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Current Non-Fiction reads

Finally reading Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond after it sitting on my bookshelf for the better part of a decade.
 
Louder Than Words, Jenny McCarthy

Not something I'd usually choose but my bookclub chose it for this month, so I feel that I must read it.
 
Right now:
The Oxford history of Greece and the hellenistic world by Broadman, Griffin & Murray and
Ancient Greece from prehistoric to hellenistic times by Thomas R. Martin
 
Three Cups of Tea

I am starting Three Cups of Tea. I've had it recommended by several people. It shows one man's view of life in the Middle East these days. I'm excited to dig into it. Another book I've loved is called Manhunt: The 12 Day Search for Lincoln's Killer. This book laid out a lot of facts in a way that made you feel like you were watching a movie. I loved talking books and I've started a website where I talk about these books and others. It's called thebedsoreclub.
 
Wells83 said:
Louder Than Words, Jenny McCarthy

Not something I'd usually choose but my bookclub chose it for this month, so I feel that I must read it.
Click to expand...


She has brought alot of attention to autism. Tell me how it is when you are done.
 
Libra said:
She has brought alot of attention to autism. Tell me how it is when you are done.
Click to expand...


She made it clear in the book too that she was and is doing all she can do bring autism to the forefront.

It was an inspiring read. McCarthy did everything she possibly could in order to help her son, including many alternative therapies, such as a restricted diet and ridding Evan's body of yeast. The results are astounding--Evan's autism at this date is almost non-existant. She has been very blessed and she mentions in her book that while every parent should try every possible cure for their child, within reason, her son is luckier than most to have made such great strides.
 
Terror and Consent - The Wars for the Twenty-First Century by Philip Bobbitt
At 550 pages of text, this tome is quite daunting, but the author comes highly recommended and the topic deserves the efffort. This will be my second start, but now being primed by having read Sharansky's Defending Identity, perhaps I'll find the topic to be more congenial and will be able to make better headway. Fingers crossed.
 
Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

Brings out how most of us are conditioned socially to discriminate (in a good way or bad) others by relating our senses, including words, to another, forming an idea before getting to know the subject. Purrrty interesting.
 
I just finished Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich--I highly recommend it.

I've started The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, by Joan Jacobs Brumberg
 
I'm reading Crush the Cell by Michael A. Sheehan. The subtitle is "How to Defeat Terrorism Without Terrorizing Ourselves."

The author is a former Army officer and counterterrorism expert (among other things) who explains what al Qaeda really is, why they do what they do and how he feels we should deal with them. It's a very refreshing take on the situation, and best of all it's NOT political.

Sheehan says that al Qaeda is not this big SPECTRE-like network of master terrorists plotting "the big one", but rather a loose-knit network of angry radicals with only a handful of members who have the leadership skill, foresight and brains to actually organize terror attacks. In his opinion, 9/11 was a "perfect storm" that not even its planners dreamed would work out as it did. However, that's not to say we don't have to worry about another attack like that as it was a fluke; rather it shows that we have to be vigilant and keep our eyes open to the threat.

And though it's by no means a humorous subject, I found myself chuckling at some of the dumb mistakes al Qaeda members have made. For example, the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000 was originally meant to take place months earlier involving an entirely different U.S. ship. Trouble is, the terrorists overloaded their boat with explosives, so it sunk when they went out to sea. They had to abandon the ship, get a hold of a boat with a winch, have it brought back up, and then start all over.

On top of that, the plotters positioned another member on shore with a video camera to record the blast, which would then of course be distributed to the media as a means of intimidation. Except that the guy with the camera dozed off.

Very interesting reading for those of you who (like me) are tired of all the empty political rhetoric on how to defeat the terrorist threat.
 
The Meaning of Wife: A Provocative Look at Women and Marriage in the Twenty-First Century, Anne Kingston
 
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