What Book Are You Currently Reading?

[Cornish Maid]

I have read this one and some other of his stuff too. As long as good conquers all that's alright. got into dean Koontz as well

This is relating to post about Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds

[mad cowboy]

My eyes are getting really bad now can barely read the computer screen, so I don't read as much as I should anymore. I would like to recommend a few though First if you want to get to It. I suggest Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" there's everything you need to wage war in a book over 2 thousand years old. Then of course you'll need "The Anarchist's cookbook" I read the online version of both these books.
one in the Art of War you learn the five uses of fire, and THE COOKBOOK show's you how to make some pretty serious fire. Essential reading for anyone considering Anarchy.

If you like doom this is a personal plug. http://www.scribd.com/doc/60277176/T...-Guide-to-2012 this was written by a very Mad Cowboy me. 289 p.
Twenty-one2k The Handymans Guide to 2012 I've heard to skip the foreword (It Sucks) and go for page one.
If you have less time or energy I'd pimp this one. http://www.scribd.com/doc/51429772/T...ld-Gone-Mad-er 42 p.
Tribal Living in a World Gone Mad-er

Uploaded by: mad cowboy — A book to help people prepare as well as cope , with the Present as well as Coming times. Written by A Mad Cowboy" you could do worse. It is basically a self help book for the doom impaired . If you read them let me know hate or like. Peace B.

[weederbro]

Re-reading 'Crime And Punishment' for the first time since the 70's, after having read 3 David Mitchell books in a row,
'Ghostwritten','Cloud Atlas' and 'Black Swan Green'.
These came after finishing Haruki Murukami's trilogy 'IQ84'. All highly recommended.

[Angel Waters]

"The Barbarian Conversion - From Paganism to Christianity" By: Richard Fletcher

[weederbro]

It's always good to understand the effect Hellenism and general Paganism and Gnosticism had on traditional 'Christianity'.Together with having to correct the Judaising of doctrine, the Acts assembly always had their hands full countering falseteaching. These influences gave shape to some pretty heavy duty false doctrine.

[Lillith]

"Rapture Culture - Left Behind in Evangelical America " By: Amy Johnson Frykholm

It was the pun in the title that caught my attention.

[NinjaSocks]

"Krishnamurti Think on These Things," it's nice to see someone else perspective on life that's similar to mines.

[Nu Kua]

I'm now reading the works of Ian McEwan.
I started with Atonement which apparently, after reading some of his other stuff, must have been his lightest work. The Cement Garden has certainly started out with a bang. O_o

[palerider]

Reading the Price of Altruism.....George Prices search for the origins of kindness.....fascinating read and story so far...

Just finished A Case for God.....which was quite profound

[stonesmith]

Brad Thor's Full Black. It's so good.

[krakatoa]

I completed reading Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, last night. I liked it a lot

Krakatoa

[Nu Kua]

I've read all of Jane Hamilton's books that I can find, starting with "The Book of Ruth", a story about a girl who is somewhat developmentally disabled, growing into womanhood in a dysfunctional family. Hamilton writes from the girl's viewpoint, does so very well. "When Madeline Was Young" is written from the viewpoint of a male, speaking of his father's first wife, who suffered a bicycle accident which left her locked into the mind of a child. The father eventually married the woman hired to help take care of her, who is the mother of the character telling the story, and Madeline is raised along with the other children, as a child, although biologically, she is an adult. The story is just really deep and nuanced. Finally, I've just finished "A Map of the World", which is the story of two families, centered mostly on one, the woman of whom was babysitting the children of a friend when the little 2 year old girl of her friend drowned in a lake. Seriously thoughtful stuff, and this author really crawls into the skin of her characters. Most of these books were written in the 90's, so as usual I am a little behind times when it comes to good fiction. But, the stories are timeless.

[Nu Kua]

I last picked up two non-fiction books from the library.

One I just finished is "Imagine", by Jonah Lehrer, about how creativity works. Really good stuff. There is left brain creativity as well as right brain creativity, and sometimes you want to activate one or the other depending on which phase of your project you are in- dreaming it up, or laying it down. So if you're looking for inspiration, you'd want to stimulate right brain activity- if you're looking to put order or bones to the inspiration, you want to stimulate now the left side. Goes into how, when it's the right brain you're looking to activate, you should get up from your project- walk away, do something different, preferably something relaxing; but when you've gotten your inspiration and now need to organize it, the last thing you want to do is to walk away. You can tell what is needed by this: If you're staring at something and no new info or insight is coming to you at all, you're drawing blank after blank, then you need right-brained stimulation... but if you're working on something and you feel something is "right at the tip of your brain"- as in, you can feel and just know you are almost there but it just can't come through- you know there is something- then it's your left brain that needs to be activated. Colors help- colors in the blue field stimulate the right brain, colors in the red field stimulate the left. Talks about how companies have the most creative input when there is little hierarchy, when the decision processes are "horizontal" rather than 'vertical' (ie, people getting together to make decisions as op[posed to getting orders from the top) and also when people in the company shared lots of common areas and there were little to no walls or divisions between offices and departments. How the best ideas often come from someone not even related to a particular department, because fresh eyes see things tired eyes just can't see anymore, because the tired eyes have gotten so they only see something a particular way. Also goes into how education into the arts and sciences helps- for instance in Shakespeare's time, if there wasn't a concerted effort to educate poor people, he'd of never had a chance to go to school in the higher grades and he never would have been surrounded by all those other creative learned people- which just that alone helps us to be more creative.

Yeah, one reason so many of us get our best ideas while in the shower or bathtub is the warm, running water stimulates the right brain, which makes it freer to make associations. He even goes into a bit of how drugs have been behind some of the most creative artists we've ever known, and inventions, ect.
(As in, marijuana stimulates right brain creativity, while uppers like caffeine stimulate left brain creativity.)

The other book I am about done with is My People Are Rising- a story of the rise and fall of the Black Panther party written from the perspective of one of its prime members, Aaron Dixon. He's not a literary genius but the book is an interesting account or this part of American history, to say the least.

[Beatnik Bob]

Mein Kampf actually. Don't ask why. I am just fascinated by it. I particularly like references to his sister, who worked in a Jewish school in Vienna.
Also, having had many interactions with schizophrenics and diagnosed paranoid schizophrenics, some of the thought processes in the book make me speculate... As I easily recognize certain thought patterns…

[HindSight]

Brain Test

1. Discusses how technologies are messing up the brain i.e.
2. Sound waves messing up sense of direction
3. Microwaves and other waves cooking the brain within the skull
4. Visual: running trails at bottom of screen while split images on television is causing Attention Deficit, huh what?
5. Humans no longer have the choice to 'get away someplace quiet. Even remote areas are hit by all the radiation and microwaves.


I'm only half way through the book but bottom line: our Technologies are killing us and causing very real brain damage. The next generation will be even more mentally retarded due to technologies that already exist

[Nu Kua]

I'm only half way through the book but bottom line: our Technologies are killing us and causing very real brain damage. The next generation will be even more mentally retarded due to technologies that already exist

Ever see the film Idiocracy?

[HindSight]

I've seen the trailer. Looks good. I'll watch it.