I read this a while ago, and the follow up. I really enjoyed them… It gave a really interesting summary on how man has arrived at his current position.
Synth manuals excluded!
Well I never…
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Its been described as the greatest book of magic by people who practice that form 0f spirituality.
There’s definitely a power to it. Little infinitely unfolding nuggets of wisdom in the smallest passages
I’m reading/re-reading the following books in an effort to improve my composition and arranging skills:
Arranging Techniques for Synthesists by Eric Turkey
The Pop Piano Book by Mark Harrison
How to Write Songs on Keyboards & How to Write Songs on Guitar both by Ricky Rooksby
I really loved this one by Eco, such I brilliant overview on secrete societies and mysticism/religion and how everything is connected or can be constructed to be connected. It’s like a smart and sound version of Dan Brown books.
Also really liked „The Prague Cementary“, it taught me a lot about how antisemitism and conspiracy-theories work. And I also liked the „Island of the day before“ a lot.
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Michael Bakunin is my guy. Not only did he practice what he preached but his critique of the statist approach to socialism ended up being pretty much bang on.
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I know, they are the best books of course!
prague cemetery and foucault’s pendulum are the 2 eco books i’ve read 
i took a big suitcase of books to the charity shop awhile back and when i was unpacking them i had seconded thoughts about giving those 2 away!
one of the good things about having a crappy memory is being able to reread books. it’s been quite a long time since i read foucault’s, so i’ve no idea how it ends.
the protagonists condition in prague cemetery is a really interesting construct tho. i’ll read that again at some point.
Island of the day before sounds intriguing
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Today in the morning I read „What if we stopped pretending? The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we canˋt prevent it“ - Jonathan Franzen.
In the evening I will carry on reading „Cox or The passage of time“ - Christoph Ransmayr.
why I am reading these or other books? Out of interest 
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Not a massive punk fan but I’m about 1/4 the way through so far and loving it.
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https://blankforms.org/publication/blank-forms-aspirations-of-madness/
Great issue of Blank Forms. I’m reading it because I read all of them, but the Masayuki Takayanagi and the Joseph Jarman interviews were exceptional.
Some of the other stuff was just too heady for me. Not in that brain space I suppose.
Absolutely love reading r/nosleep but disillusioned with horror literature proper, saw this recommended a lot, great so far but not sure if it’s scratching my deep itch for grotesque and twisted
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Yeah, that was an interesting one!
A Clockwork Orange.
Read it as a teenager and barely understood a thing because of the Slavic slang language Alex (protagonist) uses. Completed the Duolingo Russian course a few years ago. Read it again and it’s terrific - the slang words are like these little puzzles you have to solve as you progress. Highly recommended
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Slightly off topic but how long did it take you to do? (The course) and how proficient were you afterwards?
Took me 8 months if I remember rightly, was 3 or so years ago now. But I stuck to it religiously, every single day for that period.
I have a Zoom tutor now and can read and understand a lot, and speak quite a bit although haltingly. I’m probably lower B2 on the international language scale.
Overall the path to making progress in a language is very similar to music - compounding tiny gains on a daily basis.
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how proficient were you afterwards?
Sorry, to answer that specifically, I think probably around A2. Duo gives you a good solid base, but you really still have a mountain to climb, certainly with respect to listening and speaking.
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That looks great. Saw a documentary about that a few years ago, really inspiring. Is it a good read?