What are you reading right now?

[Harg]

Why?  

I mean, you could probably write a psychology dissertation based purely on the characters of Winnie the Pooh, so does religiosity in Bambi sound really that strange?

In fact, a lot of the old-school storywriters were keen on the kids getting the right kind of message, so it's not at all unusual for this kind of sneak message to make it into all type of stories.

Anyway, my point is that even if the realization could come to him, it was not very appropriate or logical for it to come to him at that actual moment. Because you ARE supposed to reconsider ideas that you have been given evidence against. If he still comes to that conclusion, FINE, but right there right then makes it seem as if he's just projecting because he's unwilling to let go of the idea.

[Overdose]

I dunno, if you're fairly convinced in miracles, and you meet someone you think is a miracle worker, but he/she turns out to be a fraud, I wouldn't immediately assume that miracles don't happen. BUT maybe that just me. Fortunately I never read Bambi, and I think I am better for it.

[Harg]

Nah, you have to read it, it's a classic. There are a lot of good parts in it. I probably should watch the Disney movie some time.

Speaking of animated stories, "The Ringing Bell of Chirin" would probably have scarred me for life as a kid. o_o

In fact, all animal stories I recall from my childhood are overly serious and dark. There was Jack London's "White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild"..."Lassie"..."Vuk" (aka The Little Fox)...Even "Sam Small's Dog".
Oh! Sam Small stories, has anyone read them? Probably not, considering it's pretty hard to even find it on the internet. They're pretty funny. If you like anecdotes that are half real and half imagination that is. Eric Knight (better known for "Lessie") wrote them based on the people in Yorkshire (his home country).

I have also read "Altered Carbon" but, I dunno, apart from the basic idea (people store their consciousness in capsules in the future) and some funny situations that resulted from it (murder victims set up as Catholics so that authorities can not resurrect them, the rich living infinite lives, the protagonist being transferred in the body of a chain of a chain smoker and fighting the nicotine addiction) there is not much to it. Perhaps I'm just not a man for "sci-fi noir". Takeshi Kovacs is more of an "ass hole" than a "bad ass" as well.

[Valhearte]

Yeah, that version didn't sit well with me either.  I mean, in what universe is "My beliefs were just proven false, therefore my beliefs must still be true regarding something else" a valid inference to make?

In this one and all others.  When Copernicus theorized and others later proved that Earth does not orbit the sun, it did not follow that the sun ceased to exist!  On the contrary, the idea of the sun changed from a minor -though luminous- tributary body of Earth's, to the most massive body then imaginable, about which Earth orbited.

That's...  That's not really a parallel inference at all.  It wasn't an OPTION in their disproving that the sun orbits the earth that the sun didn't exist.  The Copernican Revolution was a result of evidence leading towards the sun acting in ways contrary to the Ptolemaic model.  Implicit in the evidence that the sun did not revolve around the earth is the belief that the sun exists.  Nowhere in the evidence to forming the belief "X is not a god" is it implicit that god actually exists.  The fact that statements about god were made in "X is not a god" isn't evidence that god exists any more than me saying "I am not a martian" is evidence of life on mars.

An inference regarding heavenly bodies that would be closer to the inference "X is not a god, therefore something else must exist that is god" would be "The sun does not revolve around earth, therefore something else must revolve around earth."

Granted, that's actually true, but it's still not a valid inference to make.

[Ollie]

Just finished Still Alice by Lisa Genova (i think she is a doctor of neuroscience, graduated from Harvard). I heard about in an article in TIME magazine about the trend of self-published books that DID end up becoming best-sellers. I saw it at Borders today while looking for a present for Becca's birthday and bought it immediately.

The main character, Alice, is a 50-year-old woman who works as a professor of psychology at Harvard, and travels all over the world giving lectures. She has 3 kids and her husband, John, is a cancer researcher. She starts forgetting things little things, but not until she gets lost and disoriented in a place less than a mile from her home does she realize something is wrong with her, and is soon after diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. It progresses quickly.

Since the author is a doctor from Harvard she had a lot of easy access to other professionals on the topic. She includes scientific stuff in the book, but not very much; it's very much Alice's story.

[Kei-kun]

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville (who is a buff dude, against what the original owner of the book and me thought). I almost drop this book because of an excess in exotic wording and a pretty boring and excessive description of what I guess will be the main setting of the story.
Then I decided to give it another chance and moved on to chapter one. And I decided to stay for the bugsex (khepris are human-body insect-head creatures).

[Overdose]

I am pretty sure I have heard of that book somewhere, but I don't know why.

[Harg]

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is decent workmanship, but I couldn't bring myself to call it a good book. OK, so rewrite all of book with added references to ninjas and zombies but it doesn't really add to the plot, or is particularly humorous after one or two chapters.

[Emma]

Just finished reading "What your doctor may NOT tell you about Autoimmune Disorders"

Autoimmune disorders being when your immune system fucks up somehow, and ends up attacking your own body in one way or another.  Obviously my Rheumatoid Arthritis is one of these diseases.

So, I was really enjoying the book.  It offered a lot of answers that I haven't previously heard, and seemed to offer a lot of advice on how to take the disease in to your own hands, and drug free therapies that seemed to magically cure people.  It seemed almost too good to be true!  This book was telling me how to cure my arthritis!

So, after finishing the book....I googled the author and the medical center he runs down in the states.....
And the center was shut down, and he was sued three times for mal-practice, and the magical therapies he treated people with?  Generally didn't work, and actually made people worse......

Damn.    I was really hopeful, too.

Oh well....On to the next book.

[Masquerade]

And the center was shut down, and he was sued three times for mal-practice, and the magical therapies he treated people with?  Generally didn't work, and actually made people worse......

This is typical of most "alternative" medicine. Well, actually, most of that just doesn't do anything. But if their peers in the medical field think they are crackpots, there is a good reason for it.

[Kei-kun]

CONAN! The cimmerian. A collection of the first stories in the order they were written.

[Titch]

Re-reading Going Postal.

And other Terry Prachett Books.

[Destichado]

CONAN! The cimmerian. A collection of the first stories in the order they were written.

I am between books atm, but just finished the Lost Fleet series -or, if it's not done (it might not be), at least I'm current- by Jack Campbell.

Series is full of awesome and Win.

[Emma]

Started re-reading Artemis Fowl books.  <3

[Rook]

Re-reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy

I really should finish the Artemis Fowl books, I think I only read the first two and it's been so long I might as well starting over if I every get around to finishing the series >.>

[Titch]

Started re-reading Artemis Fowl books.  <3

I've been doing that too <3

I'm guessing Eion is putting off the next book cos it's the last book the Artemis Fowl series.

[Harg]

90 Classic Books for People in a Hurry by Henrik Lange
The Illustrated Guide to Forensics by Zakaria Erzinclioglu, Dr.
Hollow Fields by Madeleine Rosca

Wasn't Hitchhiker's Guide 6 to come out on the 12th, by the way? I might give it a chance.

[Rook]

Wasn't Hitchhiker's Guide 6 to come out on the 12th, by the way? I might give it a chance.

...Oh wow, I actually completely forgotten about that
Kinda freaky considering how Artemis  Fowl was also being discussed o_o

[Titch]

I assumed that was why you mentioned it 

[Rook]

No it really wasn't o_o
I just happened to be reading it and though I would mention it because someone posted in the thread again, bumping it up to my attention <.<;;