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Originally posted by buddhasystem
Frivolous speculation with no facts to lean against is just not a productive way to use one's mind.
Culture
Books
Best books
The 100 greatest non-fiction books
After keen debate at the Guardian's books desk, this is our list of the very best factual writing, organised by category, and then by date.
Looking for great book recommendations? Our critics and experts pick the best books, and give the definitive subject lists
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guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 June 2011 09.34 EDT
British Museum Reading Room
The greatest non-fiction books live here ... the British Museum Reading Room.
Art
The Shock of the New by Robert Hughes (1980)
Hughes charts the story of modern art, from cubism to the avant garde
The Story of Art by Ernst Gombrich (1950)
The most popular art book in history. Gombrich examines the technical and aesthetic problems confronted by artists since the dawn of time
Ways of Seeing by John Berger (1972)
A study of the ways in which we look at art, which changed the terms of a generation's engagement with visual culture
Biography
Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects by Giorgio Vasari (1550)
Biography mixes with anecdote in this Florentine-inflected portrait of the painters and sculptors who shaped the Renaissance
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell (1791)
Boswell draws on his journals to create an affectionate portrait of the great lexicographer
The Diaries of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys (1825)
"Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health," begins this extraordinarily vivid diary of the Restoration period
Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (1918)
Strachey set the template for modern biography, with this witty and irreverent account of four Victorian heroes
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929)
Graves' autobiography tells the story of his childhood and the early years of his marriage, but the core of the book is his account of the brutalities and banalities of the first world war
The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein (1933)
Stein's groundbreaking biography, written in the guise of an autobiography, of her lover
Culture
Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag (1964)
Sontag's proposition that the modern sensibility has been shaped by Jewish ethics and homosexual aesthetics
Mythologies by Roland Barthes (1972)
Barthes gets under the surface of the meanings of the things which surround us in these witty studies of contemporary myth-making
Orientalism by Edward Said (1978)
Said argues that romanticised western representations of Arab culture are political and condescending
Environment
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
This account of the effects of pesticides on the environment launched the environmental movement in the US
The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock (1979)
Lovelock's argument that once life is established on a planet, it engineers conditions for its continued survival, revolutionised our perception of our place in the scheme of things
History
The Histories by Herodotus (c400 BC)
History begins with Herodotus's account of the Greco-Persian war
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1776)
The first modern historian of the Roman Empire went back to ancient sources to argue that moral decay made downfall inevitable
The History of England by Thomas Babington Macaulay (1848)
A landmark study from the pre-eminent Whig historian
Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt (1963)
Arendt's reports on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, and explores the psychological and sociological mechanisms of the Holocaust
The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson (1963)
Thompson turned history on its head by focusing on the political agency of the people, whom most historians had treated as anonymous masses
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (1970)
A moving account of the treatment of Native Americans by the US government
Hard Times: an Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel (1970)
Terkel weaves oral accounts of the Great Depression into a powerful tapestry
Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuściński (1982)
The great Polish reporter tells the story of the last Shah of Iran
The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991 by Eric Hobsbawm (1994)
Hobsbawm charts the failure of capitalists and communists alike in this account of the 20th century
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Familes by Philip Gourevitch (1999)
Gourevitch captures the terror of the Rwandan massacre, and the failures of the international community
Postwar by Tony Judt (2005)
A magisterial account of the grand sweep of European history since 1945
Journalism
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm (1990)
An examination of the moral dilemmas at the heart of the journalist's trade
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe (1968)
The man in the white suit follows Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters as they drive across the US in a haze of '___'
Dispatches by Michael Herr (1977)
A vivid account of Herr's experiences of the Vietnam war
Literature
The Lives of the Poets by Samuel Johnson (1781)
Biographical and critical studies of 18th-century poets, which cast a sceptical eye on their lives and works
An Image of Africa by Chinua Achebe (1975)
Achebe challenges western cultural imperialism in his argument that Heart of Darkness is a racist novel, which deprives its African characters of humanity
The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim (1976)
Bettelheim argues that the darkness of fairy tales offers a means for children to grapple with their fears
Mathematics
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (1979)
A whimsical meditation on music, mind and mathematics that explores formal complexity and self-reference
Memoir
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1782)
Rousseau establishes the template for modern autobiography with this intimate account of his own life
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass (1845)
This vivid first person account was one of the first times the voice of the slave was heard in mainstream society
De Profundis by Oscar Wilde (1905)
Imprisoned in Reading Gaol, Wilde tells the story of his affair with Alfred Douglas and his spiritual development
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by TE Lawrence (1922)
A dashing account of Lawrence's exploits during the revolt against the Ottoman empire
The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi (1927)
A classic of the confessional genre, Gandhi recounts early struggles and his passionate quest for self-knowledge
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell (1938)
Orwell's clear-eyed account of his experiences in Spain offers a portrait of confusion and betrayal during the civil war
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1947)
Published by her father after the war, this account of the family's hidden life helped to shape the post-war narrative of the Holocaust
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov (1951)
Nabokov reflects on his life before moving to the US in 1940
The Man Died by Wole Soyinka (1971)
A powerful autobiographical account of Soyinka's experiences in prison during the Nigerian civil war
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (1975)
A vision of the author's life, including his life in the concentration camps, as seen through the kaleidoscope of chemistry
Bad Blood by Lorna Sage (2000)
Sage demolishes the fantasy of family as she tells how her relatives passed rage, grief and frustrated desire down the generations
Mind
The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud (1899)
Freud's argument that our experiences while dreaming hold the key to our psychological lives launched the discipline of psychoanalysis and transformed western culture
Music
The Romantic Generation by Charles Rosen (1998)
Rosen examines how 19th-century composers extended the boundaries of music, and their engagement with literature, landscape and the divine
Philosophy
The Symposium by Plato (c380 BC)
A lively dinner-party debate on the nature of love
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (c180)
A series of personal reflections, advocating the preservation of calm in the face of conflict, and the cultivation of a cosmic perspective
Essays by Michel de Montaigne (1580)
Montaigne's wise, amusing examination of himself, and of human nature, launched the essay as a literary form
The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (1621)
Burton examines all human culture through the lens of melancholy
Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes (1641)
Doubting everything but his own existence, Descartes tries to construct God and the universe
Originally posted by wutz4tom
reply to post by Hopechest
He has paid the mental price in living with this info.Shouldn't he be allowed to sell a book?
Tom
Originally posted by flexy123
As for Corso...I always considered him "legitimate" as a person, but his book and claims not so much. I remember reading this book long ago, about the stupid theories how ICs, lasers, etc. would all be "alien technology" which is entirely bunk in my opinion.edit on 28-3-2013 by flexy123 because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by caladonea
For those of you who may have a dial up network and/or may be have trouble with your audio or video; here is a website that gives some information about Charles Hall etc.
openseti.org...
Originally posted by Agent008
Either these "aliens" are really aloof or are scared of something because you don't fly in a spaceship at maybe light speed to come to a planet and then secretly work with the country that every other country hates
....Thats just weird and stupid. Why not go to Africa and make it into a paradise for them?