Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Reading

The Origin of the Matrix

madmamasmith — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:30:53 -0800

Origin of the Matrix relating to a Science Fictional setting... I am reading Neuromancer by William Gibson and the main character mentions "the matrix", as something he "jacks in to". Now this is my first foray into sci-fi and I am only about 20 pages in but I was wondering where the term originated. Did The Matrix movie steal this term and its meaning from Gibson or was it already being used in previous sci-fi works? I have only ever heard it used in a sci-fi context so that's why I;m wondering. I'm admitting my lack of knowledge in this area, so please don't make me feel like a ding dong if the answer to this question is blindingly obvious to you! Also, while on the topic of Sci-fi, the last book I read in the genre was Ender's Game in junior high and I loved it, so please suggest any sci-fi reads I should check out.

The right book for a train ride

timory — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:07:43 -0800

What are good books to read on a train? This holiday, for the first time, I'll be taking the train home instead of flying. I'm relishing the thought of being able to read while traveling (airplanes make me queasy), and I'm looking forward to the forced downtime from the internet and other things that distract me from reading even a fraction of what I used to read.

The journey is about 8 hours long, 16 round trip. It seems the perfect amount to read a smaller novel each way, or a longer one I could split half and half on each leg.

Please give me your recommendations. I'm looking for something more literary (not necessarily part of "the canon," but definitely nothing pulpy or best-sellery), and engaging enough to hold my attention for 8 hours straight. I want the perfect thing to read while staring out into snowy Pennsylvania and listening to the tracks chug by. I think the Mountain Goats are the best music to listen to on these long journeys alone, but I want the literary equivalent of that.

Here is a sparse sampling of the kinds of books I'm looking for:
Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery
Updike, Rabbit, Run
Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

I'm sensing a theme... maybe the theme of journeys, whether fantastical or mundane, seems to fit the mold for me here.

Recommendations for (simpler) novellas in Russian or Spanish are also welcome, because I could very much stand to brush up on those languages. Bonus points for magically guessing and suggesting books I already own but haven't yet read. Thank you!

What should be on a "Personal MFA in Creative Writing" reading list?

thepalephantom — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:05:26 -0800

What titles should be on a "Personal MFA in Creative Writing Fiction" reading list? You don't have the money/time/inclination to actually attend a MFA program for creative writing, instead you just want a reading list to plow through on your own time. What titles should be on that reading list? Non-fiction, fiction, memoir, etc.

Good translations of Zhuangzi?

Arturus — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:38:48 -0800

I'm interested in getting a print copy of Zhuangzi to read. What's a good translation or edition?

The perfect novel?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:28:34 -0800

Help me find that perfect novel for a Christmas present. Sorry to post this anonymously, but someone close to the recipient is one my contacts!

Now, I spent a good part of yesterday perusing book stores, eventually walking away empty handed.

The person receiving this book is a mid-fifties male who is an avid reader of good popular fiction. E.g. really likes Frank McCourt; really dislikes Dan Brown.

I considered Netherland by O'Neill but decided against it because I haven't read it and thought it might be too political. (Is it?) So if you need a gage to go by then it'd be McCourt.

The suggestion needn't be a heavy story, for well-written, humorous, insightful prose works just as well. What I want is a story that will stick with this person for time to come.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

Burn after reading

wolfr — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:48:11 -0800

What are some of the best articles or stories you have read about Burning Man? I went to Burning Man this year and am doing a presentation about it soon. I'm worried about not being able to communicate what Burning Man is. The event is engineered to make you feel awesome for a week, so naturally one leaves with a very positive feeling about it. I know I did.

However, I want to know how to explain Burning Man to a group of people without having them miss the point. If you never went there it's too easy to write it off as a cheerful hippie event. The Burning Man "rules" such as radical self-reliance sound incredibly cheesy until you went there and understood.

So I'm looking for articles and stories like this one from the Huffington Post - or Viva Las Xmas by Larry Harvey.

Teaching English, reading and writing to a 15 yr old street kid who's never been to school.

ferdinandcc — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:42:57 -0800

Do you have any advice for teaching English comprehension, as well as reading and writing, to a fifteen year old Filipino street kid who's never been to school a day in his life? I run a nonprofit in the Philippines, and a 15 year old street kid has sort of adopted me. His mom is incarcerated for life, and his stepdad abandoned him, so he'd been sleeping alone on the streets outside a fast food restaurant. He's never been to school, and doesn't know how to read or write (although he knew how to spell his first name and I've taught him how to spell his last name). I've been pretty impressed, however, with how quickly he learns things (and it's astonishing to see how well he's basically parented himself).

