Bunch of ebooks about programming (html5,css3,javascript,php7,mysql, frameworks) and music production. I have books on photoshop but I haven’t read them.
Oh and they are all in English. In short, if you read the programming manuals in Russian, you can break your head. English is much easier!
My non-fiction tends to not usually be very practical. Tends to be physics, astrophysics and history. Which…I mean…I do tend to use practically, but not on a daily basis.
I finished Dhalgren in April, as well. I admit for the first half I was sort of wondering what the point to it all was… but the last half – especially the last couple of hundred pages – were amazing.
Like, you had to read 500 pages to get to that point, and it wouldn’t have worked without all that preamble, but if you made it that far, it suddenly starts to feel really profound.
A work of somewhat-flawed genius.
Recommended to anyone who likes to be challenged, is prepared to allow themselves to be confused, will accept or enjoy gratuitous gender-indiscriminate sex and is patient enough to read 500 pages of at-least-interesting stuff to get to the “oh, wow, yeah” bits.
Also helps to understand what it represented at the time. From one review: “a molotov cocktail thrown at the police line of contemporary SF”.
As suggested from another review: “put on some King Crimson/Iron Butterfly and just power through.”
A collection of interconnected short-stories about people living in an imaginary village settlement in Northern Israel. The stories revolve around disintegrating families, death and the general loss of meaning in life. It’s amazingly well written, full of genuine human insight and wonder.
Currently reading:
The Gulag Archipelago - the abridged version, fuck reading 1600 pages. Slowly working my way through it. A bit grim but sobering stuff. Been a bit on and off with this one.
Happy by Derren Brown - a very good book on the philosophy and history of happiness, the Stoics, Epicureans and how religion played into it all etc. Started reading a year ago and stopped, but recently working through it when I get a moment.
Jason Thimothy seems to think that electronic music producers are ignorant dumb-asses, who are somehow unable to reach normal levels of common sense. I would not be surpriced if his book contains a chapter about how he has invented a style of eating that involves placing food in concave ceramic vessels.
The guy in the second video is cool, though. I’m tempted to buy the Ableton book he mentions. Thanks
Unless you specifically want a physical copy, it’s available online for free:
Other great books on the topic (psychology of creating things): The War of Art, Do the Work, Turning Pro - all by Pressfield, Deep Work by Cal Newport, and Art and Fear by Bayles and Orland.
“Gently Whispered: Oral Teachings by the Very Venerable Kalu Rinpoche”. Was given to me as a gift from a patient when working at a hospital after school, just recently started reading it after a very long time. Interesting with some depths.
Yeah, we read our last (my wife and I both) a few years back…it was bittersweet indeed. Just out of curiosity…are you reading them out of order? Cause The Shepard’s Crown was published after Raising Steam.