haha well i did with the other post, as you saw me question and argue against some ideas. I don't know if you're familiar with them but I like two texts that regard power and how it is used; Animal Farm by George Orwell (great book) and youtube 'brown eyes blue eyes AND Jane elliot' it's about an experiment in oppression.

Enjoy

I'm familiar with Elliot's brown eyes/blue eyes, and Orwell is a favorite, so I guess we were influenced by similar things.

Tom Palven wrote:

... Bad news is I have nothing to argue about. ...

I disagree, there is always something that I see differently.

Books? Try:
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka. History of tractors combined with a mail order bride from the Ukrain and an aged man set in England. Humour combined with history.
View from a Height by Isaac Asimov. Some really interesting big picture aspects of science.
The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura. Explains the difference between Japanese and Chinese culture through tea. Zen vs. Tao.
The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber. My sense of humour, JT was a writer for The New Yorker etc in 1960s-70s.
The Secret War by R.V.Jones. How the head of British Scientific Intelligence figured out all sort of stuff in WWII. Bending the radio beams, radar, V2 warhead size, how to make your university professor stand in a bucket of water on one leg. One of my favourite books.

Thanks. They sound all interesting. My library probably doesn't have them, but they're good about getting books, and I'm going to order them all. Been in a rut and really need something different to read.

Airzone,
I just ordered, used from Amazon, A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine, The Book of Tea, A View From a Height, and The Thurber Carnival. Right now I'm reading My Mother's Lovers by Christopher Hope, about South Africa, and so far it's slow-going.

Wow. I'm impressed and hope you will like them. They were just a few books I really liked from my bookshelf behind me. They are a mixed bag.

I have just finished the second volume from Ruth Park's autobiography. Fishing in the Styx. I thought the last couple of chapters were especially fascinating. Ruth wrote the Harp of the South and many other books and she married another Australian writer - if you are Australian you will know of her I guess. In the latter part of her life she began to ask herself What does it all mean? and studies up Zen Buddhism, and still continued to write. So when I read finished this book, I then had to review it again knowing she had asked herself all these philosophical questions ... which I have also been asking misled over the last decade or so. It made the book look a little different to me. She talked about the practice of being detached from problems. Being concerned, loving, disliking or whatever as well, but being detached to try to see what is the real issue and not what we instinctively feel. To look beneath why we feel what we feel and get to the "truth" of the matter. Is there any truth? That is part of Zen Buddhism of course.

The book before that, was about a certain Mr Lucy who was the chief engineer of NSW railways in the twenties to late forties. It was an interesting insight into an English gentlemen engineer businessman who worked in some turbulent times. I also like steam trains so it was an opportunity to learn a little about them too.

Happy reading.

Airzone,

I must look up her book on Lucy, who was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the NSWGR.
The only book that I've read on him is Man of Steam by David Bourke. Sub titled 'E.E.Lucy - A Gentleman Engineer in the great days of the Iron Horse'.*
My father numbered, 'Dear Lucy' as he was known, among his friends even though when they first met Lucy was the CME and Dad but a lowly Engine Turner.
It is rather sad to see that much of the work that Lucy put into the NSWGR has been destroyed over the years by starving the system of finance and by pandering to politicians.

* ISBN 0 9588340 0 8

hi Samuel, sorry ... my poor wording. I meant the book before last that I had read, not that Ruth had written. Ruth Park didn't write a book about "dear Lucy" ... the book I read was the one you quoted.

And yes, so often it is all about power over others, politics and all that. From what I understood "dear Lucy" did a great job under very difficult circumstances. I am in awe of the mechanical aspects of steam trains. Big heavy metal bits flying around very fast. Scary.

Also, being a country lad, I have travelled a bit on the good old railmotor which he introduced on the run up to the Southern Highlands.

No, Airzone, I'm not an Aussie. I'm a North American, born and raised in New Jersey and retired to northern Florida. I hadn't realized until I moved down near St Augustine that St Augustine was the first permanent settlement in the US, settled by the Spanish in 1565. Apparently my grade school texts were written by anglophiles. I was taught that Jamestown, Virginia, settled in 1607, was the first permanent settlement. In 2007 a lot of Virginians tried to celibrate the 400th anniversary of the first permanent settlement in the US, but the governor of Florida and others tried to rain on their parade.

I must admit that I usually read mysteries, but Robert Parker, one of my all-time favorite authors, died recently, Stephen White seems to have lost his touch, I grown tired of Michael Connally's unconvincing serial killers, Nelson Demille's latest was a tedious rehash, and I've read Elizabeth George's and John Grisham's latest. When I get through what you recommended I may check out Ruth Parks, or perhaps try another Dennis Lehane, who I also enjoy.

A couple of books I recommend are a little book called The History of Pi by Petr Beckmann, even shorter if, like me, you don't try to read the equations, and Earth Abides, written in the 1940's by George Stewart. If you have Amazon down under you may be able to get used copies in excellent condition extremely cheap.

BTW, I've visited Sydney and Cairns, and enjoyed the hell out of my short stay in Australia.