What Book Have You Read Recently?

Right now I'm reading two books. The first is:

Amazon.com: Love, Sex and Long-Term Relationships: What People With Asperger Syndrome Really Really Want: Sarah Hendrickx, Stephen Shore: Books

It's pretty good so far. Some of it is common sense. She mostly seems to be saying that people with asperger's are very similar to people who don't have asperger's in terms of what makes a relationship work, how to best meet a partner and so on. The emphasis is just sometimes a little different.

The second is:

Amazon.com: The Way of the Boundary Crosser: An Introduction to Jewish Flexidoxy: Gershon Winkler: Books

This is by Gershon Winkler and I like it a lot more than Magic of the Ordinary. He's not getting into all of the shamanic stuff and, while Magic of the Ordinary is very rooted in Jewish sources, this is even more heavily rooted in Jewish sources. He originally comes from an ultra-orthodox background and his knowledge of Jewish literature is almost encyclopedic. He begins this text as an objection to orthodoxy, not the movement of that name, but to the orthodoxy he sees present in all of the denominations.

Through the exhaustive citing of sources -- Tanach, Talmud, Midrash, as well as the medieval commentators, kabbalists and philosophers -- he presents a view of an historical Judaism which was more flexible, not just in terms of belief, but even to some extent in terms of practice. To me his argument seems pretty solid, though I would question his view that at one point this was Judaism. He's presenting counter-texts and they are of course counter to other texts that take a different approach. To me, these counter texts are more rooted in the processes that brought forth rabbinical judaism and allowed for other flourishings of innovation that I think would be rejected in the atmosphere of today's Judaism.

I would say that in terms of the way he embraces textual tradition, his approach is more traditional. Like many Orthodox rabbis, he has no problem citing later Jewish texts as sources for information about the Torah.

The book breaks down into the following 9 chapters:

1. The Boundary Crosser
2. Flexidoxy
3. Halachah
4. Sacred Seasons
5. Women, Torah and Feminiphobia (incidentally although I have not reached this point I think he probably supports gender-specific rituals in Judaism and is going to more likely link this to the influences of some forms of Christianity on Judaism)
Appendix: Tumah and Taharah Reexamined
6. Judaism and the Non-Jew
Appendix: Ancient and Medieval Teachings about Conversion to Judaism
7. The Judeo-Christian Myth
8. Capital Punishment
9. Ritual Implements

I just did a search and it appears that the book is up on google books here, with a few chapters missing:

The Way of the Boundary Crosser: An ... - Google Book Search
 
The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies by Richard Heinberg

Please read this book. Here's my short review:

Get the low-down on peak everything: oil, coal, and natural gas. Begin to understand how the world is on a course towards profound change: an inevitable lower-energy future. Wake up and smell the post-petroleum age. Immense changes in the way we live are coming whether we prepare for them or not. Start thinking about biking and walking instead of driving, about how we are going to get our food in 2050, about war for oil, about the fallacies and failings of biofuel and a "hydrogen economy," and what we need to do collectively now in order to soften the coming transition from a high-energy, high-consumption society to one that has drastically less energy available.

Follow with light reading.
 
2050? I think we'll hit some food problems well before that. Heck, much of the world is already in food problems.

Anyhoo, I'm reading Living Buddha, Living Christ. It's fantastic. Love it.

I particularly liked this little meditation:

Breathe in: Think "Calming"
Breathe out: Think "Smiling"
Breathe in: Think "Present moment"
Breathe out: Think "Wonderful moment"
 
Pathless said:
The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies .... an inevitable lower-energy future. Wake up and smell the post-petroleum age. Immense changes in the way we live are coming whether we prepare for them or not. Start thinking about biking and walking instead of driving, about how we are going to get our food in 2050,...
Click to expand...
I don't buy the sky is falling. The problems will create folks with solutions, sure the solutions will create more problems but those will simply create more solutions.

The only way we'll ever use less energy is to knock off 90% of the people. Didja ever see the vertical farm designs? Hydroponic towers at the edge of the great lakes and oceans on which the food is grown on conveyors which rotate up down and around so all get a percentage of the sun, the harvesters won't drive from farm to farm they'll be integrated into the tower nad the crops will come to the harvester, the food won't be transported to the package plant it will be attached to the harvester and then shipped directly to where needed. less energy required less land.

