The best books on Entomology
recommended by Dino Martins
Many people are leery of creepy crawlies—but insects are critical to the functioning of the planet, says Dino Martins, the entomologist, evolutionary biologist and author of Hidden Creatures. We asked him to recommend five entomology books that seek wonder in unexpected places, including bee colonies and termite mounds.
https://fivebooks.com/best-books/entomology-dino-martins/
"The Life of the Bee" at PG:
3 philosophy classics that are better than self-help books
Self-help often distills philosophical ideas for the modern ear. Sometimes, its better to go back to the source.
By Jonny Thomson
https://bigthink.com/thinking/3-philosophy-classics-that-are-better-than-self-help-books/
The 3 philosophy classics are available at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Nicomachean+Ethics&submit_search=Search
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3600
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49965
#OTD in 1872.
Jules Verne's novel Around the World in Eighty Days (Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) finishes serialisation (since November 2) in the daily Le Temps, the day after the concluding date of the narrative. The story was published in installments over the next 45 days, with its ending timed to synchronize Fogg's December 21 deadline with the real world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_in_Eighty_Days
Around the World in Eighty Days at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=le+tour+du+monde&submit_search=Go%21
To G. H. Hardy who had expressed worry that the number of a taxi - 1729:
"No, it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways, the two ways being 1^3+12^3 and 9^3+10^3."
Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan was born #OTD in 1887. He is noted for his extraordinary achievements in the field of mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions.
Rights of Nature: A Reading List
What would it mean for rivers, forests, and animals to have legal rights? A global movement is rethinking law’s relationship to nature.
By: Sam Firman
The Editor Who Drove Hemingway Away
Harry C. Hindmarsh, assistant managing editor of the Toronto Daily Star, knew how to get under Ernest Hemingway’s skin.
https://daily.jstor.org/the-editor-who-drove-hemingway-away/
Hemingway at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/50533
This is really cool! Last year I read William Dalrymple's "The Golden Road" and central to its narrative are these trade routes. This was an experiment to reconstruct a lost 5th century CE ship design based on drawing in the Ajanta Caves. According to Dalrymple, images in the Ajanta Caves provide some of the best info for the period.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyn15110gvo
#India #MastIndia #History #AncientHistory #Histodons #Books #Bookstodon #Ocean #Ships #Sailing #Archeology @histodons @bookstodon
The strange tale of Sigmund Freud’s begonia
How the gift of a plant helped Emma Freud finally get to know her great-grandfather
by Emma Freud
https://observer.co.uk/news/first-person/article/emma-freud-sigmund-freuds-begonia
This week's #NewBooks at the library:
- I bought a second-hand copy of #Isotopes: Principles and Applications, published by Wiley. Isotopes are hugely important in various branches of science, and I have it in mind to get to grips with the finer details at some point.
- I found a copy of Simon Lamb's Devil in the Mountain: A Search for the Origin of the Andes at a local charity shop, a classic from @princetonupress
- And I bought a copy of Paul Thagard's Bots and Beasts: What Makes Machines, Animals, and People Smart? from @themitpress for basically the price of a packet of crisps.
#Chemistry #Physics #Geology #EarthSciences #Orogeny #CognitiveScience #Cognition #Intelligence #Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon @bookstodon
So I guess it's time for an #introduction. Well, I'm a 30 something #Black #queer woman. I love to read #books. I love the #NYKnicks. I like #bicycles even though, it's not my primary mode of transportation. I like refurbishing and upgrading old electronics, specifically #iPods and #laptops. #TV and music have kept me going more than anything else. I'm branching into #Linux and getting more familiar with #FOSS. I am a #blogger and I have linked my blog in my bio.
Join the Texas Observer in conversation with author Jessica Pishko on February 5th for this FREE event at Alienated Majesty Books.
We'll discuss Pishko's provocative and important book about the dangers posed by extremist sheriffs in the United States.
RSVP: https://buff.ly/4gzkA5r
#events #books #bookstodon @bookstodon #Austin #Texas #police #extremism #CriminalJustice #law
So here's the first of the #MysteryAuthors from our #Winter issue.
Nice trees, somewhat obscured by the #BlankPage
But who could it be?
#books #reading #writing #ShortStories #fiction #comics #translation #blog #bookstodon
My favourite story from Russian writer Leonid Kostyukov, whose seminar I attended in the 2000s: once, in the 90s, he was asked to read and review a novel, and then the author asked his advice on a title.
“Not a word about Yeltsin,” said Kostyukov (still the Yeltsin era).
— But there’s nothing about Yeltsin in it!
— Exactly, — Kostyukov replied.
The title, oddly enough, was never used — even with another name in Yeltsin's stead.
📚 Against the Grain by: Terry O'Reilly
In Terry’s bestselling book, My Best Mistake, he uncovers the surprising power of screwing up. Now, he turns his incredible eye to the mavericks who go “against the grain” in their work to see what makes them tick and to explore what lessons we can learn from them. People wh...
https://bookblabla.com/book/against-the-grain
#books #reading #libraries #businesseconomics #managementselfhelp #personalgrowth #success
#OTD in 1910.
