quote:

Originally posted by TheNobleEu Lebezniatnikov, what did you think about _Black Garden_?

I enjoyed it immensely. I thought it was one of the better books written on the Caucasus that I've read, and it went into great detail about the Nagorno-Karabakh War in the context of how it helped bring about the demise of the USSR.

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A Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

quote:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human who ever was, loved out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar”, every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived here – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits that this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known. - Carl Sagan

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...118519?v=glance

Luna and I forgot the author but well worth the read.

I'm reading Pat Buchanan's book Where the Right Went Wrong. Very good book, providing an interesting viewpoint from a sel-professed "true" Republican.

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Lost Souls

Fiction:

A Fine Balance by Indian-Canadian author Rohinton Mistry <- Should instantly go into your top 10 after reading

Fools Die by Mario Puzo

Non-fiction:

In Love and War by Jim Stockdale.

How Capitalism works I think the author is Pierre something. But a French guy wrote it, very crazy person who is suggesting to overthrow capitalism and he gives the reasons in the book.

The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

I just started reading this but its already very interesting. An interesting veiw of our understanding of reality.

BTW, what would be a good place to start reading up on Quantum Physics? Any particular book any of you guys have in mind?

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"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

you want to read something on quatom physics? What is the matter with you.

quote:

Originally posted by shaolin_Z The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot I just started reading this but its already very interesting. An interesting veiw of our understanding of reality. BTW, what would be a good place to start reading up on Quantum Physics? Any particular book any of you guys have in mind?

My friend, I have recommendations'a'plenty:

The Tao of Physics
by Fritjof Capra

Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics
by Gary Zukav

Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics
by Nick Herbert

The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence
by Deepak Chopra

The Self-Aware Universe by Amit Goswami


Good luck and have fun

Trajedy and Hope by Dr. carrol quigly

Robert Jordan - The Great Hunt

This isn't a book I'm recommending but there's no other appropriate place. I just saw Itzhak Perlman perform and he was undoubtedly the second best classical performance (number one was Lang-Lang) I have ever seen. If you haven't heard of him, he's one of the premier violinists of the 20th century and has a number of grammys under his belt. His command of the violin was simply awe-inspiring ... and despite the awesome crescendos, it wasn't simply his technical skills that was to be admired (as many youthful progidies tend to overemphasize), but the full flavor of feeling and emotion with each note. If you get a chance to see him do so. He played Barber- Violin Concerto, Op. 14 btw.

As an interesting historical note, he plays on the ‘Soil’ Strad (1714) which is considered to be the one of the finest Stradivarius violins.

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Retro ...