What are you reading?

[Tomcat]

Ian Sample will win it IMO. These are the sort of books i usually buy.
Anything Scientific is ok with me.

Im currenty reading several essays on why people are not rational and also why most of us are self deluded

[daveduke007]

This post , whats happened to the others

[Torurot]

  The winner was

Surprise Royal Society prize win by wave-watching author

All kinds of waves from Mexican to seaside
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11...ce_book_prize/
The Wavewatcher's Companion

by Gavin Pretor-Pinney (Bloomsbury)

Surprise Royal Society prize win by wave-watching author


All kinds of waves from Mexican to seaside

Posted in Science, 18th November 2011 13:21 GMT

British designer and author Gavin Pretor-Pinney has won the 2011 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books for his popular science entry The Wavewatcher's Companion.

"I'm really grateful to the jury, the Royal Society and [sponsor] Winton Capital Management. What interests me in science is that it follows from being curious about the world around us. I hope my book motivates others to be curious too!" Pretor-Pinney said on winning the £10,000 prize.

The book starts from a day out on the beach with his daughter and goes on to look at waves in every form, from the ocean to light to Mexican waves at a football match.

Top judge Richard Holmes praised the book for its "old-fashioned charm and wit" and for bringing science to life in a new way.

"The Wavewatcher's Companion used relatively straight-forward science to transform our perspective on the world around us, both visible and invisible, in a completely radical way," he said. "We were inspired to see waves everywhere, and we were given an almost poetic vision of a dynamic universe."

Pretor-Pinney, who also penned best-selling The Cloudspotter's Guide, beat off competition from five other authors to win the prize, each of whom got a £1000 award for making the shortlist.

The first chapter of each of the shortlisted books is available to download free from the Royal Society website here. ®

[peterNYC]

(Tomcat @ Jul. 18 2011,01:34)  let me guess Pete

" Ant colony mentality, no social safety net and a dollar a day probably helps"

It's actually much more serious than that...

Currency manipulation, all kinds of illegal support of their export companies and much much more...

Tens of million of jobs in other countries were lost because of PRC illegal trade practises but no one seems to care...

http://www.deathbychina.com/about

Anyway, I read another two good books on China...

CHINA SAFARI by Serge Michel and Michel Beuret

(Interesting read on China's business in Africa)

MAO'S GREAT FAMINE by Frank Dikotter

(Between 1958 and 1962, forty-five million Chinese people were worked, starved or beaten to death. Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and overtake the Western world in less than fifteen years. It lead to one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known...)

[Tomcat]

The currency (RMB) may be undervalued by around 10% now perhaps but if it appreciates that much the imports will still flood in as its still cheaper than making it in the west. far cheaper

I think the nub is that if i employ 10 people i have problems with five of them. If a China factory employs 500 people they have problems with five of them.

Also the fact that China has basically raped Africa for the minerals but gets under UN Radar who still has it in for the white guys who are to blame for everything .

Once the Chinese have built the railways in Africa they will bugger off and the Copper mines will all be empty. Of course the trains wont run for much longer once they have left ...

[BlueBallz]

Mao/Stalin just tough minded rogues. .......

[Torurot]

One by a Melbourne based Aussie writer

Not a bad read

SideWays Travels with Kafka, Hunter S & Kerouac

Patrick O'Neil 2009 910.4 ONE ISBN 9780670072705

[strocube]

Hey, T, that looks interesting. How are you liking it so far?
I need to "stock up" on about 6 month's worth of reading material for my iPad. It looks like I may be far away from access to books starting around March.

[Guest]

Just started Funny Money....one of my mates from the race track is featured which makes it even better reading.

[Torurot]

Just finished it and enjoyed it. He jumps around the world going to "trance" parties on various continents and taking a number of mind altering substances.

[Guest]

Thanks, can't wait to read about my friends involvement, he disappeared for a couple of years in the noughties, now I know why

[Torurot]

Yep THAT Rachel Carson (Silent Spring)

This is "wrapped" by the two other writters but good book with some great pictures. Carson was WELL ahead of the pack.


The sea around us / Rachel L. Carson ; introduction by Ann H. Zwinger ; afterword by Jeffery S. Levinton.
by Carson, Rachel, 1907-1964.
New York ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1991, c1950.
Subjects Oceanography.
ISBN: 0195069978 or 0195061861

[Torurot]

Another enjoyable, entertaining (true) travel story. Thomas goes to Brazil writing for Lonely Planet, but what he does along the way is the story.

"Do Travel Writers Go To Hell" Thomas Kohnstamm
910.4092 KOH 2008 ISBN9781741961119

[Torurot]

Bird watching is an interesting world... who knew

I really enjoyed this book. Beautiful writing.  Lovely and interesting story. First book in a while where I had to have a dictionary handy to figure out the words!  I think that's a compliment..  Twelve months in the world of British (mostly) bird watching.  There is one part where he describes a VERY large flock of Starlings and some music that describes their flight. I downloaded it and listened... Thomas Tallis "Spem in Alium" sung by King's College Chapel in Cambridge.

"The Running Sky, A Birdwatching Life"  Tim Dee  ISBN 9781407454467

There is a fair review here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books....-review  

[Torurot]

This is a bit of a "book of lists" about things that piss these two off, and it's a LOT of things but quite funny. Enjoyable read, and seeing as it's many little topics easy to pick up put down if your travelling.

Is it just me or is everything shit? / Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur. Vol. 2.
London : Time Warner, 2006.
Subjects Civilization, Modern -- 21st century -- Humour.
ISBN: 0316029963 (hbk.) :
Description: 288 p. ; 20 cm.