Recent readings (February & March 2012)

Two months have passed since my previous post on books I have been reading. Here are three more books with concise reviews. Earth Abides by George Stewart First published in 1951, and now part of the SF Masterworks series, Earth Abides has a timeless quality. This was one of the first post-apocalyptic novels. It’s calm [...]

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Recent readings (January 2012)

The title of this blog is David reads books but it doesn’t contain many posts about books. I thought I’d start posting lists of books I have recently read with some brief notes or comments about each book. Hopefully I will do this once a month. We’ll see how it goes. How to Live Safely [...]

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Al Gore in the news

Al Gore, the former US Vice-President that won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change is in the news. Newsweek reports on the evolution of an eco-prophet, a behind the scenes look at Gore’s work and the writing of his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. Interestingly [...]

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Sci-fi reading list

Following on from an earlier post about reading science fiction here’s a list of SF books and authors that I made for a friend.

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Idealism vs realism

A few years ago I read Satish Kumar‘s autobiography, No Destination. I was deeply inspired by his peace walk undertaken across continents without carrying any money. I read an article about Satish in the Taipei Times today. It contained this wonderful quote: “Is my approach unrealistic?” he asks. “Look at what realists have done for [...]

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Spin – book review

Spin is a science fiction novel by Robert Charles Wilson. It won the Hugo Award for best novel in 2006. I have made this little podcast as an experiment. I hope you like it. If you cannot see the embedded player above then you can listen to it here.

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The nature of war

At Hell’s Gateby Claude Anshin ThomasShambhala Publications, Boston, 2004ISBN: 1590302710 I first read about Claude Thomas on the internet a few years ago. I found his story so strong and powerful. I was glad to finally be able to read this book. This is a very powerful story about the power to heal and transform. [...]

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The story of Lonely Planet

In 1996 I set out on my first solo trip across Asia. I had a copy of Lonely Planet’s South-East Asia in my hand and Lonely Planet India was stashed away in the bottom of my backpack. I arrived in Bali and negotiated with a taxi driver and found a guesthouse all thanks to the [...]

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Ecological books

My mother recently asked me to suggest some books to read to better understand global environmental problems. Here is the text of the e-mail I sent to her. I have been thinking about a good book for you about the environment. While there are lots of good environment books I can’t think of one in [...]

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The power of ideas

I have recently read a couple of books and seen one movie that show how powerful ideas can be. The first is the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt. Levitt is an economist that asks questions that most people would never think of. For example, why do most crack dealers live with their mothers? In doing [...]

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