Has anybody read any good books lately?

I've just started  book on The Picts, little is known about them, but what there is is really interesting.

Good on you, at least getting started on the ‘Mind the Science’ book. It will go on my ‘to read’ list, but in reality, I’ll probably never get to actually reading it as I’ve loads of others in mind too. Yes, the stereotypical autistic person in the media would not be able to imagine characters and scenes, yet you are the first person I have come across for whom it’s true. 

I have read Klara and the Sun, and enjoyed it. But I think his real tour de force within SF is Never Let me Go. The movie is brilliant too, pretty true to the original story. And I liked the way it captured the loneliness and bleakness of a all English seaside towns, and the English countryside 

I like the uncertainties too, I think thats why the Anglo-Saxon conversion period interests me so much. But I do like a lot of prehistory too, I find the neolitic fascnating, but also sites like Catal Hoyuk, I think Turkey will reveal much more about early humans and I suspect that "civilisation" happened much earlier than we previous thought.

I'm not a huge fan of the Romans, they destroyed to much, but maybe it would be fairer to them to say that I don't get on with many classicists, who amp up the late republic and early imperial period at the expense of the chaos of the later period. I can't get on with the Greeks either, it's all Greek to me, lol.

I often wonder when looking at neolithic burial sites, at what they were doing and what they believed. I know it's the current trend to see all henge building as to do with "the ancestors", but I'm not sure about that? I'm sure that ancestors were important, but I'm wary of the interpretations of people like Mike Parker Pearson and that ancestors were important before humans developed the idea of gods? Theres something about that theory that dosen't sit right with me, maybe because it's presented as fact rather than an interpretation?

I don't read anything online, I never know where to look, when I do find stuff it's often in a format and font I find unfriendly. At uni I really struggled with J-Stor, partly because it had little on it for what I was studying at the time and I found it difficult to navigate and being such a massive technoklutz didn't help either.

I often find books from reviews in other publications, bibliographies from other books and just searching for authors other books and the "if you like this you might like....." on amazon I quite often look at somewhwere like Oxbow books and then try and find them elsewhere.

I recently bought https://global.oup.com/academic/product/mind-the-science-9780197748817?cc=gb&lang=en& . I interact with the author a bit on Blue  sky and X. I've only read a few pages. As often happens with me I've gone into 'I'm not up to reading this mode'.

I used to read a lot as a child and teenager, but that stopped after my 1st psych admission. A few years into our marriage my wife asked me to read to her at bedtime, which I did. She was into romantic sagas.

I've only read one fiction book, since finding out that, opposite to what I'd believed, others can imagine characters and scenes from books. I can't. I have total aphantasia.

Via Google scholar

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian-Tyndall/publication/383533077_Aphantasia_and_Autism_An_Investigation_of_Mental_Imagery_Vividness/links/66d19984b1606e24c2a91157/Aphantasia-and-Autism-An-Investigation-of-Mental-Imagery-Vividness.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810021000131

https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(24)00034-2?fbclid=IwAR2qmprYybtIgCOQFAGJwCH-7mcT7LqWJjhqVOb0aLJ_eWyCX32QxIvkxjM_aem_AYhKFdXDSFI68LLmMN7DDtKI8OfBHEOs1cuzCTTjxfvXNw_pYIbBZudyWovQv3r51bg5qsiTAYl4N1DGSa_Usa0U

I've exchanged a few emails with Adam Zeman.

You’re not on your own with sci-fi! At one stage on this platform it seemed like everyone apart from me enjoyed it!

I seem to miss the good titles when perusing kindle subscription books, so thanks for sharing yours. My knowledge of Roman History is limited, but I completed a week of training on a Roman archaeological site in England years ago, and I also worked as a volunteer archaeologist at Pompeii. It was an amazing opportunity and I felt very privileged. My interest is mainly prehistoric and Iron Age material culture of the Levant. There are fewer certainties than with Roman archaeology but for me, that is the attraction. 

Do you use any open access platforms to read research papers? It seems that in some research areas, open access is becoming more widespread. Sadly, many of the papers I would like to read are subscription only. 

Currently I'm reading a set of Cornish ghost stories. Then I'm going to read Metro 2035, the concluding series of the SF trilogy of a post unclear apocalisse community living in the Moscow inderground

Most of the books I read are free with my kindle subscription, or availble from libraries. I get a few from charity shops, when I can. I've fallen out with one local charity shop and the others seem to be not doing books as much, our local supermarkets have book tables where you can donate unwanted books and buy others for 50p a book which goes to a nominated charity. I also use world of books or awesome books where I can get some some at greatly reduced prices, especially some of the academic books, although still expensive at around £10 a book, they're much cheaper than the cover price.

Another good one for Roman history fans is unRoman Britain which goes into how Romanised Britain actually was. The later Roman Empire is interesting and something we hear little about with classicists prefering to concentrate on the Julio-Claudians and a few others Like the Flavians, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, and Constantine the Great, many of the rest were total disasters, ruling for a short period before being killed by the szme troops who put them there.

Now I'm reading Queens of the Wild by Ronald Hutton as a break from late antiquity and the early Anglo-Saxons

From previous posts, there seem to be others on this forum who also enjoy Roman History.

Currently reading "The Early History of Rome" by Livy. Really enjoying it, but would only recommend if you're interested in ancient Rome.

In terms of fiction, I recently re-read The Witcher series, which I really enjoy.

I agree. The books I was told to read at school were Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, Far from the Madding Crowd and Romeo & Juliet. I don't think I actually finished reading any of them, I found them pretty boring. I've never read any other books by Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, William Shakespeare or any of the Bronte sisters.

I did quite enjoy the 1996 movie of Romeo and Juliet set in modern times but using the original dialogue though.

I know what you mean about fiction at school.  Biographies can give useful insight into human behaviour. The last one I read was ‘My Animals and Other Family’ by Clare Balding. It was fascinating to read about her thought processes when growing up in a different world to my own.

That is so true. I too endured the set books at school, most memorably Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV Part I’. For me, that was the worst play ever. I loved ‘A Town Like Alice’ by Nevil Shute’. Alice Springs sounded so very exotic and exciting as a 14 year old. I keep meaning to read it again. 

Just checked out your book titles on Amazon and I would be very happy person if I had them all. 

I think we were all made to read books we didn't get on with at school, I know I was. There's also a lot of snobbery about whats literature and what isn't, or rather isn't counted as such by the self important, basically if a book is popular then it can't possibly be good or worthwhile and other such bollards. I read what I enjoy and if others have a problem with it then so be it, I care not at all.

More drawn to reading non-fiction books about people lives and general knowledge. I request books from different libraries.

Think the problem was with fiction, I got forced to read them at school in the 80s/90s.

I read non fiction during the day. I've just finished a book on the Mercian King Penda, the last pagan king in England and a book on the Early Anglo Saxon Kings, I've just finished reading some on the circumstances leading up to the fall of the Western Roman Empire as I want to get a chrionology in my head.

I'm reading a Jane Casey, Maeve Kerrigan novel now at bed time, I'm waiting for Mum to finish one of the books I gave her for xmas, Louise Penny, The Grey Wolf, then I can read it. I love the Harry Grimm series by David J Gatwood, the Ruth Galloway series by Ellie Griffiths, all the SImon McCleave books and so many more, James Oswald, Phi Rickman, Kate Ellis and Lindsey Davis

Great choice! Randall Munroe is an excellent communicator.

Oh and as a mixture of factual and entertaining literature I’d also recommend the “What if” books by Randall Munroe. Also great for easygoing evenings.