Recommend a Book

The BBC Book of the Week is 5 x 15 minute abridged readings from "An Immense World" by Ed Wong, a popular science book looking beyond human senses into the animal realm to explore how different sensory perceptions can alter our experience of the world. If you want to know more about for example how spiders use their webs as sensory extensions this is for you :)

The excerpts are very good so consider this a recommendation for the book in either version.

(BBC Sounds isn't geo-blocked, you might have to register but you can access almost all content from ROI)

www.bbc.co.uk

BBC Sounds - An Immense World by Ed Yong - Available Episodes

Listen to the latest episodes of An Immense World by Ed Yong on BBC Sounds
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
 
Picked up Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Kindle edition today for 99c. Anyone read it?
 
I just finished Great Hatred: the Assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson MP. It's a superb book.

I really don't know enough about the Civil War and this book made me read more. History Ireland also have great lectures on Podcast about the assassination. For example I didn't know that at the start of the Civil War there were three governments in the country or that Wilson's killing caused the shelling of the Four Courts.
 
Currently reading The Hitler Years, Volume 1: Triumph 1933-1939
Finding it very good and insightful.
Currently on the supposed threat / persecution that "German" Czechoslovakian's were subjected to, that Hitler used as an excuse for taking over Sudetenland (The Munich Agreement). The parallels with Putin's argument for liberating Russians in Donbas are striking...
 
Currently reading and loving "the Bronx is burning, 1977, baseball, politics and the battle for the soul of the city" by Jonathan Mahler

It's a social history of New York for the year, 1977 and focused on a feud between the Yankees manager and a new black superstar player and the Mayorial election that year. However it covers so much more including Son of Sam, the great blackout and a whole lot more and if anyone has a love for the Big Apple and what it is now, it's a fascinating reminder of the cess poll it was in the mid 70's.
 
Not a book but a great History Podcast
open.spotify.com

Empire

Listen to Empire on Spotify. How do empires rise? Why do they fall? And how have they shaped the world around us today? William Dalrymple and Anita Anand explore the stories, personalities and events of empire over the course of history.
open.spotify.com open.spotify.com
Have read Dalrymples' Return of a King which was great and will be reading The Anarchy his book on the East India Company and the outsourcing of British foreign policy to a private company.
 
dereko1969 said:
Not a book but a great History Podcast
open.spotify.com

Empire

Listen to Empire on Spotify. How do empires rise? Why do they fall? And how have they shaped the world around us today? William Dalrymple and Anita Anand explore the stories, personalities and events of empire over the course of history.
open.spotify.com open.spotify.com
Have read Dalrymples' Return of a King which was great and will be reading The Anarchy his book on the East India Company and the outsourcing of British foreign policy to a private company.
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The Last Mughal is a great book that shows the incredible power the East India Company had. It's also tragic and really sad.
 
Season of the Witch by David Talbot. It's a social history of San Francisco from the late 60s to the early 80's. Much of it is only ok but the chapters on Jim Jones, the Jonestown massacre and the political involvement were jaw dropping.
 
The Spy and the Traitor - Ben MacIntyre - Non Fiction. Oleg Gordievsky rose to the senior ranks of the KGB was posted in Denmark, England and Austria. He became disillusioned by life in Russia and turned to spying for the UK. He received accolades from Margaret Thatcher, the Queen for information he supplied. The book lives up to the praise in the blurbs and reads like a Le Carré novel. The book concentrates on Gordievsky, but other spies get a mention too. What makes this book different? - Neither of his two wives (both members of the KGB) bought into his beliefs. Gordievsky was a family man and drugged and questioned by the KGB when found out still maintained enough doubt to keep him alive (even by KGB standards). Vladimir Putin gets a mention too for his KGB service (the book was first published in 2018). It's an easy read and a page turner and very informative and suddenly you want to read more about the likes of Kim Philby (master spy) etc. You get an in depth knowledge of espionage and counter espionage techniques.
 
NotMyRealName said:
I can recommend Stanley Tucci's, "Taste,my life through food "
Very enjoyable read,
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I listened to the BBC book of the week version, drifting off to sleep, perhaps not the best time - all the talk of food kicked appetite in :)

Keep an eye out for Big Night if it's ever repeated on TV, Stanley Tucci stars in it, trying to keep his traditional Italian restaurant in America afloat.

He had a series on BBC2 on Italian cuisine also recently.
 
odyssey06 said:
I listened to the BBC book of the week version, drifting off to sleep, perhaps not the best time - all the talk of food kicked appetite in :)

Keep an eye out for Big Night if it's ever repeated on TV, Stanley Tucci stars in it, trying to keep his traditional Italian restaurant in America afloat.

He had a series on BBC2 on Italian cuisine also recently.
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Yep, I've seen, and am a fan of, all of the above. Saw Big Night in Cinema when first released.......and left absolutely starving, then demolished a meal in a local restaurant.
 
Paradise Alley by John D Sheridan covers the period 1903 - 1944 of a school in Dublin's East Wall district. He lived, worked, courted, married, retired in Dublin. No punches are pulled in the telling of corporal punishment, education failures, parent visits, expansion and street cred in the pupils of Paradise Alley. The pros and contras of the Lockout are described by those affected. 1916 and the Rising got no mention, neither did WW1 save for a line or two. WW2 and it's effect on the people and the area are covered. This is a beautiful book and is a social history of East Wall district and its people. It's up there with Strumpet City except written in a way that you just want to go from sentence to sentence and read in one sitting. At the end you realise you've read a book that has asked more questions than it answered. Having spent two years of my working life in Dublin I regret I knew nothing of Dublin's Docklands and the people who live(d) there - I missed out. I bought the book in a charity shop - if you want it PM me and I'll post it immediately to you.
 
Ceist Beag said:
For those that read (and loved) the Stieg Larsson trilogy, have any of read anything by Jo Nesbo? I see a lot of quotes comparing the two so just wondering if they are in the same league.
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Yes, and some of them were excellent, It's more Wallander then Steig Larsson, another screwed up Scandi detective. However his last book (not the current one that is out) was truely dreadful.
 
A recent discussion here about human nature reminded me of Human Kind: A hopeful History by Dutch writer Rutger Bregman.

It's one of the best books I've read in years. It makes the argument that people are basically good and that is our evolutionary advantage. In the debate on the nature of man between Hobbs and Rousseau this book firmly comes down on the side of Rousseau.
 
Purple said:
A recent discussion here about human nature reminded me of Human Kind: A hopeful History by Dutch writer Rutger Bregman.

It's one of the best books I've read in years. It makes the argument that people are basically good and that is our evolutionary advantage. In the debate on the nature of man between Hobbs and Rousseau this book firmly comes down on the side of Rousseau.
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I think I read something similar from Steven Pinker a few years back, let us hope they are right :)

If you ignore the term 'The Selfish Gene', Richard Dawkins had some nifty documentaries back in the day on why co-operation is beneficial.
 
How about Anna Karenina ?

Better still, And Quiet Flows The Don by Sholokhov.
 
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