Thursday, March 20, 2008

Burnt Pages Book Corner

At it's inception, Burnt Pages was planned as a literary blog. That idea went by the wayside when we realized that we're busy people and sometimes reading is a luxury we can't afford. But I believe there is still intention to review books when possible and, probably as an encouragement to myself, I decided to put up my current reading list which is subject to change at a moment's notice.

One day, I swear I will finish Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography. I really enjoy this book but for some reason it's taking me a long time to get through it. I go through stretches of time where I just completely forget that it's there and waiting for me. I have to finish Kate Chopin's The Awakening which I read several years ago but am currently writing a research paper on so a rereading is necessary. After that I'd like to read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies at Caecus's suggestion. I've been meaning to read Watership Down by Richard Adams for many years and just haven't done it. And The Darling by Russell Banks. One day, I will get my hands on a copy of Carol Adams' The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory which I want to read so badly that it would make a very quick cut to the top of the list should I possess it anytime soon.

If I ever figure out what happened to my copy of the study "Sex, Lies & Stereotypes: How Abstinence-only Programs Harm Women and Girls" [pdf] by Julie Kay with Ashley Jackson from Legal Momentum, I will read that and probably have an opinion to give on it afterward. I just don't feel like reprinting the entire 80 or so pages. We'll see how that goes...

So guys, what's on your list?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Right now I'm alternating between Life's Solution, Simon Conway Morris' celebration of convergent evolution, and Where God and Science Meet, which is the first book on the topic well researched enough to do it justice.

But as much as I like reading dogma challenging counter argument to textbook cannon, I can't help but feel like bit of a flake when I read books that even mention, "intangible events, such as altered states of consciousness, possessions, alien visitations, near-death experiences and out-of-body events." As far as I'm concerned, if you can't test an idea by experiment, it's not really worth talking about. As usual, xkcd, says it all.

The antidote is, of course, a throughly explanatory, quantitative, and readily applicable text that seeks to elucidate rather than obfuscate. The Computational Beauty of Nature. I feel better already.

I will write a review of each as I finish.