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stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 25 2007,21:46    When I get done with what I'm reading now in about a week (100 pages left, but I'm very busy these days) I think I'm going to read some good comprehensive works about the Civil War. I really don't know anything about it, and I want to. I'm thinking about Shelby Foote's trilogy, but it's been criticized for not examining the political and economic underpinnings. Any suggestions?

carlsonjok Posts: 3326 Joined: May 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 25 2007,22:14    Quote (stevestory @ Sep. 25 2007,21:46) When I get done with what I'm reading now in about a week (100 pages left, but I'm very busy these days) I think I'm going to read some good comprehensive works about the Civil War. I really don't know anything about it, and I want to. I'm thinking about Shelby Foote's trilogy, but it's been criticized for not examining the political and economic underpinnings. Any suggestions? I've always heard that Shelby Foote's was the standard bearer, and I've considered reading it myself.  But, if that isn't your bag, I might suggest "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It covers more than the Civil War, although it does spend alot of time on it.  It is well researched and, more importantly, well written. -------------- It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it.  We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Oct. 09 2007,23:59    Last week I finished the Harry Potter series. Didn't mention it because I didn't want anyone to inadvertantly ruin the ending. Also, just watched Ladyhawke. Pretty good. Still have Rome, season 1 disc 2 to watch.

JohnW Posts: 3217 Joined: Aug. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Oct. 16 2007,16:26    Now that biking season is over and I have about an hour a day of reading time on the bus, I've started a little project. I'm about 1.5 chapters into Volume 1 of Janet Browne's Darwin biography, which will be followed by Volume 2, and then From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books, which was a birthday present last year.  (I've read Origin, years ago, but not the other three). I'll probably be interspersing these with lighter stuff, so this may take a few months. -------------- Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers There isn't any probability that the letter d is in the word "mathematics"...  The correct answer would be "not even 0" - JoeG

drew91 Posts: 32 Joined: Jan. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Oct. 18 2007,08:34    Quote (J-Dog @ June 15 2007,15:34) Under A Green Sky - Excellent - I recommend it and give it 2 Mastodon Tusks Up.   I've got to chime in and say thanks for this recommendation.  I'm just about halfway through it and finding it very enjoyable, and it's not something I'd have casually stumbled across or given a second look in a store. Indeed, thanks to everyone for their many suggestions.  I've now got about a years worth of material stacked on my bedside table.  I just need to find the time to churn through them.

Lou FCD Posts: 5455 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Nov. 11 2007,09:46    Norman Mailer just went to California Just so y'know. -------------- “Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas? Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

Lou FCD Posts: 5455 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Nov. 11 2007,10:18    It's also Kurt Vonnegut's birthday today. Also just so y'know. -------------- “Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas? Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

Annyday Posts: 583 Joined: Nov. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Nov. 11 2007,10:49    Minsky, The Emotional Machine. Anyone? It's a little odd- computer scientists looking at brains often turn out that way- but interesting nonetheless, I think. -------------- "ALL eight of the "nature" miracles of Jesus could have been accomplished via the electroweak quantum tunneling mechanism. For example, walking on water could be accomplished by directing a neutrino beam created just below Jesus' feet downward." - Frank Tipler, ISCID fellow

J-Dog Posts: 4402 Joined: Dec. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Nov. 28 2007,19:24    I just finished reading "The Egyptologist" by Arthur Phillips, and give it 10 thumbs up.  Smart funny book about a not so successful English Egyptologist circa 1922.   At the same time it is also a missing persons/ murder mystery, with an Ausie tec doing the "digging". From a professional view - (cribbed from the back of the book): "From the bestselling author of Prague,  comes a witty, inventive brilliantly constructed novel about an Egyptologist obsessed with finding the tomb of an apocryful king.  This darkly comic labyrinth of a story opens on the dessert sands of Egypt in 1922, then winds its way from the slums of Australia to the ballrooms of Boston by way of Oxford, the battlefields of WWI, and a royal court in turmoil.  Exploring issues of class, greed, ambition and the very human hunger for eternal life, The Egyptologist is a triumph of narrative bravado." -------------- Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10 Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08 UD is an Unnatural Douchemagnet. - richardthughes 7/11