The problem with most ESL learning tools I've found is that they either assume you know your alphabet and can sound out words, or they assume you're a baby.

Right now, I can't afford Rosetta Stone, but I've used Rosetta Stone in the past to help myself learn Tagalog, so I sort of just started recreating the basic flashcard style concept so I can work with him online, over the cam while I'm in the states, and my assistant helps him in the Philippines.

I've also been reading books to him like The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish… etc., but he'd much rather watch older kids' cartoons like Dragonball Z than childish books like these. I also have many age levels of the Kumon books on ESL, but again, the ones at his education level are mostly for kindergartners.

Can you recommend any good activities, books, DVDs, web sites, online videos, games, anything that teaches reading and writing in a way that doesn't patronize an older child?

I think I'm doing pretty good at teaching him (and he's doing amazingly well at learning), but I know there's room for improvement and I've always gotten amazing results from asking questions here. Toss me some of your most creative ideas. Or some of your most obvious ideas. Sometimes it's the obvious ones that most elude me.

How can I speed up my reading?

Andy Harwood — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:22:13 -0800

I love to read but I'm a really slow reader. I avoid reading books longer than about 300 pages because it takes me so long to get through anything longer. I read for hours everyday (mostly online stuff) so it's not lack of practice. Is there anything I can do to speed up?

Can I teach myself French?

SamuelBowman — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 07:21:53 -0800

Can I teach myself to read French in five months? Quite a lot of work done on the area I'm studying is in French, which I cannot read or speak. The only French I've studied was back at school, which I did for three years and barely passed my GCSE-equivalent exam. I wasn't good, but I have a basic grounding that I can build on.

My subject is African history, so I won't need to be able to read technical or scientific language. Five months would be a decent amount of time as I won't be doing much research until then. (This is a UK course, so I have lots of free time for stuff like this.)

Learning to read French isn't essential, but I think it would be a help by opening up a lot of French-language sources to me. Reading is all I really need to do for the work I'm doing at the moment.

Can this be done? If so, how?

How can I keep track of academic papers and my handwritten notes on them?

col_pogo — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:28:29 -0800

What is the best hardware/software system for keeping track of a) hundreds of academic papers in PDF form and b) my handwritten notes on these hundreds of papers? Bonus if the answer integrates with some sort of citation management software. I am in a PhD program that requires me to read and take notes on a large number of papers. I can see myself in four years time simply drowning in printouts. My problem is somewhat similar to this previous question.

I don't like reading while sitting in front of my computer (typing hurts and easy internet access kills my productivity), so I tend to print out PDFs and take notes all over them while reading in cafes, libraries, on planes, etc. (Zotero's note system, for instance, isn't great for me because I don't like reading in my browser and typing notes). An ideal system would allow to me read much as I do, but make my notes--and interesting quotes and passages from what I'm reading--searchable for when I'm writing papers, studying for orals, etc.

The problem at that moment is that I end up with all these papers and notes that aren't easy to archive and can't be searched. I fear I don't have the discipline to properly archive all my actual paper notes, and hope that there's a technological fix out there for me.

I'd like advice on whether my best option is
a) a Tablet PC (with what software?)--one potential problem with this would be bulk and the distracting internet access.
b) an eBook reader that supports annotation (the upcoming IREX one?) with some sort of arching software to upload to.
c) One of those smart pens that records what you write (Previously). If these really work and can be integrated with good archiving/searching software I can see this being helpful for interviews and class notes, too.
d) Scanning notes taken on paper into my computer and archiving them from there. Something that sounds onerous and that I probably wouldn't actually do.
e) some brilliant technological solution that hasn't occurred to me.
f) knuckling down and getting a disciplined paper archiving system.

Could these options--a) in particular--be combined with Atlas TI? I love that QDA programs let me jump to specific tagged passages--and apparently the latest version has good support for PDFs. Or will OneNote--or some Mac program I haven't heard of--do this kind of thing better?

I have fairly atrocious handwriting, so OCR doesn't seem to work that well (in Evernote, for instance). I was impressed by Vista's handwriting support the one time I tried it, however--and I gather it learns from its mistakes.

I've heard Apple has a similar option, and would be willing to switch to using Macs if their handwriting recognition or the various note-taking programs I've heard about (Devonthink, Scrivener, Papers, others?) can be combined with some sort of note-capturing system.

I also take notes in lots of books. Any good ideas for capturing these notes that might fit with one of the above options?

