| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/1/2005 2:13:34 PM | Okay, lyrical dared me to start this thread and i'm never one to not meet a direct dare!
several threads have discussed various books to understand some of the current events, media, politics, economics, etc being discussed on a daily basis.
i'm just wondering what reading material people are picking up these days to get their "current events" fix? and what are the best reads you've come across that you can share with those of us who would like to keep up with the current events threads that keep popping up?
please try to keep your suggestions topical to the threads presented on the current events section. can be fiction or non-fiction. also, please please do not present lists of titles of just the iraq/bush topics. books about those topics are fine but let's not make it exclusively about that.
thanks to all who post! | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/1/2005 2:36:50 PM | "Bad Dirt" Annie Proulx's newest collection of short stories. They're excellent.
Tonight, I'll be reading an article in the current, May 2005 issue of Harper's magazine titled;
Let There Be Markets: the evangelical roots of economics by Gordon Bigelow.
lyrical heart | |
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Joined: 1/9/2005
Msg: 6 | |
| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/1/2005 2:45:10 PM | "The Corporation : The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power"
- Joel Bakan
Also a fantastic documentory...
Corporations have rights, as "persons", .....as "persons", they meet ALL the DSM definitions of psychopaths. | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/1/2005 2:59:09 PM | Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. Biting political commentary in a SF setting. Does a good job of describing our current military and society to an extent.
Lies My Teacher Told Me. Can't remember the author, but it's a great book on how history is being distorted in the US classroom. | |
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Joined: 1/9/2005
Msg: 8 | |
| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/1/2005 3:35:14 PM | If you liked "Starship Troopers", .....read Joe Haldeman's novel, "The Forever War", ....another commentary on politics and culture, in the same vein.
As for non-fiction, ..., there are some great collections of articles and essays from disinfo.com, like "Everything You Know Is Wrong", and "You Are Being Lied To", .....eye-opening stuff. | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/1/2005 4:26:59 PM | Obscure:
Lamb (The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal) by Christopher Moore
Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
Less Obscure:
Deception Point - Dan Brown
Blood Canticle - Anne Rice
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/1/2005 8:02:20 PM | I'm afraid the only books I've read lately are the Series of Unfortunate Events
and The World of Suzie Wong by Richard Mason. (which was interesting
after my trip to Hong Kong)
Not very current event oriented....  | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/1/2005 9:11:18 PM | Secret Weapons of the Third Reich
The Arrow Scrapbook by Peter Zuuring
The trouble with Canada by Willian Gairdner
There decent books with loads of information.
The last is a older book about Politics of Canada in the 80's but still a very good read. | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/2/2005 10:13:53 AM | omigosh! how have i gone through life not having read these titles? i am a voracious reader (or thought so) and i've only come across 2 titles that i've actually read. i am going to have a very busy summer!
keep up the good work please.....and if possible...could you add a bit about what the book is about? sometimes the titles don't give an indication? thanks! | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/3/2005 8:10:44 AM | There is never enough time to read everything I "ought" to read and everything I'd like to read.
I do strongly recommend the May issue of Harper's mag because of its very informative articles on the rise of a certain kind of right-wing Christianity in the U.S. and the political aims of this segment of the Chrisitian right. It's given me a lot to think about, including whether there are groups with equivalent aims here in Canada. I'll be doing some research on that.
lyrical heart | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/3/2005 9:26:27 AM | thanks lyrical. i'm going to have to check that out in my local lib.
my reading taste of choice for current events is the economist but haven't subscribed this past year given a relocation, death in the fam, and just overall craziness with moves and such. however, i will be subscribing yet again as soon as i move to my new house.
i will admit that i often find that i don't have a good enough knowledge base for some of the countries political/economic goings on discussed in the economist to really understand some of the complexities of the issues. reading some of the titles listed here may help me with that. i hope it's a good source for others to pick up some good titles to read, too! | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/3/2005 9:49:05 AM |
to really understand some of the complexities of the issues
I would suggest:
The Creation of World Poverty: An Alternative View to the Brandt Report.
By Teresa Hayter, London, Pluto Press, 1981, p.128.
It offers the reader a comprehensive understanding of the process in which the Third World was impoverished and continues to dwell in utter poverty.
AND
The Emperor Wears No Clothes.