Dr.GH Posts: 2333 Joined: May 2002 (Permalink) Posted: Nov. 28 2007,22:00    Matthews, Victor H., Don C. Benjamin 2006 “Old Testament Parallels: Law and Stories from the Ancient Near East” New York: The Paulist Press. Sparks, Kenton L. 2005 “Ancient Texts for the Study of  the Hebrew Bible” Peabody PA: Hendrickson Publishers Walton, John H. 2006 “Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament” Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press I recommend Sparks.  Skip the other two, and read Dalley, Stephanie 2000 Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Revised Oxford: Oxford University Press and Finkelstein, Israel, Neil Silberman 2001 The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts    New York: The Free Press Friedman, Richard Elliott 1987 Who Wrote the Bible? New York:Harper and Row (Paperback Edition) instead. I also dragged myself through 3 chapters of; White, Joe, Nicholas Comminellis 2001 “The Demise of Darwin: Why Evolution Can’t Take the Heat” Green Forest AR: Master Books My reaction is negative. -------------- "Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy." L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

snoeman Posts: 109 Joined: April 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Nov. 28 2007,23:21    Quote (JohnW @ Oct. 16 2007,16:26) Now that biking season is over and I have about an hour a day of reading time on the bus, I've started a little project. I'm about 1.5 chapters into Volume 1 of Janet Browne's Darwin biography, which will be followed by Volume 2, and then From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books, which was a birthday present last year.  (I've read Origin, years ago, but not the other three). I'll probably be interspersing these with lighter stuff, so this may take a few months. As long-time bike commuter (since July of, uh, this year) , living in the same city as you, I have to ask: what do you mean, "biking season is over"? Aren't there things you can buy to deal with the cold and dark?

JohnW Posts: 3217 Joined: Aug. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Nov. 29 2007,11:05    Quote (snoeman @ Nov. 28 2007,21:21) Quote (JohnW @ Oct. 16 2007,16:26) Now that biking season is over and I have about an hour a day of reading time on the bus, I've started a little project. I'm about 1.5 chapters into Volume 1 of Janet Browne's Darwin biography, which will be followed by Volume 2, and then From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books, which was a birthday present last year.  (I've read Origin, years ago, but not the other three). I'll probably be interspersing these with lighter stuff, so this may take a few months. As long-time bike commuter (since July of, uh, this year) :), living in the same city as you, I have to ask: what do you mean, "biking season is over"? Aren't there things you can buy to deal with the cold and dark? :) I like biking when it's light and dry. I don't like biking when it's dark and wet.   No matter how much shopping I do, I still won't like it. Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, biking season is over. ------ Anyway, I finished the first volume of Browne's Darwin biography a couple of weeks ago, took a few days off to read other things ( I highly recommend this.  What a bunch of arrogant, pig-headed morons) and am now starting on Volume 2.  It certainly deserves all the praise it received - an exhaustive piece of scholarship, but very readable, although, at about 600 large-format pages each, not very portable. One thing in Volume 1 struck me.  Darwin studied geology at Edinburgh and Cambridge, and, as far as I could tell, every word he was taught was based on an old-Earth model.  I already knew, as most of us did, that the idea of deep time long predated Darwin, but this reinforced the fact that six-day creation and a young Earth had no scientific credibility by the early 19th century. -------------- Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers There isn't any probability that the letter d is in the word "mathematics"...  The correct answer would be "not even 0" - JoeG

Steviepinhead Posts: 532 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 01 2007,18:49    But we all know one thing that is fun to do in the dark and wet, right. No, no, not that!    :p I was trying to resurrect the Seattle drinking thread...!

