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BOOKS - What are ASF members reading?

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2020hindsight said:
thanks jt, - I'll check em out. :2twocents (I don't read more than 2 or 3 books a year ;), most of my reading is on the internet)

By pre-christian you mean? lol - hek, Chaucer was 14th C ?? lol.
I post some here for you to enjoy :D
You thinking Dead Sea Scrolls maybe ;)
.
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Cool'

PC meaning cultures prior to the enlightenment of the crusades, inquisitions, assorted bastardry in the name of the 'church', empire that sort of thing.

Unfortunately the classics don't hold my attention for long (re:chaucer) I find literature for literatures sake punishing (bit like modern art) although have tried to read many of the 'greats' I find myself skimming to finish.
Just not my cup of tea.
I read some modern philosophy but mainly biography's / business / science.

'The Last Explorer' about south australian born Hubert Wilkins (who I'd never heard of!) should be part of the curriculum imo.
 
Sodapop said:
2020 - Give it a crack - it is a really great primer on the universe around us and all that exists in it... Bryson makes even astrophysics and quantum physics ... readable...
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lol - k m8 - as long as I don;t have to read (or watch) anything about the bludy A team ;)
 
jtb said:
... although have tried to read many of the 'greats' I find myself skimming to finish.
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I see what you mean now - set in prechristian period ;) - me too.

lol , I had a friend way back - did a speed reading course, swore by it, , he could read a book in one day etc.
turns out he would happily "skip every second line " lol
now personally, I really enjoy the english language - ;) - i read and re-read lines , if I really like a phrase I scribble it down somewhere...
I get bogged down on words - (to a fault)
no way could I skip lines like that - an insult to the author (IMIO) in my ignorant opinion :eek:

I really enjoy stuff about explorers too - fascinating how they meet problems and overcome them . and just as an anecdote ... I've always enjoyed that joke, so many places and so much infrastructure named after Hume ( Dam, Highway etc) , and ...
so few places named after Hovell
(perhaps you see what I mean about enjoying words)
sorry, I'll shuddup now .;)

PS Here I have to make a confession. There is only one way I can "read" a book quickly / efficiently, and that is to get a "recorded CD" version from library or similar. I love accents, love books well read by clever actors, some blokes can use a dozen accents in the same novel, Welsh, English, Cockney, Scottish, even Aussie lol, - brilliant. When I drive long distances ( talking Syd - Melb or Syd - Bris) I listen to a book or two.

IMPORTANT ... This is the SAFEST and SUREST way to avoid getting drowsy, serious!!! - (try it , really !!) and when I get to the destination, ....

I'll drive around the block 20 times if necessary , to let the last chapter finish lol.

Imajica - re Conrad, he spent a lot of time writing in Bangkok - at the Intercontinental Hotel. I went there once to see a friend, he had met a girl in a bar who talked him into doing an ad - for Arrow shirts - so , lol we go there , I watch - turns out they are short and I 'm invited to join the ad as well, - quick trip to the local "Woolies' to get me a shirt" - Mr Arrow turns up , covered in bludy makeup lol, his shirt is pinned up at the back to make it look like a great fit , lol - (bludy con artists) - and we do this ad where we are all dumb press, and he is the centre of attention , and we ask him questions (as I recall I kept asking him "and what do you think of the current price of rice in China" - must have asked him that 20 bludy times lol . And eventually he starts to sweat under the arms so we have to call it off thank crise. And I get my money cash - and lol , my mate never did get paid ("it's in the mail" etc) - I think the girl who he met at the bar does this for a living, lol.

