and understood, as I’d expect many people can.

The relationship parts of the stories though were very relatable though and I felt the storytelling there is good in that anyone who has had a less than perfect relationship can place themselves in the characters’ places.

Overall, I’d say great book; interesting, engaging, well written, personal. I would recommend it to anyone interested in a story of personal struggle with self and personal relationships.

Edit: I wanted to add this as I was thinking about it more this morning. I think the main theme, which is sort of in-line with what I already wrote pre-edit, didn’t hit me until now.

At least to me, this book was about defining oneself starting from early childhood to adulthood and continuing that journey into adulthood. It was about figuring out who you are, who you want to be, what you expect from the world around you, and how to find that expectation and seize it. Not everything is as it is told or how you expect it to be. The goal or expectation has no meaning and is empty without the journey that gets you there.

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#31

My submission will probably seem a bit pedestrian after the erudite offerings above, but …

Given that this site targets engineers, my strong recommendation is the recently published “Infinite Powers - The story of calculus, the language of the universe”, by Professor Steven Strogatz of Cornell University.  The blurb on its back cover describes it much better than I could:

“This is a captivating and inviting exploration of mathematics’ greatest ever idea: calculus.  Without it, there would be no computers, microwave ovens, GPS or space travel.  But before it gave us almost infinite powers, calculus was behind centuries of controversy, competition and even death.  Taking us on a thrilling journey through three millennia, Professor Steven Strogatz charts the development of this incredible achievement from the days of Archimedes to breakthroughs in chaos theory and artificial intelligence.  Filled with idiosyncratic characters from Pythagoras to Fourier, Infinite Powers is a compelling drama that reveals the legacy of calculus on nearly every aspect of modern civilisation, including science, politics, medicine, philosophy and much besides.”

I have recommended it to a lot of people, including some whose knowledge of mathematics does not extend past their school days.  All enjoyed it, and all learned something from it.

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#32

Something not to be forgotten when we talk about the love of reading: passing it on to the young.

I read stories to my son before bed for a VERY long time. As he got older, the selections got more complex. We went from Fox in Socks one year to Harry Potter the next, and the year after that he got impatient with the pace I was reading Prisoner of Azkaban, so he just read it for himself.

Even after he started reading on his own, he didn’t want me to stop, so we made our way through the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, mythology of the ancient Greeks, King Arthur, the Arabian Knights, and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (all 5). The culmination was the Iliad and the Odyssey, but what an epic way to finish the time spend reading to your child.

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#33

I always enjoyed the authors note:
“A trilogy in five parts”.

#34

Not pedestrian at all. Thanks for the share. :+1:t4:

That’s the exact kind of stuff I was hoping for in this thread. I’d love for others to continue sharing what they are reading or brief reviews of recent reads. I don’t mean for this to be a back and forth of high literature by any means (see my Twilight saga review above as proof :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:). Anything someone finds interesting, wonderful, awful, or anything in between is a perfect contribution here as long as it is true and you’re willing to discuss it.

I love to see what others are reading, get ideas for myself for future reads, prepare myself for bad books I am determined to read, or avoid curiosities that aren’t worth my time. I am currently locked into a pretty extensive list I am working through, but the good thing is I have the rest of my life to get to them all.

#36

Mrs. Latexman and I have 5 children, ages 21 to 34. The baby is a Jr. in college right now.

I’ve been searching for an introductory investment book to give to each of them. It’s a little early for the baby, and a little late for the oldest, but, on average, it’s about time. It’s time they started saving for retirement!

As an extraordinarily wise man once said:
compounding-interest

Well, I finally made my choice in a book, and 5 copies arrived today. I have my own copy. It is “The Coffeehouse Investor” by Bill Schultheis. It is an easy read, can be read in several sittings. It’s brevity is an extension of it’s message, “how to build wealth, ignore wall street, and get on with your life”. It helps tremendously that I’ve invested the same way for many, many years. I learned as a “Boglehead”! It’s not full of a lot of financial definitions and lingo. It reads like the author is beside you, talking to you about his experience. Lots of examples, stories, and even a really good recipe for pumpkin pie! It’s not boring (to me, let’s see how it works with millenials).