Steviepinhead Posts: 532 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 01 2007,18:51    Hey!  How comes teh smilies ain't workin'? Didn't they hear the Broadway strike was over? :angry:    :angry:

Hermagoras Posts: 1260 Joined: June 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 01 2007,19:01    Reading Joyce's Ulysses again, for the umpteenth time.  But for the first time I'm reading it out loud.  I've read to my wife nightly for 20 years of marriage, and we've read a ton of novels: Jane Austen, George Eliot, Vikram Chandra -- as well as long poems (Dante [trans. Mandelbaum], Homer [trans. Fagels], Beowulf [trans. Heaney]).   I have finally convinced her that Ulysses is actually a hilarious book.    (Here's a game of Chinese Whispers: Hugh Kenner once told me how Joyce used to complain to Ezra Pound about how nobody saw the humor in the book.  So that's why Pound has "Jim the comedian" in the Pisan Cantos.  So: Joyce tells Pound who tells Kenner who tells me.) It's going pretty well, meaning my wife is starting to warm to it.  (She loves the earlier Joyce but has always been intimidated by Ulysses.)  I did skim over a couple of pages of "Proteus" (the third chapter) -- that's Stephen at his most depressingly self-indulgent, and just before we get introduced to the fantastic Leopold Bloom.   We're just entering "Lotus-Eaters" tonight.   Also reading Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience by Frank Cioffi, and The Outernationale, poems by Peter Gizzi. -------------- "I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

carlsonjok Posts: 3326 Joined: May 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 01 2007,19:09    Quote (Hermagoras @ Dec. 01 2007,19:01) Reading Joyce's Ulysses again, for the umpteenth time.  But for the first time I'm reading it out loud.  I've read to my wife nightly for 20 years of marriage, and we've read a ton of novels: Jane Austen, George Eliot, Vikram Chandra -- as well as long poems (Dante [trans. Mandelbaum], Homer [trans. Fagels], Beowulf [trans. Heaney]).   My wife and my reading tastes are too divergent to even attempt that, but good on you, man. Interestingly, I am reading Dante's "Divine Comedy" (John Ciardi translation) right now. I'm about 2/3 of the way through Inferno. Quote We're just entering "Lotus-Eaters" tonight  I think that falls into the category of Too Much Information.   -------------- It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it.  We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 01 2007,19:46    I'm so busy lately I've still got Wednesday's NYT to read. Dining In / Dining Out is kind of like therapy. In my stressed-out life, there's nothing more relaxing than reading exactly how the $30 amuse-bouche failed to meet Frank Bruni's expectations, or why you just have to try the bone marrow on toasted bread at some restaurant in the meat-packing district that you'll never visit in real life. All the better that, in touch with the rhythms of Chapel Hill, I snagged it for free on Thursday morning from the recycling bin behind Starbucks.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 01 2007,19:49    I started to read the Bruce Catton books about the Civil War, but it was too high-level. They'd make great books after you already know the basics of what happened, but I got waaaaay too lost in the details only a few dozen pages in.

Dr.GH Posts: 2333 Joined: May 2002 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 02 2007,02:22    So, I get challenged on a minor YEC dominated site about some biblical sources. I am told that I don't read the "right" books, so I have no idea what the Bible says.  Mind you, I have read the Bible.  And I have read thousands of pages about the Bible, particulary the Old Testament, and particularly those parts related the the creationist doctrine. So that last month I have read; Brown F., Driver S., Briggs C. 2007 (reprint from 1906) “Hebrew and English Lexicon: With an Appendex Containing the Biblical Aramaic: With Strong’s Numbering”  Peabody Mass: Hendrickson Publishers (The Strong’s catalog #s was added by Hendrickson Publishers). (All the expository material) Matthews, Victor H., Don C. Benjamin 2006 “Old Testament Parallels: Law and Stories from the Ancient Near East” New York: The Paulist Press. Sparks, Kenton L. 2005 “Ancient Texts for the Study of  the Hebrew Bible” Peabody PA: Hendrickson Publishers Strong, James (author), revised and edited Kohlenberger, James R. III, Swanson, James A. 2001 edition (original 1894) “The Strongest Strong’s exhaustive concordance of the Bible (KJV) for the 21st Century”  Grand Rapids: Zondervan. (All the expository material) Walton, John H. 2006 “Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament” Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press While working through the books above, I had occasion to reread parts of Dalley, Stephanie 2000 Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Revised Oxford: Oxford University Press Cross, Frank Moore 1973 Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel.  Boston: Harvard University Press Dahood, Mitchell 1965 Psalms I, 1-50: Introduction, Translation and Notes  New York: Anchor Bible- Doubleday Speiser, E. A. 1962 "Genesis: Introduction, Translation and Notes"  New York: Anchor Bible- Doubleday Schmandt-Besserat, Denise 1992 Before Writing Volume I:  From counting to cuneiform Austin: University of Texas Press These are all excellent books. Really. Almost.  Well, Walton is a wussie.  He hides from any hard questions about the Bible.  Matthews and Benjamin give such short lumps of Ancient Near Eastern (AKA Syropalistine) texts that you must read Schmandt-Besserat, Dalley, as well as Black, Jeremy, Anthony Green, Tessa Rickards (illustrator) 2003 "Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia" Austin: University of Texas Press Blenkinsopp, Joseph 1992 The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible The Anchor Bible Reference Library  New York: ABRL/Doubleday Finkelstein, Israel, Neil Silberman 2001 The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts    New York: The Free Press Friedman, Richard Elliott 1987 Who Wrote the Bible? New York:Harper and Row (Paperback Edition) Anyway a good start. -------------- "Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy." L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

