X-post: Looking for a book before 5 PM today

**flatNshallow** · 02-22-2007, 10:44 PM

Originally Posted by Tippster

I'm a fan of tWoT, but Stephen Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series beats it like a red-haired stepchild. Check out "Gardens of the Moon" (Book 1) if you're a fantasy fan.

I find that hard to beleive... but on the remote chance its true, I look forward to reading it! Thanks for the recco.

And another classic SciFi: Enders Game.

**maniloff** · 02-22-2007, 11:42 PM

Originally Posted by Spdfrk43

Caught my eye in Heathrow in Sept. and turned out to be phenomenal:

Emergency Sex (and Other Desperate Measures): True Stories From a War Zone by Heidi Postlewait, Kenneth Cain, and Andrew Thompson

*I think in the US its "True Stories From Hell on Earth"

Best book I've read since Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux, if you're into the crazy travel lit.

I'll second that. One of the best travelling books I've read in years. Heck, one of the better books, period.

**hutash** · 02-23-2007, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by road trip

Thanks all! I picked up Fooled by Randomness per TacLuv, The God Delusion per me <wink>, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress per Ptavv.

Picking a book recommended by a self professed numbers geek

I skied with TLuv at the st8line camp, and the girl rocks, and is a pretty cool kid for someone so into stats. The only thing I remember for stats class was "There are liars, damn liars and statistics." This is the only rule I need when read journals.

The God Delusion is a really interesting read whether you agree with the premise or not. Very well thought out argument, and should be read by everyone. Not to try to convert them, but just to make people think about alternatives.

**road trip** · 02-23-2007, 12:20 PM

Originally Posted by hutash

I skied with TLuv at the st8line camp, and the girl rocks, and is a pretty cool kid for someone so into stats. The only thing I remember for stats class was "There are liars, damn liars and statistics." This is the only rule I need when read journals.

Yeah, that TLuv girl rocks.

My favorite stats quote:

"if you torture the numbers long enough, eventually they'll tell you what you want to hear."

**mmmthmtskier** · 02-23-2007, 01:48 PM

Use http://www.addall.com/ . Save a few bucks next time...

**BeanDip4All** · 03-01-2007, 02:01 PM

Bump... looking for a few recs for myself and poached Absurdistan from Slippy. Thanks, it looks awesome.

Also, upon reading everyone's recs in this thread I have to take issue with two of them:

Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

"Snow" by Orhan Pamuk, fact based novel about military coups and fundamentalists in Turkey.

I picked this up expecting an interesting read focusing on religion and secularism. What ruined it for me was the whole love story side plot and many unbelievable plot digressions... Halfway through I just wanted to give up. Snow would have been bettter had he focused on East West relations and let it be a political thriller. The premise of the book was good, I just wasn't a fan of the torrid side-plots.

Originally Posted by mr_gyptian

Freakanomic's was good. the chapter on abortion being the reason for our drop in crime in the 90s is priceless.

No, no, no, no. One of my utmost most hated books of all time. I think it's backlash from all the Monday Morning Economists at my office waxing profound on economic theory after steaming through this book on a weekend. Ugh. The entire book was extremely dubbed down and marketed just to cause ripples and sell copies. Levitt is not a "rouge" economist, he's extremely mainstream; also his so-called "freakonomics" are not very freaky, infact the four basic prinicples he bases the book on have been touched on extensively by Landsberg etc. all for many years prior.

Reading this book to learn about modern economics is the same thing as ordering General Tsao's when you go to Chinatown. Tasty. Easy. Not authentic and not nourishing.

The only positives about Freakonomics is that yes, it makes economic theory "interesting" for the masses in a nice little jazzy presentation. Levitt's greatest feat is that he was smart enough to put together a book making the general idiotic public feeling oh-so "clever" after they read it, and not having to deal with any mathematical hazing. It's a book equivalent of a Michael Moore film, in the same easy to swallow sound bites.

Anyone who is interested in pop-culture economics would do a lot better reading Armchair Economist or Fair Play by Landberg or Hidden Order by Friedman.