Books I have read of late
Guns Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
If you read one book this year, it shoud be this one. It's utterly amazing and has made me a far better person. The book attempts to explain why it is that Eurasian civilizations have been so advanced for so much of history and currently dominate the world, whereas New World and African societies have tended to be a lot more primitive. The complete work is very convincing and also enthralling, explaining a lot about the world and full of interesting tidbits of human history. If you want to know why so many diseases arose in the Old World (consider Spaniards wiping out American civilizations with influenza), who developed farming and why China never discovered the Americas, pick this book up. I can't recommend it enough.
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
I don't think I'm much of a fan of Vonnegut overall. Something about his writing style just frustrates me - I think perhaps it's too postmodern. I like plots whereas Vonnegut seems to paint very long tableaus. I suppose I am a traditionalist in that I want something to actually happen in the books I read.
A Scanner Darkly - Philip Dick
I really enjoyed this book too. Drugs! Spies! Awesomes! I would write more, but now I am horribly tired. I had high expectations for this book, and I think it lived up to them, so now I am happy.
I am now reading Hermann Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game". So far, it is weird. :D
If you read one book this year, it shoud be this one. It's utterly amazing and has made me a far better person. The book attempts to explain why it is that Eurasian civilizations have been so advanced for so much of history and currently dominate the world, whereas New World and African societies have tended to be a lot more primitive. The complete work is very convincing and also enthralling, explaining a lot about the world and full of interesting tidbits of human history. If you want to know why so many diseases arose in the Old World (consider Spaniards wiping out American civilizations with influenza), who developed farming and why China never discovered the Americas, pick this book up. I can't recommend it enough.
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
I don't think I'm much of a fan of Vonnegut overall. Something about his writing style just frustrates me - I think perhaps it's too postmodern. I like plots whereas Vonnegut seems to paint very long tableaus. I suppose I am a traditionalist in that I want something to actually happen in the books I read.
A Scanner Darkly - Philip Dick
I really enjoyed this book too. Drugs! Spies! Awesomes! I would write more, but now I am horribly tired. I had high expectations for this book, and I think it lived up to them, so now I am happy.
I am now reading Hermann Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game". So far, it is weird. :D