I'm told that ad used to be played in the cinemas in Bangkok. who knows, who cares .
but (Sorry m8), whenever I see the name Joseph Conrad, I think of that hotel foyer ;)
 
"Barren Lands. An Epic Search For Diamonds In The North American Arctic"

By Kevin Krajick, W. H. Freeman/Owl Book, 2002

[ A superb weaving of geological discoveries with diamond markets ]
 
Fatal Choice , ("Survival or Sentence"? - actually my version says "Nuclear Weapons and the Illusion of Missile Defense" ??) , by Richard Butler
"Butler first explains the regime of treaties and doctrines (such as mutual assured destruction [ MAD] ) developed since the inauguration of the nuclear age in 1945". etcetc

Interesting dedication ;) (and interesting that an Aussie was in control of monitoring Iraq and the nuclear etc threat)
"This book is dedicated to former prime minister of Australia Paul Keating, and his foreign minister Gareth Evans, in recognition of their wisdom and courage in establishing , in 1995, the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. " :2twocents
The man who led the United Nations' failed effort to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in the late 1990s says the world must make a decision "to survive nuclear weapons or be sentenced by them." Richard Butler describes the current situation in understandably stark terms: "These weapons are the singular human invention capable of destroying the earth and all that lives on it." He believes the planet faces no greater challenge than figuring out how to contain them. Global nonproliferation efforts have succeeded over the last several decades, he writes, but not completely: countries such as India, Pakistan, and possibly Iraq now have access to the bomb. President Bush's plans to build a national missile-defense system are especially misguided, in his view, because they would spur a new arms race. By pushing forward, the United States will ensure "the realization of its own nightmare." Butler proposes a series of arms-control measures--Senate confirmation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a bilateral agreement between the United States and Russia to reduce their nuclear stockpiles, the creation of an international Council on Weapons of Mass Destruction--but the main draw of Fatal Choice may be its moral fervor. Policymakers, Butler writes, "have a clear choice: to build a world free from the greatest of all threats to life, or to prepare for the next stage of nuclear bondage and terrorism." --John Miller

From Publishers Weekly
Butler, an experienced and well-respected advocate of nuclear disarmament (he headed the U.N. Special Commission for disarming Iraq), offers a brief but comprehensive survey of nuclear weapons in today's world. He aims to make the available policy choices "understood by plain people in plain language." Butler first explains the regime of treaties and doctrines (such as mutual assured destruction) developed since the inauguration of the nuclear age in 1945. Given their horrific power, nuclear weapons have always been the most feared of the world's weapons of mass destruction. In response, as the author explains, nearly all nations have supported eliminating nuclear weapons, or at least preventing further proliferation. These goals have had only partial success, and currently Iran, Iraq and North Korea are seeking to join India, Pakistan and Israel in the nuclear club. As to the future, Butler warns against passive resignation to nuclear weapons as a permanent fixture of international life. He believes the world can rid itself of these weapons and proposes a program to accomplish this. The most striking feature of Butler's plan is forming a Council on Weapons of Mass Destruction, working parallel to the U.N.'s Security Council. Butler's council would have sufficient conventional military forces to take effective action against nations violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. International action of this kind, not the National Missile Defense advocated by the Bush administration which Butler sees as self-defeating forms the core of this thought-provoking argument against nuclear weapons. (Jan.)Forecast: Readers concerned with world affairs will find this more timely than ever, if they manage to catch word of it from the author's three-city tour and radio satellite tour.
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I have yet to read it , can't comment further (maybe Tasmanians know Butler better than I do lol, him being an ex- Governor and all :eek: )
 

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Just finished the first read of Brent Penfold's Trading the SPI, now onto A Complete Guide to Technical Trading Tactics, by John L. Person...Next its the first read of many for Trading in the Zone. So i'm onto my 7th TA book with 2 more to go before i need to order more!

To be honest i read because i have no TV and get tired of the internet. I fugure i might as well make the most of it.

Cheers,
 
Reminiscinces of a stock operator just came in the mail today.
Will start it in the next few days.

Douglas Trading in the Zone is next.
 
nizar said:
Reminiscinces of a stock operator just came in the mail today.
Will start it in the next few days.

Douglas Trading in the Zone is next.
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I get like a 'kid at Christmas' when i get my trading books in the mail here....everythings relative now.