Altabin Posts: 308 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 05 2007,13:53    Don Quixote.  Just finished the first part - one of the funniest things I've read.  Man, there are some nice parallels there with IDC.  But perhaps a little too obvious.  I just want to quote something that I thought would appeal to you here.  (Well, I thought it was funny, anyway). It's from Cervantes' introduction to the second part of the book.  (The second part was issued some years after the first.  In the meantime, an anonymous author had published his own second part to the story.  Cervantes attacks him, telling his readers to take this message to him if they ever meet him):   Quote In Sevilla there was a madman who had the strangest, most comical notion that any madman ever had.  What he did was to make a tube out of a reed that he sharpened at one end, and then he would catch a dog on the street, or somewhere else, hold down one of its hind legs with his foot, lift the other with his hand, fit the tube into the right place, and blow until he had made the animal as round as a ball, and then, holding it up, he would give the dog two little pats on the belly and let it go, saying to the onlookers, and there was were always a good number of them, "Now do your graces think it's an easy job to blow up a dog?"  Now does your grace think it's an easy job to write a book? Added in edit: Added in edit --------------

Amadan Posts: 1337 Joined: Jan. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 06 2007,04:27    Oops! Thought the title of this thread was 'Boob Club... (Closes stained macintosh, shuffles off) -------------- "People are always looking for natural selection to generate random mutations" - Densye  4-4-2011 JoeG BTW dumbass- some variations help ensure reproductive fitness so they cannot be random wrt it.

Amadan Posts: 1337 Joined: Jan. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 06 2007,04:32    Akshully, just finished Empires of the Word by Nicholas Ostler, a history of languages. Very good, and comprehensible by mere mortals such as meself. It helped to amplify my hysterics over recent comments I saw somewhere by (I think) FL about how the Tower of Babel story was confirmed by modern linguistics, which he had just discovered. -------------- "People are always looking for natural selection to generate random mutations" - Densye  4-4-2011 JoeG BTW dumbass- some variations help ensure reproductive fitness so they cannot be random wrt it.

Amadan Posts: 1337 Joined: Jan. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 06 2007,04:47    Quote (Hermagoras @ Dec. 01 2007,19:01) Reading Joyce's Ulysses again, for the umpteenth time.  But for the first time I'm reading it out loud.  ... I have finally convinced her that Ulysses is actually a hilarious book. I strongly recommend the Ulysses audiobook, particularly because Joyce put so much effort into crystallising Dublin accents. I used to play it in the car and ended up bellowing "Shoite 'n onions!" at drivers who offended me. -------------- "People are always looking for natural selection to generate random mutations" - Densye  4-4-2011 JoeG BTW dumbass- some variations help ensure reproductive fitness so they cannot be random wrt it.

