teh Forum

I am currently reading the so far awesome Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. I just read Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, which was alright, but not fantastic. I have pretty much decided not to finish Clavell's Gaijin after about 600 pages. I also spent an evening and read the enjoyable Hemingway short, The Old Man and the Sea.

What are others into...?

It's not a my nightstand, but I've been toting around Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" the past week. Still in the first hundred pages, so I'm still getting to know all of the characters. Good imagery thus far though. Anyone read it (no spoilers please)?

I'm having a very happy time with 3 books I grabbed greedily off the shelf in my first visit to a bookshop in nearly a year.

I got "The Octopus and the Orangutan" by Eugene Linden which is about animal intelligence. Somewhat thought provoking.

While in the natural history section, I picked up "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins. Haven't started this one yet, but I get it off the shelf sometimes and drool over it in anticipation.

On a whim I also bought "The Dark Heart of Italy" by Tobias Somebodyorother. This book seems to be a model of how to make a quick buck out of being reasonably familiar with another country, finding an angle, and pretty much outputting the contents of your mind in rough book form. The author is smiling rather smugly in his back cover photo, and I'm beginning to see why. Now if I can just find the right lever for my book on Japan, I'll be smirking too.

Been hearing good things about Al Frankin's new book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right ... think i'll pick up a copy this weekend.

Generally speaking, I've been meaning to get into some philisophy. Anyone read something you'd recommend? Doesn't necessarily have to be contemporary... just wondering what you guys have read...

I'm currently ripping through about five different books (I'm a part-time student), and they're all fuggin awesome:

Dirty Pixels by Jim Blinn: Excellent algorithms book for low-level 3-D graphics programming

Applied Media Aesthetics by Herbert Zettl: Discuss the various aesthetic aspects of sight, sound, and motion in movies. Very interesting!

XML Pocket Consultant: Cool little pocket size XML reference I'm using to teach myself XML

The Literature of Ancient Egypt: Awesome book if you enjoy Ancient Egyptian history, I have to read if for a history class I'm taking

Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Vol. 3: Coming from a Calculus III student, the math in this book is NO JOKE! But his work is very well organized and if reading about physics keeps you up at night, this book will give you an extremely deep understanding of Electricity and Magnetism!

OMG! I cant really be that un-cool!!! Can someboby delete this post! I regret mentioning any of this!

Nerd Alert!!!

I got round to Richard Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker". Despite the shamelessly hyperbolic reviews that take up the first six pages, there's not much in it I didn't know (not because I'm vastly read on the subject, just that there isn't much in the book). The style is rather self-indulgent with pages of explanation of how computers work and how wonderful evolution is, which is really surplus to requirement.

Having read some books on biology, I'm quite tired of the 'scientific caution' that science writers seem to think is necessary (indeed, even as they then go on to say that perhaps cats practice telepathy).

Mr *, I quite enjoyed Schopenhauer's Essays and Aphorisms that I picked up in a book sale. I've tried reading works of philosophy several times, but I usually just get bored.

enderzero wrote: I also spent an evening and read the enjoyable Hemingway short, The Old Man and the Sea.

What are others into...?

enderzero wrote:Nerd Alert!!!

..I was thinking the same thing


BTW...Have you read anything by T.H. Poking recently?

"House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski
Even if you never intend to read this book, you have to pick it up and just look at it....it's just so different....
good review of the book at:
http://flakmag.com/books/house.html

also for those looking for "easy access" philosophy, Penguin publishing put out a series called the Viking Portable Library that includes some good comprehensives on the major players in philosophy.
Most folks get wrapped up in Western philosophy, but there is some other stuff that is overlooked but really good.... Ibn-Khaldun's "al-Muqaddimah" is influential and accessable (just read the introduction, that's the only part that anyone really studies, the rest of the work is thought to have not even been written by Khaldun!)

"We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda" by Philip Gourevitch. Beautiful book about horrific events... this book will certainly wake you up.....

I've just finished What Went Wrong? by Bernard Lewis, and Intelligence Wars by Thomas Powers.

What Went Wrong? claims to address what happened to Islamic civilisation that was actually dominant 3 centuries ago. Obviously there has been a decline in its power and knowledge base over 3 centuries. While the book is full of interesting anecdote and suggestive themes, Lewis never actually spells out what the fuck went wrong. I was looking forward to the conclusion where I hoped he would spell it all out, but he doesn't. I wonder if he is in part motivated in this by fear - getting into the specifics could be offensive.

