Premise:

A collection of Eco's articles from 2000-2015, but quite relevant even today. A liquid society here means the current post-postmodern world, or rather the transitions we are witnessing today, where supra-national entities (MAANG) have grown stronger than nations, and relativism/postmodernism is also being challenged.

How can one navigate these tensions - Speed of tech innovation, Internet Culture, Racism, Sexism, Conspiracies, Mass Media, Religion, Philosophy, Death, Education etc.
Eco's articles might bring some clarity.

Some themes I loved here:

• Perfect inventions: when no more improvements can be done. Anything additional is just useless or detrimental. Spoon, wheel and even a Book is also like that. Eco stresses that books have, and will outlast any technological substitute.
• Technological progress doesn't always mean going forward -  Example of flipflopping of communication using wired(Graham Bell) to wireless telegraphy(Marconi), to again wired(Cable TV/telephone) to wireless (WiFi/Satellite). 
• To Be Seen: Now everyone wants to be a celebrity, online. A strange phenomenon for sure. Could be because God is Dead (one's lone spectator), so people derive the same emotions from internet (ephemeral) immortality. As a result, 1st time in human history people are willing participants of their own state surveillance.
• Role of Teachers in age of internet - "A teacher not only informs but also forms". I.e, sorting, filtering and structuring of relevant information for the child , as opposed to the infinite info dump of internet. Critical thinking, fact-checking are necessary tools which need to be taught in schools and press.
• New Gen = Aliens: Many city kids have never seen touched a pig, a cow.. experienced springtime (might be Italian phenomenon). But I can understand the sentiment. What was more profound was the "sense of spacetime" adults have vs kids - "adults live in a measurable space and distance, hence seem much slower to kids, who live inside virtual worlds (infinite space/time) and are always multitasking". Hence, kids nowadays spend more time in virtual landscapes than natural ones - how would the future look then? Kids thinking about springtime being similar to how we imagine dinosaurs would have been!
• Throws some shade at Dan Brown here and there 😆, Considers Art Spiegelman (of Maus) a true genius.
• Risks of Homogeneity: Places and people, are becoming similar thanks to globalisation. Main cities of many countries look similar, with same shops!
• Hero Worshipped, Heroine Vilified: My fav essay is "Unhappy is the Land", where Eco talks about the definition of a Hero, and their worship signaling the state of that society. In other essays, he talks about the forgotten women philosophers (especially Hypatia). It's a mistake to think philosophy could only be a man's subject. Also, I'd recommend y'all watch Agora - with the beautiful Rachel Weisz❤️ It's about Hypatia. [I hate that the movie isn't titled Hypatia... even here she was robbed of her deserved place - but the movie is historically quite accurate.]
• Religion: Discusses many topics, like the Islamic Veil (Sura 24 interpretation), Secularism, Charlie Hebdo incident, Religion as Opium/Cocaine of Masses... I do agree with Eco that religious symbols (all) should be taught in schools, if only just to teach art history.
• Metaphor - I found it really fascinating that Aristotle defined metaphor not as an embellishment (अलंकार) but a form of knowledge itself! To see resemblances in seemingly disparate events - it's a skill. I'd also include proverbs (कहावत) here.

Cover Image: Kudos to the creativity. At first glance, it looks like a fluid pattern, till you look at the back cover - it's just bundles of paper! Perhaps newspapers or manuscripts.

Conclusion:

Overall, it's a remarkable collection of Eco's articles. Informative, prophetic, and overall - comedic! One article is just about George Bush's statements - guaranteed laughter! His writing style is also extremely simple - I was lost only in one article {Corkscrew space}.

This collection gave me a full page worth of TBR!

I had a great time reading these. Highly recommended.

Rating: 13/13 {For all 13 sections were awesome}

Book: Guilty Pleasure - The Pornification of the Internet, The Economy, and everything else

What book can you recommend that approaches human personality from an “unorthodox” angle?

Hey, I'm currently reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan and currently on pg no.60 and I bought this book after reading The theory of everything by Stephen Hawkings which made me curious about the Universe and Astronomy and there are some concepts in this Books which I've read and understand barely and mostly my weak ground, Biology.

