30 Very Funny Books--Seriously
By Gina Barreca, Ph.D. It's a dreary day, so I thought I'd indulge myself and come up with a list of my favorite comedies. A caveat, however: this is not a fancy English-professor-y list of the finest, most exquisitely crafted, most erudite or intellectually sophisticated works on paper in the language. This is a list of the books that make me laugh until my mascara starts to run. These are books to read over your first cup of coffee or just before you go to sleep . Remember: a day you've laughed is day you haven't wasted--even if you didn't get out of bed. Some days you need a jump-start to get to the funny parts of life. You've probably heard of most of these titles, and maybe you've already read several of them. You ready? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. And of course this is just the beginning.
Monoculture: How Our Era's Dominant Story Shapes Our Lives
by Maria Popova What Galileo has to do with the economy, or how Wall Street is moulding your taste in art. “The universe is made of stories, not atoms,” poet Muriel Rukeyser famously proclaimed. That’s exactly what F. The governing pattern a culture obeys is a master story– one narrative in society that takes over the others, shrinking diversity and forming a monoculture. During the Middle Ages, the dominant monoculture was one of religion and superstition. Ours, Micheals demonstrates, is a monoculture shaped by economic values and assumptions, and it shapes everything from the obvious things (our consumer habits, the music we listen to, the clothes we wear) to the less obvious and more uncomfortable to relinquish the belief of autonomy over (our relationships, our religion, our appreciation of art). A monoculture doesn’t mean that everyone believes exactly the same thing or acts in exactly the same way, but that we end up sharing key beliefs and assumptions that direct our lives.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Chapter One A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY. The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory. "And this," said the Director opening the door, "is the Fertilizing Room." Bent over their instruments, three hundred Fertilizers were plunged, as the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning entered the room, in the scarcely breathing silence, the absent-minded, soliloquizing hum or whistle, of absorbed concentration. "Just to give you a general idea," he would explain to them. Meanwhile, it was a privilege.
Awesome Books to Replace Your Favorite Cancelled TV Shows
ZOMG YES on Resnick! How did I not think to suggest those myself?! There's also a sequel to Santiago called, "Return of Santiago". Couldn't recommend a book, but if you fancy a TV show in the mould of B7, you can't get better than Farscape... Slight tangent, but why in this era of utterly pointless remakes, can we not have a B7 remake? Stop remaking great films that just happened to be subtitled, stop remaking excellent movies with perfectly adequate effects from 20 years back. I have a show for you, it was edgy, a bit grim but still hugely popular but it's budget of..say, 50 quid an episode was a real problem.. Agreed on Farscape, it's the closest thing available. The problem with it specifically, is that as far as genre programming on the BBC, if it's not Saturday teatime fare like Dr Who or Being Human, or relatively cheap to make adult urban supernatural shows like Being Human or The Fades, nobody seems to be interested. Personally though...B7 kinda had its day, y'know?
Free Philip K. Dick: Download 11 Great Science Fiction Stories
Although he died when he was only 53 years old, Philip K. Dick (1928 – 1982) published 44 novels and 121 short stories during his lifetime and solidified his position as arguably the most literary of science fiction writers. His novel Ubik appears on TIME magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels, and Dick is the only science fiction writer to get honored in the prestigious Library of America series, a kind of pantheon of American literature. If you’re not intimately familiar with his novels, then you assuredly know major films based on Dick’s work – Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darklyand Minority Report. eTexts (find download instructions here) Audio "Beyond Lies the Wub" – Free MP3"Beyond the Door" - Free MP3"Second Variety" – Free MP3 Zip File - Stream Online"The Defenders" - Free MP3"The Gun" - YouTube"The Variable Man" – Free MP3 Zip File - Stream Online P.S. Related Content: Robert Crumb Illustrates Philip K. Philip K.
Global Food Disparity: A Photo Diary
In an increasingly globalized world, it’s still sometimes shocking to see just how disparate our lives are compared with other human beings around the world. A book of photographs by Peter Menzel called "Hungry Planet: What the World Eats" ("©Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com. Ten Speed Press, published in 2005) makes a relevant point with great irony: at a time when hundreds of millions of people don't have enough to eat, hundreds of millions more are eating too much and are overweight or obese. In observing what six billion eat for dinner the authors note, "Today, more people are overweight than underweight." It is these cultural differences, emphasized and reinforced by the author, which exemplifies the lifestyles and dietary habits of people around the world. You can buy the book here. Meet the The Manzo family of Sicily. Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07.
Summer School for Geeks: 11 New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books | Underwire
If you're planning on hanging out with any cool geeks this summer, you definitely won't want to admit that all you've read lately is Fifty Shades of Grey. And now that Game of Thrones is an HBO show, no one's going to be impressed that you've heard of A Song of Ice and Fire. So here's a list of some of this summer's most buzz-worthy geek science fiction and fantasy books. Drop a few of these into casual conversation, and it'll establish beyond any doubt that you're a true geek who's up on the latest trends.
Your Picks: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books
More than 5,000 of you nominated. More than 60,000 of you voted. And now the results are in. The winners of NPR's Top 100 Science-Fiction and Fantasy survey are an intriguing mix of classic and contemporary titles. A quick word about what's here, and what's not: Our panel of experts reviewed hundreds of the most popular nominations and tossed out those that didn't fit the survey's criteria (after — we assure you — much passionate, thoughtful, gleefully nerdy discussion). So, at last, here are your favorite science-fiction and fantasy novels. 1.
www.math.rutgers.edu/~lenci/jokes/chicken
WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD? Plato: For the greater good. Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability. Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue?
