What are you currently reading? (Part IV)

[j.mills]

Well, there are whole threads (threads!) on this question, Mr Donkey. In his later SF books Asimov tied all his threads together, so Foundation stuff and Robot stuff all merge into one giant tapestry of future history. Nemesis is unusual in being essentially stand-alone (although it does get one tiny mention in another book). Among my faves, and also fairly stand-alone, are The Gods Themselves and The End Of Eternity. If you get on okay with him after two or three novels (and some people find his workmanlike style off-putting, notwithstanding his big ideas), my rec would be to read aaaaaall his SF novels in publication order: that's different from the internal chronology, but you'll be encountering revelations in the order they were produced. But it's a big undertaking!

[Concert Donkey]

Hehe sorry. I initially wanted to just mention Nemesis and praise him then decided to make more use of the post

Thanks for the info! I think I will go in chronological order and then read all the ones I've missed. Or will I not understand the prequel books unless I read the originals?

Sorry about the off topic posts! Carry on, privates!

[The-Norwegian-Guy]

Just finished 'Deconstructing Jesus' by Robert M. Price which was fantastic and now reading 'The Incredible Shrinking Son Of Man' also by Price.
Both great reads if you're interested in the bible and other ancient mythic stories.

Next book to read will be 'The Blind Watchmaker' by some biologist guy, should be good.

[Mantisdreamz]

Mantisdreamz, with regard to the George R R Martin series, be aware that successive volumes are:

better than the previous one;
bigger than the previous one;
slower to arrive than the previous one...

I've been waiting for vol 5 for yeeeeeears! On the up side, HBO are planning to film it, one season per book. Woof!

(There's also a cracking boardgame of A Game Of Thrones - for the serious gamer. Head-hurting strategy and it really captures the atmosphere of the books.)

a board game, wow that's serious stuff! yea, a friend of mine suggested the series to me and he's got the same sort of frustration going on in waiting for the last book... apparently, he may not even end up coming out with it ?!? not too sure about that though. but hey that's great about the tv series when is coming out; do you know?

[Mantisdreamz]

There are quite a few differences. One example, the character of Jack Torrence, while not Jack Nicholson, is a bit more complex than many of his others. There's also a bigger sense of dread. It reminded me somewhat of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.

speaking of jack nicholson as well, another really good book-movie combo was one flew over the cuckoo's nest. the book was great, and usually books tend to be better than the movie, but i might have to say i liked the movie better for this one. than again, i think i could enjoy anything acted by j.n and his elastic, maniacal face

[j.mills]

Mantisdreamz, I hear the series is now going to run to 7 books, not 5, so the forthcoming one will not be the end of the waiting. On the other hand, that means more good stuff to read! Meanwhile, production of the first TV series was okayed a few months ago - might be in progress even now.

[Spinozasgalt]

I finished The Painted Veil last night (or perhaps "early this morning" is more accurate) and I'm thinking of reading Slaughterhouse 5 next. I've read the first few pages and it seemed quite funny.

[Rumraket80]

I am simultaneously reading "The selfish gene" 30th anniversary edition and "God is not great - how religion poisons everything".
Actually i just finished Godisnotgreat and Hitchens writing style is awesome both in a humorously sense and also for his delightful charge of the english language. This is my first hitchens book and I will propably buy others now.

The selfish gene is extremely educational and well written... I guess the subject has less inherently "entertaining" value in a fun sense than the hitchens book(which is why I finished that one first I must confess)... but Dawkins is an excellent educator and explainer. If only we had biology teachers like this in elementary school

I have "The god delusion" waiting for when I finish The selfish Gene.

I am considering buying "The ancestors tale"(excellent reviews of a unique story telling approach to the evolution of human beings and our ancestor organisms) and "The evidence for evolution"(might change this to another book, since I definately don't think I need to convince myself of the facts of evolution).

[Mantisdreamz]

Mantisdreamz, I hear the series is now going to run to 7 books, not 5, so the forthcoming one will not be the end of the waiting. On the other hand, that means more good stuff to read! Meanwhile, production of the first TV series was okayed a few months ago - might be in progress even now.

nice! i'll have to keep my eyes open for that tv series i'm curious to see how they're gonna do tyrion... i picture him like a gimley of l.o.t.r. i've still got about 6000 pages to go before i reach the last book, so i'm set for now... hopefully, the 5th'll be out by then! anyone have any other good fantasy series recommendations?

[j.mills]

The thread you want, Mantisdreamz, is Good SciFi/Fantasy. That'll keep you busy!

[Mitts]

Azincourt by Bernard Cornwell.

[Fizzle]

The thread you want, Mantisdreamz, is Good SciFi/Fantasy. That'll keep you busy!

Oh...oh, crap.

[Mantisdreamz]

The thread you want, Mantisdreamz, is Good SciFi/Fantasy. That'll keep you busy!

oh man thanks... time to get the pen and paper... i can now see why so many people on this site have posted in the 50 book challenge!

