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Post by janetcatbird on Apr 2, 2006 14:11:53 GMT -5
Copied from another postFor those interested, the Daily Show website now has a section on the authors who've appeared on different episodes. They just started it so it doesn't go far back, but a good name/title check, a couple links. "What's the name of the guy with the book about the thing?"... www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/authors/index.jhtml"You are reading this because a) you can read, and b) you like to read. And because you saw a guest on the Daily Show talking about a book, and you said, "I can read, I like to read, and I might like to read that book." That's why we've gathered information about the book-related guests on the Daily Show, and packaged it up all nice and pretty for you. You're welcome." OK, OriginalOver the summer I read one of Jim Wallis's early books, "Who Speaks for God?" when he criticizes the right-wing conservative party for hijacking morality and religion and perverting its messages. I really would like to read "God's Politics", one that came out a year or so ago. I've read bits and pieces of Jimmy Carter's latest "Our Endangered Values", again on that theme. Not that I'm trying to dominate with politics. If people find really cool historical accounts, biographies, etc, throw em up here! I thought "Galileo's Daughter" by Dava Sobel was extremely fascinating. --Catbird
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Post by trisha on Apr 3, 2006 22:13:54 GMT -5
I like non-fiction I just bought Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy. I just loved the cover and the tag line, "The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century." I also love to hear republican's rip into this administration, because there's none of that partisan taint that makes it feel like part fact/part propaganda -- you know, not true, but truthy. I want no part of truthiness ... except when it comes from Colbert. Then I'm obsessed with it ;D
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deb
Rookie
Posts: 41
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Post by deb on Apr 3, 2006 22:25:57 GMT -5
I'm a big Science Fantasy nut and Murder Mystery nut and Psychological Mystery nut. Ok, so I like to read AND I'm a nut!!! Haven't been able to do much of this type of reading of late, however. I'm about a year away from getting my Bachelor of Science degree - school part-time, work full-time, childrearing hardly at all since he's away at college - so I get to read text books only. Not fun reading, believe me. You guys PLEASE keep me posted on who's good so I'll have plenty to choose from when I've actually got the time for some light reading!!!
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Post by kdelarosa22 on May 20, 2006 22:42:13 GMT -5
We all seem to like the same kinds of books. Have any of ya'll read Sarah Vowell. Assasination Vaction ect? or Freakonomics? I am also really behind in my reading. I have read all of Molly Ivins books. I saw someone mentioned Hightower. Deb, for sci fi I have a great series to recommend. It is by Diana Gabaldon and it is the Outlander series. It is so great. They are all in paperback so they wont cost a lot. You may even be able to get a used one off amazon. Also Wheel Of Time by Robert Jordan. I am about to start Jim Hightower's " If the Gods Had meant us to Vote They woiuld have given us candidates" I think I have just given my nerd bona fides.
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Post by saharatea on Oct 23, 2006 10:54:10 GMT -5
Freakonomics was great! If you like it, you'd like Malcolm Gladwell's The TIpping Point and Blink...both heavy on stats and mind blowing on their implications. I also recommend the books Devil in the White City and Isaac's Storm, both non fiction classics (I think the author is Erik Larson). Truth really can be scarier than fiction!
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Post by Sirenna on Oct 23, 2006 19:47:13 GMT -5
I liked Bill Clinton's biography. I didn't believe a word of it but it was highly entertaining. ;D (Did stand out in the rain in front of a Yorkville Chapter's bookstore, just to see him get ready for a signing though. Sadly not my copy which was borrowed months later. Along that thought, I remember noticing, even from way back where I was doing the tiptoe sway, that he looked really really red in the face. Sure enough, he needed a by-pass nary a month or so later.) I've always found non-fiction to be a pack of bloody lies i.e truthy and fiction to be far closer to the truth. See anything by Rohinton Mistry.
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Post by janetcatbird on Nov 10, 2006 20:26:18 GMT -5
Wow, saharatea, you just rattled off our family's vacation reading list! This past August at the beach Daddy had Blink and The Tipping Point (it was his chance to catch up on reading) and was very intrigued. He literally passed the book over to me and said "Here, read the chapter on Sesame Street". Mama had The Devil in the White City and absolutely loved it, normally she doesn't go for non-fiction but loved his presentation.
