I'm also a big fan, but I haven't read the book, just seen the movie.

If you haven't read Fast Food Nation, it's an excellent book and more serious than Spurlock's stuff.

The omnivore's dilemma is really good too. More scientific and and isnt preachy...just straight facts.

Animal, Vegatable, Miracle was pretty good too.

Im actually planning to do a big thread about this topic very soon.

Cool. Could be interesting, as everybody needs health but a lot of us have all sorts of ideas tied into how and what and why we eat foods, including some that have little to do with health or even taste at all.

over the last month or two Ive really started to become interested in this stuff. I switched to a whole/local-foods only diet and eliminated all fast and processed foods completely. I dont even go to the supermarket anymore.
I think im strting to see some of the benefits. I have more energy, im not as groggy in the morning and im losing weight even though I cook with more butter than the french do

Yeah Im turning into one of those hippy co-op people

I'm turning into one of those hippie co-op people too, except haven't adapted the food, clothing, or lifestyle yet.

Re: Omnivore's Dilemma, I am Facebook friends with the daughter of the guy with the natural farm in the book (she is mentioned in the book).

Ok, so I'm 300 pages into A Feast For Crows by George RR Martin and while I loved the first 3 books of A Song Of Ice And Fire I don't understand. Part 2 of Book 3 ended great with lots of cool stuff happening but it seems like now he has forgotten all of that to spend 300+ pages in Dorne, the Iron Islands and at King's Landing with Cersei and Jaime not to mention the awful Brienne. Where are Bran, Jon, Arya and Dany? I think Arya got one chapter, the others nothing.

I'm hoping he turns it around in the second half of the book so that I don't have to wait a year (or however long it takes him to release the next book in the series) to find out what is happening with the Starks.

For those that suggested Shogun...

Does it start off really slow or is this just not my cup of tea?

I finished 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' today, a beautiful book, albeit sad. A recommended read (very fast page turner too).

think I'm going to read 'Shadow Divers' next.

livinitup,

I think the world would be a better place if self-rightous yuppies stopped trying to force everyone else to eat what they do.

I've chosen not to eat fast food as well. I can't even remember the last time I did. But unlike Morgan Spurlock, I don't go around preaching bull**** to people who don't have the same options I do. Some people can't afford to eat fresh organic produce all the time. And even if they could afford it, who am I to tell another person what they should eat? If anyone wants to learn about what they're eating, there's more than enough information freely available to everyone.

It's fine to be a hippy co-op person. Just as long as you realize how fortunate you are in order to be a hippy co-op person. Some people actually do need to get a day's worth of calories in a $5 meal because it's the only meal they'll have. And no, it's not always cheaper to produce or buy everything locally.

Fast Food nation was an excellent book, as blarg mentioned. It contains actual research and thoughtful arguments, even though IIRC, I didn't agree with all of them. As opposed to a video of some whiny douche going "ooh I ate a big mac and now my tummy hurts wwhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa look what they did to poor old me."

So I wrote this the other day, and finished the book off last night (because really what else can you do without electricity). The ending is very, very disappointing because the author just seemingly gives up. Here's a map of Russia (This is a rough outline of his journey done from memory but gives a pretty good estimation, and goes through most of the towns he specifically mentions). The line in red denotes the portion of the novel containing the escape from pages 1 through 260 (with sixty or so introductory pages of the internment and conditions in the slave camp). The blue line is the last 11 pages (260-271), discounting the final four pages (271-275) concerning his applying to Iran/Turkey (kind of unclear on which) for asylum.

I don't get it, I feel robbed. The author says something in the prologue about not really going into great detail of the final year of the trek because Clemens' attitude is fairly obvious by this point and there was no need to extend the book by another 100 pages (the **** there wasn't). What this means, is he had kind of gotten into a 'I-will-kill-anyone-in-my-path-and-rob-whoever-I-need-to-get-home' mindset and the author apparently just doesn't want to discuss it in detail, after going over his first armed robbery of a human being rather than a storehouse. This book was so, so good for so long then it just peters out and glosses over the last 6000 km of his trek and things like the help he received from a secret Jewish organization (which I would have liked to seen discussed since he was a German POW). With a full account of the journey, this would have probably been my favorite book of all time (the first 2/3 to 3/4 were that good) but with the way it ended I don't even know what to think anymore.

Kit, the 4th and 5th book were supposed to be one book - but it grew so long that Martin decided to split it up by character and region - A Feast For Crows will NOT have any of the characters you're looking for - the next one, A Dance Of Dragons, will follow them.

Ron,
we're usually on the same page on things so im a little surprised by this. I'd like to keep the majority of this out of this particular thread though, ive already hijacked enough today.

All i want to say here is that Ive done my research on this topic. A lot of it. Its kinda something I hold very personal.
I'll agree that some of Spurlocks methods are a little out there and some of it yes its obviously portrayed in a manner that doesnt seem all that scientific, but what hes saying isnt wrong. Corporations have no place in food. That not an opinion to me. Corporate food is the leading cause of a lot of problems in this country. I'll go into this in a lot more detail later but I just wanted to put my 0.02 in here.