[Bert62]

I'm juggling too many things, as usual. I've finished TGSOE, but know that I could stand to re-read it. I'm a third of the way into the Ancestor's Tale. I'm reading short stories of terror (chosen by Alfred Hitchcock, various writers). They're none of them terrifying, but a few are deliciously ironic. Short stories seem to fit my current schedule. I am also a crossword junkie, and I spend far too much time reading posts on this site. Oh, and I've been reading Harry Potter to my kids at bedtime.

[Jack Rawlinson]

Okay, now I'm re-reading one of my top three novels of all time: The Magus, by John Fowles.

Seriously folks, if you've never read this book, do so. Stick with it through the scene-setting early chapters. If you do, you're in for a head-stretching, persuasively implausible, soul-expanding, expectation-shattering, seductive, profound and incredibly moving experience. Trust me.

[Havoc]

A visit to a wastewater-treatment plant: Primary treatment of wastewater

Electric Power Transmission

Roman Aqueducts

[RuleBritannia]

I'm currently reading Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace', holy shit it's long!

[Havoc]

I'm currently reading Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace', holy shit it's long!

Old uncle Leo would probably tell you not to bother reading any of his books, as he repudiated them all when he converted in later life to a version of Christianity (isn't religion wonderful?). He abandoned his family to embark on a "spiritual" journey, but didn't get far as he died of pneumonia in a train station in Russia.

He also reflected what I detest most in people--a naive belief in the "goodness" or "beneficence" of nature. In one of his short stories he writes:

"All that is unkind in the hearts of men should, one would think, vanish at contact with Nature—that most direct expression of beauty and goodness.”

It reminds me of William Paley who expressed a similarly naive sentiment when he wrote:

"It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whatever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view."

I prefer Darwin's much more perceptive, and accurate, remarks:

"We behold the face of nature bright with gladness, we often see superabundance of food; we do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life; or we forget how largely these songsters, or their eggs, or their nestlings, are destroyed by birds or beasts of prey; we do not always bear in mind, that though food may be now superabundant, it is not so at all seasons of each recurring year."

In a letter to the American botanist Asa Gray (22 May, 1860), he writes:

"I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.…"

And, of course, he is much more explicit in an 1856 letter to Joseph Hooker: “What a book a Devil’s Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature.” ....

At any rate, be that as it may, this is just my humble opinion, and you should read Tolstoy anyway --if only to spite his ghost...

[j.mills]

I'm currently reading Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace', holy shit it's long!

Thanks for the insight. I missed that when I read it, although I did notice that it was rectangular.

Jack Rawlinson - The Magus rocks.

[Thurston]

I feel it my moral duty to inform you that "War and Peace" is an anagram of "Crap and a wee", and I know which one is over quicker.

I'm currently reading: God's Fury, England's Fire by Michael Braddick. It's about the English Civil War and is superior in every way to Trevor Royle's stodgy, over-populated Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

[VanYoungman]

A.S. Byatt's "The Children's Book". She is her usual brilliant self. One of the few fiction writers I read. But Jack, I have read all of John Fowles. The Magus is certainly great reading, and "The French Lieutenant's Woman" is a masterpiece. I also suggest his one non fiction work, "The Aristos"

[j.mills]

Finished Pratchett's Nation, loved it. A treat for us atheists in particular; it even name-checks a certain evolutionary biologist we have all heard of... More from me on it here.

[MotherLodeBeth]

Anyone read the new book DENIALISM How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives By Michael Specter ? Liked the book myself and then saw the NYTimes book review and would like you thoughts. For the record I agree with him on Dr. Andrew Weil. As for Whole Foods I personally prefer organic foods because I like the taste. Its why I have my own vegetable garden. ~Beth~

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/books ... ?ref=books

Books of The Times
Firing Bullets of Data at Cozy Anti-Science
By JANET MASLIN

“I always say that electricity is a fantastic invention,” the British economist Michael Lipton once told Michael Specter, whose bristling new book, “Denialism,” explores the dangerous ways in which scientific progress can be misunderstood. “But if the first two products had been the electric chair and the cattle prod,” Mr. Lipton continued, “I doubt that most consumers would have seen the point.”

Here is what they would have done instead, if Mr. Specter, a staff writer for The New Yorker and former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, correctly captures the motifs that shape the stubbornly anti-scientific thinking for which his book is named: they would have denounced electricity as a force for evil, blamed its prevalence on venal utility companies, universalized the relatively rare horrific experiences of people who have been injured by electrical currents and called for a ban on electricity use.

The term “denialism,” used by Mr. Specter as an all-purpose, pop-sci buzzword, is defined by him as what happens “when an entire segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of change, turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable lie.”

In this hotly argued yet data-filled diatribe, Mr. Specter skips past some of the easiest realms of science baiting (i.e., evolution) to address more current issues, from the ethical questions raised by genome research to the furiously fought debate over the safety of childhood vaccinations.

