Books you are reading

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gobble said:
Nice! The favorite book in my personal collection on this topic is Re-orient by andre Gunder Frank Andre Gunder Frank - ReOrient

Another one I've been planning to read is "Small is Beautiful" Small Is Beautiful - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PS: Good to know we have a researcher and author in our midst :)

I am googling your book for the moment, perhaps one day I will pick it up

Cheers

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AGF has been one of my favorites author. Almost read most of his books just like Samir Amin and Noam Chomsky.

You are most welcome to borrow any of my books. If in Delhi, you could also borrow my other collections.

Right now, I am reading "64 ways" to deal with global warming. This book published by a small Finnish publisher, Into, is very illuminating and provides small practical steps which each one of us take in our daily life to deal with this issue. It is also written in simple and non-technical language so that it is accessible to a larger audience including students.
 
Read Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, quite interesting. It's about a group of US Navy SEALs who are parachuted into Afghanistan, and all except one are killed.

Now to somehow get to finish the other two unfinished ones-Steve McQ bio and another one about the Great Depression, Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed.

George
 
Blink and tipping point by malcom gladwell are worth reading.

Emotional Intelligence by daniel goleman is also worth reading.

Now I am reading The story of philosophy by will durant and the autobiography by Richard Branson.

cheers
 
speaking of globalization..it was interesting reading Stiglitz's Globalization and its Discontents, for an insider view on the whole issue (the book is worth alone for its brilliant, though one sided exposition of the IMF vs World Bank world view)..another pop economist book (doesn't mean that the earlier tome i talked about is in anyway economics lite) was Tim Hartford's The Undercover Economist..this book is a revelation about how the pedagogy of economics should be transacted (the book begins with an innocuous query about the price of coffee at a railway station and unfolds into a brilliant and more importantly readable exposition about the way the various issues in Economics play against each other and impact our lives (from African libraries to Nepal water schemes it has it all..and yes that includes the China vs India debate too)
another interesting book i read was Fooled by Randomness...at one level it is reassuring to be reminded that those who are eminently successful are so because of plain luck ...(though it is the successful stockbroker who rides more on luck as compared to the successful dentist whose fortunes are quite impervious to randomness)..the book with its anecdotal insights and a thoroughly iconoclastic world-view of a cocky author is well worth a read...very erudite, presumptuous and at times insightful....
have just received In Defense of Lost Causes by Slavoj Zizek..am impatient to read a Lacanian defense of Heidegger's dalliance with the nazis, not to mention an apology for foucault's involvement in the Iran war...all lost causes..
 
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Moktan - that last book you mention about lost causes sounds very interesting. Will try and see if its available here locally.
 
Just gone through few pages of Becoming Indian by Pavan K. Varma.
Seems to be amazing book.
 
wow.....some heavy book discuessed here.......All that ever interested me were Michael Crichton novels, I have read John Gresham and Robin Cook as well but Michael Crinton.......he is a genious...........few that I have comepleted

1. Jurassic Park
2. Rising Sun
3. Sphear
4. Congo
5. TimeLine
6. Airframe

Currently planning to start The Andromeda Strain
 
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Second that..I read Andromeda Strain when I was in school in the mid 60's and got hooked onto Crichton.I thought Timelline was an exceptionally well writtne and thought out book.
 
sam9s said:
wow.....some heavy book discuessed here.......All that ever interested me were Michael Crichton novels, I have read John Gresham and Robin Cook as well but Michael Crinton.......he is a genious...........few that I have comepleted

1. Jurassic Park
2. Rising Sun
3. Sphear
4. Congo
5. TimeLine
6. Airframe

Currently planning to start The Andromeda Strain
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Crichton is a good read, at most times. Do not miss 'The Lost World'. If I remember right, that book had a few pages to start with on the Chaos Theory. Made for interesting introduction to that area.
 
sam9s said:
wow.....some heavy book discuessed here.......All that ever interested me were Michael Crichton novels, I have read John Gresham and Robin Cook as well but Michael Crinton.......he is a genious...........few that I have comepleted

1. Jurassic Park
2. Rising Sun
3. Sphear
4. Congo
5. TimeLine
6. Airframe

Currently planning to start The Andromeda Strain
Click to expand...

Interestingly the 'heavy' book that I am reading (In Defense of Lost Causes- Slavoj Zizek) has this to say about Crichton...

"Crichton added to the genre (Capitalist Realism) a postmodern techno-thriller twist, in accordance with today's predominant politics of fear: he is the ultimate novelist of fear- fear of the past (Jurassic Park, Eaters of the Dead), of the nanotechnological future (Prey) of Japan's economic strength (The Rising Sun), of sexual harassment (Disclosure), of robotic technology (Westworld) of the medical industry (Coma), of alien intrusions (Andremeda Strain) of ecological catastrophes (State of Fear). State of Fear, his most recent book, brings an unexpected final addition to this series of shadowy forces which lurk among us, poised to wreak havoc: America's fiercest enemies are environmentalists themselves. " (page 52)

just sharing an interesting bit of trivia...
 
