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Books, Books, Books!

I read a lot. I would wager that if I were to have some method to count every word I have heard spoken aloud and every word I have read that I would find that I have read far more than I have listened. (Surely that would would explain a lot about myself.)

Though recently I lament the fact that I have read mostly fanfiction for the past five years. Fanfiction is good fun of course, but I believe that everyone should pick up a good published book and read it from time to time. Since we're talking published works, let's not just stop with books either! I can also recommend checking out published journals, research papers, and news articles for good and varied reading.

(Maybe also a few textbooks...)

So without much further ado, here is a reading list of some of the things I have been reading recently:

Journal Of Science

You will see that I'm starting off with something that is clearly not a book in my book list. I like to obtain a copy of this journal and read at least the editorial and news section if I have the time. This journal has a lot of different kinds of research papers in it as well; it's good in terms of variety.

The Fifth Kingdom - Bryce Kendrick

If you have ever wanted to learn about mushrooms this is the book for you. A comphrehensive introduction to mycology. (In the same vein I can also recommend: Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora)

Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan

A bit outdated by now, but still an awesome book. If (WHEN) you pick up this book for the first time, I recommend keeping a device nearby to lookup all of the missions he speaks of on the NASA website. (Or elsewhere if the site has been gutted by the time you get to reading this). Sagan often speaks of his predictions on how the missions to look far out into our solar system will go and my favorite thing about being able to read this book so far into the future was being able to see exactly how it went. Some things are able to end well Mr.Sagan.

Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan

Reading this in our current political climate (the American one at least) will make you furious.
So many of the things he feared have come to pass with a startling intensity and clarity. The world is a dark and miserable place. Still, there are little islands of light. For example, he spoke of directly detecting gravitational waves. At the time he published this work we had yet to do it. In 2015 we did.

The Dispossessed - Ursula Le Guin

Le Guin is one of my favorite authors and 'The Dipossessed' is one of my favorite books from her. I highly recommend it. I recommend most of her books.

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

A classic. Also one of Vonnegut's books in which his distinct style is more on the palatable side. Vonnegut is rather... gut... (I'll see myself out now) of course, but I recommend that you never under any circumstances read several books written by him within the same week. It's like drinking a bottle of plain vanilla extract.

Feed - M T Anderson

A book designed to make you feel ill- and it has a good reason to. Highly recommend.

All right that's some stuff I have read/been reading. I may make another post later when I need to procrastinate some more. In the meantime, any reading recommendations you have for me can be written as a comment on my neocities profile.

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