Book Reviews

[Sam172]

I know we have a favorite book thread, but what book are you currently reading, or about to read?



I am just about to start Life of Pi. Which i'm hoping will be a good read :)

[jimkopelli]

I've got a few hanging... I'm reading "Cannery Row" by Steinbeck for class, but next in line are "I Will Fear No Evil" by Heinlein and "Monstrous Regiment" by Pratchett.

[Johnny]

I'm reading The Portable Jung at the moment.

[MacGuffin]

I just finished last night "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell.

It consists of six interlocking stories, with common threads running thru them. Each one is set in a certain time period, written in a different voice/style (journal, letters, mystery thriller, memoir, sci-fi interrogation, oral story).

The first is set in the 1840/50s in the South Pacific. It is interrupted in the middle of a sentence by the next story, which takes place in the 1930s in Belgium. Each story takes place farther down the timeline, and is interrupted until you get to the sixth one, which is told in its entirety. Then you go backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 thru the stories again and get the conclusions.

The future stories ,the 5th and 6th, I liked the most. The 5th takes place in the future where coporations run what is left of the planet and use clones as slaves. The 6th takes place on Hawaii after the end of civilization.

The stories encompass love, hate, art & music, greed, sacrifice, economics, religion, and ultimately - how people treat each other vs. how they should be treated. On a personal scale as well as in the context of race and nations.

A sad yet hopeful novel. I highly recommend.

[int]

"The Millenium Problems" by Keith Devlin.

[Hypnos]

Just finished: Pale Fire by Nabokov
Currently: The Stranger by Albert Camus
Next: Pnin by Nabokov

[Avengardh]

Introduction to Linear Algebra...some Greene stuff I wasn't able to finish...and I want to pick up where I left Steppenwolf.

That damn manga getting in the way, curse you library for having it there :S

~*Aven*~

[BritainOphira]

Currently: The Stranger by Albert Camus

I love The Stranger, though my French teacher didn't appreciate my enthusiasm. He gave me one of the lowest grades in the class because I disagreed with his opinion. :rant:
Currently I'm rereading The Portable Beat Reader for the umpteenth time (I can't put down America or Howl without serious effort), but I just finished Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

[EternalCynic]

Currently reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman

as well as a dozen other books I have put down and have yet to read the last 15 pages, hehe.

[Crazy]

Well, I just finished "Starship Troopers", and I am currently reading "Nephilim"

[SensEye]

The last book of the last series of "The Black Company" by Glen Cook. I've read all nine or ten of them over the last 6 months. Good entertaining escapism.

[nobarcode]

I'm currently re-reading Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson for about the tenth time.

[Utopmk]

Just finished: Pale Fire by Nabokov
Currently: The Stranger by Albert Camus
Next: Pnin by Nabokov

I've read The Stranger, nice little book. I finished it in about an hour.

[Birnam]

The Silmarillion, Mere Christianity, Language of The Night. (and a lot of books that I'll finish.... someday)

Yikes, I've been reduced to re-reading books... time for a trip to the library :)

[shaytana]

Right now I am reading The Demonologist, it is about Ed and Lorraine Warren.

The book is blah but it is making me want to get ahold of Ed's top secret files to see what he knows.

[Spartan26]

I'm probably the only one in this forum who has to make a new year's resolution to read any books. I'll generally only do it for info. But I'm trudging through The Brothers Karamazov because for anyone who's a slow reader Dostoevsky is a great place to start.

It's actually enjoyable enough for me but it's fairly dense and so many interesting points are brought up that it sends my mind a^wandering.

[BritainOphira]

I never finished The Brothers Karamazov, but I love Crime and Punishment. (If you have never read it, skip the epilogue unless you want to be beaten over the head with the same information, over and over.)

[HairlessBluetick]

Currently Catapult: Harry and I Build a Siege Weapon, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (for about the twentieth time :-p.)

[Spartan26]

I never finished The Brothers Karamazov, but I love Crime and Punishment. (If you have never read it, skip the epilogue unless you want to be beaten over the head with the same information, over and over.)

Funny, this is at least the fourth time I've started in ernest with The Brothers K. I've known other people who've not faired well either but no one said anything like this is trash or stupid, just not having the time or being so immersed.

Have not read Crime & Punishment, doubt I could get to it before the end of the decade but who knows...

[Hypnos]

Brothers Karamozov is great; need to re-read it.

Since I got a motorcycle, I suddenly have a responsibility to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

[sme_bro]

i do it at least once a year and have for the last 4, i have finally gotten around to reading house of leaves again, and once again i'm enjoying it heaps.
Next i might read the Stephen King gunslinger series again so that when i read the new book 'song of susanah' i will be upto date in my head...but i will most likely not get around to this till next year because exams are looming in 4 weeks.

[Daedalus_daemon]

MMM......Cassini Division and loads of cheesy romance novels :hug: . Jk on the last one. Also re-reading heinlein collection.

[BritainOphira]

Now I'm reading an actual book, though I've read it too many times before: The Beautiful and Damned by F.Scott Fitzgerald.

[libertarianjim]

I need to read a chapter out of The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology for an article I'm working on, and for fun I might start into a book on the Pirc-Robatsch defense.

[Mnemosyne]

I'm reading The Scarlet Letter for my American Lit class, and um, I actually kinda like it. Once you get past the dense language, it's pretty interesting.

[BritainOphira]

I think I lost F. Scott. He's probably hiding with my stolen library books, which I also lost...

[spaced]

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's fantastic! B)

[CthulhuLuvsU]

Have you ever read Rand? Atlas Shrugged is my absolute favorite!

[Laeskis]

Ooh ooh ooh! Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged !
Very good.
Stop the Motor!

[int]

I've tried to read Atlas Shrugged several times - she's far too unnecessarily descriptive for my liking. Someone once posted you could just read Galt's monologue near the end to get the gist of it. Which reminds me, I should do that sometime.

[Laeskis]

The writing isn't so great, but the points within make it very good. The monologue does the trick-as far as meaning goes, but you don't get to experience the sense of what's going on without going through the events with the characters.

[CthulhuLuvsU]

Rand's writing is just awesome. It is completely devoid of feeling, even when feelings are involved.

[Laeskis]

It's not the best - and not too bad either, but it's almost clinical which can often equivocate to drab.

[CthulhuLuvsU]

Have you ever read Thus Spoke Zarathustra by nietzsche, thats another one on the top of my list.

[Laeskis]

I've not. I'll have to take note of it.

[Sugaraddict2702]

The crimson petal and the white, by Michel Faber.

Ellen*

[Strephonade]

Presently, when I have a spare moment, "The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex" by Murray Gell-Mann.

[BritainOphira]

I have a copy of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" started, but I can't concentrate enough to finish it. I did manage to read "The Hours," though.

[Melody]

Theoretical Physics (Georg Joos)
Plato: Collected Dialogues (Plato)
Gravitation (MTW)

Progress through these books is "not fast," but I'm a-crackin' at 'em and will eventually defeat them.

.i realized some weeks ago that i had been reading technical books far too casuallY

.now i am actively reading them, making sure i understand everything that is stateD

.ahahahaha and they become easier and much more entertaininG

?why was i reading them so casually beforE

.i was too confident in my skills i guesS

[Almaviva]

I have that Gravitation book and it's a monster. The style of it is massively cool though, with all the tangential sections. I might try to work through that thing if I'm between jobs again.

[YourLocalCynic]

The Crimson Petal and the White was an awesome book. I started The Brothers Karamazov, thought it was great, and never finished. O.o I plan on reading Crime and Punishment eventually, but right now I'm in the middle of The Three Musketeers, which I think I'm rather late at getting to. Heh. Oh, and I'm reading the Count of Monte Cristo.

[Sam172]

I'm now on the Daodejing by Laozi :D. I've had it for a long while and have dipped in and out of it. Now i'm going to read it through to make sure I havn't missed any chapters....then go back to dipping in and out of every few weeks :)

I need to get myself some Chuang Zi

[Postblank]

Just finished: Che Guevara: A Revolutinoary Life by Jon Lee Anderson
Currently: Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy by G. Gordon Liddy
Next: Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce, I might switch to Dubliners though. Not entirely sure yet.

