52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge

Awwwwww YEEEEEAH! It’s ma’ fak’n GO TIME!

Inspired by this thread:

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/off-the-grid-august-challenge/129338

I’ve decided to reinvigorate myself for not just August, BUT FOR LIFE.

Books are fun.

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Books sometimes have decades of research condensed into a few hundred pages. Books allow our minds to work in the way they were intended: processing data, painting rich pictures, interpreting details, changes in tone, texture, smell, and taste.

Next time you find a book, sniff it like you’re Jack Nicholson in a Vegas sex club with an 8-ball of cocain in 1981. You’ll thank me later.

Stolen from other places:

The written version of the above video:

The goal is simple. Read one book every week for a year. The books can be anything you like, don’t like, or something you’re not sure if you like.

I am starting with something I’ve put off for a long time. I read it a while back, but sometimes you need that second run to really hammer home the message. I tend to take notes when reading, writing in margins or using a separate notebook. So I plan on reflecting and see if I’ve changed my perspective at all this next go around.

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Cal Newport is a pompous Computer Science professor, but a good writer that brings good points to the table.

After this, I’ll probably start The Horus Heresy :grin:

What are you going to read? Will you take this challenge with me and start to unplug more and more throughout the year to better yourself?

I’ll update my status weekly, to keep myself and others motivated. In other communities I’ve participated in we’ve listed our books, reviewed them (optional), and discussed what we learned, for better or worse.

Join me, Level 1 Techs!

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I’ll join you! Seems like a great idea to have some other people to keep you on track.

I’m currently reading “how to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie and “Code complete 2” by Steve McConnell.

I definitely won’t finish Code complete in one week, that thing is a monster.
As for how to win friends and influence people, I’d like to follow the author’s advice and read every chapter twice, so I’ll give myself 2 weeks.

Any suggestions on good books to read? I still have some books on my to-do list, but way too many of them are about programming/software development.

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Does audiobooks count?
If so i am consuming a book every 1-3 days.(excluding weekends)

[edit]
Also does technical books or a wiki count?
Because i am convinced wikipedia is made by the devil, i can start out reading about a single thing half an hour later i realize i have 100+ tabs open and still going

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If you like fantasy, The Name of the Wind is the start of an amazing series.

Sticking with that theme:

The Blade Itself
The Axe and the Throne
The Black Company
The Icewind Dale Trilogy (was my The Lord of the Rings when I was younger)
The Darkness that Comes Before
The Malazan Book of the Fallen series

SciFi

Warhammer 40k books
DUNE
The Expanse novels
On Basilisk Station
Wool

Self Help/Motivational

Deep Work
So Good They Can’t Ignore You
Happiness
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (trust me :wink: )

Sure. It’s been said if you’re focused and actively listening, you retain and benefit almost as much as reading a book.

Technical books yeah. Wikis would be hard to count but why not?

I live on books, I’ve almost entirely given up on tv and such with a few exceptions. I came across a load of Wilbur Smith’s in a charity shop recently and oddly enough have been quite enjoying them. There’s an awful lot of research that goes into his books despite being fairly formulaic. I’d previously relegated him to the same corner of the shelf as Stephen King.

For something a touch different The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is an interesting read. It’s set from the perspective of a 15 year old with Asperger’s who decides to write a murder mystery about his neighbour’s dog’s death.

Quite possibly the best debut novel I’ve come across in the last decade.
I’ve a running bet going as to who is going to eat themselves to death first before finishing the next book him or George R.R.

Also by Glenn Cook, Garrett P.I. is worth a shot.

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Pinned the topic in #media:books for a month

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as a recommendation of a series to consume i would throw “Discworld” in the pile, i am currently at book 22 and so far i have enjoyed all fo them.
Terry Pratchett manages to make them all interesting and funny.

Wikipedia's words on the matter

“Discworld is a comic fantasy book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett (1948?2015), set on the fictional Discworld, a flat disc balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A’Tuin. The books frequently parody or take inspiration from J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare, as well as mythology, folklore and fairy tales, often using them for satirical parallels with current cultural, political and scientific issues.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld#Bibliography

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I’m joining and I’m committed. I have a massive stack of books to work through and I don’t expect to finish any one of them in a week.

Here’s the order of my reading priorities. I need to stay disciplined and only let myself read 2 at a time.

1.) Instrumentation and Control systems 2nd Edition - William Bolton
2.) RHCSA & RHCE exam prep (Massive Volume)
3.) RHEL Troubleshooting Guide - Benjamin Cane
4.) Self Efficacy - Albert Bandura
5.) The art of Loving - Erich Fromm
6.) Literacies of Power - Donaldo Macedo

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Anyone decided to do this? Inb4 necrobann :disappointed: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

  1. Deep Work by Cal Newport
  2. The Practicing Mind by Thomas Sterner
  3. Accelerate by Nicole forsgren et al.
  4. The Crystal Shard by R.A. Salvatore
  5. The White Plague by Frank Herbert
  6. Terraform Up & Running by Yevgeniy Brikman
  7. The Cathedral & The Bazaar by Eric Raymond
  8. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  9. Fevre Dream by George Martin

Currently reading Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory by Leonard Susskind & Art Friedman. Bit of a bore but I’ve neglected it for too long.

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no ban, in fact have a pin!

I am interested, but I find it difficult to fit books into my life right now.

That said, I want to eventually be able to do this. It seems really enriching.

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I sort of cheat, if I’m not working from home I take public transport lol. So if I don’t have any commute, I wake up early and read. If I do commute, it’s on auto-pilot so I can still read during the 25 minute ride :smiley:

Sometimes it is. I have a huge backlog. Sometimes I get distracted with tales of dungeons and dragons. Other times I read old stuff that gets boring before it gets good. Sometimes I hit gold mines, like with The Name of the Wind or The Blade Itself, and their series(eses).

I usually have a tech book I work through while reading fiction, fantasy, Sci-Fi, etc.

One series I’ve been dying to read is the Wheel of Time.

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:+1: Buckle up. I appreciate closure and I like Brandon Sanderson’s work in his own right and what he did for WoT… But cot damn. Don’t binge it. Do a couple at a time and take a break, with ample notes to give yourself a “previously on…”

My two cents lol. I’m going to rerun through The Legend of Drizzt series :grin: Already knocked out The Crystal Shard. That was my Wheel of Time, my The Lord of the Rings, etc.

Great series. I’ve only read it once all the way through, reading “The Icewind Dale Trilogy” a few times, I think. Looking forward to doing the whole set again.

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Level1BooksTM

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How was Deep Work? I’ve read two of Newport’s books and I don’t think he’s a particularly good writer. He tends to gloss over what he’s trying to explain, leaving it all a little too vague.