What are you reading currently?

[Valuebo]

1 hour ago, RichardGibbons said:

 

I've read most of the books on your list, and enjoyed them. My favourite book is Simmons' Hyperion Cantos. It's unusual in that the first book is a sci-fi take on Canterbury Tales. It certainly won't be to everyone's liking, particularly considering each sub-story has its own writing style and genre, and the first 'book' really doesn't have a self-contained ending. But I love the density of ideas.

 

Lately I've been reading romance books, because I am in the process of writing a book that's half-romance, but don't feel like I know the genre well enough. My favourite of those is The Happy Ever After Playlist by Jimenez. I liked it because it hit the romance beats in a complex way, with emotional depth. It is the second in a trilogy, but that doesn't matter so much for romance because they typically start with different characters in the same friend-group for every book.

 

I've also been reading Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's lit-RPG, complete candy-floss, and a super-easy read (from me, this is a compliment, not an insult. Not everything needs to be sophisticated.) The characters are entertaining, as are the problems they encounter and the solutions they come up with.

 

 

Thanks, RichardGibbons!

 

I bought the first Dungeon Crawler Carl this week as well. Will likely read it soon. Really curious. Love the cover already at least!

 

I've also added Hyperion to the list. Would you recommend starting with book 1? It seems there is a prequel (book 0.5?) named Prayer to Broken Bones?

[DooDiligence]

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Diaz

[RichardGibbons]

46 minutes ago, Valuebo said:

I've also added Hyperion to the list. Would you recommend starting with book 1? It seems there is a prequel (book 0.5?) named Prayer to Broken Bones?

 

I haven't actually read the prequel--didn't realize it existed.    So I guess I'll add it to my list. 

[tede02]

Just started Ken Rogoff's, "Our Dollar, Your Problem." I recently finished Lyn Alden's book, "Broken Money." If you really want to understand the basic history of money, banking and how the current fiat systems work, I'd highly recommend it. 

Edited February 22 by tede02

[Rainier]

8 hours ago, Valuebo said:

I'll bump this topic in the hopes of setting my sights on  some new must-reads.

 

Some personal reading in the last few months:

 

I've been reading a lot of fiction lately, mainly sci fi. This week I read The Martian by Andy Weir, but I didn't find it as good as Project Hail Mary, which I read a few years ago and will definitely check out in the cinema when it releases. Maybe it's because I saw The Martian first in it's film version and am also not terribly versed in science. Still a very enthralling read!

 

Currently reading Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Well, I started this afternoon (yay, Sundays!) and am already nearly halfway. Very compelling to just keep reading!

 

Dune and Dune Messiah were amazing a few months ago and I also enjoyed the humor of The Hitchhiker's Guide a lot more than I initially expected. Metro 2033 was great but at times felt more sluggish and I am unsure whether I should read 2034. Opinions? Also read Fight Club (perfect one day read), After Dark (Murakami), City under the Stars (Arthur Clarke) The Road (Cormac McCarthy) and re-read 1984. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was good too and I was positively surprised to see that the films were only loosely based on the initial work.

 

In terms of non-fiction, earlier this month I read Upheaval by Jared Diamond in which he makes some interesting observations but found little earthshattering. His knowledge across domains is impressive nonetheless. Currently reading The Psychology of Money which is ideal to read a chapter in when you're short on time and want some timeless insights and advice. I wonder if I'll like the Art of Spending Money as much.

 

Anyone who has rec's based on the above can always shoot me a line! I've also been eye'ing graphic novels (I'm a sucker for physical copies of books etc already...) but find it daunting to find my preference in terms of style and story. Bought Watchmen among others but I haven't come around to reading it yet. I also hadn't yet read Maus and I found it very decent. Definitely something accessible for younger people that might not have gotten a decent grasp on that part of history. Although books like Man's Search for Meaning are hard to beat in that department, I remember the latter part of the book as slightly harder material to grasp fully as a non-English speaking 20-something.

