What good books have you read recently?

[awake]

i am in the middle of a philip k dick reading frenzy

last books i read this last month


do androids dream of electric sheep ? (for the 2nd time)
the 3 stigmata of palmer ledritch(for the 2nd time)

the penultimate truth (1st time)

in the middle of the divine invasion


and next in line are


galactic pot healer
a scanner darkly
flow my tears(2nd time)
martian time slip
dr bloodmoney



pkd is the shit.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I just started reading a zombie book called "Breathers"

So far, so good.

[Kai]

Just read a really good article from the Journal of Conservation Biology (Noss 1996) called "The Naturalists are Dying Off". The author echoes my own believe, that people in the biological sciences are spending way too much time at computers making models and way too little time in the field doing simple studies of observation and comparison. Not all science is experimental; just look at classic astronomy. Natural history, the observational study of organisms in their environment, is as important if not the most important thing a biologist should learn. Not only that, but natural history study is what gets people INTERESTED in biology. Darwin, the greatest biologist of all time, was a conssumate naturalist. Yet we are more and more retreating to computer labs and producing models with equations; how do we separate the model from the actual reality if we spend no time in the field "letting the organism speak to us", as Barbara McClintock would say. There are less and less taxonomists and systemacists every year as people retire and positions are not replaced. Natural history has become a lesser science. This is very sad.

Whats even sadder is that this lapse of care for naturalism is causing mistakes. Ecologists with no real grounding in taxonomy and natural history have been making many mistakes leading to introductions of invasive species. But how could they know? They spend all day in a computer lab with eletronic models and points of data representing organisms. They don't really know the organisms at all.

So, this paper and I are calling for a return to natural history study, where organisms once again become living beings in the context of a living planet rather than points on a screen, and where utmost enthusiasm is placed upon understanding systematics and life history rather than gaining yet another brownie point by writing a paper about some useless meaningless model.

[hunter s.durden]

I just watched a movie called I'm a Cyborg. It's a mental asylum movie, but most of it is from the perspective of the patients. It's looks more like a fantasy movie than say, One Flew..., but I didn't find it to be over the top and ridiculous.
Warning: It's Korean, so be prepared for Asian style and subtitles.

BTW, I know this is a book thread, but since this is a Korean film that I found on Sundance On-Demand I thought it was obscure enough to include.

[Xooxe]

Hey, I saw that film a few years ago and pretty much forgot about it.

I enjoyed it. 

Might have to track it down again.

[Cramulus]

I just watched a movie called I'm a Cyborg. It's a mental asylum movie, but most of it is from the perspective of the patients. It's looks more like a fantasy movie than say, One Flew..., but I didn't find it to be over the top and ridiculous.
Warning: It's Korean, so be prepared for Asian style and subtitles.

BTW, I know this is a book thread, but since this is a Korean film that I found on Sundance On-Demand I thought it was obscure enough to include.

I'm looking at a raccoon named Davy, who is going through my trash eating pizza crusts. He's kind of scummy looking because raccoons are really out of place in Yonkers.
Warning: he's a little bit foamy

BTW, I know this is a book thread, but since this is an animal that nobody could possibly have seen before, I thought he was obscure enough to include.

[hunter s.durden]

My first spit-take in several months.

Well played, sir.




As usual: you will pay for this.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I just watched a movie called I'm a Cyborg. It's a mental asylum movie, but most of it is from the perspective of the patients. It's looks more like a fantasy movie than say, One Flew..., but I didn't find it to be over the top and ridiculous.
Warning: It's Korean, so be prepared for Asian style and subtitles.

BTW, I know this is a book thread, but since this is a Korean film that I found on Sundance On-Demand I thought it was obscure enough to include.

I'm looking at a raccoon named Davy, who is going through my trash eating pizza crusts. He's kind of scummy looking because raccoons are really out of place in Yonkers.
Warning: he's a little bit foamy

BTW, I know this is a book thread, but since this is an animal that nobody could possibly have seen before, I thought he was obscure enough to include.

[the other anonymous]

Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison