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buryuntime
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06 Dec 2009, 7:12 pm

The Age Of Wonder: How The Romatnic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes

RhettOracle
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06 Dec 2009, 10:01 pm

"Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle Of The Beatles' Let It Be Disaster" by Doug Sulpy & Ray Schwieghardt (1997)
Previously issued under the title of "Drugs, Divorce And A Slipping Image"

ouinon
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07 Dec 2009, 10:02 am

"The Word Child" Iris Murdoch

I like her books up to around 1980, ( eg. "The Bell", "The Unicorn", "The Black Prince", "The Sea, the Sea", and the above ), and then they seem to go "bad"; clunky/forced/ludicrously lamely artificial, and repetitive ( eg. "The Philosopher's Pupil" ).

.

MudandStars
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09 Dec 2009, 10:23 am

just re-read "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok

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pakled
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09 Dec 2009, 11:55 pm

Probably Asprin's last book (he's dead)
Myth-Chief...just finished it.
nex up - Carpe Juglarum by Pratchet...

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MrMark
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13 Dec 2009, 1:07 pm

One Second After by William R. Forstchen

"Months before publication, One Second After has already been cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read. It has been discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a realistic look at EMPs and their awesome ability to send catastrophic shockwaves throughout the United States, literally within seconds. It is a weapon that The Wall Street Journal warned could shatter our nation. In the tradition of On the Beach, Fail-Safe, and Testament, this book, set in a typical American town, is a dire warning of what might be our future... and our end."

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Ambivalence
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13 Dec 2009, 5:04 pm

LiberalJustice wrote:

Ambivalence wrote:

Orlando - Virginia Woolf
One of my very favourite books. I love the easy style, the casual exaggerations, and the protagonist. It's a bit sad to read, though (and there's some racist language

par for the course for the thirties I guess

) .

How is it sad to read?

Oops, sorry, I missed that before. It makes me sad because of the evident love she is showing amid the gentle mockery, and because the character of the author that seems to be shown through the protagonist (but not so much by the narrator... this is probably confusing already) mirrors my own a little. And VW went on to kill hessel' which is in my mind all the way through it. Bit sad.

I'm currently reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time. It is an extremely interesting read. I started it with mixed feelings and by the time I'd got a little way in I was hating it - she is a writer of power, but the book is a mixture of wonderful insight and wilful, terrible misconceptions about the nature of socialism and the socialist agenda. If her idea of what socialism entails is shared by, or has influenced, Americans, it helps explain to me why it is such a dirty word over there! Idiots. :lol:

Anyway, now that I'm nearly (p. nine hundred and sixty three of about twelve hundred!) through it I find myself agreeing with a lot of her viewpoints, but it is a shame she has to make them against such peculiar and feeble opposition. Once I finish I'll start a thread on it, I think. I can see why her philosophy appeals to the aspie mindset!

(as a corollary, I shall probably have to play right through Bioshock and SM's Railroads again once I finish :lol:

)

(and read the sodding Illuminatus trilogy. And play Alien Crossfire as the Pirates and Drones. :roll:

)

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Last edited by Ambivalence on 14 Dec 2009, 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Scientist
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13 Dec 2009, 9:06 pm

I'm currently reading The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity by Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber (2004). I bought it when it just came out and read part of it. I recently decided to start reading it again.

About the book:

Quote:

From the names of cruise lines and bookstores to an Australian ranch and a nudist camp outside of Atlanta, the word "serendipity"--that happy blend of wisdom and luck by which something is discovered not quite by accident--is today ubiquitous. This book traces the word's eventful history from its 1754 coinage into the twentieth century--chronicling along the way much of what we now call the natural and social sciences.

The book charts where the term went, with whom it resided, and how it fared. We cross oceans and academic specialties and meet those people, both famous and now obscure, who have used and abused "serendipity," We encounter a linguistic sage, walk down the illustrious halls of the Harvard Medical School, attend the (serendipitous) birth of penicillin, and meet someone who "manages serendipity" for the U.S. Navy.

The story of "serendipity" is fascinating; that of "The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity," equally so. Written in the 1950s by already-eminent sociologist Robert Merton and Elinor Barber, the book--though occasionally and most tantalizingly cited--was intentionally never published. This is all the more curious because it so remarkably anticipated subsequent battles over research and funding--many of which centered on the role of serendipity in science. Finally, shortly after his ninety-first birthday, following Barber's death and preceding his own by but a little, Merton agreed to expand and publish this major work.

Beautifully written, the book is permeated by the prodigious intellectual curiosity and generosity that characterized Merton's influential "On the Shoulders of Giants," Absolutely entertaining as the history of a word, the book is also tremendously important to all who value the miracle of intellectual discovery. It represents Merton's lifelong protest against that rhetoric of science that defines discovery as anything other than a messy blend of inspiration, perspiration, error, and happy chance--anything other than serendipity.

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gemstone123
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14 Dec 2009, 10:51 am

A the moment I'm just finishing off reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists I haven't had much time for reading lately unfortunately but I will make more time. :twisted:

Giftorcurse
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14 Dec 2009, 11:34 am

I'm just about through reading Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick.

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gascmark
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14 Dec 2009, 12:21 pm

Martin Luther's basic theological writings.

cosmiccat
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14 Dec 2009, 4:56 pm

Bob Dylan's Tarantula, and Chronicles Volume one.

DonkeyBuster
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14 Dec 2009, 5:08 pm

"The Final Frontiersman" by James Campbell.

It's about Heimo Korth and his family, subsistence trappers and hunters above the arctic circle in Alaska... one of the last. A fascinating look at an incredibly harsh and unforgiving way of life. Makes any winter in the lower 48 seem bearable.

Ambivalence
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16 Dec 2009, 6:18 am

Finished the darn thing. The sixty page speech took me hours to get through. Hank and Francisco didn't get it on, which was terribly disappointing. Somewhere there will be slash. :lol: On to something lightweight (I need a break!) and probably trashy, Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!

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DonkeyBuster
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17 Dec 2009, 9:08 pm

Even the Libertarians can't agree if Rand should be deified or pilloried... though they are all for free markets and self-determination, some find 'Atlas Shrugged' heartless and heedless.

I'm reading "Travels in West Africa" by Mary Kingsley, a Victorian explorer of the long skirt and little hat variety. She has a wonderful dry wit...
"Internally consigning the entire tribe to regions where they will get a rise in temperature, even in this climate..."

Because of course a proper Victorian lady would never tell a cannibal to "Go to Hell."
LOL

buryuntime
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21 Dec 2009, 7:48 pm

Moby-Dick

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