[SheepDog]

The Irreducible Needs of Children: What Every Child Must Have to Grow, Learn, and Flourish by T. Berry, M.D. Brazelton, Stanley I. Greenspan

Another parenting book that I think would suit an INTP parent is Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World : Seven Building Blocks for Developing Capable Young People by H. STEPHEN GLENN, JANE ED.D. NELSEN.

We're due relatively soon with our first child (a boy).

[sbw]

The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto; Satisfaction (a new bio of keef, don't remember the author, some rock scribe, predictably); Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions (finished recently--I'm halfway through the other 2)

Scott

[Werdna]

Rereading "Carpe Jugulum" - Terry Pratchett

[EternalCynic]

Currently reading Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky, also just started Eye in the Pyramid from the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

[Arcael]

Just finished: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
Currently: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Next: Either
Ulysses by James Joyce
or
Nothing in This Book Is True, but It's Exactly How Things Are: The Esoteric Meaning of the Monuments on Mars by Bob Frissell

[Arcael]

.i realized some weeks ago that i had been reading technical books far too casuallY

.now i am actively reading them, making sure i understand everything that is stateD

.ahahahaha and they become easier and much more entertaininG

?why was i reading them so casually beforE

.i was too confident in my skills i guesS

someone should right a book like that :P

[Merkaba]

2 books on my shelf I've yet to read, but hopefully will start soon
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

[BritainOphira]

I just finished Mostly Harmless by Douglass Adams and am starting on Sometimes Madness is Wisdom: Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald: A Marriage by Kendall Taylor. (If nothing else, you must appreciate the multiple colons in the title.)

[jimkopelli]

Rereading "Carpe Jugulum" - Terry Pratchett
YES! Another Pratchett fan... and a rereader, too... good for you.
Currently...
"Into The Wild" by John Krakauer... for class... it's about a guy who goes out into the woods and dies.
Also... "A Conneticut Yankee in King Authur's Court" by Mark Twain... one of my favorites by him.

[HairlessBluetick]

"Into The Wild" by John Krakauer... for class... it's about a guy who goes out into the woods and dies.
.

I read that. That guy who dies is infuriating.

[Nindy]

I'm currently reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

[jimkopelli]

"Into The Wild" by John Krakauer... for class... it's about a guy who goes out into the woods and dies.
.

I read that. That guy who dies is infuriating.
That's pretty much the conclusion that I came to.
If he'd been in BSA, he coulda survived. Also, he shouldn't have been too stuck up to turn down free helpful stuff.

[crule81]

The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky has a great personality description of an INFP in the Aloysha character. Ivan is some sort of NT.

[Anacaona]

I'm currently reading The early Asimov wich is a collection of short stories and Personality type by Lenore Thomson

[waxwing]

Logic by Kant
The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz

[gypseymothlee]

Current: Revolting Librarians Redux: Radical Librarians Speak Out
and Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

[Warrior413]

Odd story. My English teacher was going to make our class read A Separate Peace. They managed to convince her to do Fahrenheit 451 instead. Well, I've already read both of those books, so she assigned me Ender's Game. I've already read that as well, but she just told me to read it again. Which is fine by me. B) I've also been about 3/4 through War and Peace for a month now...

[null-tE]

Just finished: Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace
Starting: The Portable Nietzsche by Walter Kaufmann
Next: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (loved the movie, now need to read the book)

[mgb]

I've kind of started Treason by Coulter (damn booyalab)
I also have Alice and Wonderland and One Hundred Years of Solitude ready for Christmas break.

[BritainOphira]

I've kind of started Treason by Coulter (damn booyalab)
I also have Alice and Wonderland and One Hundred Years of Solitude ready for Christmas break.
I'm reading One Hundred Years of Solitude right now, but it's slow going as I keep going to bed each night at 9 and sleeping during class instead of reading like I normally do.

[Boneca]

I'm reading The no. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. It's not very "serious", but written with a lot of humour - it's cute somehow.

[Polystom]

Robert Rankin's The Witches of Chiswick. "History is a cauldron of lies brewed up by Victorian witches".

How could I resist? By the way, Rankin's on equal terms of Ridiculous Fun as Pratchet, so you'd do to check him out.

[HackerX]

Legends Of Dune: The Machine Crusade

(loved the Dune Series)

[heeroyuy]

Just finished Foundation and Empire by Asimov, starting Second Foundation, and also reading several technical manuals.

[melancholeric]

This thread inspired me to pick The Brothers Karamazov. Read ~30 pages, got bored, then received The Egyptian (by Mika Waltari) as a christmas gift. Now started that and so far seems good.

[Boneca]

This thread inspired me to pick The Brothers Karamazov. Read ~30 pages, got bored, then received The Egyptian (by Mika Waltari) as a christmas gift. Now started that and so far seems good.Ah, Sinuhe, the Egyptian. That is a brilliant book!
It was what first got me interested in Egyptology some very many years and very many books ago.

[songbird36]

I'm reading The no. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. It's not very "serious", but written with a lot of humour - it's cute somehow.

There's a series of about five of these - all of them very good (especially #2 Tears of the Giraffe). McCall Smith grew up in Botswana has some fascinating insights into the culture. I understand he's also written the definitive text on the Botswanan legal system (having been a lawyer there)!

Anything by Tim Winton (a West Australian author) is a great read- especially his earlier book "Cloudstreet" and his latest one "Dirt Music".

At the moment I'm reading a fascinating and at times highly amusing account of the bungled expediation of Burke and Wills across the heartland of Australia last century. The author (Sarah Murgatroyd) writes in a Bill Bryson-esque style and is very readable. The book is called "the Dig Tree".

[Sam172]

Well, seeming as I have it now, i'm sort of reading The Communist Manifesto

[BritainOphira]

Swann's Way by Proust. Finishing it will be another story, though...

[Lucas]

Right now I'm reading:
The Tao of Physics, by Capra
Mud and Water, Braverman
How the Mind Works, Steven Pinker

For some reason I'm always reading two or three books at a time.

[Shai Gar]

hegemony or survival - chomsky
going postal - pratchett
please understand me 2 - keirsey
east timor, australias shame - Shai Gar

[Arcael]

Just finished: Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace
Starting: The Portable Nietzsche by Walter Kaufmann
Next: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (loved the movie, now need to read the book)
my cousin got me the fightclub book for christmas :) perhaps I shall start reading it

[jimkopelli]

I got the giant honking Bone compendium omnibus thingy for Christmas... So I'm reading that. It's a comic... about a bone. Walks, talks, does funny things and runs away from rat creatures. I like it. It's about phonebook thickness... but it's mostly pictures. Dunno how long it'll last.

[Arcael]

giant comic books for the win

[Hamro]

if you read The Fountainhead, the main character is too funny! hes IXTP too i think so.. even better

[Ponderous]

Currently underway:

Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Starship Titanic
Reading People

[Shai Gar]

i am concurrently reading "hegemony or survival" and "confessions of teenage hackers"

[songbird36]

"Alexander: child of a dream"
Valerio Manfredi

[Star]

Swann's Way by Proust. Finishing it will be another story, though...

How did it go with this? I gave it a try recently and had to give up. His writing style fascinates me: I love the idea of a single sentence spanning an entire page. I admire the complexity but in truth I wasn't able to keep up with it; I daydream too much while reading. With most books it's nothing to re-read a sentence or two when this happens, with Proust it's mental athletics. :)

So instead I picked up _Oryx and Crake_ by Margaret Atwood which went down so smoothly that I finished it in a weekend. This is dystopia / speculative fiction that explores what might happen if capitalist biotech and corporate feudalism continue to grow without bounds. One of the main characters (Crake) is very hardcore INTJ imo.

I'm reading nothing at the moment because I haven't yet returned Proust to the library. I just have this feeling the librarian will take one look at me and one at the book and know that I failed.

Sorry for digging up such an old thread but the fact that the "current book" thread was buried so deep makes me wonder if I belong here. :p

[mgb]

I've been reading:

Sand and Foam by Kahlil Gibran for the past couple weeks. Its choked full of great tidbits.

