Books worth reading

[Jovial Monk]

Let us talk intelligently of books.

I love the Neal Stephenson books, big & dense tho they are.

SciFi: Anathem, Snowcrash, Cryptonomicron
Speculative fiction: Quicksilver, first volume in a Baroque Trilogy. This one is set in 17thc, Isaac Newton, Leibnitz, Charles 2nd. Barkers, Papists, Quakers religious war, vagabonds. Fucking fascinating, gives you a really good idea what life was like back then. Impeccably researched.

I do love science books: Darwin & the Beagle, Walking with Dinosaurs (loved the TV series despite some faults) loved the "How we did it" doco even more! Got the Walking with Beasts DVD--life after extinction of dinosaurs (I do NOT buy the meteor theory BTW, the coming of grasslands and deciduous trees) that didn't suit the over-specialised dinosaurs can explain that and why did ichthyosaurs die out in the sea but crocodiles/aligators go on to thrive?) and one of life in the Carboniferous era, with much more oxygen in the air & high temperatures: centipedes 3m long, spiders the size of our heads etc creepy but fascinating.

Hmmm I guess we can include non-music DVD/CDs here

[JW Frogen]

I am currently dipping here and there re-reading selective parts of Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I read it all, every volume when I was a teenager and Durant's voice was with me when I lived in Europe and visited so many wondrous cultural sites.

I am also reading Christopher Hitchen's God Is Not Great. A witty attack on organized religion, good stuff even if one is not an atheist.

And The War Within, by Bob Woodward, about the Bush years from 2006 to late 2007. An inside account of how the Democrats wanted Bush to just pull out of Iraq, Rumsfeld and Rice wanted him to stay the course, and a few brave hearts in NSC dissident military men pleaded with him to surge in Iraq.