Books Read 23-1-06 Been in Borders continue reading science books most of the interesting ones seemed to be sceptics disproving paranormal, phenomenon.

• Skeptics dictionary by robert Todd Carroll - pretty good book almost worth buying
• A JG Ballard novel predictable as hell
• Crimes against nature by Robert F Kennedy Jr -Bush Got have rolled back pollution laws and US environment is in crisis Texas 50% of residents live in smog over safe limits. Many more people die every month than died in twin towers.

Great Growth Illusion - Richard Douthwaite - Amish have perfect life
same as gary says - explains how GDP not good measure ie people in Irish countryside have rich life with low money ... own family land build house, cut own peat etc grow or die ... cos prices fall due to technology
enclosures and Corn Law Act - robbed the poor
more days lost through ill-health cos of growth
no such thing as sustainable growth
Stew : but resources aren't finite some are created by mere change of view some are ideas like a Van Gogh

edward de Bono
How to be more Interesting 1997
interesting idea - make ourselves more interesting in the way that we try to make ourselves more beautiful
His book like a lot of his books fails after this.
It seems less practical
no killer tips like - read more , or say yes to everybody, flatter people, what subjects to choose

"change the world for a fiver" obvious stuff

hunt for zeropoint Nick Cook - antigravity planes have been made and then everything covered up

Chaucer - The Franklins Tale - for me it's incredibly difficult to read. It shows me how today we are casual we are with words. We just throw them down; wheras in his day each word in calculated in a multitude of different ways so that each sentence has incredible depth. He choses them to make them rhyme, show the tone, refer to other well known stories etc.

Plato writes about a utopia like state in The Laws called Magnesia
4 classes not communist or equal
- many strange things same as Utopia
- education taught through play
- very detailed rules
In many ways it's different from the state he proposes in The Republic e.g different roles for men and women

Open Skies - Closed Minds 1996 by Nick Pope
Written by the government's official UFO recorder. He explains his conversion from complete skeptic and how he now thinks that there is something mysterious going on. Sure 95 % of reports can be explained as known phenomenon or hoaxes, but some can't e.g. Bizarre coincidences and people ending up with radiation sickness symptoms etc
- You Count - give everyone a reason to live.
For Peace and Truth- Pierre Ceresole
- john harvey

I heard The Owl Call my name - Margaret Craven
-A pretty good book about a priest who goes to live among Indians growing up in Canada

Been recommended
Land Benighted - by Greene's cousin Barbara

Mutant Downunder - good aborigine info
Green Book - Michaeln
Rowbothan - Grip of Death
Margret Kennedy - Interest Free Money
Friends of the Earth -Lockwood
Bliss - Peter Carey
vfp Green Life University Mt. Jiri : sounds intertesting maybe visit 1) Ancient Future written by Helena Norberg-Hodge seems a classic must read 2) Small is beautiful written by Ernst Friedrich Schumacher seems a classic must read also, but others said naïve
-who else understands the need for cultural change ?


Earth User's Guide to Permaculture
Rosemary Morrow
The Natural Way of Farming - Masanobu Fukuoka - easy way go with nature, balance, no work -even organic is bad cos lot of work
Follow up to The One Straw Revolution
No dig or tillage ever.
Barry Gifford - The Wild Life Of Sailor and Lula --Wild at Heart ? Like Hubert Selby very American , but Very violent
And not as good
Alan Duff - What becomes of The Broken Hearted
Jane Smiley - One Thousand Acres
kerstin Eckmann - Blackwater
Coopland -Microsurf
Miss Arizona
The Education of Little Tree
The Shipping News - Annie Prue
The Book of Ruth -brilliant
William L Shearer rise and fall