Books

This time we read and discussed Andrew Joseph White's debut adult novel (he has written several youth oriented books prior to this) You Weren't Meant To Be Human - there's content warnings with this book, it is brutal and punishing but its also an important read I think.

Available here or wherever you get your podcasts from (but not Spotify) - as always no ads, no sponsors, no gen AI.

I just finished this book today and I often like to read about how popular works inspired others. Internet searches give me 1000 results for what inspired Christie, but basically nothing for what this book inspired. I could name several, the movie "The Commuter" , the game "The Last Express", the "Knives Out" series, and the Adventure Time episode "Mystery Train".

I'd love to know more works inspired by hers, or any general thoughts anyone would like to share on the book ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )

Let's discuss unique books. What is the first one that comes to your mind? The uniqueness can be about the book's plot, structure, ideas, themes, topics etc.

For me such a book is Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. It's been a while since I've read it but I remember how mindblowing it was for me. Every time I thought it couldn't surprise me more, it actually did. There's a bit of everything there: peculiar characters, a substance called ice-nine that can freeze water on contact (as humans are around 60% water, it can instantly kill them), a fictional religion called Bokononism based on the idea that human life has no absolute truth or meaning, a tiny island nation with its own bizarre world. All of these come together to show us a satire of the absurdity of humanity.

As for a unique book structure, I have to say it's Cain's Jawbone by Edward Mathers. It's a kind of puzzle book where pages are not in order and you need to arrange them in order to guess whodunnit. I haven't finished this one yet but it's a cool challenge.

I see a lot of "whats your favorite books" but not "whats your favorite book covers"? I want to see books that have TERRIBLE story but you bought just because the cover was amazing. Or you just liked them.

I'm just in a bad reading slump currently and trying to get out of it. Usually when this happens I would take a break then read something again but this time I feel like I don't need a break from reading, I simply need a book so striking that it will fully engross me. Looking forward to your suggestions!

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/27795833

In a study published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making, 1,682 adults were asked to read one of six short stories, three of which were written by humans and three by ChatGPT. Each AI story had a similar theme to one of the human-authored works.

The team told participants whether their story was written by a human or AI, but this information was not always correct. The researchers then asked participants to rate how absorbing and engaging they found the story, and its quality.

Participants who read an AI-generated story rated it as more absorbing and of higher quality than those who read a story written by a human. However, participants gave higher ratings to stories they had been told were written by people.

Dr Deena Skolnick Weisberg, a senior author of the research from Villanova University in Pennsylvania, said: “AI systems can already generate short stories that are seen as being at least as good as – if not better than – human-written stories. We should update our views of AI’s abilities accordingly.”

However, Weisberg, who is herself a creative writer, said that did not mean writing should be left to AI, noting that novels produced by tech were probably going to be different from those written by humans.

“We may need to make room for AI-generated novels, and for AI/human co-written novels, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no longer space for us to appreciate the process of human creativity,” she said.

Excluding textbooks for classes, I bought this for ~$300 (several several years ago as a special treat)

Most of my collection is thrifted/bought from garage sales (for a quarter to a dollar usually) but I do have a handful of nicer ones.

Link for There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury (written May 1950)

Finished When Moon Hits the Eye by John Scalzi.

The book is divided so that each chapter is a new day, and it's from perspective of new people. So there is no story of certain people, rather it's about the "event" and we see things from different people's point of view throughout the book.

I didn't know that, so it took some getting used to, but once I had come to terms with that it was a very interesting book.

Highly recommended for soft sci-fi fans.

What about all of you, what have you been reading or listening to lately?

Check Official Bingo Challenge Post and the accompanying Recommendations Post for our Bingo for 2026!

I wrote a quick history of the book publisher DAW, and how I recently became a collector of their classic sci-fi. Now with those newfangled pictures!

This is probably asked here a lot so i apologise. Almost every day i think about siting down, and having a nice read, but i just dont know how to find the books i like.

Caveats: it must be a single book, published on its own under a single title. Within, it can be a series of essays, or poems, or whatever.

I'm already anticipating many people adding the obvious ones: The Little Prince, Of Mice and Men, The Lorax, The Grinch, Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #141, etc.

Really, I'm curious about the obscure, rarely read, short books that caught you unaware — but LANDED.

e.g.

The first book of this kind, for me, was Indignez Vous! (Time for Outrage) by Stéphane Hessel. It is 32 pages. In its time, about 2011, it said a lot of things I needed to hear and hoped others wanted to say. If I remember it correctly at all, it's grown more relevant with time.

The latest book of this kind, for me, is the Burnout Society by Byung Chul-Han. Finishing it tonight, at 51 pages, I've re-read it twice already.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/technology@lemmy.world/p/2250460/company-offering-printed-books-to-train-ai-stops-after-404-media-coverage

Citing backlash, ISBNdb removed its webpages about training AI, denied ever buying, scanning, or selling a book for AI training, and said the site was a "test of market interest."

And, why do we do this to ourselves?

I have two copies of:

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

• Small Island by Andrea Levy

• Thinking Clearly by Jill Leblanc

These are due to integration between my partner's books and my own.

• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

• No Logo by Naomi Klein

• Island by Aldous Huxley

These are because they are some of my favourite books and, except for No Logo, I have one hardcover and one softcover edition.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/73048134

Artificial intelligence labs are in a new arms race to buy up millions of rare books, slicing them open, scanning the pages and pulping the remains — sparking concerns that the last remaining copies of out-of-print texts are being destroyed on an industrial scale.

ISBNdb notes that “print books from the pre-LLM era are structurally guaranteed to be free of this contamination”.

