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tphil10283

tphil10283

Joined January 2022

Lost in literature
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tphil10283
The Sympathizer | Viet Thanh Nguyen
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A very enlightening read.

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tphil10283
Elon Musk | Walter Isaacson
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Interesting and entertaining book about a genius that has unusual emotional responses.

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This was one of the best sci-fi books that I‘ve read. It‘s unique and thought provoking. I highly recommend it.

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The Song of Achilles | Madeline Miller
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It‘s a very rich expression of the myth that reminds us of important things about being human.

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It‘s a very interesting book about a subject that there really is a dearth of resources about, unfortunately.

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Uprooted | Naomi Novik
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I really enjoyed this book that made me think about things in nature and humanity in a slightly different way.

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This is a great book about a some of the characters in American history that are very unappreciated nowadays. It‘s really engaging and interesting.

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Rules for Visiting: A Novel | Jessica Francis Kane
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It‘s a warm hearted story mostly about reaching out to old friends and dealing with changes that come in life.

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It‘s an excellent book with a style that‘s basically the opposite of the Locked Tomb series in that it‘s not unnecessarily vague and unexplained as to the working of the world it built. It‘s basically a story about the negative consequences of greed and selfishness on innocent people.

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Nona the Ninth | Tamsyn Muir
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I was so frustrated after reading Harrow that I surprised myself by continuing this series. It‘s definitely a big improvement over Harrow even if I only understand the series a little bit more. These books are nothing if not extremely confusing for non necromancers or people very familiar with that topic. There‘s something about the way she writes that is compelling and very readable. I just hope the author stays off her medication and finishes.

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It‘s a heartwarming story that‘s somewhat fairytailish but it also gives some insights about the difficult life of transgender people.

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Harrow the Ninth | Tamsyn Muir
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Mehso-so

I really enjoyed the first book of the series even though I didn‘t understand a lot of it. I enjoyed reading this one also but not enough to recommend it. It‘s a masterful work of suspense about things that are mostly unexplained and intangible. She‘s really a wizard at getting people to like things for no apparent reason that‘s easily explained. In away she‘s a true magician because of that.

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Gideon the Ninth | Tamsyn Muir
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I really enjoyed this insane compelling sci-fi fantasy about necromancy written by a mad genius.

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In the Shadow of Lightning | Brian McClellan
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This is easily one of the best fantasy novels of this type that I‘ve ever read. There‘s also an insight that I had that might explain the appeal of fantasy and magic with a lot of people. It‘s that it gives good reasons why some people are treated in such unequal ways in society. Our human societies on earth don‘t really justify it nearly as well, it‘s accepted for the most part because of tradition without a lot of rational reasoning.

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tphil10283
Mother Night: A Novel | Kurt Vonnegut
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It‘s one of those things that reminded me that though the present circumstances of modern life are different in many ways we‘re basically the same way people were in the past.

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It‘s good but not nearly as good as the two previous ones in the series. It‘s entertaining but nothing really new is added or gets resolved. I think he just basically ran out of ideas.

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Blackhouse | Peter May
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It‘s a great book but I didn‘t really care for the ending.

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A Deepness in the Sky | Vernor Vinge
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A great prequel for a sequel.

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A Fire Upon The Deep | Vernor Vinge
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This is one of the best sci-fi books I‘ve ever read. It was published in 1992 and it‘s interesting how it‘s easy to notice that since then modern technologies have made some of the story somewhat obsolete in details. Still it‘s a great read.

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It‘s a compelling story and very readable. I wouldn‘t be surprised if they made a streaming series about it. It‘s somewhat propagandistic with the assumption that she couldn‘t possibly be doing this because of strong ideological convictions. Overall, it‘s a good story about a family and the secrets and abuse that become problematic for some people more than others.

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I really enjoyed this history of the crusades and the insanity of the people living during that time.

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Hell Followed with Us | Andrew Joseph White
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It‘s one of the most unusual books I‘ve ever read. It‘s an insane story about an insane subject that‘s known as evangelical Christianity.

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We Deserve Monuments | Jas Hammonds
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It‘s an inspirational story about the life of an upper middle class, biracial lesbian teenager. It doesn‘t involve vampires or anything that could be said to be fantasy aside from the tavern in the woods perhaps. I enjoyed it and recommend .

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It‘s an engaging historical story about eels and a good father and son relationship that was very positive for his life. It also has some commentaries about ecological problems and their consequences. It‘s a quick memorable read.

3 likes1 stack add
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Fairy Tale | Stephen King
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Mehso-so

It‘s alright. I didn‘t really relate well to the main character and I have become used to better fantasy writers and therefore a bit disappointed.

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Hell Bent | Leigh Bardugo
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This is a very entertaining book that has some allegorical themes I think. The characters are very good and it‘s got a little something for everyone that likes fantasy and doesn‘t mind if the theme is patently absurd. It‘s the character development in the book and not the story that makes it engaging in my opinion.

5 likes1 stack add
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It‘s a feel good kind of fantasy that is engaging and in the realm of a love story.

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This is a very interesting book that gave me a totally different perspective about the Mongol conquests. It‘s not a big history book but it packs a punch and once again makes me realize that much of my schooling was basically propaganda.

