Wind, Sand and Stars

!http://photos28.flickr.com/37380849_a2291506f9_t.jpg! This book is number 1 on Outside Magazines list of The 25 (Essential) Books for the Well-Read Explorer and National Geographic magazine also named “Wind, Sand and Stars” the third best adventure book of all time. So it had to be good… and turned out to be jaw droppingly amazing. This is not just a book – it’s sheer poetry. See Outside magazine’s review below:

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Eastern Standard Tribe

“!http://photos7.flickr.com/10687155_bb745dd7f6_m.jpg!”:http://craphound.com/est/ This is available online at the “Eastern Standard Tribes book website.”:http://craphound.com/est/ and of course at “Amazon”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765307596/qid=1113505349/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-2115591-5556746.

This is the first book I’ve read by Cary Dotorow, and it’s good stuff. Intelligent, futuristic and a page turner. Sort of post-modern sci-fi with the cyberpunk toned way down. The plot is stretched thin in places but the future speak is spot on. The books short, only about 2 and a half hours long.

There is a fasicination discussion on copyright on the ‘books website’:http://craphound.com/est/000041.html, and links to reviews and discussions about the book etc.

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The Da Vinci Code

‘!http://photos11.flickr.com/12356481_9dd75828a2_t.jpg!’:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385504209/qid=1085423659/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-9814058-1733662?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 Lots of hype about this one. Turns out to be yet another page-turner – decent writing but nothing special. I can see how for some people reading about brain dead sects like Opus Dei can be an eye opener if they hadn’t already heard about them, and Leonardo’s inclinations too for that matter. Hell, even GQ had done a expose of Opus Dei before this book. What was interesting was the author’s take on Leonardo. He was a genius who might have actually followed through with some of his many inventions if it wasn’t for all the running about with the hocuspocus, but Dan Brown makes him out to be completely and utterly obsessed with the Church.

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Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

!http://photos8.flickr.com/12356072_6a5779af0a_t.jpg! ‘Tom Robbins’:http://www.google.com/search?q=%22tom+robbins%22&sourceid=opera&num=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 sure can write. There is still hope for modern (or is it postmodern, or perhaps post-postmodern…) literature. He swings a vicious hockey stick at all the big issues, yet remains unputdownably readable and brilliantly funny. As one of the many blurbs on the jacket put it: *Mystical, biazarre and just plain funny*.

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Travels With Charley

!http://photos11.flickr.com/12355345_ad6a0ff74d_t.jpg! Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck is one of the most insightful commentaries on the travelling bug. For those looking to learn about America beyond the glossy lifes played out on american TV this book is the best I have come across. It is wonderfully written, and some of the passages are downright profound. It was written in the fifties, but Steinbeck saw today’s world approaching way back then and explains it better than most commentators today.

In a nutshell: Steinback and his dog Charley set off for a 10,000 mile drive around the United States and this book is the result. He explains the travelling bug very well and how it affects others around the one travelling.

From a review at Amazon:

bq. The worst part about the book is it is far too short, leaving a reader desiring more. Steinbeck’s journey touches a side of America, the true awe and wonder for the land and her people like few novels. The work is full of humor and insight, both profound and personal. Perhaps only a handful of books pierces the American experience like “Travels with Charley”. It is a book that requires a slow pace, to savor the voyage across this great land and her treasures.

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BattleField Earth

!http://photos9.flickr.com/12354914_4a9bbfece3_t.jpg! Written in 1980, its a throwback to the golden age, where men were men,women were good looking,physics was invented as needed by the author and the bad guys were truly bad. The writing style is a bit simplistic, but the story flows very well. Unlike the best science fiction novels, there is hardly any suspense or unpredictable plot twists. It’s almost like reading an old favourite novel where you know whats going to happen in advance.

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History of the Indian Subcontinent

I’ve read many, many books on the history of the Indian subcontinent by now. In school, every year we had a mandatory subject called Pakistan Studies in which we went through the history of the subcontinent in its gory details. The books were prescribed by the government, and had to be approved by some education committee or the other. Half of them seemed to have been written by blindly patriotic old men, embittered with old age and even those who knew the subject well did not know how to write. On top of that, it seemed that Pakistan Studies was hated by the teachers as well, and assigned to the ones incapable of teaching a ‘real’ subject. There were a few good teachers now and then, but the majority were drones who reduced the fascinating story of the subcontinent into a incomprehensible muddle. In class four, the earliest history class I can remember, the class would consist of reading from the book, then the teacher would ask questions verbatim from the book. Even at that time, I remember thinking that this is no way to go about teaching a subject.

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Taras Bulba

bq.. It’s a curious thing, but perhaps the greatest historical novel ever written came from a literature that hardly existed at the moment of the book’s composition. In the early 19th century, Russia had only the thinnest gloss of modern European civilization, and, apart from the efforts of Pushkin, the Russian language had hardly produced … Read moreTaras Bulba

Faery Lands Forlorn

bq. “Faery Lands Forlorn”:http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/07/opinion/07BYAT.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position= A.S. Byatt, author of “Possession”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679735909/103-1818639-2779010?vi=glance and other novels, looks at the phenomenon of adults reading the Harry Potter children’s books: Ms. Rowling’s magic world has no place for the numinous. It is written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds … Read moreFaery Lands Forlorn

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Pakistan pirates hit Harry Potter

bq. Pirated versions of the latest Harry Potter book have appeared on sale in Pakistan – outselling JK Rowling’s official version. Priced at between 295-495 rupees (�3-5, $5-8.50), they are proving hugely popular in competition with the $29.99 (�18) official version. Mr Hussain said the popularity of the bootlegged books had decimated demand for the … Read morePakistan pirates hit Harry Potter

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