Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

What are you reading? Mar 20, 2013

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For those who are new … we discuss books.  I list what I’m reading, and people comment with what they’re reading.  Sometimes, on Sundays, I post a special edition on a particular genre or topic.

If you like to trade books, try bookmooch

I’ve written some book reviews on Yahoo Voices:

Book reviews on Yahoo

Just finished

The Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven. The sequel to Ringworld in which Louis Wu, Chmee and the Hindmost return to Ringworld, which has become unstable.

Now reading

Cooler Smarter: Practical tips for low carbon living  by the scientists at Union of Concerned Scientists, a great group. These folk make sense, concentrating on the changes you can make that have the biggest impact with the least effort.

Thinking, fast and slow  by Daniel Kahneman.  Kahneman, most famous for his work with the late Amos Tversky, is one of the leading psychologists of the times. Here, he posits that our brains have two systems: A fast one and a slow one. Neither is better, but they are good at different things. This is a brilliant book: Full of insight and very well written, as well.

What hath God wrought? by Daniel Walker Howe. Subtitled “The transformation of America 1815-1848. I am reading this with the History group at GoodReads.  This is very well written, and does a good job especially with coverage of the treatment of Blacks and Native Americans.

The hard SF renaissance  ed. by David G. Hartwell.  A large anthology of “hard” SF from the 90’s and 00’s. I think Hartwell takes SF a bit too seriously, but the stories are good.

On politics: A history of political thought from Herodotus to the present by Alan Ryan. What the subtitle says – a history of political thought.  

He, she and it by Marge Percy. Near future dystopian SF set on Earth.

Measurement by Paul Lockhart. About mathematics and, especially, how it should be taught and learned. Lockhart is wonderful; his first book A Mathematician’s Lament was, in my view, the best books on teaching math ever written.

Just started

Protector by Larry Niven  Another novel set in the same universe as the Ringworld novels


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/ 9 Comments

9 comments

  1. DeniseVelez

    re-visit Larry Niven.  Haven’t read Ringworld series in years.  

    We use some of Marge Piercy’s feminist poetry in our Intro to Women’s Studies class. Included in our textbook, Women: Images & Realities, A Multicultural Anthology  is her

    A Work of Artifice

    The bonsai tree

    in the attractive pot

    could have grown eighty feet tall

    on the side of a mountain

    till split by lightning.

    But a gardener

    carefully pruned it.

    It is nine inches high.

    Every day as he

    whittles back the branches

    the gardener croons,

    It is your nature

    to be small and cozy,

    domestic and weak;

    how lucky, little tree,

    to have a pot to grow in.

    With living creatures

    one must begin very early

    to dwarf their growth:

    the bound feet,

    the crippled brain,

    the hair in curlers,

    the hands you

    love to touch.

    Marge Piercy

    http://www.poemhunter.com/poem…

  2. slksfca

    …that didn’t appear on my computer screen. I’ve sort of given up on Wicked, at least for now. And the Kindle sits basically unused at the moment.

    Next week maybe I’ll pick up a book again; can’t go too long without one. Just having a sort of hiatus this week.

    But even in this state, I still enjoy learning what books others are reading. 🙂

  4. Diana in NoVa

    Fantastic poem.  

    A couple of weeks ago on your blog, plf515, someone mentioned reading James Kunstler’s The Long Emergency.  I followed that person’s link, downloaded the book, and have been reading it ever since.  It’s quite frightening as well as educational.  I wonder how much validity there is to his thesis:  he seems very convincing, but when I reached the part of the book where he says we were justified in going into Iraq because there really were weapons of mass destruction about somewhere, I began to experience Belief Withdrawal.

    There were and are no circumstances of any kind that justified the Iraq war. “Toppling a cruel dictator” in another country was not our job–it was the job of the Iraqis themselves.

    However.  Anyway, I’m thoroughly freaked out by this book, to the point where I actually ordered two hard copies (used) and gave one to each of my sons.

    Have given up reading a certain female writer for a while.  There’s far too much s-x in her books.  I realize she’s writing for a certain readership but she’s still much too graphic.  Most of us past the age of 21 have been there, done that, and do not need every…described.  We have both experience and imagination!

    Other than that, for a “mind holiday” I’m going to start reading David Baldacci’s The Forgotten.  I love the way he mentions places in the DC-Virginia-Maryland area in his books.  That’s where I live, so these mentions please me quite a lot.

  5. iriti

    About the 1883 eruption (or actually total blow-up) of Krakatoa and its impact on global weather and trading. Fascinating so far.

    Next is either William Klingaman’s ‘The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History’ about the weather impacts of that great eruption or David Keys ‘Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World’ which posits that the climate and economic impact of an even greater explosion of Krakatoa in 535 had an impact on the spread of disease and the fall of Rome among much else.

    So how did a volcano that blew itself completely off the face of the earth in 535 do so again in 1883? Well Anik Krakatau, the volcano that’s sprung from the ocean where Krakatoa used to be is currently growing at the rate of 15 vertical feet a year. So it’ll happen again – long after we’re all gone.

    As you may have discerned, my latest ‘kick’ is vulcanology.

  6. MillieNeon

    The Sleepwalkers by Hermann Broch, an Austrian writer who wrote this novel in the early 20th Century. The time is around the end of WW I, and it’s written in 3 parts. Each part is different. The 3rd part is really wild . . . prose, poetry, philosophy essays. If I have to describe it concisely, I’ll say it’s about the loss of values, how they erode, how people are both participate and are blind to their erosion. For me, it also shows how a society can become complicit in a value system that erodes to the point of accepting a Hitler.

    The writing is amazing . . . so meticulously and acute. Not a page turner. I re-read some parts over a few times because it feels so delicious soaking in deeper and deeper.

    Also reading various poets who’ve given me their books.

    Hard to read what other people are reading, because then I want to read some of those books, and my unread pile is already big. I downloaded the free Kindle app for my MAC, and I must say, I’m very much enjoying downloading books on it. So great not to have the bookshelves filling up so fast.  

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