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Read recently: Tony Blair's autobiography. Biogs of Ramsey MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin. Currently reading (alternating) Niall Fergusson's "COLOSSUS" and "NECOPOLIS RAILWAY" by Andrew Martin.

'Professor Unrat' from Heinrich Mann. Nice study about science people and artists.

"The devil is an Englishman" written by Steve Hackett is a very special piece of writing and thought provoking Now it's clear for me: These poor scorpions have to be integrated - especially when they've got offspring! That's it, Duddy: one has to integrate these tiny little diabolic nerve wrecking beasts and let them nest wherever they want, so they won't get on your nerves anymore (hopefully :-])

In other words - ignore them and they might go away? :-] Another one I love is 'Down Street' from the Wild Orchids album. Magic Wookie reminded me of it with his Necropolis Railway book reading. http://www.lyricstime.com/steve-hackett-down-street-lyrics.html I'm reading Wallace Steven's 'Snow Man' at the moment. http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4124

Under The Dome - Stephen King one very heavy book lol

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (I read the book in German translation) This is an extensive family saga. At its core is a coming-of-age story. The book's narrator and central character, Calliope Stephanides is a hermaphrodite raised as a girl who comes to realise she is happier as a boy and is now living as a man in contemporary Berlin. Cal's tale begins in Greece, or more precisely Asia Minor, in the early 20'th century. Eugenides' story engages the heart as well as the mind.

Another tome (maybe not as heavy as your book Clothy!) 'A place of greater safety' by Hilary Mantel. Fantastic story of 3 protaganists in the French Revolution: Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins. Wonderful detail and a terrifying story. Just starting 'The Long Story' by Andrea Levy about Jamaican slave society and their emancipation. Like the sound of that book Ellee, often thought of reading it. . .

Sorry - book by A Levy is 'The Long Song'. It doesn't sound like comedy I know but there is some very funny stuff in it.

I just finished reading 'The Borgia Bride', and it was quite the story. I never knew much about the Borgia family, and I couldn't believe that most of what I read was actually true. It seems so corrupt and dysfunctional and evil, that it's hard to believe that most of what was written was fact, not fiction.

I am currently reading Virtual Light by William Gibson. Great stuff. I love his curt, yet poetically descriptive style.

A little book of 30 pages making a great deal of noise in France "get indignated" Stephane Hessel "93 years. The end is no longer far away. What chance to take this opportunity to recall what has served as a base for my political involvement: the program developed there are sixty-six years by the National Council of Resistance! "How lucky can we feed the experience of this great strength, escaped the camps of Buchenwald and Dora, co-editor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, elevated to the rank of Ambassador of France and Commander the Legion of Honor! Stephane Hessel, the "basic pattern of resistance,was the outrage. Certainly, the reasons for outrage in the complex world of today may seem less clear that the days of Nazism. But "seek and ye shall find": the growing gap between the very rich and very poor, the state of the planet, is to treat undocumented immigrants, the Roma, the race for ever more, competition, the dictatorship of financial markets and sold off until the acquired resistance of pensions, Social Security . To be effective, it must, like yesterday, acting in networks: ATTAC, Amnesty International Federation of Human Rights . are the demonstrations. So we can believe Stephane Hessel, and follow suit, when he calls for "peaceful insurrection".

Embracing the wide sky - a tour across the horizon of the mind - Daniel Tammet who's been writting "i was born on a blue day". fascinating, cause it goes far ahead on trying to understand and explain what high level Asperger is, showing that, potentially there's no difference of nature between such mind and others, just two overconnected brain parts. and most of all, that even in such case life is something incredibly rich to be lived. just one thing, he denounces the false idea according which we're using only the 10th part of our brain. all parts of the brain are used, and people suffering from Alzheimer are there to demonstrate that a real handicap is reached by far less than 90 percent of the brain aera touched.

Sorry only into french but I stumbled this morning on the wonderful preface written by Pierre Bordage, one of my favorite SF writter, explaining how Rock prog and SF were closely connected in his mind ANTHOLOGIE DU ROCK PROGRESSIF Voyages en ailleurs http://www.camionblanc.com/?p=detail_livre&ID=272 PROGRESSIVE ROCK ANTHOLOGY Travel in elsewhere Born at the dawn of the seventies in response to musical expectations raised by the socio-economic growth and the conquest of space, progressive rock has become one of the most popular genres on the planet. Its leading figures are giants known to all, such as Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes or King Crimson. After crossing the desert in the eighties, it was known, led by Marillion, an unprecedented expansion in all musical genres, Mars Volta, Opeth, Muse through. Purveyor of refined or bombastic melodies and bold experimentation, since it is originated music genre that has most inspired styles, labeling becoming generic guarantee quality. Already author of an anthology of hard rock hailed by critics, Jerome Alberola this vast movement analysis and comment in detail the 160 drives that made history from 1967 to 2009. This is the most comprehensive book ever made in France and perhaps elsewhere, "if large sum, " as described in the preface Pierre Bordage, author most quoted in science-fiction French.

