Book Club

I just finished reading the Oliver Sacks book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" and I wanted to recommned it to everyone. It's a collection of case histories of people who through different pathologies have found themselves without (or with excessess) of different traits of consciousness or of the human mental experience. Sacks has observed these people in both clinical and natural settings and this more humanistic approach allows him to ponder on what makes up the human identity. The amazing thing about the cases he writes about is that above all, even in the most tragic of situations (mental retardation, autism, anterograde amnesia), the will to have personal internal lives usually wins out... Oh, and these cases also make you think all other types of shit, about consciousness and music and old age and thinking and stuff. So I recommend it. He's a good writer and I should have read this a lond time ago.

See the poll results here:

http://www.webpollcentral.com/v2/?id=19497&user=giova_g

Freakonomics it is!

Which book should we read next?

Freakonomics vote > http://www.webpollcentral.com/v2/?id=19497&user=giova_g&v=1
The Master Butchers Singing Club vote > http://www.webpollcentral.com/v2/?id=19497&user=giova_g&v=2
Candyfreak vote > http://www.webpollcentral.com/v2/?id=19497&user=giova_g&v=3
The Trial vote > http://www.webpollcentral.com/v2/?id=19497&user=giova_g&v=4

I've voted about 5 times now yet my vote doesn't get counted in the tally. Who's running this poll? The Republicans? Katharine Harris?

I think we decided September 15, right? Of course the date is more like a general guideline, which may be changed depending on the unforseen.

The suggestions last Wednesday were:

A political non-fiction
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

A novel
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

A calorrific non-fiction
Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond

And a classic
The Trial by Franz Kafka

Interesting choices. At least it'll be hard for me to choose.
I'll put up the poll soon...

G

Today.
In case you'd forgotten.
Please bring suggestions for our next book.