What book are you reading?

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- Elifaz
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #240 - July 14, 2011, 04:32 PM

Quote from: Prince Spinoza on July 14, 2011, 12:51 PM
This thread would be a whole lot more useful if people provided some summaries/reviews of what they were reading...

Okay, here is a summary of my book:

Blood River
By Tim Butcher

Ever since Stanley first charted its mighty river in the 1870s, the Congo has epitomised the dark and turbulent history of a failed continent - from colonial cruelty under the Belgians to the kleptocratic chaos of Mobutu Sese Seko and the current post-apocalyptic riot of robber-baron politicians. However, its troubles only served to increase the interest of "Daily Telegraph" correspondent Tim Butcher, who was sent to cover Africa in 2000. He remembered his mother's stories of her own genteel river journey there in the 1950s and his connection deepened when he discovered that Stanley's expedition was funded by the "Telegraph". Before long he became obsessed with the idea of recreating Stanley's original expedition - but travelling alone. Despite warnings from old Africa hands that his plan was 'suicidal', Butcher spent years poring over colonial-era maps and wooing rebel leaders before making his will and venturing to the Congo's eastern border with just a rucksack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots. He travelled for hundreds of kilometers on a motorbike, dogged by punctured tyres, broken bridges and dehydration. As he drove through the most dangerous areas, he stopped only to sleep - biking through the bush for hours and speeding up every time he passed a soldier. And then he reached the legendary Congo River, making his way down it in an assortment of vessels including a dugout canoe. Helped along the way by a cast of characters - from UN aid workers to a campaigning pygmy, he passed through the once thriving cities of this huge country, saw the marks left behind by years of abuse and misrule, and followed in the footsteps of the great Victorian adventurers, and of the visitors - such as Katherine Hepburn and Evelyn Waugh - who had been there in very different times. Almost 2,500 harrowing miles later, he reached the Atlantic Ocean a thinner and a wiser man. His extraordinary account describes a country with more past than present, where giant steamboats lie rotting in the advancing forest and children hear stories from their grandfathers of days when cars once drove by. Butcher's journey was a remarkable feat. But the story of the Congo, told expertly and vividly in this book, is more remarkable still.

Basically a story about a man travelling across the Congo experiencing some pretty scary shit.
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #241 - July 14, 2011, 05:43 PM

A Brief History of the English Civil Wars - By John Miller.

From the word brief you could probably guess i didn't have the stomach to get nitty gritty with the tedious details, yet still i'm on the second to last chapter and up till now it hasn't been to bad, at some places it can get bogged down in the superfluous details of religious differences at the time, but this book would give you a more than sufficient introduction into the catalyst's which sparked England's first civil war (The war of the roses isn't really considered a "proper" civil war).

I make it rain - apparently?

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #242 - July 14, 2011, 11:02 PM

George RR Martin - A Dance with Dragons

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #243 - July 14, 2011, 11:08 PM

of course the holly Quran

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #244 - July 14, 2011, 11:39 PM

The Grand Design - Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow

Seriously, like every 10-15 pages it's like mind completely blown.

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #245 - July 15, 2011, 10:54 AM

Quote from: Fombles on July 14, 2011, 11:26 AM
Oooh, I want to read that.

Me tooh. Downloaded. Now it's just to stick to one book and see it through. book club anyone?

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #246 - July 27, 2011, 02:08 PM

A friend told me about this one:
http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/memoir/fr/kitchenConfid.htm
If anyone's worked in the food & beverage industry, Should be a laugh
And maybe an inside look for restaurant go-ers into how to pick off the menu.

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #247 - July 27, 2011, 02:11 PM

Quote from: mufa9a on July 15, 2011, 10:54 AM
Me tooh. Downloaded. Now it's just to stick to one book and see it through. book club anyone?

OMG yes please, I am a book club addict. But my local one was at my local library which exists no more.

I am reading the books I have posted on the recommend thread. LOL can't be asked reposting, so just check it out yourself lazy gits.
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #248 - July 27, 2011, 02:19 PM

currently reading the god delusion, which i must say is a fantastic book, even though dawkins likes
to rant a bit its still good

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #249 - July 27, 2011, 05:47 PM

Orlando by Virginia Woolf.

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #250 - July 27, 2011, 07:21 PM

The Unfettered Mind by... I forget. Some Zen Bhuddist. It's only 40 pages and comes highly recommended so I'll hopefully have a bit more to say soon...
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #251 - July 27, 2011, 07:33 PM

Quote from: mufa9a on July 15, 2011, 10:54 AM
Me tooh. Downloaded. Now it's just to stick to one book and see it through. book club anyone?

Good idea. Open a thread! A book every month? People nominate the books they want to read and then we have a poll to decide which one to read.

CEMB Book Club

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Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #252 - July 27, 2011, 08:04 PM

Great!

I haven't done a poll before. If I start one now asking whose interested can the Options be changed to book titles later on after nominations?
as well as the question?

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #253 - July 27, 2011, 08:07 PM

Yeah, the options can be changed later on by you or the mods.

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #254 - July 27, 2011, 08:17 PM

Right now I'm about to finish The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. It's very interesting, and a bit geeky, but that's how I like it.
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #255 - August 24, 2011, 06:36 PM

Currently reading The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. It's about a prophet who is about leave a town he was in for 12 years, the people of the town, saddened to see him go, ask him for advice on various matters. It's beautifully written and really short, too. I can't recommend it enough.

