This  List is updated every time I finish a book be it Audiobooks which are in Italics and normally from Librivox or conventional paper copy.
1.Book 1 Study is Hard Work Armstrong
2.Book 2 Gang Leader for a Day
3.Book 3 Jeffrey Deaver The Broken Window
4.Book 4 Snyder and Mitchell Cultural Locations of Disability
5.Book 5 Some said it thundered David Pytches
6.Book 6 Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy
7.Book 7 Milan Kundera An Unbearable Lightness of Being
8.Book 8 Clare Boylan The Agony and the Ego
9.Book 9 Charles Taylor Sources of the Self the making of modern identity
10.Book 10 Naomi Klein The Shock Doctrine
11.Book 11 Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook
12.Book 12  Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil
13.Book 13 Sue Monk Kidd The Secret Life of Bees
14.Book 14  Machiavelli The Prince
15.Book 15 Jade Goody Forever in my heart Official Cancer Diaries
16.Book 16 Alexander mc call smith The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency
17.Book 17 Homer The Illiad
18.Book 18 David Hume An Enquiry into human understanding
19. J S Mill Utilitarianism

20.  Alexander Mc Call Smith ‘Tears of a Girraffe’

21. George Stock ‘Stoicism’

22. Martin Lewis Three things about Money

23. Homer The Odyssey

24.Euthyphro Plato

25. Milton The Aeropagita

26 Martha Nussbaum Upheavals of Thought: the Intelligence of the Emotions 766 pages

27  Jonathan Glover ‘Causing Deaths and Saving Lives’

28  Steven Lukes ‘Moral Relativism’

29  Tom Shakespeare ‘Disability Rights and Wrongs’

30 Sophie Kinsella ‘ The Undomesticated Goddess’

31. Naomi Klein ‘No Logo’

32. Louis Althusser ‘On Ideology’

33. George Bernard Shaw ‘Pygmalion’

34. John Carey ‘Pure Pleasure’

35. John Jacques Rousseau ‘The Discourse on Ineqaulity’

This story is setting in an Africa that is developing and evolving.

This is what my Mum calls ‘FEEL GOOD GENRE ‘ that is Fiction that has a Feel Good Factor in the truest most genuine sense of the word which won’t leave a bitter or dark aftertaste in your mouth or make you feel as if you are a unfulfilled Revolutionary as other books make you feel.

Mme Rambotswe heroine of show. This is the lady who learns her trade on the fly and ends up with skills that gradually grow into an uncanny reputation to get to the bottom of things no matter how difficult or complex the quandary. She is someone you can get on and like. If you, yourself were in the Story then she would be your best mate who you would have over on a regular basis and who incidentally would have useful skills for those times when you need something requiring a little Private Investigation

The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency is full on Private Detective material with all it implies covering a whole range of grievances from husbands who play away to stolen cars, child abductions, and common or garden witchcraft incidents.

We normally associate Private Investigation with the dark, sly, underground, depths, unknown, undetected portrayal. Sad occasions where one is likely to need a private Detective to get facts behind the suspicious behaviours of a cherished person of yours and or situation.

We get other metaphors like the hated White Van Man so hated by the UK Public and parodied by all alike.

All this takes place in everyday Africa with it’s wonders and tragedies, pictures and media portrayals. Here we have an everyday life lived out efficiently in a modest South African? Township

where life goes on and is ENJOYED despite of all the troubles assailing the Africans.

Writing this Review has made me realise the various components that Alexander Mc Call Smith has used to great effect in his book. It is not contrived, it is not unrealistic but it is wall to wall Feel Good and we all need Novels with the Feel Good Factor. I will read more.

250 pages

Time to read over a week? Alongside heavy Nussbaum and newly minted God Delusion.

KT

This Book, Book 16 took about 3-4 days to ‘read’. Even using Audiobooks is challenging hence my decision to archive all Audiobook Material which is also useful for bumping up total so I head towards the 24 Books mark which is 2 books a month; a pathetic total.

What have I learn’t from Machievelli? he uses Cesare Borgia and other chap to craft a political theory for the young upstart who wishes to get ahead in politics (or elsewhere one might reason). For this to happen cruelty etc is fine. All long our heros have desired results at the dreadful cost to their subjects.

If I have Lecture material on and or other podcast material this can be used as well. All in all Machievelli is the Barstards Guide to getting on in politics hence its popularity and reknown amongst various general publics.

