The Book/Reading Thread!

[Praxis]

Originally Posted by Worldslaziestbusker

Last night I attended a presentation at Embiggen Books:
Charles Darwin: The Concise Story of an Extraordinary Man
Speaker & author: Professor Tim Berra, Ohio State University

It was great to hear someone speak so enthusiastically and with a level of detail that could only come from a retirement spent studying and visiting the important sites of the life of such an important historical figure. Running well over time, Professor Berra never needed worry that his audience might become restive, and responded to the enthusiasm of the listeners with digressions and personal insights that, in other circumstances, might have been lost to the clock.
The presentation, given among shelves of books, each taking turns to catch my attention and call to my wallet, was my first at the newly Melbournian Embiggen emporium, and won't be my last.

I was sorry to miss that. I am looking forward to visiting Embiggen books at some stage. It's in Carlton isn't it? Perhaps a MMM could be arranged where we pay a visit there as well as having lunch/drinkies?

Glad you enjoyed it WLB

[Worldslaziestbusker]

Originally Posted by Praxis

I was sorry to miss that. I am looking forward to visiting Embiggen books at some stage. It's in Carlton isn't it? Perhaps a MMM could be arranged where we pay a visit there as well as having lunch/drinkies?

Glad you enjoyed it WLB

You might be thinking of Readings, which is on Lygon Street. Embiggen is on Little Lonsdale, opposite what was once the Museum of Victoria.
A MMM jaunt to the shop, and perhaps the churro emporium down the street is in order. Haigh's is not far away, too.

[Darwinsbulldog]

Originally Posted by Worldslaziestbusker

You might be thinking of Readings, which is on Lygon Street. Embiggen is on Little Lonsdale, opposite what was once the Museum of Victoria.
A MMM jaunt to the shop, and perhaps the churro emporium down the street is in order. Haigh's is not far away, too.

There is a little bookshop that specializes in new and second-hand textbooks school [and uni level] somewhere around there....forgotten it's name...Academic & General?

[Worldslaziestbusker]

Originally Posted by Darwinsbulldog

There is a little bookshop that specializes in new and second-hand textbooks school [and uni level] somewhere around there....forgotten it's name...Academic & General?

It is a good'un. Will retrieve contact details next time I'm in the area.

"Who Goes There" by John Campbell was both short and good. It drops you into the situation when all the characters have already spent a winter together in isolation, so they seem pretty one dimensional, and most of them aren't even named. The tension that builds as the situation unfolds is superb, making up for the shonky woo claims about telepathy that the author inserts, and some unnatural dialogue during the exposition work.
The John Carpenter film did a good job representing the original story.

"Nation" by Terry Pratchett. Good. Pratchett on the wane is still better than most authors at their zenith.

[Lord Blackadder]

Finished "Wide Sargasso Sea", moved on to "Room" (great read and told from a child's point of view). Now on to "Foe".

I love catching the train! :-)


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[OldEarther]

Hmmm... just finished God Delusion and am going through God is Not Great (occasionally traumatising workmates with horrific events).

I'm more excited, though, about having inflicted "Logic to the Rescue" (Kris Langman) on my 12yo daughter. It's a combination fantasy adventure that teaches logic fallacies. She's now hanging out for the next one to come out later in the year. WIN! (As long as the next one is cheap...)

[AUSloth]

Dragons of Eden - Carl Sagan. Great chapter on teaching sign language to primates then communicating (without surgery or genetic alteration they will never talk to us). A little dated now on the discussion of computers but the concepts are all still applicable - a worth while read as usual from CS
Quarantine - Greg Egan, your right WLB a great read. Fast paced and some good logical extensions to existing technology. Got a bit weird in the finale but I guess he was attempting to describe extreme chaos. Just as in the end of 2001 a space odyssey how would to portray the indescibable

[fataardvark]

My sister suggested that if I read a few different positions on Christianity she might be able to better explain what she now believes, as it seems her view of the faith in which we were raised no longer matches my understanding of it.

So I've recently finished:

'The Meaning of Jesus - Two Visions' Marus Borg and N.T. Wright
'Misquoting Jesus' Bart Ehrman
'Reading the Bible again for the first time' Marcus Borg
'The Reliability of the New Testament: Bart Ehrman & Daniel B Wallace in Dialog' Robert B Stewart (Editor)

and am currently wading through:

'Your Inner Fish' Neil Shubin
'A People's History of Christianity' Diana Butler Bass
'The Tyrannicide Brief' Geoffrey Robertson

I think I'm in desparate need of some Terry Pratchett to lighten the load...

[AUSloth]

Jesus Interrupted by Bart Ehrman. Points out just how crappy the bable really is. Cobbled together centuries later from frauds written decades after the supposed events ( none of which exist now) then modified by vested interests over centuries to say whatever bollocks thought appropriate and they still can't get a coherent story together. How many millennia should they get?

I went to Dymocks to pick up another Bart. They had one copy of Misquoting Jesus the only BE in stock (now mine ) in a central Sydney store but sadly a full shelf of brightly coloured prominently displayed douchebag chopra's deranged vomitus.

[Xeno]

Ehrman says repeatedly in his book that bible historicity is standard teaching in priestly colleges. I read on the web a sermon by a young anglican minister known to me and in it he declared that we knew the story was true because it was written by the disciples present, naming John (in fact the latest written) and another. Was he lying or do they teach differently in Australia, or has he adopted a personal set of fancies regardless of what he was taught?