Book recommendations for a new Christian!

schmoo — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:37:43 -0800

I'm looking for book recommendations for a young woman who has recently become interested in religion. Ideas please! I would like to buy my younger sister a book as one of her Christmas gifts. She is 19, and about four or five months ago was introduced to religion when she joined some college friends on a trip to Africa to do the normal Christian aid type work. She's since become more and more involved with the church and interested in religion - to the point that she was baptised a couple of weeks ago. The church is the most relaxed I've ever been to - it's in a purpose-built barn/hall, and they have a live band playing covers of modern songs. It's all very youth-orientated and all about friendship, community and fun. (I'm giving this information to try and give an idea of the kind of church/religion she's into. I'm not religious at all so apologies if I sound a little clueless.)

I would like to buy her a book for Christmas with some kind of spiritual/religious/Christian theme, to show her that while I'm not religious (and have probably been quite scathing about religion in the past) I respect her and am pleased that she's found this and that it makes her happy. However, I don't want to get herself anything with too strong a message - as I said she's only starting to be involved in the church, she's young, and I think she'd only be embarrassed by any too overtly religious gift as she knows how unreligious I am.

When I was younger I flicked through one of the Chicken Soup books at a friend's - I seem to remember that these had a vaguely religious theme to them, am I right? Something like this is what I'm looking for.

So - please give me your recommendations!

To sum up- I'm looking for

- nothing too strong in its religious message
- probably fiction, but non-fiction ideas welcome
- something appropriate for a 19 year old girl who loves going out, seeing friends, parties - all the normal teenage stuff!
- something well written, with an inspirational or thoughtful message.

Thanks!

Great Fiction, Online? Does It Exist?

2oh1 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:45:54 -0800

Where can I find great works of fiction online or in some sort of text form that I can read on my Mac? I want to become a better writer, and I realize this means I need to read more... but... I'm legally blind. My vision is just good enough that regular books are a pain to read (I definitely can, but exceptionally slowly). Oddly enough, large print is even more difficult for me to read. This is because bigger isn't better. For me, closer is better. I realize this might be hard for someone who doesn't have my vision to understand...

...luckily, I can read just fine on a computer. In fact, I'm constantly reading online. I'm practically addicted to it! The problem is, I'm reading everything except what I really should be reading in order to improve my writing.

I want to read great works of fiction. Hell, even just-plain-good works of fiction will do. What's available online? Is there anything I can find in text-form?

What should I be reading and where can I find it?

I'm not sure if this is helpful or not, but as a point of reference, this is an example of my writing. What I really want to do is learn to write fiction. Ah, but I've probably read fewer than 15 books in my entire life because I am suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch a slow reader (with books, anyway. I do much better on a computer screen). Hence this question.

Oh, Hive mind, help me trade my bad habit of reading the news for a good habit of reading fiction [that I can learn from].

I readed a story, but I forgetted it.

jrishel — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:16:06 -0800

I'm trying to find a short sci-fi story I read over 10 years ago that I barely remember. It may have involved some or all of the following: bicycle repair, ripe banana smelling bacteria used as deodorant and anti-libido medication. I think it might have been from one of the "Year's Best Science Fiction" Anthologies, but I'm not sure, it could have been in a sci-fi pulp magazine I subscribed to for a few years who's name also alludes me. Here are the barely remembered things I can recall, in order of rememberedness, not actual relevance to the story's plot:

main character uses a bacteria application to prevent BO. He smells like ripe bananas.

main character is working a bicycle, perhaps a racing bicycle.

in order to concentrate on his work, he takes an anti-libido pill.

he meets a girl. she may or may not be some sort of spy. I think he nurses her back to health.

he lives in some sort of post crash world where his workshop is raised from the ground to prevent looters.

he receives nagging video phone calls from his mother.

So, Hivemind, can you give me a title and author?

What to read to my ill grandmother

pised — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:55:42 -0800

In search of something to read to my ill grandmother. My 87-year-old grandmother recently broke her hip while in the long-term care facility she lives in (it broke from osteoporosis, not a fall). She's in terrible pain and in failing health, and the last time I went to see her, it broke my heart to watch her in so much pain. She got a shot of painkiller while I was there, but the shot took 20 minutes to relieve the pain and she had nothing to concentrate on while she was waiting for it to work (she doesn't have a television in her room, only a radio, which is background music more than anything). I'll be there this weekend and want to read to her to try to take her mind off the pain, so I'm looking for short, simple books or stories to read to her, something sweet and easy for her to follow.

