Non-Fiction book suggestions for July & August 2008

Please use this thread for making non-fiction book suggestions for our July & August 2008 non-fiction book selection. You should include a link to Amazon.com if you know how to make links, and aso include a few words on why you think your non-fiction book suggestion would be great as a BookTalk selection.

When you see suggestions in this thread that you agree would be a good choice please add your comments. Likewise, if you see a suggestion that you think would not be a good choice tell us so. Your comments are needed so we can weed through the suggestions and narrow them down.

Hey all you non-fiction book fans, I have an awesome book in store for you!

*Reading Rainbow music*

Does anyone remember Reading Rainbow? I grew up with that show and I liked it a lot as a kid.

Anyway, for your consideration is a book I am going to read in the near future. I feel it is pertinent to every single American and because America's policies have such a HUGE impact on the rest of the world (because we are so super duper awesome) it is worth non-AMERICAns (every letter capitalized in America because we are so super duper awesome (Ophelia!!)) to read it as well.

The book is Unholy Wars by John Cooley. Cooley is an American so you know already that the book is going to be super duper awesome.

By the way, I just got back from a cinco de mayo party so I'm a little buzzing. I am still wearing my Mexican sombrero and a fake mustache. I celebrate other cultures as a way of showing other people that even though I am American and super duper awesome - I still have time to party.

Back on topic!!!

Here is an excerpt from your friendly neighborhood book dealer, Amazon: On second thought they didn't really say too much at all about this book.

The important thing is that Chomsky cites this book repeatedly and we all know how super duper awesome Chomsky is (because he is American).

So go check this one out. Non-Americans may need to wear sunglasses before reading the reviews because the amount of super awesomeness may cause spontaneous combustion.

http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Wars-Afgha ... 034&sr=8-1

I think Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body would be a great follow up after reading Your Inner Fish.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau.


From Amazon.com:

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Henry David Thoreau was just a few days short of his twenty-eighth birthday when he built a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond and began one of the most famous experiments in living in American history. Originally he was not, apparently, intending to write a book about his life at the pond, but nine years later, in August of 1854, Houghton Mifflin's predecessor, Ticknor and Fields, published Walden; or, a Life in the Woods. At the time the book was largely ignored, and it took five years to sell out the first printing of two thousand copies. It was not until 1862, the year of Thoreau's death, that the book was brought back into print. Since then It has never been out of print.

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau

I 'm a Walden enthusiast, Saffron. If it's discussed, I'll be there.

Tom

Walden is one of my five all time favorite books. I know BookTalk is not designed as a critique group but it sorta, kinda, is if the authors participate. For this reason, I request the members consider my essay for the July-August non-fiction discussion. I do so with humility not hubris. The comments posted by most of you on my blog show your kind and gentle spirit. I desire my thoughts receive the regime you give published authors. I formed the opinion members of BookTalk are educated, intelligent, and experienced enough not to need an author's thoughts validated by the capital investment of a publisher to be considered worthy of being included in the public discourse of current issues.

My thoughts are like the horse on the track with two broken legs. If my thoughts are the vapid mutterings of an old geezer, I am begging you to put me out of my misery. My essay is rewritten and off to an outside editor. I'll post it on the blog and take down the current postings when I receive the edited version. Although the essay is only fifty pages in length, like Dr. Shubin, I could list my references from which my thoughts were derived and they could hold your interest for some time.

It is my opinion my essay represents the essence of free thinking. Why I think that could be the basis of discussion. It is as academic a presentation of how humanity got to where we are as I've ever read. It is also not polemic as is much of the material written today on issues of church and state. Needless to say, I volunteer to be the moderator. And I've got something to recommend it to you. The Prez called me "dude" after he read it.

Again, my thanks to all of you for letting me in your party.

Lawrence, we new guys aren't sure where your essay is.

Does the first chapter begin with the Mumford quote: "At the bottom of Spence's Utopia, however, lies the conviction which he shares with Plato and all of the other genuine utopians; namely, that in Thoreau's words less is accomplished by the thousands who are hacking at the branches of evil than by one who is striking at the root"?

http://www.booktalk.org/weblog_entry.php?e=23&start=10

Tom

Yes, Mumford's quote is Chapter one. I'm not proficient in this blogging. If you go to view all entries the order of my posts are:
1. Sam Harris comparison
2. Stem cell research
3. The Pope's comments
4. The cover picture for the essay
5. Chapter 8
6. Dedication to lennie
7. Chapters 1,2,3
8. Chapters 4,5,6
9. Chapter 7

As soon as I get it edited I'll post in sequential order. Thanks for trying to get to it. Lawrence

DWill posted the following quote on another thread about the book Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion by Stuart Kauffman

This might be a good non-fiction book to consider for BT.
DWill

I totally agree and would like to recommend that we read it.


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 01/wamu-20

Here is the link to a NPR radio interview with Stuart Kauffman, Will mentioned in his other post.

http://wamu.org/programs/kn/

I think you will be disappointed with Kauffman's book. There is no substance to his speculations. His proposals are the world view of a finite godist like William James, Peter Bertocci and Harold Kushner. I don't know if Mr. Kauffman started life in a Jewish environment but many people who do end up with a finite godist world view.

If the non-fiction forum wants to do a study of world views the place to start would be Norman Geisler's Worlds Apart. Just a suggestion