A few recommendations based on the sci fi stuff you listed:

 

- The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (the sequel, Forever Peace, is also very good)

 

- Sphere by Michael Crichton. Similar to Blake Crouch's style of writing, a very tight and interesting thriller.

 

- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I re-read it a few months ago and it still holds up.

 

- The Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin (really underrated recent series; there was an awful network tv show adaptation - don't hold that against the books)

 

- Book of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe. Since you liked Dune Messiah. I consider Book of The New Sun to be the best novel ever written (or the two best novels, or the four best novels, depending on the format you get). Wolfe's writing is on par with whatever western all time great you want to put him up against (Tolstoy, Nabokov, Shakespeare, Dickens, Orwell, whoever). The books are pretty challenging in terms of peeling back the onion of meaning in them. If you like rabbit holes, it is the definition of a rabbit hole. 

 

Regarding Watchmen - I don't know if it matters to you, but most people are unaware that the author, Alan Moore, is a fairly outspoken proponent and practitioner of occultism.

[Rainier]

5 hours ago, DooDiligence said:

A few from the past year, all re-reads:

 

Canticle for Leibowitz - Miller

World War Z - Brooks

The Forever War - Haldeman

Old Mans War - Scalzi

Deathworld Trilogy - Harrison

Tunnel in the Sky - Heinlein

Man Plus - Pohl

Mars Plus - Pohl

 

 

.

Those are really great books. Don't see alot of people mentioning Harrison and Pohl very often.

 

A couple of questions:

 

Have you read Forever Peace (the spiritual sequel to The Forever War)? If not, you might want to check it out. I thought it was a good follow up on alot of the ideas in the first book.

 

Have you read Saint Leibowitz and The Wild Horse Woman (sequel to Canticle for Leibowitz)? I haven't read it and have never met anyone who has. I've always wanted to, but haven't gotten around to it. Curious if you think it is worth reading if you have read it.

[DooDiligence]

59 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Those are really great books. Don't see alot of people mentioning Harrison and Pohl very often.

 

A couple of questions:

 

Have you read Forever Peace (the spiritual sequel to The Forever War)? If not, you might want to check it out. I thought it was a good follow up on alot of the ideas in the first book.

 

Have you read Saint Leibowitz and The Wild Horse Woman (sequel to Canticle for Leibowitz)? I haven't read it and have never met anyone who has. I've always wanted to, but haven't gotten around to it. Curious if you think it is worth reading if you have read it.

 

I haven't read Forever Peace. I haven't read Saint Leibowitz yet.

 

The Old Man's War (Scalzi), was really good. The sequels, Ghost Brigades, Last Colony, Human Division and End of All Things were very good too. Zoe's Tale was basically a re-write of Last Colony.

[Rainier]

I have been reading more fiction lately.

 

Recently read:

True Grit by Charles Portis. Quick read, but very good.  9/10.

 

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch. It was ok, like a 6/10. Very hyped and highly praised sci fi book, but I'd say it was slightly above average. 

 

Ender's Game - Still a classic 10/10

 

 

Currently Reading:

The Power of The Dog by Don Winslow (this is the novel about the DEA and the border drug cartels. It is completely unrelated to the netflix movie with the same name)

Edited February 25 by Rainier

[Rainier]

40 minutes ago, DooDiligence said:

 

I haven't read Forever Peace. I haven't read Saint Leibowitz yet.

 

The Old Man's War (Scalzi), was really good. The sequels, Ghost Brigades, Last Colony, Human Division and End of All Things were very good too. Zoe's Tale was basically a re-write of Last Colony.

I read Old Man's War through Last Colony. I liked them as well.

[DooDiligence]

I've been on a sci-fi jag for a while now. Mostly just re-reading stuff. I'd read Stranger in a Strange land twice (a few decades past) and gave it another go recently. It wasn't as profound as before. Maybe because I saw the tenuous attempts at mirroring buddhism as kinda weak. I still liked the way he framed commercialized religion and got rid of the hypocrisy by allowing adherents to be human. Grokked.

