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Thread: 2006: What you reading now?

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    Question 2006: What you reading now?

    Anyone reading any interesting Current Affairs related books? (btw that excludes any Dan Brown material).
    http://www.forastrust.ie/

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    I read 'Freakonomics' recently enough, a really interesting spin on applying ecomonic principles to everyday matters.
    Thre author is probably best known for his theory that the crime-rate drop in the States over the 90's was less to do with 'Zero tolerance' and more to do with Roe -v- Wade, which effectively legalised abortion in the states in 1973, excerpt here click

    Currently Reading 'The men who stare at goats' , about some of the stranger combat training attempted by the US military from the mid 70's to the mid 90's. It's primarily a comic take on the issue, but it's scary to think of the power some of the people signing off on training to walk through walls etc. had.

    Also have Robert Fisk's monster book on the Middle East on the go, having to come and go to it, there's well over a thousand pages, excellently written though and very informative (but then I'd be a fan of Fisk's anyway).
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    Quote Originally Posted by tiktok
    Currently Reading 'The men who stare at goats' , about some of the stranger combat training attempted by the US military from the mid 70's to the mid 90's. It's primarily a comic take on the issue, but it's scary to think of the power some of the people signing off on training to walk through walls etc. had.
    Thats bizarre. Just finishing that now.
    Not to be taken too seriously & fairly light book to read through.
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    I actually ordered that off amazon the other day!

    I got a book for Christmas "Michael Moore is a big fat stupid white man"

    Its a fairly easy read, interesting in parts but mainly just points out the
    errors and misinformation in some of his films

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    I'm not a very prolific reader, and usually it's fiction or a biography, but I'm currently plodding my way through Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky.

    Interesting, to say the least.
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    I read Jon Ronson's other book Them: Adventures With Extremists Its entertaining but doesn't contain a whole lot of information.

    I recently read The Iron Wall: Israel and The Arab World. I wanted to have a greater understanding of the whole conflict and I can say I wasn't too upset to hear of Ariel Sharon's stroke the other day.

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    Quote Originally Posted by noby
    I'm not a very prolific reader, and usually it's fiction or a biography, but I'm currently plodding my way through Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky.

    Interesting, to say the least.
    You going to his lecture(s) in Trinity?
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    No. Next week, isn't it?
    Wouldn't mind if I could make it, though.
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    Quote Originally Posted by noby
    I'm not a very prolific reader, and usually it's fiction or a biography, but I'm currently plodding my way through Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky.

    Interesting, to say the least.
    For someone who says they are not a prolific reader, Chomsky is some undertaking!!!

    Just finished Sebastian Faulks' 'Human Traces' - a masterpiece

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    I'm reading Carl Zimmers 'Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea' which is very interesting in places and a little tough going in others as he goes into the minutae of cell division, neuron formation etc...

    I think it's suitable enough for me to mention it in Current Affairs as -as the author points out - the core tenet of the book is not accepted in sizeable chunks of the developed world -sizeable chunks that help put the most poweful men in the world into office -men who then claim God put them there.
    " I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lionel Ritchie
    I'm reading Carl Zimmers 'Evolution: e.
    Faulks' 'Human Traces' is set against the background of the development of pyschology and psychiatry in the late 19th Century. It is immaculately researched (you almost feel it needs footnotes). The Darwinian debate features strongly and you get the feel from the novel that, by the time the story closes in the 1920s, the matter is settled.

    It was an interesting read against the backdrop of the debate and court case in Dover Pa.

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    Quote Originally Posted by REVIP
    For someone who says they are not a prolific reader, Chomsky is some undertaking!!!
    I know. I'm finding it slower going than the usual light stuff I read. The last time I was buying a book (a Smiths bio), I decided I needed to broaden my horizon a little, so I took a chance on it. I've another music book lined up next, and hope to follow that with something else that may teach me something about the world.
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    Quote Originally Posted by noby
    I know. I'm finding it slower going than the usual light stuff I read. The last time I was buying a book (a Smiths bio), I decided I needed to broaden my horizon a little, so I took a chance on it. I've another music book lined up next, and hope to follow that with something else that may teach me something about the world.
    If you're into Smiths/Morrissey might I suggest AVOIDING David Bretts 'Morrissey: Scandal and Passion'. As enjoyable a read as I found it in it's early stages -the further in I got I started to question how well researched it was (dates of releases/tours/chart positions etc... seemed to be off -info that's easily accessable if you didn't go beyond Smash Hits) and also became a bit frustrated with Bretts utter fixation on Morrisseys sexual orientation.

    Unfortunately I was at the very end of it and in the discography section when I noticed he was apparently unaware that Morrissey had released an LP of some repute back in 1994 called 'Vauxhall and I'. As far as I can tell Brett thinks Morrissey took 1994 off. As I was reading the paperback I'm presuming this wasn't the first run of the book. If I'd only skimmed through at the beginning and found this I'd have chucked it in the bin.
    " I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"

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    Actually it was Morrissey & Marr:The Severed Alliance, by Johnny Rogan.
    A bit slow going at first, with a little too much detail on Morrissey and his family than I ever needed to know, right back to a few chapters on his parents growing up in Dublin.
    Once it got going, though, I thought it was great. It stopped in the late eighties, after the break-up of the Smiths, so no chance of such errors in his solo career.

    This is the book that, upon release, Morrissey hoped the author met his end in some grim way or other (actually, before he had even read it), but eventually the book was used in Morrissey's defence in the court case against Joyce/Rourke, as an accurate account of the running of the Smiths.
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    Never read it. I must steal a copy from somewhere.
    " I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"

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    Not sure how relevant it is but currently reading a book by Misha Glenny called "The Balkans: War, Nationalism and The Great Powers." Surprisingly easy to read and its already dispelled a lot of my youthful mis-conceptions about the region. Turns out they're not all rabid, foaming at the mouth, ultra-nationalist types

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lim till i die
    Not sure how relevant it is but currently reading a book by Misha Glenny called "The Balkans: War, Nationalism and The Great Powers."
    Think the Balkans are always relevant! Especially now that General Ante Gotivina has been arrested and Croatia is back on track with its EU application.

    The Croats seem a fairly laid back group of people, but we only met the ones in Istria, (where we were on holiday in the summer - we drove there from Dublin - don't do it), maybe people on the Serbian borders are different.

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    Quote Originally Posted by REVIP
    The Croats seem a fairly laid back group of people, but we only met the ones in Istria, (where we were on holiday in the summer - we drove there from Dublin - don't do it), maybe people on the Serbian borders are different.
    Seems to be an amazing amount of facist nutcase types in Croatia Particularly along the border with Herczigovina. As a nation they're not nearly as innocent as many in the international community would have you believe.

    Another book I'm at at the mo is re-reading Rogue State. A bit namby pamby in places but all about American evils and all fact

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    Quote Originally Posted by REVIP
    Think the Balkans are always relevant! Especially now that General Ante Gotivina has been arrested and Croatia is back on track with its EU application.

    The Croats seem a fairly laid back group of people, but we only met the ones in Istria, (where we were on holiday in the summer - we drove there from Dublin - don't do it), maybe people on the Serbian borders are different.
    On a Croatian version of Questions and Answers on HTV (their RTE) there was a poll about which they preferred to not help hand over Gotovina or join the EU. The overwhelming majority voted for the EU to shove it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by pete
    Anyone reading any interesting Current Affairs related books? (btw that excludes any Dan Brown material).
    Not current affairs, but I just started re-reading "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco. It's basically "The Da Vinci Code" with long words.
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