2 likes1 stack add
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tphil10283
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It‘s a brilliant book that is a historical fantasy. It‘s written almost like a history book with footnotes that sometimes are true but mostly not. It had me looking at certain things in a different perspective and I always enjoy books that do that. Kuang is only 26 and has accomplished enough that anyone would be proud of in a lifetime. I wonder how she‘s going to be able to top what she‘s already done.

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Slenderman | Kathleen Hale
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This is a compelling story about mental illness and the horrible ways that we treat even children that are afflicted by it. It‘s also a story about the ongoing injustice of our judicial system that turns children into adults for political purposes and really is a barbaric situation that those who participate in can only hope that they will never face judgment.

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Death's End | Cixin Liu
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This is the final book in what is probably the best science fiction trilogy I‘ve ever read. The books get better and better and they are all really good. IMO, this final one is the best.

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I think anyone that thinks that we live in an evil age without god , should read this period in history when Christianity still was very influential. It‘s not about Christianity per se but it‘s notable that the effects on the behavior of the people didn‘t overcome what most modern people would consider the pure insanity of the era.

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It‘s a very interesting story about the White American evangelical Christian movement and the psychotic nature of the situation. I know it‘s not representative of the whole movement but it‘s very damning nevertheless.

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This is one of the best history books I have ever read in terms of being entertaining and giving me novel ideas about the foundation of the United States. I recommend it highly for anyone that‘s interested in American and British history.

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It‘s good, but I don‘t think it‘s great in comparison to works by Kuang, Kay or Jemisin. It‘s formulaic and I don‘t really like that in the fantasy books I really like. One thing I liked is that it got me thinking about why the roles of women have been so marginalized in history. I determined it‘s because children are so labor intensive and often fatal for women throughout history. It will probably change if we don‘t destroy ourselves first.

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River of Stars | Guy Gavriel Kay
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It‘s engaging historical fiction with a bit of fantasy thrown in. I recommend it because it‘s entertaining and gives food for thought.

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This is a interesting book that manages to convey new ideas about ancient civilizations in way that‘s not going to put you to sleep.

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Under Heaven | Guy Gavriel Kay
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I really enjoyed this book because although it‘s fantasy it‘s historical fantasy and doesn‘t involve too many unbelievable creatures and has certain ideas that are interesting to think about.

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The King's Peace, 1637-1641 | Cicely Veronica Wedgwood
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Excellent and very engaging history that has pertinent information about leadership issues even for today.

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The Last Nude | Ellis Avery
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It‘s an entertaining read about wealthy people in Paris mostly during the 1920s. It‘s divided by the pov of a seventeen year old American woman that ran away to Paris to avoid an arraigned marriage in Sicily and a Russian aristocratic painter that fled to Paris during the Russian revolution. It is a love story that dwells on the commodification of youth and sexuality to a large extent. I don‘t think much has changed.

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This is a very good and well researched book about some of the known key characters of the Irish troubles that began again in the 1970s in earnest. It‘s too bad all history books aren‘t this engaging, if they were, maybe more people would learn from it.

kspenmoll Fantastic book and author! 2y
3 likes1 comment
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tphil10283
A Greater Than Napoleon: Scipio Africanus | Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart
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An interesting book that makes a good case that scipio was the greatest military commander of all time. He is enamored of Scipio‘s integrity and felt that it did him harm politically. He is able to make a good case with an economy of words that is great for people that want to learn about something but not become an expert. I recommend it because it‘s made me think about things that are as relevant today as they were then.

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A very interesting book about the assault on the democracy of the United States that has been going on for years and is only getting worse. It‘s a very well researched book that the author is very knowledgeable about and has researched for years. I recommend it to anyone that is interested in keeping or at least trying to not lose anymore then we already have. For these people, their freedoms require the removal of the freedoms of others.

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It‘s an interesting book about a very courageous woman and to a large extent her relationship with her father. That relationship helped and hurt her in different ways and is perhaps the reason that she is able to have the courage to speak truth to power. Trump attempted to bully her but she was inoculated from most of that by her father as is explained in the book. She was nevertheless put in serious danger by it. It‘s an inspiring book.

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It‘s a very engaging book about a family that were literally the biggest drug pushers in the history of the United States. It‘s amazing that we have so many people in prison that aren‘t remotely as responsible for the opioid problem and these people are billionaires living freely. It‘s really an indictment of the deeply corrupt system that we have. There‘s really no consequences for the bad behavior of the wealthy other than a bit of criticism.

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The Sheltering Sky | Paul Bowles
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It‘s a very good book about some American travelers that run in to trouble in the Sahara in the late 1940‘s. The only thing I didn‘t like about the story is that the ending is somewhat ambiguous for my liking.

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The Imago Sequence | Laird Barron
Mehso-so

It has some odd stories however, I couldn‘t finish the last one because it was too incoherent to me.

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It‘s an entertaining book written in 1939 by an Englishman. Some of the points of view are interesting in retrospect.

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It‘s an interesting book about Chris Hedges experience, or one of them at least, as a volunteer teacher in a prison. This man is one of the few real heroes that we have in this country. I‘m not enamored by religious people but with people like him I am able to understand the attraction of the psychosis.

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Seraglio | Janet Wallach
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It‘s a decent novel about what was a horrific situation of being abducted by pirates and sold into slavery. It‘s supposed to be well researched but individual situations like this are obviously not truly knowable and it‘s of course very speculative. It made me think about the value of possessions like jewelry and fine clothing if you are trapped in a situation that you may not want to be. How desperate times have been for some people.