Flavio Matani (flavius_m) wrote,
Flavio Matani
flavius_m

[ Books ] Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge, The Better Angels in our Nature by Steven Pinker

Juggling two books at the moment. One is the book set for the next Bibliogoth meeting, 'Rainbow's End' by Vernor Vinge. For some reason I had to look up the name of the book and of the author, they don't seem to stick in my mind. It's ok. It is a near future semi science-fiction novel with a large world threat, a blurring between reality and virtual space (to call it something), a conspiracy that includes a sarcastic talking virtual bunny -and a 75 year old adolescent. Finding it difficult to warm up to any of the characters, in part perhaps because most of them are rather unpleasant people in small, mean ways. Also, up to the point where I am in the book (about 40%), not a lot has happened.

The other book is 'The Better Angels in Our Nature' by Steven Pinker. His thesis in this book is that, contrary to what we feel after reading the news and examining recent history, this epoch is the least violent time in the history of humankind. It is a very interesting book and I have a lot of time for Pinker but making slow progress as I have it in paper copy (from the library), it's a bit heavy to carry around (most of my reading these days lives in my phone and my iPad as ebooks). I'll probably buy it as an ebook as I am finding it interesting but I carry too much stuff around to add nearly 1 Kg more that I also have to clumsily take out of my bag when in a tube train, instead of taking the phone out and just picking up where I left. I love paper books, but between the practicality of ebooks and my diminishing eye-sight I'm finding, as I'd said, that I do almost all my reading in electronic form.
Tags: books, reading
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