Still concerning "The God Delusion" by Dawkins: His usage of the "China Teapot in Orbit" and "Spaghetti Monster In The Sky" explanations made me laugh every time. ~String
Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho (pr. ko-EL-yoo). A woman decides her life is pointless and tries to commit suicide. She fails but the damage she did is fatal and she only has a week to live. Which might be fun except she will spend it in a mental hospital because that's where they put people who attempt to kill themselves. And then it really starts to get complicated... But the point is: We're all gonna die sooner or later. Why don't we live like we understand that life is finite? I read one of his first novels, The Alchemist, written about 25 years ago. It too was about someone on a journey of discovery but other than that they don't have much in common. But I love his style of storytelling. He could write the phone book and I'd read it. That one had one of my top ten most memorable lines. The kid eventually finds the Alchemist he'd been seeking out in North Africa. The guy invites him in for dinner and offers him a glass of wine. He says suspiciously, "But you're a Muslim. You people think alcohol is evil." The Alchemist replies, "It's not what men put into their mouths that's evil. It's what comes out that is." Coelho, a Brazilian who writes in Portuguese, is one of the world's most respected and acclaimed authors. The Alchemist sold 65 million copies, making it one of the biggest sellers in history; and it has been translated into 67 languages, the Guinness record for a living author. Coelho has written 26 books, mostly novels, which have been bought in more than 150 countries. With Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luís Borges, Laura Esquivel, Mario Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, and many other "magic realists" writing in Spanish, plus Jorge Amado and Paulo Coelho writing in Portuguese, Latin America is rapidly becoming the world's new center of literature.
I just finished reading "Jia" a story of a North Korean girl who escaped to China and than South Korea. And how her mother had to eat sugar coated appendage of her own baby when it was born so that she could survive. All in all its a very dramatic life surreal South Korean propaganda. Def. worth a read.
Presently I'm reading 'Cross Country' by Theo Lang, about a hiking journey he took through Britain in 1948.
Alien Earth, by Megan Lindholm Alien Earth, by Megan Lindholm. It's been years since I read this, but I hauled it out and put it away in under forty-eight hours last week. A grim view of the future, Alien Earth tells of humanity in exile, having destroyed its own habitat and rescued by a curious species called the Arthroplana. Generations later, ecological tyranny imposed by a human government renders people mere visitors in the Universe as everyone strives to make absolutely no difference in life and nature whatsoever. Rather than living, humanity is reduced to merely existing. All seventy-three thousand of us. The story is constructed around the appearance of bludgeon-heavy moralism, but one thing that's hard to resolve is exactly what the moral of the story is. On the one hand, we see a blatant statement about the tyranny of environmentalism, but any cause can be taken to such an extreme. To the other, there is commentary about the destructive aspects seemingly inherent in human nature. And, of course, there are plenty of politics and ulterior motives to wonder through. As we move deeper into our global warming crisis/hand-wringing/panic (circle one), this one only gets more and more relevant. It's worth hauling out if even for that very reason alone, but I'm telling you, it's a hell of a read, too.
I'm reading The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin right now. It's very interesting for having been written in the mid-seventies. It's about an earth, not unlike ours, who's history split a entire part of itself off to it's moon to get away from "profiteering" and what happens in the hundreds of years after from the eyes of a physicist who returns to the earth to discover... It's quite in-depth and I am enjoying it so far. I bought it on my Kindle when I was sick and I haven't put it down much except for work.
I've just read "The Gaudi Key" by Esteban Martin and Andreu Carranza. It wasn't very good. It was the biggest Da Vinci Code rip off I've ever seen - Rather than Da Vinci it's Gaudi, rather than Paris/Rome it's Barcelona, rather than Opus Dei and the Knights Templar it's the Corbel and the Knights of Moriah. It was poorly written in my opinion: always seemed to start chapters with speech, I hate that! However the plot was reasonably clever and it was quite a page turner. There was one horrid torture scene. Eugh. But apart from that it was a very mild, light read. I don't recommend it though.
If you're talking to me then thanks, if not then I look like a fool Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Quantum Gods, by Victor Stenger It's an attempt to debunk religious arguments that depend on new revelations in physics.
Reasons To Be Cheerful Mark Steel, Reasons To Be Cheerful Entertaining, simultaneously light-hearted and grave; a memoir regarding the development of the British comedian/television host/columnist's political conscience against the backdrop of punk music, socialism, Thatcherism, New Labour, and the various sociopolitical disasters that tie them all together.
Sciforums posts by Sciforums members A quasi-scientific discussion with elements of social, technical, personal, religious, philisophical, economic and cultural debates. Sometimes belligerent and sarcastic, sometimes informative and stimulating. Often amusing.
Currently reading "Taken" by Dean Koontz. Horrific storyteller. Can't put the book down. If the rapture really takes place, then this is the way it should be, from Evil's point of view...smiles...
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! This book is ridicurous. This Cavendish fellow really slaps a friendly sticker on the black arts.
Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Gilman Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! So far its pretty funny. I want to read her other memoirs now, especially Kiss My Tiara: How to Rule the World as a SmartMouth Goddess
战栗. For those who can't read: pronounced "Zhan Li" and it means "To Shudder" or "To Tremble". It's a collection of three short stories, the first of which was about two men who witness a murder and discuss it through correspondence. Both men assume the murder was motivated by lost love. One of the men has a wife who cheats frequently. He tries hard to get other women but always fails. The second man is one of the adulterers with whom the wife sleeps with. A very cool story. The second story is about the death of a landlord back in the days of the Japanese war. I haven't finished that yet so I'm not sure about the third story! The author of this book - 余华 - is excellent and wrote one very famous in China called 活着 that was later made into a movie by Zhang YiMou.
