koth's reading log

From play.com

This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. Sam Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favour of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify harmful behaviour and sometimes heinous crimes. He asserts that in the shadow of weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer tolerate views that pit one true god against another.

Most controversially, he argues that we cannot afford moderate lip service to religion - an accommodation that only blinds us to the real perils of fundamentalism. While warning against the encroachment of organised religion into world politics, Harris also draws on new evidence from neuroscience and insights from philosophy to explore spirituality as a biological, brain-based need. He calls on us to invoke that need in taking a secular humanistic approach to solving the problems of this world.

From amazon.co.uk

How does one young man survive the deaths of his entire family and manage to make something worthwhile of his life? In Things The Grandchildren Should Know Mark Oliver Everett tells the story of what it's like to grow up the insecure son of a genius in a wacky Virginia Ice Storm-like family.

Left to run wild with his sister, his father off in some parallel universe of his own invention, Everett's upbringing was 'ridiculous, sometimes tragic and always unsteady'. But somehow he manages to not only survive his crazy upbringing and ensuing tragedies; he makes something of his life, striking out on a journey to find himself by channelling his experiences into his, eventually, critically acclaimed music with the Eels.

But it's not an easy path. Told with surprising candour, Things The Grandchildren Should Know is an inspiring and remarkable story, full of hope, humour and wry wisdom.

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I usually stay away from (auto-)biographies (the concept doesnt interest me) but Im giving some serious consideration to buying Everetts one. I think the Eels lyrics are pretty personal and that the book could be enlightening and interesting.

Would you recommend?

From play.com

A breathtaking novel of suspense from the co-author of five bestselling James Patterson novels, including 'Judge and Jury' and 'Lifeguard'. THERE ARE NO RULES IN THE BLUE ZONE. They were the perfect family. And he was the perfect family man. One day changed it all. Arrested for racketeering, Ben Raab must take his family into America's Witness Protection Programme. Only his eldest daughter, Kate, chooses to stay on the outside.

But the Programme's perfect success rate is about to come to a shocking end. A case agent is tortured to death and Ben vanishes. The one person who might be able to find him is Kate. Pursued by killers, forced to question everything she knows about her life so far, Kate is plunged into a terrifying existence for which nothing has prepared her. Most people would call it certain death. The FBI calls it the Blue Zone.

From amazon.com

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city's most accomplished artist.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly - and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics - and cultivate a flair for death.

From amazon.com

SHIVERING SANDS is a bit of an experiment: part Greatest Hits collection, part late-night ramblings, all crackling text transmissions sent down the wire from anywhere Warren Ellis had access to a computer and something to say. These essays, stories, music reviews, the occasional chemically-induced rant, and a couple of recipes because, for whatever reason, everyone seems to love his recipesrepresent a cross-section of the past seven years worth of Warrens writing online. From jumping around Britain, Europe and North America to just dragging his carcass up to the local pub for a think, this is the unedited spillage from the inside of the writers head during the 00s. Some of it even makes sense.WARREN ELLIS is the award-winning creator of graphic novels such as Fell, Ministry Of Space, Planetary, and Transmetropolitan, and the author of the underground classic Crooked Little Vein.

Novel by George Orwell, published in 1949 as a warning about the menaces of totalitarianism. The novel is set in an imaginary future world that is dominated by three perpetually warring totalitarian police states. The book's hero, Winston Smith, is a minor party functionary in one of these states. His longing for truth and decency leads him to secretly rebel against the government. Smith has a love affair with a like-minded woman, but they are both arrested by the Thought Police.

The ensuing imprisonment, torture, and reeducation of Smith are intended not merely to break him physically or make him submit but to root out his independent mental existence and his spiritual dignity. Orwell's warning of the dangers of totalitarianism made a deep impression on his contemporaries and upon subsequent readers, and the book's title and many of its coinages, such as NEWSPEAK, became bywords for modern political abuses.