Book 15 is done. I have to work out a Review. This makes Nussbaum Book 16,17,18 depending on what books I read first. 24 Books read means TWO books a month which is very bad. I am using Audiobooks without shame as they are Philosophy books and Philosophy books have a more difficult content. Exposure to Philosophy content is a good idea.
This is just to let you know my progress.

I have just recently finished reading Jade Goody ‘Forever in my heart’ Jade Goody’s Official Cancer Diaries.
This is Book 14 meaning Nussbaum is Book 15 so quite a bit of reading this year! Currently I have a book a month at the current numerical rate which is not good enough considering the time I have available. ( I have things that sap and use up time also) There are 50 Book Reading Challenges but most are based on Literary and Novelistic Content whereas I am actually trying to read PHILOSOPHY Books and other Academic texts which is, if you know anything about them, not quite a walk in the park. I am also on my second Philosophy Audio book Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy’ which I intend to follow with Homer Odyssey and the Iliad so I can get some ancient content.
This is just a post to let you know I am getting on.

A totally delightful book about a a runaway daughter who flees unloving father to Tibouron a community where unbeknown to her; her late mother, accidently shot by her, also fled to the same refuge where bees are kept.
This book is above love about the persecuted black community in small town America who have refuge in the Sanctaury of their home, who have a sustainable way of living as Beekeepers but who are surrounded with troubles and marginalisation on all sides. (No choice as to work and career).
As this is a quick review to get job done this book is also a timely anti-racist polemic.

This is my first ever test of listening to a Philosopher’s Work in Audiobook (MP3) Format.
Over a week or two I have taken a Section at a time working my way through about 10 hours of’ Reading’.
During this time I was not able to take in my Latest attempt at Tome Reading; the full 766 pages of Martha Nussbaum’s ‘Upheaval of Emotions the Intelligence of the Emotions’ which title wise would suggest a very female text.
So to contrast the rather calm but authentic tones of Nussbaum I have subjected myself to the angry embittered stunningly insightful in parts (the bits I did get that is) of one Friedrich Nietzsche .
This is just a brief review just to post up the fact that now I am on Book No 12 hallelujah! now that is one book a month. Lets get through next layer to make it 24 books a year so far-aided and abetted shamelessly due to their difficult content-Philosophers tomes in audiobook format.

This is Book 11 this Year making Martha Nussbaum ‘Upheaval of Emotions The Intelligence of the Emotions’ is Book 12 a work in progress.

I noticed this book in Tesco and decided to buy it as the Storyline looked interesting and pertinent and she also won the Nobel Prize for Literature making this the first Nobel Winner I have ever read.

This book  like the Taylor weighed in at a spectacular 576 pages. Taylor 601 pages and the Cultural Locations of Disability another tome a more modest 245 pages.

Now to the story line. Meet Anna Wulf a single divorced mum who has an number of unending bad sexaul relationships and to add to her woes suffers from Writers Block. That along with Film offers from Directors who wish to change the plot means her Notebooks Red for Political life (how appropriate!) a Black Notebook for Writing Life (given the parlous state of her writing life this colour does not surprise me and is, I think a reflection of her moods); Yellow Notebook her emotional life where she wishes to see the sunshine but doesn’t having lost Paul the beloved Psychiatrist who ends up in foreign climes away from his wife in a notional separation. Blue Notebook for everyday events this would stand for the sky Blue Sky = Day so we have some logic coming on here.

Finally and unexpectedly we get the Lover who mistreats her but who unlocks the Book resulting from the scribblings in the Golden Notebook. This book ends up selling solving the problem but we are still ended up with the bleakness that is characteristic over every aspect of her notebooked life.

Criticisms are unending bleakness.Philosophical bleakness? in the name of what I heard is ‘realism’ no bright lights only constant sadness. There are no light moments.

Surely in the most miserable fo lives there are light moments.

To conclude all in all a well written book from a Writer who definitely shows that portraying life is a skill to be learned in both philosophy and writing (but with it’s lighter moments)

342 words

This is a shocking account of Shock Therapy which tells how Milton Friedman. Chicago School Economists one size fits all Policies . Resulted in gross inequalities and poverty for many Nations round the World.

She shows us how . Shock Therapy Regimes are imposed to circumvent grassroots resistance which is an eye opener into pervasive corporatism which is deliberately seeking to avoid Governance and the Government ; and in effect run their own Mini-States within a weakened dis-empowered State.

