| Author |
Message |
Jim Ward
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 9:55 pm
Post subject: Re: When semioticists attack (was: Book recommendations for |
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On 7 Nov 2004 20:14:27 -0800, R H Draney <dadoctah@spamcop.net> wrote:
| Quote: | Ross Howard filted:
I can say that I was, at worst, disappointed by "Foucault"...to a greater extent
than "Rose", the story didn't end, it just "stopped happening"...ultimately, it
was a clever premise that didn't prove out as narrative...but I disagree that
Eco's going downhill with each book; "The Island of the Day Before" held my
interest better than either of its precursors....
Haven't had a chance to finish "Baudolino" yet...things are literally piling up
here
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I got halfway through "Foucault" and gave up -I agree it was a mess.
Let us know how you like "Baudolino". I so wish Eco would get back
onto his stride, he can be entertaining.
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Jim Ward
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 10:17 pm
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
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On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 17:03:55 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle
<harvey.news@ntlworld.com> wrote:
| Quote: | On 07 Nov 2004, Laura F Spira wrote
-snip-
My *worst* factual book of the year has to be Galileo's Finger by
Peter Atkins which I found disappointingly unreadable.
The worst one I tried was Melvyn Bragg on the "Adventure" of English,
which I purchased for "train reading" on a short break to Lille.
Gobstoppingly amateurish.
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What does gobstop mean? It's not at onelook.com. |
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the Omrud
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 10:48 pm
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
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Jim Ward typed thus:
| Quote: | On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 17:03:55 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle
harvey.news@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 07 Nov 2004, Laura F Spira wrote
-snip-
My *worst* factual book of the year has to be Galileo's Finger by
Peter Atkins which I found disappointingly unreadable.
The worst one I tried was Melvyn Bragg on the "Adventure" of English,
which I purchased for "train reading" on a short break to Lille.
Gobstoppingly amateurish.
What does gobstop mean? It's not at onelook.com.
|
This is not a standard phrase, but I think I know what he meant.
"Gob" is "mouth". A "gobstopper" is a very large spherical sweet
(piece of candy), barely smaller than a golf ball; this nearly fills
(stops) your mouth and changes colour as you suck off the layers.
"Gobstoppingly" presumably means that the book was so bad he couldn't
speak.
BTW although the noun "gob" means "mouth" (shut your gob or I'll shut
it for you), it also means "spittle", and the verb "to gob" means "to
spit" (never gob to windward).
--
David
=====
replace the first component of address
with the definite article.
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Jim Ward
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 11:01 pm
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
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On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 15:24:00 +0000, Laura F Spira
<laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote:
| Quote: | I'd be grateful for recommendations of good science
writing, accessible to the person whose knowledge of physics and
chemistry ended at O level 40 years ago!
|
As I get older, I find non-fiction is easier to select than fiction,
because I know my tastes. New fiction is harder to judge, and when I
find an author I like, I pounce like a hungry carcajou, devouring
their entire oeuvre. Plus my friends are reading less and watching
more TV so they can't reccommend. |
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 11:03 pm
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
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On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 15:48:46 -0000, the Omrud <usenet.omrud@gmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | Jim Ward typed thus:
On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 17:03:55 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle
harvey.news@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 07 Nov 2004, Laura F Spira wrote
-snip-
My *worst* factual book of the year has to be Galileo's Finger by
Peter Atkins which I found disappointingly unreadable.
The worst one I tried was Melvyn Bragg on the "Adventure" of English,
which I purchased for "train reading" on a short break to Lille.
Gobstoppingly amateurish.
What does gobstop mean? It's not at onelook.com.
This is not a standard phrase, but I think I know what he meant.
"Gob" is "mouth". A "gobstopper" is a very large spherical sweet
(piece of candy), barely smaller than a golf ball; this nearly fills
(stops) your mouth and changes colour as you suck off the layers.
"Gobstoppingly" presumably means that the book was so bad he couldn't
speak.
BTW although the noun "gob" means "mouth" (shut your gob or I'll shut
it for you), it also means "spittle", and the verb "to gob" means "to
spit" (never gob to windward).
|
"Gob" is also used to mean a sailor in the US Navy.
