I think it’s better than the other two books for sure, a lot more epic in scope and has some fantastic characters. Lee and Sam Hamilton are two of my favourite characters in literature. It does share a bit of the brutality from his other work but it serves the story properly.

It was the book that Oprah brought the book club “back” with, and while some might deride that I thought it was great to give it the high degree of exposure. Plus it meant I could get a new copy for cheap when book warehouse got it in!

The documentary won like eight awards, one of them at the Sundance.

responsible to the nebulous "shareholders"

I think it’s the other way around where corporations aren’t being held accountable to their shareholders, the very people they’re supposed to represent and give them money.

Yes, There has been like 4 more books in the series..

And I am currently only reading the Bourne Legacy, It isn’t even close. Obviously the writing style is completely different, With Ludlum I couldn’t really put the books down. Now I have to find a reason to pick the book up.

They make vague references to the rest of the story, and pretend that its a continuation, but all of a sudden he has James Bond Syndrome and is young again after being in his 50’s in the last book.

Yes. But it’s still hilarious. And he raises a point. He actually feels bad for the kids who have parents making them play soccer.

I have read all of his books. Well, except the new novel.

I think I liked Fargo Rock City more than Killing Yourself to Live.

that one fell down in 68

everyone knows the plural of Leaf is leaves.

You should also read Maus by Art Spiegelman

I have over 1000 books so it was difficult to pull out just a few, but here are some that I have recommended to firends before.

First, The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner. It is quite possibly the best explanation of evolution for a general audience that has ever been written. His main focus is the extensive research that has been done on the finches of the Galapagos for decades, but he also demonstrates how antibiotic resistance in diseases and pesticide resistance in crop pests demonstrate the principles of evolution. I think that any high-school or college biology class should have this as a required text, honestly, because the concepts of evolution are so incredibly powerful and at the heart are really very easy to understand because the principles are intuitively logical.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. Several television stations have done something similar to this, a dramatization of what would happen to the planet if all human beings just disappeared, but the depth they get into is really disappointing. This book is much, MUCH better. It not only talks about what would happen to structures such as dams and bridges and skyscrapers if humans were no longer around, but how patterns of vegetation could bear witness that someone was here and altered the landscape with a purpose. I read it in one sitting, and still am unsure whether the planet would be better off without us or not, since this is our home and we evolved here, and the environment has changed us as much as been changed by us. Extremely thought-provoking book.

At the Water’s Edge: Macroevolution and the Transformation of Life by Carl Zimmer. This is the story of the two greatest changes in multicellular animals: the initial transformation from aquatic life to creatures capable of living on land, and the transition back to the water taken by the line that resulted in whales, and the many twists and turns taken both by evolution itself and by human scientists trying to piece together a complicated story based on limited fossil evidence and through the fogginess of their own preconceptions.

The Map that Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester (also the author of Krakatoa (which I have read and enjoyed) and The Man Who Loved China (which I own but haven’t read yet). William Smith was a canal digger who realized that as he uncovered rock in excavations he could follow layers as they dipped and rose underground, and he became obsessed with uncovering the underground. He was the first man to really look at the landscape around him and not see only the surface but also the foundations of the ridges and mountain ranges, and it’s fascinating to think of a world where that was new since now everyone has at some point seen a cutaway picture of the earth with layers of rock and how sediments are folded into ridges as they are compressed.

Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins by Steve Olson. I was already ticked off by people who regard differences in superficialities like skin color as being crucially important – this just made me more annoyed by them. It’s a great account of just how similar people are to each other, and how thoroughly mixed all of our genetic heritages are because of the travels of humanity all over the globe, voluntary and forced.

Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier by Jeffrey A. Lockwood. A wonderful history of plagues of locusts that most people have read about, but no longer occur in North America – which is a marked contrast to other areas of the world. Plagues of locust still are a problem in Africa, for example. In the nineteenth century locusts regularly darkened the skies of the west, destroying billions of dollars worth of crops, driving settlers to the brink of starvation, and kick-starting the science of entomology – and then they just plain vanished. This is the story of not only how they affected history, but also of what happened to them and how it was uncovered.

