Posts in the Books category.
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November 16, 2023

Book: Being You: A New Science of Consciousness

Anil Seth positions consciousness as prediction: Rather than your mind passively receiving sensory information from outside, it is always predicting the world around it, trying to generate a plausible 'controlled hallucination' to keep you alive, always correcting the predictions (sometimes unsuccessfully) based on new information from the senses. Further, he extends this to the sense of self itself--the brain hallucinates a self as a method of internal monitoring through prediction. All along the way, he provides engaging examples from his research lab, and looks at some competing theories.
posted by mittens at 12:09 PM - 10 comments

November 12, 2023

Book: Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness

In Sentience, Nicholas Humphrey distills a lifetime of study of consciousness to give a picture of how he thinks it works to be sentient--that is, to be someone for whom a sensation can be personally meaningful. From monkeys with blindsight to gorillas with nothing to think about but each other, he ranges across the research to come to a conclusion he calls qualiaphilia...consciousness becomes important because it makes life worth living, makes possible empathy, and is apparently quite attractive to potential mates. Having given us a sense of what it means to have a sense of something, he goes on to ask: Who else? Are animals sentient as well? [more inside]
posted by mittens at 4:10 PM - 3 comments

November 11, 2023

Book: Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

Viv's career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam's Ravens isn't going as planned. Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she's packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk―so far from the action that she worries she'll never be able to return to it. [more inside]
posted by Literaryhero at 4:05 AM - 10 comments

November 9, 2023

Book: Erasure

Thinking of seeing American Fiction (previously)? Read its origin story--Percival Everett's Erasure--first. "Thelonious "Monk" Ellison’s writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been "critically acclaimed." He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:57 PM - 3 comments

Book: The Ghost Theatre

A wild and hallucinatory reimagining of Elizabethan London, with its bird worshippers, famed child actors, and the Queen herself; a dazzling historical novel about theatre, magic, and the dangers of all-consuming love. [more inside]
posted by rednikki at 10:22 AM - 2 comments

Book: Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will

Kevin J. Mitchell explores how free will can exist by taking us through the beginning of life all the way through to humans making decisions. [more inside]
posted by mittens at 7:23 AM - 1 comment

November 4, 2023

Book: Bunnicula

Before it's too late, Harold the dog and Chester the cat must find out the truth about the newest pet in the Monroe household -- a suspicious-looking bunny named Bunnicula! [more inside]
posted by miss-lapin at 11:25 AM - 20 comments

October 31, 2023

Book: Three Bags Full

In Leonie Swann's Three Bags Full, "[t]he mysterious death of their shepherd has sent a flock of sheep into a frenzy trying to piece together “whodunit.” Overcoming their “sheepish” ways, the members of the flock realize that they may be the only ones who can solve it" (Publishers Weekly). [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:15 PM - 5 comments

Book: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Eleanor Vance, a timid single woman, is invited by Dr Montague to an investigation of Hill House, a house with a very dark history. [more inside]
posted by miss-lapin at 1:19 PM - 12 comments

Book: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

A stupid-looking boy, an erudite cat, and a clan of intelligent rats taking the first steps in establishing their society travel into Überwald, to the town of Bad Blintz, to run their established scam: the rats infest the town as visibly as they can, and the boy acts as the Piper, leading them away in exchange for a good bit of gold. But the rats have been developing a sense of morality, and demand of Maurice that this be the last job of this kind that they take on, which may prove to be prophetic in any case... (Discworld #28) By Terry Pratchett [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer at 11:30 AM - 3 comments

October 17, 2023

Book: Thief of Time

The Auditors of Reality have come up with a plan to finally rid existence of human unpredictability once and for all so that they may finally bask in a universe of perfect order, a plan which sweeps up the Disc's greatest clockmaker, a centuries-old temple-sweeper, a former thieves guild member turned troublesome apprentice monk, a very effective schoolteacher, and the schoolteacher's grandfather who also goes by the name of Death... (Discworld #26, Death #5) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer at 9:25 PM - 15 comments

October 15, 2023

Book: Elder care book club

This is the 1st iteration of the elder care book club that will have an asynchronous discussion here in FanFare and perhaps a live, virtual meeting to cap off the conversation. The goal is to create a space for learning and mutual compassion as we all support the elders (parents, relatives, chosen family) in our lives. The first book is Creative Care: A Revolutionary Approach to Dementia and Elder Care by Anne Basting. For those who would be able to listen to a podcast interview but not read a book, here's an episode of Zestful Aging that features Anne Basting (43 min, 2020). [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:45 AM - 13 comments

October 9, 2023

Book: The Mysteries

In a fable for grown-ups by cartoonist Bill Watterson, a long-ago kingdom is afflicted with unexplainable calamities. Hoping to end the torment, the king dispatches his knights to discover the source of the mysterious events. Years later, a single battered knight returns. [more inside]
posted by potrzebie at 9:32 PM - 2 comments

October 8, 2023

Book: Carpe Jugulum

Come one, come all, to the naming ceremony for the new Princess of Lancre, daughter of King Verence II and Queen Magrat! The invitations have been sent out, beautiful and gilded, though Granny Weatherwax doesn't appear to have received hers, and is feeling a bit put out by the whole situation. And the Priest who was to perform the ceremony has been replaced by an Omnian (and they burn witches, you know!) And Count Magpyre definitely received his invite, and his retinue seems to have some sort of mind control powers that affect everyone but Agnes Nitt... (Witches #6, Discworld #23) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer at 8:25 AM - 3 comments

October 6, 2023

Book: A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to manifest troubling symptoms of mental illness. [more inside]
posted by miss-lapin at 10:50 PM - 3 comments

October 3, 2023

Book: How to Suppress Women's Writing / Joanna Russ

Are women able to achieve anything they set their minds to? In How to Suppress Women’s Writing, award-winning novelist and scholar Joanna Russ lays bare the subtle—and not so subtle—strategies that society uses to ignore, condemn, or belittle women who produce literature. As relevant today as when it was first published in 1983, this book has motivated generations of readers with its powerful feminist critique.
posted by johnofjack at 4:48 PM - 5 comments

September 28, 2023

Book: Foundation’s Edge

It is now four hundred ninety-eight years since the Foundation was established. It is at the peak of its strength, but one Councillor of Terminus does not accept appearances— [more inside]
posted by infinitewindow at 6:53 PM - 1 comment

September 27, 2023

Book: The Last Continent

The Librarian of Unseen University is sick, and in order to cure him, the Wizards need to know his real name which, uh... none of them do. And he's not telling, because the information could be used to change him back from his preferred form as an orangutan. But an idea! Rincewind might know it! But he accidentally got teleported to the continent of XXXX, and nobody knows where that is. So the Wizards go looking for XXXX, while Rincewind just tries to survive on terra incognita where everything is trying to kill him, well, about the same amount as is usual for Rincewind, really. (Wizards #6, Discworld #22.) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer at 10:18 PM - 11 comments

September 25, 2023

Book: Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall

The last few years of cryptocurrency/web3/NFT mania, with appearances by most of the major players, by Zeke Faux. [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:53 AM - 5 comments

September 22, 2023

Book: Blitz

In this historical fantasy, a new recruit to the most powerful supernatural intelligence agency on Earth is accused of going rogue—and must go on the run to clear her name. Book 3 in the The Checquy Files by Daniel O'Malley
posted by soelo at 10:38 PM - 7 comments

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