Hergest Ridge

Reading Corner

Last updated on February 9, 2010.

What’s great about standing on the shoulders of giants, is that you don’t have to reach very far to get at high places.

Books In Progress

blink by Malcolm Gladwell
No Logo by Naomi Klein

Books on My Future Reading Short List

Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
Coming Up For Air by George Orwell
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Pig Who Sang to the Moon (ISBN-10 0-345-45282-8)
by Jeffery Moussaieff Masson
Euclid’s Elements Book I
Atheist Universe by David Mills
The Lion Children by Angus, Maisie and Travers McNeicie
Red Strangers by Elspeth Huxley
Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations by John Diamond

Completed in 2010

Lust in Translation by Pamela Druckerman
“This practice [infidelity] is still so common that men who pay girls rent in exchange for sex are dubbed “minister of housing,” those who pay for school and university are referred to as “minister of education,” and of course the “minister of communication” loads airtime on their cellphones. (Men who buy food are known simply as “lunch boys.”)”

Completed in 2009

A Year in Merde by Stephen Clarke
“Paris is, I was beginning to realize, a bit like an ocean. An ocean is a great place to live if you’re a shark. There’s loads of fresh seafood, and if anyone gives you shit you just bite them in half. You might not be loved by everyone, but you’ll be left in peace to enjoy yourself.”

Completed in 2008

Juicy Pens | Thirsty Paper by Sark
“How bad can you get? Let yourself write something really bad and boring. This puts you past your fear of writing ‘badly.’”
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.
I’ll Tell You a Secret by Anne Coleman
“I feel as if I’m advancing towards a cliff and I’m going to fall over it. I can’t stop what is going to happen. It’s my doom…”
New Rules (ISBN 978-1-59486-295-3) by Bill Maher
No McDonald’s in hospitals. You’re doctors. You’re not supposed to be in the “repeat business” business.
The Varieties of Scientific Experience
(ISBN 978-0-14-311262-4) by Carl Sagan
The Picture of Dorian Gray (ISBN 978-1-57912-474-8) by Oscar Wilde
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
Breakfast of Champions (ISBN 0-385-33420-) by Kurt Vonnegut
1492. “The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions and millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which the sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.”
In Defense of Atheism (ISBN 0-14-305057-5) by Michel Onfray
Human credulity is beyond imagining. Man’s refusal to see the obvious, his longing for a better deal even if it is based on pure fiction, his determination to remain blind have no limits.
The Screwtape Letters (ISBN 0-06-065293-4) by C.S. Lewis
“If people knew how much ill-feeling Unselfishness occasions, it would not be so often recommended from the pulpit.”
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
(ISBN 978-0-676-97800-1) by Naomi Klein
“We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.” — George Orwell
There were no colours…
Timequake (ISBN 0-425-16434-9) by Kurt Vonnegut
“At 2:27 P.M. on February 13th of the year 2001, the Universe suffered a crisis in self-confidence. Should it go on expanding indefinitely? What was the point?”
Trout’s Genesis

Completed in 2007

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (ISBN 0743422000) by Kurt Vonnengut
“Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt.”
American Fascists (ISBN 0-7432-8443-7) by Chris Hedges
Tolerance is a virtue, but coupled with passivity is a vice.
God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchins
Slaughterhouse-Five (ISBN 0-440-18029-5) by Kurt Vonnegut
So it goes.
Miraculous long steel tubes.
Brave New World (ISBN 978-0-307-35654-3) by Aldous Huxley
Happiness is a hard master – particularly other people’s happiness.
A Clockwork Orange (ISBN 0-14-118260-1) by Anthony Burgess
Choice is a wonderful thing. ‘What’s it going to be then, eh?‘
SHAM (ISBN 978-1-4000-5410-7) by Steve Salerno
How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless
My beliefs stand affirmed: Self-Help in general is a New-Wage religion, polytheism in clever disguise.
Fahrenheit 451 (ISBN-13 978-0-345-34296-6) by Ray Bradbury
“Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.”
The Plague (ISBN 0-140-01472-1) by Albert Camus
On one level, the book is a straightforward narrative – on another, a symbol of the Nazi occupations. A classic, winner of the 1947′s Prix winner.
Breaking the Spell (ISBN 0-670-03472-X) by Daniel C. Dennett
Nineteen Eighty-Four (ISBN 0-19-818521-9) by George Orwell
“It is a great book, but I pray I may be spared from reading another like it for years to come.” — Fredric J. Warburg
The God Delusion (ISBN 0-618-68000-4) by Richard Dawkins
A catalyst for my recent obsession with biology, theism, and philosophy. Read twice in six months since release.
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
Quick read with a self explanatory title.
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Short classic for a quiet afternoon, well worth the read.
The Devil’s Chaplain by Richard Dawkins
A collection of essays, forewords, and letters by Dawkins.
End of Faith (ISBN 0-393-32765-5) by Sam Harris
Brings up good issues, although I disagree with Sam on how to resolve them.
Larry’s Party by Carol Shields