Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: I'm also reading "The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon."

It was written by Ronald Collins a First Amendment scholar.

Read my post here, at Solo, called LENNY BRUCE: FIRST ADMENDMENT HERO.

I participate in a weekly OPAR study group here in Atlanta. Sometimes we are very serious about studying and sometimes we drink a lot of wine and goof off. We are very good friends as well, so we often bring our own problems and experiences up as examples to concretize thins we are studying. It has been wonderful - a springboard for many of my best leaps in philosophical understanding of Objectivism and in psycho-epistemological change. Plus, it's fun!

Kelly

What can I say, I'm reading the Fountainhead...again. In a span of 14 years. I have read it about three times. I'm also re-re-re-reading (pardon me) OPAR as I, too, am apart of a study group (It's my second).

Has anyone else been part of a OPAR study group. Did it help you learn Objectivism?

Just read "10 Little Indians" by Agatha Christie. Since I started writing a mystery I've got a lot of recomendations for her stuff and I'm just now following up on them. I take waay too long to follow up on recomendations.

---Landon

Inking is sexy.

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/wickedlakes

Sparrowhawk appears to be very accurate as far as the historical facts go. A few characters have been added and some changed a bit but it all seems right on.

The American heroes are treated with the respect and honor they deserve and there are tons of details about this and that act and who did what. William Pitt shows up as well as many of the baddies on the English side. For the Americans we get to meet Washington, Franklin, a young Jefferson, and the excellent Patrick Henry plays a major role, of course.

Ed Cline is an Objectivist associated with ARI. He is a John Locke scholar of sorts and seems to have done trememdous research. The characters he created are also very Randian hero types and totally awesome. I havent exactly checked on the facts but I havent found anything to be out of sorts.

Book by German speaking Australian Anna Funder, interviewing men and women who were in the East German secret police (Stasi) and their victims, and how they coped with life under the police state of the GDR. The absurdities of East German bureaucrats who seriously must have been the most anally retentive order obsessed in Europe. Also a reflection on the only ex.communist secret police to have all their files opened, and the truth about who did it and what they did open to all citizens.

You don't want to look at your bed, Ash? Why? Did something nasty happen in it?

Historically accurate, Marn?

I used to love James A. Michener's historical novels but always had this horrible feeling I was reading history that wasn't quite accurate enough.

Hey Jen! I am reading a Guy Kawasaki book as well, "Rules for Revolutionaries" - it isn't new and I've read it before. I am also reading "The Theory of Fundamental Processes" by Richard Feynman (which I don't like as much as "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out") and 'The Art of Possibility" by a couple, I think named "Zander". It's by my bed and I don't want to go look.

• Moonraker (for the 12,878th time )
• AJAX Patterns & Best Practises
• A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors and Shell Programming
• Developing for Drupal (but I might donate this one to the local Nazi Party for one of their monthly book burnings...)

Sparrowhawk

Book 5: Revolution

by Ed Cline

Its wonderful. The series has consumed me and I have fallen madly in love with all of the heroes.

Finally!

Just finished rereading ATLAS and THE FOUNTAINHEAD, skimming through CLASSICAL MUSIC IN AMERICA, and lots of Photoshop books and magazines.

Currently beside the bed are:

The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
OPAR
Romantic Manifesto

Jennifer


-- Food Philosophy. Sensuality. Sass.

Romantic Manifesto
OPAR
FTNI

No novells since State of Fear but I'm getting ideas from some of these posts.

'The Roosevelt Myth' by John Flynn
'The New Dealers' War' by Thomas Fleming
'Architecture of Happiness' by Alain de Botton
'Sea Change,' by Robert B Parker.

Expect one of these to be reviewed in the next Free Radical.

Oh, and thanks for asking.

In the past couple months I have read (at least in part):

Viable Values by Smith
OPAR
re-reading Virtue of Selfishness, Philosophy: Who Needs It, and ITOE
Leviathan by Hobbes
Morals by Agreement by Gauthier
Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals by Kant
Intrinsic Value by Lemos
Diffusion of Innovation by Rogers
and about 500 articles in ethics, trust, e-commerce, online auctions, marketing, management, and psychology

What can I say...working towards a PhD requires a bit of reading.

I'm working my way through the Anne of Green Gables novels, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Last of the Mohicans. I am reading Elizabeth Barret Browing's Sonnets from the Portugese and a collection of Victorian poetry. I'm also reading several gardening magazines, and listening to the DaVinci Code. I'm studying OPAR weekly as well.

Kelly

I recommend -Slide Rule- by Nevil Shute Norway, who is none other than Nevil Shute who wrote -On the Beach- and -No Highway in the Sky-.

-Slide Rule- is not fiction, it is history. It is about the construction of two airships in Britain, the R-100 and the R-101. The Conservative government of Britain was about to turn over airship construction to private manufacturers but the labor government of Ramsey Clark was voted in so it was nay, nay to privatization. Instead the government set up a rivalry or competition between a private manufacturer, Vickers Aircraft and a government run consortium. Two airships answering to identical specifications were to be built. One by the private firm the other by the gummint. Whoever won this competition would forever be the provider of airships.

Nevil Shute Norway was an engineer for Vickers and the project was put under the direction of Barnes-Wallis, the greatest British boffin ever. The R100 was built and took to the skies late in 1929 for a trip to Canada and the United States. It completed the trip and the return successfuly.