 

Another one that I've mentioned before is Midas World by Frederick Pohl. It's a pretty entertaining satire on consumer society, and is slowly starting to look like today.

 

I'm reading Revolt in 2100 (Heinlein) now, for probably the 3rd or 4th time. There's a great short story in the back called Coventry. Heinlein's, so called, juvenile novels are all great. Starman Jones, Space Cadet, Red Planet, Farmer in the Sky, the Star Beast, Tunnel in the Sky, Rocket Ship Galileo, more. Very entertaining for both YA and adults and they've stood the test of time for me through multiple readings.

 

Historical fiction has always been a favorite of mine too. Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Chronicles and his other series, Grail Quest, Richard Sharpe and the Starbuck Chronicles plus a single book story, Agincourt, which brings to life the stupidity of the French against the technological advance of longbow (there's no such thing as a fair fight).

 

Another guy I really like is Conn Iggulden. He does a great job covering Genghis Kahn, and Rome + Julius Caesar from boyhood all the way to stab, stab, stab.

[CorpRaider]

Listening to Jeremy Grantham Making of a Permabear.  So far, so good.

[KJP]

16 hours ago, Rainier said:

- Book of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe. Since you liked Dune Messiah. I consider Book of The New Sun to be the best novel ever written (or the two best novels, or the four best novels, depending on the format you get). Wolfe's writing is on par with whatever western all time great you want to put him up against (Tolstoy, Nabokov, Shakespeare, Dickens, Orwell, whoever). The books are pretty challenging in terms of peeling back the onion of meaning in them. If you like rabbit holes, it is the definition of a rabbit hole. 

 

 

This is very intriguing.  I'm often put off by the tediousness (e.g., Rendezvous with Rama) or the prose style of much sci-fi (Heinlein, LeGuin, Gibson), but I've heard others also say good things about Wolfe.  I'm going to check out Book of the New Sun.  My sci-fi recommendation would be Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro, though it's very soft sci-fi.  @Valuebo -- it's not sci-fi, but based on what you mentioned, you may enjoy Heart of Darkness by Conrad.  [EDIT:  Another recommendation:  Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, which was adapted into the movie Stalker by Tarkovsky.]

 

I'm currently (slowly) reading through Moby-Dick for the first time and reading Pynchon's latest book, Shadow Ticket.  I've never really got Pynchon and this one is no different for me, so I can't recommend it.  Some recent reads that I enjoyed:

 

Disgrace by Coetzee

Revolutionary Road by Yates

Bright Lights, Big City by McInerney (the best of the limited amount of Brat Pack that I've read)

Pnin by Nabokov

Gilead by Robinson

Parts of Invisible Man by Ellison, though it's so dense that I'm sure much of it went over my head.  

Edited February 23 by KJP

[Eldad]

History of Germany since 1789 by Golo Mann. 
 

It is great so far and I’m not even to WW1 yet. 

Edited February 24 by Eldad

[hasilp89]

Something books I’ve read this year - 

Harriman vs. Hill (@ the recommendation of someone here)

Rocket Dreams

The Odyssey

The fish that swallows the whale

nibbled on Dear Chairman 

Currently reading Born to be wired, Nelson Mandela autobiography and a short book of Maimonides writings.

 

[adventurer]

-"Essais" from Michelle de Montaigne

-The Nomad Letters

[KJP]

13 hours ago, hasilp89 said:

The Odyssey

 

 

With the new Nolan movie coming up, I decided to re-read this (and The Iliad) too for the first time since high school.  I realized that I had basically forgotten everything except Books 9-12.  I enjoyed the re-read much more than I expected (and much more than The Iliad).  What did you think of it?

