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nickthejag
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The Origin Of Our Species - (Prof.) Chris Stringer.

 

Have to admit to a long time anorakesque fascination with this subject. It arrived from Amazon only yesterday and is a fascinating read, if you like this sort of thing. Slightly bemused, though, that I'm up to the emergence of Homo Heidelbergensis - the common ancestor of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals - and not a mention, thus far, of Homo Oldfirmus.

 

I probably have to accept that this dead end species emerged later than I had believed was the case and flourished in pockets, pre-Ice Age, in what is now Govan and Parkhead. Crude stone tools found beneath both playing surfaces some years ago during the relaying of turf, indicated that these creatures had only basic social cohesion skills and survived on diets of predominantly raw meat and wore animal carcasses for warmth. Dental records of Homo Oldfirmus apparently indicate that these pre-humans had not yet learned how to cultivate crops and chewed on raw tubers etc. More startlingly is the discovery that the position of the larynx, being different to that found in modern humans tells us that they were capable of only the most rudimentary vocablulary; a maximum of probably 12 monosyllabic words or utterances. Furthermore, these carefully analysed fossil remains are dated at being no more than 50 years old!

 

This compels us to rethink our erstwhile belief that we are the only type of human on the planet at the present time. Wow, startling stuff!

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Charlie Brooker's Dawn of the Dumb: Dispatches from the Idiotic Frontline

 

The latest from Charlie Brooker, 'the funniest newspaper columnist in the world' (Racing Post), 'I laughed so much I fair wet ma breeks!' (Sunday Post) - includes in-depth coverage of Celebrity Big Brother 2007. Worth a read as a good laugh and convinced CB would be a natural jags fan if Glaswegian.

Edited by Meister Jag
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The Broons & Oor Wullie - The Glory Years 1956-1969

 

I can actually remember most of the 'stories' from reading my old man's old Broons and Oor Wullie books as a bairn.

 

The literary equivalent of comfort food.

 

Next up - Finest Years - Churchill As Warlord by Max Hastings - got it for a £1 in a Sunday Times offer.

 

The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg - novel based on genuine chronicles of life in the Lodz ghetto.

 

 

Not long finished The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart - a gripping read - think he spared the reader the worst details of his experiences.

Edited by Charlie Endell
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  • 2 months later...

The first book in the trilogy is quite entertaining, but the second book is filler with inbelievable coincidences and it loses sight of the main protagonist for most of the plot, while the third makes you despair of what publishers accept as worthy of printing nowadays.

 

 

 

Im sorry, but ive read more drivel on this thread than i have in a lifetime of reading books and yours sir is up there with the best.

 

A 590 page book was a filler?

unbeleivable coincedence?

and despair at the publishers in the 3rd.

 

 

why did you keep reading after chapter 2 in the 1st one ya numpty?

 

 

you didnt like it...fine but to slate them off after havingread approx 2000 pages is either literary snoberry or stupid.

 

 

for what its worth i enjoyed all 3. Good stories

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The first book in the trilogy is quite entertaining, but the second book is filler with inbelievable coincidences and it loses sight of the main protagonist for most of the plot, while the third makes you despair of what publishers accept as worthy of printing nowadays.

 

 

 

Im sorry, but ive read more drivel on this thread than i have in a lifetime of reading books and yours sir is up there with the best.

 

A 590 page book was a filler?

unbeleivable coincedence?

and despair at the publishers in the 3rd.

 

 

why did you keep reading after chapter 2 in the 1st one ya numpty?

 

 

you didnt like it...fine but to slate them off after havingread approx 2000 pages is either literary snoberry or stupid.

 

 

for what its worth i enjoyed all 3. Good stories

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Ref the earlier posts on crime fiction, might I modestly suggest www.glasgownoirfiction.com ? Three (so far) novels written by myself, all set in Glasgow :

 

Clip Their Little Wings

Every Stone A Story

Black Wind Blows

 

Available on Kindle and through various hard-copy sources including Amazon, although the cheapest way to get hard copy is direct from the website. Happy to have any feedback.