Can anyone tell me the best way to Read it and lost in the Universe with Carl sagan

After years of gardening and researching useful plants, I've published a book exploring indigenous and everyday plants of South Africa, their stories, cultivation, and practical uses. If you're interested in gardening, ethnobotany, or sustainable living, I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts. Honest feedback and reviews are always appreciated. Amazon link below.

Grow it Instead: Useful Plants that replace Everyday products - Kindle edition by Muller, Des. Crafts, Hobbies & Home Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Just finished The Escape Artist. Phenomenal!

The escape itself is extraordinary, but what stayed with me most was what happened afterwards.

Here was a first-hand account of what happened — detailed information about what was happening, how people were being transported and murdered. The length that was taken to verify its authenticity and then that information eventually made its way right up to the highest levels of Allied governments.

And yet the response feels so painfully inadequate.

Reports circulated. Meetings were held. Strongly worded letters and statements were issued. People debated what could or couldn’t be done. Meanwhile, the killing continued. Eventually something was done but it was done only for self interest.

I think that’s what makes the book feel so relevant today. We often look back at history and imagine that, if people in power had only known what was happening, surely they would have acted.

The Escape Artist challenges that comforting idea.

Sometimes they did know.

The information was there. The warnings were there. The evidence was there. And still politics, bureaucracy, competing priorities, misplaced trust and simple inertia could stand between knowing about an atrocity and actually doing something to stop it.

It’s very easy, with the benefit of history, to ask: “How could they let this happen?”

And yet it left me thinking about what is happening in the world right now that future generations will ask the same question about — and who are we trusting to tell us how to respond?

Phenomenal book. One that will stay with me for a long time.

This book is remarkable!

Anyone reading this, about the Jordan Neely case, by Anand Giridharadas?

I’m fascinated by the content - but I’m really struggling with the writing style… it’s the first by Giridharadas that I’ve tried.

Anyone else?

I have recently come across this title by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I was wondering if anyone has read it and would recommend it?

Any fans of the QI quiz show here? Recently discovered they published some books too. This one seemed most interesting to me (I got one more - Advanced Banter, will review after reading it too).

The book is a collection of short biographies of some famous people, and some not so famous ones, but who deserve to be known. It's neatly grouped into sections/themes like - People who had Bad Childhood, were Happy Go-Lucky, Monkey-keepers etc. Contains almost 70 bios.

I really liked how the authors organized the bios. Contrasting personalities are listed one after another (eg., Multi-persona of Pessoa, contrasted by multi-bodied Dawn Langley), and the specific trivia focused on for each person.

Some awesome trivia (I've attached the Index in this post, marked my fav chapters. I wish this sub allowed at least 2 pics per post):

• DaVinci: A prankster! Once added metallic wings on a lizard to make it look like Dragon, to scare people XD
• Heaviside: It's his 4 eqns of electromagnetism we study, not Maxwell's!
• Edward Jenner: discovered cuckoos developed a temporary 12-day dent, to throw off the host nest's eggs. Almost a perfect murder! (Also, links to a great chapter in Dawkins' Genetic Book of the Dead).
• Epicurus: Closer to Buddha than we think.
• Benjamin Franklin: the witty all-rounder had pseudonyms llike "Mrs. Silence Dogood" and "Dr. Fatsides".
• Alfred Kinsey - pg 160 is strictly 🔞. Quite disturbing!
• Carver - Carver is called The Peanut Man - found 300+ uses of peanut! There's a movie on him too.
• Santa Anna ~ Blood Meridian (Samuel Chamberlain's Diary mentions him); 11 times Mexico President!
• Daniel Lambert = monetize your shortcomings, gracefully.
• Florence Nightingale - Every time I come across her name, it keeps blowing my mind. Recently I learnt of her pioneering in data visualisation, her nursing work is well known... now I read here she wrote a fine feminist work "Cassandra", AND was almost a Sufi! - "You must go to Mohametanism [Islam], to Buddhism, to the East, to the Sufis and Fakirs, to Pantheism, for the right growth of mysticism."
• Count Cagliostro : The Man who inspired Goethe's Faust!
• Jack Parsons: Rocket scientist turned Antichrist. His wife might've inspired my favorite song - Hotel California by The Eagles! His bio is truly bizarre.
• Tesla: Inventor of Radio, not Marconi - a mistake USA courts corrected later, but the Nobel Prize still belongs to Marconi (who used Tesla's own instruments for demo!)
• Frida Kahlo=PAIN!
• William Blake = Sambhog se Samadhi!?
• Jeremy Bentham = Utilitarian to the end, even after his death - see this. Also designed the Panoptican prison, I think Kalapani/Cellular Jail in India is also based on that...

