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BOOK THOUGHTS

In this time we are existing in, it gets hard to sit down and read a book. It's not a question of desire, usually. Hell we probably have a hundred books on the shelf waiting to be opened, if not at home then at the library. The difficulty is probably due to many things; like the addiction to T.V./Social Media, or the experiences we have in school when books are associated with passing tests more than they are associated with learning for learning's sake and creative thinking. Reading can seem like a boring chore. But once you seriously get into it, it reveals itself to be a joyful practice. Read about something you enjoy! That's the number one trick. I've found books to be a way to calm my mind and focus on just one train of thought for a time. A subtle stream of stimulus as compared to the tsunami of scrolling through Twitter. It helps your eye not twitch as much. Plus you always can learn something in a book, good or bad of course. Each one is a different way of seeing the world, and those different perspectives I find really help me understand humanity clearer. And the practice of getting out of our own perspective for a change does wonders for fighting the ego and anxiety.

 

Every so often we manage to pick up a new book and start reading. And this page is where you can find our thoughts, favorite quotes, and synopses of what we are reading lately.

  • Substack
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by H.G. Wells, 1895

The stories of H.G.Wells are rich and captivating worlds where he makes the unfathomable seem plausible. Wells uses concepts from the sciences readily in his writing as a base of reality. In The Time Machine our protagonist has just transformed physics forever by creating a vehicle that can fold and traverse spacetime. 

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by George Orwell, 1931-1946

In these essays Orwell tackles the psychology of writing and also offers his expert analysis about the politics of his time. 'The Lion and the Unicorn' is an insightful Socialist work that has many lessons that are still applicable today.

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by Elizabeth Kolbert, 2014

Elizabeth Kolbert has written a book here that I think has as its main goal improving understanding on our current age; the Anthropocene. An epoch that, as I understand it, started when 'one weedy species' (Homosapiens) began to destroy/rearrange our environment at a level that elapsed harmony and started endangering other living things.

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by James Baldwin, 1974

They have truly loved each other since they were kids. The real drama in the story is whether the world is gonna love them back and let them be together. Whether they'll get lucky or not, because it takes luck not to get fucked over by a system that's built to exclude you.

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by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, 2017

Conceptualizing how the universe works and formed is not easy. Tyson is making it as understandable as I’m sure anyone could. Still, to mentally visualize things like photons bumping into electrons, and that being what creates all the matter of the universe… it's hard.

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by Ling Ma, 2018

I heard this book was eerily predictive of our current COVID era; virus from China, travel bans, mass death, fake news, N95 mask mandates. Plus, there is an apocalypse plot. So of course, I had to read it.

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