Anyway, it seems that what went wrong involves

- sitting on one's laurels until far too late
- excessive ignorance of what the infidels are doing
- a lack of precise timekeeping so that scheduling is not possible
- a lack of precise weights and measures
- no separation of Church and State (see below)
- no actual Church to speak of (except maybe modern-day Iran)
- no intellectually productive religious schism

I think that's about it, which is interesting enough, but not altogether satisfying.

Intelligence Wars is actually a collection of reviews of books on intelligence matters, from WWII up to just before the Iraq quagmire, although Powers brings a wealth of original opinion and data to his reviews.

There's a lot of agonizing over whether all the money and lives spent on these 'intelligence wars' was worth it, and Powers is genuinely skeptical. But interestingly, he provides logical and easy to understand reasoning as to why it was unavoidable, although not something to glory in.

Having just read Lewis's book, I was pleased to find in this book that Powers believes bin Laden's mission is not one simply of hatred - his plan is to bring about the collapse of the conservative Islamic and secular Islamic governments by provoking America into attacking them, thus awakening the populaces of those countries to the true interfering nature of the West. Powers believes that America is doing absolutely everything bin Laden hopes they would. bin Laden is exploiting many of the issues that can be found in Lewis's book.

This is only a fraction of the content - there's a lot more about Enigma, Venona, Kennedy, Iran/Contra, Star Wars and other subjects.

----

I am so happy to have got within range of a library that has books like this, even only 2 book cases worth. If only I could have access to my old university library again...

Ocean: Have you ever read The Ugly American? It's quite old (1958), but not dated. Your posts reminded me of it. I assume most Americans read it in school, but am not sure how well known it is outside the US.

Goemon, not read that one, though I will if I can get my hands on it.

Powers also talks about how good the CIA used to be in terms of cultural immersion and perspective, although their warnings were often not heeded or even communicated to Presidents. He now laments that most CIA personnel are now hopelessly incompetent in that sense, with very few Arabists.

This is a very engaging writer, with flashes of lol humour. But he also talks about Lee Harvey Oswald, believing that he alone killed Kennedy on the basis of books that portray him in all his complete nuttiness. He likens conspiracy theorists on this to those who don't believe Shakespeare was who he was supposed to be, lightly mocking the attitude that says a country bumpkin couldn't have written Hamlet. But I think that's the most devastating argument in favour of Shakespeare actually having been someone else, and the starting point for finding out who else he could have been. Likewise Oswald. The more pathetic the picture painted of him, the less capable he appears as an assassin with the almost supernatural capabilities required for that shot, as attested to by many specialists in many other fields. But I digress. This seems to be the only lapse in an otherwise very well-reasoned book.

Anyone heard of The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don't Think for Themselves by Curtis White? Interesting premise that American liberal culture has developed a hive-like mind when it comes to critiques of art, politics, etc. I heard him speak for a couple minutes on NPR today and he sounded interesting, if not a complete elitist. I am thinking of checking the book out.

Originally based on an essay in Harpers. I used to love that magazine when I could get my hands on it. When Salon was first available free online it was nearly as good as Harpers. Any other fans of Harpers?

I used to have a subscription to Harpers back in the day (about !10! years ago...shit, I'm old). It be sum good read...stuff.

Just finished (heh finally - thats what you get after 24+ hours of train rides out of 3 days) CRYPTONOMICON by Neal Stephenson.

Damn what a thrilling read. Dustin, I really think you would enjoy reading ths book. A little Gibson-esque at times. Check it out. And for an interesting interview.

I hope to read his latest book QUICKSILVER if I can get my hands on it.

I knew someone asked about philosophy...mistasparkle*



The Fall issue of PARABOLA is all about Chaos and Order (Fractals included)
It is really excitting! You travel through the 6th century BCE Greek mind; touch on deep Taoist, Celtic, Balinese, & Native American stuff; Thomas Moore writes an article...and the ART includes Mandelbrot's fractals!
It is a history of thought, of Philosophy, that is culminating into todays Physics.......Chaos and Fractal!
It is a great way to figure out who you might want to read! If anyone is interested and can't find a copy I will mail to foreign countries!

Why Waco?
Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America

Tabor & Gallagher

I thought this was a Bad Scene at the time, and the more I find out about it, the worse it gets.

There can be little doubt that Vernon Howell, alias David Koresh, was a nutter and something of a manipulator. I don't have much sympathy with religious people of any stripe, least of all Revelation bashers.