As the water rises and our temperature changes our populations will move to higher ground different ground and with todays technologies and interests we'll be building integrated cities with a lot more underground electric transportation, stores, shopping, housing and business in clumps to reduce travel. Instead of building individual houses, and buildings for specific purposes we'll just build the tunnels for traffic and utilities and then litterally raise the entire area three stories for multipurpose buildings and on top of all of them will be the parks, ball fields, solar collectors and rain collectors and farm lands.

Hot or cold climates to build in we'll be building in domes and testing all the ideas needed to populate other planets in our solar system and the next.

The solutions are at hand, and are hard to impliment utilizing when you try to retrofit existing buildings and towns, but building from scratch we'll be able to build eco friendly envioronments which will be marvels for their day but a hundred years from now they'll look back on them like we do an old star trek's special effects.

No gloom and doom here, the future is so bright we gotta wear shades.

And welcome back around pathless!!
 
I'm in the midst of "the Nature and Properties of Engineering Materials." 1959 edition. Still trying to catch up on some of my backlist of reading...
 
wil said:
The solutions are at hand, and are hard to impliment utilizing when you try to retrofit existing buildings and towns, but building from scratch we'll be able to build eco friendly envioronments which will be marvels for their day but a hundred years from now they'll look back on them like we do an old star trek's special effects.

No gloom and doom here, the future is so bright we gotta wear shades.

And welcome back around pathless!!
Click to expand...

The solutions are there- I've seen architects' and engineers' plans. The problem is that governments better start quit spending all their money on wars and the current system and put funds into actually building these things or we'll have only ideas when we get to the point where our current system is totally unsustainable.

The problem, wil, is it takes more than ideas to revolutionize things without a lot of suffering. People are already starving and exploited all over the world. It's been bad for a while. How long do we wait until we change the way we do business as a species? My point is, if we wait too long, the fabric of modern society collapses and we *don't* move forward. We move backward. We can have all the ideas in the world, but if we haven't got the money and organization to implement them, it's useless. All we have to do is peek at the collapse of the Maya to see this. You have to move forward while people aren't starving and rioting. After you get to that point, no one is concerned with building new cities.

Until the US stops trying to shore up the existing system and gets out of "mine, mine, mine"- it's unlikely anything new and innovative will happen.
 
half way through my latest book , it is a really good book that i cannot seem to put down.
it is the latest book that i have just got from the convention of Jehovahs witnesses.
it is called

KEEP YOURSELVES IN GODS LOVE. and it is a wonderful provision for mee from the most high JEHOVAH .:) and i just love it :)
 
path_of_one said:
2050? I think we'll hit some food problems well before that. Heck, much of the world is already in food problems.
Click to expand...

Average of 24,000 people die per day from hunger/starvation food shortage related events..... If that isn't a problem I don't what is... Yet is suprising how many of us do f a..... The supermarkets raise their prices yet tell you about fair trade to those poor little farmers..... And.. Nm lol I'll shut up.
 
Getting back on topic, I'm reading Down Among the Dead Men by Simon R. Green (it takes place in his Hawk & Fisher universe.) I'm still starting it (relatively) so I can't say much other than there's a mystery concerning the disappearance of an entire fortress full of soldiers, horses and the like.

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine
 
I am currently reading Irvine Welsh's "Crime"... I lve Irvine Welsh... and I have to say, his writing style is getting better... which doesn't happen often with writers...

I am also reading and writing my own novel... which is pretty damn fine...
 
Namaste all,

i'm finishing up The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Green and i just recently completed The Secret Power Within by Chuck Norris.

both are good books in very different categories ;)

metta,

~v
 
Yeah, Orson Scott Card's got some real home runs. Somehow he bought green M&M's before anybody else.
 
greymare said:
gotta love the ChuckNorris. LOL
hes a legend.
Click to expand...


Chuck norris once killed a man by just looking at him..... A legened indeed.. But I couldn't endure reading his self gloryifing crap... Then again I can't endure reading any book lol.... I think there should be a warning message though on any works written by chuck norris "Warning... This book may cause you to drop freaking dead from the norris's shear awesomeness...." Did you know Chuck Norris also once saved a three year old girl from HIV positive, radioactive sharks.... Seven of them... One surivived fatally wounded... He died three days later... Did you also know that Chuck norris created the world in four days?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top