quote:

Originally posted by rigpig:
I'm a huge Hancock fan and have been trying to get thru the 800 pages of "Underworld" for a year now! He definitely gives you your moneys worth.
Laurence Gardner is another of my favorites.

I use to be a fan of Hancock but reading The Stargate Conspiracy by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince has put me off reading Hancock, Robert Bauval & a few others.
I enjoy Laurence Garnder, his Lost Secrets Of The Sacred Ark: Amazing Revelations Of The Incredible Power Of Gold was a fasinating read.
Lyall Watson also has some interesting books. If you can find it a good start is Dreams Of Dragons.

Well thank-you Flinx, I will definitely check out those 2 titles.
As for Gardner if you liked the Sacred Ark check out Realm of the Ring Lords, which is another eye-opener.
R.A.Boulay has a great book (it's older) called Flying Serpents and Dragons which I found facinating!

quote:

Originally posted by rigpig:
Well thank-you Flinx, I will definitely check out those 2 titles.
As for Gardner if you liked the Sacred Ark check out Realm of the Ring Lords, which is another eye-opener.
R.A.Boulay has a great book (it's older) called Flying Serpents and Dragons which I found facinating!

I've got Realm Of The Ring Lords but haven't got around to reading it yet.
This is my collection of Gardner's books, so far;
Bloodline Of The Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage Of Jesus Revealed (Element Books, 3rd printing)
Genesis Of The Grail Kings
Realm Of The Ring Lords: Beyond The Portal Of The Twilight World
Lost Secrets Of The Sacred Ark: Amazing Revelations Of The Incredible Power Of Gold
I think he has a couple of other books out that I haven't picked up yet.
The only reason I started reading his books was because I happened to visit a book store while he was doing a signing.
Considering the subjects Gardner writes about I think I would have eventually read one of his books. But it might have been a quite a while because of all the other authors that have writteng on the same sujects.
I remember coming across Flying Serpents And Dragons a number of times while doing book searches. Will also have to check it out.

quote:

Originally posted by Flinx:

quote:

Originally posted by rigpig:
Well thank-you Flinx, I will definitely check out those 2 titles.
As for Gardner if you liked the Sacred Ark check out Realm of the Ring Lords, which is another eye-opener.
R.A.Boulay has a great book (it's older) called Flying Serpents and Dragons which I found facinating!

I've got Realm Of The Ring Lords but haven't got around to reading it yet.
This is my collection of Gardner's books, so far;
Bloodline Of The Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage Of Jesus Revealed (Element Books, 3rd printing)
Genesis Of The Grail Kings
Realm Of The Ring Lords: Beyond The Portal Of The Twilight World
Lost Secrets Of The Sacred Ark: Amazing Revelations Of The Incredible Power Of Gold
I think he has a couple of other books out that I haven't picked up yet.
The only reason I started reading his books was because I happened to visit a book store while he was doing a signing.
Considering the subjects Gardner writes about I think I would have eventually read one of his books. But it might have been a quite a while because of all the other authors that have writteng on the same sujects.
I remember coming across Flying Serpents And Dragons a number of times while doing book searches. Will also have to check it out.

Your so very lucky to have met him! I flew down to the US last year so attend a lecture he was giving and he canceled at the last minute, so I missed out.
His book about Mary Magdaline is okay if your interested in all that Da Vinci stuff but I found myself skipping thru chapters because they didn't interest me, although the chapters on Da Vinci and Mary Magdaline were quite good.

Our library doesn't have The Stargate Conspiracy but has alot of her older works, I requested Dreams of Dragons and should have my hands on it Tuesday.

Non fiction thread! Yay!

90% of the stuff I read is non-fiction

What I'd recommend is mostly historical:

Currently I'm reading Robert Fisk's The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for the British quality newspaper The Independent, and it's a very large book (about 1,300 pages) about the contemporary history of the Middle East. It goes all over, though, with reasons. It starts describing the three interviews the author has had with Osama Bin Laden (in the 1990s), then jumps to the Soviet invasion of Aghanistan. Then, the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Iran-Iraq War. It has whole chapters for each one. Then it jumps to the aftermath of WW1 when the current borders were drawn, then the Armenian Massacre of 1915, Israel and Palestine from the 1960s on, Algeria's largely unreported civil war, the Gulf War, And various other places.

