Tag: books

The Five Love Languages

~ cafebedouin

According to Gary Chapman, the five love languages are:

  1. words of affirmation (compliments)
  2. quality time
  3. receiving gifts
  4. acts of service
  5. physical touch

This book, “The Five Love Languages,” was published 30 years ago. I think it is a good mental model for thinking about relationships, and it probably helps to think of them as a spectrum. It’s not that we don’t employ one or another, but we prefer to use some more than others, some of which may be context dependent.

Personally, I don’t emphasize words of affirmation. I consider that the job of each person to validate themselves. Other people complimenting us should largely not matter. I think looking for outside validation is one of the larger cultural biases that people create. So, this is probably where I am weakest. I can recognize that there can be value in compliments, but I also see them as problematic. I don’t particularly need them, although it is nice to be appreciated.

I probably emphasize “acts of service” the most. Love isn’t a feeling. Or, it is least not just a feeling. Love is a verb. If it doesn’t entail actually doing something different, often putting someone else’s interests above our own, then is it love?

Physical touch is probably second most important. Quality time and gifts follow in the third and fourth spots, respectively. It’s important to give good gifts in situations where they are appropriate. But, a relationship that has a focus on gifts can also be problematic. It’s a physical manifestation of the same kinds of issues as compliments. If it is severe enough it can lead to dependency and transactional relationships.

I haven’t read the book, but I intend to, at some point. When I do, I’ll add some notes to this entry or link to it from this post.

Readow.ai

~ cafebedouin

“Write the title of the book you last read and liked. You can also enter just any book you like.
The more titles you add to the list, the more our recommendations will match your preferences.”

—https://readow.ai/

Artificial intelligence offering book recommendations. All that is needed is a CSV file upload, Good reads API, or similar. It would be great to be able to input a list and both the books to read first, as well as surface the books that should be on the list but aren’t on it.

One Fifth of U.S. Adults Have Limited Reading Comprehension

~ cafebedouin

“Many counties that lack programs also double as hot spots of low adult literacy. These are primarily in the mountains of Appalachia, the Southern Black Belt, the Central Valley of California and along the Texas border with Mexico, but they exist throughout the nation. In about 500 American counties, nearly a third of adults struggle to read basic English, according to ProPublica’s analysis of federal literacy data. These adults may have a basic vocabulary and be able to interpret short texts, but their reading comprehension may be limited beyond that.”

– Annie Waldman, Aliyya Swaby and Anna Clark, “A Fifth of American Adults Struggle to Read. Why Are We Failing to Teach Them?” ProPublica. December 14, 2022

Imagine a life where reading anything beyond basic texts was inaccessible to you.

Ask Hacker News: Which Book Can Attract Anyone Towards Your Field of Study?

~ cafebedouin

A discussion thread on important books in various fields. A few examples:

  • Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought by Lakoff, George
  • Deep Learning for Coders with Fastai and Pytorch: AI Applications Without a PhD by Howard, Jeremy
  • Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Everett, Daniel L.
  • Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Petzold, Charles
  • Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics by Jacobs Jane

Books in 2022, Plan vs. Reality

~ cafebedouin

The Plan

Last year, I made a list of books for every week of the year. I hardly read anything from the list. I read things like N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance trilogy, revisited some of the books of Iain M. Banks Culture series (currently reading Against a Dark Background), and basically, just read whatever I felt like and only looked at the list a few times. I did manage to read the first entry, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel M. Ingram, which I found worthwhile.

This year I’m going to try just one book a month.

  1. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Robert Calasso
  2. Chicago by Brian Doyle
  3. Recollections of My Non-Existence by Rebecca Solnit
  4. Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
  5. Against Method by Paul Karl Feyerabend
  6. Building Stories by Chris Ware
  7. The Chandelier by Clarice Lispector
  8. The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
  9. Circe by Madeline Miller
  10. The Odyssey by Emily Wilson
  11. Ulysses by James Joyce (in conjunction with Stuart’s companion volume)
  12. Paradise Lost by John Milton

Beyond the list, I’ll make room for anything like the Murderbot series by Martha Wells, Ann Leckie, and any of the other usual suspects. Memory’s Legion, the final book in the Expanse series is coming out in March, isn’t it? Knowing me, I’ll want to reread the whole series again next year. Maybe as a fun corrective, I’ll keep a list of books actually read below.

The Reality

  1. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
  2. The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin
  3. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
  4. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, 3/6
  5. Holes by Louis Sachar, 3/11
  6. The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, 3/17
  7. Leviathan Falls by James S. A. Corey
  8. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, 8/8
  9. Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, 9/29