[hasilp89]

45 minutes ago, KJP said:

 

With the new Nolan movie coming up, I decided to re-read this (and The Iliad) too for the first time since high school.  I realized that I had basically forgotten everything except Books 9-12.  I enjoyed the re-read much more than I expected (and much more than The Iliad).  What did you think of it?

100% agreed and same here although last time was in college. It was much more relevant and entertaining this time around. My memory was more around the specific stories in the return journey - cyclopes, circe etc etc (although i had forgetten hades) rather than the family dynamics (telecmachus/penelope) and the return.  In ways it felt more relatable as a father and a husband than as a single college kid. Also my memory of the story was more linear vs. reality is he is retelling parts of his return until he get's back to Ithaka. I didn't expect it but it was a page turner this time around. Hope the movie does it justice!  

[DooDiligence]

O Brother, Where Art Thou

[flesh]

On 2/22/2026 at 7:18 PM, Rainier said:

A few recommendations based on the sci fi stuff you listed:

 

- The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (the sequel, Forever Peace, is also very good)

 

- Sphere by Michael Crichton. Similar to Blake Crouch's style of writing, a very tight and interesting thriller.

 

- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I re-read it a few months ago and it still holds up.

 

- The Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin (really underrated recent series; there was an awful network tv show adaptation - don't hold that against the books)

 

- Book of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe. Since you liked Dune Messiah. I consider Book of The New Sun to be the best novel ever written (or the two best novels, or the four best novels, depending on the format you get). Wolfe's writing is on par with whatever western all time great you want to put him up against (Tolstoy, Nabokov, Shakespeare, Dickens, Orwell, whoever). The books are pretty challenging in terms of peeling back the onion of meaning in them. If you like rabbit holes, it is the definition of a rabbit hole. 

 

Regarding Watchmen - I don't know if it matters to you, but most people are unaware that the author, Alan Moore, is a fairly outspoken proponent and practitioner of occultism.

Loved book of the new sun. Loved Hyperion 1 and 2. Dune trilogy. Can't recommend them enough. Can't wait to forget Hyperion somewhat and read it again. 

 

-Also, make sure you read speaker for the dead, if you read enders game, excellent. Second in the series. 

 

For sci fi readers(I don't believe these were mentioned yet). Both are hard sci fi, dealing with a evolutionary experiment gone wrong one and two, first contact with a let's say totally different sort of species. Totally different yet adheres to evolutionary principles, and the interesting bit, let's say they worship evolution. 

 

-Children of time, iirc won a retro hugo award

-Blindsight, one of my all time faves and unique, it's a slap in the face when it clicks. 

 

I've also recently read, 

 

Blood Meridian, Cormac Mccarthy, extreme philosophical violence, it might bother you. What happens when a group of young men in a lawless west have superior firepower?

 

Suttree, Cormac McCarthy. I was Suttree for a couple weeks. 

 

Both excellent. 

 

Right now reading the unabridged (1300 pages), penguin classic, Count of Monte Cristo. Read the abridged long ago, recently saw the new french movie and there was much in it I didn't remember! Didn't even realize there was a full version! only a few hundred pages in, great so far. As always great books are always better than the best movies made from them. 

 

Also, All things are full of gods, by David Bentley hart. The latter is non fiction, deals with mind/consciousness, anti physicalist/materialist, sort of his own take on let's call it idealism, a god like entity as the fundamental basis for reality. It's fun the way it's setup, four gods, hanging out, debating metaphysics. One clearly on the side of consciousness/mind being fundamental and another your current classical materialist. Other's in between or with something to add. This is maybe my 10th book on the subject. It's worth a try if your a materialist (most of you are by default as it's the accepted current metaphysics). If you want to challenge your assumptions, this is a great one for that. Does matter create mind or mind create matter? If you think the answer is obvious, this might be the book for you!

