pivic

pivic , 2 months ago to bookstodon

https://bookwyrm.social/book/1603477/s/code-dependent

On AI labelling:

'How does he know if he’s done it right? ‘Sometimes, it’s not clear,’ he tells me. ‘Then you just have to go with how you feel.’'

#book #reading @bookstodon #MadhumitaMurgia #ArtificialIntelligence

pivic , 2 months ago to bookstodon

"ON GRIEF OF MIND"

The first alleged nonagricultural use of the word "culture" occurred in the Tusculanae Disputationes, a text on Greek philosophy. Penned by Cicero around 45 B.C., it used the phrase "cultura animi" to suggest the psyche could be cultivated in the same manner as a grapevine: through strategic care and attention. He developed this concept during his withdrawal from public life. Tullia, his only daughter, had died after giving birth to her second son, and, overwhelmed by emotion, Cicero disappeared from Roman high society. He escaped to his villa in Tusculum, or more specifically, to its library, where he immersed himself in Greek classics. It was widely known that Tullia was his favorite child, and without her he wasn't sure how to exist. His only recourse was to study, searching for methodologies that would enable him to confront his pain. But, of course, he knew such an endeavor, even as he undertook it, was bound to fail. He wrote to his friend Atticus, "My sorrow defeats all consolation."

#HeatherMcCalden @bookstodon #Cicero #Tullia #grief

pivic , 2 months ago to bookstodon

https://bookwyrm.social/book/1598738/s/the-observable-universe

TINDER MONKEY

Mark, twenty-six, is shirtless in the photo with a blue-and-white-striped towel swung over one shoulder and a monkey perched on the other. The monkey has the shriveled face of an old man, and its toothy mouth is cracked open like it's laughing, like Mark has told it the funniest joke ever, but its deft little humanlike hand is reaching out for Mark's ear like it wants to grab the ear or tear it off. Mark has no idea. He just stares into the camera grinning like a fool, the tropical sun bouncing off his perfectly capped teeth.

Every time I see one of these on Tinder my stomach churns. The idea of letting something as vile as a monkey get that close to your face is...unsavory. After all, monkeys and humans share 96 percent of the same genetic code and seeing that similarity in action is just plain uncanny. Animal behaviorists study groups of chimpanzees for insights into our own power structures and while these animals do participate in complex communities with rituals and hierarchies, they also possess a rabid barbarism. I once heard a story where a chimp ate an organ out of another smaller monkey, without killing the poor thing first-presumably because the tidbit tasted better fresh. Either that, or the bloodlust was the attraction, and well: Is that the 96 percent in action or the 4 percent? Who knows? So Mark advertising his skill with a wild primate really strikes me as the wrong message to send to potential mates.

#HeatherMcCalden #book #reading #primates @bookstodon #WilliamGibson

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

From Patricia Lockwood's introduction:

The most powerful force here is whim. A novella like Mrs Caliban might have been planned from page to page; here is the monster, here the romance, here the grand reveal. But the movement of other stories is tricksy and offhand and discovered, as if you are encountering the same surprises she did as you go. This movement requires strange lengths; it requires you to walk on, stumble, be misled even, for certain intervals, to be lulled almost into sleep. This is a little boring, isn't it, you ask, thirty pages into "Theft', as the day of the beginning darkens into night, and then all at once it becomes the least boring story in the history of the world. This happens again and again. You are lured on, past the point where you could find your way back, and finally you are not even convinced the whim is hers - the same voice is calling you both. Go on a little further, says the voice. Come this way.

#RachelIngalls #PatriciaLockwood @bookstodon

Rachel Ingalls

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

I've started to read Rachel Ingalls's short-story collection 'No Love Lost'. https://bookwyrm.social/book/1484472/s/no-love-lost

As expected, the collection is—one story is—glorious. If you've not yet read Ingalls, I envy you; her novel 'Mrs. Caliban' is one of my favourite novels.

#book #reading #fiction #RachelIngalls @bookstodon

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

Kae Tempest: ‘I used to read David Icke. Imagine that’ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/15/kae-tempest-i-used-to-read-david-icke-imagine-that

#KaeTempest #reading #books @bookstodon

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

I've reviewed Colum McCann and Diane Foley's 'American Mother': https://niklas.reviews/2024/03/15/colum-mccann-diane-foley-american-mother/

#book #books #reading #ColumMcCann #DianeFoley #JamesFoley #forgiveness #redemption @bookstodon

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

https://niklas.reviews/2024/03/13/sloane-crosley-grief-is-for-people/

I just reviewed Sloane Crosley's 'Grief is for People'. It's a wondrous ride through grief, what it is, what it's not, and how impossible it is to pin down.

#book #books #reading #SloaneCrosley @bookstodon #grief #sorrow

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

I've just reviewed Amy Lin's 'After Here', a lucid account of grief: https://niklas.reviews/2024/03/11/amy-lin-here-after/

#AmyLin #books #book #review #grief @bookstodon

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

I've reviewed Colin Barrett's 'Wild Houses': https://niklas.reviews/2024/03/01/colin-barrett-wild-houses/

Exceptional novel in the same way as always; Barrett is a singular voice in the world of current Western-English literature.

