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Post by marle on Nov 13, 2012 22:51:36 GMT -5
Began reading Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update by Donella and Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers. Reading The Phenomenon of Man has gotten me thinking about what the last phase of humanity might look like. Limits to Growth deals with the question of how our resources are limited, what the consequences are, and how we might avert the worst. The authors state in the first chapter that we started overshooting the earth's production capacity in the late 1980s. They also say that if wise choices are made starting now, in the future everyone on earth can have a material standard of living equivalent to one of the poorer European nations. That is an an extremely optimistic scenario, and of course where standards of living start to equalize.
I'm interested in this topic not just to learn how much life is going to suck, but also because I believe a world that is 'closing in on itself' is going to produce dramatic changes in how humans relate to each other and the world around them. It's a New Age or Epoch or whatever you'd like to call it. Unfortunately I am living at the beginning of the overshoot period, where things will get much worse before humanity adapts to a new Age of Balance.
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gaia
New Member
Posts: 9
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Post by gaia on Nov 14, 2012 13:56:24 GMT -5
I'm currently reading 'According to Mary Magdalene' by Marianne Fredriksson. It's quite an interesting read so far, i'm just over half way through it. I do like my historical fiction (though obviously this is based on some research too).
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Post by Karen on Feb 1, 2013 9:53:51 GMT -5
I've recently read or listened to on audio book: 'The House' - by Frank Peretti and someone else I can't be bothered to look up right now. This book was a disappointment. I picked it because I was looking for a good scary book to listen too while I worked. 'The House' started off promisingly enough as a psychological horror, but about three quarters of the way through it began to devolve into some sort of religious drivel. Until at the end it was complete religious claptrap, with the main characters 'repenting their sins' to escape death in the house. Ugh. 'Down a Dark Hallway' - by Lois Duncan. A novel about four girls in a boarding school who find out they were accepted to the school for very different reasons than they imagined. It was an okay novel. Not that suspenseful or exciting, but not bad. 'Fangoria's Dreadtime Stories' (Volume One) - by Max Allen Collins, and various writers. A collection of short stories, fully dramatized on audio book. The collection was pretty good, some of the stories were scary, but none too scary. Usually I don't care for 'fully dramatized' audio books, I always think they come off as silly, but this one was done very well. It was fun to listen too! 'Cinder' - by Marissa Meyer. A very good retelling of Cinderella, where Cinder is a cyborg!! ;D Set in a futuristic, plague ridden, 'New Beijing', on the brink of war! There is little of the cheesy romance you might expect form this sort of book. I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would.
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Post by CharlotteGirl on Feb 4, 2013 7:00:55 GMT -5
The last book I read was A Wind is Blowing. This is the last in a long series of 1950s/60s adventure-type books for children and teenagers by the English writer Monica Edwards and it's rather darker than most of the others. It's about a teenage boy called Meryon who is blinded while trying to prevent a bank raid. As he and his girlfriend Tamzin struggle to accept the shock of this, they attempt amateur training of an ordinary failed sheepdog as a guide dog and communicate between themselves and others via tapes. Then after other unexpected events, they rush to Spain to try and restore his sight. Back in England there is then a final struggle to hand over to the police the man guilty of blinding him.
They all heavily involve horses and ponies but are not really about them as such unlike some others. I read many of the stories as a child, otherwise probably wouldn't know about them, but are good if you want that kind of thing.
For something more adult, one other random book I've liked before is The Opposite of Love by Julie Buxbaum. This is about Emily, a young overworked New York lawyer and how she suffers a breakdown after breaking up with her boyfriend and eventually comes to terms with her life.
Also One Moment, One Morning by Sarah Rayner. Set in Brighton and London, this is about two young women, Karen and Lou, who are suddenly brought together after the death of Karen's husband on a commuter train. They and their friends then try to handle this and other issues they have.
As for non-fiction also have been reading Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube by Andrew Martin, an interesting book about London's transport.
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Post by mottts on Feb 7, 2013 18:16:04 GMT -5
Currently reading Num8ers by Rachel Ward. Great book with my favorite location: London. Also a graphic novel I picked up a few days ago it would've came in handy during my angst years:{P
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Post by Zoe on Mar 24, 2013 6:48:08 GMT -5
Just finished reading a graphic novel called Level Up by Gene Luen Yang. Its a story about an American Born Chinese male who tries to met his parents expectations to be a medical professional when in reality he rather spend time playing video games and the challenges he encounters along the way.
Even though it sounds silly as a platform for a story, the way the tale is told engrosses you to keep reading until you finish the book. I love how the author was able to come full circle with the ending.
By the way, my fellow Librarians......did you know there is a graphic novel called Library Wars?
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Post by Astroruss on Mar 25, 2013 18:06:49 GMT -5
I am currently reading Evidence by Jonathan Kellerman. It's pretty good so far.