For myself, I have pre-ordered Bill Schultheis’s “The Coffeehouse Investor’s Ground Rules: Save, Invest, and Plan for a Life of Wealth and Happiness”, which is due out November 17, 2020. I’ll let you know how that is, after I read it.

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Retirement
#39

“Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison

This book is another entry from PBS’s “Great American Read” list from 2018.

This was definitely a thought provoking book. The prologue regarding Ellison’s time writing the book helped put me into, I think, the right frame of mind for what I was getting into.

To me, it tells the story of a man’s development from an intelligent and hopeful child, to a man who accepts the world for how it is. In gaining that acceptance it would seem he gives up hope, but I believe the hope showed through in the end in an understanding that non-existence is not an option. And in order to exist, he needs to move forward. He travels through a world designed to chew him up and spit him out; to use him against himself and bring his own demise.

It reminds me of times in my own life during times of flux, when hopes are high. The idealistic dreams I’ve held and how they are often dashed by the very same people who gave them to me in the first place.

It speaks to pain and disillusionment, to society and the manipulators that can use its very nature to harm itself, to those people who are “invisible”. To be invisible is to not be seen as human, to be a tool to be used up and thrown out, to be a “non-factor” in the end, to have no thoughts of your own, to be no threat.

But it is those that are invisible who can effect the world. They aren’t symbols, they aren’t idols, they cause change, and no one even notices that things have changed. Invisible people move through society unnoticed and whisper change where others yell. Yelling causes people to pick sides where whispers cause people to think.

So much of this book felt like a gut punch to my humanity, but that is kind of the point.

Many of these thoughts only came in writing this review. I have a difficult time comprehending books as I read them, but these reviews are helping me to put them into context and I feel like I’m getting a lot more out of the books I’m reading by trying to put my takeaways into words like this. So thanks for anyone who’s reading these and participating.

#40

I still prefer authors that write about taking action to mend your sea of troubles, rather than drown in them. Hamlet wouldn’t be one of Shakespeare’s best if he’d just lain down and accepted the murder of his father.
That said, the plot summary of Invisible Man on Wikipedia reminds me of “the Weight” by The Band.

#41

For something completely different: I’m almost finished A Tale of Two Cities.
(Don’t ruin the end yet!)

#42

I’ve been prepping for the new Stormlight book coming out next week, but I finished early and had a little time. I read The Handmaid’s Tale and The Giver to fill the time.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Powerful. The way it was narrated and the timeline it was written in gave it a realness that’s hard to describe. I can definitely understand why this is such a classic and became what it has. The uncertainty it deposited in me and the feeling it portrayed of…not quite helplessness but of resignation by the world around her. The people with power and the people without all seemed so disgusted with the world they lived in, but no one could speak against the machine to change it. It seemed everyone was against what the world had become but no one could imagine an alternative even though the “normal” they turned their backs on was within their own lifetimes.

This one is undoubtedly one I’d recommend.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

I absolutely loved this book. I’d never even heard of it before this so the entire story was new to me. It’s a very short young adult dystopian novel, and it spoke to me. I felt for Jonas, I felt for the world he lived in. They lived such designed lives that the reasons to live just didn’t exist anymore. A statement against pragmatism is the best way I could describe it. The trade off for total protection is to deny truly living. Cruelty for the sake of survival to the point that it isn’t even a possibility for the people to know what they’ve traded.

I feel like it lets you take it for what you want it for; it is sad, and beautiful, and brief. I loved it.

I see myself reading this book many times during my life. There are a few books that have become this way for me: Siddhartha, The Little Prince, The Old Man and the Sea, and Watership Down. The Giver is now on this list for sure.

#43

Here’s my favorite books list, in no particular order.

