I fill my phone with books. (So yeah, I’m paying £20/mo for an MP3 player and book reader that occasionally annoys me with phone calls.) Mostly nonfiction.
I’ve just finished Actually (the last collection of essays and reviews) by Christopher Hitchens. A doorstop, a lot of which is still available on the original magazines’ sites. Patchy—quite a lot was clearly dashed off in half an hour after a boozy night out, and he was brilliant but skated by on brilliance rather too often—but ultimately worth ploughing through. I would recommend the curious start on better Hitchens (god is not Great, Hitch-22, Letters To A Young Contrarian in that order) where he wasn’t phoning it in.
The nice thing about books of reviews is pointers. So right now I’m on Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West, the 2007 Penguin edition with a lengthy intro by Hitchens. The book is a doorstop-sized travelogue of Yugoslavia in the 1930s, a subject I have little interest in; I’m bothering only because a literature fan like Hitchens raved about it. And so far it’s page-turningly good.
I’ve also just finished the audiobook version of god is not Great, read by the author. A book so clearly written to be read out loud. If you liked the book, I most strongly recommend the audiobook. Even if you dislike audiobooks, as I do.
I fill my phone with books. (So yeah, I’m paying £20/mo for an MP3 player and book reader that occasionally annoys me with phone calls.) Mostly nonfiction.
I’ve just finished Actually (the last collection of essays and reviews) by Christopher Hitchens. A doorstop, a lot of which is still available on the original magazines’ sites. Patchy—quite a lot was clearly dashed off in half an hour after a boozy night out, and he was brilliant but skated by on brilliance rather too often—but ultimately worth ploughing through. I would recommend the curious start on better Hitchens (god is not Great, Hitch-22, Letters To A Young Contrarian in that order) where he wasn’t phoning it in.
The nice thing about books of reviews is pointers. So right now I’m on Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West, the 2007 Penguin edition with a lengthy intro by Hitchens. The book is a doorstop-sized travelogue of Yugoslavia in the 1930s, a subject I have little interest in; I’m bothering only because a literature fan like Hitchens raved about it. And so far it’s page-turningly good.
I’ve also just finished the audiobook version of god is not Great, read by the author. A book so clearly written to be read out loud. If you liked the book, I most strongly recommend the audiobook. Even if you dislike audiobooks, as I do.
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I’ve been recommending it. I think it would appeal to most LessWrongians.
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Not that I can think of—that’s why that book was so much fun.
Ha! Never heard of it, but yes, I suspect I would :-)
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