June 18 - Value Village

There's some good stuff to be found in The Village's books section, when you've got 45 minutes to yourself (sans Junior asking to be read to from any of ten dozen children's books, most of which I've already read at least once whilst there). Today's haul:
  • Gregg Easterbrook, A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism ($3.99: from 1995, "a 745-page exercise in sophistry" [Sauder & Rampton, Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry])
  • C.J. Guiguet, The Birds of British Columbia: Sparrows and Finches ($0.99: BC Provincial Museum Handbook, and therefore a gem)
  • Robert Kroetsch, The Words of My Roaring ($0.99: the day's random purchase, a 2000 reprint of a 1966 novel about a novice Alberta would-be MP who promises rain by election day -- during a drought)
  • Hugh MacLennan, Rivers of Canada ($1.99: gorgeous, and one of the few early coffee-table books that counts as legitimate environmental philosophy)
  • Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life ($3.99: he's won two Pulitzers, not bad for a Harvard biologist; his theories have led to enmity from those as esteemed as his Harvard colleague Stephen Jay Gould; and one of my few published writings appears in a book that contains one of his own essays. Past time to read something by the guy, in other words. Oh, and Wikipedia tells me that he argues that "belief in God and rituals of religion are products of evolution." Interesting...).

Comments

fiona-h said…
if wilson has gould's enmity, he's in good company
richard said…
On that angle, I keep meaning to pass on a few bits about Terry Eagleton. Do you know him? A British literary critic, seriously Marxist?

Anyway, someone at school has a Q&A with him taped to her door, and he calls Dawkins "theologically illiterate."

Mind you, he also says that he hasn't read in years, and if he wants to read a good book now, he just writes one. Grr.
fiona-h said…
Grr is right. I'm enjoying the hitchens book, btw.

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