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Post by CharlotteGirl on Apr 5, 2013 22:12:10 GMT -5
Just began reading the first in the quite famous Chalet School series by Elinor M.Brent-Dyer, at least to begin with set in a girls-only school in Austria. Also bought on ebay a package of some of the titles in the Trebizon series by Anne Digby, which I read many years ago, these are set in a quite modern English boarding school. I used to collect the Enid Blyton school stories but got rid of almost all of them. Like other childrens' books by the author, never really liked them that much.
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Post by Audio the obscure on May 24, 2013 15:45:43 GMT -5
I just the other evening was reading this at the public library; and it was so interesting to me, I decided to borrow it for home reading:
Malignant Sadness by Lewis Wolpert
The Anatomy of Depression
He talks about (among other chapters) the biological explanations of depression, etc. - the workings of the brain in regard to depression. He talks about the neurotransmitters: serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, etc. What clinched my interest was the part about the prefrontal cortex, which I believe may have played a part in some of the emotional problems I have experienced/still experience in my mental life. He also discusses the amygdala (which I've studied for years) a great deal, which also of course sparked my interest in reading the whole book. I want to really dig in and study this in depth.
I don't do a whole lot of reading per se. I read "in spurts"; and it has to be something I'm really interested in, or I just won't finish it lol. I don't usually read from front to back. I do a lot of skipping around and skimming, especially when it comes to nonfiction. I rarely read fiction books; but I will put one here I've read this year. It was given to me by a lady friend at the bank I do business with in town.
"Heritage of Folly" by Catherine Cookson. It's about a young girl who's studying Agriculture in college, and travels to a farm to get her practicum. Unfortunately, she comes upon an environment similar to the feuding "Hatfields & McCoys (lol). A lot of drama occurs in this book obviously; it was very riveting and one of those "hard to put down" type books (it's a good thing, lol!). Later on in the book, the reader gets the feeling there's romance brewing (what else?! lol), and there's a subtle undertone of that. I don't want to say more just in case someone on here MIGHT be interested in reading it. It was a good read for me, and the ending was not disappointing either:).
Later on I might post the books I've read throughout the years. If there's a specific forum or thread for that, could someone direct me to it? Thanks. Or I might add it in this one later, if nobody minds.
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Post by Scotty on Dec 28, 2013 22:11:27 GMT -5
Since my last post I read the first 3 books in the Mortal Instruments series, and House of Hades from the Heroes of Olympus series.
Currently I've decided that I'm going to reread the Hobbit. It's been ten years or so since I first read it so I felt I need a refresher after seeing the movies.
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Post by Slinky on Dec 29, 2013 16:45:08 GMT -5
Currently making my way through The Hunger Games.
I received The Ocean at the End of the Lane for Christmas, Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors. If not my favourite full-stop.
I also got Sir Alex Ferguson's autobiography, and His Dark Materials trilogy. My next set of books to read!
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Post by Scotty on Mar 25, 2014 18:19:55 GMT -5
I received The Ocean at the End of the Lane for Christmas, Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors. If not my favourite full-stop. I got to listen to the audio book for this on my road trip, it was really good! I'm currently working through the Divergent trilogy, half way through book 2. It's a teen novel so it has the usual flaws that come with that genre, but it's interesting enough and I like the concept.
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Post by marle on May 19, 2014 11:58:07 GMT -5
This might sound a little boring, but right now I'm listening to Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What to do About it. Water has been on my mind a lot recently, probably because I'm drinking more of it now. This book is another reminder of how society is going to have major resources issues in the near future.
The next audiobook I'll listen to will probably be First Life: Discovering the Connections between Stars, Cells, and How Life Began.
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Post by Grayback on May 19, 2014 14:02:18 GMT -5
I've just started reading Dragon Age : The World of Thedas Volume 1 to brush up on my lore before Dragon Age Inquisition comes out. I'm enjoying it so far, it's relatively well written and has nice artwork ( though it's not among the best lore book I've ever read to be honest, that honor goes to Diablo III's Book of Cain and Book of Tyrael ).
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Post by Audio the obscure on Jun 11, 2014 10:21:21 GMT -5
I'm going through several (alternating, lol):
1/Star Trek TNG "Power Hungry" 2/Low Blood Sugar and You by Carlton Fredericks 3/Suffer in Silence (David Reid) - this one is the one I'm most interested in atm. It's about life in the Navy Seals, the training, and so forth. I don't own it. Right now I read it at the bookstore where I go to see the cat. (The proprieter, Debbie, is very nice. She doesn't mind people browsing and reading. All she asks is we put the book back on the shelf once we're done if we're not buying, lol. 4/Before the Fame (Stompin Tom Connors) 5/Help For Your Nerves (got this one last year at one of those city book sales. I paid probably only a buck for it lol. I just devour anything on health, both physical and psychological.
That's about it for now.
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