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What's on Your Summer 2002 Reading List?

Posted by Cliff on from the sharing-your-book-lists dept.

Quixote asks: "Well, summer is upon us, and I'm wondering: what does Slashdot read? I'm thinking of non-geeky, non-SciFi books. Anything out there that has caught your fancy? Would you like to share your reading list (stuff that you've read and/or plan to read)."

7 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Fast Food Nation by new-black-hand · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Great book about the Fast Food Industry by Eric Schlosser

    See it here..

    1. Re:Fast Food Nation by nicedream · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I didn't think this book was that great.

      A lot of it seemed to ramble on and on, without ever getting to the point. When I was done with it I felt as if he tried to make me hate fast food companies, but didn't present a very convincing case.

  2. Some Japanese authors by ObviousGuy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Haruki Murakami is a favorite.

    Some Junichiro Tanizaki is always a blast.

    You can't go wrong with Yukio Mishima.

    And right now I'm reading Michio Kaku.

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
  3. Supporting Controversial Books... by Chasing+Amy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > With all the anti-Muslim propaganda currently in the news, I feel it's best to try to
    > understand things from another point of view.

    That's how I try to approach everything. Why believe what agenda-driven media and political people claim, when you can get closer to the source and make up your own mind?

    That's why, when I saw Bill O'Reilly screaming his loudest about a recent book release, complaining bitterly that a university press would dare to publish it--I knew I had to read it. :-) Controversial subject matter, but the book he said shouldn't have been published is judith Levine's *Harmful to Minors*:

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/081664006 8/ qid=1023794022/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-3562730-02361 48

    So, I pre-ordered it, and I have to say it's a fantastic analysis of the current situation. The author makes a lot of sense, and I feel sad that we (Americans) live in a country where people are so outraged by the simple truths most of the civilized world already takes for granted. We in the U.S. treat 15 year olds the same as 5 year olds. No wonder some kids rebel against that...

    Anyway, I always like to support free speech by buying the books of authors whose books get assailed for silly personal moral reasons. So, go buy that book, or another one in need of support, as a big F-U to those who would censor our right to read.

    --

    Chasing Amy
    (We all chase Amy...)
    "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
  4. more controversial books by WINSTANLEY · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Caleb Carr author of The Alienist has
    written a military history of terrorism
    published after 9-11.
    The NYT reviewer wrote the most vitriolic
    review I have ever seen. Most really be worth
    reading (no seriously).

    --
    It is by coff... er, will, alone I set my mind in motion...
    1. Re:more controversial books by realgone · · Score: 3, Interesting
      And let's not forget that Carr quickly provided us with one of the most vitriolic responses to a review -- in the form of a letter to Salon -- that most people have ever seen. It included such gems as:

      [L]et's not let facts or a shaky grounding in history keep us from being a bitchy wise-ass -- THAT would get you thrown out of the club that meets at [NYT critic] Michiko's to watch "Sex in the City" and spout a lot of nonsense about things they don't know."

      full text here

      P.S. To quickly bring this post back around to the question at hand, I've got "The Second Rumpole Omnibus" and O'Reilly's "Programming PHP" in my summer bag right now. (Hey, depending on how you look at it, they're both mysteries.)

  5. Re:Non Sci-Fi / Non Geeky? by texchanchan · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I read 'em in a geeky way (detailed below), but what I read is a broad selection linked from the Online Books Page. Recommended:
    • John Lathrop Motley's 3-part history of the early Dutch Republic. Sheds a lot of light on Microsoft vs. everybody else, UnitedLinux, etc. These situations aren't new. The players just have different names--and, fortunately, big corporations don't actually have armies.
    • The novels of George Eliot. This 19th-century writer is head and shoulders above her contemporaries. Again, in these books you will discover that people haven't changed.
    • The novels of Anthony Trollope, especially the Barchester series.
    • Macaulay's History of England from the Accession of James II. Another historical era with big, big similarities to our own. The explosion of activity powered by the sudden end of censorship in England resembles the 1990s in several ways. For instance: Broadsheet = web page.
    • H. Rider Haggard. Classic adventure stories. Anna Katherine Green, Maurice Leblanc, Gaston Leroux--all early detective novelists. William Morris--peculiar, pseudo-medieval language, but good stories.
    I download these in text format, run a macro to take out the extra carriage returns, then convert them through MakeDocW and read them on the PDA.