 

Edited February 25 by flesh

[flesh]

On 2/22/2026 at 1:38 PM, RichardGibbons said:

 

I've read most of the books on your list, and enjoyed them. My favourite book is Simmons' Hyperion Cantos. It's unusual in that the first book is a sci-fi take on Canterbury Tales. It certainly won't be to everyone's liking, particularly considering each sub-story has its own writing style and genre, and the first 'book' really doesn't have a self-contained ending. But I love the density of ideas.

 

Lately I've been reading romance books, because I am in the process of writing a book that's half-romance, but don't feel like I know the genre well enough. My favourite of those is The Happy Ever After Playlist by Jimenez. I liked it because it hit the romance beats in a complex way, with emotional depth. It is the second in a trilogy, but that doesn't matter so much for romance because they typically start with different characters in the same friend-group for every book.

 

I've also been reading Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's lit-RPG, complete candy-floss, and a super-easy read (from me, this is a compliment, not an insult. Not everything needs to be sophisticated.) The characters are entertaining, as are the problems they encounter and the solutions they come up with.

With you being a thoughtful poster I found this interesting. I've also read most of the sci fi books I've seen here, not forever war, but it's on the shelf. Hyperion 1 and 2 are in my top three sci fi's of 100 hundred ish. However, I don't believe I've read any romance books, ever. I can't be sure I'll like them as I tend to side with the evolutionary psychologists when it comes to relationships but I'm open to trying. Can you give me a top three "romance" books?

[KJP]

8 minutes ago, flesh said:

 I can't be sure I'll like them as I tend to side with the evolutionary psychologists when it comes to relationships but I'm open to trying. 

 

Can you say a bit more about what you mean by this?

 

Also, if you liked Blood Meridian I'd recommend Heart of Darkness if you haven't read it already.  I believe Conrad in general and that book in particular significantly influenced McCarthy in both theme and prose style. 

Edited February 25 by KJP

[flesh]

1 hour ago, KJP said:

 

Can you say a bit more about what you mean by this?

 

Also, if you liked Blood Meridian I'd recommend Heart of Darkness if you haven't read it already.  I believe Conrad in general and that book in particular significantly influenced McCarthy in both theme and prose style. 

Well, I'd say, most of what is called Romance, is better explained by applying evolutionary principles to human psychology. Our sub or unconscious mind is doing a long of work which we mistake for our own choices in relationships. You could say we have limited free will at least. I could add Danny kahneman's work on biases and heuristics, which is more known here, to the work of reasons why we have less free will than we think. I'd point you for starters to the book, The ape that understood the universe, for a fun intro to evo psych. 

 

Off the top of my head, iirc in David buss's 1000 page college text on the subject. There's a study, initially predicted by evo psych principles, that men should prefer younger women. In the past, sex=babies. Younger women are more fertile, genes that prefer fertile women, are more likely to survive. Therefore, there should be a first person experience, psychologically, that drives men to young women, a what it's like to be the man desiring young women. 

 

Of course all this may seem obvious so far, though you'd be surprised. 

 

But how do you prove or get closer to truth here? How do you know it's closer to nature than nurture? Maybe if all the media had shown you 40 year old women as as ideal sexual partners your whole life, you'd prefer them? Some may make up a story that just so. Idk, maybe older women are better in bed, are sexually liberated, not so difficult to have sex with etc. 

 

I'm going to butcher this  but the study went something like this. They showed the outline of a woman's hip to waist ratio from behind. No face, no chest. They had something like half a dozen different hip to waist ratios. They asked men in 40 countries including some hunter gatherer tribes from ages 15-75 which hip to waist ratio they preferred. The results were a gaussian bell curve but steeper on the edges. They then took the preferred hip to waist ratios and overlayed them on 1000's of pictures of  women worldwide of all ages. The ideal hip to waist ratio correlated with a woman of 23 worldwide, regardless of the age of the man. The 2nd and third best hip to waist ratio corelated with just a bit older or younger. This also is peak fertility for women. Or maybe it's a year before peak, something like that. 