The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski. It’s kind of hard to describe, but a history of how books have been stored through history, from boxes for scrolls to desks with books chained to them when books were rare and precious objects, to how binding of books changed along with methods of storage and/or display. A great read for people who actually feel physical pain when someone jams a pencil into the spine of a book as a bookmark instead of something flat, and is curious about how the written word has been displayed and stored at other times in history. It’s easy to forget what it was like when the world wasn’t awash in books – and for all the talk of the Kindle and other digital readers, there is still nothing like the feel of pages under the fingers. Plus you don’t need batteries and there isn’t any time required for a book to boot up!

A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire by Amy Butler Greenfield. This is a history of the pigment cochineal, the most brilliant red color that the Europeans had ever seen when the Spanish conquistadores brought it from Mexico, and the incredible lengths that people went to in an attempt to secure their own source of the dye. It’s fascinating to read of the furor around a vivid dye, when now brilliant synthetic colors are readily available to everyone, not just the wealthy. The textile industry at the time was like high-tech today – trade secrets were jealously guarded, and if a guild in one town could lure away an accomplished dyer from another town, it was a major coup. This hunt for the elusive dye went on for centuries.

All for the Union: The Civil War Diary and Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes edited by Robert Hunt Rhodes. This was featured in the PBS series The Civil War, and the most remarkable thing about it is how absurdly young so many of the men were who fought in the war, and at the same time how incredibly well-spoken they were. His writing is very matter-of-fact and without bombast, and to think about what a soldier had to endure in that time period is just amazing.

A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester. A great book on a time period where the mentality of the modern world was just beginning to take shape. This book goes beyond just the basic facts of which tribes of barbarians invaded where, and which countries had rulers who were feuding with each other, and goes more into what the people of the time thought when they looked around them at their world, and saw sorcery and magic and the hand of an often arbitrary and angry God everywhere instead of the science and technology that we see when we look around – and how that started with the Renaissance.

Two books by Mark Kurlansky: Salt and Cod. Both books focus on one particular food item and how it has driven trade, exploration, and competition between peoples for access to the resource. Cod is a very short little book and particularly nice for a read on a day when you don’t have anything better to do and don’t want to start a new book that will likely get set down for a while so you will forget where you were and have to re-read the last few pages.

First They Killed my Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung. A memoir of a woman who was a five-year-old girl when the Khmer Rouge changed everything. She was trained as a child soldier while her brothers and sisters were sent to labor camps – and this was after her mother told them to leave the camp and go in different directions, not sticking together, because she was hoping if they all separated someone might survive. Absolutely heartbreaking, but inspiring that she survived everything that was thrown at her. It really hits me because she was born the same year I was – I cried several times reading the book, imagining myself in her place and wondering how well I would have survived.

A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40 by William R. Trotter. Fantastic account of a campain within World War II that is often forgotten, and a tiny nation completely overmatched that managed to hang in far longer than anyone thought – except for the Finns themselves, perhaps.

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk. This one is a 500 page monster, as it covers a lot of territory in both time and space as the Russians expanded toward British India, so don’t start it unless you have a lot of time to spare. :) When Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia first began feeling each other out along the territory from the Caucasus to China, the borders were a couple thousand miles apart between Russia and British India. As time went on and the Russian frontier crumbled as it extended along the caravan routes of the Silk Road, the gap shrank and tensions increased. I wish all the characters in fiction were as colorful and interesting as the real people involved in this period of history.

Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire by Peter Hopkirk. A little more manageable, this tells the story of a conspiracy between the Germans and Turks to unleash a Muslim holy war against the British in India and the Russians in the Caucasus.
These two are a little shorter, at just more than 200 pages, and more manageable.
Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin’s Dream of an Empire in Asia by Peter Hopkirk. The story of the attempts of the Soviets to spread Marxism to Asia and use it to “liberate” the continent, starting with British India.

Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Secret Exploration of Tibet by Peter Hopkirk. This is about the incredible lure of Tibet and Lhasa to 19th century adventurers, and how the nation was forced to open up because interlopers kept trying to sneak in. Great background to issues that still affect the modern world, as the country is claimed by China. A lot of people might have “Free Tibet” stickers but don’t know all the background of the history of the country.

A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific by Robert M. Utley. The most interesting thing to me was to realize just how short a period of time was occupied by the eccentric and adventurous mountain men who served as guides and trappers as well as mappers and explorers of the West, and yet how large an impact they have on the imagination. Also how by exploring and mapping the unknown valleys and passes and water sources, they were complicit in the settling of the very wild places they were attracted to because they were a refuge from civilization.

