"George Cleveland" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 13:58:44 -0400, William Claspy
wrote:

On 9/26/06 12:47 PM, in article
,
"George Cleveland" wrote:

On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 12:11:33 -0400, William Claspy
wrote:

We haven't discussed Darwin here in a while...

Ran across a new book in our collection entitled "The Reluctant Mr.
Darwin"
by David Quammen (perhaps you've already seen this one, Wolfgang...)
that
has gotten some favorable attention. One such was this recent spot on
Morning Edition:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=6105541

At any rate, I just thought I'd pass along this note to the bookish
Darwinians out there, as it sounds like a worthwhile read. It is on my
"to
read" list, but not yet at the top of same, let alone on the "already
read"
list, so this is not (yet, anyhow) a personal recommendation. Just an
FYI
readers advisory from somewhere deep in the stacks.

Bill


A very enjoyable listen.

Indeed! And the book, magically, has moved up on my "to read" list.
First
I have to finish Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey", which I've somehow
never
read before now. Fortunately it is quite short and quite enjoyable. Up
next is Doctorow's "The March". Then'll be Quammen, which displaced
Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" place in the #3 spot.

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

Bill

ps. Whatcha reading at the moment, George?


I'm reading "Madness: A Brief History" by Roy Porter, which is pretty
good. Add to that "I Have Landed : The end of a beginning in natural
history" by Stephen Jay Gould, which is somewhat disappointing. I'm
also re-reading "Two in the Far North" by Margaret Murie, which I'm
enjoying even more the second time.

Haven't seen the Quammen book......probably hasn't made it to the bargain
bits yet. Read Porter's "Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine" about
a year ago. Short and sweet. I have his "Flesh in the Age of Reason"
somewhere in the "to be read " stack, along with 60 or so others. Gould
remains amazingly prolific for a dead guy. Haven't delved into anything of
his for a few years after overdosing pretty badly during the 90s.

Currently mired in "The Goddess and the Bull" by Michael Balter, partly
because of long and tedious biographical sketches occluding the occasional
archeological gems (there's has just GOT TO be a useful analogy in there),
but mostly because I got snared by a book of stupid Sudoku puzzles that
Jacci left behind at Fisher's shack. Tell her I said THANKS A LOT!, George.


Next on the list is virtually impossible to predict, but I'm leaning rather
heavily toward Terry Pratchett's "Thud," Lisa Jardine's "On a Grander
Scale," or Rebecca Solnit's "A Field Guide to Getting Lost."

Wolfgang
who keeps hearing prognostications about the imminent demise of the printed
book and just wishes they'd hurry the **** up about it so he can finally
catch up.