The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
Currently on offer at WHSmiths and Amazon, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has sold millions of copies, being a thriller that has plenty of ‘educated’ ideas in the plot:
Dan Brown is the best-selling author of Digital Fortress, Deception Point, Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he has taught English and creative writing. He lives in New England.
With The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoterica culled from 2,000 years of Western history.
A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle.
The action kicks off in modern-day Paris with the murder of the Louvre’s chief curator, whose body is found laid out in symbolic repose at the foot of the Mona Lisa. Seizing control of the case are Sophie Neveu, a lovely French police cryptologist, and Harvard symbol expert Robert Langdon, reprising his role from Brown’s last book. The two find several puzzling codes at the murder scene, all of which form a treasure map to the fabled Holy Grail. As their search moves from France to England, Neveu and Langdon are confounded by two mysterious groups-the legendary Priory of Sion, a nearly 1,000-year-old secret society whose members have included Botticelli and Isaac Newton, and the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. Both have their own reasons for wanting to ensure that the Grail isn’t found.
Maskerade – Terry Pratchett
Hardback funny fiction from Terry the prolific. In very near perfect condition, with the outer sleeve also in fine fettle.
Great fun with taking the pee out of opera, and some larger than life caricatures.
I get the impression that Terry Pratchett is unaware of the good side of opera, but it’s still a good story.
Taliesin Stephen Lawhead
Book 1 (of 3) of the Pendragon cycle. Set in roman Britain and mixing the legends of Arthur and Atlantis, the Pendragon cycle runs to approximately 1500 pages of quality fiction. Well executed and very well researched fiction.
A paperback edition in fair condition, published in 1988 in the UK (1987 USA).
Iron In The Soul – Jean-Paul Sartre
Iron In The Soul – Jean-Paul Sartre
Paperback novel in fair condition. 350 pages.
wiki says:
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980), normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (pronounced [ʒɑ̃ pol saʁtʁə]), was …
The Penguin Book of the Bicycle
by Watson and Gray. Paperback edition. A very comprehensive guide to all things related to cycling.
The Master of Go – Yasunari Kawabata
Penguin paperback, 140 pages. A classic novel based on real events form 1938. A young gregarious challenger faces the aged solitary master.
Typical review:
In 1938, a go match was played over six months in 14 sessions at several different locations in Japan. The opponents were the grand master, Shusai, and Otake, a younger professional challenger. Kawabata, then 39 years old, was the newspaper reporter who covered the match for Tokyo and Osaka newspapers. After the war, he turned his reportage into a novel which still retains much of the feeling of reports. If you don’t know the game of `go’, played with white and black stones on a board, or if you are not at all familiar with Japanese culture, then this book is probably not a good place to begin. However, if that is not the case, then Kawabata’s subtle depiction of many themes in Japanese culture and in human life, may give you pleasure. The sick old man versus the young one. Life versus death, even.
Molly and the Muslim Stick David Dabydeen
David Dabydeen
I can’t recall ever being introduced so rapidly into a story. The first pages of this novel really set the scene very efficiently.
It’s hard to be enthusiastic, though, because the story is mostly lifelike and dreadful. On reading this I wonder, yet again, if ‘God’ (by whatever name) has chosen the wrong species to attempt consciousness. I cannot think of any other, except maybe ants, that systematically farm others for their whole lifespan; and even ants decline to do so to their own species, preferring the relatively senseless greenfly, and definitely skip abuse of their own family.
Part 1 is set in Accrington, Lancashire, and Molly, the central character endures poverty, a mad mother and sexual abuse from her father and his pals. Both the poverty and the mother’s madness contribute to the onset of abuse.
In part 2 Molly escapes from Accrington to train as a teacher at the Leeds Institute. She feels compelled to relive some of her abuse with the privileged youthful students; begins conversations with her walking stick; and finally ends up in a mental institution.
In part 3 Molly moves to Coventry and finds a job as a teacher. She attracts odd company (again): an illegal immigrant with no grasp of English, a beautiful pupil from her school that she fears she’ll corrupt, and a fellow teacher, Eileen, who is everything Molly isn’t – stable, organised, bored.
