Foundation by Isaac Asimov (review)

Foundation by Isaac Asimov is one of those books that bears become a specified historical tentpole of the literary genre that it's facile to disregard and accept for granted, a lot in the same direction new moviegoers nowadays could find it difficult to puzzle out the brilliance in Citizen Kane. Foundation by Isaac Asimov is not what you will call "a great book" plainly because critics tell you so. You have to read it, and find for yourself how staggeringly written and diverting piece of sociopolitical SF aggregated with brilliant storyline, and its finest dimensions could appear unusual to nowadays lecturers until you recognise just how magnificent they are accomplished. If you count over the years how SF genre has changed, becoming burdened by either futile style or clumsy plotting masquerading as epic legendry, Asimov's aphoristic language found in Foundation is a real breathing place full of energising air. Isaac Asimov acknowledged possibly better than anybody in that literary genre that SF is all about communicating. Isaac Asimov wrote as clearly as it gets, but not laconically. There's more than plenty humour to go around. To the highest degree imposingly, Asimov's plots were as complex as any of nowadays top novelists'. Nevertheless he still managed to maintain his lecturers' heads free from mental confusion and thwarting.

The stage for Foundation is set 13,000 years in a potential future, after human race has colonized space so exhaustively that just about everyone have lost any information regarding Earth. Foundation opens as the Galactic Empire is in its terminal years, having ruled across the galaxy for over 10 millennia. One-person on the capital planet of Trantor (a planetary which, by the way, George Lucas unabashedly abstracted and renamed Coruscant for use in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace) dares to arise and evidence the dying Empire that its descent and capitulation is ineluctable. Hari Seldon has acquired the science of psychohistory, which aims to anticipate the behavior of wide populations across huge periods. Seldon has anticipated not alone the decline of the Empire, but the reality that a bashing 30,000 years of savagery will accompany that fall, unless his system, the Encyclopedia Foundation, is able to complete its vast task of cataloguing and maintaining millennia of compiled human knowledge and history. So, maybe, the 30,000 years could be trimmed to a bare millenium.

If you can't find any of the books in the Foundation Series, check Amazon:

All The Books in the Foundation Series

Read more about it on Wikipedia

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper (book review)

This is where I leave you is a magnificent and funny saga about family. Tropper brings brilliant balance between the family history and its present-day fallout, proving his ability to create touchingly human characters and a deliciously page-turning story.

Tropper mines old themes with his new book, This is Where I Leave You. Love relationship with college soul mate? Check. Father whose love is silent and unspoken and strong? Check. Sex with old high school fantasy? Check. Issue with athletic brother and other sibling rivalries? Check. I could go on.

The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman family-including Judd's mother, brothers, and sister-have been together in years. Conspicuously absent: Judd's wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with Judd's radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public.

This Is Where I Leave You is Jonathan Tropper's most accomplished work to date, a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind—whether we like it or not.

Lord of Flies Book Review

Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. Central idea of the book is very simple: a group of children from different ethnic groups are found isolated on a deserted island (do not know how and why, but a vague mention atomic cataclysm) tries to recreate the rules of society in which they lived before becoming isolated. Gradually, the children with rational sense (Ralph and Piggy) will be consumed by instincts, senses the primary force and gross. All try to kill 'the beast' that lives in the heart of jungle, not knowing that the only beast around is the beast inside each other.

The novel is essentially an allegory on the sad human tendency to return back to the violent instincts, when one is put in front of certain conditions: isolation, lack of spatial or temporal landmark.

Read more about it on Wikipedia
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The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (preview)

Ok, I will admint I'm not Dan Brown's biggest fan. But I have to give the man credits for marketing his books nicely.

The most acclaimed "The Da Vinci Code" scratched the surface of some very interesting ideas that have been floating around for thousands of years. Unfortunately, he just scratched the surface and was content to take a great premise and wedge it into a contrived and boring plot.

The Lost Symbolis Brown's third Robert Langdon thriller, after Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code. In his new book Langdon uncovered conspiracies within the Catholic church that involved art and science.

The Lost Symbol is due to be released on the 15th September 2009.



Overview:

Dan Brown's new novel, the eagerly awaited follow-up to his #1 international phenomenon, The Da Vinci Code, which was the bestselling hardcover adult novel of all time with 81 million copies in print worldwide, will be published in the U.S. and Canada by Doubleday on September 15, 2009.

THE LOST SYMBOL will have a first printing of 5 million copies, and it will once again feature Dan Brown's unforgettable protagonist, Robert Langdon. Brown's longtime editor, Jason Kaufman, Vice President and Executive Editor at Doubleday said, "Nothing ever is as it first appears in a Dan Brown novel. This book's narrative takes place in a twelve-hour period, and from the first page, Dan's readers will feel the thrill of discovery as they follow Robert Langdon through a masterful and unexpected new landscape. THE LOST SYMBOL is full of surprises."

Dan Brown's popularity continues to grow. The film of The Da Vinci Code was a #1 box office smash when it was released by Columbia Pictures in May 2006 with Ron Howard directing and Tom Hanks starring as Robert Langdon. Box office receipts were $758 million. The same team released Angels and Demons theatrically worldwide on May 15, 2009.


links:
The lost symbol website
Pre-Order The Lost Symbol from Amazon

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto

I was inspired to read this book by one of the reviewers from Amazon: "The louder someone complains, the closer you are to the truth. I anticipate a lot of ad hominem complaints from statists here. Do not let them talk you out of reading this book. "

They say any generation has few special authors and thinkers. After reading this book I know Mark Levin is one of those peoples. This masterpiece is one of those books that can survive the ravages of time and the shifting sands of societal evolution.


While Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto is absolutist and escapist in nature, it addresses relevant issues in American society. Numerous programs and institutions need reform, and Levin’s work can be a springboard for debate. At a time when the Republican Party is searching for its identity, Levin provides a platform.

It is rarer still when a key book is written, recognized, and celebrated contemporarily. In my humble opinion, this is one such book. It's a must read!

Top Autobiography and Memoir books

Traditionally, memoirs usually dealt with public matters, rather than personal, and many older memoirs contain little or no information about the writer, and are almost entirely concerned with other people. Modern expectations have changed this, even for heads of government. Like most autobiographies, memoirs are generally written from the first person point of view.

1. The Confessions (Augustine) - Free Download
2. The Complete Essays (Michel de Montaigne) - Free Download
3. Meditations on First Philosophy (Rene Descartes)
4. Walden (Henry David Thoreau) - Free Download