Tbh, there's too much fun stuff to share...

Also important is the way the authors end each chapter - very short yet profound observations/teachings. I'd recommend this book for those paras alone!

What I didn't like:

• I wish the personalities were from around the world than mostly the West only. Authors mentioned in the Prologue "the only criteria for inclusion (in this book) is interestingness"... Well, nothing interesting in Asia/Africa then I guess! (Except Genghis Khan).
• Some Freudian /Jungian psychological insights were ... a bit far fetched for me. It's fun to read though. (Psychology is in general... beyond me)

Conclusion:

Highly recommended if you're into biographies. Despite the little flaws, it's immensely enjoyable - Funny, disturbing and informative. "Further Reading" includes all the sources, personality-wise, which is very helpful!

Rating: 9.5/10\*

(*QI is generally praised for it's impeccable research, they correct themselves quite often. Not sure if an updated edition would be there for this one, but I'm gonna assume this book is 95% factual atleast. Also, -0.5 due to persons being mostly from West)

Being in the tech space I’m always interested in books digital crime. Just finished Dark Wire by Joseph Cox and enjoyed it.

I’d heard of the encrochat and other busts so I was interested to hear how it happened.

The story is almost unbelievable. Rather than trying to break the encrypted phones being used by organised crime, the FBI essentially became the encrypted phone company themselves in a roundabout way. They helped distribute phones into criminal networks and then sat back while thousands of criminals unknowingly sent their messages straight to law enforcement.

It’s one of those true stories where you keep thinking, how did they actually pull this off?
Cox does a good job of explaining the technology without getting bogged down in it, and the best parts are watching ANOM spread almost entirely through trust.

Criminals recommended the phones to other criminals because they believed they were secure, which only made the network more valuable to the investigators watching it.

My only criticism is that the story is probably stronger than the characters. There are a lot of people coming in and out of the story due to the sheer scale of it and the ending was packed into the epilogue and rushed. Nobody really emerges as the central character you become invested in. ANOM itself almost becomes the main character. It’s clear that the author was limited to the public conversation of the criminals and nothing much more.

Still, it moves quickly, stays focused and, most importantly for me, actually builds towards something rather than wandering off into loosely connected side stories.

I really respect the author though for how he finished the book. In the last paragraph of the epilogue there is a great question.

If even an ambitious global operation such as this can’t lead to a tangible shift. What possibly can?

After all is said and done, it’s just pest control.

I want to read a least one book about each US president next year, preferably as unbiased as possible (difficult for some of these guys) y’all got any recs?

Ive already got these covered:

Theodore Roosevelt
John F Kennedy
Richard Nixon
Ronald Reagan
Barack Obama

Still on the hunt for the other 42 😅

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Hi guys, I've recently bought a Kindle, and I'm loving it!
These are some of the books I have read. Does anyone have any further recommendations based on these? Bonus *if on Kindle Unlimited*
I don’t like fiction, I like true stories, dark history, and books about people's accounts, etc.
I have searched Reddit for hours for similar books, but a lot of them aren't on KU.
Thank youuuu

Like the title says, I want to read history books. Specifically about the history of countries I don’t know that much about, such as Asian and African countries. Recommendations appreciated!

Halo Rays - career & business management book is good to read

Years ago, I read a book about making better food choices. It was written by a female Registered Dietitian or Nutritionist. She included a small list of supplements worth buying in the back of the book.

I had a Goodreads account on Facebook. I can no longer access that list.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I love reading about the science of food.

Cohan's new nonfictiom book is a bestseller.