Currently reading Isla Negra by Pablo Neruda.Having read most of the major fiction writers from around the world now I only read the majors I still like---Plato,Neitzsche,Goethe,Voltaire,Dante,Dostoevesky,Tolstoy,Flaubert,Stendhal,Musil,Camus,Melville,Hemingway,Proust,Kafka,Ibsen,Shakespeare,Baudelaire,Rimbaud,Pessoa,Nabokov,Borges.
Life is too short to be wasted on kitsch.
Kitsch as in Coehlo,Pirsig,Archer,Ludlum,Sheldon,Brown,King and the ENTIRE collection of books at the chain stores.Recently visited Crossword,Odyssey.Apart from a few cheap editions of classics and some Indian writers like Amitav Ghosh it was like a desert.Not a drop of water or sustenance in sight.It was depressing to see what pathetic levels the reading habit has fallen to.
 
ajay124 said:
Kitsch as in Coehlo,Pirsig,Archer,Ludlum,Sheldon,Brown,King and the ENTIRE collection of books at the chain stores.Recently visited Crossword,Odyssey.Apart from a few cheap editions of classics and some Indian writers like Amitav Ghosh it was like a desert.Not a drop of water or sustenance in sight.It was depressing to see what pathetic levels the reading habit has fallen to.
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Interesting ... good to see what others think about Coehlo - I tried reading a famous Coehlo book (can't recall which) and certainly found it to be downright silly and retarded - could not go beyond the few few chapters. What a waste of time!! Whatever he thinks he wants to teach the world, there are bound to be better thinkers about it (you only have to search) - that was my closing thought when I closed his book for good. I don't know why the pulp world celebrates him .

Cheers
 
I like Kafka's as well as Pirsig's works. Where does that put me ?

To me that post sounded a bit pretentious, no offense meant ajay124. Everybody has different tastes & to slam someone's work like that (without an attempt to post a critical review, that is) is uncalled for. I know Coehlos and the likes are not well-regarded among literary circles, but then those folks do post some in depth critical reviews and not to mention have their own biases.
 
Also, I can't think of putting Pirsig in the same league as Coehlo. If you really feel that way, would you care to elaborate ?
 
moktan said:
Interestingly the 'heavy' book that I am reading (In Defense of Lost Causes- Slavoj Zizek) has this to say about Crichton...

"Crichton added to the genre (Capitalist Realism) a postmodern techno-thriller twist, in accordance with today's predominant politics of fear: he is the ultimate novelist of fear- fear of the past (Jurassic Park, Eaters of the Dead), of the nanotechnological future (Prey) of Japan's economic strength (The Rising Sun), of sexual harassment (Disclosure), of robotic technology (Westworld) of the medical industry (Coma), of alien intrusions (Andremeda Strain) of ecological catastrophes (State of Fear). State of Fear, his most recent book, brings an unexpected final addition to this series of shadowy forces which lurk among us, poised to wreak havoc: America's fiercest enemies are environmentalists themselves. " (page 52)

just sharing an interesting bit of trivia...
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wow interesting thoughts.......so I am not that behiend in the heavy book reading......:).....I feel good.

BTW "coma" is written by Robin Cook, and was directed as a feature film by Michael Crichton.........another fact I though to share.....:)
 
Am reading "The limits to growth: the 30 year update", a book that explains the limitations and downfalls of growth & consumerism based economic model (a.k.a unbridled capitalism). This is an update to the original book that was released in 1972 and compares the reality (30 years later) with the predictions that were made in 1972. Its an interesting but somewhat pessimistic read, especially to know that many of their predictions about the state of world economy & natural resources are becoming true.

gobble said:
Interesting ... good to see what others think about Coehlo - I tried reading a famous Coehlo book (can't recall which) and certainly found it to be downright silly and retarded - could not go beyond the few few chapters. What a waste of time!! Whatever he thinks he wants to teach the world, there are bound to be better thinkers about it (you only have to search) - that was my closing thought when I closed his book for good. I don't know why the pulp world celebrates him .

Cheers
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gobble, +1 to your thoughts on Coelho. I was gifted "The Alchemist" by a friend of mine and to be honest, I found the book to be shallow in terms of depth and complicated in terms of prose and continuity. After reading it, all i thought was that the message "follow your dream" could have been said in much more simpler and engaging ways.
 
No offense taken Alcy.With both Alchemist and Zen I stopped reading after the first 30 odd pages as I found both the prose as well as the ideas in these books quite superficial.However I may have been too hasty in my judgement of Zen and will try to read it again and then post a more elaborate review.
Some books I enjoyed reading from the recent decades-
Cloud Atlas/David Mitchell
Saturday/Ian McEwan
Notes on a Scandal/Zoe Heller
My Name Is Red/Orhan Pamuk
Broken April/Ismail Kadare
Sea of Poppies/Amitav Ghosh
To Know A Woman/Amos Oz
Slowman/J M Coetzee
The Reluctant Fundamentalist/Mohsin Hamid
The Way To Paradise/Mario Vargas Llosa
 
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