Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

What are you reading? June 5, 2013

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

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.

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

Woodrow Wilson by John Cooper, Jr. A fairly admiring look at Wilson.

Lake Views: The world and the universe by Steven Weinberg. Essays by this leading physicist.

Algorithms Unlocked  by Thomas Corman  A gentle introduction to computer algorithms

Robert Oppenheimer: A life in the center by Ray Monk  Oppenheimer was one of the most interesting people of the 20th century. In this biography Monk (a wonderful writer) attempts to cover both his physics and his many other interests.

Heechee Rendezvous by Fred Pohl. The third book in the Heechee series. This is a re-read for me

Just started

The Human Division by John Scalzi A series of “episodes” in the Old Man’s War series. Good fun, but probably best if you’ve read earlier books in that series.


9 comments

  1. I just finished Auntie Mame, a daring book for 1955, written by Patrick Dennis. In a funny, over-the-top way, he describes his aunt, an over-the-top progressive in the first half of the last century. It’s fiction, and “Dennis” is a pseudonym. Well worth the time reading.

    In progress, If You Want to Write, by Brenda Ueland. First published in 1938, she speaks most of honesty in writing. Honesty in both description and emotion will “infect” your readers, in ways technique alone will not.

    I’m also reading You Have the Power by Frances Moore Lappe and Jeffrey Perkins. I’m working through it more slowly, since it isn’t a library book.

    AND I subscribe to FOUR quilting magazines and recently received new issues of each. Seems like I don’t need to get all of them anymore. Maybe this would be a good time to decide which I could eliminate…

  2. Jk2003

    Fiction can also be sacrifice or fantasy.  Even a series.  Something to get lost in.  Just finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay.  So good.  Even better on the second read.  

    Thanks in advance..

  3. HappyinVT

    you do any light reading?!  /grin

    I’ve been slogging through the same three or four books for months but keep getting distracted by yard work, housework, and work.

  4. princesspat

    This is number nine in the series, and the next one is ready to be read. It’s been fun to have all the books to read one after another.

    A review, from the book…..

    “A quirky literary creation. If you cross-pollinated Vera Brittain’s classic World War I memoir,  Testament of Youth with Dorothy Sayer’s Harriet Vane mysteries and add a dash of the old PBS series Upstairs, Downstairs, you’d approximate the peculiar range of topics and tones within this novel.” ~ Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air

    http://www.jacquelinewinspear….

Comments are closed.