Books - Revision history

Cyberherbalist: /* Science and Technology */

2023-11-11T12:34:51Z

‎Science and Technology

Cyberherbalist: /* Authors Whose Novels I Have Read */

2021-05-04T16:37:39Z

‎Authors Whose Novels I Have Read

Cyberherbalist: /* Authors Whose Novels I Have Read */

2021-04-30T22:25:43Z

‎Authors Whose Novels I Have Read

Cyberherbalist: /* Science Fiction */

2021-04-30T22:19:38Z

‎Science Fiction

Cyberherbalist: /* Theology */

2021-04-30T15:07:39Z

‎Theology

Cyberherbalist: /* Theology */

2021-04-30T15:06:44Z

‎Theology

Cyberherbalist: /* Theology */

2021-04-30T15:01:14Z

‎Theology

Cyberherbalist: /* Economics */

2021-04-30T14:52:31Z

‎Economics

Cyberherbalist: /* General Fiction */

2020-02-11T11:04:44Z

‎General Fiction

Cyberherbalist: /* Economics */

2020-02-11T10:41:06Z

‎Economics

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 ===Science and Technology===
-I'm mostly into hard sciences.
+* Isaac Asimov - "Understanding Physics"
 ===Theology===

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 In most cases, listed with the novel or series I consider their most memorable.
 * Piers Anthony - The Xanth Series
 * Isaac Asimov - The Robot Novels

@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 * Robert Asprin - A Fine Myth
 * Stephen Barnes (co-author with Jerry Pournelle)
-* Greg Bear -
+* Greg Bear - The Forge of God Series
 * James Blish - Greybeard
 * David Brin - The Uplift War
 * Terry Brooks - Magic Kingdom For Sale -- Sold!
@@ Line 67: / Line 65: @@
 * Stephen R. Donaldson - The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever - I got thoroughly fed up with the protagonist/anti-hero of this series. The setting of the novel series was brilliant, but the character Thomas Covenant annoyed me greatly. I got so angry at an early scene in the first novel, Lord Foul's Bane, that I tore the book in two at that point and threw both parts into the trash! It stayed there for a few days until I cooled down enough to retrieve the book and resume reading it. I managed to make it to somewhere around the midpoint of the third volume of the trilogy, but stopped reading and never resumed it.  Donaldson wrote two more series in the same Universe, making a total of ten novels in two trilogies and one tetralogy. Busy man!
 * David Drake - Ranks of Bronze
 * Philip Jose Farmer - Riverworld
 * Michael Flynn - Fallen Angels (with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)
-* Allen Dean Foster - With Friends Like These - This is actually a short story, not a novel, and I read it a collection called by the same name. This will be the only short story in this list, whose author is a novelist, but none of whose novels I have read. This short story was extremely memorable.
+* Allen Dean Foster - With Friends Like These - This is actually a short story, not a novel, and I read it a collection called by the same name. This is one of the only short stories in this list. The author is a novelist, but I have read none of his novels. This short story was extremely memorable.
 * Hugo Gernsback - Ralph 124C 41+ - Gernsback was not much of a writer but he was a publisher. The novel mentioned was a hack effort, and I am pretty sure I never finished reading it (it was painfully written), but he is the person after whom the Hugo Award is named after. His fame is due to his promotion of science fiction in its early days in the 20th century. He also created the term "science fiction", though he preferred the term "scientifiction".
 * Parke Godwin - The Snake Oil Wars: or Scheherazade Ginsberg Strikes Again

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 ===Science Fiction===
-====Military Science Fiction====
+Science Fiction has always interested me, mainly because I am fascinated by science, technology and the future. And science fiction deals with all of these things, and other things besides. I've mostly read novel-length SF, but short works have been read by me as well.
 ==Non-Fiction==

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 My great grandmother read to me out of the Bible and told me Bible stories when I was around 7 to 8 years old, and sent me to her local Sunday School (she couldn't go herself, due to health issues). So I got my initial grounding in Christianity from her.
-[[File:TheFaithsMenLiveBy.jpg|100px|right|Cover of a recent edition]]My general grounding on comparative religion came to me via a book by a Charles F. Potter, called "The Faiths Men Live By". I wrote a short review of this book for Amazon:
+====Comparative Religion====
 <blockquote>I had a copy of this book years and years ago, probably around 1963 when I was in my early teens. I read it all the way through, being fascinated with what people believed and how their lives were affected by their beliefs. The author left aside his own opinions and wrote apparently as objectively as he could, finding positive things to say about each faith he wrote about. The book is probably still relevant today, since religious faiths tend to remain and there are very few new ones under the sun -- or at least few new ones that remain relevant over time. Naturally, recent historical events are out of its ken, and if Potter were writing today he might have more to say in some cases, but I'd guess he'd not have much to add.</blockquote>

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 As a Christian, my interest in theology should be obvious, but I am also interested in non-Christian religions. It is a good idea to understand how other people believe (or don't believe, in the case of atheists).
-My great grandmother read to me out of the Bible and told me Bible stories when I was around 7 to 8 years old, and sent me to her local Sunday School (she couldn't go herself, due to health issues). So I got my initial grounding in Christianity from her. My general grounding on comparative religion came to me via a book by a Charles F. Potter, called "The Faiths Men Live By". I wrote a short review of this book for Amazon:
+My great grandmother read to me out of the Bible and told me Bible stories when I was around 7 to 8 years old, and sent me to her local Sunday School (she couldn't go herself, due to health issues). So I got my initial grounding in Christianity from her.
 <blockquote>I had a copy of this book years and years ago, probably around 1963 when I was in my early teens. I read it all the way through, being fascinated with what people believed and how their lives were affected by their beliefs. The author left aside his own opinions and wrote apparently as objectively as he could, finding positive things to say about each faith he wrote about. The book is probably still relevant today, since religious faiths tend to remain and there are very few new ones under the sun -- or at least few new ones that remain relevant over time. Naturally, recent historical events are out of its ken, and if Potter were writing today he might have more to say in some cases, but I'd guess he'd not have much to add.</blockquote>

