h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Please use this forum to list reviews that you have ready; don't be shy! Also, any changes and constructive criticisms you may have. Please try to make them constructive, I have a very fragile ego!

Thanks for volunteering for this project, I know it is in capable hands.

Since you already made all that effort anyway, may I suggest that you copy and paste the reviews you already wrote out in the forum for my Nag Hammadi article: http://www.h2g2.com/forumframe.cgi?thread=36582&forum=31768

Coincidentaly, I'm typically on line at a bookstore. If someone doesn't have or doesn't disclose ISBN numbers, I'd be more than happy to find them, not that you couldn't online. Hmm.

-jb

I say, did anyone read my official article on Watership Down?
That was divided into three parts, the book included. So, would that suffice, or do you want a thesis written on it?

If anyone is interested, I can get links to the official entry -and- the original unofficial article I wrote on the book. So, anyone interested?

Oh well, f*** that then!
The blurb from Peta's Picks didn't quite give me the same impression as what the actual page said!

Well, I could sit here and argue all day for WD's justification, but ultimatlty it is your decision (person who's name I've goddamn forgotten already!)
Methinks I is losing already *^_^*.

Here's a question, regarding the blurb in Peta's picks: why does she mention the Foundation without linking it? After all, People who don't know what the Foundation is all about are going to be rather stumped as to what the Hall is all about.

I know this only got going a few days ago, but the list could be longer for books to review - or do we have to suggest books and review them at the same time?

Suggest and Review. Same time. Thank you for the query.

-jb
FFFF pseudo-contrary boy, chair holder

Sorry, I should have made that a touch clearer. The list to review was only one book long on account of me only putting it their to make sure I was setting it up properly.

Speaking from a purely personal point of view, as CD4 rather than The Librarian, I would like to see book reviews by the likes of: Graham Hancock; Robert Bauval; Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas; Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln; Keith Laidler; Adrian Gilbert; Robert Schock; Picknett & Prince; Colin Wilson; A.N. Wilson; John West; Schwaller de Lubicz; Laurence Gardner; Maurice Cotterell; David Rohl; the list goes on. (These are notable among the list of authors I look for when I'm scanning lists of new releases. This is not a definitive list by any means!)

addendum; anyone that can even make sense of a book by Maurice Cotterell is most welcome. In fact, if you can explain to me anything other than the page numbering in 'The Tutankhamun Prophecies' I may well make you my sole heir and beneficiary of my estate (which would be more of a burden than a blessing!)

I mean, look at some of the appendicies to the aforementioned book, which you might expect from the title to be about, oooh, I don't know, Egypt and a certain boy-king?:

v) How sunspots cause schizophrenia
viii) How VDUs cause miscarriages
xv) The cause of Chinese astrology
xvi) How the Sun determines the duration of the human gestation period
xix) How the Sun controls the honeybee
5) Gravity and Isaac Newton

Perhaps Mr. Cotterell has something in common with Mr. Coleridge. Anyhoo, that's something that the HoR can do for you. If you're considering buying that book, you can come to me and I'll tell you
what I think of it.

Share and tell; that's what it's all about!

I was trying to think whether I had read any books recently that would fit this page. I think I might have.

Title: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Author: Jared Diamond

Paperback: 0393317552
Hardcover: 1879557541

Subjects: World History, Social Evolution, Civilization, Ethnology, Human Beings.

In this book, Jared Diamond discusses how factors in the ancient environment gave rise to human culture. Topics discussed include social interaction, the formation of hierarchy including religion, the benefits and pitfalls of the domestication of plants and animals, the direction of movement of those plants and animals, development of writen languages, and the growth of society.

Diamond discards Eurocentric anthropological assumptions, focusing on *why* certain societies developed faster than others and *why* their ideas and inventions spread quickly or slowly. Ultimately he tells what factors influenced the European assertion of dominance over other cultures.

With many examples from African, Native American, Aboriginal, and Polynesian history, Diamond expresses how these cultures failed to produce the guns, the germs, and the steel that Europeans did.

-jbliqemp

Feel free to edit. If you need any more information, just ask. I'll answer to the best of my knowledge.

Thankyou very much; that's exactly what I'm looking for!

Sounds like an interesting book. The only changes required were a couple of minor spellings that Word picked up. Also, I've not filed it under Human Beings, I'm going to presume that the casual browser will realise that somewhere along the line humans are involved. Would you mind posting the publisher so I can add that?

Also, I can see the benefit of guns and steel for developing cultures. How do the germs fit in?

Major human affecting diseases are not originally human, most are derived from livestock. Close animal husbandry. Smallpox, cowpox, chickenpox, most vector born diseases like bubonic plague, and influenza (the flu). Europeans had most of these diseases, and were used to them. Smallpox would only kill a European 50% of the time. It would kill Polynesians and Native Americans 90% of the time. Europeans landed in North America (Mexico and Peru) and subsequently wiped out two major empires with fairly minor forces. Guns helped, steel helped, and germs helped. Foreign diseases were more likely to kill isolated groups than the European's weapons.

I'll get back to you with the publisher tomorrow, or perhaps later. I don't have the book right here.

I understand the not filing under Human Beings thing. My software (at the bookstore, not with me) listed topics discussed, and HB was one of them. I would personally describe the book as being a more scientific and historical anthropology (Jared Diamond is a biologist, not an anthropologist or historian).

-jb

My first offering:

The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception - Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, 1991, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-671-79797-2

This book tells the history of the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century, from their discovery in 1947 until their public release in 1991. It tells how the scrolls came to be studied by an international team of religious scholars, headed by one Father Roland de Vaux. It's an ugly story, in which the Catholic Church pulls the strings to maintain a shroud of mystery and silence over the scrolls. Scholars outside the assigned team were forbidden access of any kind. The team itself was comprised entirely of ecclesiastics, with the exception of one John Allegro. Allegro was quite productive in his work, or at least what was allowed him, since de Vaux did his best to assign Allegro the least controversial of any of the texts. Allegro often criticised the rest of the team, and de Vaux personally, and was eventually removed from the team.

The team was painfully slow about producing translations and analysis of any kind on the scrolls, and their sluggishness stood out in sharp contrast to the find in Nag Hammadi, which, after political hurdles had been cleared, took only three years to complete in draft versions. The Dead Sea Scrolls, by contrast, did not appear to the general public, nor even to established scholarship, until 1991, when the Huntington Library in California, amidst a firestorm of controversy, published a full set of long-forgotten photographs of the scrolls that had found their way to the library through improbable circumstances.

The book also details the poor archaeological techniques employed by the team, and the flawed reasoning that caused them to misdate the scrolls and the Qumran community. Other gross errors include them trying to trivialize the settlement, when it could be shown that the Qumran community was but a part of a larger movement taking place in Palestine. As it became clear to the rest of the world that the team was trying to cover something up, the clamor was raised for the veil of silence to be lifted. Accusations were even made that the team may have been destroying precious documents.

The book goes on to examine some of the material that had been disseminated by 1991, much of which was Allegro's work. Through it, the authors profer their theory on the role of the Qumran community, as well as the original Jerusalem Church, and explore the very roots of the Christian movement itself. They identify the "Spouter of Lies" from the Habbakuk Commentary as Paul, and the "Teacher of Righteousness" as James the Just, just as many other scholars do. They further posit that Paul may have been an agent of the Roman Empire who helped in the destruction of the Qumran community, and further on to the infamous massacre at Masada.

Ah. Publisher for Guns, Germs, and Steel: W. W. Norton & Company.

-jb

Ask and thou shalt receive, I finally got enought time to actually sit down and write a review for Letters From The Earth, it's A283187, feel free to criticize if you like, thanks.

P.S. Im also going to as soon as I can write some more reviews for more Mark Twain books as soon as I get a chance to.

JW

Engels42: Many thanks, yours is the dubious honour of being the first person to have a review in the FICTION SECTION, the coffee drinking browser's annexe of the Hall Of Records, built today from virtual bricks! I notice from your home page that you have a second review under way?

Gargleblaster: apologies for the belatedness of it's appearance, but The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception is now posted and open for comment. As I mentioned, I got sidetracked by the Bauval book, then just when I found the time a friend of mine dragged me out to watch the newly re-released 'Clockwork Orange'. I'm still reeling from whatever it was the film was about.

No worries, dude...I knew you'd get around to it sooner or later...just as I will get to posting a few more reviews...sooner or later.

Engels: be forewarned that I, as a huge Twain fan, will be checking on your reviews to keep you honest.

Cool, I appreciate that.
I'll be looking forward to it as I have several more Twain entries in the works, and possibly some other entries on astrophysics (Books that is) or some sort.

I just read: Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett


Intro: I believe this is the seventeenth book in the Discworld series (any fans out there who know differently, please drop me a line), a phenomenally popular series of humourous fantasy books, every one of which is a bestseller. I've read this particular one three times now.


Review: The police force of Ankh-Morpork, which is called the City Watch, is an equal opportunity employer. Members of the watch include Humans, Trolls, Dwarves, a Werewolf and a Gargoyle, so Commander Vimes is used to having respect for the rights of people from different backgrounds. Then he meets someone who has no rights and who has given himself up for a murder he didn't commit. Golems are men made out of clay for the purpose of being slaves. All over the city Golems are committing suicide. Why? Is this connected with the priest that has been murdered?

Feet of Clay is a solid merging of a hard boiled detective story with a study in human rights and diversity. Humour is also, of course, a main ingredient in any Discworld novel, and it is interwoven expertly with the serious issue of personal freedom.


Quote:
"I am a Golem. I was made of clay. By means of words of purpose in my head I acquire life. My life is to work. I obey all commands. I take no rest."

"That's why we all hate 'em, thought Commander Vimes, those expressionless eyes watch us, those big faces turn to follow us, and doesn't it just look as if they're making notes and taking names? If you heard that one had bashed in someone's head over in Quirm or somewhere, wouldn't you just love to believe it? Given how we use them, maybe we're scared because we know we deserve it."