Book Club

redstar said:
Try "The God Delusion" - guaranteed to cause an evening of rows and never-ending heated arguments !!!
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Very true. Even the atheists are arguing amongst themselves over this.

"Richard Dawkins and I share much in common. We are both biologists by training who have written widely about evolutionary theory." Moreover, "We are both atheists in our personal convictions." Then Wilson gets to his point. "When Dawkins' The God Delusion was published, I naturally assumed he was basing his critique of religion on the scientific study of religion from an evolutionary perspective. I regret to report otherwise.

He has not done any original work on the subject and he has not fairly represented the work of his colleagues." Rather, Dawkins has subjected his atheist readers to "sleights of hand." He has produced a "diatribe against religion" that is "deeply misinformed." Indeed he is "just another angry atheist trading on his reputation as an evolutionst and spokesperson for science to vent his personal opinions about religion."
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-David Sloan Wilson quoted in Skeptic Magazine
 
How about “The Water Babies” by Charles Kingsley: (a) everybody has heard of it; (b) nobody has read it; and (c) the bit on St. Brendan’s mission to Kerry is bound to give rise to a lot of discussion.
 
Other half just read 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' (can't remember the author off the top of my head but also wrote 'The Kite Runner') and she said it was one of the best books she has ever read.

Looking forward to reading it myself now.
 
Probably late for this month's book, but 'The Fire In The Equations' by Kitty Ferguson is brilliant. In it she encapsulates science, religion and the search for god. Better than Dawkins' I thought. It may have been that in my earlier days I was more pliable. The book was written about fifteen years ago and did not get the same amount of publicity.
 
The Great Ape Project - its about a movement to accord certain civil liberties to great apes on the basis that they are so humanlike. Fantastically interesting reading.
 
Might be a tough read but

Notes Towards the Complete Works of Shakespeare

Might be the first published work by monkeys ?

Notes Towards the Complete Works of Shakespeare is a small, hardbound volume that presents and documents a five-page set of notes typed on a computer, written and published in 2002. Its six authors are known only by their first names--Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan. They are Sulawesi crested macaaques.

The notes' ostensible purpose is to prepare for a rewrite of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

The creation of this book was part science experiment, part performance art, and was set up by the staff and students of Plymouth University, based on the well-known infinite monkeys theorem.

At first, the report states, the alpha male took a rock and began bashing the keyboard...again according to the report, the monkeys "were interested in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard." This, I believe, demonstrates admirably the inclination of the uneducated lower classes of primate society towards dismissing and insulting what they don't understand.

The text itself shows a strong disposition towards use of the S key, series of which make up a significant part of the text. Other letters used in significant numbers were G, A, Q and F. The work begins with an F and ends with an N. Apart from the last page, which includes many Ms, Ns and Js, there's a predominance of letters located on the left side of the keyboard. The five pages represent the combined output of all six monkeys during the month of the experiment. No words present in the English language were found in the text.
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PMU said:
How about “The Water Babies” by Charles Kingsley: (a) everybody has heard of it; (b) nobody has read it
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I read 'The Water Babies' when I was 9 years old and didnt' like it much at the time.


http://www.amazon.com/Genius-Richard-Feynman-Modern-Physics/dp/0349104700/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204824846&sr=1-2 (Heres a book I like)

And another link to it here

Its' called 'Genius : Richard Feynman and Modern Physics.'
Richard Feynman won the Nobel prize for Physics but he lived anything but the life of a typical retiring nerd. He was an interesting character who helped build the atom bomb and led the investigation into the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
I find biographys of certain famous/quirky and or successful people to be quite interesting.
 
Are people here less interested in the novel generally?

Not a criticism, but there seem to be quite a few factual recommendations - my understanding of a book club was that it tended to be a novels based concept?
 
Maybe something by Richard Ford (The Sportswriter?). Can't go wrong with a great American novel :)
 
In The Heart Of The Sea - Nathaniel Philbrick. The true story that inspired Moby Dick.

Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts.
 
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