I am working through Richard Dawkins now. A great book with great arguments 
Peter wrote:
I have just finished Secret Barrister.It is a very good book. However, one cannot help the feeling that one could have written the same book, substituting “barrister” with “GP”, “estate agent”, and various other professions.
The basic lesson seems to be that in life you have to take control and not expect “the system” to consistently do the right thing. Obviously if you end up in hospital with a broken leg then you have to totally trust the doctors to put it back together correctly (though I know of a colleague who had a compound fracture from skiing “fixed” locally, with just a little gap so it didn’t heal up ) because you know sod-all about it, but in general the system is set up to handle vast numbers of people who are clueless / disinterested / don’t have resources, and it fails many of them, because the people working in the system are imperfect too. It will probably fail you too unless you stay on the ball. In practice this means getting good tips on a lawyer and practicing the extraction of the cheque book from your pocket until it becomes a subconscious reflex
Command and Control is next. Boyz will be boyz Thanks, @wsmempson.
I cant imagine you ever thought otherwise, Peter.
As to doctors I am afraid you are still far to trusting. They are just as tarnished, and I suspect we can all recount horror stories.
I dont know the answer entirely. Part is to be cynical as hell, and question everything. Unfortunately no professional is mistake free, and no profession can be trusted. If you are able to work with the same person then trust and confidence can be built, but these days the various systems make this very difficult. We think it is better and or more efficient to have no single person that has oversight, so you no longer have a GP that really takes an interest in you once your case has been passed to a specialist, and the same is true if you go to most firms of solicitors under the impression that if you are assigned a pertner he will excercise oversight any more or less than a GP. This isnt universally true and the best relationship is when you have a single person who takes a proper interest in the specialist advice you receive elsewhere in the firm and coordinates the whole package. It does still exist.
Nevertheless it is a good read, and, I must say full of truths which makes a pleasant change.
Peter wrote:
I am working through Richard Dawkins now. A great book with great arguments
A classic.
One of great interest at the time but less mentioned these days is “Man Watching”. It was a book I still felt was insightful, and still occasionally quote something that was written.
Last summer I read The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown by Anna Keay (amazon, goodreads), the best non-fiction I’ve read for several years. It’s short biographies of key figures from the period, which gives a very good overview of the bigger picture including science, journalism and religion. There’s a lot of books about the Civil War and the Restoration, but very little on the decade in between. It reads almost like a novel so no need to be interested in English history.
RobertL18C wrote:
A very good book on the complexity of AF447, written by a Part 121 Airbus 330 TRE, is Understanding AF447.
Thank’s for the tip. I’ve just ordered it from my local bookshop. I’m not fond of e-books and my local bookshop is one of the best in the world. (Seriously. Read the fourth paragraph here.)
Just working my way through this excellent book on Ukraine. Obviously this business is active right now but the author covers the history right back to previous centuries, with more on the Yeltsin era, and then going up to the Russian invasion.
There will be a Vol 2 allright
It makes one realise the complexity of it all. Nothing justifying or supporting the invasion, but undermines lots of recently claims supporting it.
Several of Serhii Plokhy’s other books are on Borrowbox, so I’ll try one.
To get some perspective on Ukraine, a few weeks ago I read Anthony Marra’s A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, set near the end of the second Chechen war, which was excellent.
Peter wrote:
I am working through Richard Dawkins now. A great book with great arguments
These arguments in question date back from the sophists and epicurians, nothing really new 
For the sake of objectivity, I would advise you to read Answering Atheism
Peter wrote:
It makes one realise the complexity of it all. Nothing justifying or supporting the invasion, but undermines lots of recently claims supporting it.
Reading reviews about the book, it doesn’t seem the most cold-blooded, objective, POV (the author is an Ukrainian working at Harvard). I don’t mean to disrepect him or his knowledge, but his pro-UKR stance is to be expected.
I curently read Dante’s Divine Comedy. Not easy to read but how beautiful the language and how deep the meaning.
the author is an Ukrainian working at Harvard). I don’t mean to disrepect him or his knowledge, but his pro-UKR stance is to be expected.
For sure, but what is the option?
A “non pro Ukraine POV” means a “pro Russia POV” which means a “pro Russia invading another sovereign country with UN recognised borders is just fine” POV.
This is partly why the Russian invasion of UKR thread was shut down. EuroGA won’t be a pro Russia platform (plenty of places on the internet for that) and this route was used by various pro Russians here to demolish the discussion.
The author is pretty thorough in his research. I am sure he is working on Part 2 already
Jujupilote wrote:
Reading reviews about the book
I found it balanced, but a bit dry. It’s a large scope in time (Herodotus to 2014) and in place (the Black Sea to the Baltic, Poland to the Causasus) containing a lot of information, and I should probably have made notes. I have almost zero background knowledge, so regularly had to look up locations, and check back on names. I definitely picked up a lot, more the concepts and ideas than individual facts, and together it all built a picture of a complicated cultural identity. It was very interesting, but I found his Chernobyl book more accessible.