[L. Bartholomew]

Just finished The Pacific- Mark Helprin (his newest.)
Am almost finished with Atonement- Ian McEwan and Candide- Voltaire
Still have to finish Jane Eyre... eh. Not a huge fan.

[Eileen]

Still have to finish Jane Eyre... eh. Not a huge fan.

Man, I really can't express how much I HATE Jane Eyre and all books like Jane Eyre. Victorian Chick Lit irritates me beyond belief.

I started Their Eyes Were Watching God last night. I figure that I'll be able to scrounge up seven or eight copies of the book so that I can teach it to my eleventh graders (super small class, clearly!).

I don't have a lot of time to read for myself these days, so when I do, it's usually poetry or short stories. Luckily, I teach English, so what I have to read to prepare for class is usually alright. I try not to teach anything I loathe.

[melancholeric]

Sorry for digging up such an old thread but the fact that the "current book" thread was buried so deep makes me wonder if I belong here. :p
We lost interest. To the thread, not books.

Finished a book one Finnish guy wrote about his 29 year experience in French Foreign Legion a few days ago. Poorly written, but offers some insight to the Legion and military history, aswell as some tidbits about colonial history.

Currently reading Aldous Huxley : Point - Counterpoint.

[indie]

I'm reading _State of Fear_ by Michael Crichton.

[kuranes]

Right now I am reading The Demonologist, it is about Ed and Lorraine Warren.

The book is blah but it is making me want to get ahold of Ed's top secret files to see what he knows.
Did you read "The Club Dumas", the book Polanski's movie "The Ninth Gate" was based on? Good job for a more intellectual approach to demons. His "The Flanders Panel" was his best, IMHO. I was strongly recommended to "The Seville Communion" by the same author, and found it well written - but more of a chore to read. The author is a Spaniard whose exact name escapes me at the moment. Arturo Perez Reverte? Something like that. Malachi Martin wrote an interesting book on the devil too. "Hostage to the Devil." Supposedly non-fiction. Not the sensational crap you might expect, from the description either. I remember them mentioning that "The Exorcist" was based on a real case too, but it was supposedly a young male. I'm assuming from your post and name that you have an interest in . . . . . Baphomet.

K :devil:

[Nicasio]

Just finished:
Demian by Hermann Hesse,

Currently reading:
The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse,
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

next: Nietzsche; A Philosophical Biography by Rudiger Safranski

[Hamro]

Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead

the main character Howard Roarke is most probably INTP. hes hilarious

[BritainOphira]

I gave up on Proust forever ago, sadly. I'm now working on "Their Eyes were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston and "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf.

[Geoff]

Made in America - Bill Bryson. Trying to brush up on my history of the American version of the language (seems somewhat relevant given the predisposition of those on this forum to use it).

-Geoff

[Nyairj]

Nearly finished rereading Sun Tzu's Art of War. I'll be reading Kevin Hogan's The Psychology of Persuasion next.

[Star]

Visited the library today and picked up a few:

Personality Type: An Owner's Manual by Lenore Thomson

There wasn't much in this that I haven't read already on the net; I was finished skimming it in a couple of hours. I picked it up because it was the thickest volume on typology on the shelf. Too bad it was so.. bad. Published in 2000, it was full of references to already-dated television shows and pop culture icons. Not recommended.

Edit: Actually there's good information in this book, but since it was written to be consumable it is now very dated, which is unforgivable to me. I think a book should be forever--especially one I pick up at the library.

Fire in the Crucible: Understanding the Process of Creative Genius by John Briggs

I picked this one up just because the title was pleasing, twinkling up at me from its spot among the hundreds of junky self-help books with names like "Being Smart for Dummies." If it sucks please let me know.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

I've been meaning to read classic sf for a long time; although I pretend to be a sf fan, I've really only read a few fairly recent Hugo and Nebula winners, Dune novels, and a lot of cyberpunk fiction. And I had to get out of the sf section quickly, without browsing, because some library stalker dude was following me. This will do.

In America by Susan Sontag

53 pages in; fantastic so far. The first of her books that I've read.

signed ds, who loves the current book thread

[jjt]

Just finished 'How Walmart is Destroying America and the World' by Bill Quin. I have just seen the doco The Corporation, ties in really well with that. Also just read 'The Seven Daughters of Eve' How one scientist traced back 95% of all Europeans to just 7 women through their mitochondrial DNA. Fascinating.
Am currently reading 'Parenting with Love and Logic'
I'm always looking for better ways to bring up my kids with a minimum of hassle!

[songbird36]

I'm reading "the Secret Purposes" by David Baddiel. It's a novel based on the internment of German Jewish refugees on the Isle of Man during WWII. A tale of love, displacement and survival - great read.

[Warrior413]

The Icarus Agenda, Why They Behave Like Russians, Everything You Know is Wrong, War and Peace, Crossing the Rubicon, the latest Newsweek, Wired, and PC Gamer, the archives of Rum and Monkey (http://rumandmonkey.com/articles/), and anything with words on it in front of me. I don't think I've ever read less than 3 books at the same time.

[Nyairj]

Just finished 'How Walmart is Destroying America and the World' by Bill Quin. I have just seen the doco The Corporation, ties in really well with that. Also just read 'The Seven Daughters of Eve' How one scientist traced back 95% of all Europeans to just 7 women through their mitochondrial DNA. Fascinating.
Am currently reading 'Parenting with Love and Logic'
I'm always looking for better ways to bring up my kids with a minimum of hassle!

You might enjoy this (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=110391&highlight=Walmart). Make sure to check out the pdf file.

[euterpenc]

I can't read one book at a time, and most go unfinished for a long time. I'm currently in the process of reading The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious by Jung and Basic Writings of C.G. Jung. Also, I'm reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra for the Second time. Nietzsche is my favorite :D

[jjt]

Thanks Nyairj, that is funny.

[Warrior413]

Everyone Dies
If that's a mystery book, it's a damn good title.

[Last Song]

Currently working through:
Nunn's Chess Openings
The Life And Games Of Mikhail Tal
Black is OK!
The Sicilian - Accelerated Dragon
Accelerated Dragons
The Complete Najdorf: Modern Lines

[Serotonin]

"Iron John" by Robert Bly.
Very NF, so I'm pausing after every sentence and letting the message soak in before I move on to the next.

[BritainOphira]

I keep abandoning poor Mrs. D, so right now I'm attempting a collection of Johnathan Swift satires.

[file cabinet]

just finished reading this book
http://ostg.pricegrabber.com/search_books2.php/book_id=11719377/tsub=1/form_keyword=

I plan on reading "A beginner's guide to the world economy (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679764402/104-8785508-2819112)" next.

[Star]

Working on The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's almost making me want to believe (!) in reincarnation :shock:.

[CapnEnnui]

Eleutheria by Samuel Beckett, his "failure" play.

[Kommienezuspadt]

Right now I'm actively reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. It's absolutely fascinating if you've ever been interested in the high-class restaurant at all.

I'm also passively reading (as in, whenever I get a second with nothing else to do, not setting aside time for) the Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman and I'm rereading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books in preparation for the movie.

[melancholeric]

I read "Down and out in Paris and London" by Orwell some days ago. Now I know to avoid eating in French restaurants...

Started "The Adventurer" by Mika Waltari.

[Lee]

Critique of Pure Reason - Immanuel Kant
How the Mind Works - Steven Pinker
Evolutionary Psychology - various authors

[prometheusdestroyed]

I'm reading How Green was my Valley? - pulls on the heartstrings like a campanologist on speed.

I presume when people are talking about "The Stranger" by Camus, that is "l'etranger". In England I have only seen this published as "The Outsider".

Which also happens to be the name of one of my top books by one of my favourite writers (non-fiction) Colin Wilson.

Joyce was mentioned with Portrait of the Artist... which I started recently, but don't seem to have progressed with. Maybe I'll track down Dylan Thomas with his writings in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog instead.

[Eileen]

I'm re-reading Of Mice and Men (teaching it--and holy Lord, I forgot how incredibly sad it is...) and reading for the third time Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle. I've also been flipping through the copy of Please Understand Me II that my seastar left when she was here last, and every so often I pull out Flannery O'Connor stories and read those.