Surprisingly, Eileen flips (in the view of the police and local press) and stages a one-woman demonstration outside an arms factory; both her career and Molly’s are soon threatened, and most upsetting for Molly, the immigrant (they’ve named him Om) goes away.
Part 4 is comprised entirely of letters from Molly to Carol (the schoolgirl) as Molly goes to Demerara in search of Om. Molly is cleansed by her experience with Om’s tribe, but do read it for yourself to find out how!
I was disappointed by the author telling us (on the final page) that there’s oodles of love and grief – I’d rather the story had made me feel it.
Masters of the Vortex – E E Doc Smith
Masters of the Vortex – E E Doc Smith
Panther science fiction paperback. Sunned pages and slightly tatty cover.
This is the seventh book in the Lensman series.
In Search of the Edge of Time – John Gribbin
paperback book in good condition. 258 pages.
Gribbin sets out to explain how time travel is theoretically possible and looks at the various different ways which might allow it. He pays particular attention to the most likely time-machine: that provided by the concept of the “wormhole”. Like a tunnel through space and time, a wormhole could connect different regions of the Universe which occupy both different spaces and different times.
The book works through the history of theories of time: Newton, gravity, the pioneers of Black Hole theory. Then geometrical theories: from Euclid and Descartes onto ideas of non-flat space-time; Einstein’s ideas on gravity and Schwarzchild’s singularities.
Chapter 3 is about dense stars – how concentrations of mass can warp spacetime – white dwarfs, neutron stars and similar.
Chapter 4 progresses to the logical conclusion of the existence of black holes from which no signal (light or otherwise) can ever escape.
Chapter 5 is about black holes with spin, exploding horizons and centrifugal confusion.
Chapter 6 introduces hyperspace – timeloops, wormholes, etc.
Chapter 7 explores the possibilities of time machines.
Chapter 8 mentions the latest and wildest ideas. Black holes that bounce, oscillating universes etc.
Good for the grant proposals, but shows a distinct lack of social relevance and artistic creativity!
cartoons paintings art
“Stuffing !” classic (and rather gross) cartoons from Claude Serre
Typical Serre images:
In good condition, from 1982.
The Catcher in the Rye – J D Salinger
A Penguin modern classics paperback from 1951. Reprinted 1972.
$6.99 at Amazon, used copies from $0.93.
ince his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with “cynical adolescent.” Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he’s been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.”
His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.
biography – Hannah Hauxwell
Biography
Daughter of the Dales
biography of Hannah Hauxwell, paperback.
a sequel to Seasons of my Life. Coloured and black and white photos.
190 pages; Hannah finally has to leave her beloved farm in the Dales and retire to …
The Double Comfort Safari Club – Alexander McCall Smith
Camping – Lord douchebag style!
The Double Comfort Safari Club – Alexander McCall Smith
His own site sums up his created world rather well:
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connecticut-yankee-in-king-arthurs-court-mark-twain
An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain – John O’Farrell
I’m hoping this new release will appeal to readers, and soon appear in my local library/bookshop. I’;d better go and request it!
Incredibly, this book appears to be cheaper new (due to special offers online e.g.
ecology-environment-and-nature-books
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psychology-the-science-of-mind-and-behaviour
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Introducing Jung – Maggie Hyde Michael McGuinness
An introduction to Analytical psychology, with 176 pages.
£6.49 at Smiths, $3.46 at Amazon!
Carl Gustav Jung was the most enigmatic and controversial disciple of Sigmund Freud. He introduced to psychoanalysis crucial questions about religion and the soul which Freud neglected. However, our perception of Jung today as a quasi-religious sage with growing ‘new age’ following overlooks the fact that he was a scientist and a scholar.
Typical review:
I found this book after I had already read quite a significant amount of Jung’s work. I was amazed at how peceptive and witty this treatment really is. It makes a great review for the already knowledgeable, and I can see where it would also be an excellent first introduction.
