The "what are you reading" thread:

[CrONoS]

First:
The


A thread to discuss and show the book that we are reading;


I've started to read:

Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Denett

http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Dangerous-Idea-Evolution-Meanings/dp/068482471X

One of the best descriptions of the nature and implications of Darwinian evolution ever written, it is firmly based in biological information and appropriately extrapolated to possible applications to engineering and cultural evolution. Dennett's analyses of the objections to evolutionary theory are unsurpassed. Extremely lucid, wonderfully written, and scientifically and philosophically impeccable. Highest Recommendation!

The next book will be:

Darwinizing Culture edited by Robert Aunger with a foreword of Daniel Denett.

Who is an introduction to Memetics and why scholar are supporting the ideas of meme and other are against.

http://www.amazon.com/Darwinizing-Culture-Status-Memetics-Science/dp/0192632442/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-2813627-6112623?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185982405&sr=8-1

[Imran Siddiqui]

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

http://www.amazon.com/Suite-Francaise-Irene-Nemirovsky/dp/1400096278/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0151632-8601663?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185982685&sr=8-1

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Celebrated in pre-WWII France for her bestselling fiction, the Jewish Russian-born Némirovsky was shipped to Auschwitz in the summer of 1942, months after this long-lost masterwork was composed. Némirovsky, a convert to Catholicism, began a planned five-novel cycle as Nazi forces overran northern France in 1940. This gripping "suite," collecting the first two unpolished but wondrously literary sections of a work cut short, have surfaced more than six decades after her death. The first, "Storm in June," chronicles the connecting lives of a disparate clutch of Parisians, among them a snobbish author, a venal banker, a noble priest shepherding churlish orphans, a foppish aesthete and a loving lower-class couple, all fleeing city comforts for the chaotic countryside, mere hours ahead of the advancing Germans. The second, "Dolce," set in 1941 in a farming village under German occupation, tells how peasant farmers, their pretty daughters and petit bourgeois collaborationists coexisted with their Nazi rulers. In a workbook entry penned just weeks before her arrest, Némirovsky noted that her goal was to describe "daily life, the emotional life and especially the comedy it provides." This heroic work does just that, by focusing—with compassion and clarity—on individual human dramas. (Apr. 18)

Prior to that, I finished:

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

http://www.amazon.com/Satanic-Verses-Novel-Bestselling-Backlist/dp/0312270828/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0151632-8601663?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185982796&sr=1-1

Amazon.com
No book in modern times has matched the uproar sparked by Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which earned its author a death sentence. Furor aside, it is a marvelously erudite study of good and evil, a feast of language served up by a writer at the height of his powers, and a rollicking comic fable. The book begins with two Indians, Gibreel Farishta ("for fifteen years the biggest star in the history of the Indian movies") and Saladin Chamcha, a Bombay expatriate returning from his first visit to his homeland in 15 years, plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their jetliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations. Rushdie's powers of invention are astonishing in this Whitbread Prize winner.

And during the reading of The Satanic Verses:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Deathly-Hallows-Book/dp/0545010225/ref=sr_1_4/002-0151632-8601663?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185982898&sr=1-4

[East Street Trader]

I have been struggling through a collection of Nathanial Hawthorne. With a sword and sorcery thing called the Sword of Shannara for light relief.

But the Hawthorne is truly dreadful so I suspect I will get to the end of the novella I'm reading and give up on the rest of the collection.

The Harry Potter certainly beckons.

[Zkribbler]

book-book: Alexander Hamilton, American
audio-book1: White Butterfly - Walter Mosley
audio-book2: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows.

[Richelieu]

Just finished Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd by Nick Mason. It's OK i guess.

Currently reading The red tent by Anita Diamant. Not that good IMO.

[Wezil]

Barney's Version - M. Richler

[Nostromo]

Schopenhauer, On the Freedom of the Will.

Martin and McIntyre, Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science.

Stendhal, Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and Black)

Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black) is a novel by Stendhal, published in 1830. The title has been translated into English variously as Scarlet and Black, Red and Black, and The Red and the Black. It is set in France circa 1827-30, and relates a young man's attempts to rise above his plebeian birth through a combination of talent, hard work, deception and hypocrisy, only to find himself betrayed by his own passions.

Like Stendhal's later novel The Charterhouse of Parma (La Chartreuse de Parme), Le Rouge et le Noir is a Bildungsroman. The protagonist, Julien Sorel, is a driven and intelligent man, but equally fails to understand much about the ways of the world he sets out to conquer. He harbours many romantic illusions, and becomes little more than a pawn in the political machinations of the influential and ruthless people who surround him. Stendhal uses his flawed hero to satirize French society of the time, particularly the hypocrisy and materialism of its aristocracy and the Roman Catholic Church, and to foretell a radical change in French society that will remove both of those forces from their positions of power.

The most common and most likely explanation of the title is that red and black are the contrasting colors of the army uniform of the times and of the robes of priests, respectively. Julien Sorel observes early on in the novel that, under the Bourbon restoration it is impossible for a man of his class to distinguish himself in the army (as he might have done under Napoleon); now, only a career in the Church offers social advancement and glory. Alternative explanations are possible, however: for example, red might stand for love and black for death and mourning; or the colours might refer to those of a roulette wheel, and may indicate the unexpected changes in the hero's career.

A brilliant, brilliant book.

[Tattila the Hun]

Harry Turtledove's World War-series in written form, and Larry Niven's Ringworld-quad-or-so-rology as audiobooks while working.

[DinoDoc]

Horus Rising

Editorial Reviews

Book Description
After thousands of years of expansion and conquest, the human Imperium is at its height. His dream for humanity accomplished, the Emperor hands over the reins of power to his Warmaster, Horus, and heads back to Terra. But is Horus strong enough to control his fellow commanders and continue the Emperor's grand design, or will such incredible power corrupt him?

[LordShiva]

Re: The "what are you reading" thread:

Originally posted by CrONoS
First:
The

[Nostromo]

Re: The "what are you reading" thread:

Originally posted by CrONoS
First:
The


A thread to discuss and show the book that we are reading;


I've started to read:

Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Denett

http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Dangerous-Idea-Evolution-Meanings/dp/068482471X

The next book will be:

Darwinizing Culture edited by Robert Aunger with a foreword of Daniel Denett.

Who is an introduction to Memetics and why scholar are supporting the ideas of meme and other are against.
http://www.amazon.com/Darwinizing-Cu...5982405&sr=8-1

I like Dennett, he's a fun read.

[LDiCesare]

I'm reading Valmiki's Ramayana.
It's an interesting epic, a bit verbose at times though I suppose much of the sanskrit poetry gets lost in translation. A good story and view of brahmanic religion and culture. Although it's often heavy handed, which is common for epics.

[Kuken]

"Veronika Decides to Die" by Paolo Coelho

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

Amusing, plus it makes you think about life and death and all that

[lord of the mark]

1491, by Charles Mann

and, starting on Saturday, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (Ive started already, but only a few chapters, no spoilers please)

Satanic Verses is on my to read list, as is Plagues and Peoples.

[lord of the mark]

Le Rouge et Le Noir I remember as being tremendously enjoyable.

What Hawthorne? ISTR he's best in small doses.