Little Rainbow, this book by Stephane Hessel is being noticed in Germany, too. I read an interview with the author, very interesting man! He wants to shake up people, provoke them: hey we have to do something! That's as I understand him. Here a poem written by Charlie Chaplin on his 70th birthday. I heard it about a week ago for the first time and am very impressed , it is about self-love: As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is "AUTHENTICITY". As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody As I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me. Today I call it "RESPECT". As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today I call it "Maturity". As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens at the exactly right moment. So I could be calm. Today I call it "SELF-CONFIDENCE". As I began to love myself I quit steeling my own time, and I stopped designing huge projects for the future. Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things I love to do and that make my heart cheer, and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm. Today I call it "SIMPLICITY". As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health - food, people, things, situations, and everything the drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is "LOVE OF ONESELF". As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right, and ever since I was wrong less of the time. Today I discovered that is "MODESTY". As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worry about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where EVERYTHING is happening. Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it "FULFILLMENT". As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But As I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally. Today I call this connection "WISDOM OF THE HEART". We no longer need to fear arguments, confrontations or any kind of problems with ourselves or others. Even stars collide, and out of their crashing new worlds are born. Today I know THAT IS "LIFE"!

wonderful poem Eilee, didn't know Mr Hitchcock was as well a talented writer; :-] About Hessel, I'm happy that news of the book went abroad. In some way that call to resist is meant to go far beyong the French territory. He has been part of the group drawing the Human Rights Universal declaration, after the war. No less; and this little booklet is especially dedicated to youngsters. My total surprise reading the book : as exemple chosen, of those having been able to resist in the near past, and supported by him, little French teachers and our strike against what was proposed in 2008, and that we though was against children interests. I took it as a kind of recognition that from where I was there and then, I had been doing what was right, even if those months had been particulary tough for all of us; I do hope it will be translated a way or the other, and glad of the success of the book cause edited by Harmonia Mundi.

Psy : Von franz Creation myths Fairy tales interpretation The way of dreams Guy Corneau To live again Untranslated unfortunately, but I highly recommended the effort to read those two ones into French, cause they are very small. Darina Al-joundi/Mohamed Kacimi The day in which Nina Sione ceased to sing War in Libanon, through the eyes of a girl becoming women, raised in western views, a "knocking" text, about the rage of living, wonderful. La dame Blanche - Christian Bobin Text full of poetry about the life of Emily Dckinson In Shakspear tongue : The Help - Kathryn Stockett Three women that will change their life in fighting for human rights in the 60s. André Brink - a moment in the wind the encounter and travel of an escaped slave and a white women through unexplored part of south Africa back to civilisation, wonderful. and right now lists of English vocabulary !

read "Nina Simone"

http://www.amazon.ca/Cemetery-Dance-Douglas-Preston/dp/0446580295 Cemetery Dance [Hardcover] Pendergast-the world's most enigmatic FBI Special Agent-returns to New York City to investigate a murderous cult. William Smithback, a New York Times reporter, and his wife Nora Kelly, a Museum of Natural History archaeologist, are brutally attacked in their apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Eyewitnesses claim, and the security camera confirms, that the assailant was their strange, sinister neighbor-a man who, by all reports, was already dead and buried weeks earlier. While Captain Laura Hayward leads the official investigation, Pendergast and Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta undertake their own private-and decidedly unorthodox-quest for the truth. Their serpentine journey takes them to an enclave of Manhattan they never imagined could exist: a secretive, reclusive cult of Obeah and vodou which no outsiders have ever survived.

Few weeks ago 'A Change of Climate' Hilary Mantel. Set in England and in South Africa - the cycles of life and a lost child at the heart of it. Recently just finished 'Cider House Rules' by John Irving, very moving also. Both wonderful story tellers.

Manfred Geier: Die Brüder Humboldt The Brothers Wilhelm and Alexander, one had great influence on the education, the other was a famous nature scientist. 18./19. Century Franziska Kreuter: Der Biogarten from time to time, Im searching for a non-digging method and non-chipping. I believe 'Chipping' is no-good also in other circumstances. Agatha Christie:The Mystery of the Blue Train. I am fond of Hercule.