The book covers Jung’s early childhood history, his work and differences with Freud, the basics of Jungian Analytical Psychology, type theory, the psychology of religion, the uncanny and synchronicity, the I Ching, astrology, alchemical speculation, and it even addresses and debunks some of the controversial criticisms of his personal life and work. There is also really useful “little dictionary” in the back for those who are not yet familiar with Jungian terminology, or psychology in general.
The illustrations of this book are not mere cut-and-paste filler and distraction, but they exactly augment and demonstrate the topics being discussed. While some might dismiss this as an instructional comic book, there is no obvious “dumbing down” involved.
The Amber Spyglass Philip Pullman
Part 3 of the ‘His Dark Materials‘ trilogy, by Philip Pullman
Available in (at least) 2 editions:
Will is the bearer of the subtle knife. He has promised his dying father that he will deliver the terrible blade to Lord Asriel. War is coming, the greatest war there has ever been, and the knife is the only weapon that can defeat the enemy. A stranger in a world that is not his own, Will sets out on a perilous journey. But can he fulfil his promise when Lyra, his brave companion, has disappeared…?
‘We’re going to the land of the dead and we’re going to come back’ – Will and Lyra, whose fates are bound together by powers beyond their own worlds, have been violently separated. But they must find each other, for ahead of them lies the greatest war that has ever been – and a journey to a dark place from which no-one has ever returned…
The Amber Spyglass won the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year award, a British literature award, making it the first children’s novel to receive the honour. It was named Children’s Book of the Year at the 2001 British Book Awards, and was also long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, (more) again the first time this had happened to a “children’s book”.
Some of the readers doubt that the trilogy is a “children’s book” at all; judging by the weighty issues it attempts to navigate.
The Spire – William Golding
In fair condition. By the author of Lord of the Flies. Approx 220 pages.
A disturbing yet evocative portrait of inspired creativity and its cost. Jocelin, Dean of the Cathedral, is inspired and obsessed by his visionary aim of building the spire. The vision, he is convinced, comes from God, and he is God’s instrument. However, in the process of fulfilling his aim, others are used as instruments too, with tragic consequences. The spire points at heaven but – of necessity — has its roots in frailty and corruption. At the end of the novel, the spire stands, but the cost is great, a mixture as complex and ambiguous as humanity itself.
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Sorcery and Archetypes in Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials
No way is His Dark Materials a children’s book! Examples:
“We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not,” said the witch, “or die of despair …
says Serafina Pekkala on page 255 of His Dark Materials. This sounds just like the Mexican sorcerer Don Juan in Castaneda’s books.
“If she were to perceive their true form, they would seem more like architecture than organism, like huge structures composed of intelligence and feeling.” on page 442.
which sounds just like Jung’s definition of archetypes!
Definitely not JUST a children’s book, and all the better for that. Maybe pretending one is writing for children keeps the author safe from the Inquisition, whatever it’s contemporary form …
Supernature by Lyall Watson hardback
The hardback version from circa 1973. In fair condition, but missing the dustjacket.
typical reviews:
Supernature comes up with some amazing observations and facts. However, although Watson is clearly trying to be objective and uses a variety of sources, some (and only some) of his sources are extremely questionable. For example, the most amazing claims on the subject of ESP, telepathy etc can all be traced to a book “Psychic Experiments behind the Iron Curtain”. This is a fascinating book and a good read on top of it, but do check out the footnotes before converting.
Err… how dimwitted are you? He made it up. He admits he made it up. When asked about his sources (on, for example the monkey washing thing) he said” Oh, well, I dont have any actual sources, but this is what might have happened”! !!
Lyall Watson (April 12, 1939 – June 25, 2008) was a South African botanist, zoologist, biologist, anthropologist, ethologist, and author of many new age books, among the most popular of which is the best seller Supernature. Lyall Watson tried to make sense of natural and supernatural phenomena in biological terms. He is credited with the first published use of the term “hundredth monkey” in his 1979 book, Lifetide. It is a hypothesis that aroused both interest and ire in the scientific community and continues to be a topic of discussion over a quarter century later.
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