#book #reading #review #BookReview @bookstodon #ColinBarrett #fiction #Ireland

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

I just started reading Sloane Crosley's new memoir, 'Grief Is for People': https://bookwyrm.social/book/1583999/s/grief-is-for-people

6% in, it's funny and scary.

#SloaneCrosley #book #reading #memoir @bookstodon

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

https://bookwyrm.social/user/pivic/quotation/3961215

This book is excellent grief material, 3% in.

#grief #book #reading #mourning #books @bookstodon

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

Time Lived, Without Its Flow - https://bookwyrm.social/book/1582103/quote#reviews

#grief #sorrow #loss #death #book #reading @bookstodon #DeniseRiley

pivic , 3 months ago to bookstodon

'Five of the best books about grief' | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/22/five-of-the-best-books-about-grief

These may provide solace in a time of pain, sorrow, grief.

#books #reading #grief @bookstodon

pivic , 4 months ago to bookstodon

I've reviewed Joyce Carol Oates's - 'Letters to a Biographer': https://niklas.reviews/2024/02/24/joyce-carol-oates-letters/

This book collects letters from Joyce Carol Oates, one of the more popular American authors of the twentieth century, to Greg Johnson, biographer. In the introduction, Oates says she could not have ‘imagined that Greg would be my primary correspondent through most of my adult life.’ He first wrote to her in 1975 and they’ve still not stopped exchanging letters, although the introduction of email has shortened the contents of their letters, according to Johnson; this book contains a selection of letters from 1979 to 2005.

#JoyceCarolOates #GregJohnson #letters #reading #book #correspondence @bookstodon

pivic , 4 months ago to bookstodon

https://bookwyrm.social/user/pivic/generatednote/3879884

Ed Zwick's new memoir seems to be entertaining just from reading the self-deprecating start. I just started reading it, there's verve and panache.

#book #reading #EdZwick #films #Hollywood #Hollywoo @bookstodon

pivic , 4 months ago to bookstodon

‘God forbid that a dog should die’: when Goodreads reviews go bad https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/17/god-forbid-that-a-dog-should-die-when-goodreads-reviews-go-bad

Goodreads is horrible for readers and books. The technical platform is very badly maintained with bugs in the extreme. Amazon mine user data for nefarious purposes, for example, in building concentration camps (ICE).

I recommend anyone who's interested in keeping track of their books in a social way (if one wants; one can also use the platform so that nobody else can see your activity) to use Bookwyrm (https://bookwyrm.social), which is completely open-source and actively maintained by very kind people—you can host your own #Bookwyrm instance, which is BTW built on ActivePub—to whom I donate money to keep the site rolling; no ads, no tracking.

There's also The StoryGraph (https://www.thestorygraph.com) that was created by people who were fed up with Amazon and their #SurveillanceCapitalism. The system is closed-source and actively maintained.

#books #reading @bookstodon

pivic , 4 months ago to bookstodon

I've reviewed Teresa Aranguren, Sandra Barrilaro's 'Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine before the Nakba':

https://niklas.reviews/2024/02/09/arranguren-barrilaro-against-erasure/

#SevenStoriesPress #BookReview #review #nakba #Palestine #FreePalestine #book @bookstodon

pivic , 4 months ago to bookstodon

https://bookwyrm.social/user/pivic/quotation/3766134

I've started reading Aviva Chomsky's 'West Indian workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940'. Eye-opening.

#AvivaChomsky #CostaRica #capitalism #UnitedFruitCompany @bookstodon

pivic , 4 months ago to bookstodon

https://bookwyrm.social/user/pivic/generatednote/3674560

What a book, 10% in. What verve and style. What a writer.

#AliceCarriere #reading #book @bookstodon

pivic , 5 months ago to bookstodon

Finally started reading 'The Right to Rule: Thirteen Years, Five Prime Ministers and the Implosion of the Tories' by Ben Riley-Smith
https://bookwyrm.social/book/1484129/s/right-to-rule

@bookstodon #tories #labour #england #politics #BenRileySmith #book #reading

pivic , 5 months ago to bookstodon

How Standard Ebooks serves millions of requests per month with a 2 GB VPS; or, a paean to the classic web: https://alexcabal.com/posts/standard-ebooks-and-classic-web-tech

Actually, the post was written in 2022; they've since upgraded to 4 GB because of the massive footnotes in one specific book: Edward Gibbon's 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'.