 

So, that's not very romantic and it's my understanding that there's many underlying psychological processes directing us all the time in such a fashion that were unaware of, because like most things, it's always been that way and therefore isn't questioned. I also find understanding things in this way has helped me in relationships because I can recognize when others are doing without thinking and it just bounces off me, it's another one of those. Also my own thoughts, which I don't author, can be disregarded. I've not given up on free will, it's in the I know I don't know and will never know enough to even define it category and nor does anybody else. 

 

That said, I can still enjoy the archetypal dream manifestations that are great fiction. Pretending is what we do.

 

i put heart of darkness on my list. Now I know why the climb I did in Thailand has that name. 

Edited February 25 by flesh

[Rainier]

On 2/22/2026 at 2:38 PM, RichardGibbons said:

 

I've read most of the books on your list, and enjoyed them. My favourite book is Simmons' Hyperion Cantos. It's unusual in that the first book is a sci-fi take on Canterbury Tales. It certainly won't be to everyone's liking, particularly considering each sub-story has its own writing style and genre, and the first 'book' really doesn't have a self-contained ending. But I love the density of ideas.

 

Lately I've been reading romance books, because I am in the process of writing a book that's half-romance, but don't feel like I know the genre well enough. My favourite of those is The Happy Ever After Playlist by Jimenez. I liked it because it hit the romance beats in a complex way, with emotional depth. It is the second in a trilogy, but that doesn't matter so much for romance because they typically start with different characters in the same friend-group for every book.

 

I've also been reading Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's lit-RPG, complete candy-floss, and a super-easy read (from me, this is a compliment, not an insult. Not everything needs to be sophisticated.) The characters are entertaining, as are the problems they encounter and the solutions they come up with.

The only romance book I've ever read (that I can think of) is The Time Traveller's Wife. It is a decent book and possibly worth reading if you are researching romance genre meshing with other genres (light sci-fi in this case). Very easy to read and the romantic relationship in the book is both very weird in some places and very realistic in others.

 

The only other things I can think of as romance that I've read are a couple of Jane Austen books at the request of my wife - Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion. The writing in both is good, but I would say Austen is slightly overrated (but keep in mind that I am the opposite of the target audience for this type of literature). The plot of Pride & Prejudice is good, and probably everyone knows what the plot is at this point either from the actual book/movies or the fact that the plot has been copied in about 100 other movies/books. Persuasion is much different and I would say it is probably the better novel overall, despite being far less well known than all of her other books. In particular, toward the end of the book there is a philosophical dialogue between two characters regarding the differences of love/commitment capabilities in men compared to women that is top tier - almost certainly the best thing Austen ever wrote. That section should probably be assigned to high school kids to read. But you have to read the rest of the novel to get there, which is a slog, and I am not sure it's worth it.

[flesh]

On 2/22/2026 at 7:18 PM, Rainier said:

A few recommendations based on the sci fi stuff you listed:

 

- The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (the sequel, Forever Peace, is also very good)

 

- Sphere by Michael Crichton. Similar to Blake Crouch's style of writing, a very tight and interesting thriller.

 

- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I re-read it a few months ago and it still holds up.

 

- The Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin (really underrated recent series; there was an awful network tv show adaptation - don't hold that against the books)

 

- Book of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe. Since you liked Dune Messiah. I consider Book of The New Sun to be the best novel ever written (or the two best novels, or the four best novels, depending on the format you get). Wolfe's writing is on par with whatever western all time great you want to put him up against (Tolstoy, Nabokov, Shakespeare, Dickens, Orwell, whoever). The books are pretty challenging in terms of peeling back the onion of meaning in them. If you like rabbit holes, it is the definition of a rabbit hole. 

 

Regarding Watchmen - I don't know if it matters to you, but most people are unaware that the author, Alan Moore, is a fairly outspoken proponent and practitioner of occultism.

