Musical theme: Kahlil Gibran wrote an eloquent essay on music, though good luck finding it.
Outside your comfort zone: Capitalism as Civilisation by Ntina Tzouvala, a theoretical work which examines how western legal scholars categorized non-western polities based on a racist standard of civilisation and justified colonising them.
Book from a different cultural background: the Cairo Trilogy by the Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, a chronicle of a wealthy family witnessing the instability of the 1930s in British-occupied Egypt.
OK, I will think about it. Thanks.
I never bothered with the social aspect of book platforms, so I use an offline tracker. Do you recommend me creating one?
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani. Although initially I couldn’t grasp much of what was happening in the prologue, as I progress it grows on me more and more.
Works fine for me. You can open an issue on Github.
Throwback to when they announced releasing a simple phone. Fun times.
The existence of lemmy.world which you’re part of, proves that lemmy tolerates right-wing instances if you ask me.
Make use of the decentralized nature of lemmy, the devs won’t knock at your door for creating or posting on right-wing instances.
And most chapters are basically one-page, easily digestible passages, so it isn’t a hard read.
It’s always been a family (indeed, a national) tradition to watch the world cup. Son inherits his loyalty to a club from father just like clan names. However, in the last two cups I became only loyal to a good match of football, to whomever knows how to treat a ball like a gentleman. Perhaps it’s the nostalgia or the collective bondage which still draws me like millions of other fans to watch it play out every four years.
That said, nothing beats a good, friendly match with the pals in the local field; or the recess matches between the cramped walls in school, using a home-made nylon/paper ball.
Soccer in Sun and Shadow by Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano. The passion in which he recounts the sport’s history from its modest inception up to its consumerist rebranding, and the vividness in which he describes its beautiful moments and dismal tragedies, is simply breathtaking. Galeano’s words on paper capture the art of the sport better than any camera and TV screen.
I will be writing and posting a review of the book once I am done reading it.
I am sure the United Kingdom, among others, may indeed be happy to steal other cultures’ artefacts, in deviation of international treaties.
No, I am not the dev. Perhaps I should’ve clarified this.
“evil corporation” is quite the tautology.
I’m afraid this is not an ebook reader, but a book tracker.
This is an offline tracker, so it doesn’t compare per se. There were talks about integrating bookwyrm into the app, but as of now there is no public API.
This project was actually my exit way from Goodreads. Unlike another commenter, I found virtually no issue with searching for books in European languages. All the statistics which GR offers are available, and you can easily import your books to the app. And of course, no ads, zero trackers and open source.
The only caveat is the social aspect, since this is an offline tracker.
Edit: If you have any concerns, hop on the matrix community where the dev is active.
See https://github.com/mateusz-bak/openreads-android/issues/90#issuecomment-1722339001
Out of interest, how often do you find issues looking for books on OpenLibrary?
Honourable mention: paying as little tax as possible
It’s a tough choice, but if I had to choose it would be Betrayers of the Truth by William J. Broad and Nicholas Wade. The book deals with the problematic ways fraud is dealt with in the scientific community, namely as an exceptional phenomenon, a bad-apple type of analysis that unwittingly brushes off the structural issues of academia.
A honourable mention would be Silencing the Past by Michel-Rolph Trouillot which questions the layered process of producing history. The production of history is itself a product of history that should not be taken for granted. All of this is showcased through a quick overview of Haitian history.
Ottoman Turkish, although the geographical terms and country names wouldn’t have differed much.