Books what you is reading: Page 17 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Books what you is reading

Irishgunner

From his website: George RR Martin to "take a break" from ASOIAF to focus on YA sci-fi book.

This made me so fucking angry, then I remembered what day it is 😆

halfvolley

Rampage wrote:
Ricky1985 wrote:
How do you find you retain information compared to reading books?

Retaining information through audiobooks is a skill just like reading is. There are many people who blast through page after page of a book yet can't recite a thing of what they just read. When I first began listening to audiobooks my mind wandered constantly, it's different than say a podcast that is essentially just background noise, but I stuck with it and now I retain information just fine. When I have a lot of reading to do for a paper or an exam at the University, I like to switch it up, a couple of hours of reading, then a couple of hours with audio. This way I find I don't get too burned out with one thing. I also like to take notes while listening to relevant audiobooks, which sounds stressfull, but again it's about practice.

Ultimately reading is better because you can read at your own pace, but audiobooks isn't just a gimmick, there's learning to be done through them.

Maybe I should give it an extended try as well. I found that my mind wanders too much as well, especially if I'm out and about where I get distracted by other sensory input. I was a bit disappointed with myself over this as this was exactly what I wanted to use the audio books for. If I am at home or sitting still, I might as well be reading...

But I will try again, who knows, if I learn to listen better I might not get so much shit from my GF for drifting off while she's talking. (Although to be fair, I think the best remedy for that would be her getting to the point a bit quicker or at least refrain from repeating the same thing over and over using slightly different words)

Burnwinter

Been reading a bit of old Flann O'Brien recently.

He has some priceless old stories written in the 1930s under his real name Brian O'Nolan, narky witty anti-English ones with lots of weird Gaelic in-jokes that require footnotes (for me) to understand. Lots of hilarious self-deprecating stuff. Would recommend, anyway.

y va marquer

I abandoned Flann O'Brien's "At Swim-Two-Birds" - one of the few books that's ever defeated me.
I might try some of those short stories when I finish "I,Partridge" which shouldn't take too long 🙂

Burnwinter

I'm working my way up to At-Swim, thought I'd have a taste of the shorter stuff first. There are quite a few jokes about your home town. 🙂

y va marquer

Corca Dhorcha? Is it "The Poor Mouth"?
😆
You're getting a proper insight into that rural Irish psyche then 😆

Burnwinter

😆 No, but now that I've heard of it I think I might read that.

As an example, there's one story called "Revenge on the English in the Year 2032" (written in 1932) in which a gaeilgeoir runs across an enthusiastic English tourist in Dublin who's trying to learn Gaelic.

The Englishman asks the Dubliner how to hail a taxi, and the Dubliner instead teaches him some really rude joke about Cork, which he then repeats to the nearest taxi driver, who turns out to be from Cork, etc ...

y va marquer

😆

halfvolley

Update:

I've bought the audio book of As You Wish and I'm really enjoying it so far! It's pretty great with Cary's voice reading it and all the little cameos from everyone else as well. As usual, when it comes to anyone in the movie industry talking about other people in the movie industry, there is a nauseating amount of circle jerking and mutual arse kissing, but aside from that it's very entertaining.

Asterix

Just finished "Invincible" by Amy Lawrence. Just lovely.

mags

Am behind the times with this one.
"The Forever War" by Dexter Filkins published in '08.
American war correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq post 9/11.
Irony of the title, 14 years later.
A truly powerful legacy of that horror of horrors.

mags

A book for children (and for adults too). At least for this adult.
"The Iridescence of Birds, A Book About Matisse" by Patricia MacLachlan.
Illustrations are beautiful.

Jens

The Battle for Spain by Anthony Beevor. Good book about a story that naturally gets overshadowed by other events at that time.

jones

The Pinstripe Mafia: How Accountancy Firms Destroy Societies by Austin Mitchell and Prem Sikka. Title sounds a bit extreme but is actually spot on, short but very interesting piece about the Big Four.

Daz

Sounds interesting Jones, might have to check that out. I've watched some of these companies (KPMG in particular) getting more involved in social research/social policy over recent years and it's pretty worrying.

Burnwinter

I'd separate the functions of the consultancies, based on my own experience. Like it or not, functions such as audit are important and they aren't going away until our current social forms are completely overturned. The big firms don't always do a careful job, but low standard work is the rule rather than the exception across white collar services.

However, the generic consulting work done by the likes of KPMG for executive presentations seems often to be appallingly poorly researched and corrupted by industry connections.

In the past I've seen some amazingly dodgy stuff turned out by _______ in _______* for recommendations on geographic software and data. Just absolutely morally bankrupt shilling for established vendors.

Names not included because I'd rather not have this pop up in a search engine

Burnwinter

Currently reading 'Contempt' by Alberto Moravia. Pretty bracing if you've ever had a long term relationship break up, not sure if I'd recommend it.

Daz

Burnwinter wrote:
I'd separate the functions of the consultancies, based on my own experience. Like it or not, functions such as audit are important and they aren't going away until our current social forms are completely overturned. The big firms don't always do a careful job, but low standard work is the rule rather than the exception across white collar services.

However, the generic consulting work done by the likes of KPMG for executive presentations seems often to be appallingly poorly researched and corrupted by industry connections.

In the past I've seen some amazingly dodgy stuff turned out by _______ in _______* for recommendations on geographic software and data. Just absolutely morally bankrupt shilling for established vendors.

Names not included because I'd rather not have this pop up in a search engine

Yep much of the stuff I've been involved in has been research, policy and performance management/audit stuff. I've been far from impressed and governments seem increasingly willing to throw millions of dollars at these companies to do this work, and they are becoming increasingly influential as a result.

Burnwinter

'Technology white papers' produced by these groups are just the worst, by the way. Embarrassingly shit.

Segway

Deloitte has started to venture into the policy consultancy area in Denmark as well and are gathering a lot of popularity from the government despite their work being complete shit. But they have a base of capital and technology that blows their competitors out of the water.

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