[kuranes]

I presume when people are talking about "The Stranger" by Camus, that is "l'etranger". In England I have only seen this published as "The Outsider".

Which also happens to be the name of one of my top books by one of my favourite writers (non-fiction) Colin Wilson.



My favorite Colin Wilson novel was "The Philosopher's Stone". It was selected by introducer Joyce Carol Oates. Semi-Lovecraftian without being of the shamefully imitative variety. I met Colin once after a lecture he gave on "Consciousness" at university. Interesting to hear much later that he was involved in a Necronomicon hoax. K

[Ka.avik]

Have read Bitter Waters, just about to start Dog Warrior.
That's the reverse order...but sometimes I do that.

Both follow an individual derived from a hive-mind bacterium creature.
Jack L. Chalker has such in a few of his novels...which are better ;-)

[Ka.avik]

I'm also passively reading (as in, whenever I get a second with nothing else to do, not setting aside time for) the Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman
Highly recommended by this almost-goth. Beautiful & poetic.

Gaimen also has an adaptation of a japanese myth, name isn't coming to me...but it does have certain parallels with his series...which is why he wrote it, I think...

[Sir Isaac Lime]

Critique of Pure Reason - Immanuel Kant


"Introducing Kant"

Hey, I try.

[glassmoon]

It didn't impress me much. INTP's are 1% of the population. A book about the world in the eyes of an INTP wouldn't be far from it.

[Lee]

Origin of the Species - Charles Darwin

[BritainOphira]

Recollections of My Life as a Woman (The New York Years) - Diane di Prima

[meshou]

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maitenence

[Xenophon]

"Internal Combustion Engine Fundamentals"
"Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach"
"Advanced Engineering Mathematics"

*grumble*... god damn thesis.

Took a plane from Detroit to Toronto today, so I used the chance to finish "The Non-existant Knight and The Cloven Viscount" by Italo Calvino.

[Polystom]

Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms,

14th-century Ming dynasty epic profiling events of the Three Kingdoms period (113 years of flat-out civil war upon the Han's demise), circa late 2nd- to late 3rd-century AD.

Pledges, poetry, murder, intrigue court and military, diplomacy, anachronisms, omissions, eloquent literary parallels, zodiacal Taoist magic, historio-mythology, timeless heroes, humanity, tears, vengeance, everything. In a word: influential. Seriously. A novel I'll be studying for quite a long time.

[Sir Isaac Lime]

The man who mistook his wife for a hat - Sacks
Philosophy of Mind - Hegel
Ego and the Id - Freud
Synchronicity - Jung
Archetypes and the Collective Unconcious - Jung

I'm also studying Kants Critique of Pure Reason, but it's over my head.

[Eileen]

Lolita - Nabokov

[j4ck]

Wow, super thread! People are mentioning some of my favorite books! Except for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance, that book made me want to rip my eyes out.

Right now I am reading Silas Marner. I think my next one might have to be Ayn Rand...you kids have finally forced me to it. :)

[Sir Isaac Lime]

Wow, super thread! People are mentioning some of my favorite books! Except for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance, that book made me want to rip my eyes out.

Right now I am reading Silas Marner. I think my next one might have to be Ayn Rand...you kids have finally forced me to it. :)

Which ones are your favorites?

[BHZA]

7 Habits of highly effective people.
Quite a good read - I must say I have learned a lot of lessons (wisdoms) that may be logically appealing and practical to an INTP.

[j4ck]

Sir Issac,
I really enjoyed several books that were mentioned. The Dune series is one of my favorites (read Godmakers by Frank Herbert if you haven't), I actually own a first edition Silmarillion that I highly prize, but haven't finished yet. Of course, Douglas Adams is a total winner, and American Gods was awesome (I need to read the Preacher comic series that, correct me if I am wrong, Neil Gaiman wrote), Fear and Loathing is one of my all time favorites, and Brave New World is a classic that I will probably end up reading again. Then of course there are the books mentioned here that I haven't read but are high on my reading list, things like Rand and Nietzsche.

I was actually very surprized that a majority of books that were mentioned here are ones that I have hand picked to read for enjoyment. Now, I don't always read "thinky" books, I also like to read "cartoons"; things like *cough* Forgotten Realms *cough* and several of the Wheel of Time series.

[nBT]

howard gardner - frames of mind
leonard schlain - the alphabet versus the goddess
c g jung - type (online)
still to read
kant - the critique of pure reason - the critique of practical reason

[Heather Harrison]

I have lately been reading short stories from "The Decameron" by Giovanni Boccaccio, a wonderful collection of stories written in the mid-1300's.

Yesterday morning, I read "Please Stop Laughing at Me" by Jodee Blanco, her story of surviving severe bullying in school. (I will discuss this in the psychology forum.)

I am also writing a novel which will likely be unmarketable because the writing style is old-fashioned. Being a "P", I will probably never finish it anyway.

Heather Harrison

[cathmc]

Just started 'Living to Tell the Tale' - 1st volume of Garcia Marquez's autobiography. Loving it so far - I've read most everything of his so it's fun to read his descriptions of 'real events' that inspired things in his stories and novels. But also just love the way he writes, as beautiful in nonfiction as in fiction.

[PonderBee]

Tom Wolfe, I am Charlotte Simmons

[kruT]

Joseph Heller - Catch 22 (again.)
Edvard Radzinsky - Rasputin File
Zora Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God

[Star]

Tom Wolfe, I am Charlotte Simmons

Aha! That's the one with the famously bad sex scene, isn't it? :D

*googles*

"The prize is awarded each year for "crude, tasteless" sexual depictions in published literature." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4091643.stm)


One of this year's winning paragraphs, from "I am Charlotte Simmons":

Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns. Oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest no, the hand was cupping her entire right - Now! She must say 'No, Hoyt' and talk to him like a dog...

Is it a good book, not counting that? :)

[Heather Harrison]

That sex scene sounds like a classic! I might have to pick that one up and take a gander. I like the "Slither slither slither slither" statement. I wish I could come up with something that creatively bad; maybe I could make a little money on the side.

Heather Harrison

[PonderBee]

I've always enjoyed reading Tom Wolfe. He can be counted on to illuminate the foundation of BS that people build their castles on. In this case he seems just bit out of his depth in capturing the current "tongue" and mindset of America's youth. His age is showing at the seams of this book.
I haven't gotten to that particular sex scene yet.

[crule81]

I'm currently reading "The Island of Lost Maps" which is non-fiction account of a thief who stole rare maps from various libraries around the US. The author does an excellent job of interweaving this story with that of the maps themselves and the explorers and cartographers who created them. This is of interest to me since I enjoy old maps as well.

[Miss Anthropic]

Wicked by Gregory Maguire, I think. The story of why the Wicked Witch of the West turned out the way she did.

[Sam172]

"In The Steps Of The Master" by H.V. Morton - Travel about Palestine, tracing the steps of Jesus...and others

[franzgold]

"The Litany of the Long Sun" by Gene Wolfe. I would highly recommend "The Book of the New Sun", also by him. It really is some of the best fiction that I have ever read.

[xenose]

I'm reading a hilarious old volume of poems by Ogden Nash titled "Family Reunion".

I'll post some on another thread as they are very entertaining.

[tragula]

I'm on a big nerdy brain book kick!

I recently read a book called Mind Hacks sitting in the bookstore....

And I am currently reading a book I ordered called Mapping The Mind by Rita Carter. It is a beautifully illustrated, clearly written, and deeply insightful book. It has a chapter on right brain left brain. A chapter on the emotions. And some good lists on the known cognitive differences between men and women!

When I'm done with that I've got How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker in the chute and ready to go.

Books make you smarter.... :blink:

[Sir Isaac Lime]

"Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot

Awe-some.

[Sally]

Rereading the Dune series (up to #4, don't plan to go past 6; once was enough for Brian). Am poised on the brink of the 5th Aubrey/Maturin novel, which I will read once the time is right. And I recently read Guns, Germs, and Steel, which was fascinating, and the first third of the Oxford History of Mexico, which was also fascinating... until I grew bored with it.

