What are you reading in 2025?
- Thread starter Elodan
- Start date
Just read The Genius Myth by Helen Lewis, which very readably tears the stuffing out of our common myths about genius (both scientific and artistic; the tortured genius, the asocial genius, the rebel genius, etc.), IQ, and the Great Man theory of history generally. She does note the popular ups and downs in reputations rather amusingly (does it really matter if Thoreau didn’t do his own laundry?).
Lewis is quite far ranging in her examples - I appreciated her comparison of Edison to Musk (Edison too was a self-declared genius who kept promising technological miracles which never appeared) and her discussion of the film Yesterday (would anyone care if you suddenly produced Beatles songs in a world that had never heard them? The original screenwriter and Lewis think not, and give their reasoning).
There’s also the smaller-scale and horrible example of Chris Goode, an avant-garde theatre producer who apparently firmly believed his so-called genius was inextricably tied to his (spoilered for horribleness) paedophilia - an idea that Lewis and a psychologist friend of Goode’s reject thoroughly.
Lewis is quite far ranging in her examples - I appreciated her comparison of Edison to Musk (Edison too was a self-declared genius who kept promising technological miracles which never appeared) and her discussion of the film Yesterday (would anyone care if you suddenly produced Beatles songs in a world that had never heard them? The original screenwriter and Lewis think not, and give their reasoning).
There’s also the smaller-scale and horrible example of Chris Goode, an avant-garde theatre producer who apparently firmly believed his so-called genius was inextricably tied to his (spoilered for horribleness) paedophilia - an idea that Lewis and a psychologist friend of Goode’s reject thoroughly.
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Nellisir
Hero
Oops, sorry about that, I’ve edited the post.Way to leave us hanging, dude.
Reynard
aka Ian Eller
I finished "Empire of Blue Water" which was recommended by @Whizbang Dustyboots . What an excellent book. If you have any interest in the golden age of piracy, Henry Morgan or the early years of Jamaica, I highly recommend it.
The event at the end of the story was unknown to me and really inspiring for a pirate game turned something very, very different.
The event at the end of the story was unknown to me and really inspiring for a pirate game turned something very, very different.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
I have been waiting with baited breath for years now for Pirate Borg's Dark Caribbean book, which looks like it's going to tie in tightly to existing pirate history and then go all Evil Dead on it.
One of my players this weekend asked about the big event in Port Royal and I told him, when we eventually run a full Pirate Bog campaign once the setting book is out, they should expect for that to be a big set piece moment in the campaign. So cinematic.
Reynard
aka Ian Eller
I would love to see that be the island's Deadlands moment.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
It'll be Pirates of the Caribbean big one moment and then Army of Darkness. Such an awesome moment from real history and it was great to open up the Pirate Borg book and see a line confirming that, yep, that's a key moment in the timeline.
DrunkonDuty
he/him
Jade City and Jade War, by Fonda Lee. Very good, but unremitting in that everything that happens in the story is life or death all the time.
I'm taking a break with the latest Rivers of London book, Stone and Sky.
I'm taking a break with the latest Rivers of London book, Stone and Sky.
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