#books #StandardEbooks @bookstodon #EBook

Narayoni , 5 months ago to bookstadon

They are so hilarious! Just started with Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol and I'm loving Gogol's humorous writing style 🤣

@bookstodon @bookstadon #amreading #books #reading #literature #russianliterature #nikolaigogol #deadsouls

pivic , 5 months ago to bookstodon

My 2023 StoryGraph Reading Wrap-up: https://app.thestorygraph.com/wrap-up/2023/pivic

#reading #2023 #books @bookstodon

pivic , 5 months ago to bookstodon

Nonfiction to look out for in 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/01/nonfiction-to-look-out-for-in-2024-charles-spencer-lauren-oyler-sathnam-sanghera-peter-pomerantsev-susanna-rustin-salman-rushdie

#books #reading #2024 @bookstodon

pivic , 5 months ago to bookstodon

I've just started reading a new (2023) English translation of Søren Kierkegaard's 'The Sickness Unto Death' that contains a fine introduction. https://bookwyrm.social/user/pivic/quotation/3420374#anchor-3420374

#SorenKierkegaard #philosophy @bookstodon

pivic , 5 months ago to bookstodon

https://bookwyrm.social/user/pivic/quotation/3413122

I've started reading the posthumous 'In Her Own Words' from Amy Winehouse.

#books #reading #AmyWinehouse @bookstodon

pivic , 6 months ago to bookstodon

‘It’s totally unhinged’: is the book world turning against Goodreads? https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/18/goodreads-review-bombing

I hate Goodreads. The site is just a continuation of Amazon as a surveillance capitalist nightmare, one that's never updated. Bugs are rife.

I prefer Bookwyrm and The StoryGraph:

https://bookwyrm.social
https://thestorygraph.com

#reading #goodreads #amazon #SurveillanceCapitalism #Bookwyrm #TheStoryGraph #books @bookstodon

pivic , 6 months ago to bookstodon

I've finally started reading Noam Chomsky's :chomsky: 'Fateful Triangle': https://bookrastinating.com/user/pivic/generatednote/343225#anchor-343225

#NoamChomsky #GeorgeOrwell #israel #Palestine #USA #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #war #WarCrimes #Gaza #FreePalestine @bookstodon

pivic , 6 months ago to bookstodon

Free eBook: 'From the River to the Sea': https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/500-free-e-book-from-the-river-to-the-sea

'From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine collects personal testimonies from within Gaza and the West Bank, along with essays and interviews that collectively provide crucial histories and analyses to help us understand how we got to the nightmarish present. Taken together, the texts comprising this collection provide important grounding for the urgent discussions taking place across the Palestine solidarity movement.

A collaboration between Haymarket and Verso Books, From the River to the Sea is now available to download as a FREE Ebook.

With contributions from: Reda Abu Assi, Asmaa Abu Mezied, Tawfiq Abu Shomer, Khalil Abu Yahia, Dunia Aburahma, Spencer Ackerman, Hil Aked, Yousef Al-Akkad, Jamie Allinson, Hammam Alloh, Riya Al’Sanah, Soheir Asaad, Tareq Baconi, Rana Barakat, Omar Barghouti, Sara Besaiso, Ashley Bohrer, Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, Nihal El Aasar, Mohammed El-Kurd, Sai Englert, Noura Erakat, Samera Esmeir, Rebecca Ruth Gould, Toufic Haddad, Adam Hanieh, Khaled Hroub, Rashid Khalidi, Noah Kulwin, Saree Makdisi, Ghassan Najjar, Samar Saeed, Reema Saleh, Alberto Toscano, and Eyal Weizman, alongside a number of Palestinian writers published pseudonymously.'

#HaymarketBooks #eBook #free #FreePalestine #Palestine #Gaza #israel #genocide @bookstodon

pivic , 6 months ago to bookstodon

Sarah Bakewell's 'Humanly Possible' may well be my favourite book of 2023. Here's a nice quote about the book, courtesy of Jennifer Szalai.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/books/review/critics-favorite-books-2023.html

#SarahBakewell #JenniferSzalai #book #reading @bookstodon

pivic , 6 months ago to bookstodon

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/books/review/critics-favorite-books-2023.html

Sarah Bakewell, yes!

'Sarah Bakewell’s “Humanly Possible” gives you the sense that when it comes to humans, anything is possible — for good or for ill, which is part of what gives this book its undeniable charm. Bakewell, who has also written books about existentialism and Montaigne, is so generous and resolutely open-minded. That she is able to corral seven centuries of humanist thought into a brisk and readable narrative is a real achievement, even if this new book is more diffuse than her previous work. She is honest about the limitations of humanists, who can sometimes prize thinking above action — constantly seeing both sides of a question, even when one side is promoting a cruel fanaticism.

But “Humanly Possible” is full of funny stories, too. We are limited creatures, despite our pretensions to the contrary. Bakewell discusses “On Good Manners for Boys,” in which Erasmus addressed such pressing issues as how to pass gas in polite company. The most fruitful strains of humanism recognize what we share with nonhuman animals. After Bertrand Russell was in a seaplane accident, a journalist asked what his brush with death had made him think about — mysticism, maybe? No, Russell said. “I thought the water was cold.”'

#SarahBakewell #books @bookstodon

pivic , 6 months ago to bookstodon

From 'Violence', a brilliant anthology about violence.

@bookstodon #jingoism #violence #sports