....Oh, and a pamphlet on Nicaragua....

[Shai Gar]

power of one for school, and defenders of magic (dragonlance) for pleasure

[BritainOphira]

I just finished "Lucky" by Alice Sebold, which was actually quite good if brutal and not quite as well written as it could have been, and next up is either the Kafka collection I got at the library, or the random, nameless one I know I checked out but can't seem to remember and hope I can find before it's over-due.

[YardGnome]

Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick

[sandwich]

Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Illustrated History of English Literature: Chaucer through Shakespeare
Foundation's Edge by Asimov

[Sir Isaac Lime]

Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick

cool stuff

[euterpenc]

Aion: Researches Into the Phenomenology of the Self by Carl G. Jung.

[jimkopelli]

Gödel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter

Recommended by my math teacher, Maddox(wtf?), and me.

Not very far yet, but me brain is tingly.

[kuranes]

When I try to describe to people what the Hofstader book Jim just mentioned is about, people invariably roll their eyes and say "That sounds like something YOU'D be interested in" perhaps thinking of my personality type. It is definitely a very "INTP" kinda book.

[Sir Isaac Lime]

Synchronicity &
Archetypes and The Collective Unconcious -- Carl Jung

[Xenophon]

Ken Wilbur: A Brief History of Everything.

[iponjs]

A Question of Values - Hunter Lewis

[MaroonBells]

Please Understand Me II - Keirsey

[sbw]

When I try to describe to people what the Hofstader book Jim just mentioned is about, people invariably roll their eyes and say "That sounds like something YOU'D be interested in" perhaps thinking of my personality type. It is definitely a very "INTP" kinda book.

so naturally, I went over to amazon.com; I'd never heard of it before, but that book sounds fascinating...I receive the "sounds like something YOU'D be into" all the freakin' time.

Scott

[MaroonBells]

so naturally, I went over to amazon.com; I'd never heard of it before, but that book sounds fascinating...I receive the "sounds like something YOU'D be into" all the freakin' time.

Scott

I just got Godel, Escher, Bach in the mail! I bought it based on a similar recommendation!

[mgb]

The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs.

[kafkaesque]

I just finished Diary: a Novel by Chuck Palahniuk.
Currently reading Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky and The Journals of Sylvia Plath.
I read a couple of chapters of Godel, Escher, Bach before I had to return it to whence it was borrowed; would love to try it again.

["InsertNameHere"]

Reading a book that I have read 6 times already and still can't seem to remember the tittle or the plot of the book. Why read it? Because I'm tired and have nothing better to read and my school neighborhood doesn't have a decent library.


dAMN it! I come from The City That Reads and this is killing me...

[Sally]

Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin. I haven't been able to put it down.

[distraction tactics]

I've got a couple underway: Robin Hobb's Ship of Destiny and Colossus by Niall Ferguson. Now, just to finish them.

I've also got a copy of Kerouac's On The Road kicking around, waiting to be read.

[crule81]

I've got a couple underway: Robin Hobb's Ship of Destiny and Colossus by Niall Ferguson. Now, just to finish them.

I read Colossus about a year ago, when it first came out. It is definitely a different perspective on America's role in the world and certainly doesn't smell of PC or alarmist propaganda as to many other recent books that handle "current affairs". At least with this book and its predecessor, Empire, someone has gone against the trend to assert that perhaps imperialism, if done correctly, is not always as awful as portrayed. I think Feruson's most compelling argument is that the US fails in its pseudo-imperialistic endevours because it insists, from the begining, that any presense will be as short as possible. On the other hand, when the US stays for a long time and shows no willingness to leave, such as W. Germany and Japan, strong nations have been built. I don't know if Germany and Japan are examples that can be extrapolated to modern mideast and african nations, but his theory is interesting nonetheless.

[Mr. Good Beats]

fear and loathing in america hunter s.
the idiot dostoevsky

[distraction tactics]

I read Colossus about a year ago, when it first came out. It is definitely a different perspective on America's role in the world and certainly doesn't smell of PC or alarmist propaganda as to many other recent books that handle "current affairs". At least with this book and its predecessor, Empire, someone has gone against the trend to assert that perhaps imperialism, if done correctly, is not always as awful as portrayed. I think Feruson's most compelling argument is that the US fails in its pseudo-imperialistic endevours because it insists, from the begining, that any presense will be as short as possible. On the other hand, when the US stays for a long time and shows no willingness to leave, such as W. Germany and Japan, strong nations have been built. I don't know if Germany and Japan are examples that can be extrapolated to modern mideast and african nations, but his theory is interesting nonetheless.

As far as I've gotten in it, I don't really think there is anything I disagree with. It seems to me that after WWII, there was no way the US could really claim to be what once had. I don't see this as a bad think, I think the western world is on the right track, but I do think the leaders need to think things through a bit more when they do extend their might abroad.

[jimkopelli]

I've got a couple underway: Robin Hobb's Ship of Destiny and Colossus by Niall Ferguson. Now, just to finish them.

I've also got a copy of Kerouac's On The Road kicking around, waiting to be read.
Ooh, Hobbs is good... you have to read the series in series, though...


Had to turn GEB back in to the library... maybe I shouldn't have checked it out right before finals week... oh well, I can get it again soon.

[distraction tactics]

Ooh, Hobbs is good... you have to read the series in series, though...


Had to turn GEB back in to the library... maybe I shouldn't have checked it out right before finals week... oh well, I can get it again soon.

Yeah, I had read the Farseer trilogy - enjoyed the hell out of it - and was stoked on finding out she had completed two more trilogies in the same universe.

The best part being, of course, I'm the only one at my library taking these books out, so I'm almost guarenteed the next when I finish one.

[Shai Gar]

to kill a mockingbird, and Krondor, the assasins

[Mr. Good Beats]

a guy i worked with was reading a book by chuck palahnuik...he told me about a part of it... theres this guy addicted to the internet or something and happens upon this site in which some dude has trained an orangutang to shove an acorn in his ass... picturing that makes me wanna squel like a pig

anyone know what that book is?

[nonsequitur]

i'm currently reading 3 books
- "focault's pendulum" by umberto eco
- "understanding power - the indispensible chomsky"
- "sense and sensibility" by jane austen

[Bill_Zenn]

I'm currently reading

1) The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (David J. Chalmers)
2) The Symbolism of Evil (Paul Ricoeur)

[SheepDog]

I just finished "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why" by Laurence Gonzales. On the surface, it's about people who survive (or don't) in extreme situations. But it's also about the human brain and how we deal with the world.

Now I'm reading "The Logic of Failure" by Dietrich Dorner. It has some interesting parallels to the book above, but is more about how humans deal with complex systems. It's not quite as compelling as Deep Survival, but it is still insightful.

[Dman]

I've been reading Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". It's the first Ayn Rand book I've ever read, and I got the idea from this website as a matter of fact. I'm about 3/4 of the way through - awesome book - definitely one of the better books I've ever read.

I think the next book I'll read is "The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe" by Penrose. It sounds good - has anyone read it yet?

[waxwing]

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Amphogorey by Edward Gorey
Hellenistic Philosophy text

[MasterMerk]

I just skimmed through Slaughterhouse five, which was excellent. Don't know what I'll start next.

[waxwing]

I just skimmed through Slaughterhouse five, which was excellent. Don't know what I'll start next.
You remind me of another Vonnegut favorite, Breakfast of Champions.

[Miss Anthropic]

a guy i worked with was reading a book by chuck palahnuik...he told me about a part of it... theres this guy addicted to the internet or something and happens upon this site in which some dude has trained an orangutang to shove an acorn in his ass... picturing that makes me wanna squel like a pig

anyone know what that book is?
Nah, that's like training a cat to use the litter box (its not training.) It is some sort of monkey aggressive behavior. Read a funny article in Vanity Fair where some socialite decides she needs a helper monkey because it is a cute thing to have and the monkey shoves a grape up its butt at a party and then offers the grape to a guest.

Latest book I'm reading is Parasite Rex....an amazing (albeit digusting) scientific book all about parasites. Before that I read Opium, a History, and Obsessive Genius--a book about Marie Curie. Another interesting scientific book on genetics called Freaks.

