jagannath rao adukuri's Library tagged "imported blinklist" →  View Popular

I just want to start out saying

1. Everybody has been tagged with this one, and

2. These aren't really "memes", although these days I think that term is otiose. A meme spreads itself.

Anyway, now I'm back from such non-English speaking places as Bristol, Exeter, London and Chicago (Paris and Bloomington IN were fine), I thought I'd answer this before I catch up on several weeks' sleep and blog on the second half of my trip (be patient, little ones).

1. One book that changed your life?

Well, I could start with 1984, which I read at the tender age of 8 (in 1963, ergo), but I think that David Hull's Science as a Process has had the most impact on me, although Popper's Objective knowledge: an evolutionary approach, although I now repudiate its ideas, is equal second with Toulmin's Human understanding.

2. One book you have read more than once?

I also read Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein so many times I memorised it, but that was the 70s, man. Hull I have read at least a dozen times.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

The complete works of Terry Pratchett, although it's not out yet.

4. One book that made you laugh?

Good Omens by Pratchett and Neil Gaimann. They're supposed to be making a film of it.

5. One book that made you cry?

Ordinary people

6. One book you wish had been written?

Cultural evolution: a primer. I may write this myself.

7. One book you wish had never had been written?

Anything by Dan Brown.



8. One book you are currently reading?

Dawkins' Ancestor's Tale, but it's not so good as I had hoped.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

Phil Dowe's book on causation

10. Your oldest books?

My oldest book is Creation (Omphalos) by Phillip Henry Gosse (yes, that is the correct title folks), but I have a slew of nineteenth century logic and philosophy books. The one I treasure most is Richard Whatley's Elements of Logic (I have the nineth edition, c1883).