So what is everyone reading?

[Babbler]

Cycles of Rock and Water at the Pacific Edge by Kenith A. Brown (1993): Great, but unknown, book about the geology of West Coast.

 

I recently read Boltzmann's Atom by David Lindsay. That some good pop science there.

[Tarantism]

I like the "Stoned Ape Theory" Do you want to start a thread on it?

i like it too. when i finish the book ill start a thread. i have been behind on my reading though, because i decided to start "the mind and the brain: neuroplacicity and the power of mental force" in the middle. but i think taht the stoned ape theory has many merits,

[Queso]

some kerouac, jim carroll

and his fear of dreaming.

 

umm,

A big book of Mandalas,

a cook book,

and ReReading the lorax for the 34th time.

[Michaelangelica]

QUOTE=El Es Tea]i like it too. when i finish the book ill start a thread. i have been behind on my reading though, because i decided to start "the mind and the brain: neuroplacicity and the power of mental force" in the middle. but i think taht the stoned ape theory has many merits,

Somewhere in my packed away library are some books by very famous American Banker( very proper, very succesful, very well-off) come mushroom hunter. Probably 1930-50's vintage

I can't remember his name. His books are collectors items now.

He started his interest in mushrooms when he married a Russian woman.

When walking in the Russian woods one day she took off and started to pick stacks of wild mushrooms. He was horrified and said all the normal things about poison etc

She just poo pooed such complaints and went on to collect and cook her many mushrooms (many varieties too).

He postulated from this that the West has a mushroom phobia.

His research led him to ethnogenic mushrooms.

I read him awhile ago but he makes a fascinating case for the emergence of religion via psychoactive mushrooms. (Which I also can't remember.)

And this from a very proper, upper-middle class banker !

 

Maybe we have not only opium and MJ receptors, but "mushroom" receptors too in the brain???

--

[Queso]

well,

the psychedelic alkaloids, like psilocybin, that ar ein shrooms, bind to receptors in the brain,

and get it working a lot faster . .

Go eat some, it's fantastic.

You get to actually see where our evolution of consciousness came from.

[Michaelangelica]

well,

the psychedelic alkaloids, like psilocybin, that ar ein shrooms, bind to receptors in the brain,

and get it working a lot faster . .

Go eat some, it's fantastic.

You get to actually see where our evolution of consciousness came from.

 

That reminds me I think he talked alot about where "evolution of consciousness came from"

 

Are there special receptors designed for psychedelic alkaloids like opiates and MJ?

 

Love to try some one day- not a lot of them about where I live.

I tried LSD when I was at Uni. I just fell asleep!

Then I met a few people who had been turned into interesting vegetables by it.

[Tarantism]

i suggest, Michealangelica, that you do some research on the work of Dr. Rick Strassman and his studies on DMT and its presence in the human brain. DMT is the most powerful Tryptamine (and psychedelic drug period, a post that is thought of by most to be LSD), and it is present in our brain! nobody knows where it comes from or why its there, but Strassman makes some great nod towards ideas as to where it may come from. anyway, check it out.

[Buffy]

Summer vacation read #1: "The Happy Bottom Riding Club: The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes" by Lauren Kessler. A pioneer of aviation who could party like a rock star and hung out with some of the most amazing characters in aviation and pop culture history. Just getting started, but already she's my hero!

 

And its not just a chick book: you macho airplane guys will find it interesting too--although if you felt uncomfortable watching Fellini's "City of Women" it might not be your cup of tea... :D

 

Ah hell, we had more fun in a week than those weenies had in a lifetime! :phones:

Buffy

[Alluvia]

Blinded By The Right The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock

 

The Elements of Mysticism by R A Gilbert

 

Living Wisdom with His Holiness The Dalai Lama- Study Guide

 

All selections interesting. I would imagine it depends on one's interest.

[Michaelangelica]

I am enjoying reading Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" very much.

He has a delightful 'light' style of writing.

He makes very complex ideas simple to follow.

He has a great sense of humor, 'poetic justice' and irony.

For a travel writer, to make sense of the world's knowledge of Physics and chemistry etc, is quite a clever feat.