[euterpenc]

Faust, by Goethe. One of the best books I've ever read.

[Sally]

The Crusades, by Zoe Oldenbourg. Highly accessible but not oversimplified. I love it.

[Claverhouse]

Zoe Oldenburg was brilliant: I've kept both 'The Corner-Stone' and "The World Is Not Enough' since early infancy...

Hist Fict set in 12th cent. France and the middle crusades, one follows the other; but the net is so useless I can't find the original French titles... Most historical fiction is dire, but she and Jane Lane were both excellent ( and looked alike in a sexy 1930s way* ).



Claverhouse http://forums.intpcentral.com/images/smilies/ninja.gif


* Dustjackets...

[kafkaesque]

I just started
Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins.
Not very far into it yet but I love his style so far.

[meshou]

Sorcery by Terry Pratchett.

[Sally]

Zoe Oldenburg was brilliant: I've kept both 'The Corner-Stone' and "The World Is Not Enough' since early infancy...

Hist Fict set in 12th cent. France and the middle crusades, one follows the other; but the net is so useless I can't find the original French titles... Most historical fiction is dire, but she and Jane Lane were both excellent ( and looked alike in a sexy 1930s way* ).



Claverhouse http://forums.intpcentral.com/images/smilies/ninja.gif


* Dustjackets...

Hot.

[Partial Observer]

Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut.

[xXHalighXx]

I just got done with Steve Martin's "The Pleasure Of My Company." It's too good. I highly recommend it.

[cathmc]

Just started Graham Greene's 'The Heart of the Matter'. First thing I've read by Greene, though I've been told I would like him. So far really great, I love the way he uses language. Here's a quote: "He couldn't tell that this was one of those occasions a man never forgets: a small cicatrice had been made on the memory, a wound that would ache whenever certain things combined - the taste of gin at mid-day, the smell of flowers under a balcony, the clang of corrugated iron, an ugly bird flapping from perch to perch." Except for the use of 'cicatrice' where 'scar' would have been perfectly fine, I love that sentence. Even out of context.

[Architectonic]

I'm about to read Richard Macdonald's 'The 7 Bad Habits Of Highly Ineffective People'.

[Star]

Strunk & White: Elements of Style.
Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary.

[Sally]

The Heirs of the Kingdom by Zoe Oldenbourg, whom I am now madly in love with.

Is she still alive? I want to marry her.

[Sir Isaac Lime]

Before that I read Opium, a History, and Obsessive Genius--a book about Marie Curie. .

Have you been doubling up on your painkillers again?

[Crazy]

I just finished Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, and will probably pick up The Da Vinci Code, for which Angels & Demons is the prequal, as the next book I read.

I started a discussion thread about Angels & Demons, which is here (http://www.intpcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4808)

[Claverhouse]

The Heirs of the Kingdom by Zoe Oldenbourg, whom I am now madly in love with.

Is she still alive? I want to marry her. I shouldn't imagine so. Her books were mainly published in the 1940s & 50s...

Having looked up "Zoe Oldenbourg" ( admittedly without the accent ), Google gave 3660 results and AllTheWeb 23, none obviously to the purpose. But she was born in St. Petersburg in 1916. Not reading Spanish meant I could delve no further. Pretty soon the internet will have killed off all useful information everywhere, as soon as the books have crumbled into dust and ash.

[EDIT: Here's a google translation of a French page fr Gallimard (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.gallimard.fr/catalog/Html/event/oldenbourg.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522zoe%2Boldenbourg%2522%26num%3D100%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG): she was extinct on the 8th Nov 2002. You are just too late. ]

( Someone really ought to explain to Google the meaning of death. )

But here's the Crusades Encyclopedia (http://www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/index.html), and an article on the recent film which sounds the average dreck. Thomas F. Madden (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1400196/posts?page=1,50). Neither of which you asked for. The comments page (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1400196/posts?q=1&&page=1) mentions her in passing. It's a good article.


n other words, aren't the Crusades really to blame? Osama bin Laden certainly thinks so. In his various video performances, he never fails to describe the American war against terrorism as a new Crusade against Islam. Ex-president Bill Clinton has also fingered the Crusades as the root cause of the present conflict. In a speech at Georgetown University, he recounted (and embellished) a massacre of Jews after the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and informed his audience that the episode was still bitterly remembered in the Middle East. (Why Islamist terrorists should be upset about the killing of Jews was not explained***.) Clinton took a beating on the nation's editorial pages for wanting so much to blame the United States that he was willing to reach back to the Middle Ages. Yet no one disputed the ex-president's fundamental premise.

Well, almost no one. Many historians had been trying to set the record straight on the Crusades long before Clinton discovered them. They are not revisionists, like the American historians who manufactured the Enola Gay exhibit, but mainstream scholars offering the fruit of several decades of very careful, very serious scholarship. For them, this is a "teaching moment," an opportunity to explain the Crusades while people are actually listening. It won't last long, so here goes.


The threat of Islam

Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman's famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity—and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion—has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.



Crusading in the late twelfth century, therefore, became a total war effort. Every person, no matter how weak or poor, was called to help. Warriors were asked to sacrifice their wealth and, if need be, their lives for the defense of the Christian East. On the home front, all Christians were called to support the Crusades through prayer, fasting, and alms. Yet still the Muslims grew in strength. Saladin, the great unifier, had forged the Muslim Near East into a single entity, all the while preaching jihad against the Christians. In 1187 at the Battle of Hattin, his forces wiped out the combined armies of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem and captured the precious relic of the True Cross. Defenseless, the Christian cities began surrendering one by one, culminating in the surrender of Jerusalem on October 2. Only a tiny handful of ports held out.

The response was the Third Crusade. It was led by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa of the German Empire, King Philip II Augustus of France, and King Richard I Lionheart of England. By any measure it was a grand affair, although not quite as grand as the Christians had hoped. The aged Frederick drowned while crossing a river on horseback, so his army returned home before reaching the Holy Land. Philip and Richard came by boat, but their incessant bickering only added to an already divisive situation on the ground in Palestine. After recapturing Acre, the king of France went home, where he busied himself carving up Richard's French holdings. The Crusade, therefore, fell into Richard's lap. A skilled warrior, gifted leader, and superb tactician, Richard led the Christian forces to victory after victory, eventually reconquering the entire coast. But Jerusalem was not on the coast, and after two abortive attempts to secure supply lines to the Holy City, Richard at last gave up. Promising to return one day, he struck a truce with Saladin that ensured peace in the region and free access to Jerusalem for unarmed pilgrims. But it was a bitter pill to swallow. The desire to restore Jerusalem to Christian rule and regain the True Cross remained intense throughout Europe.

The Crusades of the 13th century were larger, better funded, and better organized. But they too failed. The Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) ran aground when it was seduced into a web of Byzantine politics, which the Westerners never fully understood. They had made a detour to Constantinople to support an imperial claimant who promised great rewards and support for the Holy Land. Yet once he was on the throne of the Caesars, their benefactor found that he could not pay what he had promised. Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the Crusaders attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world. Pope Innocent III, who had previously excommunicated the entire Crusade, strongly denounced the Crusaders. But there was little else he could do. The tragic events of 1204 closed an iron door between Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, a door that even today Pope John Paul II has been unable to reopen. It is a terrible irony that the Crusades, which were a direct result of the Catholic desire to rescue the Orthodox people, drove the two further — and perhaps irrevocably — apart. Claverhouse :ph34r:





*** Possibly because they feel that's their job, not outsiders'. Claverhouse

[Sally]

she was extinct on the 8th Nov 2002. You are just too late.

Damn it. Well, there's always necrophilia.

I saw the recent movie. I liked it. ...Probably because I was expecting it to be of epic grandeur, extremely simplified, and boring. All of which it was. So in that respect....

It was nice to just see it, I guess. Yay for special effects. And all of the supporting roles kicked ass. I think the only thing that really bothered me was that the battle scenes sucked. They should have gotten a different director just for those. But yeah, for what it was, it was surprisingly accurate and sufficiently entertaining.

