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The Blind Assassin by Maragret Atwood

Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Beautiful.
Brilliant.
Read it.

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www.esotericrabbit.com

You forgot brilliant.

No. I did not.

The Evil Dead Companion

Definitely worth picking up if you're a fan of the series... pretty inisghtful and some of their stories are absolutely hilarious!

Sorry for the delay; been under the weather lately.

Copernicus's theory of heliocentricity had less evidence behind it than Galileo's...it stood for several dozen years, at least (I can't make out for sure if it was 60 years, or 90...but either way, plenty of time for it to get out and about, as it were), however, without any Galileo-esque resistance.

It was the publishing of Galileo's Dialogue in 1632 that caused the ruckus. Within those writings, you'll find a character named "Simplicio" (the name speaks volumes). The character mouthed all the arguments that The Pope did at the time. He'd been warned not to make waves before, and The Church came down on him over this.

That doesn't mean it was justified, but when you look at the context, which includes high tolerance of the less controversial Nicholas Copernicus, and the Church's continued support of astronomical research in both the 17th and 18th centuries, I think it's clear that it wasn't the science of the matter that caused so much trouble. The idea that the Church was unreceptive towards new scientific ideas and persecuted Galileo for merely speaking the truth is exaggerated and misleading.

Thankfully, someone else had questions about this as well, so I managed to kill two birds with one stone.

Have you ever read "If Chins Could Kill" ? Mr. Campbells surprisingly well written and delightful autobiography. Plenty in their for the Evil Dead enthusiast?

*Ahem,
Oh and I met him on his book signing tour.
I tottally got to "hail to the king".

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"We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glow-worm."
--Winston Churchill

I ride the train to work and back every day, so I get in a lot of reading. I usually average about two books per week, depending on length, of course. During the last few weeks I have read:

Imajica by Clive Barker.
The Silmirillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. 2nd time.
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway.
The Stand by Stephen King. 3rd time.
and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. 4th time.

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"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

Damn. I was hoping you could point me toward a confession, accusation, or something like that. Oh well.

True, Galileo had more evidence than Copernicus, which is one of the reasons why I always thought the church had a good reason to go after Galileo. They certainly didn't want the facts to get in the way of the scriptures' teachings, and the more facts brought to the table, the more motivation they had to shut someone up. At any rate, if they were lying about their motives, I don't think that fact goes very far in showing that they weren't opposed to teachings of any science that went against the scriptures. They obviously were, in my opinion. It's never about going against new science (and I don't think I've seen or heard anyone make a claim to the contrary); it's always about shutting down teachings that go against their religion.

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One of the biggest myths told is that being intelligent is the absence of the ability to do stupid things.

Nope. Nothing quite that specific, but I don't see how anyone could reasonably come to any other conclusion, given the circumstances around the event.

Yes, that has been the case a few times in the past, no doubt. I'm merely making the case that...

a) It's not as bad as people would have you think.
b) Be careful what you regard as fact. There's often more to the story.

The Church can be called a lot of things, but anti-science ain't one of 'em, despite (fairly) popular belief.

Well, I agree with a and b, and wouldn't say that today's Catholic church is anti-science; however, I would say that the Catholic leadership has MANY TIMES gone against scientific advancement in the past. It is understandable though, since those scientific advancements went against the teachings of the church.

"The secret Self" collected by Hermione Lee
"The Consolations of Philosophy" by Alain De Botton
"The Illiad" by Homer

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

Slumber party by Christopher Pike
Holiday By C. Pike
Entire Spookville Series by Christopher Pike
The Test K.A. Applegate
Elfangor's Secret K. A. Applegate
The Unexpected K.A Applegate
The Green Mile book 2 & 3 by Stephen King
Strange Matter (No Substitutions) Marty M. Engle
Beyond The Crime Lab Jon ZondermanSorcerer's Legacy
Sorcerer's Legacy by Janny Wurts
Warriors Of Virtue By Robert Tine
The Queen Of The Damned By Anne Rice
EverWorld Discover the Destroyer by K.A Applegate
His Last Bow (Sherlock Holmes) By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
MAD Magizines
Just For Kicks II

(ive had alot of time to read when i was out and about and there is more i just cant remember the titles)

I've been reading Piers Anthony's Geodyssey series.

Book 1: Isle of Woman
Book 2: Shame of Man
Book 3: Hope of Earth
Book 4: Muse of Art

They are nothing less than the story of humanity itself, as seen through the eyes of a handful of courageous, passionate men and women reborn again and again in some of the most turbulent ages of history. Each story begins in the dawning of the human race and explores the different theories of how we evolved to become what we are. As the story continues through the chapters, different ages are portrayed depicting how we first developed language, arts, and religion. 25 years in the making, these books show segments of real history, within the fiction of the family involved. For example, Hope of Earth starts off with a group of Homo Habilis children that get seperated from their clan during a storm. They are covered in fur, and can only grunt. The next chapter is set hundreds of thousands years later with the same family. Later in the book it is set during the period when the Greeks were the greatest empire and the Romans were just starting to gain their power. Later the same family are English fighting the Romans for their freedom and their land. Later still the family are Venittians living in Kaffa sweating out a siege by the Mongols, until the Mongols are sieged themselves by the plague. The stories continue into the differen possibilities of our futures. In one, starvation and desease have consumed the human race because of no population control, now there are not many humans left, and the ones that are have reinstituted the use of clans. They are harvesting fungus because Human Kinds main dietary supplement are cocroaches, and they live on fungus. In another, it has become a capital crime to harm a tree, because we have cut so many down our atmosphere is in extreme conditions.

I love these books and highly recommend them to one and all.

Was This Man a Genius? Conversations with Andy Kaufman. (almost TOO funny for it's own good)

The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat (yes, it's a comic, but it has words, thus I read it.... )

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

Spooksville
Highlander: brillent

The Green Mile Series: most people i know hated it, but i find after intensly reading it, to be one of the most thrilling books ive read. Im inspired enough to see the movie (and i normally dont do that)

molloy, by samuel beckett.

the first hundred or so pages were almost impossible for me to get through the first time i read this, but much easier this time around. overall fairly rewarding second reading, as is to be expected from beckett's ultra crypto-bizzarro writing style. my favorite is still 'the lost ones' though.

oh yeah, and i finished ellison's 'the invisible man' a while ago, which was excellent as well.

Golden Armour by William Frances

Heavier Than Heaven - can't remember the author's name off the top of my head, but it's a great book. Depressing, but really engrossing as well.

Fiction whores!

The Abolition of Man
by C.S. Lewis

Finished this for the first time today. WOW. Somebody build this man a friggin' statue. An excerpt:

The man's a genius. How could anyone NOT be interested in such enlightening concepts? I honestly don't get it.

Smug Bitch!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury