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

Am about to read Bernard Cricks (1982, 2nd edn), "In defence of Politics". The front cover says it's a classic work. Crick appears to be a dyed in the wool socialist.

Hmmmm found this when looking up Bernard Crick: "Orwell was deadly serious in arguing that capitalism, faced with a largely literate and free electorate, could only by means of cultural debasement maintain a class system so grossly unequal and inequitable. He knew nothing of Habermas and Frankfurterschule neo-Marxism. Old George worked it out for himself. Seemed obvious; 14-pint common sense."
http://www.orwell.ru/a_life/crick/english/e_bbbel

Coincidence - he might be the modern day Orwellian I was looking for, although he passed on in 2008, and seems to have only written non-"fiction".

Crick wasn't too enamoured with Marx - unhappy with Marx's conception of the final "solution"/state of society, one where there was a unity of culture based on satiation of economic need, where politics fades into redundancy. A final state requiring a push/ a revolution against the existing capitalistic order to reach, through an intermediary of the "tyranny" of the proletariat. He evidently introduced an ideology of a final natural order, a final society. Ideologies of a unity of society were what drove the fascists, the Nazi's, the communists, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao. Anyway this was just one aspect of what Crick discussed.


Next up to read, Jean Aitchinson (1997, 4th edn), The Articulate Mammal, an introduction to psycholinguistics.

'Other People's Money' by Justin Cartwright was extremely good. Cleverly structured. Some well-crafted one liners. It's set amongst the banking crisis.

I read half a page of 'Mara and Dan' by Britain's Nobel laureate. I'll get back to it.

Then I got distracted by 'Poor Economics' by Abhijit V Banerjee and Esther Duflo. Superb! It's a close-up look at the economic lives of the world's poorest people, how they behave, the decisions they make and the reasons for them. The suggestion is that development policies may fail if they don't start from a basis of reality.

Accompanying site: http://www.pooreconomics.com

I meant "dictatorship of the proletariat" - I am getting my quotes mixed up. "Tyranny" refers to "tyranny of the majority", which is what John Stuart Mill wrote and dictatorship doesn't equate to tyranny, e.g., there is the mythical benign dictator.

I'm reading an odd bushcraft handbook from 1920. In the intro, railing against workaholics, the author tells us:

"we [the USA] are an overworked nation...our hair turns gray ten years earlier than the Englishman's...but perhaps gray hair is better than none; and it is a fact that the average Briton becomes bald as early as the American turns gray."

The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell. Not a Wallander book, its main character is a judge investigating a mass murder in which her mother's adoptive parents were killed. I was a bit bothered by some of her behaviour - you'd think a judge would know better than to interfere with a crime scene.

the 3rd out of 4 freebie romance stories that I got for free on Valentine's day from Amazon for my Kindle

truly poop - and these are all Harlequin romances and they all feature explicit sex which surprised me.

Also just started: My Family and other Animals by Gerald Durrell.

Just finished 'A Dance With Dragons: Part 2'. Cracking. I'll probably have to wait years for the conclusion of the series, though.

Now on to Paddle: A Long Way Round Ireland, by Jasper Winn. As you can probably guess from the title, he sea kayaked round Ireland.

Sho, have you read Gerald Durrell's 'The Stationary Ark'? I really enjoyed it. It's the only one of his books I have read, but I didn't think he was going to be such a funny writer, as well as so knowledgeable.

Ah! The Stationary Ark. I've read that and it's a real eye-opener. I also recommend the sequels to My Family and Other Animals - Birds, Beasts and Relatives, and Garden of the Gods. In fact, I recommend anything by Gerald Durrell.

Currently reading mostly OU course notes - exam on April 23rd.

good luck with the exam CD, I'm having a horrible time writing an EMA at the mo and absolutely should not be here.

I thought I'd work my way through all the Gerald Durrell books, I remember reading My Family... as a kid, but don't remember anything about it. It's just the kind of easy read I need right now.

CD, the bit where he talks about the architecture of zoos is very interesting. People always obsess over whether an enclosure is big enough, but think nothing of putting an orangutan in a massive space with nothing to climb...

His descriptions of getting animals to feed (they don't always like what they're supposed to eat) and mate are interesting, too. Nowadays, whenever I read about the latest failed attempt to get pandas (or whatever) to breed, I always think, "They wouldn't expect a random man and a random woman to hit it off straight away (if at all). Why do they expect it of animals?"

One day I'm going to visit the Durrell Wildlife Trust on Jersey and see how things should be done.

1984 by George Orwell

and then I'm going to possibly read
The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I got it at a book sale and I've only read like three pages so far, so I'm not sure if it's good or not

I've just started The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. I love the descriptions of landscapes.

I've read The Road I thought it was brilliant but not cheerful. Not that you are looking for cheerful books, I am.

I didn't like The Road. Just couldn't get it. No Country For Old Men, on the other hand, I loved.

Recently re-read Life Ascending by Nick Lane. Thoroughly excellent and I'd thoroughly recommend to anyone interested in evolution and the history of life.

And just started Darwin Among the Machines, by George Dyson. Interesting so far.

<< I didn't like The Road...>>

So far I'm not liking the no quotation marks. Makes the dialogue seem pretty purposeless. Is No Country For Old Men a similar book? And I might have to check out Life Ascending then if I ever get around to needing a new book....

I met Dr Yan Wong yesterday, one of the authors, with Richard Dawkins, of 'The Ancestor's' Tale'.

That's three times I've met him now.

Currently reading "Little Fuzzy" - I recently read Scalzi's retelling, and am now on H. Beam Piper's original. Both have their merits.