[cathmc]

I'm now reading 'When We Were Orphans' by Kazuo Ishiguro. He wrote 'Remains of the Day' (which became that Merchant/Ivory flick with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson).
Really liking it so far. He has a very interesting narrative style - conversational and nonlinear, although there are always seamless transitions among the present, recent past, and further past, and between the two main settings - 1930s London and Shanghai.

[Lugh]

(Just let me apoligiese now if this is resurrectiing a post that died a while ago)


Now that, that is out of the way, what are you reading? Is it any good? Would you recommand it? Need suggestions for something to read?

Well lets start if off with what I am reading, "The Summer Tree" by Guy Gavriel Kay. Its a fantasy novel,written in 1984, and a really good example of Candadain Fantasy.

Well thats what I am reading, how about you?

[Master O]

I am reading "God's Debris". I'm only about 30 pages in but it is definitely an interesting read. I hope it can maintain it's quality and finish with a profound conclusion.

It's a book by Scott Adams (famous for the Dilbert comic). The book is not comedy. The premise is actually interesting, although I don't quite know the overall purpose yet: One character meets an old man who knows everything. Yes it's meant to be literally everything. They sit down and begin to have a conversation about the world, and the emphasis is on God and religion. The old man continually asks him questions about what he believes and then begins to perforate those beliefs with questions and statements of logic.

**There is a disclaimer by the author before the story begins stating that not all facts asserted by the old man are necessarily actual facts in the story. That it's difficult as an author to represent the knowledge of a person that would actually "know everything". It's more about causing one to question things and think more deeply.

The author is doing a good job so far, but I'm a little nervous as to whether he can keep it up. I'm enjoying this book and fear the let down.

Anyhow, for anyone that is interested, the book is FREE!! It was a 'for sale' book and did well, but now Scott Adams has decided that he wants it to be more accessible and has it as .pdf download for free.

http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/godsdebris/

[ApeTheDog]

Harry Potter and the half-blood prince. And it's good.

[zhang_bob]

East of Eden ~_~ John Steinbeck

[nomir_dva]

I'm reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra by F. W. Nietzsche. I think it was one of Nietzsche's translators who wrote that he is one of the easiest philosophers to read and the hardest to understand. His sarcasm makes it very easy to misinterpret his ideas, but the book is fascinating even if I comprehend relatively little of it.

I just finished re-reading Notes From Underground by Dostoevsky.

[kuranes]

"Proxies" by Laura Mixon. About life in a "near future" altered USA with technology that enables people to operate all kinds of micro and macro machines remotely, as operators. So far, I liked her previous book better. We'll see if it gets better.

I just checked out the latest China Mieville book, which I have high hopes for.

See also my thread "Exotic locales/Exotic detectives" on mysteries set in foreign lands, which give us landlocked Americans a peek ( perhaps ) into life elsewhere.

[MuseedesBeauxArts]

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. One of those books I should have read before now.

[Crazy]

I'm (sort of) reading "That Hideous Strength" by C. S. Lewis. It's part of his space trilogy. Right now, I'm at the beginning of the book, and having a hard time, because it's really dry. The other two books in the trilogy started a bit dry and picked up by the end, so I'm hoping that this will do the same. Problem is, I've been reading this one for over a month now and have only gotten to around page 60 or so. It's that dry. That and I haven't been taking very much time to read as of late.

[Birdsnest]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401904599/qid=1133811817/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0705736-2273404?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

Ask and it is Given
It is an excellent book, chapters are short, and it has life changing tips about how to manifest what you want.

[Melange]

For school I just finished "Bastard out of Carolina" and have to read "The Color Purple", and then after then "Beloved" along with a few other books over the course of this month for AP Lang/Comp. Nothing for "fun" at the moment :/

[joft]

"The Blank Slate" - Pinker
"Phantoms in the Brain" - Ramachandran
"Religion Explained" - Boyer

[joecancer]

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Haven't read enough to form an opinion yet.

[joft]

i thought it was ok, i think the author might have been INTx

[TPol]

"Fortune Is a River:Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli's Magnificent Dream to Change the Course of Florentine History" by Roger D. Masters. Just started it, so only about 10 pages in. So far, it is interesting.

[PenguinHunter]

I'm headed into exams now so no novel reading for the moment but I just finished "A Handful of Dust" by Evelyn Waugh. It's a classic satire, and brilliantly funny, but towards the end it gets so creepy (and sad even) I still am not entirely sure what to make of it.

[kuranes]

I'm headed into exams now so no novel reading for the moment but I just finished "A Handful of Dust" by Evelyn Waugh. It's a classic satire, and brilliantly funny, but towards the end it gets so creepy (and sad even) I still am not entirely sure what to make of it.

Same setting as "The Loved One" ?

[Lugh]

[QUOTE=nomir_dva]I'm reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra by F. W. Nietzsche. I think it was one of Nietzsche's translators who wrote that he is one of the easiest philosophers to read and the hardest to understand. His sarcasm makes it very easy to misinterpret his ideas, but the book is fascinating even if I comprehend relatively little of it....
[QUOTE]

I read Why I am So Wise It was a good read, He is a pompus misogynist ass. But he's an interesting pompus misogynist ass.

[cryokinetic]

Evidence From the Earth (about forensic geology)
rereading Snowcrash for the umpteenth time
Tales from Earthsea
about to start Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

[Trystorp]

"The Far Side of the World" by Patrick O'Brian. I just finished "Master and Commander" and "Post Captain" and I'm hooked. They took me a bit of effort to get into the right mindframe to enjoy them but I've found them intelligent and amusing. I'll soon be off to the library to get some of the others as they're $20 a shot at the bookstore.

[Lori]

Codex - Lev Grossman

have been struggling with this one - it's about a search for a long lost manuscript. Prompted to read this after reading a couple of Dan Browns books, now those I enjoyed!

[PenguinHunter]

Same setting as "The Loved One" ?

No, I don't think so. Haven't read it but that is the one about the pair of corpse preparers right? (Also a good idea)

[Promethean]

"The Brothers Karamazov" Dostoevsky

Like most russian books, it's very tedious (not as bad as Tolstoy though) and doesn't seem to translate well. The real impression I get from the russians is that they're horrible authors, but I know there is a vast cultural and linguistic barrier, so I try to dig into what they are saying. Dostoevsky's content and comentary on human behavior are fantastic. He simply had to be a brilliantly keen observer of people around him and was certainly a profound thinker reguardless of how one would judge his conclusions.

Hard to recommend or not recommend. If you speak russian or know a great deal about the culture or think a lot on human behavior and spiritual issues then I'd say yah. If not, you might still like it but at 1000+ pages you could probably find something more consise and hard hitting.

[tragula]

I highly recommend 3 books: Blink, Freakonomics, and The Black Slate.

They are written in an entertaining style and are chalk full of carefully thought-out arguments. The authors are all progressive thinkers who aren't afraid to tackle a few politically incorrect ideas if the research supports them.

[Rhu]

"The Essential Ellison" is what I've been digging into, lately. I have no idea why I haven't read anything by him before--I always enjoyed his commentaries back when he had regular guest spots on talk shows on the Sci Fi channel.

It is a pretty thick tome, too. About 1500 pages of short stories and novellas. Most of what I have read so far has been fun or thought provoking. Or both.

[Trystorp]

"The Ancestor's Tale" by Richard Dawkins. Having not read any of his books before, at first I thought it was another overly pretentious attempt by an academic to write, but I'm actually enjoying it. It traces the origins of life through a variety of species - from our immediate hominid ancestors back to the beginnings.

[Mr. Good Beats]

"Gai-jin" James Clavell. I like this guy, writes good period novels. Read "The Nobel House" awhile ago. There is a series of them from around 1500's china to 1950's, or something like. All take place in exotic oriental locales.

"A Briefing for a Descent into Hell" Debra Lessing..I think it's Debra, but I imagine I could be wrong on this one, and my bag is too far away to go check, but it is a good book.

"The Naked Ape" Desmond Morris. Just started this one, but it seems like it should good for the thought process.

edit: The correct answer was Doris, Doris Lessing wrote "A Briefing for a Descent into Hell".

