Tag: reading

I had been quoting from Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, recently. It’s easy to read a summary and know the general themes and things to quote. Of course, reading a summary boils down to thinking you know the general themes and quoting passages to appear literate, but not really knowing much.

So, I wanted a copy of Brave New World without having to leave the house since it’s sleeting out, plus I don’t want to pay for it. It’s old, 1931, so it should be free now, I guess. I glance at Amazon out of curiosity. $8 USD for a digital copy. Bah. I head over to The Internet Archive where they have the mother in .epub format for free. I’ve made donations there before, so I’ve sort of paid for it.

I load it up to read it on my snazzy tablet, but a Michael Douglas movie comes on the TV delaying me for two hours because Michael looks pretty good in it (ca. 1984).

Finally I get a beer open and start on Brave New World.

This is how one approaches great literature and tawdry movies. :-p

While I’m down for the count for a few days trying to recover from something affecting the upper third of my body, I’ve been enjoying some light reading. I often read fairly weighty tomes of a socio-political nature, but sometimes I like to dip into things that are lighter.

Here is my “therapeutic, get well soon” reading list for these recovery days:

some pulp science fiction by Homer Eon Flint. From the 1920’s, it’s light, easy, and fun. Most are free at manybooks.net. Free, fun, soothing. Each one can be read in a few hours.
“Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker” which is about Kevin Mitnick. I enjoy stories from the 70’s and 80’s about the big-iron mainframes and phone phreaking.
anything by Cory Doctorow.

I hoping to be well enough by tomorrow to sit up properly and maybe even drive a car!

brave new world

reading list for my sick days