What was the last book you read?

[sheilaxVx]

i'm reading "the way nature made him";
it's a really interesting non-fiction story of a boy who was raised as a girl as the result of a botched circumcision and some poor decision making. wicked sad, very very interesting in regards to the science of gender identity vs. nuture.

[Fallen_Horse]

Freakonomics. Pretty good.

[littlepurplegoth]

Bit of a Paddington fest here atm - am onto 'Paddington At Work' about now as bedtime reading. But also read 'The Last Angel' yesterday, and have a copy of 'The Thrive Diet', and 'The Four Hour Work Week' floating around atm as well... (and that is a short list for me, and I'm not mentioning the magazines I got through in the last 2 days either )

LPG

[emm7]

i'm reading "the way nature made him";
it's a really interesting non-fiction story of a boy who was raised as a girl as the result of a botched circumcision and some poor decision making. wicked sad, very very interesting in regards to the science of gender identity vs. nuture.

in stories I've heard like this (saw a documentary on it a while back) the child usually acts in quite a masculine way even though they've been brought up as a girl, this is another reason why I think biology does play a definite part in behaviour even if socialization (nurture) is often a more powerful influence.

Sheila what is your take on it, from reading this book etc.?

[blueyy]

Wow -

Ive just got into Gabriel Cousen's book 'Depression-free for life' its a really really valuable read!

Plus-

Concious Eating - Gabriel Cousens
Sunfood diet- David Wolfe
Healing power of juicing - Norman Walker

10/10 (invaluable stuff!!!)

[KaliBaby]

in the middle of reading two books for my senior thesis:

"Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply" and "The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics" both written by the amazing Indian environmentalist and political activist, Vandana Shiva.

[emm7]

OK have just been reading Tennessee Williams for the first time and it is compelling, started reading A Streetcar Named Desire and couldn't put it down so had to read all the way through, it is very disturbing and intense and sultry, the atmosphere and the characters.

Loved the foreword Williams wrote to another of his plays (Sweet Bird of Youth, haven't read it yet), really felt like he understands, want to quote the bits that really spoke to me:

At the age of fourteen I discovered writing as an escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable. It immediately became my place of retreat, my cave, my refuge. From what? From being called a sissy by the neighbourhood kids, and Miss Nancy by my father, because I would rather read books in my grandfather's large and classical library than play marbles and baseball and other normal kid games, a result of a severe childhood illness and of excessive attachment to the female members of my family, who had coaxed me back into life.

I think no more than a week after I started writing I ran into the first block. It's hard to describe it in a way that will be understandable to anyone who is not a neurotic. I will try. All my life I have been haunted by the obsession that to desire a thing or to love a thing intensely is to place yourself in a vulnerable position, to be a possible, if not a probable, loser of what you most want. Let's leave it like that. That block has always been there and always will be, and my chance of getting, or achieving, anything that I long for will always be gravely reduced by the interminable existence of that block.

[...]

Since I am a member of the human race, when I attack its behaviour towards fellow members I am obviously including myself in the attack, unless I regard myself as not human but superior to humanity. I don't. In fact, I can't expose a human weakness on the stage unless I know it through having it myself. I have exposed a good many human weaknesses and brutalities and consequently I have them.

[...]

I would say that there is something much bigger in life and death than we have become aware of (or adequately rewarded) in our living and dying. And further, to compound this shameless romanticism, I would say that our serious theatre is a search for that something that is not yet successful but is still going on.

[runrevolt]

Again To Carthage - It's running fiction..i'm a nerd. but it's very very GOOD fiction.

Now i'm reading Once A Runner - the prequel to Again To Carthage. Again, very awesome stuff.

[james79]

Again To Carthage - It's running fiction..i'm a nerd. but it's very very GOOD fiction.

Now i'm reading Once A Runner - the prequel to Again To Carthage. Again, very awesome stuff.

Great books. For me 'Once a Runner' is better than 'Again to Carthage'.
Makes me want to go and live on my own in a log cabin and run 140miles a week. It's fiction but I think the characters are based on runners that the author knew in the 70's. e.g. John Walton = John Walker. My favourite chapter the interval session chapter where he does 80 x 400m. I have an original copy of Once a Runner as well. They are going for £100 or something on ebay.

