Here's an excerpt from a NYT feature that keys into what I was saying about the value of establishing a thick cluster of connections and associations between related topics as a way of retaining them better and building up nowledge that's useful rather than not just shallow but wastefully temporary:

(emphasis mine)

Reading around a bit in a single subject not only helps to counter the limits and prejudices likely to be found in a single writer or book, but helps also to work up that overlay of complexity that preserves ideas in the memory much longer.

Just finished Ringworld. I enjoyed it but it had its flaws. The characters were pretty forgettable, and I didn't really get the points he was trying to make with the whole luck-as-genetic-trait thing he kept going on about.

I also wish you learned more about the Ringworld itself. I mean, the book takes place on an artificial ring a million bajillion times bigger than Earth that no one knows anything about, but you learn almost nothing of its creation and not that much more about its civilization. It's like Niven takes you to the craziest ****ing thing in space and then is all like "What, that? That's nothing, now let me tell you my insane theories on luck."

I mean, overall I really liked it and loved Niven's huge ideas, just wish he had spent more time exploring them.

He does explore them ...there are 3 or 4 more books and a few earlier short stories and books(Protector and Neutron Star) that relate to the universe and the creators of Ringworld.

I love Niven for his ideas and his worlds, but IMO he often loses "the focus' by the end of his books.

Yeah I was planning on reading more of his stuff, I just meant I wish he talked more about the Ringworld in this book in particular, since it's, you know, called Ringworld.

thought of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjKpPerVuU0

Prolly going for The American Prometheus.

Finished Oryx and Crake which I really liked, now on to Life of Pi which is good so far, I'm half way through.

finished 'gang leader for a day', a really fun, interesting book. the author was the same sociologist seen in freakanomics if any of you have read that.

the author studies and visits in the robert taylor projects in Chicago for the better part of a decade, befriending a gang leader of the black kings gang. the whole economics/sociological elements is pretty interesting, as the project life is completely different than anything else. it's a different society, almost a living organism in itself, as each person plays his or her part (from the hustlers to the soldiers to the hookers and the dealers, etc).

overall, it was a very cool book and i enjoyed it alot.

starting 'under the dome' by stephen king next, looking forward to it.

Let me know if he decided to use more cheese than corn this time, Orange.

Last night, I read Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton. I really really liked it. It wasn't even because it was about a schoolteacher, either. I just absolutely loved the style of the story. It jumped in and out of little snapshots of Chips' history. The little ways that someone can touch lives (teacher or not) was poignant and frankly, just plain beautiful. Except not so plain.

It's a short little text, and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it. I'm sure most of you have, though. Really though, much love for this book.

I stopped by the bookstore today to check out some books on Totalitarianism and ended up getting completely sidetracked by Howie Mandel's biography. And not just, "Oh, that looks interesting. Let me read a page or two." I sat down and read the whole damn thing.

Read more than one book at once.. Some for the loo, some for the study, some when I am bored lol.. Oh well here we go..

My Early Life - Winston Churchill
Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
Lays of Ancient Rome - Thomas Macauly
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand (Read this like a hundred times but read it continoualy from start to finish every 2-3 months.. No need to guess where this is kept.. lol)

The Golden Compass

This is a fantasy book for the youngsters. I'd give this book as a gift to a young relative, probably around junior high age. I'm not even sure why I read it, but for whatever reason I seem to own the 3 books in this Dark Materials trilogy. Fantasy isn't my scene in general, never went in for the Tolkien or CS Lewis books, but this held my interest and didn't feel like a waste of time. I'll have to read the other 2 now.

I like it. Geometric rather than arithmetic learning.

Is it necessary to read the other Atwood books in order to appreciate this?

I'm just finishing The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. It's a fiction, but it's told memoir style from the perspective of Aminata, the heroine. Aminata is an elderly black lady writing her lifestory as a freewoman in London, 1802. She describes her childhood born free in Africa, her captivity and enslavement, and her world travels and path to freedom. The book is just shy of 500 pages, but is well paced and moves briskly. While the subject is heavy, the strength of the main character lifts the overall tone. Aminata's love of the written word is a thread throughout. Do read!

No, but I didn't much like Oryx and Crake. I saw the ending coming and thought the book was ham-fisted in its social critiques, if you can even call them that. Everything was exaggerated to cartoonish levels, but it wasn't funny at all so you couldn't call it satire.

Not at all. But after I finished the sequel, After the Flood, I reread this and appreciated it a lot more.

Fwiw, this book was retitled Someone Knows My Name when it was published in the US. (I'll leave it for others to work out the cultural implications of this.)

It's a charming book (though I'm sure my being a teacher predisposes me to like it). The 1939 movie with Robert Donat is excellent as well. The 1969 remake is ok but distinctly a cut below.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
bout 1/3 way through this one, I had no idea how much of a badass Theodore Roosevelt was. I'm only up to where he's ~23 and he's already proven himself a beast.

I'm also breezing through Post Office by Bukowski. It's written in an episodic style with really short chapters and I've just been picking it up for a few minutes at a time to lmao at drunken exploits. fantastic read.

There is a book called "Black Man" in Canada by Richard Morgan...in the US it is called "Thirteen". The book is a SciFi with a anti-racisim theme.
Not sure if it is the publishers or who that makes these decisons, but lol.

Currently rereading the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson

Finished - Quicksilver: The Baroque Cycle #1 - same opinion as the first time. Great writing but where the fuuu is this going? Interesting characters and such but not much story

Finished - King of the Vagabonds: The Baroque Cycle #2 - almost totally unrelated to #1. Very different type of story. More of a fun romp.

NOW it gets confusing. Stephenson has a amazing skill of taking complex issues or stories and presenting them in a enjoyable understandable fashion. But he or the publisher was stoned out their fffing mind while naming the books/volumes.
The next book should be volume 3? correct? Or book 3?

I take volume #3 off the shelf and get confused.....this not right.
Right. Volume 2 is actually book #3 - The Confusion, Vol. II(which contains books 4-5) which make me realize that I have never read the real book 3 -Odalisque: The Baroque Cycle #3. Apparently Quicksilver was published as a Volume One containing books 1-3 in hardcover and also published as Quicksilver(a paperback with only book one). WTF were these people drinking?
Below is the actual list of books....I guess I need to buy -Odalisque: The Baroque Cycle #3
-----------------

Quicksilver, Vol. I of the Baroque Cycle
Book 1 - Quicksilver
Book 2 - The King of the Vagabonds
Book 3 - Odalisque

The Confusion, Vol. II of the Baroque Cycle
Book 4 - Bonanza
Book 5 - The Juncto

The System of the World, Vol. III of the Baroque Cycle
Book 6 - Solomon's Gold
Book 7 - Currency
Book 8 - The System of the World

Finished Life of Pi yesterday, which was very good. It was the only non-dystopian novel I've read over the past few weeks. FInishing made me wish i had someone around who had also read it so I could discuss the book, or I'd like if we'd done that in grade 12 instead of Stone Angel.

I both started and finished Messenger by Lois Lowry today. I know Lois Lowry's work is technically teen fiction, but I started the series back in middle school and really liked her writing so I wanted to finish it. I preferred both Gathering Blue and The Giver but it was still good.

I can tell you were in a Canadian high school. I like The Stone Angel a lot (and Laurence's The Diviners even more). But it seems crazy to me that they keep teaching it in high school. It's the same problem as teaching King Lear: you have to believe you're going to get old to appreciate a narrative about old age ...

Life of Pi is well worth discussing, especially how the ending works. But to do so in this forum would seriously harm the reading experience for others.

Martel's new novel is announced for this spring. I'm hoping it will be as strong.