New Books for Summer Reading

Mr.Miller-If you read Non-Fiction, try Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate" subtitled-"The Modern Denial of Human Nature"---by Steven Pinker.

The best book I have read in the last ten years written by a very erudite scientist, Dr. Steven Pinker, who writes like an angel!!!

My buddy won't stop talking about Kurt Vonneguts new book. He said he wasn't going to write another one then he wrote this one and it is supposed to be his best. Heres an excerpt;

"In 1892 if you were a seven-year-old, you'd read a story -- just a very simple one -- about a girl whose dog had died. Doesn't that make you want to cry?

Don't you know how that little girl feels? And you'd read another story about a rich man slipping on a banana peel. Doesn't that make you want to laugh? And this imagination circuit is being built in your head. If you go to an art gallery, here's just a square with daubs of paint on it that haven't moved in hundreds of years. No sound comes out of it.

The imagination circuit is taught to respond to the most minimal of cues. A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo.

But it's no longer necessary for teachers and parents to build these circuits. Now there are professionally produced shows with great actors, very convincing sets, sound, music. Now there's the information highway. We don't need the circuits any more than we need to know how to ride horses. Those of us who had imagination circuits built can look in someone's face and see stories there; to everyone else, a face will just be a face."

Pinker's Harvard website:

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

Mainly about grief.

Thank You, Miller. I have a book signed by Dr. Pinker. He was kind enough to sign one for me. He is the best writer/thinker I have ever read and I have read many books. Try "The Blank Slate" You won't be able to put it down!!