We don't belong to any book clubs, but we do a considerable amount of reading or listening to audio books.  Since we live on a 44 foot sailboat, we don't have a lot of room, so we have just recently purchased a Kindle, and love it!  I think though we need two of them as we are wrangling over who gets to use it next.  We read a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, classics, mysteries, historical novels, thrillers, adventure, etc.  Nothing is out of range.

 

So let's talk books.  Have we read some of the same?  What would you recommend to read or stay away from?

 

Roz's Legend (HR - have read, IP -in progress, R -resource/reference, NY - Not Yet)

Rating (*****Loved it!, ****Liked it, ***Ok, **Not so much, * Ugh)

 

Here are some books currently on our bookshelf:

 

Good without God by Greg Epstein, HR****

Godless by Dan Barker, HR*****

Don't Believe Everything you Think by Thomas Kida, IP-***

The Atheist's Bible - Joan Konner - HR, R****

Asimov's Guide to the Bible, Isaac Asimove, IP, R ***

God Made Man (Kindle) - Barbara G. Walker, IP ****

 

On the fiction side:

Anna Karenina (Kindle) by Tolstoy, HR** (Just finished.  Know it's a classic, but geez it was slow for me to read.  All of the people are so tortured, particularly the non-believers. I could have saves a lot of time by reading the summary on Wikapedia.  What did you think?)

 

Devine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood (Kindle), HR, ****

 

The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (Kindle), Stieg Larsson, IP.  (Russ has read the whole series ***** and really enjoyed them)

 

One for the Money, etc.....by Janet Evanovich, HR, IP ***** I love these sassy, bounty hunter stories featuring Stephanie Plum.  I started with number one and am on number 8.  I just started reading them on Kindle.  The characters are quirky.  I love Grandma Mazur.  She reminds me of Sophia on the Golden Girls.  I love a book that makes me laugh aloud.

 

Other authors we really enjoy....Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, John LesCroart, John Grisham, Ken Follett (Pillars of the Earth HR***** and World without End HR *****), Jean Auel. I just got the last of the Jean Auel Earths Children books and am looking forward to reading it. I enjoyed "reading" - listening" to the others on audio.  It will be a different experience reading this next one on the Kindle.   Has anyone read this yet?   We have several of these authors on audio books and listen together. It's a great way to spend the evening while on night watch.   Stephen King and Dean Koontz give us nightmares! 

 

Your turn!

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You can get the complete works of Ingersoll here.  His writings are a must read for Atheists.

I just finished Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. HR **** and really enjoyed it.  I have the other two books in the the series and am now anxious to read them. I know there are some movies out now, and we are interested in how Lisbeth Salandar is portrayed.

 

When I was a kid I had this impossible dream that I wanted to read every book in the library.  Now I don't know that I will live long enough to even finish the ones on my wishlist!

Just watched the film 'Girl who Kicked the Hornet's nest'. I was gripped! Are the other stories about Lisbeth Salander?
Yes.  My husband read all three of the books.  Girl with the Dragon Tattoo introduces Salander and Bloomkvist.  I think Girl who Kicked "Hornet's Nest" is the second of the series and Girl who "Plays with Fire" is the last.
Turns out that The Girl Who Plays with Fire is second.  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the last one.

Just started reading a brand new book.

"The good book, a secular bible"

made by A.C. Grayling, an english phillosopher.

Its a collection of wisdom from the last three thousand years. Its wisdom from china, india, the old greeks to the last century.

Great!

I'm just over half-way through another Will Self novel: "how the dead live". From the blurb:-

"Scabrous, vicious and unpleasant in life, Lily Bloom has not been noticeably mellowed by death. She has changed adresses, of course, and now inhabits a basement flat in Dulston - London's borough for those no longer troubled by breathing - but if anything her temperament has worsened. Finding it hard to deal with the (enforced) company of a calcified, pop-obsessed foetus, her dead, foul-mouthed son and three gruesome creatures made of her own unwanted fat, she must find something to do with her time. So how do the dead live?"

It's from 2000 and was, I think, Self's first novel after getting clean/sober. A bit patchy in places but I've read more than half in one day, which is a recommendation.

I've jumped in half way - I'm looking for books that are written by brilliant minds and writters - something real - evolution I've done to death I think - I'm looking for books about the future from a real perspective - physics biology - or a book on QM that is useful to understanding it...