While "gob" usually means "mouth", it's also used to mean the entire
face when it appears as "ugly gob". |
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Harvey Van Sickle
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 11:45 pm
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
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On 08 Nov 2004, the Omrud wrote
| Quote: | Jim Ward typed thus:
On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 17:03:55 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle
harvey.news@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 07 Nov 2004, Laura F Spira wrote
-snip-
My *worst* factual book of the year has to be Galileo's Finger
by Peter Atkins which I found disappointingly unreadable.
The worst one I tried was Melvyn Bragg on the "Adventure" of
English, which I purchased for "train reading" on a short break
to Lille.
Gobstoppingly amateurish.
What does gobstop mean? It's not at onelook.com.
This is not a standard phrase, but I think I know what he meant.
"Gob" is "mouth". A "gobstopper" is a very large spherical sweet
(piece of candy), barely smaller than a golf ball; this nearly
fills (stops) your mouth and changes colour as you suck off the
layers. "Gobstoppingly" presumably means that the book was so bad
he couldn't speak.
|
I'm not sure what word was in the back of my brain when I wrote that --
probably a cross between gobsmacked and something else -- "but so
shockingly bad that words fail" is precisely what I meant.
(Now that I've woken up "gobstoppingly", though, I may just keep the
little critter around for a while.)
--
Cheers, Harvey
Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 22 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van) |
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Mickwick
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 11:51 pm
Post subject: Same root, different beast [was: Book recommendations for Ch |
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In alt.usage.english, Jim Ward wrote:
| Quote: | On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 15:24:00 +0000, Laura F Spira
I'd be grateful for recommendations of good science
writing, accessible to the person whose knowledge of physics and
chemistry ended at O level 40 years ago!
|
The Skeptical [sic] Environmentalist? (Flawed but fun.)
Guns, Germs and Steel? (Sometimes almost too basic. He repeats
everything about ten times.)
| Quote: | As I get older, I find non-fiction is easier to select than fiction,
because I know my tastes. New fiction is harder to judge, and when I
find an author I like, I pounce like a hungry carcajou, devouring
their entire oeuvre.
|
Glutton!
The NSOED says carcajou comes from the same Ojibwa word as quickhatch,
as does kinkajou, an entirely unrelated and much cuddlier animal that
lives nowhere near Ojibwa territory.
In British boys' comics in the '60s, the wolverine was portrayed as the
most ferocious animal in the world and, pound for pound, the most
dangerous to man. They were always gnawing their own legs off to chase
after terrified trappers and hurl themselves at their (the trappers')
necks, like those kamikaze sheep in the Jabberwocky film.
Er, that's it. I don't know anything else about wolverines. (Do they
really eat oeuvres? Doesn't very ferocious.)
| Quote: | Plus my friends are reading less and watching more TV so they can't
reccommend.
|
--
Mickwick |
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Ross Howard
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 3:48 am
Post subject: Re: Same root, different beast [was: Book recommendations fo |
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On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:51:33 +0000, Mickwick <mickwick@use.reply.to>
wrought:
| Quote: | In alt.usage.english, Jim Ward wrote:
On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 15:24:00 +0000, Laura F Spira
I'd be grateful for recommendations of good science
writing, accessible to the person whose knowledge of physics and
chemistry ended at O level 40 years ago!
The Skeptical [sic] Environmentalist? (Flawed but fun.)
Guns, Germs and Steel? (Sometimes almost too basic. He repeats
everything about ten times.)
|
Yes, I gave up on it about half way though, bored numb by all the
sledgehammer repetition. Its basic premise was interesting enough, but
it could have been covered quite adequately at no greater length than
that of the average *New Scientist* feature article. As it is, reading
it was like watching one of those infuriating documentaries (hi,
History Channel!) that recap all the previous material every eight
minutes.