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The Broons & Oor Wullie - The Glory Years 1956-1969

 

I can actually remember most of the 'stories' from reading my old man's old Broons and Oor Wullie books as a bairn.

 

The literary equivalent of comfort food.

 

I read them every year but wait till the new year to order them as they're cheaper. It only takes a few days for them to arrive and they're relaxing to read on a warm summer's evening in January with a glass of wine. :cheers:

 

Just finish Ian Rankin's The Impossible Dead, and I wonder with the way this series is going if he's paving the way for Fox to step into Rebus' shoes re investigations.

 

I like to read books in order, and have read all Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks.

 

I noticed an author in the shop called Quentin Jardine. Has anyone read any of his stuff and would they recommend him. I might need to go round second hand bookshops to start from the beginning.

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i just finished the incredible adam spark. great read. very funny

Got on the train at Falkirk High a few weeks ago along with a young guy who sat across from me, who proceeded to open up and start reading "The Incredible Adam Spark"I recognised the lads face but could not put a name to it,then it came to me, it was Alan Bissett! Alan used to stay a few hundred yards along from me in Hallglen.I felt like asking him could he not remember how it ends!

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  • 8 months later...

Since this thread was looking a little lonely....

 

Over the past 3 weeks I've read Fatherland, The White Tiger, a Brookmyre book (can't remember the title - to do with killer rubber ducks or something) and currently reading Lanark, which despite only being at chapter 4 I'm really enjoying.

 

Lanark I read years ago and should probably read again sometime. If you're a certain age like me the afterworld of the book reads like a description of Glasgow in the fities and early sixties .. it wasn't as bad as being in Limbo really but the descriptions of the place seemed to me a gloomy version of what Glasgow was like then.

 

Over Xmas I read John Buchan's Huntingtower - enjoyed it but don't recommend it unless you like old fashioned corny plots - but it was interesting for the bits of dialect in it (the Gorbals Diehards make an appearance in this) - I was surprised how many current Glasgow expressions go back a really long way (Buchan went to school and university in Glasgow in 1890s then lived in England or abroad for most the rest of his life so most of what he puts in must go back to that time) like "don't stond there like a big stookie".

 

For light reading over break I had my usual annual comic book collections, most enjoyable of which was the "Tough of the Track" - fish suppers, the ideal high-carb food for runners.

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Das Kapital Volume 2 - about 2/3 of the way through it just now. very painful reading - like sticking pins through ones eyes repeatedly.

 

The British Empiricists: Locke, Berkeley, and Hume by Dunn, Urmson, and Ayer - About 100 pages intro to each of those philosophers - an excellent background to preparing me for tackling Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

Edited by mrD
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  • 3 months later...

Fresh in from amazon - Heinrichs introduction to the three volumes of capital; Harveys - Limits of Capital; and Kliman's failure of capitalist production. Starting to look a bit biased in my book choices at the moment, maybe should read some hayek next for some balance :drink2:

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Just started reading Galapagos by Vonnegut. Finding it very hard to put down so far!

 

Vonnegut is great, though nothing else that I've read of his quite comes up to the standard of Slaughterhouse Five.

 

Just read Chapter 1 of Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point"; finally bought it after hearing several people going on about it. Not holding my breath, but will give it a fair crack.

Edited by Jaggernaut
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I tend to read a mixture of History books and Crime novels, going through a lot of Scandinavian stuff currently. Recently re-read the Ace Atkins Nick Travers Mysteries, which are all set around New Orleans and are all about The Blues scene on the Mississippi Delta.

On the history front I recently read Hell's Gorge by Matthew Parker which is all about the building of the Panama Canal as well as King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild which documents the King of Belguim's reign of tyranny in the Congo. Both well recommended.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Vonnegut is great, though nothing else that I've read of his quite comes up to the standard of Slaughterhouse Five.

 

Need to get my hands on a copy of that, keep forgetting! Just started Mockingbird by Walter Tevis and I can't put it down!

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yep that capitalism pure gets on me nerves...

 

about to start on sartres being and nothingness with some vague justification that it will have something to do with my dissertation that i still dont know what its going to be about :( starting to shit myself....

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