Among the toes on which he stomps: those of Prince Charles (cited for presumption and ignorance in his advocacy of organic farming), Dr. Andrew Weil (whose promotion of vitamin supplements is equated with snake-oil salesmanship), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (accused of writing an antivaccine article “knit together by an almost unimaginable series of misconceptions”) and The Huffington Post, “which has emerged as the most prominent home for cranks of all kinds, particularly people who find scientific research too heavily burdened by facts.”

Given this lineup of targets, it goes without saying that “Denialism” will fit Whole Foods into its rogues’ gallery. So Mr. Specter makes the requisite field trip to a Whole Foods store, showing less interest in buying fish than in shooting them in barrels.

He quickly finds ludicrous, let-’em-eat-fiber merchandise (i.e., organic instant oatmeal with hemp, with a disclaimer about hemp’s link with marijuana and a label stating that both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were hemp farmers). But Mr. Specter, who isn’t entirely chasing cheap shots, treats Whole Foods as a jumping-off point rather than as a destination.

In “The Organic Fetish,” a chapter that ably illustrates this book’s tactics and purpose, he uses Whole Foods as the apotheosis of a strain of magical thinking. First of all, he asks, what exactly is organic food? Is it more healthful than genetically engineered food or than food that has been harvested by robot-guided machinery rather than human hands? And are organic fertilizers more earth-friendly than synthetic ones? “There are no short answers to those questions (at least none that are true),” he says.

And whatever the merits of organic farming for societies that can afford it, what happens in places where food, land or water are scarce? There is a case to be made for agricultural methods that make the most efficient use of new technologies, and thus for genetically engineered crops that produce increased yields. But these are widely derided as Frankenfoods. Their ability to scare people and trigger blanket resistance is one of this book’s foremost illustrations of denialism in action.

“Denialism” weighs the available facts about these new foods’ safety and usefulness. But Mr. Specter’s argument depends on data that cannot be quantified; that’s what makes his book so provocative. How do we weigh the demonstrable hazards of any food against the intangible concept of widespread famine? How do we compare illness that is linked to vaccine (if indeed it is linked, since this is one more flashpoint for “Denialism”) with the amount of illness that vaccine averts? “Nobody celebrates when they avoid an illness they never expected to get,” Mr. Specter points out. Nor do they often recognize that caution can be risk by another name.

“Denialism” makes good use of drugs. An opening chapter about the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx describes the mess that resulted from efforts by Merck, the manufacturer of Vioxx, to obscure the fact that the medicine posed cardiovascular risk to some patients. This action led to Vioxx’s being removed from the market, even though many of its users, including a cardiologist who wound up being a whistleblower against Merck’s tactics, personally found Vioxx very helpful for treating his own arthritic knee. But the drug went out of circulation. Big Pharma ended up with a black eye. And “Denialism” got a case in point to illustrate why scientific advances made by drug companies can’t be trusted.

Of all the grenades lobbed by “Denialism,” the most explosive is aimed at Dr. Weil, the otherwise-sacrosanct avatar of New Age medicine. In the chapter called “The Era of Echinacea” Mr. Specter describes signing up for one of Dr. Weil’s customized mail-order regimens. “Dr. Weil, who argues that we need to reject the prevailing impersonal approach, reached out from cyberspace to recommend each of these pills wholeheartedly and specifically, just for me,” But Mr. Specter decided that the pills advocated by Dr. Weil fell into three categories: those that did no particular good, those that did some good but could interfere with the effects of prescribed medicines, and those that “seemed just plain dangerous.”

What bothered him more than Dr. Weil’s advice was Dr. Weil’s philosophy. “The idea that accruing data is simply one way to think about science has become a governing tenet of the alternative belief system,” Mr. Specter writes. And the additional idea that the evidence of experience is as important as the results of meticulous scientific testing is, in Mr. Specter’s view, one of the most dangerous forms of denialism, especially when it comes from a figure of Dr. Weil’s stature. As “Denialism” puts it: “It is much easier to dismiss a complete kook — there are thousands to choose from — than a respected physician who, interspersed with disquisitions about life forces and energy fields, occasionally has something useful to say.”

On the off chance that his book will not ignite sufficient controversy, Mr. Specter throws in one more salvo against Dr. Weil and his faith in what the doctor calls stoned thinking. “When Weil writes about ‘a great movement toward evidence-based medicine’ as if that were regrettable or new, one is tempted to wonder what he is smoking.” Mr. Specter wonders the same thing about denialists everywhere.

[stuee]

I'm currently reading Magician by Raymond E Feist, which I'm enjoying so far (I'm a little over halfway in). I also read a few of Bernard Cornwell's 'Sharpe' books; I'm obsessed with the Napoleonic wars, and Cornwell's books are fast-paced and easy to read.

[EquivoKate]

Now Books 33 and 34 Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw and John Carey 'Pure Pleasure' just so it's easier to locate the qaulity stuff as he tells us his favourite Literary books consisting of Poets, Novelists etc? so far easy to read and intelligent too. (perhaps RDF should have a book reading smilie or even book reading smiles ie six foot shelves of books, piles of books etc. *just a thought*