J-Dog Posts: 4402 Joined: Dec. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 06 2007,11:02    Quote (Amadan @ Dec. 06 2007,04:47) Quote (Hermagoras @ Dec. 01 2007,19:01) Reading Joyce's Ulysses again, for the umpteenth time.  But for the first time I'm reading it out loud.  ... I have finally convinced her that Ulysses is actually a hilarious book. I strongly recommend the Ulysses audiobook, particularly because Joyce put so much effort into crystallising Dublin accents. I used to play it in the car and ended up bellowing "Shoite 'n onions!" at drivers who offended me. Nice short story dude at your blog - good to see you're not just another pretty face.   I expect more of the same, so I can expand my horizons. Thanks in advance. Joe D -------------- Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10 Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08 UD is an Unnatural Douchemagnet. - richardthughes 7/11

BWE Posts: 1902 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 06 2007,16:01    I'm a bit into "Me Talk Pretty Someday". David Sedaris might be the funniest author I've ever read. I read "Naked" a year ago or so and same thing. I'm also about 30 pages into Thomas Friedman's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree." Don't know what it is yet but I'm getting a nagging feeling that what he overlooks is bigger than his thesis. Anybody read the whole book? -------------- Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered When wished on the morning star Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it Look what it's done so far The Daily Wingnut

Albatrossity2 Posts: 2780 Joined: Mar. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 10 2007,13:10    Apropos of nothing much at all, a colleague of mine in the English Department found this critique of Flannery O'Connor quoted in a final paper for her class. Quote "Her chief characters belong to the genus Southern Neanderthal.  Their minds are pre-Darwinian and post-Christian.  The only belief that might make a difference in their lives is Baptist literalism.  Like astrology, it's nonfunctional, but provides a defensive reflex system against thought."  Webster Schott, "Flannery O'Connor: Faith's Stepchild."  THE NATION 201.7 (Sept. 1965): 142-44. I may have to re-read O'Connor's stories during the Christmas/holiday/pagan festival break. -------------- Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind Has been obligated from the beginning To create an ordered universe As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.                         - Pattiann Rogers

Ra-Úl Posts: 93 Joined: June 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 11 2007,15:16    I read Flannery O'Connor right after re-reading Joyce's Dubliners, and found some deep similarities and sympathies, and was at the same time apalled by some of their more, uh, idiosyncratic characters. I love the audio "Ulysses". For a foreign-born, English as second language reader, there is no substitute to hearing the local Doric. I remember a girlfriend's mother coming into the den while gf and I watched The Commitments, and asking us what language the movie was in. Joyce's difficulties for foreigners are almost always a matter of rendering accents. -------------- Beauty is that which makes us desperate. - P Valery

Hermagoras Posts: 1260 Joined: June 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 14 2007,22:28    God help me, I'm reading Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome.  I'll have to post on the thing at some point.   Word to the wise: never take book recommendations from BA77. -------------- "I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

Bob O'H Posts: 2564 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 15 2007,07:00    Hermagoras - if you want a quick divorce, ask your wife to read it to you. I'm finally reading Tristram Shandy.  Highly recommended, and much better than the book on survey sampling that's my 'work reading'. Bob -------------- It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)

IanBrown_101 Posts: 927 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Dec. 20 2007,08:47    I'm reading a rather amusing book called "The Science of Superheroes" which I'm borrowing from a comic mad friend of mine. It's really good fun, but I have found one major, major problem. In the begining of the book, just before the intro, it talks about science. It (rightly) states that a scientific theory is propped up by masses of evidence and is therefore "prooven" but still somewhat in doubt. However, it then drops the ball. Hard. "When a theory has been proven so many times that it is no longer in doubt, then it's finally considered a law" I read that and immediately thought "NO!!!!" what promised to be an entertaining book using real science and written by people who seemed to know what they were on about, was somewhat damaged by that passage there. It's still good fun, and while I'm only a little way in, it does have real science in there, but it obviously isn't the best written... -------------- I'm not the fastest or the baddest or the fatest. You NEVER seem to address the fact that the grand majority of people supporting Darwinism in these on line forums and blogs are atheists. That doesn't seem to bother you guys in the least. - FtK Roddenberry is my God.

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