2017 books: 38-44
Aug. 23rd, 2017 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanAs I get close to the end of the stacks, there are enough random items in here that it gets harder to lump them into groups.
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Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture by Paul Hodkinson I picked this up in Whitby. Pretty much what it says on the tin. Hodkinson did his thesis on the Goth subculture and published it as a book. It's all here, music, clothes and hanging out in pubs with the rest of the reprobates. |
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The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould I think I must have bought this back in University. Gould published this as a refutation of biological determinism. It's full of old diagrams and charts from the 1800's that claim to "prove" that certain people are smarter or more primitive based on their skull size and shape, etc. In 1994 The Bell Curve was published and so The Mismeasure of Man was updated and re-released. Everything you need to heave at your racist uncle over Thanksgiving dinner. |
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Stolen Continents: The New World Through Indian Eyes by Ronald Wright I know I bought this years ago. Wright focuses on five group, the Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, Cherokee Nation and Iroquois Confederacy. For each group he recounts their first encounters with Europeans, resistance over the centuries and present day. Like every other book about Native American history, it confirms that the only reason the majority of the continent is not still under Indigenous control is due to Smallpox and Influenza. |
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High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver I bought this because I love the author, even though it's not actually fiction. A collection of essays, most of which appeared in magazines over the course of her writing career. Kingsolver talks about her daughter, her travels, her love of nature, being a single mother, and being a writer. |
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Prisons We Choose To Live Inside by Doris Lessing This was part of the required reading for a philosophy course I did back at University. A collection of essays aired on CBC in 1985. Her major thesis is that we know more about human nature than at any point in human history, but that we fail to use this knowledge to improve our lives. The ideas she talks about here aren't going to be new to the modern reader - and in fact I think we have more knowledge now about how much that she here attributes to human nature is more accurately Western nature - but it's still full of interesting ideas. |
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Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chögyam Trungpa I have no idea where this book came from. Meditation has been around for years, and recently when I did my group therapy at CAMH there was a huge mindfulness component so it seems to be the new darling of the mental health field. This book was written by a Tibetan Buddhist on the benefits of a meditative life. Not so much an instructon manual on "how to" so much as a "why everybody should". |
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The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene Somewhere I once read a study that said that most successful business people who reach the top of their field fit the diagnostic criteria of a sociopath. This is their instruction manual. There are lots of articles about this book out there that point out why it's not very good. Personally I found it incredibly useful - I have a lot of trouble getting inside a certain mindset, and here I found tons of examples I can use in my writing. I have sticky notes stuck all over the book to mark traits and strategies that are potentially useful for writing specific characters. |
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Date: 2017-08-30 11:09 am (UTC)Was it any "good"? Well, good enough to splash out $30-$300 on eBay?
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Date: 2017-10-02 09:12 pm (UTC)It's also very UK centric and a huge chunk of it is about Whitby. Not surprisingly given that most grad students don't have the money for international research, but it does limit the scope quite a bit. (I suspect southern redneck goths would have been a bit of a culture shock for him.)
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Date: 2017-10-03 08:52 am (UTC)