--Catbird
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spits
Detective
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Post by spits on Dec 22, 2006 23:09:28 GMT -5
I'm on a non-fiction kick myself - I'm very interested in global warming (and science in general) and also lately the water crisis. For anyone else interested in this subject, I would recommend the following:
Global warming: Fields Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore
Climate change: Frozen Earth by Douglas Macdougall Winds of Change (climate change + the fall of civilizations) by Eugene Linden Snowball Earth by Gabrielle Walker
Water: Water by Marq de Villiers
Other science related books that I like: Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan A Crack at the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester
Thanks for the suggestions - a lot of them are very different from than what I usually read and I look forward to giving them a go!
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Post by member727 on Dec 23, 2006 5:31:27 GMT -5
I like non-fiction I just bought Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy. I just loved the cover and the tag line, "The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century." I also love to hear republican's rip into this administration, because there's none of that partisan taint that makes it feel like part fact/part propaganda -- you know, not true, but truthy. I want no part of truthiness ... except when it comes from Colbert. Then I'm obsessed with it ;D I tried to get that one at my local library; they didn't have it, but I did get American Dynasty, which was fascinating reading Currently trying to cut down my to-read pile (or piles; if I put all my as-yet-unread books into a single stack, it'd be taller than I am ;D), and dividing my time between Domestic Architecture from 1500 to the Present, and Andrew Joynes' Medieval Ghost Stories, which is a great reference piece. Some of the stories give a whole new definition to the word 'dodgy', but some of them are quite interesting. And as a bonus, they're nice and short!
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Post by happydancer4 on Dec 26, 2006 18:36:35 GMT -5
I read a lot of true crime, thus L&0 has a natural appeal to me. The authors I prefer don't glamorize the seedy aspects of the cases. My favorite is Anne Rule, a prolific writer. She wrote The Stranger Beside Me, about Ted Bundy. She volunteered with him on a suicide help line, of course not knowing the other side of him. Green River Running Red is her long-awaited book about the Green River serial killer. She will not finish and publish a book unless a case has gone through a complete trial. As a result, she waited almost two decades to publish Green River Running Red. A good book written by an NYPD detective, and a good writer who has an English degree from Harvard, is Blue Blood by Edward Conlon. John Douglas, Robert Reesler and some others who were part of the FBI team that developed criminal profiling have written interesting books on the topic. Some think Douglas is egotistical. I've heard some think the same of Goren's character. Oh well. Outside of that, I read some science fiction. Maybe I should put that in the other category. See you there
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Post by Patcat on Dec 26, 2006 23:29:00 GMT -5
BLUE BLOOD is an excellent book--I highly recommend it.
Patcat
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Post by SarahIvy on Dec 27, 2006 1:37:08 GMT -5
Oooh, The Devil in the White City is a fantastic book! I had myself a little kick of obsessively reading books about dead bodies, the best of the bunch being: Stiff, by Mary Roach Body Brokers: Inside America's Underground Trade in Human Remains, by Annie Cheney A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in 19th Century America, by Michael Sappol Oh, the by far the best NF book I've read of late: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, by John Krakauer I truly could not put it down. Fascinating stuff. Speaking of the original link to the Daily Show's book page, here are a couple by folks I love who were on this past Fall that I would highly recommend: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, by Amy Sedaris (I want to be her when I grow up ) Don't Get Too Comfortable, by David Rakoff (he's hilarious, sort of a more social/political David Sedaris)
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Post by Sirenna on Dec 27, 2006 9:15:46 GMT -5
Your first couple of choices there make me see why you're drawn to LO:ci, SarahIvy. One of these these days books will come with the 'scratch 'n sniff' feature!
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Post by member727 on Dec 27, 2006 19:30:39 GMT -5
"And this is what the body smelt like after two weeks in the sun..."
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Post by happydancer4 on Dec 29, 2006 13:55:14 GMT -5
I think those true crime books you list look interesting, SarahIvy. I stumbled onto this book at amazon: True Stories of Law & Order: The Real Crimes Behind the Best Episodes of the Hit TV Show (Paperback) A few years ago, my local Barnes & Noble had a true crime reading group. The running joke in the group was that every new person had to read this book everyone thought of as awful (or maybe salacious) and then get rid of it. It was a really nasty case. It involved Carla Holmolka and Paul Bernardo. Very disgusting and depraved acts. Some other true crime books I read while in the group and afterward: Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder about a college girl who kills her roommate Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story Of A Doctor Who Got Away With Murder (Paperback) by James B. Stewart Very good**** Speaking of depravity and such, you all may be interested in the research of this forensic psychiatrist. He's attempting to get standardized definitions of words like depraved and heinous so that juries have more guidance, etc. You can participate if you are interested. His site is: depravityscale.org/depscale/
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