The Fabric of The Cosmos - Brian Greene

I'm really enjoying it, finding that I am understanding some concepts that seemed extremely alien to me beforehand. My only quibble is that he incessantly uses Simpsons, X-Files and Star Wars characters and scenarios to explain certain concepts - which comes across as a little bit patronizing.

Dark side of the sun - Terry Pratchett.

This thread

Actually just in a transitional period, read a few books recently and now keep just dipping back in. Might go get something by Sam Harris out, never read anything from him, might be worth it.

The All-Pro, book three in the Galactic Football League series by Scott Sigler.

I'd thought i'd share with you all a few pics of a small handful of the books i have at my Disposal right now

Got James Hanson's book on climate change Storms of my Grandchildren. It's interesting and well researched but he's not a great writer so I wouldn't recommend it. Check out The Weather makers if you are interested in this topic.

Hmm, The Holy Reich, that looks interesting.

Prolescum wrote:Dark side of the sun - Terry Pratchett.

??? i only heard about the dark side of the moon
Care to give us a short summary? I mean what is it about? not sure if i can get that in our libraries.. but i might try to find an online version if it is worth reading.

theyounghistorian77 wrote:I'd thought i'd share with you all a few pics of a small handful of the books i have at my Disposal right now

I wish I just had a small handful. Here's most of my queue:

Thomas Doubting wrote:

Prolescum wrote:Dark side of the sun - Terry Pratchett.

??? i only heard about the dark side of the moon

That's Pink Floyd, not Terry Pratchett...

Care to give us a short summary? I mean what is it about? not sure if i can get that in our libraries.. but i might try to find an online version if it is worth reading.

Er, it's the future, probability maths took all the excitement out of life, a mysterious ancient race called the Jokers left odd buildings that seem to have no purpose behind and human is a category of sentience, not exclusive to our race. At least one planet is human.

A rich kid (our protagonist) is killed on the day of his ascension to the board of directors (his planet is run by board). He has some swish shoes. He goes on a quest to discover the fate of the Jokers, and gets confused about probabilities.

Aught3 wrote:Hmm, The Holy Reich, that looks interesting.

I would recommend it, namely because i would see the book being so excruciatingly annoying to Fundies although i would take it with a pinch of salt. The "Christ socialists" parts are much easier to understand if you know that all the Nazis meant by socialism was really the the "volksgemeinschaft" [and for that i've quoted Kershaw at length elsewhere in these forums] and also the ideas that were prevelant amongst the German Right. Men like Adolf Stocker's and his "Christian socialist" movement and here i think i may even include the Kaiser (For him see John C. G. Rà¶hl, "The Kaiser and his court: Wilhelm II and the government of Germany" [i think p210-211 will surprise you])

The book also serves a reminder that the so-called "pagans" in the Nazi party never truly divorced themselves from Christianity, as even a number of quotations from rosenberg's "Der mythus" will demonstrate and at any rate they weren't too much of an influence.

In my opinion to help get the best out of the book i would consider reading it alongside "this article from the German Studies Review.

My favourite quote from the book, if i have to nominate one is probably this:

"The National Socialists, as the strongest party of the right, have shown both by their program and their practical development in Thuringia that they have a firm, positive relationship to Christianity.... We may expect that they will remain true to their principles in the new Reichstag" - Otto Dibelius, quoted in "op cit", p69.

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ImprobableJoe wrote:wish I just had a small handful

i would say you have quite a nice collection

I am currently re-reading The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (I guess that is how you spell his last name.)

I'm currently tackling the lost fleet series, i've got a historical fiction book i need to get into reading for character background for a larp character, I've got a book on the planets on the go and if i'm utterly honest there are a good half dozen to maybe a dozen or more other random books that i'm part way through reading.

Re-reading the Dragonlance series, Savage Inequalities by Jonathon Kozol, and The Social Ideas of American Education by Merle Curti.

Perhaps instead of reading I should be writing:


"How to survive a dysfunctional family"

CommonEnlightenment wrote:Perhaps instead of reading I should be writing:


"How to survive a dysfunctional family"

"Reading a bunch of books" is a pretty good answer.

Can't wait to finally have a bigger living area and.....a job. Then I'll be able to accumulate all the reading material I want. Right now I have a rather paltry selection hiding in some boxes.

I'm comparatively boring. Just reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the third time

Womble wrote:if i'm utterly honest there are a good half dozen to maybe a dozen or more other random books that i'm part way through reading.

I can relate to this, I'm currently part way through several books that I've put on hold for a while:

The Ancestors Tale - Dawkins (this has been on the go for months, it's a mighty long book!)
Why I Became An Atheist - John W. Loftus (the best counter Christian apologetics book I've come across, but not really one that is easy to read from cover to cover, it's more like a reference book)
Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
The Origin of Life - Paul Davies
Lost Christianities - Bart D. Ehrman

I can't really read anything nowadays because I have depression and it is fucking up my concentration, I'm pretty sure lacking concentration is also manifesting in my posts.

Prolescum wrote:Er, it's the future, probability maths took all the excitement out of life, a mysterious ancient race called the Jokers left odd buildings that seem to have no purpose behind and human is a category of sentience, not exclusive to our race. At least one planet is human.

A rich kid (our protagonist) is killed on the day of his ascension to the board of directors (his planet is run by board). He has some swish shoes. He goes on a quest to discover the fate of the Jokers, and gets confused about probabilities.

sounds interesting enough, but our protagonist is not the only confused one