My next nonfic read is going to be Black Marxism by Cedric J. Robinson.
At 20 hours long in audiobook, I'm expecting this one to take me a while, but hope to finish by sometime in February.
Just finished reading Incarnations: India in Fifty Lives by Sunil Khilnani
Fascinating book that tells the history of India, from pre-history to the early aughts through 50 mini biographies.
Khilnani isn't afraid to punch sacred cows, but his love of India and it's history, and fascination with it's characters comes through clearly.
I can't rec this book as a general read. It assumes at least a certain base level knowledge of India and its history. But if you are familiar with the terms 'Mughal', 'caste', 'Rajput', and 'the Raj' you'll probably do fine.
I'll definitely keep an eye out for more of Khilnani's work, and if you are generally familiar with India's history and looking for a moderately in depth read on the past 5,000 years, this is a good place to start.
A reader who gets it calls the Vigilauntie Justice series ‘darkly delightful’.
If you think you might get it too, why not give it a try? Right now, you’ll get 26% off with code 2026!
https://whitehartfiction.co.uk/products/complete-vigilauntie
@clacksee
I just picked up Friends in Need in the Smashwords sale. 'Darkly delightful' is a great description for it!
Can't afford any new books this month, but this series is at the top of my purchase list for the future.
G'morning.
Up earlier than usual today.
Gonna make a quick run to the store before listening to today's chapters of Incarnations by Sunil Khilnani. About 3/4 of the way through reading it and have learned a hell of a lot about the history of India.
Much enjoying
Fuzzy Leapfrog
boosted
Mein guter Vorsatz für dieses Jahr ist es endlich mal meine ganzen angefangenen Bücher zu Ende lesen. Also den #currentlyReading-Stapel zu verkleinern.
Gestern auf der Bahnfahrt habe ich zwei Bücher fertig gelesen. Jetzt darf ich auch ein neues anfangen für die #qwrc- #ReadingChallenge.
Diesmal ein Buch von der Liste von Dandelya: The Mermaid, The Witch and The Sea von Maggie Tokuda-Hall.
Started A People’s History of Computing in the United States by Joy Lisi Rankin 📚
Tracking progress and chapter updates in Hardcover as a test this month: https://hardcover.app/books/a-peoples-history-of-computing-in-the-united-states/journals/@chadkoh@indieweb.social?referrer_id=63672
Authors/readers, in a series. what do you feel is the right amount of info-dumping to get the reader up to speed on "the story so far"? I'm sometimes frustrated with authors, where after the 7th+ book in a series, they attempt to get reader up to speed on every piece of backstory (repetitive). After 7+ books, can't an author expect that the reader is likely invested enough to know what's going on? Are there readers that will start a series 7 books in?
hypebot
boosted
I just started reading a book on ethics in social work. I haven't ever concerned myself with ethics as a (philosophical) science before, but I can highly recommend it.
Let me tell you what I just learned as a novice.
Principles can be categorized in technical-normative principles and ethical-normative principles. Normative principles is just a distinction from descriptive statements that just describe, don't request and don't judge.
Technical-normative means that you should do something, because it helps you with your goals.
E.g. you should be nice, so people will be nice to you.
Ethical-normative means you do it because it alighns with your values.
E.g. you treat everybody with empathy because everybody deserves to be treated that way.
Now ethical-normative principles can be categorized in ethical and moral principles. Ethical here is the term for the super-category and the sub-category.
Ethical principles are about your individual values.
Moral principles are meant to be universal and unconditional.
The distinction here is not so easy anymore and sometimes is just about wording. E.g. when you are vegan "because you like animals" than that's an ethical decision. If you're vegan "because animals (should) have rights" its a moral one. Note that "universal & unconditional" doesn't mean that you can't have empathy, compassion and understanding for people who don't live by those values.
Now why are these distinctions important?
Because if you take an ethical principle as moral or vice versa, that can be a real problem.
An example for taking an ethical principle as moral would be "everybody should be in the Fediverse". Many of us joined the Fediverse for ethical reasons, but an ethical decision can also be not using social media at all. Also many of us would suffer if everybody, also unethical people joined the Fediverse.
An example for taking a moral principle as ethical would be "I as a moderator of a Fediverse instance don't suspend the nazi on that instance, who harasses people, because he should be confronted with people who think differently". No. The right to not be harassed is a human right, a moral principle, universal and unconditional.
I'm right now trying to find out for myself which of my own principles are technical, ethical or moral.
And in the future when arguing I'll try to distinguish between ethical and moral values and phrase my arguments accordingly.
#ethics #morals #philosophy #TIL #JustReading #AmReading #ethical #moral
I just started reading a book on ethics in social work. I haven't ever concerned myself with ethics as a (philosophical) science before, but I can highly recommend it.
Let me tell you what I just learned as a novice.
Principles can be categorized in technical-normative principles and ethical-normative principles. Normative principles is just a distinction from descriptive statements that just describe, don't request and don't judge.
