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^ Great author. I have not read this book yet but I have a whole collection of Arendt's work.

Right now I am reading this. It was a present from my better half and I have almost read the whole book. It is entertaining and it seems I have a lot in common with Murakami. e.g. he started running with 33, I started with 30, relatively young but a lot older than usual.

Though I own the German edition.

ivanovnegro wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 01, 2021 11:00 pm

^ Great author. I have not read this book yet but I have a whole collection of Arendt's work.

It's a good book indeed, but I prefer Simone Weil and Etty Hillesum if I had to pick like-minded thinkers. Anyway, I am going to watch Margarethe von Trotta's film about Arendt soon.

What there is a movie and I missed it? Will be put on the watch list.

^ I watched it yesterday. It's almost entirely dedicated to the book I posted above, so you may want to read that first. The film is interesting, but I would not recommend it to someone not accustomed to Arendt's work.

Just finished Awaiting God by Simone Weil, and it was absolutely incredible, and I am saying this as a man who is not that hot on Christianity (but hey, Kierkegaard blasted me away too, so what do I know about religion anyway?)

Now I don't know, I ordered Pensées by Blaise Pascal and Critique of Judgment by Immanuel Kant but I am going to keep them on the shelf for now, because I want some fiction.

I gave Matt Haig's The Midnight Library I try but it didn't click for me. I may return to David Foster Wallace, but I also have Renata Adler's The Speedboat and Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle ready on the Kindle. I'll pick randomly, as usual.

^ I have Weil's Oppression and Liberty waiting for me.

One of the most obnoxious books I've ever read. An Italian writer who teaches writing (or creative writing, if you will) shares his thoughts on how impossible it is to teach proper writing and what a writer wannabe should do. I agree with his points (read a lot, write every single day, look for opinions from other writers wannabe and not just your family and friends, join an online magazine, etc.), but he writes with this kind of bigger brother smirk, you know the one who always does things better than you and make a show out of it with your parents? That one.

Almost done with it, and being a Wallace fan I loved it.

Next I'll go with a long overdue approach to the whole Divine Comedy. I got a splendid critical edition at a cheap price and good conditions.

Very unusually for me I am reading a book!
Working my way slowly through this, which I found in the kids bookshelf.

GekkoP wrote: ↑

Thu May 06, 2021 9:44 am

Next I'll go with a long overdue approach to the whole Divine Comedy. I got a splendid critical edition at a cheap price and good conditions.

This is blowing my mind off, but maybe a bit of context can help understand why I am reading this.

In Italy's high schools, over the span of five years you focus on two classics in particular: two years for Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed and three years of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Now, in my case the first two years with Manzoni were incredible. The teacher was this splendid woman enamoured with literature and, contrary to the rest of the class, I ended up in love with this book*. However, we had a different teacher for Alighieri and he, being a complete idiot and a pervert always staring at teenage girls, decided not to teach us Alighieri but to keep on with generic lessons on Italian literature. He was one of the reason it took me a while to go back to study something, by the way. Anyway, I didn't learn about Alighieri's masterpiece back then, but I swore to myself that one day I'd grab my copy and read it. So here we go, and it's the right time too, because philosophy helps a lot with this incredible book.

* I even played the part of Don Rodrigo in a small school play. No comment on this, though.

Thank you for sharing, nice story.

Yes, thanks, I hope to one day have time, lust and serenity of mind to one day sit down and read the Divine Comedy.

(It will probably never happen though, due to lack of the above mentioned.) :(

@Wux
Wrong version. Replace it with this. :-P

^ I read that at 20 or so, after several attempts. I think I remember all the motorbike bits (altitude adjustment and stuff) but not a lot else. My 14 yo is apparently trying to read it also, in between fanfic mashups or whatever they are called.

Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle is short and morbid. If you fancy that good ol' Poe charismatic tension, grab it.

^ Wow. There is of course a book about her. :)