But demonising, killing and burning them all isn't really cricket I'm afraid.

This book is an interesting look at it all from a religious perspective, putting Koresh in his context as a 7th Day Adventist, explaining what he believed, and demonstrating once again how criminally badly the authorities played their hand.

Recently read the truly beautifully written Lonesome Dove. I laughed, I cried...it is a great novel. Now I want to be a cowboy ... or at least find the mini series on DVD.

On MrSparky's recommendation I read Vernon God Maxwell by DBC Pierce. I enjoyed this short romp through modern literature, but not as much as I think Sparky did. It all comes together well, but there were times when I couldn't help thinking the cards just seemed a little too stacked against the poor boy, and I also didn't find it all that funny.

I am now reading Stephenson's Snow Crash and really enjoying it. Stephenson is great and I highly recommend him to any sci-fi or techno thriller fans. I think calling it sci-fi scares people away. Just go out and read Cryptonomicon right away and you will see why you need to read his others.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I love reading about them. Especially when they're as convincing as the ones discussed in this book. David Icke's latest book, "Children of the Matrix", includes conspiracy theories ranging from ETs to the structure of the various world governments. If you can get past the chapter about shape-shifting reptiles, you'll find he does an excellent job of exposing the ties that bind together the Bush family and the British royal family, as well as other well know public figures. He also has a bit to say about the theocratic structure in todays society and how Jesus saves us from religion. For a person who reads about 2 words a minute, I found this book to be easy to read and very entertaining!

Cocaine
an unauthroized biography

Dominic Streatfeild

Ah yes... Erythroxylum numbingfully yummy...



Surgical Speed Shooting
How to achieve high-speed marksmanship in a gunfight

Andy Stanford


Explains how to aim quickly - however by the time I read this book I knew everything and realized I could write a better one.



Advanced Master Handgunning

Charles Stephens

Dissapointment...definitely could write a better book than this guy.



Rogue Warrior

Richard Marcinko

War is Great! War means killing. This guy is a fucking bad ass... Autobiography of Richard Marcinko and accounts of various tours of duty and training of early Seal teams.

... with all the reading Rixler's doing he could start an all-out drug war and take over the world

Been reading The Culture of Fear : Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things

An incredibly researched book, that really has changed the way I interpret the news I read, hear, and watch. Incredible how so many statistics and so much news coverage blantantly misrepresents or ignores the real issues. It's not really a page turner, but it is definitely an enlightening and important read. If you have the patience, it's a real eye-opener.

Mistasparkle,

Ive seen that book too. After reading your post I may have to pick it up and see if it confirms what I think about the american general public at large.

The book doesnt really have much criticism for the american public at large per se.... its criticism is mainly focused on the media's treatment (or mistreatment) of news, while addressing the reasons why there is so much fear mongering in american (and british) media. It's definitely enlightening....

The New York Road Runners Club Complete Book of Running.

Fred Lebow, Gloria Averbuch, and Friends....

Pretty good book for starting out on the path of teh runnar....


The New Competitive Runners Handbook

Bob Glover and Pete Schuder

Not that great ofa book for the starting out runnar but definitely good book for later in teh runnars runnaring career...

Favorite chapter: 37 - Drinking and Running

Under Beer:

"Nectar of the gods, ambrosia of those who seek fast times - beer may be the runner's fuel"

Beer is very good for teh runnar...very good...

Temperament
How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization

Stuart Isacoff

Tells the history of tuning and the division of scales in western music from the perfect fifths of Pythagoras to equal temperament and 20th century music.
Pretty interesting so far...

nothing too deep for me...
reading "A Tramp Abroad" by the timeless Mark Twain...

my gf bought a bunch of books recently, so I just grabbed one from the pile...

basically it is a personal account of his travels through europe...he really is one of the great american masters of wit and it is a nice read...just getting into though, so need more time....

danz

Any chance I could grab the moon is down from you...?

More a case of 'in the toilet' than 'on the nightstand', but I've just finished

Hirohito by Herbert Bix. Turns out the guy wasn't just a peace-loving muppet after all (not that we ever really supposed he was). A great deal of evidence is presented pointing to the fact that he was at the centre of war planning, and was the main obstacle to an earlier peace. He broke nearly every constitutional law there was to maintain his own influence. And his legacy is a Japan that is not particularly democratic and takes on airs of self-righteous victimhood. A very good book.

Next up Rogue Nation by Clyde Prestowitz. It's about America being all fucked up.