[00940]

Augustine's Confessions

 

[ken36]

Death Benefits-Thomas Perry

 

[wanderman]

I read the first 234 pages of jumper on the google books page and it was pretty sweet. I think I am going to go to the library and pick it up.

 

[D_Tinnitus]

Just starting Complicity; Iain Banks.

 

[lisnalee]

Relentless - Simon Kernick

 

[ken36]

Touch-Elmore Leonard

 

[Zayeem]

Children of Húrin - J.R.R. Tolkien

 

[wareagle69]

2012 - Whitley Streiber

 

[FalconP]

Modern French Philosophy: From Existentialism to Postmodernism, by Robert Wicks.

There is no escaping it: when an interior designer describes his latest multiplex cinema as "a poststructuralist reaction towards the impending collapse of narrative architecture" (I'm not making it up), you feel that nauseous, absurd urge to enroll in a Modern French Intellectual Movements Remedial. Now you can get this book instead.

This book covers all the big guns (and a few smaller guns) in the 20th-century French intellectual scene, from the mysticism-suffused Bergeson to the cyber-charged Baudrillard, each author getting one chapter (except the chameleon-like Roland Barthes, who needs two). Wicks succeeded in the seemingly impossible: to present the always confusing and sometimes confused arguments of each thinker in logical, human-readable language (you'll appreciate how difficult the task is, considering that poststructuralists, like Derrida and the "post-'68" Barthes, didn't even consider their own writings to have a definite meaning at all). Wicks's remarkable job, however, did not stop here: he pointed out how these thinker were inspired by historical events, meticulously tracing how their thoughts evolved from earlier philosophies (turns out that most owned a great deal to Nietzche), and drew parallels between their philosophies and ideas in Dada, Buddhism and Taoism. But, the crowning glory of Wicks is that he did all these in a book 300 pages long.

Of course the book's shortness means there are limitations; some key ideas were simply given short shrift. You can hardly expect the wide-ranging interests of Foucault to be covered in one (or even a few) short chapters. The discussion on Derrida focuses mainly on his "Metaphysics of Différance", rather than the sexier concept of Deconstruction. Baudrillard's early, lesser-known theory of "Seduction" was explained in detail, while his later observations, such as the Simulacra and the Hyperreal, were barely touched upon, despite these being by-words of intellectual wannabes all over the world. Wicks's presentation of criticisms against each author is, I think, still inadequate and at times over-reverential: to point out that Derrida is a "lingo-existentialist" is illuminating; to call him "lingo-Socrates" is ridiculous.

As I said, sooner or later you'll find a reason to read this book. Even if you conclude (as I did) that much of the philosophy is trash, this book certainly isn't. At the very least it will let you have a few secret chuckles in the next high-brow wine party you attend.

 

[FalconP]

Nine Crazy Ideas in Science -- Robert Ehrlich

In this book, Ehrlich, a theoretical physicist, examines nine propositions seemingly at odds with received scientific wisdom, weight in their respective merits and deficiencies, and decides whether each deserve a hearing or not. Most of the "crazy ideas" are from physical science and cosmology ("Time travel is possible";"There was no Big Bang") with a few from the biological sciences ("AIDS is not caused by HIV") and social science ("More guns mean less crime").

It is a dream book for those who love reading (and posting in) the trivia thread, but as a popular science book, the quality of writing wavers. Ehrlich makes an extremely compelling case for the non-biological origin of oil and coal, and the discussion on tachyons (hypothetical particles that can only travel faster than light) is not something you can usually come across in a non-technical book (although Ehrlich's hypothesis that the neutrino is a tachyon has been refuted by recent experimental evidence, and the web-link given in this chapter doesn't work!). For these two chapters alone this book is worth your time.

Outside his shop, however, Ehrlich is considerably less persuasive. The chapter on guns and crimes is little more than a refutation of a study by John Lott. His treatise on AIDS likewise suffers from a narrow scope.

Ehrlich's book does a good job in reminding us that doing science requires an open mind, but I wish he had pulled in one or two co-authors.

 

[Luminette]

the first book of The Cleric Quintet, by R.A. Salvatore

 

[Superpredator]

J.G. Ballard's Crash.

 

[blessingx]

The Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes' Adam's Curse: A Future Without Men.

 

[Quaddy]

The Autobiography of Henry VIII with notes by his fool Will Somers

 

[subfocus]

The Corporation (The Pathological Pursuit of Profit & Power) - Joel Bakan