The R-101 was the pinko stinko socialist airship. Its construction was dogged by managerial and government interference the likes of which could best be described in an Ayn Rand novel. It was like the building of Cortlandt Homes in -The Fountainhead-. Every would be "expert" had their fingers in it. The R-101 was overweight and under powered and had only two thirds of the "freeboard" lift given in the specifications. Nevertheless R-101 set out for India in October of 1930 a year after R-100 went to North America. Lord Thompson, secretary of air for Britain was the viceroy of India designate and he thought an imperial entry to India aboard and Imperial Airship would be very fitting. What happened was that R-101 hit bad weather over France and was wrecked with 48 souls perishing including the Imperial Lord Thompson who was repsonsible for much of the interference and fiddling in the construction of R-101. He died of his own machinations, it wold appear. Think of the train in the tunnel incident of -Atlas Shrugged-.

The R-100 which was a success was ordered scrapped by the government and its plans destroyed. After that no further airships were ever again built in Britain. They put all their resources in airplanes.

This was a classic competition between private enterprise and pinko stinko government burocracy. Private enterprise won, but was not allowed to triumph. Thus ended the story. See Shute Norway's history for the details.

Later in his life Nevil Shute Norway gave up his day job as slide rule jockey and boffin and made his living writing novels and essays, some of which you know. The movie -No Highway in the Sky- with Jimmy Stewart, Glyniss Johns and Marlene Deitrich was based on the Shute nove of the same name. -On the Beach- also became a motion picture starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner.

Bob Kolker

Heh, looks like I set aside Mises again. Now I'm reading Ben Franklin's autobiography, kind of a celebration of his tercentenary.

I'd like to read Crichton's State of Fear based on Marcus's review in TFR for I think I shall be pissing in the wind waiting for Hollyweird to make a movie out of it.

Unfortunately, I am having to get myself in tune with the financial markets here in Australia and am reading the Australian Financial Review when I get a chance to read. I flick through to Cox & Forkum and read comentaries and links too, especially Mark Steyn.

I brought over a number of Ayn Rand books (Romantic Manifesto is first up) along with some finance text books and case studies so they're in the list.

What finance modelling books are you reading, Tim?

Besides newspapers, I'm reading all of Agatha Christie's novels in chronological order. I just finished The Body in the Library.

I spent the past few days working in New Orleans and so I took along a book of Tennessee Williams plays so I could read "Vieux Carre" while I was there. I didn't, but I did read through "Suddenly Last Summer" and most of "Sweet Bird of Youth". Mostly, I sat around drinking coffee and reading the newspaper until around 1pm, then switched over to drinking other-than-coffee and watching sport. It was 70 and balmy enough that the beers were sweating by the time they were set on my table. What a luscious place the French Quarter is.

Reminds me, on my flight home, I was listening to the pilot-air traffic channel as I fell asleep, and I heard an ANZ flight going though. It always makes me very excited to heard a kiwi accent, of course, so I was listening for the pilot. So as he was leaving the air space we were in, he signed off, and then a second later I hear: "Go The All Blacks."

Various Sin City Volumes (last few have been Family Values, Booze Broads and Bullets, and A Dame to Kill For). Romantic Manifesto, Philosophy Who Needs It, and Comic Writers on Scriptwriting... That and I just got my copy of Comics and Sequential Art back and I've been meaning to dive back into it.

---Landon

It all basically comes back to fight or flight.

Women of Discovery by Milbry Polk and Mary Tiegreen

several dozens of women who went out on great discoveries even in times when women weren't allowed to leave the house without a man - the most fascinating part for me is not just their really amazing discoveries, but the enormous hunger and dedication for/to a life of discovery these women had to make it happen

and searching through Rand's writings for hints of her third, never written novel To Lorne Dieterling

if anyone has more material on that please let me know

Interesting thread...

"Flow" and "Creativity" by Mihaly Csiksentmihalyi. The guy is on to something.

• Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, by Ayn Rand
• Super Self: Doubling Your Personal Effectiveness, by Charles J. Givens
• Advanced PHP Programming, by George Schlossnagle

If you want a good book on PHP, Advanced PHP Programming is the only one you'll need. It's brilliant.

I am also currently listening to the taped lecture series by Leonard Peikoff on Objectivism.

Cheers
Julian

Lot's of P.G. Wodehouse

"Striking back" by Aaron Klein.

I am currently reading a book on philosophy called "Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed" by Simon Blackburn.

His take on the clash of relativism vs. absolutism is well-written and gives me much food for thought.

I'm neck-deep in technical white papers.  Real page-turners, too. 

I love my job...

I love my job...

I love my job...

...

SmS

I just finished Michael Crichton's State of Fear, which is terrific. I'm currently reading Daniel Amen's How to Make a Good Brain Great and still wading through Ilya Prigogine's The End of Certainty.

Jim

Just finished Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" and also John Stossel's "Give Me  A Break"
Currently, "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror" by Michael Scheuer and re-reading "Atlas Shrugged"

I'm reading "Stephen Fry's Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music" and a bunch of text books on finance and financial modelling.

Just finished Michael Crichton's State of Fear thanks to the recommendation by Marcus in the last FreeRad. Now I'm finishing Mises's Human Action, which I started a few months ago but didn't finish.