What are you reading now - and then

[Stavros]

Great links,thanks.
I definitely want to read more Hitchens though, such an extraordinary far ranging intellect.

Try God is not Great (2007) and the essay Religion Kills. It serves as an example of a reasonable argument with unreasonable conclusions, attaching too much power to religion as Theology and not enough to Reigion as Political Power. That said his opening argument is neat -why are people content with the knowledge they have a creator who guarantees eternal life not happy with their lives on earth, that they interfere so much in the lives of others?

[broncofan]

With Christopher Hitchens I always took a take it or leave it approach. His work was often insightful and mesmerizingly well-written but then he could from time to time make weak, tendentious claims that depended upon rhetorical flourish rather than substantive argument. I read God is Not Great and appreciated much of it though I think its claims are far too broad. I don't think religion poisons everything or that people can't deal with uncertainty by believing in a deity without all of the excesses that he cites. At the same time I see the inherent challenge of avoiding excess when you develop a system of belief that isn't based on evidence. In all, I enjoyed Hitchens' writings and debates on religion much more than the post-Iraq war speeches he gave defending the 2003 invasion.

For Sukumvit Boy, I've gotten in a bit of a kick reading all of the Michael Connelly books. I've exhausted my supply of old pulp authors and picked up a book called The Poet by Connelly that was part of the three book Jack Mcevoy series. I loved it and read the three books in the series and two were excellent, one was not as good. I then started reading the Bosch books and like most of them. I had read the Lincoln Lawyer back in the day and enjoyed it but after seeing Matthew Mcconaughey play the role of Mickey Haller, I am having trouble motivating myself to read any of the subsequent Mickey Haller books. But thanks for the recommendation. Like Connelly's style.

[sukumvit boy]

Hey broncofan,great to hear from you.
I was wondering if you were familiar with the work of Douglas Preston and his older brother Richard Preston both acclaimed novelists and journalists. Douglas's "Agent Pendergast" series written with Lincoln Child are very good, and in nonfiction Richard Preston's "The Wild Trees" is about the first scientists to learn how to climb and study the California Coastal Redwoods ,the tallest living things.

[sukumvit boy]

Also ,in Douglas has written some stunning pieces of journalism for the "New Yorker" magazine . "The Day The Dinosaurs Died" about what is probably the most important paleontological finds in the last 100 years, a paleontological 'snapshot' of the minutes and hours following the meteor impact 66 million years ago.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...dinosaurs-died

[sukumvit boy]

Also, in the 12/17/2020 New Yorker "The Skeletons At The Lake" about the new science of Ancient DNA and solving the mystery of the Roopkund skeletons in the Himalayas.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...ns-at-the-lake

By the way my apologies for these repeated posts but for some reason if I take more than 5 or 10 minutes to type a post the system rejects it,and I;m an extremely bad and slow typist.

[Stavros]

By the way my apologies for these repeated posts but for some reason if I take more than 5 or 10 minutes to type a post the system rejects it,and I;m an extremely bad and slow typist.

Copy your posts when you have finished writing them and before you click 'post quick reply' or whichever option you choose, so that if you are timed out you need only log back in and paste the post without having to write it out all over again.

[sukumvit boy]

OH ! Thanks.

[broncofan]

Sukumvit boy, I am not familiar with them but I will be looking into their books. Every recommendation you've made I've enjoyed even if it took me a while to get around to them.

[Stavros]

To Christopher Hitchens, may I add these letters that he contributed to, in the spat between Salman Rushdie and John Le Carré -wh died this week- that erupted in the pages of the Guardian in 1997? It makes for almost comical reading, were the actual subject matter, free speech, not as important as it is. They ended their feud in 2012.

The letters are here-
https://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/burn...s-rushdie.html

The reconciliation here-
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...-john-le-carre

[sukumvit boy]

RIP David Cornwell (John le Carre)
https://www.nytimes.com/article/best...rre-books.html