Her short-term memory is shot from previous strokes, so she won't retain it for very long; probably the shorter the story, the better for any chance that she'll be able to follow the story. I just want her to have a soothing voice or cadence to focus on, rather than me just assuring her every couple of minutes that the meds are going to work soon. Poetry would probably be ok too. Thanks.

Help me identify this story.

uans — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:29:36 -0800

Please help me remember the title and author of a short story I read maybe 15 years ago. A handicapped woman, living with her sister and her sister's family, sees a man in church she feels quite sure is the devil. In order to get away from him, she struggles to regain the physical independence she had given up. (She had gone into a wheelchair because walking was possible, but too painful.) She does manage to become self-sufficient enough to move out on her own--and then wonders if it was worth it, after all. I am almost sure the author was Italian. Can anyone help?

How can I get better at reading aloud?

No-sword — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:05:01 -0800

How can I learn to read aloud with more feeling? When I read a poem or a script or a passage from a book aloud, it always sounds really flat and uninteresting. I feel like I have a few gimmicky ways of varying my tone and I just re-use them over and over again. By the time I get to the end of a sonnet, even I'm bored.

How can I get better? I know practice will be required but at the moment I don't even know what I should be trying to do. I'm not looking to make a stage debut or become a professional-level voice actor or anything — just to be able to say "hey, this poem/soliloquy/page is awesome, listen to this" and not send people to sleep when I proceed to read the awesome text aloud.

What books would an industrial engineer find it to be useful?

Carius — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:59:40 -0800

Books recommendation for an industrial engineer My friend is an industrial engineer who would like to read more "useful" non-fiction books.

I know she really like
The Toyota Way
The Machine That Changed the World

She also like a book about efficiently sorting boxes in a warehouse.

I already exhaustively searched thoroughly through ReadMe for similarly title, but have no luck.

Bonus: She will also be working in China next year.

So oh wise mefi please help her out!
Thank you for any suggestions!

Pulp Filter

roger ackroyd — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:53:39 -0800

Pulp Filter: I'm looking for books (fiction or non) that read like the recent Bond films: dark, thrilling, brutal, and glamorous.

Help me orient my brain for the purpose of reading Sartre?

notquitemaryann — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:20:31 -0800

They shouldn't let people like me attend used book sales, but now that the damage is done: how and where to begin reading Sartre? I've realized lately that I have accumulated a fair amount of Sartre's writings and could probably make up the remainder among the libraries I frequent. But apart from reading The Age of Reason ten years ago, I've never made an attempt to explore his contributions to philosophy (or actually that of any 20th-century philosopher apart from a little Wittgenstein, an anomaly that I haven't approached all that well and am shelving for the moment). This is mostly because I've never felt myself to be in the proper mindset, and while that seems to be changing slowly, I feel unprepared to begin and lost as to how to prepare. Off the internet, I read very little serious contemporary writing, and spend the majority of my reading time in the head of people who died before 1900; 1650 (in Europe, anyway) is less foreign to me than 1950- this applies to art, music, politics, etc. as well, so that my ability to contextualize, which has been extremely important in my reading of other philosophers, is not there. So, I have a bit of work to do before I charge in like a complete idiot. I'm hoping you can tell me:
1) What non-Sartre things ought to be read first, or at the same time, in order to have the right references and to grasp most thoroughly his books in general, or individually?
2) If not chronologically, in what order could he be read for the best understanding? What have you found most personally rewarding?
Any other advice (apart from exhortations to dive in without any preparation) also appreciated. I do plan on looking into the usefully-named How to Read Sartre, but want and need whatever help I can find. Thanks!

Good chicklit?

mikoroshi — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:09:34 -0800

Need recommendations of quality chick lit books. I'm an unapologetic fan of the "chick flick" and had an idea for a script that I think might work better as a novel, but I want to understand the structure of these books better before I begin. I'd like some recommendations for good chick lit books from those who don't think that's an oxymoron. What I mean by good is something with a plot that has a little more depth than just shopping and sex while still following the basic tropes of the genre. Something along the lines of "27 Dresses" or "Because I Said So" but in book form.

Tell me about this sentence construction

peep — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:23:06 -0800

Tell me everything you know about this sentence construction: "Are you finished your lunch?" In the past few months, I've heard the following three sentences while watching cartoons with my son.

1. "Are you finished your lunch?"
2. "I'm all finished my book."
3. "I'm finished the decorations."

At first I thought the sentence must have been misdubbed or something - like it was written "Have you finished . . ." and there was an error in recording the voice and they just left it. But three times (and on different shows)?

I'm in the US. Is this a regional thing, or common in English speaking countries other than the US? I'm 33, and I had never before heard this construction, nor seen it in print or noticed it in anything I've read on the web.