(US Military Provision using Private Companies which famous Politicans such as Donald Rumsfeld benefited from financially). This has implications for Democracy and the Democratic Process. Dahl a famous Democracy Theorist at the University of Chicago says quite plainly that the Capitalist System is best served by Democracy. Naomi Kleins courageous honest well researched and thorough analysis is yet another example of what good research is. Her intellectual honesty is refreshing too.

The books begins with the disturbing accounts of Psychic Driving as done by Dr Ewen Cameron whose methods were later utilised as Torture methods. You see the poor woman whose life has been ruined by psychic driving, without any legal recompense or compensation. Others of course have suffered a similar fate. Then she develops her account of how the Chicago School of Free Market Economists have used Shock Therapy to force Free Market Ideologies WHICH THEY KNOW WILL BE DEMOCRATICALLY OPPOSED to an unwilling populace with devastating consequences. As a result the word ‘controversial’ is the only word that can be applied to this book hence every human being in the world should attempt to grab a copy.

Klein rightly defends the Market but within a socially just framework which the Shock Doctors of Chicago have not done.

All in all this is a balanced and truly controversial account which ought to be sky high in Bestseller lists all over the world.

335 words

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Posted in 2000 Book Reading Programme, 2009 Reading List Novels and Academic, 50 Book Reading List 2009 Tagged: 2000 Book Programme, academic fluency, academic inspiration ]]> http://katesjc6189.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/book-10-naomi-klein-the-shock-doctrine-or-watch-a-new-phenomenon-at-work/feed/ 0 katesjc6189 http://katesjc6189.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/book-9-charles-taylor-sources-of-the-self-the-making-of-modern-identity-a-six-month-read-into-my-first-adventures-into-selves/ http://katesjc6189.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/book-9-charles-taylor-sources-of-the-self-the-making-of-modern-identity-a-six-month-read-into-my-first-adventures-into-selves/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:33:59 +0000 katesjc6189 http://katesjc6189.wordpress.com/?p=957 ]]>

This book is the start of me formally attempting to reply to the Research Draft Proposal Draft with something pertaining to a sensible answer without of course having the elementary qualifications those in Academia are blessed to have Charles Taylor is part of two Philosophers I am reading that attempt to go beyond the ISMS and Ideologies as fundamental explanations. (As I stand I think both sides need listening too ). This is to discover the subtleties and nauced explanations and theories and range of explanations that give a deeper picture than just the ISM’s and Continental Philosophy which have influenced Literature and the Arts so much. These voices deserve to be heard and one must remain open. Just like Chritchley defends the right of Continental Philosophers to be heard alongside Analytic Philosophers. So I am defending my right to read both sides and see value in opposing sides. This book took me SIX MONTHS to read but by persevering even when I may have lost hold of the Books Plot. Taylor I discover does NOT like Marxism. But he employs a wide ranges of Philosophers to account for the Philosopher-leading accounts of PHILOSOPHERS and their respective theories and ideologies as accounting for the types of person in Society. This is I think very Philosopher Kings of Plato. Taylor does not think philosophical insights should come from the populace but rather the experts which must make him a Platonist. However in additon to this I have seen Taylor quoted as an Hegelian Nietzschean which means I have had to plough thorough ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ on Librivox (not finished yet) and look into Hegel. I have downloaded his History of Philosophy just to get a taste of a man I believe to espouse transcendental modes of philosophy. The extra work means audiobooks are coming into their own and more scans if you like are in order just to get a flavour or try too, of where he is coming from. So this is my take: I think he is an Orthodox Platonist (?) ( I am ignorant of Philosophy per se but read Philosphy books which means I am learning loads), who favours the Experts Philosopher Kings of the Academy as central connoters of identities on the ground. This is shown in the analysis of various Philosopher viewpoints: the Humean Self, The Punctual Self of Locke, the Homeric Self, The Self of Rational Reason (Plato highly influential). IN THEORY his rationale could be extended to any and every Philosopher under the sun-including Marx to generate a database of ’selves’. This could be a useful instrument to both Philosphers and preferably people at the bottom who end up niavely taking on these ’selves’.. An interesting well written clear book with a couple of niggle points which I believe has greater challenges in terms of inspiring agenda setting ideas in terms of the philosophy of the various selves around the world. 537 words