Puttering About in a Small Land (Dick) This book is another of Philip K Dicks early, unpublished literary books. I think they generally get better as they go, and this one was pretty darn good. Dick has an interesting way of making his characters, which is almost hard to describe. They’re almost like characters from Elizabethan theatre at times - with dialog that’s unrealistic, but which accurately reflects real sentiments. The hardest thing about Dick’s non-scifi novels is that they’re so relentlessly bleak. I don’t mind sad books, but it’s almost like there’s a missing color from his palette. I think of his best books involving a bent sort of hope, or at least humor, which doesn’t really show up in this book.
Proving Grounds (Kirsch) This is a very very dry history of Project Plowshares. If you want to research that topic, there’s some good stuff here. But, it’s not a light read.
Why Information Grows (Hidalgo) A fun book on Hidalgo’s theory of economics and trade as manifestations of energy, entropy, and information. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Time Out of Joint (Dick) As you may have noticed, I’ve been reading through Philip K Dick in order (based on wikipedia’s Dick bibliography). I would say this book is the first really excellent science fiction novel he wrote. I wonder if it wasn’t the first really intellectually ambitious sci fi novel he wrote. It’s an early version of the science fiction trope where a man lives in a constructed reality, but the explanation for why he’s there is very clever and interesting. Highly recommended!
Eccentric Orbits (Bloom) A fantastic history of the Iridium Satellite system, and how it was saved from disaster. This book is a sort of combination of science history and business history. It’s very long and detailed, with a lot of different characters taking the stage at times, but enjoyable the whole way through.
Reacher-Said-Nothing on August 13rd, 2017 at 16:43 UTC »
“Does he offend you?”
“He’s betraying his country. Which is also mine.”
“Do you love your country, Mr. Reacher?”
“Major Reacher.”
“Perhaps that answers my question.”
“I prefer to think of it as healthy yet skeptical respect.”
“Not very patriotic.”
“Exactly patriotic. My country, right or wrong. Which means nothing, unless you admit your country is wrong sometimes. Loving a country that was right all the time would be common sense, not patriotism.”
nowhereman136 on August 13rd, 2017 at 15:17 UTC »
"The Difference Between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does , and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does ; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility while the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to a war ." - Sydney J Harris
MoshikoKasoom on August 13rd, 2017 at 14:32 UTC »
His face at the end was creepy as fuck