Books

[Damix]

I've read the first book and I'm a 1/4 through the 2nd of Wheel of Time.

It doesn't grip me like ASoIaF or Kingkiller has. Should I continue reading?

[killxswitch]

The first 5 or so WoT books had me staying up til like 5am reading. Granted I was a lot younger then. But yeah, I was hooked. 6 and 7 are solid, not great. 8-10 were complete shit. Especially book 10. It covers about 2 weeks worth of time and at least one entire chapter is devoted to a woman sitting in a tent, thinking. 11 improves a bit and then the author dies. 12-14 Brandon Sanderson takes over and other than screwing up one character at first, he nails it and they're just as good as the first 5.

That said I got through half of book 4 of ASOIAF and stopped, just wasn't compelling to me. So it's very possible we won't see things the same way. Jordan is more traditional fantasy, GRRM is more gritty and "realistic".

[Damix]

Well The Martian was a fun quick read, back to the drawing board for a series.

[bigbluedefense]

Books are so dumb. Reading is so dumb.

Reading novels was a form of entertainment before television, radio, movies, etc made them obsolete.

Nowadays we have the internet, social media etc, there's literally no reason to read. Reading is dumb.

Reading textbooks, how to books, etc is cool. Information is important.

But novels? So dumb.

I haven't read a novel since high school. Probably not even, I used Cliff Notes then too.

[njx9]

Originally Posted by killxswitch

The first 5 or so WoT books had me staying up til like 5am reading. Granted I was a lot younger then. But yeah, I was hooked. 6 and 7 are solid, not great. 8-10 were complete shit. Especially book 10. It covers about 2 weeks worth of time and at least one entire chapter is devoted to a woman sitting in a tent, thinking. 11 improves a bit and then the author dies. 12-14 Brandon Sanderson takes over and other than screwing up one character at first, he nails it and they're just as good as the first 5.

That said I got through half of book 4 of ASOIAF and stopped, just wasn't compelling to me. So it's very possible we won't see things the same way. Jordan is more traditional fantasy, GRRM is more gritty and "realistic".

this is about it. the first took a bit to get into, but from the second on, i was hooked until RJ pulled a GRRM, in terms of spending endless pages describing thoroughly irrelevant scenery details. sanderson did a great job wrapping it up. easily my favorite pure fantasy series.

Originally Posted by bigbluedefense

Books are so dumb.

you're like that dirty kid who acts out in elementary school.

[SBH]

Originally Posted by Damix

Well The Martian was a fun quick read, back to the drawing board for a series.

just finished reading this myself. excited for the movie but it really didn't take long to finish

[ImBrotherCain]

And BBD is blocked again.

[bigbluedefense]

Originally Posted by ImBrotherCain

And BBD is blocked again.

You'll be back. You'll miss me like you always do.

Originally Posted by njx9

you're like that dirty kid who acts out in elementary school.

Why do I gotta be dirty though? 8(

[njx9]

fear of bathing? i don't know. that's a deeper issue than i'm prepared to address.

[bigbluedefense]

I'd read a book on how to bathe but books are so dumb.

[brat316]

How do you exercise your brain muscle?

[MaxV]

So Internet has made novels obsolete, but it had not effect on textbooks?

[Caddy]

Can anyone recommend any good books on finance? I have a very basic knowledge of everything which I'm hoping to expand.

[Jvig43]

Finance for dummies. Aussie addition.

[Grizzlegom]

Finally reading the Jurassic Park books.

[wogitalia]

Originally Posted by Caddy

Can anyone recommend any good books on finance? I have a very basic knowledge of everything which I'm hoping to expand.

Depends what you specifically want...

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is basically the book that started economics and gives a pretty good grounding, though it's basically entirely economics as opposed to finance.

Sun Tzu's Art of War is another completely non-finance book that actually has a lot of practical implications for financial markets.

The Intelligent Investor is a pretty good starting place of more finance related books.

The Essays of Warren Buffett is another good one for pretty basic and common sense principles.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street is another decent one.

All of those will give you a deeper understanding of how financial markets work and business/finance in general.

If you're talking more specifically on things like charting, financial calculations, modelling and the like then you'll probably do better with textbooks.

[Caddy]

Originally Posted by wogitalia

Depends what you specifically want...

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is basically the book that started economics and gives a pretty good grounding, though it's basically entirely economics as opposed to finance.

Sun Tzu's Art of War is another completely non-finance book that actually has a lot of practical implications for financial markets.

The Intelligent Investor is a pretty good starting place of more finance related books.

The Essays of Warren Buffett is another good one for pretty basic and common sense principles.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street is another decent one.

All of those will give you a deeper understanding of how financial markets work and business/finance in general.

If you're talking more specifically on things like charting, financial calculations, modelling and the like then you'll probably do better with textbooks.

I'm at a point where I'm financially independent and earning an income, so I'm just trying to read up on ways to manage my money correctly. I'll check a few of those out! I think I've actually read a lot of Wealth of Nations, but I'm pretty sure I deleted it all the moment I finished whatever subject I did 6 years ago about it.

[wogitalia]

Originally Posted by Caddy

I'm at a point where I'm financially independent and earning an income, so I'm just trying to read up on ways to manage my money correctly. I'll check a few of those out! I think I've actually read a lot of Wealth of Nations, but I'm pretty sure I deleted it all the moment I finished whatever subject I did 6 years ago about it.

Good luck with that. The government has done everything it can to make the safe investments worthless and force the middle class to push their money into the higher risk asset classes in order to prop up a market that's just ready to fall to pieces but can't be allowed to.

Basically if you know anything about the time value of money you'd know that putting your money in a savings account is actually losing you money these days, our real estate market makes the whole US Sub prime thing look positively rosy which leaves shares as the main investment options and they're just waiting for the other two to smash them apart as well.

It's a bloody tough time to be wanting to make a go of it!

[Ravens1991]

Originally Posted by wogitalia

Good luck with that. The government has done everything it can to make the safe investments worthless and force the middle class to push their money into the higher risk asset classes in order to prop up a market that's just ready to fall to pieces but can't be allowed to.

Basically if you know anything about the time value of money you'd know that putting your money in a savings account is actually losing you money these days, our real estate market makes the whole US Sub prime thing look positively rosy which leaves shares as the main investment options and they're just waiting for the other two to smash them apart as well.

It's a bloody tough time to be wanting to make a go of it!

You are an econ major right? What would some other economics books people should read. I recently started reading them.

[towelie]

I know chomsky is stigmatized to some but his book "Power systems" was eye opening and really helps understand the world and historical events in the context of acquiring and maintaining power in society.