Cheers,
 
"Diamond. The History of a cold-blooded love affair"

by Matthew Hart, Fourth Estate, 2003

[A thrilling mix of espionage, science and wilderness adventures, Diamond reveals the corruption and greed behind the lustre of the gem trade]
 
"The Wonga Coup -The British Mercenary Plot To Seize Oil Billions In Africa"

By Adam Roberts, Profile Books Ltd, 2006

[Wonga: early twenty-first century British slang for money, usually a lot of it. Probably from the Romany word 'wanger', meaning coal. Coal served as a slang term for money in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England.]
 
"Mr Stuart's Track - The forgotten life of Australia's greatest explorer"

by John Bailey, Pan Macmillan, 2006

[ John Bailey has brilliantly re-created the life and journeys of Australia's greatest, and least understood explorer ]
 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stolen-Time-Inspiring-Innocent-Condemned/dp/0385611404
Stolen Time
My wife said she was glued to the ABC today during Richard Feidler's "Conversation Hour" while the lady who wrote this was interviewed. :(

Unbelievable - one seriously sick .... situation / part of the world
This lady now a fairly senior member of Amnesty International.
http://www.booksattransworld.co.uk/...=Search&db=twmain.txt&eqeandata=9780385611404 Stolen Time
by Sunny Jacobs

A vivid and honest account...remarkable. The Times
RRP £14.99 Hardback

‘In a world of one, I am alone, more alone than I have ever been in my life.Locked up in a box within a box where no one can enter and I cannot leave. I am to await my death.’

In 1976 a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two and her partner were wrongfully sentenced to death by the Florida courts for the murder of two police officers. Sunny Jacobs would not taste freedom again for seventeen years, by which time her two children were estranged, her parents were dead and her beloved partner, Jesse Tafero, had been executed.

Sunny spent five years on death row in solitary confinement. In a cell the width of her arm-span, her only lifeline was the stream of impassioned, life-affirming letters between herself and Jesse, offering love and strength, each echoing the other’s conviction that the truth would soon be revealed. She refused to lose hope, even though the state had allowed falsified testimonies and an inconclusive polygraph test to condemn her and Jesse, disregarding hidden evidence and the true murderer’s confession.

Then in 1981 Sunny’s sentence was reduced to life, and she revelled in the unimaginable freedom of eating in the company of other prisoners, teaching yoga and forging new relationships. Yet Jesse remained on death row, and Sunny lived under the constant shadow of his impending execution, while grieving for her parents, killed in a plane crash, and for her loss of contact with her children. But Sunny miraculously maintained her strength of heart, and fought on to prove their innocence – until in 1992 she was finally released, seventeen years after her ordeal began. But it was two years too late for Jesse, who had died in a horrible botched execution that caused outrage the world over.

Sunny Jacobs’s life has been layered with tragedy and yet her story, while delving into her darkest days, is a shining example of a woman’s triumph over despair. Sunny’s resilience, her unshakeable joy, and her astounding ability to forgive are beautifully depicted in this stunning and uplifting memoir.

An extraordinary and inspirational story. Sunny Jacobs is a remarkable woman.
Susan Sarandon

Sunny Jacobs is an inspirational woman. Opposing the death penalty is not about theory, it’s about real-life tragedies such as her own – condemned for a crime she did not commit, and her partner, Jesse Tafero, who died so horribly. Stolen Time is a moving memorial to him, as well as an extraordinary account of her own suffering. Shot through with forgiveness and written with surprising humour and a wonderful joie de vivre, it is a book you must read.
Clive Stafford Smith, Legal Director of Reprieve

A memoir that is both troubling and inspiring.
Sunday Express
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Currently reading Old Goriot by Balzac.

Recently finished a book that I picked up in Melbourne called Measuring the World, by Daniel Kehlmann. Really easy to read (could have knocked it over in a day) and the most enjoyable book I have read in a long long time. You'd probably only enjoy it if you were as nerdy as me, but still, check it out.
 
Currently have three books on the go - 2 Non-Fiction, 1 Fiction.

