NT what are you reading? vol. put the TV remote down, pick up a book!

[dmxgod]

Just for leisure:

 

[martdizzle23]

 

[eye see soles]

The Tipping Point

Feels like I'm back in college with all of these psychology studies. It's still a good book.

 

[timcity2000]

kite runner for me as well.

just finished devil in the white city.... amazing story (and based on true events).

 

[yan can cook]

do you guys BUY your books or just get it form a library?

 

[norcalballgirl23]

Nice to see a thread like this on NT. When con law and evidence aren't eating up all my time, I read Eat Pray Love. I love it so far; prob wouldn'tsuggest it for guys. After that I'm going to start The Book Thief and/or The Nine. Too everyone reading 1984 -- good choice, it's a classic! And thoseof you reading Kite Runner -- it's an emotional rollercoaster with awesome perspective, enjoy!
For the aspiring author, check out some of hill harper's stuff or a bio or something. And finally, Method Man -- I'm super interested in the votingbook as well as the ape book!

 

[danzinreallife]

Originally Posted by Yan Can Cook

do you guys BUY your books or just get it form a library?

Buy. I normally only buy them when they're on sale. I've found some amazing books just going through sales bins. If I can, I get them offNZ's version of EBay.

I'm really bad though, I never re-read my books. There's a few exceptions, but not many. I'mma build me a library when I build my house

 

[cwrite78]

Originally Posted by Yan Can Cook

do you guys BUY your books or just get it form a library?

buy them. bought a kindle since i started running out of room though

 

[cool hand Luka]

Originally Posted by Yan Can Cook

survivor by chuck palahniuk

one of my favorite books

 

[bijald0331]

Originally Posted by Yan Can Cook

do you guys BUY your books or just get it form a library?

Library.

 

[Methodical Management]

Not much of a fiction reader, Meth?
It's not that I dislike fiction, I just don't have the time for it. I'm not terribly interested in fiction as escapism; I prefersatire and allegorical fiction - fiction that makes a statement about reality, in other words. My favorite authors in that category are Chinua Achebe (though,oddly enough, Things Fall Apart may be my least favorite of his major works), James Baldwin, and, while he's on the tips of everyone's tongues, GeorgeOrwell.

do you guys BUY your books or just get it form a library?
For me, it's about half and half. Of the half I own, though, a substantial portion comes from connections. I love the library - I'vebeen going there since before I could even read - but it is nice to have a large collection of books on hand to refer to and lend out.

And finally, Method Man -- I'm super interested in the voting book as well as the ape book!
Keeping Down the Black Vote is definitely worthwhile. I tend to stay up on this sort of thing, as somemay know, and I've learned quite a bit I didn't already know. Even those who, like me, kept up with electoral fraud in recent elections (Florida 2000being perhaps the most flagrant recent attempt at Black disenfranchisement) and know the history of suffrage (15th amendment, reconstruction, 1965 votingrights act, poll taxes, thus and so) front and back, you'll still get plenty out of the in depth discussion of the election of Carl Stokes in Cleveland,Richard Hatcher in Gary, Indiana, and Harold Washington in Chicago in 1983. The obstructionist role of established Democratic political machines in tacitly(and, sometimes, overtly) supporting Republican candidates to prevent the election of Black politicians is well documented and instructive. It'll deepenyour cynicism, to be sure, but it's more than essential history - it's about the current state of American politics and minority interests inmainstream political parties.

Apes, Language, and the Human Mind is a fascinating, detailed work - but it's one I have to recommend with a fewcaveats. Unfortunately, Sue Savage Rumbaugh's books succumb to a flaw common to the work of most career academics in that it draws the reader into thepetty ivory tower caviling that so consumes scholarly discourse. Primate studies, like most work on non-human animals, is mired in anthropocentrism, which,culturally and as if by reflex, constantly characterizes any research that likens the operation of human and non-human species as "anthropomorphic." Consequently, you'll find that Savage Rumbaugh's books preemptively adopt a defensive posture. Your primary interest will be Savage Rumbaugh'sresearch, yet the presentation of her work is endlessly justified to counter the often baseless criticism of those whose views you're unlikely to careabout. If you want to delve into the academic and philosophical debate surrounding ape language studies, by all means read the entire book. If not, and thiscategory includes the vast majority, I suggest reading only the first and last chapters. The first chapter encapsulates Savage Rumbaugh's research,primarily her work with Kanzi, a bonobo who comprehends spoken English and communicates symbolically through the use of a specialized keyboard called alexigram. A more detailed account of Rumbaugh's work, including her preceding studies of chimpanzees, may be found in Kanzi: the Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind. Though it's not accessible enough to recommend widely to those unfamiliar withthe associated fields, the research itself is groundbreaking and sheds a great deal of light on language acquisition and cognitive development.

Those unacquainted with Noam Chomsky as a linguist may be surprised to see him cast as a villain of sorts in this genre, due to his wrongheaded belief in aninnate apparatus, exclusive to the human mind, that facilitates symbolic communication via "universal grammar."

 

[norcalballgirl23]

^^Meth, you know i feel the same way about jane goodall. i know in the world of anthropology she's an icon and rightly so but still, i take issue with theway she and the Leake's went about things in their research and the way they presented it

 

[cidman911]

I want to pick up more real books, I really do...But comic books are my first love...

Readin DC New Frontier at the moment

 

[eye see soles]

Just read "Ravens" by George Dawes Green. Such a good book. Really good.