BIRD SANCTUARY

I just finished "Number Go Up" by Zeke Faux (great book about the crypto scam), and am now moving on to reading a few books I've had for a while but have not read. Next up is Engels' "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State".

In terms of fiction I just finished the Culture novels by Iain M Banks (for like the 4th time) and greatly enjoyed.

For nonfiction I've been reading British Rail by Christian Wolmar. Reinforcing my love of trains, and my disregard for Beeching.

BrazenSolar wrote: ↑Thu Jul 18, 2024 9:06 pm.
For nonfiction I've been reading British Rail by Christian Wolmar. Reinforcing my love of trains, and my disregard for Beeching.

Say more about how the book relates to trains. I fucking love trains.

I have a bookmark somewhere in the first half of Out There Screaming (a horror anthology collection, edited by Jordan Peele) which I started last October (and that isn't a statement about the book so much as about myself. It is pretty good so far, overall). I have a bookshelf with lots of books I read prior to 2020 on it, but not really any since then. I wonder what happened to my attention span and ability to finish books?

Couple of recommendations off the stack:

A Burglar's Guide to the City (Manaugh, 2016)
Recommended by a level designer to help get into the mindset needed for imsim development, it also has a lot of interesting stories about cool capers that were pulled off IRL, as opposed to in minecraft or imaginary.

A People's History of the United States (Zinn, 2003 ed)
I skip around this one whenever I have some time to kill and don't want to waste it refreshing a feed. I'll just pick a chapter and go with it. Great for my swiss cheese brain that has to constantly be reminded of things that happened and led directly to what is currently happening.

I've also read a good bit of contemporary genre horror (Paul Tremblay, Grady Hendrix, Stephen Graham Jones, John Langan, etc) out of interest and also seeking inspiration for my own stuff.

duckenheimer wrote: ↑Thu Jul 18, 2024 11:48 pm A People's History of the United States (Zinn, 2003 ed)
I skip around this one whenever I have some time to kill and don't want to waste it refreshing a feed. I'll just pick a chapter and go with it. Great for my swiss cheese brain that has to constantly be reminded of things that happened and led directly to what is currently happening.

I read a people's history in APUS History in high school (my teacher was great he actually was much further left than he let on). A year or two ago, I wanted to see how it held up so I re-read it and I would say that for the most part, yeah it holds up. Still a great lens with which to examine American history.

birdenjoyer wrote: ↑Thu Jul 18, 2024 11:03 pm

BrazenSolar wrote: ↑Thu Jul 18, 2024 9:06 pm.
For nonfiction I've been reading British Rail by Christian Wolmar. Reinforcing my love of trains, and my disregard for Beeching.

Say more about how the book relates to trains. I fucking love trains.

It's all trains, baby.

Well, it's meta-train, I have to admit. It is not engineering specs so much as the organisation and creation of the nationalised train system in the UK, and then the subsequent demoliton of it. And the demolition of much of the rails, and even more of the stations... If you like trains, and you think trains should be everywhere, it might make you sad to learn just how much was lost in the UK. In fact, almost every settlement used to have a station. But alas, 50s/60s Britain decided it cost too much. Never recovered.

BrazenSolar wrote: ↑Fri Jul 19, 2024 9:06 pm

birdenjoyer wrote: ↑Thu Jul 18, 2024 11:03 pm

BrazenSolar wrote: ↑Thu Jul 18, 2024 9:06 pm.
For nonfiction I've been reading British Rail by Christian Wolmar. Reinforcing my love of trains, and my disregard for Beeching.

Say more about how the book relates to trains. I fucking love trains.

It's all trains, baby.

Well, it's meta-train, I have to admit. It is not engineering specs so much as the organisation and creation of the nationalised train system in the UK, and then the subsequent demoliton of it. And the demolition of much of the rails, and even more of the stations... If you like trains, and you think trains should be everywhere, it might make you sad to learn just how much was lost in the UK. In fact, almost every settlement used to have a station. But alas, 50s/60s Britain decided it cost too much. Never recovered.

Buddy, I live in the US. We wrote the book on destroying previous railway infrastructure.

In all seriousness that sounds really good and much more interesting than mere engineering specs. I’ll have to check it out.