--
Ross Howard |
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Richard Chambers
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 4:30 am
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
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"Laura F Spira" <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote
| Quote: | [ ... ] I'd be grateful for recommendations of good science
writing, accessible to the person whose knowledge of physics and
chemistry ended at O level 40 years ago!
|
Thank you, Laura, for your recommendations.
Even though I am a physicist/electrical engineer myself, I cannot think of a
book on physics in the style that you are asking for. In Biology, I would
recommend the popular books by Richard Dawkins, such as "The Selfish Gene".
This is a very readable popular explanation of the theory of natural
selection. But I suspect that you have probably already read that one -
nearly everybody has.
In computer science, I would recommend one of the many excellent books on
Fractals, such as "The Beauty of Fractals" by H O Peitgen (going by memory -
I do not have a copy of the book to hand). A fractal is an infinitely
convoluted surface or boundary. A good everyday example of a near-fractal is
the lung, with a cubic capacity of (I'm guessing) 2 litres, but because its
surface is so convoluted it has a surface area equal to that of a tennis
court. This convolution is essential for the efficient working of the lung,
because you need the large surface area so that the lungs can take in oxygen
at the rate required to sustain your bodily activities. The new (well,
mostly 1990s) Fractal Science can simulate many different types of fractal
as computer images. Some of these images are stunningly beautiful, and the
book is worth reading just for the pictures alone.
For an entertaining introduction to a few selected aspects of mathematics,
it would be difficult to find anything that betters the novel that I
recommended in my original posting (The curious incident of the dog in the
night-time, by Mark Haddon). He has the knack of posing a mathematical
problem in terms that you can understand, and really getting you interested
in solving it. An excellent cure for even the most entrenched
mathematicophobe.
Richard Chambers Leeds UK. |
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Jess Askin
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:14 am
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
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|
"Richard Chambers" <richard.chambers7@NOSPAMntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:5hqjd.123$ug3.75@newsfe1-win.ntli.net...
| Quote: | At this time of year, I start to think about buying at least one book for
myself, under the pretext that it is a Christmas present for my wife.
I would be glad to receive your recommendations on which books to buy. I
get
confused very easily by too many recommendations from the same
contributor,
so I ask you please to recommend a maximum of two books per person, as
follows:-
a. One recommendation for the best fiction you have read this year
(alternatively, the best fiction you have read in your lifetime).
|
Best novel I (re-)read this year was Pride and Prejudice. Best recent novel:
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. A ferocious book, deeply compassionate
about the screwball, but not atypical, family it documents.
If you like crime novels, don't miss Scott Turow's Reversible Errors -- his
best yet, IMHO. Mystic River is also really good.
Best all-time novel? Well Pride and Prejudice is pretty hard to beat. Bleak
House would also make my top ten. Ulysses. A Handful of Dust. Framley
Parsonage. The Wings of the Dove. The Custom of the Country. Madame Bovary.
Cousine Bette. The Secret Agent.
| Quote: | b. One recommendation for the best factual book you have read this year
(with the same alternative as above).
|
Best 2004 non-fiction: Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow. Really
comprehensive, and a good read.
Going back a couple years, Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich (2002),
about the MIT kids who took the casinos to the cleaners. A real page-turner.
Going back even further, The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner (1994).
Best all-time non-fiction? Geez! I dunno... Shelley Winters's autobiography.
| Quote: | In both cases, a brief synopsis, and an explanation of why you liked the
book, would help me (and other readers) to decide whether it is "my sort
of
book".
My own contribution:-
----------------------------------------------------
Fiction.
"The curious incident of the dog in the night-time", by Mark Haddon.
Jonathan Cape, 2003.
The story of a few months in the life of a teenager who suffers from
Asperger's Syndrome, written from his own point of view. Autism comes in
varying degrees of seriousness. At the milder end of the spectrum, we
have
Asperger's Syndrome. The sufferer can sometimes be highly intelligent,
even
near-genius within a relatively narrow field, but psychologically is a
near
cripple because of his inability to form relationships with other people.
This may include an inability to form a relationship even with his own
parents, The condition also makes it impossible for the sufferer to
understand any point of view but his own, and often includes obsessive
behaviour. We follow the young man as his behaviour causes havoc to all
around him.
