What should I read next?

[erratio]

a) Sun Tzu's Art of War
b) pop fantasy crap that's quick and easy and fun to read, but the literary equivalent of junk food
c) Machiavelli's The Prince
d) Something else about Carl Jung, the last book I got from the librar is rather.. hmm.. rather simplistic and not very helpful. Also the constant use of the word 'psychic' is distracting, even though Jung meant it in the context of 'psyche'
e) other (offer suggestions)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/joshuatree_/]

I want to read American pshyco

[axl12.livejournal.com]

a) A bit boring if the version is without commentary
e) First year Psychology textbook

[willeeee.livejournal.com]

hey jen this is will, found ur lj through hein's friends page, anyway u've been friended!

i havn't read a proper book for reals since yr 12 :(

[erratio.livejournal.com]

hey will! friended you back! :)

Suggestions

[mnarciso.livejournal.com]

Not literary junk food, but pretty funky:

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez\
2. Chocolat by Joanne Harris (I think)
3. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel (VERY GOOD READ)

Re: Suggestions

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Ooh i've heard of those first two :) Might give them a go if they're in my local library

[(Anonymous)]

One of the best books that I've read in a long time: "The Ancestor's Tale", by Richard Dawkins. If you're not familiar with his books, he's an evolutionary biologist who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. It's about 600 pages long, but there's no need to read it all in one go. If you have even the *smallest* shred of interest in evolution or in zoology, I promise you that you won't be able to put it down!

He's also virulently anti-Creationism, and that's always good fun too =P
Simon

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Is that that Blind Watchmaker fellow?

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, that's also a good book, but not as good as this one. "The Blind Watchmaker" is basically just a defense of Darwinian evolution, targeted at someone who might subscribe to the tenets of 'creationism' (although, interestingly, not someone who subscribes to non-Darwinian evolution: a fact that his detractors are always quick to point out).

If you already happen to believe in evolution, in any sense, then "The Blind Watchmaker" won't really do anything for you (IMHO). All of the fascinating information that he includes about things like the human eye, the bat's sonar, the nature of probability, etc are all reproduced for "The Ancestor's Tale" anyway.