To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.
I didn't read Atomised this week and instead started Confessions of a Mask, which is basically Mishima's autobiography as a closeted teenager during the Shōwa Era Japan, plus weird sadomasochistic tendencies like getting an erection and masturbating to St. Sebastian's painting. I'll finish Houellebecq's “magnus opus” eventually.
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Machiavelli - The Prince
There's a good reason why it's so well regarded. It's a very succinct guide to how to be an effective dictator (hopefully a benevolent one). It's really not all that much about plotting and scheming, more about understanding human nature. Like being nice to people doesn't always make them loyal. Most of it is timeless advice but he uses some examples from Italy in his own time so you'll want wikipedia open to just take a glance every once in a while.
It reminded me of Sun Tzu a lot in that he distills the basics of his art down into a simple form easy to understand.
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I read the version that had some annotations by historical european leaders like Napoleon and some Swedish queen.
There's a part about the great conquerors of history like Caesar and Alexander. Napoleon inserted his name there on his copy of the book, back when he was still a mid ranking officer.
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read it recently, great book
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