By Jack Herer, ISBN: 1878125028
Jack Herer has updated his authoritative history of hemp's myriad uses and of the war on this plant, just as it has become high-profile news, with supporters such as Woody Harrelson and Willie Nelson. Herer thoroughly documents the petrochemical industry's plot to outlaw this renewable source of paper, energy, food, textiles, and medicine. | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/3/2005 11:51:48 AM | trewq - i've actually read the emperor's new clothes...and i read some essays by patrick moore (one of the founders of greenpeace who now works in the forest industry) and he has written some interesting things about hemp, too...
for instance, to grow the equivalent volume of hemp to make the amount of paper that we currently make from wood fibre would require far more arable land than makes environmental and economic sense. it's actually more environmentally friendly to use wood fibre than hemp fibre to make paper. (at least as we currently use now). check out his web site for more info.
hemp does have its uses but to consider it the renewable resource touted in herer's book doesn't seem to make all that much sense. wood is actually a better renewable resource when used in the right way and managed sustainably. of course, there are other fuel sources - ie. solar energy is way more efficient that wind, etc. i've had some of this info corroborated by scientists working on alternative energy sources and other authors.
herer's was a good read, though and eye opening about some things.....i just like to question everything i read (perhaps, too much so!)
will definitely have to check out the creation of world poverty. i am incredibly interested in the IMF and world bank...their creation, the principles they use to govern their economic policy, history, and overall impact on the global world as we know it. | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/4/2005 9:56:01 AM | for a great piece about some of the dangers of religion - always relevant, read The Grand Inquisitor, a piece from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dosteyvesky. ( I don't reccomend the whole book unless your in prison or something, it's a long, difficult book)
other less obscure great reads:
A Time to Kill, John Grisham
the Gunslinger series, Stephen King | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/4/2005 10:06:10 AM | Shannon,
Apparently Jim Wallis' book is titled God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get it. Part of an interview with Mr. Wallis about his book appears on the Mother Jones Magaizine site (March 2005). I found it by searching the book title.
It makes the book even more interesting to me, since he is, at least in part, explaining what the American left should be doing to win the hearts of Christians (it could likely apply to the Canadian left too).
Thanks for putting me on the track of an interesting book. Now, if I can manage to persuade the library to order a copy (it's not in the catalogue yet) life will be even better.
lyrical heart | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/4/2005 4:11:45 PM | How about "It'll Never Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis.
Old book, written in the thirties. About the rise of a fascist power in the States. I found it to be pretty chilling, actually... | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/4/2005 4:49:57 PM | Some old, some new.
"The Ugly American", and it's sequel, "Sarkhan": a primer on US relations in Asia
"Lee and His Lieutenants", a fantastic look into leadership and followership
"Better Together", on restoring the American community
"The New Humanists", essays by todays cutting edge thinkers
"Genius", essays on 100 exemplary creative minds
"The Thinkers Way: 8 Steps to a Richer Life", how to think critically, live creatively, and choose freely
"Citizen Soldiers", how ordinary Americans came together to fight for the world's freedom
"Marine: The Life of Chesty Puller", a truly awesome American warrior
"The Right Kind of War", the Marine war in the Pacific
Plutarchs "Lives"
Caesars "Gallic Wars"
"The Redneck Manifesto", a surprisingly well-written defense of rural white America, and tale of how they came to be America's scapegoats for almost everything
The "Celestine" Series, very new-age but interesting nontheless, read with a grain of salt
"Born Fighting: The History of the Scots-Irish in America", by former AsstSecDef James Webb, winner of the Navy Cross
I guess that's enough for now, the last three months reading (except for some easy fiction).
MajMike | |
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| Current good reads....bestsellers or obscure titles?
Posted: 6/4/2005 5:27:45 PM | I love this discussion about books and congratulate you in getting it started. My suggestions really are not about current events as in the news; they are much more fascinating and I hope you'll forgive me for straying from the current events topics. I have to assume that anyone interested in this forum loves to read good books and I must make this contribution. These authors have totally enslaved me since reading one of their books last October. Subsequently, I've read everything they've written together and am rabidly awaiting their newest book, due out June 14, "Dance of Death".
The wonder boys are Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Their first book was "Relic", which was a pretty crappy movie that never came close to doing justice to the book. Several of their books include a character who is so stunningly captivating that I had to choose him as my username - special FBI agent Aloysius X.L. Pendergast. There simply is no way to adequately describe him, or their books. I've been a life-long voracious reader and I have never been so thrilled by the depth of suspense, the extremely bizarre and the unexpected that I never, ever saw coming - that these guys present. The research alone that they do is blinding. The writing is brilliant and rich.
One of their books (with Pendergast) "Still Life with Crows", has you so enthralled literally down to the last sentence - the last word. You just gasp with incredulity at how they've so cunningly led you to the end of the story. I've successfully hooked all my friends who love to read on these guys, and after reading this one, I've had them call me just sputtering and spewing and screaming that: "This is too horrific - this could actually happen - this totally freaked me out - this is just too over the edge...". My only question after all this was, "Yes, but overall, what was it?" And the answer is, of course, "brilliant beyond belief." | |
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