• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Current Non-Fiction reads

joderu95 said:
What class is that?
Click to expand...
Fund. of Speech Communication 101. I'm writing an informative speech based on our cultural backgrounds. (Heros or Villains) So I picked Szpilman, since my grandfather was a Holocaust survivor.

Yes, Yes! I'm 38 years old and I went back to college.:whistling:
 
Isabell said:
Yes, Yes! I'm 38 years old and I went back to college.:whistling:
Click to expand...

Cool! I'm 32 and was thinking about going for a Master's earlier this year, until I lost my job in a downsizing. (Don't worry, I have a new job now.)

It would be interesting to see how the movie is different from the book.
 
Congratulations to the students! :)

From my huge unread backlog /feeling guilty this morning :sad: /:

A Continent for the Taking - The Tragedy and Hope of Africa by Howard W. French
 
Touching History by Lynn Spencer

Great blow-by-blow behind the scenes account of the events of 9/11.
 
I'm gonna go through another half-dozen or so chapters of Killing Hope: U.S Military and C.I.A. Intervetions Since World War II by William Blum.

I read this one in sections spread out over months because the themes are so repetitive and depressing.
 
Defending Identity by Natan Sharansky. So far (p24), a book whose heart may be in the right place, but which is so sloppily argued, that I can't put it down for all the arguing I do with the author in the margins.
 
Peder said:
Defending Identity by Natan Sharansky. So far (p24), a book whose heart may be in the right place, but which is so sloppily argued, that I can't put it down for all the arguing I do with the author in the margins.
Click to expand...

Examples?
 
peder said:
defending Identity by Natan Sharansky. So Far (p24), A Book Whose Heart May Be In The Right Place, But Which Is So Sloppily Argued, That I Can't Put It Down For All The Arguing I Do With The Author In The Margins.
Click to expand...
Good one! :D
 
sparkchaser said:
Examples?
Click to expand...
I'll probably post a full-fledged review when I am done, but the author's basic premise is that "freedom" and "identity" are frequently seen as antagonistic and he is writing the book to instead argue that "identity is freedom's greatest ally in the struggle against tyranny." Partly it seems like a straw-man argument to me, and partly I think he oversimplifies and is unintentionally sloppy in his enthusiasm for his argument, whatever that may be.
For a specific short example, he asserts flat-out that
"No one seriously questions the benefits of a free society."
Click to expand...
I could wish that were so, but that is not the way I hear it on this side of the Atlantic.
For a specific complicated example I will offer his fondness for antinomies (I think that is the word):
Identity without democracy can become fundamentalist and totalitarian. Democracy without identity can become superficial and meaningless.
Click to expand...
There's enough fighting words and cross-linkages in there to get many an argument going. I tend to regard such statements as just so much baloney -- or political speech -- until the concepts are more clearly described. So, my pencil is vigorously at work in the margins of his book.

Unless it improves, I may just throw it against the wall.
 
Short History of the World Geoffery Blainey

Not sure how accurate it is though ;) but thats what you get when you try to condense thousands of years to hundreds of pages!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top