The Book/Reading Thread!

[AUSloth]

Vaccines: What You Should Know (3rd edit) by Paul Offit & Louis Bell. A comprehensive book covering how they are made and work, risk/benefit analysis and loads of frequently asked questions. A laymans guide so no heavy theoretical discussions (or you couldn't lift it even in e-book form). A good resource if you spend any time banging heads with anti-vaxers as the bibliography is comprehensive and arranged by topic.

[Lord Blackadder]

Originally Posted by loubert

Finished the world war 2.0 through to world war 2.3 series. (John Birmingham) was ok. I'd rate it about 6.5 outa 10.

Started Perfume:story of a murderer. so far I am really enjoying it.

Good book.

Check out the author's other well-known one, "The Pigeon". I have both in the Orange Penguin series.

[AUSloth]

Felafel is a dangerous book for anyone who has lived in share accommodation, laughter injuries abound
Thinking about it, those that have not had the joy of squats will still probably ROFL

[owheelj]

I vaguely recall it, but I was completely put off John Birmingham after his gross and sexist remarks about Germaine Greer, who isn't even somebody I like much or often agree with, but I think attacking women by calling them "childless hags" is never acceptable (or whatever he said, I forget the exact words). I think he said something about her being a pedophile too.

[AUSloth]

Originally Posted by The Irreverent Mr Black

@AUSloth: indeed, 'tis true.

ROFL

RE: The youtube, the first time I came across Felafel was a live production in the Balmain Hotel (I think or at least a pub in Balmain) in front of about 30 people 17 years ago. I'm wondering if this was the production he was talking of, the timing is about right. Too weird my $15 might have helped the book go main stream

@OWJ- I don't know the particular incident you refer to but if I ignored the body of work from every author or public figure that had a mind fart or said something stupid/ignorant my library would be rather dull.

[owheelj]

Well I'm not really saying don't read him. I have my fair share of books by authors who I think are morons. Indeed a lot of those books I have because I know that I will disagree with their position, but I want to find out what specifically what it is.

Anyway I'm currently reading two books - Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner, which I've found enjoyable, and found their abortion/crime argument (the most controversial part of the book) convincing. I think some of the criticisms are fair enough (ie. the suggestion that the book isn't about economics, or even applying economics to wider situations, but just about applying the general data analysis techniques used in many sciences to social situations), but it is mainly an interesting and well argued book.

I'm also reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, which I'm really enjoying, although so far it is rather sad and brutal. It does inspire me to eat more yams though (or at least, sweet potato, because we probably can't get actual yams in Hobart)

I also just finished reading Paranormality by Richard Wiseman, which I thoroughly recommend to all sceptics (and indeed woo believers). It was very funny and interesting.

[Muslim_Australian]

I've only just began to read it, but I'm finally back on reading a second Seerah (biography of the Prophet Muhammad saws)
When The Moon Split

[owheelj]

I'm currently reading "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomberg. While over the years I've read many negative attacks on this book and Lomberg, I hadn't read the book (at least in full, cover to cover), so I'm doing that now. It has over 2000 references, and I've been checking most of them, so I'm at about page 40. Although he makes some errors, I have to concede that he's mainly right - from an environmental perspective, on most questions, the world is getting better, not worse. In my lifetime people have gained greater access to food and fresh water, disease has fallen, deforestation has fallen (in fact forested areas have increased), pollution has decreased etc.

What's interesting though is that a survey of many countries around the world that asked people to rate the environmental quality of their local environment, national environment and the planet found that pretty much everybody (or at least the averages) rated their local environment to be high quality, the national environment to be more degraded and the global environment to be even worse. Obviously it doesn't follow that everybody in a country or every country has a better environment than the average, but we generally think things are worse elsewhere than where we live.

Anyway I think it's definitely worth a read, although it's pretty slow going, especially if you're a Skeptical Environmentalist skeptic like me.

[AustralAlien]

Not long ago I read Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted world. What struck me about the book was how relatable it is even to today. Despite being published nearly 20 years ago, the same issues Sagan brought up survive.

I found the chapters about witch trials in the dark ages fascinating. Overall I thought it was a brilliant read. I'm now onto Pale Blue Dot and so far it's brilliant as expected.

The next book I intend to read is On the Origin of Species, partly in preparation for my upcoming start to a Biology degree and partly because I hear it is a brilliant example of writing too.

[owheelj]

Still reading The Skeptical Environmentalist. I'm finding it mainly convincing, but also annoying. The fact that Lomborg is not an expert in any of the fields he talks about is telling. For example while he makes a convincing argument that crude oil spills are not as serious an environmental threat as we are often led to believe (and that doing nothing often has a better environmental outcome than many of the cleanup processes), he goes on to say that the number of birds killed by Exxon Valdez is equal to the number of birds that are killed flying in to windows, or are killed by cats in the UK within a couple of days. While factually true, obviously albatross and sparrows are completely different. One might as well say that the number of whales killed per year is less than the number of rats killed by chewing through electrical wires, as an argument in favour of whaling.

The same occurs on countless issues - his broad points and data are convincing, but his specific knowledge is lacking. Worth a read anyway.