Summer Reads - Fiction/Scifi

After recently spending the week with Andy and Mike I began to get an itch to read some good fiction books for some reason...probably because they constantly talk the fantasy/starwars? I did some digging around on Amazon.com and now I have a list of books of interest that I will be trying to read when I am reading my psychology texts.
(note: all these are on my GoodReads.com list you can access and share your books!)

Very Far Away from Anywhere Else by Ursula Le Guin - Coming of age novel not really scifi.
More than Human by Sturgeon - Classic Scifi is the word
The Sparrow by Russell - Supposed to be the bomb~!
The Razor's Edge by Maugham - Older coming of age for ex-veteran (good movie with Bill Murray)
Altered Carbon by Morgan - This is supposed to be awesome SciFi
The Road by McCarthy - post apocalyptic
Crown Duel By Sherwood Smith - Young adult ?
Earth Abides by Stewart - post apocalyptic
Ecotopia by Callenbach - Futuristic ecological existence
Tunnel In the Sky by Heinlein - Survival Scifi classic

GoodReads.com

I've heard that Socrates believed that the written word (ie. books) would be used too much as a crutch for man. He seemed to believe a person addled their mind, became lazy, by relying on a written source rather than memorization. His concern is valid but there are so many positives that outweigh it.

And as Al Gore said in a speech recently, the invention of the written word, then the printing press (and now the Internet) had helped to democratize information and societies. These inventions allowed people to educate, write and distribute their ideas to others. It allowed a person to participate in the world of knowledge! No longer was information controlled by the few (not as much at least).

In the early days the powerful disseminator of knowledge was the church. What they said was truth. This was because there wasn't another source of information, no less a dissenting one to open up an argument on the topic.

One of the first book's to be widely distributed using the printing press was the Gutenberg's Bible and it wasn't in Latin but in common tongues. Now suddenly the people could interpret the Bible for themselves and talk about it then print books themselves with their views.

Now the Church wasn't the only channel to watch when wanting to hear God's word. You can see where this goes. The point is that democracy is strengthened by the public having access. Multiple sources and the chance for their own ideas to be heard by others.

So lets celebrate reading! Today I learned of a very cool website: GoodReads.com Here people can track what books their friends and others are reading and reviewing. It's free and gets me excited to read more.
Please join me and go make an account. Peace

Pretty Little Mistakes

Today I had the pleasure of listening to a wonderful author on NPR talking about the many choices we make in our lives and what they mean. Thought provoking. It seems kinda for the ladies but I really enjoyed it too. See link below.

The author: Heather McElhatton.
The book: Pretty Little Mistakes

You can listen to it online here:
128.208.34.90/ramgen/realarch/WeekdayB/WeekdayB20070611.rm