“Millions of the most valuable books have never been digitised. They exist only in physical form, scattered across library shelves, used bookstores, and out-of-print catalogues. We get them to you at scale.”

I have started reading Climbing the Mountain My Search for Meaning by Kirk Douglas.

I picked it up at first because thought it was just another celebrity autobiography. But this one is different. Kirk goes over what it like to be Jewish and his search for his spirituality.

The problem is with how things are going in Gaza I am having hard time sympathizing with the Israeli the way written in this book. Further more I wonder how he would feel about it all if he was alive today?

Anyway 134 pages in and when he mentions the name Bibi Netanyahu I stopped and found it hard to breath. He doesn't go in detail about the man but just passing note he wrote as he writing about a lunch he had with Prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. As someone feels strongly that Israeli is committing genocide and Palestine should be set free, not sure I should finish said novel.

What would you do if your over halfway through a book that is interesting but then troublesome at same time?

Reading When Moon Hits the Eye by John Scalzi.

What about all of you, what have you been reading or listening to lately?

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I've been going to a queer book club, and we're currently looking for books with trans characters to read next month.

Ideally we'd like a standalone book (not part of a series), and a story where trans identity is a significant part of it.

Thank you :)

A bet between God and the Devil.
A shrewdness beyond comprehension to the mind of a man.
A tragedy.

If only this were the case, the oldest of all stories of Christianity, then Goethe probably wouldn't have ventured to write Faust.

Faust is a blueprint. A blueprint of tragedy that an intellectual, curious, and rigorous philosopher may have to navigate in his life.

At the beginning, when we meet Faust the polymath, he was in Loevinger’s Ego Development Stage 4/5 (Self-Questioning/Individualist/Pluralist). The notions of reality and truth are fractured, yet not in complete disharmony. We can find the evidence for it in Scene IV:

This life of earth, whatever my attire, Would pain me in its wonted fashion. Too old am I to play with passion; Too young, to be without desire.

and,

The God that in my breast is owned Can deeply stir the inner sources; The God, above my powers enthroned, He cannot change external forces. So, by the burden of my days oppressed, Death is desired, and Life a thing unblest!

This stage comes with acute existential dread and distress, as Goethe portrayed them so faithfully.

We need to make a clear distinction here. This distress is not the work of the Devil. Every sincere person, at some point in their life, must stomach this. In consensus, Christianity allows free will; therefore, free exploration of knowledge is allowed. With that exploration, considering the depth and breadth a philosopher may navigate, comes obvious distress.

At this lowest of the moments, Faust made a pact with Mephistopheles. Here, we can see the brilliance of Faust's mind. While Mephistopheles wanted to give all possible earthly pleasure in return for his soul, Faust's counter-offer was to forfeit his soul only when he is content. And if you consider his state of mind at this point, bringing contentment to him is a formidable task, even for Mephistopheles— if Mephistopheles is a man.

But Mephistopheles is no man. While a man, with his short span of life, and probably by the very architecture of our mind, cannot help thinking from the perspective where we are the centre of everything. This egocentrism is the Devil's playground. He runs a whole gamut of tests on all of our feelings to catch us off guard:

MEPHISTOPHELES
Yes, thou findest that unpleasant! Thou hast the moral right to cry me "shame!" at present. One dares not that before chaste ears declare, Which chaste hearts, notwithstanding, cannot spare; And, once for all, I grudge thee not the pleasure Of lying to thyself in moderate measure.

Indeed, he is right when he declares:

MEPHISTOPHELES
Poor Son of Earth, how couldst thou thus alone Have led thy life, bereft of me?

For he is the first rebel in the Bible, and he, also, is the scapegoat for all our dubitable actions.

But Mephistopheles is an egoist too. Soon, it became a chess match of ego. In every turn, one superseding another's strategy. Although by narrow means, Faust conquered all the traps and lures. You may disagree with me on this point. But this conquering happens in such a bloody, agonising way that it often may feel like a defeat.

We can see their battle externalised in Walpurgis Night:

Tell me, if we still are standing,
Or if further we're ascending?
All is turning, whirling, blending,
Trees and rocks with grinning faces,
Wandering lights that spin in mazes,
Still increasing and expanding!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Grasp my skirt with heart undaunted! Here a middle–peak is planted, Whence one seeth, with amaze, Mammon in the mountain blaze.

First, we find Faust's mind-bending philosophical investigation being externalised by a metaphor of Will-O-Wisp.

Then we see the satanic promise of remedy, but not through philosophy, but through materialism, by promising Mammon's treasure.

Despite every attempt, despite a tragic end, we can see Faust keeping his intellectual sovereignty intact. A prime example of this is when Gretchen, the innocent lover of Faust, asked him about his faith; he replied:

FAUST
My darling, who shall dare "I believe in God!" to say? Ask priest or sage the answer to declare, And it will seem a mocking play, A sarcasm on the asker.

This is not a lack of faith, but a sincerity. A sincerity that the person should show if his faith or belief is not handed down to him and accepted as is.

Faust was right in thinking that Mephistopheles, indeed, cannot make him content. No worldly pleasure (or, even woe) can deter him, ultimately, from the philosophical distress of his soul, a tragedy most intimate, a tragedy wrought in his soul, which no diversion can touch.

It was a stalemate, at least, at the end of this book.

How do you manage the same book with different editions in Calibre? (Like US, UK, Illustrated, Portuguese Translated, ...)

I think they should all belong to the same folder, but that's not how Calibre works. Is there any way to keep books organized after "Save to Disk"? (I use Kavita)