Post: #126

Syberpunk's review of 'Endurance' and the amazon reviews I've read so far have got me interested. Should be right up my alley. Will buy it next payday. I agree, that this was an 'age of heroes' and it just feels like we're all now just picking over the bones of what's left to achieve.

In writing that, I'm reminded of a quote by Jack Donovan;

'How long will men be satisfied to replay and reinvent the conflict dramas of the past through books and movies and games, without the hope of experiencing any meaningful conflict in their own lives? When will we grow tired of hearing the stories of great men long dead? How long will men tolerate this state of relative dishonor, knowing that their ancestors were stronger men, harder men, more courageous men—and knowing that this heritage of strength survives in them, but that their own potential for manly virtue, for glory, for honor, will be wasted?'

I've already said 'Might Is Right' but I'll add 'The Sea Wolf' to my list of must-reads. Stirring stuff. Oh, and 'The Way Of Men' as well.

Post: #127

(06-20-2018 08:40 AM)Pride male Wrote:  Is Tale of 2 cities a must read?

Nope. It's actually one of Dickens' weakest works, and atypical for him. My favorite Dickens is probably Bleak House, but if you're new to the author I'd suggest starting with Great Expectations.

Post: #128

^For me Oliver Twist is Dickens best book. Great Expectations is okay.

Post: #129

(06-20-2018 09:14 AM)RawGod Wrote:  

(06-20-2018 08:40 AM)Pride male Wrote:  Is Tale of 2 cities a must read?

Nope. It's actually one of Dickens' weakest works, and atypical for him. My favorite Dickens is probably Bleak House, but if you're new to the author I'd suggest starting with Great Expectations.

Tale of Two Cities didn't feel like a book. It was incredibly generic and I couldn't connect with the story or any of the characters. They seemed incredibly one-dimensional. Too much allegory drawing from Christ like figures. The opening monologue is probably the best part.

Post: #130

I can't believe nobody has mentioned "Fup" by Jim Dodge.

Or maybe it's here but I can't find it...3 characters is too short for search function.

The most redpill book I've ever read...lovely. Economical too.

Post: #131

Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount

Brilliant Biz book, highly ranked on Amazon. After reading several similar sales books, this one really made an impact. Humorous style of writing brought a bit of entertainment, while dropping heavy knowledge bombs.

Always looking for more so let me your faves. I only read non fiction biz books

Post: #132

(06-20-2018 09:09 AM)Richard Turpin Wrote:  Syberpunk's review of 'Endurance' and the amazon reviews I've read so far have got me interested. Should be right up my alley. Will buy it next payday. I agree, that this was an 'age of heroes' and it just feels like we're all now just picking over the bones of what's left to achieve.

In writing that, I'm reminded of a quote by Jack Donovan;

'How long will men be satisfied to replay and reinvent the conflict dramas of the past through books and movies and games, without the hope of experiencing any meaningful conflict in their own lives? When will we grow tired of hearing the stories of great men long dead? How long will men tolerate this state of relative dishonor, knowing that their ancestors were stronger men, harder men, more courageous men—and knowing that this heritage of strength survives in them, but that their own potential for manly virtue, for glory, for honor, will be wasted?'

I've already said 'Might Is Right' but I'll add 'The Sea Wolf' to my list of must-reads. Stirring stuff. Oh, and 'The Way Of Men' as well.

Home of the Blizzard is another good read in the Heroic Age of Exploration vein, if you haven't already read it (it's the story of the Australian South Pole expedition under Douglas Mawson). You have to read through a lot of the book as setup for Mawson's account of his own disastrous sledging excursion, but it's worth it. Dudes were badass, especially Mawson himself.

Post: #133

I recently read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahnemann & Amos Tversky as well as "Nudge" & "Misbehaving" from Robert Thaler. Those guys cross-reference each other since they worked together, and I've stumbled upon them by Nassim Taleb that cheeky cunt kept hyping them up in his book. All of them essentially talk about the failing of economists, but though the aforementioned kept a respectfully worded "well, maybe economists are quiiiite right" distance Nassim Taleb went nuclear with the "economists are faggots and basically read these Kahnemann researcher guys or you're an asshole".

Anyway, their book deals with psychology and economics, namely how to enrich the sterile, rationality based approach of economics with the proper psychology of how ACTUAL humans behave to bring it more in line with reality. Kahneman & Tversky come more from the pure psychology direction and thus deal with biases, heuristics and psychological models of behavior, while Thaler comes from economics originally and was a curious dabbler in psychology. Together, these dudes pioneered the field of new behavioral economics.

Why I liked these books so much is they remind me of my times studying econ in college. We started out learning that neoclassical model of the markets, and it always struck me as ass-backward and wrong. You know, complete markets, no information asymmetry, everyone is rational and so in tune with all their wants and desires that they can formulate their precise equilibrium points. What human behaves like this? This was more of a theory made to describe robots. And thus during college times, I felt this feeling of "why am I wasting time with this bullshit". Now I find this books, it's like a relief. Finally someone also starts to consider how actual humans behave in the markets!

