Nonfiction

[weezo]

Perhaps you mean, Nepal;and Rajasthan?

Yep ... I haven't learned to spell the places where my little ones are .... And, I'm sure that if they try to call me Ms Pemberton, they will surely misspell it ... That is why we make the connections, so that students can learn that these funny names in the geography books apply to real people, just like they are ---- almost!

[oilcanbody]

http://www.amazon.com/Throwim-Way-Leg-Tree-Kangaroos-Possums/dp/0802136656/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322586667&sr=1-2#_

[barton2]

Dear Mr. Oil, the day I buy a book on penis gourds is that golden day I officially have unlimited free time.


Here's a Stephen Hawking book I'd love to see.....

http://news.yahoo.com/women-mystery-british-physicist-hawking-135814776.html

Anyone have title suggestions?

[weezo]

Good read this month was http://www.amazon.com/Globocop-America-Sold-Soul-ebook/dp/B003F769H8/ref=pd_rhf_ee_p_t_4 Food for thought as we approach the election year!!

That Throwmway Leg looks like my kind or reading ... not available in Kindle, but only a penny used ... but now I gotta wait for it to arrive ...

[mainwaring]

Dear Mr. Oil, the day I buy a book on penis gourds is that golden day I officially have unlimited free time.


Here's a Stephen Hawking book I'd love to see.....

http://news.yahoo.com/women-mystery-british-physicist-hawking-135814776.html

Anyone have title suggestions?

Her Not-So-Brief Briefs: a Timely History of Unbrief Briefs

[mainwaring]

At the weekend I read 'The Brain is Wider than the Sky: Why Simple Solutions Don't Work in a Complex World' by British writer Bryan Appleyard, a 'defence of human complexity in the face of the corporate mechanisation of our lives' (quote from Amazon).

Subjects range from Charles Babbage to Alan Turing to theories on the financial crisis. Got it free from one of the local libraries.

The person who gave me the book from the library told me that of the 35-odd libraries where I live only 8 will survive the next phase of change coming round the corner - just not enough people using them anymore. He put their demise down to digitisation and Amazon. He said the libraries plan on digitising content and lending it via a kindle or some similar device but he wouldn't be there to see it as he and a few dozen others had been offered early redundancy and the lure of the golf course for a few months with money in the bank was too much to resist. That plus they were drafting a change to his job description that involved sending him to different libraries every day depending on the readings from the programme manager's interocitor.

Also picked up from the same library 'African Trilogy' by Alan Moorehead.

Here's a link to a good essay about Google which I read a while back which highlights some of the kind of things being written about in the brain wider than sky book:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n19/daniel-soar/it-knows
   

[mainwaring]

Read this recently and was reminded of it watching the first episode of Downton Abbey last night: the Earl not thinking it was necessary to have electricity in the (massive) kitchen in order to have electric light. That's a subject explored in the book along with quite a few others. It is hard to believe what people had to do to bring on light prior to the advent of light bulbs.

The first two thirds of the book are a pretty good history lesson and bring up names that readers might want to remember in various fields but near the end the momentum is maybe lost slightly and loses some sparkle.

[barton2]

Both titles look fascinating and I'm checking it out.  The history of technology is one of the core themes of my reading (and a novel I'm going to write, if character and concept ever mesh properly....). 

[barton2]

Yes, "At Home" is fascinating fun.  I have to add him to my list of Brits I Want to Have Lunch With, which includes Stephen Fry, Kate Winslet, and Keith Richard.  It does seem maybe a bit overlong, so I won't be too suprised if it loses some momentum in later chapters.  (the book, not my lunch list)

[mainwaring]

Glad you're enjoying it.

One thing - Bryson is American, born in Des Moines, Iowa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson

[barton2]

Ack.  I usually pick up on these things.  And he's from my general area.  The way he writes in "At Home," gave me the feeling of someone quite in their element.

[madupont]

I'm waiting for my copy to arrive of Frank Langella's intimate memories of  friends throughout his theatrical years and movie career,titled: Dropped Names.

[barton2]

While you wait, read "Life" by Keith Richards.  Anyone who is not entertained by this book, is pathologically incapable of being entertained.  I like the opening lines of one chapter, where Richards says he would sleep about twice a week, and therefore had experienced three lifetimes of consciousness.