Oh and to the cost factor. I spend less than $1 a meal most of the time. Next year when I expand my garden and start canning it will be even less.

Fast food is definitely very expensive compared to what I make at home, and nowhere nearly as healthy, and rarely as tasty. I've been moving around a lot in the last two years because of my job, staying in hotels and such, and it was very hard to keep a reasonably healthy and inexpensive diet. Now that I'm cooking at home I've got both. When I couldn't, I had neither.

I've posted several Star Wars books in this thread before. But I'm now reading what may be the best series I've read since the Thrawn series. I'm obviously a huge Star Wars fans, but have been disappointed in the few that I've read that occur after Vader's turn and before Episode IV. The most interesting character is obviously Vader, but they don't deal much with him. That's not the case with these books.

I read Darth Bane: Path of Destruction in only a day. It was genuinely a book I couldn't put down. The story takes place 1000 years before the events of the movie. It deals mainly with Darth Bane. In fact, most of the first third of the book are told solely from Bane's perspective. A few other characters are introduced and we see some aspects from their perspective. But the book is probably 85+% from Bane's perspective.

And an interesting perspective it is. The movies talk about the Dark Side and the force and how Sith feed off the dark side. But there was one chilling incident that really showed what the Dark Side is about. Bane was poisoned and was using the pain and anger built up inside of him to fight off the effects of the poison. But he'd been doing it for too long, and he finally got into a car accident, unable to move anymore. A dad and his sons came upon the scene and see Bane's light saber. Bane uses the force to use the saber to kill the son. The anguish of the father gives Bane Dark Side energy and he's able to get more strength. He takes down the rest of the family, making sure to leave the father for last so he witnesses his children dying. Bane feeds off the negative energy and is able to continue his journey to find a cure. Really chilling.

The problem with the Star Wars universe is that the main characters are, on purpose, bland. They aren't supposed to have emotions or attachments. So we are stuck in 70s era professional wrestling, where the good guys are bland and all the color and character comes from the bad guys. But too much of the Start Wars universe covers the bland good guys instead of the bad guys. This series is different.

I'm reading the second novel novel now, Darth Bane: Rule of Two

Interesting...I just did a search on Amazon for these books, and I get a load of results, amongst them the two you mention. Are these books part of a bigger series, or is it just these two novels?

Want to buy my brother a present you know

Spring training is upon us, so it's time to pull out my beat up copies of Ball Four and The Bronx Zoo. The latter is one of the few laugh out loud books I have read.

Just finished Jon Lee Anderson's Che Guevara biography. Interesting, if unfocused in spots, it's objective in it's personal exploration of the man. I still remain unconvinced of Che's greatness as anything but a narcissistic clown who used his supposed desire for fairness as a crutch to embrace the potential imperialism of a failed ideology.

I finished A Feast for Crows by George RR Martin today and it was definitely my least favourite book of the series so far, mainly because it didn't include any of my favourite characters. Luckily the next book will focus only on my favourite characters so it all evens out in the end.

It took me just under two months to finish all five books (or four, is A Storm of Swords one or two books?) which for me is ridiculously fast. It sucks knowing now that I'll have to wait for who knows how long to finish the rest of the series. If there is anyone thinking about starting the series then my advice is absolutely do it. It's fantastic.

Tomorrow I begin the trek up my Everest: Infinite Jest. I've been putting it off for four months but now I just have to do it.

I'm almost finished reading The Apprentice: My Life In The Kitchen by Jacques Pepin. It's like an autobiography. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in cooking.

Assuming you're talking to me about the Darth Bane books.

There are only two Darth Bane novels, the ones I linked to Wookieepedia earlier. Here are the Amazon links:

http://www.amazon.com/Path-Destructi...dp/0345477367/

http://www.amazon.com/Rule-Two-Star-.../dp/0345477480

There will be a third novel later this year (December 15, 2009, according to Wookieepedia). I haven't finished the second novel yet. It's not quite as good as the first one. But it's still among the better Star Wars novels that I've read.

I remember reading some terrible reviews for it on Amazon, and a rave by Anthony Bourdain. Even given that Bourdain is likely highly partisan toward one of his idols, I'm still partial to trusting his judgment. I'll definitely be picking this book up sometime.

I've got Julia Child's bio as an audiobook, but haven't listened to it yet.

I probably should have linked to the paperback versions also:

http://www.amazon.com/Path-Destructi...dp/0345477375/

http://www.amazon.com/Rule-Two-Star-...dp/0345477499/

two maths books....

Prime Obessesion about the Riemann Hypothesis and The Man who Knew Infiinity - biog of the life and work or S Ramanujam

I enjoyed Prime Obsession. Very clever how it was split into non-math and math chapters alternating. (I think I mean Prime Obsession, it was some book about the Riemann Hypothesis anyway).

I'm not a math guy but I remember reading a bio of this guy. Very interesting fellow.

currently plowing through 'Shadow Divers', a story about wreck diving and the mystery of a unknown U-boat in the Atlantic. Pretty great read so far.