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arsCynic

arsCynic@bookwyrm.social

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Unlike some of Helen's insightful essays blog posts—which I cannot recommend enough—Wonderstruck is not the inspirational powerhouse I expected it to be. There's too much redundant repetitiveness and far too little scepticism toward religion. There are about a dozen paragraphs that I've bookmarked, but proportionally too few for the amount of pages.
That being said, Wonderstruck can be a good starting block as it is chock-full of references to other authors who've ventured upon awe and wonder. Helen is obviously well-versed enough to write a compelling book, but not yet tuned right.

The Richness of Reason - part 1: for Marin Mersenne, all music is math rock

Marguerite Yourcenar: Memoirs of Hadrian (Paperback, 2005, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Both an exploration of character and a reflection on the meaning of history, Memoirs of …

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Thanks to Hadrian and Marguerite my life is better now than before.
There's a sequence of about 65 pages (±20%) I did not enjoy because of being too descriptive and enumerative, but everything surrounding it is elucidating and invigorating.

Virginia Woolf: A Room of One's Own (AudiobookFormat, 2025, LibriVox)

This feminist essay argues for both a literal and figural space for women writers within …

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“Tomorrow's computing systems will help solve traffic problems, unemployment problems, nuclear power problems - even psychological problems.”

It seems tomorrow's forecast was wildly ambitious. Anyway, World of Numbers was okay. Interesting, some valuable titbits of historical information, but only faintly stirred my fascination.

Serhii Plokhy: Chernobyl (Paperback, 2020, Basic Books)

On the morning of April 26, 1986, Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: …

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Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe is as far as I know impartial and meticulously researched. However, in the Titans of Nuclear - Chernobyl Miniseries podcast I've heard the number of radiation caused health problems is far less than what this book presents. In any case, the Chernobyl disaster is an attestation to the importance of proper communication and vigilance against authoritarianism.

ICON Reference, Plato, Πλάτων, G.M.A. Grube, Plato Plato: The Republic of Plato (1901, Wiley Book Co.)

There is a well-known saying that the whole of Western Philosophy is footnotes of Plato. …

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“It is better either to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.” —Pythagoras (570–496 BC)

Plato did not apply the rule above. Did not finish.

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Chaos: Making a New Science taps from an extensive amount of resources and chronicles the history well, but I frequently found it too timidly conveying the mind-blowing nature of it all—as if James Gleick assumed the reader is already reasonably versed on the matter and therefore so convinced. To the uninitiated, opt for another book. Lastly, it was a reality check to discover scientists can be just as dogmatic as religious zealots.

Amir D. Aczel: Fermat's Last Theorem (1998, Penguin Books Ltd)

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This book fills a significant void in scientific education: making mathematics fascinating and tangible through its historical origins. Despite being exquisitely succinct, Amir takes his readers on a multimillennial voyage as he in turn sets out to prove why Fermat's Last Theorem is proven to be so beautiful, both mathematically and beyond.

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Contains a fair amount of quotable wisdom, but in general the story was not memorable. It often says a lot without saying anything at all, or I'm just not smart/insane enough to read through the poetic obfuscation. Hitler, however—if he did in fact read Thus Spoke Zarathustra—it is easy to see which parts he got inspiration and justification from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_and_reception_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche.