The Book Thread - What You're Reading & Everything Book Related

[Scottish Research]

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

R.Fortune

 

[toughmudderdave]

"Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease " by Robert H. Lustig, M.D.

 

[puddlebud]

Life processes of plants (scientific america library)


Anyone that wants to be amazed at how plants do what they do should read this. For example,
rubisco is the most abundant enzyme in plants, it adds CO2 to other carbons and drives photosynthesis. It also adds molecular oxygen and that is why you want to have a high ppm of CO2 or low ppm of oxygen.
Leafs that have history of low light levels can not perform later on at the same level as plants that were grown in high light levels, even with CO2 enrichment.
Chloroplasts are position by actin depending on whether the leaf is in the shade or in the light, a good reason to be consistent with the light patterns.

 

[Princess Vahall]

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
- Mary Roach

 

[Scottish Research]

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
- Mary Roach

Yes. Nice find. I read this years ago, and really enjoyed it.

Nice to hear from ya!


R.Fortune

 

[Scottish Research]

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

Just finished a few weeks ago. Great read!


R.Fortune

 

[rasputin]

I'm about 100 pages into Smoke Signals by Martin Lee, one of the co-authors of Acid Dreams.

 

[BM-504]

Just finished Tom Clancy's ... Threat Vector... about Chinese Military/Hackers cyberwarfare.

and lo and behold the news today...NY Times reporters hacked by Chinese Govt.

 

[Scottish Research]

Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 by Max Hastings.

Excellent book. I've read it 2 or 3 times. Only found a few errors. Really well worth it.


R.Fortune

 

[Scottish Research]

Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn.

Da Vinci's Ghost: Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image by Toby Lester

Just finished both. Some sections were highly readable, but overall they became really tedious.

R.Fortune

 

[SeaMaiden]

That's too bad, I'm always looking for more good historical fiction.

Have we discussed Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power? I've read it twice now, would read thrice if the binding on our copy hadn't crapped out completely. I prefer Victor Davis Hanson's views on the differences between western and eastern cultures, and agree with his take on things much more so than Jared Diamond. I honestly don't think the difference came down to guns, germs and steel, because the Greeks had none of those things, yet still, they prevailed over Xerxes.

 

[SetHeh]

I had always thought that reading while high wasn't for me because I couldn't imagine myself doing it. But recently I found out that it's actually fun. Not heavy stuff, like philosophy and academic texts — for these texts I have to be sober — but fiction, novels, poetry etc. It's amazing how vividly I can imagine the story.

 

[Scottish Research]

The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic by Robert L. O’Connell


Wonderful!

R.fortune

 

[SeaMaiden]

Hah, this book on the Pendragon keeps discussing the Romans' last dying gasps. Of course, it takes place smack in the middle 400s, IIRC Rome fell around 465 or so, yes?

 

[theclearspot]

Frozen In Time. Beattie. It's the story of the ill-fated Franklin expedition 1845 to find the North West Passage...interesting because it also discovers the reason why they all perished....

 

[Scottish Research]

Hah, this book on the Pendragon keeps discussing the Romans' last dying gasps. Of course, it takes place smack in the middle 400s, IIRC Rome fell around 465 or so, yes?

Well, it was kind of a slow decline. Then of course it was over around 476 when Rome was sacked again.

That was a great book! The Romans got massacred at Cannae. Hannibal's army won a lot of the battles, but could not win the war.


R.Fortune

 

[lost in a sea]

same war still goes on, the empires still here and dressed in more colourful robes than ever, may also be deadlier than ever..

if only hannibal hadn't been a moralistic guy unlike the scum he was fighting..

great book on mushroom cultivation.. they're good for you!!

 

[StickyHands]

Been reading these lately, pretty interesting

1/ Dope Inc - Britain's Opium War against the World
2/ Unholy Trinity -The IMF, World Bank and WTO- By Richard Peet
3/ Secret Life of Plants - Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird

 

[lost in a sea]

the "french" and "belgians" got their colonies hooked on heroin as well.. few know that china's power hierarchy is actually still owned by "western" powers who gave them massive wealth and political power after and because of the opium wars..

and who's soldiers are out in afghanistan making sure no harm comes to their opium crop ever??... the empires of course.. because heroin will be cheaper than cigarettes soon to encourage people to take that route out..

 

[StickyHands]

the "french" and "belgians" got their colonies hooked on heroin as well.. few know that china's power hierarchy is actually still owned by "western" powers who gave them massive wealth and political power after and because of the opium wars..

and who's soldiers are out in afghanistan making sure no harm comes to their opium crop ever??... the empires of course.. because heroin will be cheaper than cigarettes soon to encourage people to take that route out..

Deffo worth a read, Dope Inc, for anyone into this sort of stuff.