When I was reading sutree by cormac McCarthy recently I kept getting flashback to the book of the new sun. 
 

I can’t pinpoint why. I guess it’s the style/prose/ non goal oriented unfolding meandering way it’s presented. 

[Rainier]

20 minutes ago, flesh said:

Well, I'd say, most of what is called Romance, is better explained by applying evolutionary principles to human psychology. Our sub or unconscious mind is doing a long of work which we mistake for our own choices in relationships. You could say we have limited free will at least. I could add Danny kahneman's work on biases and heuristics, which is more known here, to the work of reasons why we have less free will than we think. I'd point you for starters to the book, The ape that understood the universe, for a fun intro to evo psych. 

 

Off the top of my head, iirc in David buss's 1000 page college text on the subject. There's a study, initially predicted by evo psych principles, that men should prefer younger women. In the past, sex=babies. Younger women are more fertile, genes that prefer fertile women, are more likely to survive. Therefore, there should be a first person experience, psychologically, that drives men to young women, a what it's like to be the man desiring young women. 

 

Of course all this may seem obvious so far, though you'd be surprised. 

 

But how do you prove or get closer to truth here? How do you know it's closer to nature than nurture? Maybe if all the media had shown you 40 year old women as as ideal sexual partners your whole life, you'd prefer them? Some may make up a story that just so. Idk, maybe older women are better in bed, are sexually liberated, not so difficult to have sex with etc. 

 

I'm going to butcher this  but the study went something like this. They showed the outline of a woman's hip to waist ratio from behind. No face, no chest. They had something like half a dozen different hip to waist ratios. They asked men in 40 countries including some hunter gatherer tribes from ages 15-75 which hip to waist ratio they preferred. The results were a gaussian bell curve but steeper on the edges. They then took the preferred hip to waist ratios and overlayed them on 1000's of pictures of  women worldwide of all ages. The ideal hip to waist ratio correlated with a woman of 23 worldwide, regardless of the age of the man. The 2nd and third best hip to waist ratio corelated with just a bit older or younger. This also is peak fertility for women. Or maybe it's a year before peak, something like that. 

 

So, that's not very romantic and it's my understanding that there's many underlying psychological processes directing us all the time in such a fashion that were unaware of, because like most things, it's always been that way and therefore isn't questioned. I also find understanding things in this way has helped me in relationships because I can recognize when others are doing without thinking and it just bounces off me, it's another one of those. Also my own thoughts, which I don't author, can be disregarded. I've not given up on free will, it's in the I know I don't know and will never know enough to even define it category and nor does anybody else. 

 

That said, I can still enjoy the archetypal dream manifestations that are great fiction. Pretending is what we do. 

I would both agree and disagree with you on this.

 

I agree that the idea of "romance" is almost completely devoid of any real meaning. Likewise, the idea of being "in love" is almost nonsensical. However, people are definitely capable of loving each other - with the word "loving" describing the acts of kindness, caring, self-sacrifice, etc. toward another person. And I think, to the extent that there is any subconscious direction going on regarding relationships, those are not genetic or evolutionary. They are simply societal norms that are so ingrained that people don't question them. They could question them but choose not to. If you were able to look at the "romance" of different areas of the globe now, or the same areas at different times, or go back to ancient Greece or ancient Egypt or however far back, you'd see that the "romantic" norms were completely different, therefore contradicting any possibility of an evolutionary factor.

 

I disagree with the idea that people don't have or are almost devoid of free will. There's no evidence for this and it is an avenue of philosophical thought that ends up in either dead ends or circular reasoning. And I wouldn't be so quick to disregard your own thoughts or consider them outside of your own authorship, as it is very easy to train oneself to think in different ways. We choose to allow societal norms to override our own thought processes on a million little or big things every day (and most of the time this is fine and usually beneficial). But that doesn't mean that you should give your brain a free pass because it uses the norms as a crutch or assume that you couldn't easily think a different way if you wanted to.