Currently I'm reading about the inter-war period after the Gulf War.

What I might add though is that the author is highly, highly critical off all sides. He spares nobody any quarter. But he is especially damning of the West and Israel. But he's fair: where he reports Israelis firing on Palestinians, he also talks about the oppressiveness of the Palestinian regime. He denounces Saddam, but cynically points out that the West wanted him there even after the Gulf War.

Regardless of what you think about the Middle East, I really cannot recommend this book highly enough. Despite its large size and its depressing subject matter the style of writing is excellent and always exciting, in many places poetic and sad.

Other books I'd recommend:

A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes. A very sad, tragic epic, but you're constantly reminded of how the enormous utopian potential of our species is dashed down by reaction and brutality.

Not Quite the Diplomat: Home Truths About World Affairs by Chris Patten. He was the last British Governor of Hong Kong, then he was the European Union's Commissioner for External Relations. He talks about many issues relevent to today but from a European perspective, and what Europe should do to resolve them.

Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw by Norman Davies. An incredible book about the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis in 1944. A damning book of Western impotence and Soviet treachery. If you need any evidence that the Western Allies always played second fiddle to the USSR during the Second World War, this is it. It also describes postwar Poland under Socialism and how the regime tried to alter history about the Rising. Really good stuff.

Mountbatten By Phillip Zeigler. A biography of Lord Louis 'Dickie' Mountbatten, Uncle to the Duke of Edinburgh (The Queen's husband). Another very long book, but, I might say, a highly amusing and enjoyable one. He joined the navy, became Chief of Staff for Combined Operations (where he helped invent Mulberry Harbours), Commander in Chief of British Forces in the Far East, the last Viceroy of India where he managed partition I think pretty professionally, and First Lord of the Admiralty where he helped to create the Ministry of Defense. Sadly he was killed by the IRA in Sligo in the 1970s.

Mountbatten was one of those people who liked everybody and everybody liked him, and he was tremendously optimistic and generous. And wait till you read about 'Habakkuk'. It's brilliant.

The Fate of the Romanovs by Greg King and Penny Wilson. A semi-biography of the last days of the Romanov Dynasty of Russia after the Tsar was deposed in 1917. It largely talks about the remaining 100 day or so of their lives in the Ural Mountains, until they were suddenyl and very brutally liquidated by Bolsheviks from the Ufa Soviet. It's quite graphic during the execution and burial chapters, but also quite revealing earlier on about the misconceptions of the Tsar about reality.

I think that'll do for now, but I have a ton I'd like to recommend.

Psychotic Reactions and Carbeorator Dung by Lester Bangs. Music reviews, essays, and in one case a short story. Tottally gonzo, brilliant writing that will make you believe in rock and roll

The Old, Weird America by Greil Marcus. Traces the history of Dylan's Basement Tapes through Applachian murder ballads, bluegrass, and old country music. Great writing and perfect if Oh Brother Where Art Thou sparked your interest in this kind of music

Travels in Hyperreality- Umberto Eco. Really really really good essays

anything by P.J. O'Rourke. He's funny! He's right-wing! He grows pot and hung with Hunter Thompson!

one day i will finish a short history of nearly everything, and then i can look at some other books

I'm now reading Herodotus' The Histories. Herodotus is considered the 'Father of History'

>> Herodotus is considered the 'Father of History'<<

I was fighting the temptation to ask "So who is the mother?", but life is too short for such fights ...

I'm partial to Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, although I know that many think he's full of it.

There's also a really odd but beautiful book called Words for a Deaf Daughter, by novelist Paul West, which is sort of a biography of his deaf, brain-damaged child, written in the form of a book-length letter, more or less. I have to re-read it every couple of years.

- Cho

That sounds really interesting Chomiji, I'll have to look out for that.

My latest book is The Myth of Decline: The Rise of Britain Since 1945, by an American named George L. Bernstein

I just borrowed Chomsky's "Language and Politics" from the library, as well as "Empires of the Word, A Language History of the World" by Nicholas Ostler.