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The Long Emergency - James Howard Kunstler
http://www.amazon.com/Long-Emergenc...1837426?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181915754&sr=1-1

The indictment of suburbia and the car culture that the author presented in The Geography of Nowhere turns apocalyptic in this vigorous, if overwrought, jeremiad. Kunstler notes signs that global oil production has peaked and will soon dwindle, and argues in an eye-opening, although not entirely convincing, analysis that alternative energy sources cannot fill the gap, especially in transportation. The result will be a Dark Age in which "the center does not hold" and "all bets are off about civilization's future." Absent cheap oil, auto-dependent suburbs and big cities will collapse, along with industry and mechanized agriculture; serfdom and horse-drawn carts will stage a comeback; hunger will cause massive "die-back"; otherwise "impotent" governments will engineer "designer viruses" to cull the surplus population; and Asian pirates will plunder California. Kunstler takes a grim satisfaction in this prospect, which promises to settle his many grudges against modernity. A "dazed and crippled America," he hopes, will regroup around walkable, human-scale towns; organic local economies of small farmers and tradesmen will replace an alienating corporate globalism; strong bonds of social solidarity will be reforged; and our heedless, childish culture of consumerism will be forced to grow up. Kunstler's critique of contemporary society is caustic and scintillating as usual, but his prognostications strain credibility.

The Millionaire Next Door - Thomas J. Stanley
http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-N...1837426?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181915911&sr=1-2

In The Millionaire Next Door, read by Cotter Smith, Stanley (Marketing to the Affluent) and Danko (marketing, SUNY at Albany) summarize findings from their research into the key characteristics that explain how the elite club of millionaires have become "wealthy." Focusing on those with a net worth of at least $1 million, their surprising results reveal fundamental qualities of this group that are diametrically opposed to today's earn-and-consume culture, including living below their means, allocating funds efficiently in ways that build wealth, ignoring conspicuous consumption, being proficient in targeting marketing opportunities, and choosing the "right" occupation. It's evident that anyone can accumulate wealth, if they are disciplined enough, determined to persevere, and have the merest of luck. In The Millionaire Mind, an excellent follow-up to the highly successful first analysis of how ordinary folks can accumulate wealth, Stanley interviews many more participants in a much more comprehensive study of the characteristics of those in this economic situation. The author structures these deeper details into categories that include the key success factors that define this group, the relationship of education to their success, their approach to balancing risk, how they located themselves in their work, their choice of spouse, how they live their daily lives, and the significant differences in the truth about this group vs. the misplaced image of high spenders. Narrator Smith's solid, dead-on reading never fails to heighten the importance of these principles that most twentysomethings should be forced to listen to in toto.
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The Road - Cormac McCarthy
http://www.amazon.com/Road-Cormac-M...1837426?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181915991&sr=1-2

Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith.
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So far all books have been very interesting. The Road and Long Emergency have a somewhat darker, pessimistic slant to them; though both are enjoyable and engrossing none the less.
 
Bwacull posted something on "freak accidents" thread - reminded me - if ever you want a good read, try one of Geoffrey Robertson's books.

BIG BWACULL said:
Poor FREAKS :eek: At least they were having a good time :kiss::banghead:
VIDEO HERE
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/13538111/detail.html
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sounds like a retake of a story about 30 years ago where a couple of expats in the Middle East somewhere were probably making love on the roof under the stars - but then ended up on the ground 6 stories below. The man was impaled on a metal fence spike.

Geoffrey Robertson was involved in the defense of someone charged (although I can't find any e - references after quick search of google).

Here's what Robertson thought of Saddam Hussein's hanging .:- ..
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1820487.htm (i.e. missed opportunity)


and other human rights matters in a recent book (which I must try to read one of these days) :eek:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AJHR/2003/24.html
 
I am just starting to read:

"Why we want you to be rich" by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki.

haven't really gone that far yet, but so far so good.
 
i have to say im not one to read invesstment or stock market books. i tend to use reading as an escape. plus i get so many uni texts to read!

but i just fininshed Orwells 1984 again and also Scar Tissue by Anothony Keidis is a bit of an eye opener.
 

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