Post: #134

Is Gone Girl a must read?

Post: #135

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned The Count of Monte Cristo. Written by Dumas, it's an adventure novel about a young French sailor who was falsely imprisoned during the early 19th Century.

Post: #136

^Is he the same guywho wrote 3 musketeers?

Post: #137

(07-13-2018 04:42 AM)Pride male Wrote:  Is Gone Girl a must read?

No, but it is nice to have a female villain.

I liked her debut novel, "Sharp Objects," in which pretty much all the women were evil, from moms down to the town hot teen manipulator.

Post: #138

Delete

Post: #139

+1 any Trump book.

Also there's a good book by Newt Gringich, 'Understanding Trump'. Great for shutting up any mindless Trump-basher.

Anything Nassim N Taleb. 100 great ideas in each book.

Jerry Weintraub 'When I stop Talking You'll Know I'm Dead' - great story, inspirational.

General tip - Amazon unlimited. $7.99 a month then all books are free. As they have no value (in a way) you can just zip through them. A lot of the free books rip-off and quote published authors, so you get the same ideas for free.

Post: #140

(07-13-2018 06:32 AM)RedKurrant Wrote:  I'm surprised nobody has mentioned The Count of Monte Cristo. Written by Dumas, it's an adventure novel about a young French sailor who was falsely imprisoned during the early 19th Century.

RedKurrant, yep, 'The Count of Monte Cristo' is superb. I'm comfortable with classifying it as a 'Must-read'. It gets a mention in other threads, like this one 'Whenever you finish a book, post it here';

/thread-43544...pid1781087

I've added some of my favourite quotes from the book to the above thread.

Post: #141

(07-13-2018 04:42 AM)Pride male Wrote:  Is Gone Girl a must read?

I would say so, yes. I saw the movie first and loved it, then read the book and thought it was just as good. The book is different/deep enough to really enjoy even if you know what's going to happen.

Post: #142

Is Anna Karenina a must read?

Post: #143

(07-25-2018 01:37 PM)Pride male Wrote:  Is Anna Karenina a must read?

I thought that was a great book and I read it based on a recommendation from ROK. It has some very red-pill realities, which would not be exposed in a traditional college or staid literary circle. I posted the article below, which I think was pretty observant:

Anna Karenina is One of the Earliest Examples of Red Pill Truth

Post: #144

1) Yes Anna Karenina is absolutely a fucking must read. Oh my god I love it so much. Honestly my favorite book of all time. Stiva is just the perfect example of a natural alpha, the way modern feminists (i.e. all of academia) reads the text and evaluates Anna vs. Alex Alexeivich, the Christianity that is the beating heart of the text... I could go on for days, but my god...what a book

2) I’m a third of the way in to another must-read, The Decline of the West, and ive been reading it for almost a year. So unbelievably dense, shrill at tunes, and being somewhat self-obsessed but holy fuck it at times hit those unbelievable stretches of holy fuck only nietzsche can

Why is it a must-read? There's two answers I can give you, for there's two levels to this work’s appreciation:

Are you (really, really, really) into historiography, and think the way macrohistory has been sidelined in the last couple decades is a fucking shame? When you read Nietzsche write about the Greeks and briefly on other historical topics, were you screaming “more daddy! Please more!”? Do you find the full throated investigation and application of historicism calling your name in the night? Are you certain that aristotelian teleologies and organic structures characterize any proper understanding of history?

If any of the above mentioned topics are among your foremost intellectual passions, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Honestly, is you aren’t like suuuuuper into the philosophy of history and historiographical debates, this book probably isn’t right for you, as it’s essentially a terminal reading in that field. Nothing wrong with that - people should only read super high level works on the things they’re really willing to put in the hours. That’s why I am reading it - there’s nothing that interests me more than global, meta-historical theories, and ive now spent years and years learning about them. The fact that this book is one of the absolute foremost masterpieces in this field, and better still, that it’s one of the ideological cornerstones of the alt-right, meant I, personally, simply had to read it.

That, then, would be the more strictly intellectual, academic approach to this work, so great that even, despite its seriously fascist and counter enlightenment undertones (at times not so under), it’s universally regarded as a “great book” by the (((academic establishment))) and those who take their cues from it.

Now on to the hotter, presumably more interesting (to you) sense of appreciation for this work - it’s ideological context. In a more general sense, Spengler (the author) takes on a ton of the same intellectual concepts the alt-right opposes - from drive by shots at kantian liberalism, to basic opposition to the application of cartesian mechanistic, rather than aristotelian organic, concepts to human societies, and rejects the “onwards and upwards” Whiggish history of modern liberals. He derides democracy, egalitarianism, and free markets as destructive and deceptive institutions, and brings the press in for particular contempt. He believes that tradition and racial affinity are the sources of true power, and predicted the cataclysms of the world wars

Most profoundly of all, I believe and especially for our moment, as that he diagnoses our society as one in decline, enervated and infertile. He believes, sometime around the year 2000, that we will be taken into a new era of “Caesarism.”

