Hiya,

My local library summer reading challenge has a few items with which I could use y’all’s help.

Read a book with a musical theme.

Read a book outside your comfort zone (I read mostly novels, and mostly sci-fi).

Read a book by an author from a different cultural background. (I’m a white American and I’ve already read Three Body Problem)

Read a book suggested to you.

I would appreciate any suggestions!

-Pidgin

7 points
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  • 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.

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3 points

Those all sound interesting, thank you!

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4 points

As for a book from a different cultural background, I remember reading The White Tiger by Indian author Aravind Adiga about 10 years ago and really enjoying it.

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2 points

I’ve never heard of it or the author! Appreciate it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Tiger_(Adiga_novel)

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4 points

Outside your comfort zone / different culture: The Last Ringbearer by Kirill Yeskov. It examines the events of The Lord of The Rings, from the perspective of Mordor and the orcs. Written by a Russian author. Super good, almost better than LotR.

As a suggestion form me (a random on the internet) ultraprocessed people, the science of food that isn’t food.

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3 points

Ooh, I would totally be down for the first one! The service sounds really interesting, too! Thanks.

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3 points

Ministry for the Future is my favorite sci fi novel, and it looks like we read similar books so you might enjoy it!

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3 points

I’ll check it out, thank you!

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3 points

Maybe Storm In a Tea Cup by Helen Czerski for a book outside your comfort zone. It’s quite the interesting exploration of the principles of physics that underpin the world around us.

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2 points

That looks neat, thank you for the suggestion!

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