[nihilist]

Just finished The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

Rereading Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

[last_caress]

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0595094724.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

[nomir_dva]

Basic Writngs of Nietzsche

[Dempsey]

'Needful Things' by Stephen King. So far it's "meh"ish since only 2 people have hacked eachother to death. A guy has been sent to pick up a few dozen automatic guns recently though, which promises not to disappoint.

I think i'm going to finish the 'Dark Tower' books and his short story books and then ill be done with King. He's not my type of author. He writes very good stories, but I don't get much enjoyment from actually reading him. It's not until I finish the book that I realise how good the story was.

[joft]

The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow
The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell
City: Urbanism and Its End, Douglas Rae
Best Science and Nature Writing of 2004, and 2005
and The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene

[tinribz]

Asimov robot stories (again).
PHP & SQL for more dynamic websites.
Chronicles of Narnia.
Various Thomas Tank Engine stories.
About 75 emails a day.
The Guardian.
INTPc

[Star]

Jeans, some thick-soled black Børns, one of those thermal shirts with the cuffs, the really warm ones, and an old wool sweater, pullover, forest green, that I got a thrift store a few years ago. All nice and cosy warm. It's 14F here.

(Am I the only one who keeps parsing this as "What are you wearing"?) :p

I propose that everyone who posts what book they're reading also has to put down what they're wearing, so that when I open this thread I'll find what I expect to find, and a little extra. ;]

Ok ok I still haven't finished Alice Munro's Runaway. I'm about halfway through; haven't had a lot of time to read. But it's really, really good. The best one so far is.. well they're short stories so if I speak a word I'll spoil them. Never mind.

What are you wearing?

[DeadDove]

"Signature Killers" by Robert D. Keppel.

Black shorts, reversable Lakers jersey, & my white and red And1's.

[Conan]

I started Walden by Thoreau today and it sucked so I stopped reading it.

[Sally]

I'm on The Apples of Apollo right now. It's an interesting read, though as with most pet theories, I find it grasping at more than a few straws.

Yet again driving home how unfortunate it is that we lack certain things in our society - ritual drug use, for one thing.

And people... Peoples. Any group of people, really. We're all such a crazy bunch.

[naruto littles helpers.jpeg]

enjoying don quixote, poems of marianne moore, and molecular biology of the cell

[Biff_Loman]

The Extended Phenotype, by Richard Dawkins. It lacks the intellectual crack addiction quality of The Selfish Gene, and I probably won't make it all the way through.

[Trystorp]

I'm ordering Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker next week. I'll add The Selfish Gene to that order on your recommendation.

[Fingers]

Father Sergius - Leo Tolstoy... it's a good read

[Dom]

Frey's marraige contract!

[Xander]

Just dropped The Analects of Confucious as ecclectic periodic irrelevant stuff with only a couple of relevant pieces in it.
Picked up The Last Days of Socrates by Plato and found the first three parts (Euthyphro, Apology and Cito [I think]) brilliant as Socrates dashes past his opposition in conversations leaving them realing (even if I do think the opposition was a bit lame and the arguments a bit thin). The last part I'm reading through now and the whole reasoning seems to be flying out of the window. Shame really. I can't wait now to finish Socrates to start on Decartes or perhaps the V for Vendetta graphic novels which my friend has lent me.

[Carebear]

Rowling - Harry Potter (book 3 i think)
Jordan - Wheel of Time (book 10) Guess you've read that series too, Moridin. :)
Pratchett - Lords and ladies (Discworld)
Tolkien - Silmarillion
Martin - A feast for Crows (book 4 of a song of ice and fire, best fantasy ever)
Hamilton - Reality dysfunction (first book of a sci-fi trilogy of some sort)

And no, I'm not name-dropping books I have read, I'm only listing the ones I'm currently reading. I tend to skip and jump from book to book, but always finish with all of them eventually. Hm.. I'm also reading "The Borribles" and the last of the Vlad Taltos-books by Steven Brust, but might be I'll not finish those come to think of it. Damn me for allways contradicting myself.

And of course I read more than fiction, but listing other stuff is just pretentious and boring. ;)

[Dom]

Jordan - Wheel of Time (book 10) Guess you've read that series too, Moridin. :)


Just a couple of times, I have polluted many peoples reading list with it too!

Can't believe I've got another few years to wait for book 12!!! may reread the whole lot again soon!

[Carebear]

I read to book 9, then I re-read book 1-6 I think, then later listened to an abridged audiobook version of book 1-9 before beginning on book 10. I haven't really rushed to get to book 11, since I know I won't be happy before the rest of the series is out.

If you have trouble waiting for book 12, read George RR Martin's "A song of Ice and Fire" in the mean time. It beats any fantasy I've ever read and beats Jordan by being just as deep without wasting 500 pages on telling that Perrin walked from A to B and nothing really exciting happened on the trip.

[Dom]

I read to book 9, then I re-read book 1-6 I think, then later listened to an abridged audiobook version of book 1-9 before beginning on book 10. I haven't really rushed to get to book 11, since I know I won't be happy before the rest of the series is out.

If you have trouble waiting for book 12, read George RR Martin's "A song of Ice and Fire" in the mean time. It beats any fantasy I've ever read and beats Jordan by being just as deep without wasting 500 pages on telling that Perrin walked from A to B and nothing really exciting happened on the trip.

Book 10 is abit like that to warn you.... book 11 ace again though!


Jordan has always been like that, soem books are setting the scenes for the next set piece book, and the final outcome from book 9 was awesome so book 10 was bound to be slower.........

[Carebear]

Ah, nice! I'll try not to drown in the last pages of 10 then and dive into 11 as soon as I get the chance. And yes, Jorda has always been a bit like that, but book nr 8(?) was bad!

Anyways: SOng of ice and fire, George RR Martin. First book is called A Game of Thrones.

[Blue]

Dune.

+Blue

[kuranes]

Done.

[libertarianjim]

When Great Lent starts on Monday (Eastern Rite Catholic) I'm going to start reading a modern treatmen of St. John Climacus' "The Ladder of Divine Ascent."

[Pooja]

school and textbooks have zapped my ability to read for fun. Now, I just "skim" everything for relavent info.... I wish I could go back to enjoying it. After reading a couple chapters out of my book "BIOCHEMISTRY", the most intelligent thing that I'm in the mood to read is a celebrity gossip magazine. SO, in addition to knowing everything about the molecular structure of protiens, I also know what happened to Paris Hilton last week (she was attacked with flour by PETA)...*sigh*...

[ObtainGnosis]

Recently read On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche...currently reading Discourse on Thinking by Martin Hedeigger, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and Adieux by Simon De Beauvoir....

[MacGuffin]

school and textbooks have zapped my ability to read for fun. Now, I just "skim" everything for relavent info.... I wish I could go back to enjoying it. After reading a couple chapters out of my book "BIOCHEMISTRY", the most intelligent thing that I'm in the mood to read is a celebrity gossip magazine. SO, in addition to knowing everything about the molecular structure of protiens, I also know what happened to Paris Hilton last week (she was attacked with flour by PETA)...*sigh*...Engineering did that to me, only worse. I got in the habit of rereading every sentence so I didn't miss anything. Which destroyed my ability to enjoy reading and really slowed my speed down.

Took years to get over.

[Ponderous]

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul


I gotta find that book again. Love Douglas Adams.


Freakonomics


Cool, this is next on my list!

But currently - Doctor Who Verdigris

[Ka.avik]

Never actually heard of freakonomics; hafta look into it. Have never read any of the dirk gently books but loved (of course; who didn't?) the whole hitch hiker's guide series, and can recommend another series written in the same vein by an author whose name utterly escapes me, but the title to look for is 'bicycling through space & time" and 'the 22nd gear' -- forget the middle book's title...

EDIT: Mike Sirota (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?z=y&ath=Mike+Sirota) is the author of 22nd gear, et al...

Anyway, I just checked out from the library "Way of the Wolf (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&isbn=0451459393&itm=1)" and "Choice of the Cat" both by E. E. Knight -- scifi, post-apocalyptic of the alien-invasion sort. I see on the cover of the first book, that Fred Saberhagen has described it as "a winner" -- that piques my curiousity about his berserker series mentioned below the quote.