Reading books can be world changing

Reading is a recent development for me in the grand scheme of things, dyslexia meant I was hindered till I was about 18, picking up my first actual book 1984 at the age of 24.

10 years later I read roughly 3 books a year.

Currently reading Manufacturing Consent and whilst I knew news media is often misleading, to what extent was not clear sadly I now know the extent.

I’d like to have a conversation about Manufacturing Consent and what people have come away with. Other books too like Bullshit Jobs and Ordinary Men were big shift for my world view, so talking about and recommendations of similar books as well please.

brisk,

I read Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein right after Manufacturing Consent and I think that worked really well. It’s got some overlap in content that helps solidify concepts, but it’s a bit more modern and a much easier read (less dry)

Other recommendations

If you have any interest in economics:

  • Debt: the last 5000 years by David Graeber
  • the Defecit Myth by Stephanie Kelton

If you have interest in digital freedoms and copyright law:

  • Chokepoint Capitalism by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow
  • The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow
squid_slime,

Thanks, will put Shock Doctrine next on the reading list, and yes Manufacturing Consent feels very dry, I was looking for ways to get through it faster as it reiterates a fair deal… And thank you for the other recommendation, what is this genera of book called? Social study?

BonesOfTheMoon,

Just an invitation to c/poetry for everyone.

Rolando,

This is the obvious next recommendation: en.wikipedia.org/…/A_People's_History_of_the_Unit…

PeepinGoodArgs, (edited )

This is the kind of book conservatives correctly identify as engendering hate for America. After reading this one, I saw the value of just burning it all down.

Rolando,

Personally I was just happy that at least someone was talking about these things.

xilliah,

Oh I know exactly what you mean. I’m not dyslexic but do have a reading impediment due to being a visual thinker.

I forced myself to read national geographic from cover to cover for many years. It’s quite a thick magazine with a decent level of writing. I’ve learned so much about the world, it gave me many amazing memories.

After that I was able to pick up some books. I don’t read much, but what I read is of a high level. I would’ve never expected that this is the stuff I’d be reading at my age!

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

I still do read books, but I gotta say that online text competes with and has taken a serious toll on my book-reading.

squid_slime,

How so? Is the online text as good as what you’d found in books or is it fodder?

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

Eh, in some ways worse, in some better.

Books have kind of an emphasis on a linear format, and hypertext can be convenient, especially for reference use, and you can’t do that in a book. Searchability is nice.

On the other hand, the ownership model of books is handy – buy it and keep it. Ebooks are the closest equivalent and I wouldn’t bet on an eBook being usable 30 years down the line.

There’s some content that I can only get in physical books (or at most, ebooks), though.

I still do buy physical books. I’m currently going through a book on the history of military submarines, and last week bought a book on a particular period in US war planning. But the proportion of text I read in pixels is way up, and the proportion that I read on the Web is way up.

Rolando,

There’s always www.gutenberg.org which is the best of both worlds.

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

It deals with the “‘buy’ it and keep it” issue, but they only deal with out-of-copyright works, which are usually quite old. Nearly all of what I read will be newer than that.

I’ve read things there. IIRC, the second reading of Journey to the West, one of the “canonical” Chinese novels, was off Project Gutenberg.

googles

Dunno if it was this translation or another:

archive.org/…/journeytothewestwuchengen1592/

…but functionally, they’re mostly a complement, rather than a replacement, for commercial works. They kinda fill their own niche.

ZDL,
@ZDL@ttrpg.network avatar

I wouldn’t bet on an eBook being usable 30 years down the line.

I wouldn’t seriously bet on an eBook reader being usable 5 years down the line. Could it? Possibly. Is it guaranteed? Not even close.

As for the content, my SO points out that we have knowledge that was stored on computers in formats nobody alive knows how to read anymore. We’ve lost information—some of it probably very important!—that’s younger than I am.

In the mean time I’m reading stuff that’s been gleaned from writing that was recovered literally thousands of years after it disappeared.

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