Technical-normative means that you should do something, because it helps you with your goals.
E.g. you should be nice, so people will be nice to you.
Ethical-normative means you do it because it alighns with your values.
E.g. you treat everybody with empathy because everybody deserves to be treated that way.
Now ethical-normative principles can be categorized in ethical and moral principles. Ethical here is the term for the super-category and the sub-category.
Ethical principles are about your individual values.
Moral principles are meant to be universal and unconditional.
The distinction here is not so easy anymore and sometimes is just about wording. E.g. when you are vegan "because you like animals" than that's an ethical decision. If you're vegan "because animals (should) have rights" its a moral one. Note that "universal & unconditional" doesn't mean that you can't have empathy, compassion and understanding for people who don't live by those values.
Now why are these distinctions important?
Because if you take an ethical principle as moral or vice versa, that can be a real problem.
An example for taking an ethical principle as moral would be "everybody should be in the Fediverse". Many of us joined the Fediverse for ethical reasons, but an ethical decision can also be not using social media at all. Also many of us would suffer if everybody, also unethical people joined the Fediverse.
An example for taking a moral principle as ethical would be "I as a moderator of a Fediverse instance don't suspend the nazi on that instance, who harasses people, because he should be confronted with people who think differently". No. The right to not be harassed is a human right, a moral principle, universal and unconditional.
I'm right now trying to find out for myself which of my own principles are technical, ethical or moral.
And in the future when arguing I'll try to distinguish between ethical and moral values and phrase my arguments accordingly.
#ethics #morals #philosophy #TIL #JustReading #AmReading #ethical #moral
ravelin
and 3 others
boosted
A huge thank you to everyone on Mastodon who raved about Automatic Noodle. I just finished reading it, and wow! What a wonderful way to begin my 2026 year of books. Thanks to @annaleen for writing such an incredible story.
Mein guter Vorsatz für dieses Jahr ist es endlich mal meine ganzen angefangenen Bücher zu Ende lesen. Also den #currentlyReading-Stapel zu verkleinern.
Gestern auf der Bahnfahrt habe ich zwei Bücher fertig gelesen. Jetzt darf ich auch ein neues anfangen für die #qwrc- #ReadingChallenge.
Diesmal ein Buch von der Liste von Dandelya: The Mermaid, The Witch and The Sea von Maggie Tokuda-Hall.
Cory Doctorow
boosted
I'm super-excited to be starting the year off with Enshitification by @pluralistic . It's stark reality, vitally important, and very timely. I'm lucky my hold at the library was as short as it was (about three weeks) because as great as the information in the book is so far, I feel like it's going to be out of date in about six months. #FridayReads #AmReading #NonFiction #Enshitification #CoryDoctorow #Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon
I'm super-excited to be starting the year off with Enshitification by @pluralistic . It's stark reality, vitally important, and very timely. I'm lucky my hold at the library was as short as it was (about three weeks) because as great as the information in the book is so far, I feel like it's going to be out of date in about six months. #FridayReads #AmReading #NonFiction #Enshitification #CoryDoctorow #Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon
A huge thank you to everyone on Mastodon who raved about Automatic Noodle. I just finished reading it, and wow! What a wonderful way to begin my 2026 year of books. Thanks to @annaleen for writing such an incredible story.
The Smashwords #EoYSale25 is almost over. I was stuck getting only free books this round, but I still found some good ones.
For anyone looking for a good (free!) read, here's what's in my Smashwords shopping cart:
Ravaging Phantom
by S.T. Arsheep
Faded Moon
by T. L. Morgan
Desert Roses
by ga thompson
The Lord of the Wood's Spring Bride, Workplace Connections, and Divine Service
by Johannes T. Evans
Friends in Need
by Elliott Hay
The White Dragon and the Red
by Debbie Mumford
Moon-Bright Tides
by RoAnna Sylver
The Dragon of Crystal and Frost
by Isis E. Prosser
Nameless Queen
by Marie Sinadjan
I've been languishing on library wait lists for a year or more, but my SO found it in a used bookstore for my stocking. Yay!
It's the first book of the huge #Discworld series and I've only read one in the middle somewhere, known for being rather standalone.
happyborg
boosted
I pulled all my e-books off Kindle yesterday because of this. It effectively ends my writing career because, despite everyone complaining that Amazon is evil... nobody buys books from the many other stores my books are available on.
I am sad. I am angry. I am *exhausted*.
I am ONE indie author. I am nobody. My protest is utterly meaningless in the face of this ever-expanding AI takeover. Unless all indies do this, and all tradpub authors pressure their publishers to fight Amazon, my pulling my books is not going to do a damned thing to make Amazon stop doing this. All it will do is end whatever tiny little chance I might still have had at having a real writing career.
But I am so sick of AI being shoved into every aspect of my life and not even having the right to opt out of it. This is the ONLY protest I CAN make. So that's what I'm doing. And at least I know they won't be able to use my books this way.
#books #bookstodon #reading #readingCommunity #AmReading #amazon