Have you heard this? Do you use it? Where are you from and what languages do you speak? Any details appreciated.

Help me find this possibly Young Adult novel.

Skoloxia — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:28:42 -0800

BookFilter: I'm looking for a novel that I read several times in the early '90s; despite having read and enjoyed it several times, I've forgotten the title and author! I have some very fuzzy, and possibly misleading, details:

- It was published in the late '80s-early '90s, give or take a decade.
- The protagonist is a high school girl who falls for a college student.
- She has day of the week underwear.
- She thinks a one night stand is called a nightstand.
- The girl's older sister is named Sarah who has saved a condom in a jar.
- The college guy she falls for is named Moishe/Moshe; he goes to Columbia University and is a misanthropist of sorts.
- The girl and Moishe have a troubled relationship and eventually break up, possibly over a misunderstanding.
- He takes a college age girl to a dance he and the protagonist were supposed to attend together.

I'm pretty sure it's not by Norma Fox Mazer, Norma Klein or even Judy Blume. I've pored through MeFi archives, Google search, Wikipedia's lists of books by genre and year, and even some ALA lists.

Halp! I have a feeling I'll be horrified about having enjoyed it so much in my youth when I finally get my mitts on it again, but the complete blank in my memory has been nagging me for months!

How can I learn to read technical documents?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:56:58 -0800

When I read technical documents or books, my mind fuzzes over and I get easily distracted. It's hard for me to get a deep understanding of technical subjects. This is starting to become an issue professionally. What can I do? For as long as I can remember, I've had a hard time reading technical documents or books. This sucks, because I'm a sysadmin and have been working with computers for as long as I can remember and don't want to do anything else. I made it through my computer science degree largely by learning through doing and labs. Lectures and required reading, however, both had the same effect: about 10 minutes in, as soon as the technical details surfaced, my mind glossed over and it became extremely hard to pay attention. The same thing happens today: I get past the background information in a whitepaper or a design document from a coworker and I find myself not having understood the last five paragraphs I just read. Or, just as frequently, I end up following background links and never making it back to the original document in question.

I do not have this issue when I'm engaged in a one-on-one conversation.

To be clear: I'm quite capable of reading long books on my own; I just finished reading Neal Stephenson's 3000+ page Baroque Cycle and have started on another, equally as long series which I'm happily reading. There is no issue when there's a compelling plot, just when there are a lot of technical details.

I'm looking, in particular, for advice from other people who have had this issue and have done something positive to work around it.

Is she being honest/Should I give up?

plungerjoke — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:25:59 -0800

Is she being honest/should I give up (online dating related)? Brief Backstory:
I met this woman from OKcupid a couple weeks ago, and I'd say we hit it off pretty well. She was choosing to sit very close to me, some casual touching, etc. etc. etc.. Anyways, we went out the first night just for a few drinks, and she ended up telling me the next day was her birthday and she wasn't doing anything for it. Being the gentleman I am, I asked her if she would like to go out to dinner. We went out, I paid, there was a tender end of the night kiss (just establishing that this was definitely a date).

After that, we didn't talk for a few days. She was busy the night that I asked her to do something again, and we made plans to go to a show the following week. She had been being less "respondy" with text messages, so I called to make sure she was still going to the show the night before it. We had a flirtatious phone conversation, and she was still up for going to the show (excited about it, even).

The next night, she called me and informed me that her aunt had died and she needed to head back home (a couple hours away), so she wouldn't be able to go. I asked if she would like to do something another time, and she sounded very enthused about the idea, and said she would get in touch with me THIS current week.

I want to believe that she is being honest, but I also don't want to set myself up for further disappointment. Is this dating situation something I should still be hopeful about, or should I have given up by now? Also, if she does not contact me this week, should I try again, or call it quits? Thank you for your kind responses.

Books please!

Go Banana — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:10:41 -0800

Recommend some great literature in the Steinbeck tradition. I'm looking for some great books in the style of East of Eden. Big, lush narrative fiction spanning generations. I'm meh on Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Irving, Barbara Kingsolver and Lawrence Hill. Big fan of M.M. Kaye, Robertson Davies, Somerset Maugham, and obviously John Steinbeck. My overall taste in books varies widely and I read voraciously. I tend to get bored quickly, however, and need something really gripping to bother finishing a book. I'd prefer generally uplifting to hopelessly tragic. I also enjoy period fiction (gothic, Victorian) and have a secret weakness for trash literature (Valley of the Dolls). Thank you for your recommendations!