Name Author
The Autumn of the Patriarch García Márquez, Gabriel
The Trial Kafka, Franz
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Murakami, Haruki
The Enchantress of Florence Rushdie, Salman
The Metamorphosis Kafka, Franz
Conversation in the Cathedral Vargas Llosa, Mario
Animal Farm Orwell, George
Blindness Saramago, José
Love in the Time of Cholera García Márquez, Gabriel
One Hundred Years of Solitude García Márquez, Gabriel
1Q84 Murakami, Haruki
The War of the End of the World Vargas Llosa, Mario
1984 Orwell, George
Crime and Punishment Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Fury Rushdie, Salman
Os Maias Queirós, Eça de
Shalimar the Clown Rushdie, Salman
Midnight’s Children Rushdie, Salman
In the Country of Last Things Auster, Paul
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Kundera, Milan
The Master and Margarita Bulgakov, Mikhail
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#44

Supersalad,
Interesting that the Giver had that effect on you, unless it is a new concept to you personally, though it is not new to sci-fi. You could have encountered peoples’ lives with “the colour bled out” so to speak in 1984, the Dune saga, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and others. Heck even an episode of Star Trek if not several…

I’m with you for Atwood. I’ve read a few others. Ever since Oryx and Crake, I can’t each chicken nuggets.

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#45

I did watch a lot of start trek TNG, voyager, and deep space nine as a kid with my dad.

I forget to even mention dune a lot of times when I talk about books. I re-read the entire original series every 3-4 years. It’s… had an effect on me to say they least.

I’m planning on tackling 1984 in the next year sometime. I don’t know about metropolis but it’ll be on my watch list now.

I really can’t explain why the giver felt that way to me. It really wasn’t giving me any deeper feeling until the very last page and the final words. It just… felt so sad and yet beautiful at the same time.

#46

Some of these caught my eye. I’m going to try this one out in audiobook form.

#47

This week I’ve been listening to Cicero’s books on oratory and rhetoric.
Audiobooks are great for this kind of stuff. Oratory is the spoken word, so in a modern sense, this is the way Cicero (yes the Roman) intended it to be enjoyed!
Highly recommended it. Too bad it isn’t longer. Cicero left so much more material that I’d love to listen to.

How to Win an Argument, An Ancient Guide to the Art of Persuasion, Written by: Marcus Tullius Cicero, Translated by: James May, Narrated by: Simon Vance

I must also add that Simon Vance is a fantastic narrator and I think I will eventually seek out everything he’s done.

I must also add that it’s not the same “James May” as the other one.

#48

I finished the latest book of the Stormlight Archives, “Rhythm of War” by Brandon Sanderson, last week.

It was good. I think it went too long though. There was just so much story, and I just wasn’t all that interested in all of it. It feels like it is getting a little too massive compared to the first two books. So many characters to keep track of and the implications every single decision and event seems to have in both the world they are in and the rest of the “Cosmere” (the overarching universe many of Sanderson’s books take place in)

If the first book could be called epic, the series’ progression is creating a epic level of epic-ness; perhaps to a fault. The amount of tie-ins to other novels and worlds from his writing is getting tough to keep track of for me. For instance, as soon as I finished this one I picked up the first book, “Warbreaker”, I had ever read of his to see if I can find references in it that I would’ve never known before now.

That all being said, every time I see a reference to another world or character from one of the other books I invariably find myself saying " Oooooh I know that person!" or “Oh my gosh! What does that mean!?”

There were some very emotional scenes for me. I’m not too proud to say I cried several times from sadness, joy, and rage for some of the events/characters while reading this book. If you enjoy an author who can provoke emotional responses, Sanderson can really nail it at times.

Anyway, it was good and fills in a lot of story gaps I didn’t even know I were missing. I do think it was too long though at 1200+ pages. The previous books in the series were around the same length, but they told more story. I think I’ll likely need to read it again to get the full picture.

#49

If you’re a fan of Brian Sanderson, you might like this lecture series on Sci-Fi/Fantasy writing for authors:

#50

Browsing the list again, as I need to refill my e-reader. Some good authors on the list, will need to search the local library to see if any pop up.

I notice though, that nobody else reads much of (Sir) Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” books. Good, humorous, poke-fun-at-everybody books set in a fantasy world. Nice change of pace from hard sci-fi and nonfictions that I also read pretty voraciously.

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#51

Discworld is on my long list of “eventually I’ll get to them” books. One day I’ll have a random whim and start them like I did for many others.

#52

Suggest not starting with the very first Discworld books - it took him a little while to move from parody fantasy to stories that involved characters you could take an interest in. You quite often get a sense that Pratchett had spent time in the company of engineers - became increasingly overt as he got older but quite a lot of “Thief of time” could easily have been subtitled “Trouble in’t turbine hall”