These Are the Greatest Geek Books of All Time, Readers Say | Underwire inShare0 We revealed our ultimate reading list in "9 Essential Geek Books You Must Read Right Now" last week. Now Wired.com readers have spoken, voting for their favorites from the list and submitting many awesome literary picks of their own. The must-read books listed in the gallery above didn't make the original roundup, but received the most attention from readers in our online voting. DuneBy Frank Herbert (1965) "It's a work that thrusts you into a far-flung, truly, strangely realized future. We revealed our ultimate reading list in "9 Essential Geek Books You Must Read Right Now" last week. Photos: Ariel Zambelich/Wired.com [voting topic_id="4" css=" Tags: 9 for 9, A Brief History of Time, Books and Comics, Brave New World, cosmos, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Goodreads Middle East Studies in Upheaval - Daniel Pipes The troubled academic study of the Middle East and Islam by Americans is changing in fundamental ways. I offer some thoughts based on 42 years of personal observation. From Western offense to Islamic offense: Muslim relations with Christians divide into four long periods: from Muhammad’s hijra to the First Crusade, 622–1099, during which time Muslims expanded at Christian expense; to the second siege of Vienna, 1099–1683, which saw a mix of Muslim advances (e.g., Anatolia) and retreats (Iberia); to the Arab oil boycott, 1683–1973, with Christians on the offense; and since 1973, with Muslims on the offense. When I entered the Middle East and Islam field in 1969, Americans looked almost exclusively at the Western impact on modern Muslims; today, the Muslim impact on the West features almost as prominently, from American slavery to the problems of Malmö, Sweden. Then came the revolution. The old masters dropped off of syllabi.
Il cane di Dio Diego Marani ci narra le avventure di Domingo Salazar, detective al servizio di Dio, in un'Italia del futuro trasformata in una teocrazia. È in libreria un nuovo romanzo di Diego Marani. Il cane di Dio (2012) ci descrive un'Italia di un prossimo futuro. L’autore ci descrive un futuro da paura, dove la Chiesa comanda con pugno di ferro. Il protagonista del romanzo, e forse di una serie, è Domingo Salazar, un orfano trovato e allevato dai domenicani. Un misterioso Vicario gli affida un importante incarico: deve catturare Ivan Zago, il capo di un gruppo che lotta contro la Chiesa. Un brano dal testo "Mi chiamo Domingo Salazar, sono nato il giorno di San Domenico e sono stato allevato dai padri domenicani. La mania del diario l'aveva presa dalle suore. L'autore Diego Marani è nato a Ferrara nel 1959. La quarta di copertina Il mondo in un possibile futuro. Diego Marani, Il cane di Dio (2012)
30 Books I’m Glad I Read Before 30 In various ways, these 30 books convey some of the philosophy of how Angel and I live our lives. I honestly credit a fraction of who I am today to each title. Thus, they have indirectly influenced much of what I write about on this site. A medley of both fiction and nonfiction, these great reads challenged my internal status quo, opening my mind to new ideas and opportunities, and together they gave me a basic framework for living, loving, learning and working successfully. If you haven’t read these books yet, I highly recommend doing so. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert – Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology has studied happiness for decades, and he shares scientific findings that just might change the way you look at the world. What are your favorite books? Photo by: Katie Harris
The College Scam What do Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Mark Cuban have in common? They're all college dropouts. Richard Branson, Simon Cowell and Peter Jennings have in common? They never went to college at all. But today all kids are told: To succeed, you must go to college. Hillary Clinton tells students: "Graduates from four-year colleges earn nearly twice as much as high school graduates, an estimated $1 million more." We hear that from people who run colleges. That's why I say: For many people, college is a scam. I spoke with Richard Vedder, author of "Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much," and Naomi Schafer Riley, who just published "Faculty Lounges and Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Paid For." Vedder explained why that million-dollar comparison is ridiculous: "People that go to college are different kind of people ... They would have made more money even if they never went to college. The research is often on obscure topics for journals nobody reads.
Ebook Gratis: eBooks, Libri, Riviste e Fumetti Gratuiti Neil deGrasse Tyson's 8 A Reddit.com user posed the question to Neil deGrasse Tyson: "Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on the planet?" Below, you will find the book list offered up by the astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium, and popularizer of science. Where possible, we have included links to free versions of the books, all taken from our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks collections. Or you can always download a professionally-narrated book for free from Audible.com. Details here. If you're looking for a more extensive list of essential works, don't miss The Harvard Classics, a 51 volume series that you can now download online. 1.) 2.) 3.) 4.) 5.) 6.) 7.) 8.) Tyson concludes by saying: "If you read all of the above works you will glean profound insight into most of what has driven the history of the western world." He has also added some more thoughts in the comments section below, saying: Thanks for this ongoing interest in my book suggestions. Related Content:
No frills university college offers half price degrees The college is aimed at students concerned about taking on debts to fund their higher education. Photograph: Christopher Thomond A "no-frills" university college offering teaching seven days a week and degrees for around half the price of traditional universities will start recruiting students next week. Coventry University College will focus on professional courses including accounting, law and marketing, at a maximum cost of £4,800 for a full-time degree student. It is an offshoot of Coventry University, but students at the new institution will not have access to the university's library, IT or sporting facilities. Instead of the traditional long summer holiday, the university college will be open 42 weeks a year. The college is aimed at students concerned about taking on debts to fund their higher education, as well as helping employees combine work with gaining new skills. The new college comes on the back of sweeping changes in higher education.
H.P. Lovecraft Highlights the 20 "Types of Mistakes" Young Writers Make Image by Lucius B. Truesdell, via Wikimedia Commons H.P. Lovecraft is remembered as a brilliant fantasist, a creator of a completely unique universe of horror. He’s also remembered, unfortunately, as a bigot. Writers love him, Malthouse argues, because he was such an original “world builder,” not because he was a fine artist. So perhaps he isn’t such a bad writer after all? See his complete list below. Most of this is solid, common sense writing advice. Related Content: H.P. H.P. Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (Free Documentary) Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers Writing Tips by Henry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC.
Is Philosophy the Most Practical Major? - Edward Tenner - Technology One of the many small surprises of the recession has been a significant growth in the number of philosophy majors, according the the Philadelphia Inquirer. It has slightly exceeded the growth of enrollments in the last ten years; many other humanities and social science fields have just kept up. At the University of California at Berkeley, despite or because of the state's economic turmoil, the number of majors has increased by 74 percent in the last decade. What makes philosophy different? It's also one of the most competitive disciplines. Thus philosophy is a demanding major. Philosophy is also institutionalized beyond academia in ways that history and literature are not, for example in bioethics programs in medical schools and organizations. It is true that philosophy majors' salaries aren't especially high. Many of us early workers in computers were philosophy majors. This doesn't mean we should replace humanities-bashing with humanities chauvinism.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Preface to First Edition The poem of which the following pages offer a prose rendering is contained in a MS., believed to be unique, of the Cottonian Collection, Nero A.X., preserved in the British Museum. The MS. is of the end of the fourteenth century, but it is possible that the composition of the poem is somewhat earlier; the subject-matter is certainly of very old date. There has been a considerable divergence of opinion among scholars on the question of authorship, but the view now generally accepted is that it is the work of the same hand as Pearl, another poem of considerable merit contained in the same MS. Our poem, or, to speak more correctly, metrical romance, contains over 2500 lines, and is composed in staves of varying length, ending in five short rhyming lines, technically known as a bob and a wheel,–the lines forming the body of the stave being not rhyming, but alliterative. Preface to Second Edition