Books
I finished Things Fall Apart and am now reading Lord Alton's The History of Freedom and other essays. These are long essays but Alton was a eloquent and erudite reporter of history and his history, unlike many or most lacks no continuity - you can see where he's been and where he's at at any point and there are some surprises in the future in his story of freedom, never quite winning out but always striving. And one very clear point he makes is that democracy and freedom are not the same and many of the worst abuses of freedom have thrived under democracy.
My only real problems is that the essays often cover much the same ground and, as they are long, and they are essays, there are no real rest stops - once you get started on an essay, I feel obliged to read it through to the end.
I'm still reading Chardin and am to the appendices so I'm almost done there.
After I completed How to Speak and Right Correctly, I made a quick trip through the wikibook, Basic Computing Using Windows, which, although a little obsolete (if a computer book is two months old, it's obsolete), is still a good introduction for people who needs to be told to plug the computer in and how to turn it on. It is dense, packing as much information into it's forty-something pages as is possible and covers just about everything a person would need to get up and going with their first computer. Also not an unpleasant read.
So I passed right on to Schaum's Introduction to Psychology, by Arno Wittig. This is another introduction for people who have never been exposed to the topic at hand. Like all Schaum's Outlines, it's no frills (but quite readable), complete in an introductory way, and replete with worked exercises..
Oh, Yes, and I have also finished Roger Zelazny's, A Night in the Lonesome October, after a rather long hiatus. It is a book on tape, read by the author (who was an excellent reader). Here is a tale told by Jack the Ripper's dog of the heroism (yep, that's right) of his illustrious master.
My only real problems is that the essays often cover much the same ground and, as they are long, and they are essays, there are no real rest stops - once you get started on an essay, I feel obliged to read it through to the end.
I'm still reading Chardin and am to the appendices so I'm almost done there.
After I completed How to Speak and Right Correctly, I made a quick trip through the wikibook, Basic Computing Using Windows, which, although a little obsolete (if a computer book is two months old, it's obsolete), is still a good introduction for people who needs to be told to plug the computer in and how to turn it on. It is dense, packing as much information into it's forty-something pages as is possible and covers just about everything a person would need to get up and going with their first computer. Also not an unpleasant read.
So I passed right on to Schaum's Introduction to Psychology, by Arno Wittig. This is another introduction for people who have never been exposed to the topic at hand. Like all Schaum's Outlines, it's no frills (but quite readable), complete in an introductory way, and replete with worked exercises..
Oh, Yes, and I have also finished Roger Zelazny's, A Night in the Lonesome October, after a rather long hiatus. It is a book on tape, read by the author (who was an excellent reader). Here is a tale told by Jack the Ripper's dog of the heroism (yep, that's right) of his illustrious master.