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Reading Paper Books


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2021 Jun 27, 8:34pm   29,923 views  239 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (60)   💰tip   ignore  

In my early retirement, I've decided to read at least an hour a night in real paper books. So far, I've read:

- my dad's old college English book (always felt I needed to improve my grammar)
- Candide by Voltaire
- Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche
- The Politics by Aristotle

Now I'm reading The Prince by Machiavelli, and really enjoying it. One tip: before invading, look for minorities who will help you because they resent the traditional rulers in their own country. They may in fact invite you in to help them overthrow their own country. This makes me think that the Chinese have read The Prince and are using BLM, gays, and militant feminism as allies in their fight against America.

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198   gabbar   2023 Nov 20, 2:01am  

https://archive.org/details/fasting-the-ultimate-diet-with-bonus-book-fasting-as-a-way-of-life

Fasting The Ultimate Diet by Alan Cott. Also available as paperbook on Amazon. Everyone should consider reading this one, imho
199   RWSGFY   2023 Nov 20, 7:51am  

NuttBoxer says

Still struggling through Ulysses, but the more I read it, the more I like Joyce and his unique style. Although I must say I am stumped after listening to The Dubliners sing about fighting against England, and comparing that to the stories I hear about Ireland today. What the fuck happened..?


They cucked out. Don't even speak their native language anymore.
200   Patrick   2023 Nov 20, 8:47pm  

I agree.

The Irish should speak only in Irish to each other.

Iceland retains its own language even though everyone there knows English. So it can be done.
201   gabbar   2023 Nov 20, 11:34pm  

Patrick says

The Irish should speak only in Irish to each other.

This will serve as an anti-dote to wokeism
202   HeadSet   2023 Nov 21, 7:31am  

Patrick says

The Irish should speak only in Irish to each other.

Which "Irish" is that? In the old days, an "Irish" from County Cork spoke a language different enough from an "Irish" from County Kerry as to be mutually unintelligible.
203   RWSGFY   2023 Nov 21, 8:42am  

HeadSet says

Patrick says


The Irish should speak only in Irish to each other.

Which "Irish" is that? In the old days, an "Irish" from County Cork spoke a language different enough from an "Irish" from County Kerry as to be mutually unintelligible.


There must be a standard Irish, methinks. Germans have many dialects but standard German is a thing.
204   Patrick   2023 Nov 22, 3:01pm  

There is a standard Irish which is taught in schools and used in official documents.

I threw a good five years into learning Irish, even studying a bit on Inisheer (Irish: Inis Oírr). The three main dialects are mutually intelligible and people converse across them all the time. The fourth dialect is Scottish Gaelic, which is not really a separate language from Irish, though the Scots would like to think so. It's further removed, but I've read that any Irish speaker needs only about a week to get a pretty good understanding of Scottish. I can get parts of it myself.

The Irish colonized Scotland about the same time that the Angles and Saxons were moving into England, like 700 AD. This is why Scottish Gaelic exists. The Irish brought it there.
205   Patrick   2023 Nov 25, 5:38pm  

Someone left this book out on the street nearby for free with other household items for anyone to pick up, so I've been reading it at night before going to sleep. I've been interested in Locke since learning that he was one of the inspirations for the American founding fathers. He even repeatedly refers to "Life, liberty, and estate", which is not exactly the same as the Constitution, but close.

His English is pretty long, twisty, and verbose, but then he was writing in about 1690. I have to read some things several times, but I can mostly get it.

This edition copyright 1937, printed in 1952.


207   HeadSet   2023 Dec 17, 2:59pm  

Patrick says





And this cartoon came out decades ago.
208   Patrick   2023 Dec 20, 3:18pm  

Sort of finished the Locke, Berkeley, and Hume book above. Their English is so verbose and twisty that it was too painful to really read it all. Glad I tried though, because I got an impression of all three of them into my head. Locke was totally one of the founders of the US whether he knew it or not. The Constitution is clearly quoting him at times.

Found another interesting book at a free bookshelf around here, so I've started that now:



Heard about Plutarch many times, so it will be interesting to read his little biographies of many people of ancient history. He's said to be very entertaining.
210   AmericanKulak   2023 Dec 31, 11:12pm  

Patrick says


Found another interesting book at a free bookshelf around here, so I've started that now:

Wait until you get into the Livia conspiracy or is that in Cassius Dio?

You'll LOVE The History of Rome podcast


211   Patrick   2024 Jan 1, 8:16pm  

AmericanKulak says

You'll LOVE The History of Rome podcast


@AmericanKulak

Do you mean this one? https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/
212   AmericanKulak   2024 Jan 1, 8:19pm  

Patrick says


AmericanKulak says


You'll LOVE The History of Rome podcast


AmericanKulak

Do you mean this one? https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/


That's the one. Then you can start the History of Byzantium podcast after that, which should cover you for QUITE a while.
213   Patrick   2024 Jan 22, 3:51pm  

Thanks @AmericanKulak

I finally started listening to them and they are very good.