I don’t think there’s anyone who more presciently and cogently names and describes the fundamental, long-term trends which have given rise to the alt-right and undermined the power of our current elites. For that reason alone, he’s worth a read.

If your interest in piqued, allow me to warn you that to really get anything at all, to even be interested in this book and to be reading it as anything more than a political fetish object, you have to fucking do your background reading.


Not to sound like some science bitch or anything but i think one needs to understand Nietzsche’s historical and cultural thought before starting decline of the west to really get anything out of it, given that the whole work is in pretty explicit dialogue with nietzche, so if ur serious about this and if you haven’t already read like the birth of tragedy and on truth and lies in a nonmoral sense I’d strongly recommend hitting those first


I’ll leave you with some quotes from Wikipedia that give you a real taste of just how prescient this strange, sad, inspired teuton was

Quote:In 1931, he published Man and Technics, which warned against the dangers of technology and industrialism to culture. He especially pointed to the tendency of Western technology to spread to hostile "Colored races" which would then use the weapons against the West.[14] It was poorly received because of its anti-industrialism. This book contains the well-known Spengler quote "Optimism is cowardice".

...

Spengler described the process by which Enlightenment rationalism undermines and destroys itself, passing from unlimited optimism to unqualified skepticism. The Cartesian self-centered rationalism leads to schools of thought that do not cognize outside of their own constructed worlds, ignoring actual every-day life experience. It applies criticism to its own artificial world until it exhausts itself in meaninglessness. In reaction to the educated elites, the masses give rise to the Second Religiousness, which manifests as deeply suspicious of academia and science.

...

The Second Religiousness appears as a harbinger of the decline of mature Civilization into an ahistorical state. The Second Religiousness occurs concurrently with Caesarism, the final political constitution of Late Civilization. Caesarism is the rise of an authoritarian ruler, a new 'emperor' akin to Caesar or Augustus, taking the reins in reaction to a decline in creativity, ideology and energy after a culture has reached its high point and become a civilization.[15] Both the Second Religiousness and Caesarism demonstrate the lack of youthful strength or creativity that the Early Culture once possessed. The Second Religiousness is simply a rehashing of the original religious trend of the Culture.

Post: #145

Starship Troopers. Anything by Thomas Sowell.

Post: #146

Is Grand Chessboard Brezhinski a must read?

Post: #147

(09-07-2018 01:18 PM)Pride male Wrote:  Is Grand Chessboard Brezhinski a must read?

Keep in mind The Grand Chessboard was written back in 1997 so some of its content is noticeably dated, but if you want a better understanding of ongoing geopolitical struggles (especially Ukraine, Middle East, and to a lesser degree East Asia), yes. It also gives insight into how the globalist elites view the world and what their objectives are, as far as the U.S. as a vehicle for their agenda.

Brzezinski describes the U.S. and the culture of "Americanism" as an inherently transnational, globalist ideology that is an important part of America's unique status as a global empire. He compared it to previous empires and points out the differences that make America the first truly global empire. Although he covers up some of the globalists' intentions with the typical "freedom and democracy" language, in many ways Grand Chessboard is pretty blunt about how exactly the elite want to manipulate various countries to achieve their ends. He also wrote about how "America" (i.e. the globalists) need to use its power to reshape the world the way they want.

Each section of the book is devoted to a particular continent or region, in which he gives his overview of it. At the beginning, besides his overview of previous empires, Brzezinski also describes the British theorist Mackinder's thesis on how controlling Eurasia is the key to world dominance, and outlines a number of important countries on the Eurasian chessboard for the U.S. to manipulate in different ways, dividing them between two categories: geostrategic "players" (countries with the power to exert influence beyond their borders) or geostrategic "pivots" (countries that may not be powerful or willing on their own but due to their geographic location or resources have influence on their region). Throughout the book he gives his view on these countries, their past history and recent political trends (as of 1997 of course), and how they should be dealt with/managed/controlled from the globalist perspective, as well as what the ideal results are.

He listed the players as: France, Germany, Russia, India, and China. He listed the pivots as: Ukraine, Azerbaijan, South Korea, Turkey, and Iran.

Many of his predictions are accurate, as for example he brought up the rise of nationalism and Euroskepticism in the EU, and the possibility of conflict over Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

So yes, overall I would recommend reading Grand Chessboard, it is very interesting.

Post: #148

About 20% done with Principles by Ray Dalio.
If you are into finance/business/stocks at all, this is a must-read book.
It's about 50% about self-development and 50% about stocks...

Post: #149

Finished Influence...I kept on hearing about this book and finally done reading yesterday within couple hours.
Not bad of a book.

Post: #150

(07-13-2018 04:42 AM)Pride male Wrote:  Is Gone Girl a must read?

I enjoyed it, the twists were good and I got quite invested in the story. I felt the ending was lackluster but appropriate.