Books thread

[Firdousi]

Just like I started a thread about political articles I would like to launch this one regarding books. I am an avid reader. My personal library is growing bigger and bigger. And that makes me proud. I have currently up to 250 books at home. Not that bad. In the coming years I would like to reach 400 God willing.

I became a huge fan of books when I was 18. I started with historical novels such as "The Physician" by Noah Gordon, Arthur Balder´s saga on how Arminius destroyed Roman legions, and so on. After that I became a huge fan of religious books, siras and tafsirs such as "The Message of Quran" by Muhammad Assad, "The Sealed Nectar" Al Mubarakfuri, and some books about Islam written by Westerners: "The Early Islamic Conquests" by Fred Donner, "Islam" by Hans Kunhg, Karen Armstrong, etc.

When I got into university I started reading law and history books. My last year I befriended a guy who was a huge fan of sci-fi novels. Thats how I started reading the Foundation Saga by Asimov. Also started reading fantasy books such as "Drizzt the Dark Elf", "Game of Thrones", and so on. Also uotpian/dystopian books were great: 1984, the lord of the flies, Brave New World, etc. Its now when I started reading books about politics. "The End of History", "Clash of Civilizations", "G-Zero World", etc.

Since I am a huge fan of books and reading, I believe it would be great to start this thread in order to share opinions and reviews on books.

[Firdousi]

I am currently reading "The Age of Anger" by Pankaj Mishra. Its a great book that analyzes that current trend of madness and anger around the world.

I have also purchased several books to read after I kill this one: "Internet is not the answer" (anti-modern technology) and "Fahrenheit 451" (dystopian).

I just finished "World Order" by Henry Kissinger and "The Origins of Political Order" by Francis Fukuyama. Its about how China developed the modern state.

[Elias]

I like science fiction books and one of my favorite books is George Orwells '1984'. In times of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence it is a good read and gives one an imagination how the future would look like. Some prediction made by the book even came true China's Social Credit System seeks to assign citizens scores, engineer social behaviour - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Other than that I only read 'boring' scientific books. If anyone is interested in Data Science, Computer Vision or Machine Learning I know a lot of good books in these fields which I could list here.

[Firdousi]

I like science fiction books and one of my favorite books is George Orwells '1984'. In times of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence it is a good read and gives one an imagination how the future would look like. Some prediction made by the book even came true China's Social Credit System seeks to assign citizens scores, engineer social behaviour - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Other than that I only read 'boring' scientific books. If anyone is interested in Data Science, Computer Vision or Machine Learning I know a lot of good books in these fields which I could list here.

I am huge fan of Carl Sagan. I highly recommend "Contact".

[Elias]

I am huge fan of Carl Sagan. I highly recommend "Contact".

thanks man, I'll take a look.

[Sikandar.]

Any book ideas on Sufism that one could gift to someone in their early 20s?

[Firdousi]

Any book ideas on Sufism that one could gift to someone in their early 20s?

Persian Sufis are pretty well known. In my opinion you should try Ibn Arabi. Underrated Sufi.

[Firdousi]

I highly recommend "Lost Enlightenment" by S.Frederick Starr. It highlights Central Asian contributions to human civilization.

[torkham]

Just like I started a thread about political articles I would like to launch this one regarding books. I am an avid reader. My personal library is growing bigger and bigger. And that makes me proud. I have currently up to 250 books at home. Not that bad. In the coming years I would like to reach 400 God willing.

I became a huge fan of books when I was 18. I started with historical novels such as "The Physician" by Noah Gordon, Arthur Balder´s saga on how Arminius destroyed Roman legions, and so on. After that I became a huge fan of religious books, siras and tafsirs such as "The Message of Quran" by Muhammad Assad, "The Sealed Nectar" Al Mubarakfuri, and some books about Islam written by Westerners: "The Early Islamic Conquests" by Fred Donner, "Islam" by Hans Kunhg, Karen Armstrong, etc.

When I got into university I started reading law and history books. My last year I befriended a guy who was a huge fan of sci-fi novels. Thats how I started reading the Foundation Saga by Asimov. Also started reading fantasy books such as "Drizzt the Dark Elf", "Game of Thrones", and so on. Also uotpian/dystopian books were great: 1984, the lord of the flies, Brave New World, etc. Its now when I started reading books about politics. "The End of History", "Clash of Civilizations", "G-Zero World", etc.

Since I am a huge fan of books and reading, I believe it would be great to start this thread in order to share opinions and reviews on books.

You are a fortunate man to have a desire for a library approaching 400 books. When I was a teenager I wanted to have all the volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica and it was exorbitantly expensive so that desire was not satisfied. I managed to get hold of old Merck's manuals on pharmacology and medicine (before internet, these were treasures of information), books on post-modern California architecture, a few books by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky - I was impressionably young.

Later I collected hard to find books from ebay, like the Shahnameh in farsi, Robertsons' accounts of the tribes of the Hindukush, Nancy Dupree's and Toynbee's books on Afghanistan, books on Helmand Water Authority which was partly modelled on the Tennessee Water Authority. Never found Nematullah Herawi's book on Bani Israel claim or documented poetry of AhmadShah Baba - specifically the one Dr BA is searching - Pashtunkhwa and throne of Delhi.

But I have thrown most of these away, in fact I burnt a few last winter!!!!! Too much clutter in the room. I am happy with minimalist austere Kota.

Recently I met some people who talked of controversial ideas ideas such as Makkan idol A'Laat and ancestry of Mohammad (ص) before Adnan, or another book about how the prophet, during his travels to Damishk, gained knowledge from some mystic - however these were in Arabic and that put an end to it.

Really for me at my age and circumstances books are nostalgia, the argument of quick reference to reach a page is over for me. My MacBook is serves my needs. I got wifi even in the woods here in my walswali. If I was a researcher then perhaps text that has not yet been digitised would be essential.

Now I am holding on to only a few books - some Russian atlases of Afghanistan, Asimov's books on maths and science, a copy of Newton's Principia, a book by Umberto Eco. These will get burnt at 454 Fahrenheit to warm my freezing hands this winter.

Just sharing thoughts.

[Sikandar.]

You can’t underline words, circle around sentences and write down single lines of poetry between the pages of a ****ing MacBook and then pass it on to your favourite child.

[Firdousi]

I recently purchased al Muqadimma by Ibn Khaldun on Amazon. When arrived it turned out the Arabic version. Facepalm.

[Firdousi]

Books from 90th´s that I recommend you to read:

Jihad vs McWorld (Barber)
The End of History (Fukuyama)
Clash of Civs (Huntington)
The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive during the Collapse of Welfare State (Sowell)
Democracy: the God That Failed (Hoppe, 2001)

[jama0112]

It isn't the best book and it is in danish, but my uncle wrote it and it's a little good. Just posting it here, in case if any of you guys want to read it in the future or something like that, just in case you got friends in Denmark and they can speak danish, you could recommend it to them instead.

https://www.saxo.com/dk/fra-helmand-til-hellerup_ahmad-durani_haeftet_9788799567140

[Firdousi]

Just got the "incoherence of the philosophers" by Ghazzali. Looks promising. I am also reading Khaldun´s Muqadimma (bought the English one lol).

Few days ago I killed two books: Collapse by Diamond (had read it but few pages remained unread) and a novel called "The Years of Rice and Salt" by Stanley Robinson. This one was interesting although Robinson holds a deep and irrational hatred for Islam.