Serialisation of Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) concludes in the Paris newspaper Le Gaulois.
Because of his fascination with both Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he wrote a detective mystery entitled The Mystery of the Yellow Room in 1907, and four years later he published Le Fantôme de l'Opéra.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera_(novel)
The Phantom of the Opera at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/175
#OTD in 1818.
Lord Byron, in Venice, sends the final part of Childe Harold to his publisher.
The poem contains elements thought to be autobiographical, as Byron generated some of the storyline from experience gained during his travels through Portugal, the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea between 1809 and 1811.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childe_Harold%27s_Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/5131
This Week in Literary History:
O. Henry is Released from Prison
“If he had simply gone back to Austin when he was summoned to stand trial, he would have been acquitted.”
https://lithub.com/this-week-in-literary-history-o-henry-is-released-from-prison/
O. Henry at PG:
cross-posted from: piefed.social/…/company-offering-printed-books-to…
Citing backlash, ISBNdb removed its webpages about training AI, denied ever buying, scanning, or selling a book for AI training, and said the site was a “test of market interest.”
Company Offering Printed Books to Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage
"All the glories of the sunset,
In the sunrise one may see;
That which others call the dawning
Is the night for you and me."
Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt , who died #OTD in 1919, was an American poet. She published hundreds of poems in nationally circulated newspapers, magazines, and anthologies as well as in eighteen volumes of poems, two of which she co-authored with her husband, the poet John James Piatt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Morgan_Bryan_Piatt
"The trouble with this country is... that there're too many people going about saying "The trouble with this country is—"
Dodsworth, Ch. 10 (1929)
American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright Sinclair Lewis died #OTD in 1951.
Lewis wrote six popular novels: Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), Dodsworth (1929), and It Can't Happen Here (1935).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Lewis
Sinclair Lewis at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/278
"Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic — and this we know it is, for certain — then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature."
Serbian-American inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla died #OTD in 1943.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
Books by Nikola Tesla at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/5067
What Is Entropy? A Measure of Just How Little We Really Know.
Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s inexorable slide into decay. But entropy, as it’s currently understood, is less a fact about the world than a reflection of our growing ignorance. Embracing that truth is leading to a rethink of everything from rational decision-making to the limits of machines.
By Zack Savistky
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-entropy-a-measure-of-just-how-little-we-really-know-20241213/
George R.R. Martin has co-authored a physics paper
"I couldn't help but wonder if a simple underlying model might tidy up the canon.”
By Jennifer Ouellette
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/01/george-r-r-martin-has-co-authored-a-physics-paper/
Ergodic Lagrangian dynamics in a superhero universe
By I. L. Tregillis and George R. R. Martin
https://pubs.aip.org/aapt/ajp/article/93/2/127/3331568/Ergodic-Lagrangian-dynamics-in-a-superhero
Dear #fediverse, please send more readers my way.
I’d love to connect with more people who read books, post about #books, write #reviews, share #recommendations, and enjoy thoughtful conversations about #literature.
#bookstodon #reading #booksky #bookreview #booklovers #readingcommunity #bookclub
@bookstodon
![Cover of the French first edition of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. Published on January 30, 1873,[1] printed by Gauthier-Villars, published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel & Cie, Paris. 217 pages, illustrated with B/W engravings by De Neuville and Benett. (publisher's binding).
Centered prominently is the title, "Le Tour du Monde en Quatre-Vingts Jours," surrounded by ornate borders and motifs inspired by travel, exploration, and exotic destinations. Visual elements such as globes, compasses, and decorative frames emphasize the book's focus on global circumnavigation.
The illustrations by De Neuville and Benett, reproduced in black and white within the 217 pages, add further detail to the narrative, bringing key scenes to life with precision and dramatic flair. The overall design of the cover communicates a sense of grandeur and excitement, perfectly encapsulating the spirit of Verne’s iconic tale.](/proxy/post_attachment/554920/7139f6e747.jpg "Cover of the French first edition of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. Published on January 30, 1873,[1] printed by Gauthier-Villars, published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel & Cie, Paris. 217 pages, illustrated with B/W engravings by De Neuville and Benett. (publisher's binding).
Centered prominently is the title, \"Le Tour du Monde en Quatre-Vingts Jours,\" surrounded by ornate borders and motifs inspired by travel, exploration, and exotic destinations. Visual elements such as globes, compasses, and decorative frames emphasize the book's focus on global circumnavigation.
The illustrations by De Neuville and Benett, reproduced in black and white within the 217 pages, add further detail to the narrative, bringing key scenes to life with precision and dramatic flair. The overall design of the cover communicates a sense of grandeur and excitement, perfectly encapsulating the spirit of Verne’s iconic tale.")
![Avatar for CathyBikesBook[MOVING SOON]](/proxy/identity_icon/532118412086519754/37eee38931.jpg){kind=icon}