It's nice that they are just mp3 files, so I can download them and listen to them later without a connection.
216   Patrick   2024 Feb 15, 2:29pm  

Patrick says

Heard about Plutarch many times, so it will be interesting to read his little biographies of many people of ancient history. He's said to be very entertaining.


https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/cost-of-glory-podcast-alex-petkas-interview


“Fill your souls with Plutarch, and dare to believe in yourselves when you have faith in his heroes. With a hundred people raised in such an unmodern way, that is, people who have become mature and familiar with the heroic, one could permanently silence the entire noisy pseudo-education of this age.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
217   fdhfoiehfeoi   2024 Feb 15, 3:40pm  

Started reading the Arabian Nights tales. The whole book centers around a king who kills the girl he sleeps with every morning so she won't have a chance to cheat on him. Seems like patnetters have more in common with Arabs than many of you might think.
218   Ceffer   2024 Feb 15, 4:31pm  

NuttBoxer says

Started reading the Arabian Nights tales. The whole book centers around a king who kills the girl he sleeps with every morning so she won't have a chance to cheat on him. Seems like patnetters have more in common with Arabs than many of you might think.

Shhhh!
219   Patrick   2024 Feb 15, 4:59pm  

Well, when he comes across Scheherazade, she keeps him entertained and he keeps letting her live.
220   fdhfoiehfeoi   2024 Feb 16, 6:42am  

Yes, but the opinion of women as whoring sluts who can't keep their legs closed, especially around black slaves is not subtle..
221   Patrick   2024 Feb 16, 9:41am  

Lol, yes, I noticed that when I read 1001 Nights.
222   fdhfoiehfeoi   2024 Apr 8, 9:56pm  

Re-reading Richard Grant's American Nomad. My family is definitely Scotch Irish. My friends have teased me that I dye my beard red. My surname has a town in Virginia. My great grandfathers were moonshiners, and one of them married a Cherokee. Name originally derives from Norse, who invaded England, especially in the north, where the Scotch Irish descended from. I hate the government, distrust authority, get surely when I drink, and married a Mexican. Her people are of course a combination of Spaniards(some of the earliest explorers), and Indians(earliest inhabitants). We've never lived in a house longer than 4 years, and for me that holds true for my entire life. I'm a domesticated version of the book's focus, living most of my life in the area most suited to travel.

Grant mentions many of the people he interviewed for his book are Scotch Irish, and still have the same traits as their ancestors. Governments have been kicking us for at least 600 years, but it never gets through, and they never stop under-estimating us. You think we're sitting out what's coming, think again...
223   Ceffer   2024 Apr 8, 10:42pm  

I didn't know Nuttboxer was a Scandinavian name. Sven Nuttboxer does have a nice ring to it.
224   PeopleUnited   2024 Apr 8, 10:52pm  

Floki Testikelboxer is probably more like it.
225   fdhfoiehfeoi   2024 Apr 9, 9:37am  

Norse, and the name changed a bit from there to England.
230   richwicks   2024 Apr 28, 3:55pm  

Patrick says






Book is no different than a phone unless it's non fiction.

In fact, I would say a fiction book is WORSE than social media. Fiction presents complete disassociation from reality, and entirely in imagination. There are real people in social media, none in a fiction book.

We've had a huge step up in propaganda in my lifetime, they will keep ramping it up, until they can't ramp it up anymore. Our "news media" no longer works, so they moved to social media. Just like people skipped ship from CNN, MSNBC, etc I think they will do the same with Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, but these companies will just lie about engagement and viewership.
231   fdhfoiehfeoi   2024 May 2, 8:44am  

Re-reading The Franklin Cover-Up. This was written over 20 years before anyone had even heard of Epstein. But all the trails are there. Pedophilia, central government, CIA, drugs, blackmail, Satanism, money laundering by the deep state. These elements are so interwoven, and repeated, the only logical conclusion one can draw is that they were always designed to work together.
232   Patrick   2024 May 5, 11:37am  

I'm reading Epictetus' Discourses.

He had a good insight on why internet debate usually ends in a brick wall.


235   fdhfoiehfeoi   2024 Jun 30, 7:06pm  

Co-authored by McCain? Published by NeoCons International?
237   Patrick   2024 Sep 8, 11:26am  

I'm reading Cicero's "On Duties" and found him objecting to early forms of communism and wealth redistribution:

https://genius.com/Marcus-tullius-cicero-on-duties-de-officiis-book-ii-annotated


Philippus, during his tribunate, when he proposed the agrarian law (which he readily suffered to be rejected, behaving in the matter with great moderation), while in defending the measure he said many things adapted to cajole the people, did mischief by the ill-meant statement that there were not in the city two thousand men that had any property. It was a criminal utterance, tending to an equal division of property, than which what more ruinous policy can there be? Indeed, states and municipalities were established chiefly to insure the undisturbed possession of private property; for though under the guidance of Nature men were brought together, still it was with the hope of guardianship for their property that they sought the defence of cities. ...

Those, therefore, who desire to be popular, and with that view either attempt agrarian measures,1 that the occupants of the public domains may be driven from their homes, or advocate the remission of debts,2 are undermining the foundations of the state, — in the first place, harmony, which cannot exist when money is taken from some and debts are cancelled for others; in the next place, equity, which is utterly destroyed, if hindrances are laid in the way of men’s keeping their own property. For, as I said above, this belongs to the very idea of a state and a city, that the protection of every man’s property should be certain and not a subject of solicitude. Moreover, by measures thus ruinous to the state men do not gain the favor that they anticipate. He from whom property is taken becomes their enemy. He to whom it is given conceals his desire to receive it, and especially in the case of debt cancelled, hides his joy, lest he may be suspected of having been insolvent. On the other hand, he who is wronged remembers it, and keeps his grievance in full sight.1 Nor if those to whom property is wrongfully given are more numerous than those from whom it has been unjustly taken, are they therefore possessed of more influence; for these matters are determined, not by number, but by weight. ...

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