Here's his advice on raising kids:

Quote
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #256 - August 24, 2011, 06:39 PM

Khalil Gibran is an amazing word smith, will look into that book.

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #257 - August 24, 2011, 06:41 PM

Quote from: GodIsNotGreat on August 24, 2011, 06:36 PM
Currently reading The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. It's about a prophet who is about leave a town he was in for 12 years, the people of the town, saddened to see him go, ask him for advice on various matters. It's beautifully written and really short, too. I can't recommend it enough.

Here's his advice on raising kids:

You should read his Jesus, the Son of Man, which is really quite epic.

قل للمليحة في الخمار الأسود
مـاذا فـعــلت بــناسـك مـتـعـبد

قـد كـان شـمّر لــلـصلاة ثـيابه
حتى خـطرت له بباب المسجد

ردي عليـه صـلاتـه وصيـامــه
لا تـقــتـلــيه بـحـق ديــن محمد
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #258 - August 24, 2011, 06:44 PM

Yeah, I'm planning checking out his other works after I finish The Prophet.

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #259 - August 24, 2011, 07:16 PM

Just finished On Chesil Beach and The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

Now reading Thank you, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse and The Pregnant widow by Martin Amis

And non-fictionally about finishing Two cheers of Democracy by E.M. Forster
AND starting to read A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing by H L Mencken.

A bookishly bookworm mate of mine once emailed me recommending H L Mencken
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #260 - August 24, 2011, 08:06 PM

A Companion to Philosophical Logic (Blackwell Edition) edited by Dale Jacquette.

Link: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:DrfK4Mns9CYJ:www.logic.amu.edu.pl/images/a/a5/Metatheory.pdf+Companion+to+philosophical+logic&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj-OJz5poOkW05SzJwRuGn3bgoWeb2POxNmcas23_ngLPxSZQ5PqnbXqs5smoOyNOYrYeIqeTv0ksRlH8FkFXJKxW3BE4wFwdOfu_6OHtpDzVZMbMQyc9fo8BmdOHGeu-ARhkcB&sig=AHIEtbQh2vxwXkP6O6B_EG57DmE_12GMEA&pli=1

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #261 - August 24, 2011, 08:09 PM

I'm currently on 'Equal Rites' - part of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #262 - August 24, 2011, 08:16 PM

The Liars Tale - A History of Falsehood by Jeremy Campbell

Quote

Fireflies find mates by duping rivals with patterns of deceptive flashes. Politicians win elections by distorting statistics and telling half-truths. The devices of falsehood, whether simple exaggeration, pretence or barefaced lies are hard to resist and easy to employ. With insight into rhetoric, language and the sciences, Campbell launches his discussion with Darwin and evolutionary biology and from there builds a foundation of counter-intuitive philosophical evidence. We encounter the purism of the ancients and their battles with the Sophists, the many faces of falsehood decried by Montaigne, the dark ethos of Kant and Nietzsche and the reckless shift made by Derrida and the post-modernists favouring "meaning" at the expense of truth. Unsettling and original, "The Liar's Tale" should provoke renewed interest and debate about truth and ethics.

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #263 - August 24, 2011, 08:30 PM

Quote from: Whabbist on August 24, 2011, 07:16 PM
Now reading Thank you, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse

Wonderful.

His style is so underplayed that you barely notice how good a writer he is.
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #264 - August 24, 2011, 08:52 PM

The Qur'an, by Allah et al.

I shouldn't be here. Really. Shaytan SWT deluded ALL of us. Amen.
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #265 - August 24, 2011, 09:05 PM

Quote from: David on August 24, 2011, 08:30 PM
Wonderful.

His style is so underplayed that you barely notice how good a writer he is.

That is very true, David.
He blew my hair so behind that I had to buy a wig.
These are one of my favourite quotations of P G Wodehouse:

"She had a penetrating sort of laugh. Rather like a train going into a tunnel".

"He was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say "when!".

"I explain this to Jeeves and he said the same thing had bothered Hamlet."

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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #266 - August 24, 2011, 09:33 PM

Quote from: Sir Wankalot on August 24, 2011, 08:09 PM
I'm currently on 'Equal Rites' - part of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

*HUUUUUUUUUUUGE Discworld fan*

@thread: I started On the Origin of Species, and then got bored. So I'm currently in between books. The last one I read was The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett... which is also part of Discworld.
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #267 - August 24, 2011, 09:50 PM

Re reading Dante's inferno and miltons paradise lost

Little Fly, Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand has brushed away.

I too dance and drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand shall brush my wing.

Therefore I am a happy fly,
If I live or if I die.
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #268 - August 24, 2011, 09:52 PM

Read all works of khalil gibran love his works

Little Fly, Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand has brushed away.

I too dance and drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand shall brush my wing.

Therefore I am a happy fly,
If I live or if I die.
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Re: What book are you reading?
Reply #269 - August 25, 2011, 12:57 PM

Quote from: Whabbist on August 24, 2011, 07:16 PM
Just finished On Chesil Beach and The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

Now reading Thank you, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse and The Pregnant widow by Martin Amis

And non-fictionally about finishing Two cheers of Democracy by E.M. Forster
AND starting to read A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing by H L Mencken.

A bookishly bookworm mate of mine once emailed me recommending H L Mencken and the book:

Would this mate happen to be fond of mounting innocent bison?
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