I liked the book because it alternated unpredicably between the very funny
and the extremely sad. An unusual novel, in that it introduced various
extraneous subjects that the young man was interested in, such as Chaos
Theory, Mathematical Probability Analysis, etc. The author did this very
cleverly, so that an intelligent lay reader could easily understand. The
novel therefore provides an entertaining introduction of the reader to a
variety of subjects that he has probably never studied before. The novel
is
both intelligent and entertaining.
|
First-rate. Definitely a remarkable achievement. It was billed as a
detective story, though, which it really isn't.
| Quote: | -----
Factual
"The making of the English working class", by E P Thompson. Penguin Books.
A 935-page history of the turbulent period from 1780 to 1832, when England
started its long drawn-out industrial revolution. A time of perpetual
near-revolution by the workers, restrained by frequent repression by the
government. Government spies keeping their eyes on agitators. Riots.
Subversion by the disaffected during the war against Napoleon Bonaparte.
The
disgraceful Peterloo incident, in which several peaceful demonstrators,
demanding the right to vote, were cut down when the cavalry rode in to
break
up the demonstration. Child labour in factories, not very far removed from
actual slavery. The secret night-time meetings and torch light processions
of the Luddites, intent on breaking the machines that they perceived as a
means of denying them a livelihood. The Cato Street Conspiracy and the
attempt to assassinate King George IV.
A ripping yarn. So well written that I found it difficult to put the book
down.
|
It's on Modern Library's list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the 20th
century. I'll move it up my own wish list based on your recommendation. |
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Jess Askin
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:17 am
Post subject: Re: Same root, different beast [was: Book recommendations fo |
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"Mickwick" <mickwick@use.reply.to> wrote in message
news:NM$KOgBVQ6jBFwGl@shropshire.plus.com...
| Quote: | In alt.usage.english, Jim Ward wrote:
On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 15:24:00 +0000, Laura F Spira
I'd be grateful for recommendations of good science
writing, accessible to the person whose knowledge of physics and
chemistry ended at O level 40 years ago!
The Skeptical [sic] Environmentalist? (Flawed but fun.)
Guns, Germs and Steel? (Sometimes almost too basic. He repeats
everything about ten times.)
|
And gets a little carried away with his theory. It works a lot better for
the pre-historic period, possibly because they aren't around to explain
themselves. |
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Jess Askin
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:21 am
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
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"Laura F Spira" <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote in message
news:418E3E10.3070202@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk...
| Quote: | Richard Chambers wrote:
[..]
a. One recommendation for the best fiction you have read this year
(alternatively, the best fiction you have read in your lifetime).
The two pieces of fiction that have made the greatest impression on me
recently are:
The Minotaur takes a Cigarette Break, Steven Sherill, Canongate 2004
- which I thought addressed the problems of being an outsider in a very
insightful and quite extraordinary way. The Minotaur has somehow become
what I think is called a short-order cook, in a diner but no-one seems
very surprised by this. The difficulties he has in daily life -
problems with accidental damage by his horns, for example, and hang-ups
about his past - could have been farcical but are told in a way that I
found very moving.
Sunset over Chocolate Mountains by Susan Elderkin, 4th Estate 2000
I loved this, another tale of misfits, set partly among the saguaro
cactus (for which I have a great affection) in Arizona, full of quaint
characters, who display great humanity, and live lives full of
belief-stretching coincidences. Reminded me of early Anne Tyler.
(Oddly, both of these books were chance finds, the makeweights in "3 for
2" offers where the other books were those I had specifically wanted to
read.)
b. One recommendation for the best factual book you have read this year
(with the same alternative as above).
I'm reading Binyon's "Pushkin" (Harper Collins, 2003) at the moment and
think that will be the best but I was greatly impressed by
The Rhetoric of Economics by Deirdre McCloskey (University of Wisconsin
1998). McCloskey analyses the rhetorical tropes used by economists in
advancing their arguments in a way that offers a fresh perspective on
academic writing. (She used to be Donald McCloskey and I look forward to
reading her memoir "Crossing" which tells about her gender change.)
