From the category archives:

Reading Suggestions

Hot Flat and Crowded by Thomas L Friedman

December 9, 2009
Hot Flat and Crowded by Thomas L Friedman

The environment is a hot topic right now in more ways than one. As this post goes to air the world is trying to hammer out some sort of deal at 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and the media is full of claims and counter claims about what is going on, who [...]

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Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

December 3, 2009
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Despite the rather lofty title this book is genuinely readable, and not at all as impenetrable as one might imagine. The book is divided into two parts: the first recounts the author’s altogether horrific experiences of being a Jew in several of the Second World War’s most notorious concentration camps. The second part of the [...]

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Jeff In Venice by Geoff Dyer

October 1, 2009
Jeff In Venice - Death In Varanasi by Geoff Dyer

By his own admission, Geoff Dyer likes to play in the skinny inch between literature and reality, fiction and verity, to twist surprise and manipulate the expectations both of his audience and his genres, and one suspects his own self. This much might be obvious from an author called Geoff who’s a writer writing a lead [...]

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A Hero Of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov

September 1, 2009
Mikhail Lermontov - A Hero Of Our Time

Lermontov’s “A Hero Of Our Time” was published when the author was just 25 in 1839 and was the only book the young man ever put into print. The book describes as the author writes in his preface, “a portrait built up of all our generation’s vices in full bloom”. The eponymous hero is one [...]

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American Buffalo by Steven Rinella

July 29, 2009
American Buffalo by Steven Rinella - book review, author interview, video

If it’s big manly books about big manly pursuits we’re after then maybe a book about hunting, killing and eating wild Buffalo, while battling bears and hypothermia in the middle of nowhere should be next on the reading list. In 2005, hunter, cook and author Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to kill one of [...]

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The Second Book of the Tao by Stephen Mitchell

July 14, 2009
The Second Book of The Tao by Stephen Mitchell

In a nutshell, Stephen Mitchell’s “Second Book Of The Tao” is a book about reading his first book  Tao Te Ching (literally: “The Book Of The Way”) to his wife & fellow author Byron Katie. The outcome is what Stephen himself describes as “the most profound book on spirituality that exists” and “not only a [...]

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Sum by David Eagleman

June 29, 2009
Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman

Returning to the themes of Mary Roach’s Stiff for a moment, I thought it might be prudent to examine the possible options for your less physical remains. Sum: 40 Tales From the Afterlives by David Eagleman takes forty possible scenarios of what might happen to you or your soul, your intellect, your essence or whatever [...]

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On Sight and Insight by John M Hull

May 27, 2009
On Sight and Insight by John M Hull

I’m sure you’ve wondered what it must be like to be blind – you may even have even spent a few minutes trying to get around with your eyes closed, or you may have team-built with a blindfold on. It is not the same. John M Hull was born fully sighted but started to loose [...]

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The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross

May 19, 2009
The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross

Writing about music isn’t always easy. Writing about “difficult” abstract modern music may be even harder. And weaving a book about it together in such a way as to retain the interest of the common man, the musical luddite, for well over 600 pages might appear a Herculean task indeed. But Alex Ross seems to [...]

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Stiff – The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

May 9, 2009
stiff by mary roach

If you’ve ever wondered what happens to you after you die (and to be honest, if you haven’t then you’re a bit odd) then Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach is the book with the answers you need. Well, some of them. Stiff examines quite specifically at what happens to your [...]

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