In the city of Imardin, where those who wield magic wield power, a young street-girl, adopted by the Magician's Guild, finds herself at the centre of a terrible plot that may destroy the entire world ...Sonea has learned much at the magicians' guild and the other novices now treat her with a grudging respect. But she cannot forget what she witnessed in the High Lord's underground room - or his warning that the realm's ancient enemy is growing in power once more. As Sonea learns more, she begins to doubt her guildmaster's word. Could the truth really be as terrifying as Akkarin claims, or is he trying to trick her into assisting in some unspeakably dark scheme?

'I can imagine you at forty,' she said, a hint of malice in her voice. 'I can picture it right now.' He smiled without opening his eyes. 'Go on then.' 15th July 1988. Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows? Twenty years, two people, ONE DAY. From the author of the massive bestseller STARTER FOR TEN.

A gripping werewolf novel set in a very real world. When university student Ciaran Connelly is bitten by a werewolf, he has to cope with more than exams, women and everyday problems. Ciaran finds himself changing dramatically and is suddenly plunged into the world of the supernatural, where witches want his body and hunters want his hide.

Supergods is your opportunity to join one of the great figures of modern comics on a mind-bending journey into the world of the superheroes. In 1938, the first superhero comic ever published, Action Comics #1, introduced the world to something both unprecedented and profoundly familiar: Superman, a caped god for the modern age. In a matter of years, the skies of the imaginary world were filled with strange mutants, aliens and vigilantes: Batman, Wonder Woman, the Fantastic Four, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, and the X-Men – the list of names is as familiar as our own. In less than a century they’ve gone from not existing at all to being everywhere we look: on our movie and television screens, in our videogames and dreams. But why?For Grant Morrison, possibly the greatest of contemporary superhero storytellers, these heroes are not simply characters but powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence: through them, we tell the story of ourselves. In this exhilarating book, Morrison draws on history, art, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this alternate universe to provide the first true chronicle of the superhero – why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are.

Ever since his girlfriend left town to deal with her newly acquired taste for blood, Harry Dresden has been down and out in Chicago. He can't pay his rent. He's alienating his friends. He can't even recall the last time he took a shower. The only professional wizard in the phone book has become a desperate man. And just when it seems things can't get any worse, in saunters the Winter Queen of Faerie. She has an offer Harry can't refuse if he wants to free himself of the supernatural hold his faerie godmother has over him - and hopefully end his run of bad luck. All he has to do is find out who murdered the Summer Queen's right-hand man, the Summer Knight, and clear the Winter Queen's name. It seems simple enough, but Harry knows better than to get caught in the middle of faerie politics. Until he finds out that the fate of the entire world rests on his solving this case. No pressure or anything ...

'These days, watching television is like sitting in the back of Travis Bickle's taxicab, staring through the window at a world of relentless, churning shod . . .' Cruel, acerbic, impassioned, gleeful, frequently outrageous and always hilarious, Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn collects the best of the much-loved Guardian Guide columns into one easy-to-read-on-the-toilet package. Sit back and roar as Brooker rips mercilessly into Simon Cowell, 'Big Brother', Trinny and Susannah, 'Casualty', Davina McCall, Michael Parkinson . . . and almost everything elso on television. This book will make practically anyone laugh out loud.

At the turn of the millennium, Charlie Brooker created the notorious website TV Go Home. More recently, he co-wrote Channel Four's Nathan Barley with Chris Morris. Prior to become the Guardian Guide's TV critic, Brooker worked as a cartoonist, a journalist, and a TV and radio presenter.

'Charlie Brooker doesn't so much go for the jugular as decapitate his targets altogether.' Jim Shelley, Daily Mirror 'He watches these things so we don't have to. Bless him for that.' Graham 'Father Ted' Linehan 'This belongs on everyone's bookshelf. With a big spotlight pointing at it.' Julie Burchill 'The funniest newspaper columnist in the world.' Racing Post

From amazon.com

Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson

Neil Gaiman's talent is so vast that any exploration of his work can only be described as a beginning. Here is one such beginning, an examination of the creative genius being The Sandman, American Gods, Coraline and so much more. His prose fiction has achieved enormous acclaim and popularity. Now leading scholars provide insights into the Sandman universe, its mythological underpinnings, Gaiman's technique and his relationship to other masters of the fantastic imagination. Two extensive interviews with Gaiman are included, along with a thorough bibliography of his work to date.