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new book today 

thanks for the rec @kaufman

Reporter and writer. I cover energy, climate change and geopolitics. Contact me via my website www.alexanderckaufman.com and subscribe to kaufman.substack.com.

metalabel : *exists*
me: TAKE MY MONEY

things i picked up this week:

1) Girl Intelligence by Alex Quicho
2) The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet by the Dark Forest Collective
3) Autonomous Worlds N1, which includes an essay co-authored by someone i went to university with and who now works at Serpentine Arts Technologies!
4) Anti-Memetics by Nadia Asparouhova
5) IRL (Internet Real Life) webinar series

Your existential crisis is a modern invention

Be the sunshine you seek in your life.
         - Rumi

Paradise Lost

Massively overpowered poet writes Book of Genesis fanfic.

The language lives up to the reputation. He’s right up there with Shakespeare for the pure music of the language.

But it’s fundamentally just an elaborate expansion on the first book of the Bible. And it has become so deeply ingrained in western culture that even if you’ve never heard of it before, you could probably tell the cliff notes version from heart.

Don’t show up for characters, plot, or anything you’d normally expect from literature. Aside from a handful of allusions to classical mythology, it’s pretty much just you, Milton, God, Satan, Adam, and Eve spending time in the garden.

I am completely without religious or spiritual inclinations of any kind, so any theological subtlety is lost on me. The world’s greatest sunset poem is just not going to hit a blind poetry enthusiast the same way it hits a sighted listener.

Leave it to PhDs in literature or divinity. You can safely skip it, despite the great writing.

The Killer Angels

A character driven novel that holds closely to the history of the Battle of Gettysburg. 

It adds enough depth to its characters for it to stand as just a novel, but it’s better to think of it as a work of history unburdened by the strictures of the academic mode of that pursuit. 

The result is a book that draws you in, informing you with remarkable details at every step without your feeling like you’re eating your vegetables. 

While I love military history, I am far from a civil war buff. I enjoyed it, and I think most readers will, too. 

Big thanks to @links for the recommendation.

Startup artist seeking inspiration.  Champion of /bcard

now reading Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

“The secret to success is retaining your child-like qualities.”

— Robert Greene

Day 3 📚
Chapter Two! Your Inner Roommate

Imagine living with someone who talks all day,
judges everything,
freaks out for no reason,
never stops commenting on your life.
Now realize!
you already do.
That constant voice in your head?
That’s your inner roommate!and you’ve been letting it run the show.
But here's the truth the page whispered:
You don’t have to listen.
You don’t even have to engage.
You can just watch, like a quiet witness.
And with that!
comes peace.😇

Currently reading. A seminal book that upends many of the preconceptions about the origins of the Atlantic colonization the founding of nation states and up to today.

Kind of wild there's no active alternative for GoodReads (that I've heard of). Which I search there's a bunch but... none have gotten any traction?

Started this book, reading it chapter by chapter every morning in the subway.

Loving it so far