 

BUT nothing with any more war of religion in it - I'm over the war on religion - but have really enjoyed reading Harris and Dawkin's - so their style - them in fact - but nothing about the war on religion - I'll put up with a chapter I can skip.  I've already read The Greatest Show on Earth and The Moral Landscape... :)

 

Also I need to be able to find them at my local library - rather than at a special small publisher - I can't afford to buy any new books at the moment...

 

Any tips would be greatly received.

Alice,

Hope someone can recommend something good for you.  I was amazed at expensive books were when we visited New Zealand.  Are they as expensive in Australia?  Does your local library have a good selection to choose from or can they order a book from a different branch?

 

If you ever have the chance to invest in an ebook reader (they aren't cheap), but once you get one the books are much less expensive.  Books priced for $34.00 NZ are only $7.00 US on the Kindle.

Yes - I'm looking to get books from the library as I just can't afford to keep buying new ones...  I'm not that well read, so I imagine I've got a lot to get through that will be available in the library.  I couldn't handle having to read my book using a computer - I like reading books that are on paper... :)

Alice,

Perhaps you´d like books by Daniel Quinn: Ismael or My Ismael. He offers a good way to look at ourselves and our behaviour - it made a deep impression on me.

If you´re short on books and short on money you might become a bookcrosser ( www.bookcrossing.com ) and you´ll find that members in your neighbourhood are willing to send, give or swap books. I´d send you a book if the price of stamps in the Netherlands wasn´t so horribly high.

Yes - I've read both of those - Ishmael and My Ishmael - they are good books - I've also just finished Beyond Civilisation - which was insightful too - but I'm still not sure that he's said much with that last book.  I think that what he seems to be saying is that we need to evolve the way we do things into the future - because if we don't we may not have a future.  Then he suggests ways that we might do that.  His main idea in that last book seems to be that we find shared ways of making a living.  I'm not sure how impact-full this idea would be in terms of changing the way we live.  But it may well be a great first step.  Like he says also though, that there is no one right way to live and therefore this might be a step that a few might take up, but in no way is the right way to go.  I think that we already have the variety that he yearns for.  There are already around the world many different ways of doing things.  I suppose he is talking about his idea of mother culture in that we are those that lock away all the food and then get others to work to earn money to pay for it.  But I can't see how getting together with others to make a tribal living would get us outside of that mother culture of needing to work to earn a living to buy the food that is locked away.  I'm not criticising him - just aiming to understand his work better in terms of my own understanding of reality and the possibilities of reality also.

 

I can't see us stopping locking away the food - in fact I'm suspicious about his notion of locking away the food - because it's more about trade and monetary system that we have that we 'lock away the food'.  It's not really locked away as such - although I know that he sees it in this way to make his case.  But I don't think that it is a conspiracy as such.  I think that it's just the way things are done.  Like he says also in that last book I mentioned - we all need to earn a living or work for our living - a bird needs to work for her living - work to find food.  This is how he using the idea of having a tribal group working together to earn their living to buy food.

 

He is a great writer and the style he uses is really great to read as it makes me feel really inspired - but I'm not really sure that he is saying that much - that I didn't already think or know.  Which he hasn't claimed to do - he talks about emerging ideas in others, not telling us anything new.  But his books did leave me feeling like I'd missed something or that there was still something to work out.  Which is maybe why I feel a bit searching or lost right now.  I kind of feel that I want to know something more about myself and the best way to live for myself.  I've got way too much freedom to do what I like for my own ability to respond to myself and decide on a way to be or a path to go on.

 

In a way I only have one path anyway.  But I do think that ideas drive our choices - and so for that reason I think it important to sort something out in terms of a philosophy on life - how do I approach life.  I probably need to seat down and work it out based on facts and evidence - then I might be able to set up a path to follow based on logic and reason.  I would probably be much more happy if I did this.  I'm not sure how it would look - but it might start with - questions such as - what do I want out of life?  What am I like?  What can I change about myself?  How long will it take?  What can't I change about myself? What do I want in the world?  What do I want for my kids?  and so on - until I've got answers to all the questions and then set out a sort of business type plan for the next few years or so, until I'm ready to review the process and see if things have changed any.

 

Anyhow - thanks for stimulating that catharsis :)

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