My *worst* factual book of the year has to be Galileo's Finger by Peter
Atkins which I found disappointingly unreadable. I really wanted to know
about the ten great ideas of science but I found Atkins' writing style
very irritating as he keeps referring to what has yet to come in
subsequent chapters. I'd be grateful for recommendations of good science
writing, accessible to the person whose knowledge of physics and
chemistry ended at O level 40 years ago!
|
In natural history/theory of evolution, you just can't beat The Beak of the
Finch by Jonathan Weiner. But in general, it's really hard to find good
science books for the lay person. Most of them either assume you're an idiot
or that you already have a PhD in their subject. |
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Jess Askin
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:23 am
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
|
|
"Richard Chambers" <richard.chambers7@NOSPAMntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:5hqjd.123$ug3.75@newsfe1-win.ntli.net...
| Quote: | At this time of year, I start to think about buying at least one book for
myself, under the pretext that it is a Christmas present for my wife.
I would be glad to receive your recommendations on which books to buy. I
get
confused very easily by too many recommendations from the same
contributor,
so I ask you please to recommend a maximum of two books per person, as
follows:-
a. One recommendation for the best fiction you have read this year
(alternatively, the best fiction you have read in your lifetime).
b. One recommendation for the best factual book you have read this year
(with the same alternative as above).
|
One more title -- Running with Scissors, a memoir by Augusten Burroughs. If
you thought *you* had a weird childhood.... |
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Laura F Spira
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 4:00 pm
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
|
|
Richard Chambers wrote:
| Quote: | "Laura F Spira" <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote
[ ... ] I'd be grateful for recommendations of good science
writing, accessible to the person whose knowledge of physics and
chemistry ended at O level 40 years ago!
Thank you, Laura, for your recommendations.
|
My pleasure.
| Quote: |
Even though I am a physicist/electrical engineer myself, I cannot think of a
book on physics in the style that you are asking for. In Biology, I would
recommend the popular books by Richard Dawkins, such as "The Selfish Gene".
This is a very readable popular explanation of the theory of natural
selection. But I suspect that you have probably already read that one -
nearly everybody has.
|
Yes, I've read quite a bit of Dawkins and Matt ??? who is also readable.
| Quote: |
In computer science, I would recommend one of the many excellent books on
Fractals, such as "The Beauty of Fractals" by H O Peitgen (going by memory -
I do not have a copy of the book to hand). A fractal is an infinitely
convoluted surface or boundary. A good everyday example of a near-fractal is
the lung, with a cubic capacity of (I'm guessing) 2 litres, but because its
surface is so convoluted it has a surface area equal to that of a tennis
court. This convolution is essential for the efficient working of the lung,
because you need the large surface area so that the lungs can take in oxygen
at the rate required to sustain your bodily activities. The new (well,
mostly 1990s) Fractal Science can simulate many different types of fractal
as computer images. Some of these images are stunningly beautiful, and the
book is worth reading just for the pictures alone.
|
A most fortuitous recommendation - might help me to understand the
student who has enquired about doing a PhD relating fractals to the
Capital Asset Pricing Model.
| Quote: |
For an entertaining introduction to a few selected aspects of mathematics,
it would be difficult to find anything that betters the novel that I
recommended in my original posting (The curious incident of the dog in the
night-time, by Mark Haddon). He has the knack of posing a mathematical
problem in terms that you can understand, and really getting you interested
in solving it. An excellent cure for even the most entrenched
mathematicophobe.
|
Yes, I enjoyed the book. I heard it read on Radio 4 and wasn't going to
bother reading it but I'm very glad I did as, although the reading was
excellent, the mathematical bits were pretty much excised.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email) |
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dcw
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:02 pm
Post subject: Re: Book recommendations for Christmas and 2005. |
|
|
In article <41908725.1060204@dragonspira.fsbusiness.co.uk>,
Laura F Spira <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote:
| Quote: | Yes, I've read quite a bit of Dawkins and Matt ??? who is also readable.
|
Ridley.
David |
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