[runrevolt]

Hmm...maybe I haven't gotten to the log cabin part yet, but Again To Carthage started at the log cabin. I'm only halfway through Once a Runner, but so far I like Again to Carthage better, maybe because it's about distance instead of the mile.

And yea, Again To Carthage (and this too) inspired me in the way that you talk about living in a log cabin. It's slightly changed my mentality to running, shaping it more as an inward personal endeavor. I'm really enjoying the effect so far.

You have an original copy of Once a Runner? Hold on to that! I couldn't find it anywhere, and then I found out it's no longer published and is in high demand on the internet, hence what you see it going for. I have a PDF file of the book that I printed out at my work. That's awesome. You should get it autographed.

[emm7]

Makes me want to go and live on my own in a log cabin and run 140miles a week.

That's the sign of a good book if it fires your imagination I reckon and makes you want to be in the world of the book or gets you really enthusiastic!

[Konstantin]

OK have just been reading Tennessee Williams for the first time and it is compelling,

Williams was brilliant, really simple language, great character interactions. Because he was homosexual in that culture he was almost asexual and so there was a real outsiders view on marriages and men and women. Not a lot of good character traits in people all round - Stan Kowalski's hardly a good male role model. He wrote a novel but it wasn't good at all, it was the same themes as the plays but just didn't work.

I went to see Streetcar many years ago on a hot summers evening and I think the theatre stopped all ventilation to add to the humid tension, but someone actually passed out. I should look out my old texts of these.

[emm7]

OK have just been reading Tennessee Williams for the first time and it is compelling,

Williams was brilliant, really simple language, great character interactions. Because he was homosexual in that culture he was almost asexual and so there was a real outsiders view on marriages and men and women. Not a lot of good character traits in people all round - Stan Kowalski's hardly a good male role model. He wrote a novel but it wasn't good at all, it was the same themes as the plays but just didn't work.

I went to see Streetcar many years ago on a hot summers evening and I think the theatre stopped all ventilation to add to the humid tension, but someone actually passed out. I should look out my old texts of these.

oh! didn't realise he was gay!!!!! I am even more impressed now. Talk about extremely talented powers of empathy and observation. Yes maybe it is an example of "the outsider sees most of the game".
Yes Kowalski isn't a role model for sure!!!!!! Each of the characters are a mixture of good and bad.

Stella --- good quality, she is honest (very bad liar), practical, generous and not a snobbish bone in her body. Bad quality, she is an addict (hooked on Stan because of his "extra curricular abilities" ) and a victim and too stoical / apathetic.

Blanche -- good quality, she has got a damn good imagination and is clearly cultured and intelligent and wants to protect her sister. Bad quality, she is a fantasist, manipulative, a taker rather than a giver, and doesn't want to face harsh reality. Plus she is addicted to drink.

Stan -- good quality, he says it how he sees it and confronts people if they are being dishonest, also he works hard and provides for Stella and does I believe love her, and he is very loyal to his friends. Bad quality, he is violent and aggressive and crass and his violence towards Stella and Blanche is awful, also I wonder whether he is a gambling addict (he always seems to be holding poker parties).

Interesting they are all very damaged people and all go on to damage others.

Stella will damage unborn baby (by staying with Stan because of her addiction to him although he is violent) and will damage Blanche by having her sectioned for insanity even though Blanche is not lying about what Stan did to her. Blanche damages the men she leads on and seduces in order to get affection and/or money (including a 17 year old lad ), Stan damages Stella and Blanche with his violence.

Yes Papaya please do read it again and let me know what you think!

[Konstantin]

Yes, the homosexuality is key to how he made Stella and Stanley. Ten never understood sex and concluded that everything else revolved around it. Stella really has no other motivation than Stanley, and later on we find out Blanche is just a sexual woman - nothing else to her really. All the rest is just fake. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has a ot of that too, the end is all about sex solves everything.

Great writing though, and great interpretations. I love the way that period of Amercian writers were poetic with images and themes, but with really simple language.

[benzilla]

Just finished The China Study. I liked what I read, but when I did statistics at uni, the first thing they told us is that we can use them to prove any point we wanted.... I'm no nutritionist, so I don't know how much to believe.