Eyewitness to History edited by John Carey. This was published in 1987 by Harvard University Press, so it might be trickier to find than more current books, but a fantastic item for a history buff. It isn’t a book that you read cover to cover, but browse through. What it is is a series of eyewitness accounts, some by famous people and some by just regular folks, of different events or vignettes in history, each just a few pages long. The first one is an account of the Plague in Athens, 430 BC, by Thucydides. A man named Ibn Fadlan, an envoy of the caliph of Baghdad, describes a Viking funeral on the Volga in 922. Woodes Rogers writes an account of what he saw when Robinson Crusoe was found in 1709. A French visitor gives an account of what Derby Day looked like in 1861. The last item in the book is the fall of President Marcos in 1986. A wonderful book for flipping through.

And for chuckles, Non Campus Mentis by Professor Anders Henriksson. It’s a little compilation of blunders from the history papers of college students – including absolute gems such as “Around the year 1000 people were afraid that an acropolis was lurking around the corner.” “The Russians financed industrialization by selling bongs to foreign countries.” “An angry Martin Luther nailed ninety-five theocrats to a church door.” "John F. Kennedy worked closely with the Russians to solve the Canadian Missile Crisis." "Hitler, who had become depressed for some reason, crawled under Berlin. Here he had his wife Evita put to sleep, and then shot himself in the bonker." I literally cannot read bits of this aloud without laughing to the point of incoherence.

And if anyone hasn’t read the Brother Cadfael novels of Ellis Peters, I highly recommend them – set along the English border with Wales around the 1130s, it is a different time period than most historical fiction and they are very easy to read and move along quickly.

Also the detective Porfiry Rostnikov novels of Stuart M. Kaminsky. Very different characters and Russia is an ususual setting for most detective novels set in North America or Europe – The Man Who Walked Like a Bear, for example, takes place in a town in Siberia.

Also the Marcus Didius Falco novels of Lindsey Davis. Typical hard-boiled detective stories, with the hero falling on hard luck, backstabbing government officials, and dangerous dames – but the setting is the Roman Empire under Vespasian. Very well-plotted and funny characters. And the main character, Marcus, has a senator’s daughter for a girlfriend, although the sons of the emperor also have their eyes on her. He has a very complicated life. One of my favorites in the series is A Dying Light in Corduba, and I also liked Three Hands in the Fountain and Time to Depart.

Also Barbara Hambly’s detective novels with her main character of Benjamin January, a free black man trained as a physician in France, but now back living in his home town of New Orleans in the 1830s. He is the son of a slave and also a pianist. Sold Down the River is one of my favorites, also Graveyard Dust, but the first in the series is A Free Man of Color.

(As you can tell, I like detective novels with distinctly out-of-the-ordinary settings and characters. People don’t change much, so the plots are eternal, no matter how much the environment is altered.)

Neil Gaiman.

Which book are you talking about, Goblin Quest? Because that’s actually a really funny book if you know your standard fantasy

Thanks for this, gives me hope that I’m not wasting my time.

Totally agree on the Wired article. My wife thought I was nuts… “what the hell is the point of reading a paper on underwater cables. You aren’t an engineer.” Stephenson’s own interest in the subject, and his unique style makes it infectious and an incredibly interesting read. You risk ostracism, however, should you attempt to bring the subject up at dinner parties

I have a soft spot for Crypto since it was the book that bumped me into the Stephenson orbit (kind of like a gateway drug), which led me to Baroque …. a masterpiece

The rumour was posted at my little slice of the web: http://bitterleaf.blogspot.com/2008/10/moneyball-movie.html

I’ve been wanting to read a whole book about that for years….

I havnt picked that one up yet, its on the to buy list though
right after Fear and loathing in las vegas

I liked it for its brazenness, i dont agree with the ideas, but its an interesting read.
I have a tone more books, but they are all over the map and I cant remember half of em off the top of my head

I’ll check them out. I haven’t read any of his before.

I actually own very few books. I mentioned it in another thread but I try to pare it down by either donating books to the library (especially in the frustrating/unbelievable circumstances where I own a missing book in a series) or giving them away via BookCrossing.