 

It is full of 'quirky science facts' i will post some at that thread as I go

[dagaz]

I am enjoying reading Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" very much.

He has a delightful 'light' style of writing.

 

I also quite enjoyed reading this, I particularly liked his description of how phosphorus was accidently discovered because someone was convinced that gold could 'somehow be distilled from human urine' (p. 86).

[Michaelangelica]

I also quite enjoyed reading this, I particularly liked his description of how phosphorus was accidently discovered because someone was convinced that gold could 'somehow be distilled from human urine' (p. 86).

Yes! "The Illustrious History of Chemistry" started in Piss?

and the quirky fact that Sweden is still the largest or "leading" producer of matches because in the 1750's Karl Scheele found away of making phosphorus without using urine !

What's your daddy do?

"O he just invented a way of making matches without pee pee"

and

while I'm rubbishing chemists,

There was the delightful poetic justice that Rutherford, who said "All science is either physics or stamp collecting", and won the 1908 Nobel prize in chemistry not in physics !

Bryson has a wonderful eye for irony.

 

Some of the scientific personalities he describes would make for a great Soap Opera

[Jules Grimm]

Busy reading Terry Pratchett - Going Postal - for the 4th or 5th time. Strangely enough i never get bored of his writing, no matter how often i read his books. Even when i can recite line for line what is written i still enjoy reading those books. Most books i read at least twice or 3 times though. Does anyone else habitually re-read books or am i just odd?

[Michaelangelica]

Busy reading Terry Pratchett - Going Postal - for the 4th or 5th time. Strangely enough i never get bored of his writing, no matter how often i read his books. Even when i can recite line for line what is written i still enjoy reading those books. Most books i read at least twice or 3 times though. Does anyone else habitually re-read books or am i just odd?

 

I rarely or never re-read books. The exception-"Lord of the Rings" and ALL of Prattchett's books I have read some of them several times. My children can recite them. My memory is not good enough.

My favourite characters are Death and Granny Weatherwax. Death with a mid-life crisis is precious

I have just finished "A Hatful of Sky", I haven't enjoyed his last few books so this was a surprise. The best yet! He is so quotable. He knows, and aludes to, so much science too.

I love the asides the little side trips and inconsequential detail, the footnotes. The last few books seemed to focus intently on the plot and didn't wander or digress and I missed that

I came across an illustrated book "Coan the Barbarian?" very funny, not often seen in shops. The Leonardo de Quim drawings were fantastic

.

He has written another non-diskworld book with Neil Gayman called ??? GOOD OMENS memory again"" about a couple of bored angels. A great read.

 

If you read 'The Fifth Continent' you might need the list of Australian Cultural allusions available on his web site.

[Jules Grimm]

I'm glad to know i'm not the only person who enjoys his books so much. Always interesting to see who a persons favourite Terry pratchett chracter is. Wondering if i should start a poll about that...

 

Thanks for the heads up about the new collaboration with neil gaiman - loved the previous one.

[CerebralEcstasy]

I'm currently in the middle of Atlas Shrugged, I'd started the novel about a month or so ago but haven't had much time to actually finish it.

 

I think it may have something to do with the fact I'm spending too much time blogging on hypography :hihi:

 

Ayn would be rolling in her grave!!!

[Michaelangelica]

I'm glad to know i'm not the only person who enjoys his books so much. Always interesting to see who a persons favourite Terry pratchett chracter is. Wondering if i should start a poll about that...

 

Thanks for the heads up about the new collaboration with Neil Gaiman - loved the previous one.

 

I am told he is the second most popular European author. Yet is astounding the number of people here who don't know him or can't read/stand him. (I have yet to convince my wife he is worth reading. She had a deprived childhood brought up on Dickens and Jane Austin with not a Walt Disney or Phantom comic to be seen. (Sad really; thank God my kids have a Pratchett sense of the ridiculous))

 

I meant "Good Omens", the title finally came to me. Funny I don't get Neil Gaiman on his own; yet the collaboration is wondrous. Is there another?

 

I'll be in any poll you start. (How do you do that?)