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:01, 30 April 2021
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	As a Christian, my interest in theology should be obvious, but I am also interested in non-Christian religions. It is a good idea to understand how other people believe (or don't believe, in the case of atheists).		As a Christian, my interest in theology should be obvious, but I am also interested in non-Christian religions. It is a good idea to understand how other people believe (or don't believe, in the case of atheists).
		+
		+	My great grandmother read to me out of the Bible and told me Bible stories when I was around 7 to 8 years old, and sent me to her local Sunday School (she couldn't go herself, due to health issues). So I got my initial grounding in Christianity from her. My general grounding on comparative religion came to me via a book by a Charles F. Potter, called "The Faiths Men Live By". I wrote a short review of this book for Amazon:
		+
		+	<blockquote>I had a copy of this book years and years ago, probably around 1963 when I was in my early teens. I read it all the way through, being fascinated with what people believed and how their lives were affected by their beliefs. The author left aside his own opinions and wrote apparently as objectively as he could, finding positive things to say about each faith he wrote about. The book is probably still relevant today, since religious faiths tend to remain and there are very few new ones under the sun -- or at least few new ones that remain relevant over time. Naturally, recent historical events are out of its ken, and if Potter were writing today he might have more to say in some cases, but I'd guess he'd not have much to add.</blockquote>

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 *[https://www.amazon.com/Law-Frederic-Bastiat/dp/1940177014 The Law by Frederic Bastiat] - "The Law was originally published as a pamphlet in 1850 by Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850). Bastiat wrote most of his work in the few years before and after the French Revolution of 1848. The Law is considered a classic and his ideas are still relevant today."
 *[https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232 ''Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics'' by Henry Hazlitt] - this book is written from the perspective of the Austrian School of economics, which is a libertarian perspective. Hazlitt (1894-1993) was the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, an organization I have in times past been a follower of.
-*[https://www.amazon.com/Economy-Cities-Jane-Jacobs/dp/039470584X ''The Economy of Cities'', by Jane Jacobs] - I don't what attracted me to this book, but as I read it many many years ago I found it very interesting. What was it about? From the books blurb at Amazon: "In this book, Jane Jacobs, building on the work of her debut, ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'', investigates the delicate way cities balance the interplay between the domestic production of goods and the ever-changing tide of imports. Using case studies of developing cities in the ancient, pre-agricultural world, and contemporary cities on the decline, like the financially irresponsible New York City of the mid-sixties, Jacobs identifies the main drivers of urban prosperity and growth, often via counterintuitive and revelatory lessons."
+*[https://www.amazon.com/Economy-Cities-Jane-Jacobs/dp/039470584X ''The Economy of Cities'', by Jane Jacobs] - I don't know what attracted me to this book, but as I read it many many years ago I found it very interesting. What was it about? From the books blurb at Amazon: "In this book, Jane Jacobs, building on the work of her debut, ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'', investigates the delicate way cities balance the interplay between the domestic production of goods and the ever-changing tide of imports. Using case studies of developing cities in the ancient, pre-agricultural world, and contemporary cities on the decline, like the financially irresponsible New York City of the mid-sixties, Jacobs identifies the main drivers of urban prosperity and growth, often via counterintuitive and revelatory lessons."
 There've been others, of course.

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:04, 11 February 2020
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	===General Fiction===		===General Fiction===
		+
		+	I'll confess that "general" fiction mostly bores me. People get all excited about such famous authors as Joyce Carol Oates, Ken Follett, and Dan Brown, but while I recognize their names (seen mostly at book stores) I have never been very interested. I tried reading ''Prince of Tides'' by Pat Conroy once (yes, they made it into a movie, which I didn't see), but couldn't even finish the first chapter. On the other hand, military fiction does catch my eye and I have read at least one famous author in that subgenre: Tom Clancy. There's another author, undeservedly quite minor, whose work I have enjoyed, and that's David Sherman. Sherman's work has been primarily been in science fiction (with his friend and co-author Dan Cragg), but he has also written in the military fiction genre.
		+
		+	====Tom Clancy====
		+
		+	I haven't read Tom Clancy's entire ''ouerve'', but what I have read I have liked. Of course, Clancy's first book was ''Red October'' (which was made into a movie, one that I ''did'' see, and enjoyed), and I read it about the same time it came out. I loved it! I followed the entire Jack Ryan and associated John Clark series.
		+
		+	====David Sherman====
		+
		+	*The Night Fighters Series - this is a series of six books about a US Marine unit in Vietnam, part of the Combined Action Platoon program. Since Sherman served in such a unit as a Marine in that war, he had some experience with the program. Of course these are about a fictional CAP unit, and the adventures are likewise fictional. I found the books to be very interesting.
		+	**[https://www.amazon.com/Knives-Night-Fighters-David-Sherman/dp/1490407626 Knives in the Night] - "''KNIVES IN THE NIGHT'' introduces the Marines of Combined Action Platoon Tango Niner and the Popular Forces of Bun Hou village somewhere deep in "Indian Country." The Marines and Vietnamese soon find themselves pitted against Major Nghu, a sadistic North Vietnamese Army officer dedicated to wiping out the Marines and subjugating the South Vietnamese peasants."
		+	**Main Force Assault
		+	**Out of the Fire
		+	**A Rock and a Hard Place
		+	**A Nghu Night Falls
		+	**Charlie Don't Live Here Anymore

	===Science Fiction===		===Science Fiction===