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What was the last book you read?
It may have been a while for some of you.. but just say it.
I posted this here, as the notice said.
I'll start:
Interview with a vampire - Anne rice
It may have been a while for some of you.. but just say it.
I posted this here, as the notice said.
I'll start:
Interview with a vampire - Anne rice
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At the moment I'm reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring.
I've never read them before but I've always wanted to. Last few books I read were, The Time Machine and Around the World in 80 Days.
I've never read them before but I've always wanted to. Last few books I read were, The Time Machine and Around the World in 80 Days.
Gazzas Autobiography.
Very interesting read and it just goes to show that fame and fortune can't buy you happiness and in his case it nearly destroyed him.
How I managed to read it all the way through and not kill myself is a mystery!
Very interesting read and it just goes to show that fame and fortune can't buy you happiness and in his case it nearly destroyed him.
How I managed to read it all the way through and not kill myself is a mystery!
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Excellent. Would have been awesome to read it 120 years ago before everyone knew about Jekyll and Hyde, before it became such a cliché. Reading through it, it's quite a mystery - you wonder who this Hyde character is, and what he has over Jekyll - of course, because it's so well known, you know that you're going to find out that they're the same person - but to read it without knowing that, it would have come as such a twist in the story. Still works incredibly well when you know this though, which is a sign of how damn good it is.
I just read the Spooks Curse, Joe delaney. Good story, but it didn't really scare me.
Just read I Know You Got Soul by Jermy Clarkson. Twas quite a un-funny book. Which I found a little surprizing, I love Mr. Clarkson, and find very amuzing :-).
A few good lines, but overly, quite dull.
A few good lines, but overly, quite dull.
Just finished a little book called Freedom From The Known by J. Krishnamurti. Spiritual philosophy without God, religion, beliefs or ideals. Yeah. Truth is a pathless land.
Now obviously I haven't read that part, but I agree the book as a whole isn't written in an entirely factual way. As in it doesn't simply present you some facts and then draw some conclusions. But then if it did that it would cease to be very interesting, it would simply be a dry, factual, text-book style read, with very little of the author conveyed in the writing.
It is non-fiction, yes, and it is understandable to be suspicious sometimes when people are obviously trying to convey a particular point, but in all fairness you can source particular data and facts, but you can't really source your own experiences or present them in a completely factual way. Experiences involve human emotions which will vary wildly from person to person...
Maybe trailed off a bit there, but what I'm essentially trying to say is that everything the author read, researched and experienced can't possibly be included in the book... If it were the book would be near endless. That's not to say we can't be suspect if things seem amiss, but a few small omissions are likely to be found in any book of this kind. It's when there's very large omissions, or the smaller ones begin to build up significantly that I'd get suspicious.
With regards to the being well paid, that's above the poverty line (ie. more than $1 a day), but (without any evidence here) I'd guess that about $1.40 a day wouldn't provide a home, clothing, food, etc. for a family, implying that children may also have to go out and earn money rather than go to school... Which obviously isn't a good thing for their futures, or their countries. Again, complete lack of evidence here, just my thoughts...
It is non-fiction, yes, and it is understandable to be suspicious sometimes when people are obviously trying to convey a particular point, but in all fairness you can source particular data and facts, but you can't really source your own experiences or present them in a completely factual way. Experiences involve human emotions which will vary wildly from person to person...
Maybe trailed off a bit there, but what I'm essentially trying to say is that everything the author read, researched and experienced can't possibly be included in the book... If it were the book would be near endless. That's not to say we can't be suspect if things seem amiss, but a few small omissions are likely to be found in any book of this kind. It's when there's very large omissions, or the smaller ones begin to build up significantly that I'd get suspicious.
With regards to the being well paid, that's above the poverty line (ie. more than $1 a day), but (without any evidence here) I'd guess that about $1.40 a day wouldn't provide a home, clothing, food, etc. for a family, implying that children may also have to go out and earn money rather than go to school... Which obviously isn't a good thing for their futures, or their countries. Again, complete lack of evidence here, just my thoughts...
Sibs wrote:Sibs wrote:
> Just read a couple more chapters, stopped when I reached the 'No
> Jobs' section.
>
> I don't think the book (thus far) has anything particularly
> questionable.
Just been reading through the chapter you're about to read, 'The Discarded Factory'. Here's one bit that falls into the catagory of 'questionable' (as I meant it in my earlier post) -
'The structure is actually a converted farm, and some rooms, the workers tell me, are really pigpens with roofs slapped upon them'.
It creates atmosphere I suppose, but I wonder at the truth of that statement. It's picky, I don't deny that, but that's the kind of thing I don't like in non-fiction. A few pages on from that she makes the statement that 'it's clear by now that the factories...don't create local infrastructures' when all the evidence she has supplied is the word of one polititian. I don't know if she gives any more evidence later on in the book.
> And with regards to sweatshops, you may say the people earn a
> 'reasonable' wage, but compared to what? The money they require
> to survive or the money the companies then make out of the
> clothes when they sell them on to the end consumer? And it still
> does nothing to address poor working conditions, human rights
> abuses, child labour and the other problems associated with
> sweatshops.
That was a bit of a wild statement actually - thinking about it, I have almost no evidence for it. I know that in the late 90s Vietnam Nike were paying $42US a month to employees in its factory near Ho Chi Minh city, which, although the equivilent of £20, seems more when you consider that in Hanoi I was eating from the street stalls for 5,000 Vietnamese dong, or about 17p. That's all the evidence I have, and if you have any more sophisticated than that then please share (and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, I'm genuinely interested).
> Just read a couple more chapters, stopped when I reached the 'No
> Jobs' section.
>
> I don't think the book (thus far) has anything particularly
> questionable.
Just been reading through the chapter you're about to read, 'The Discarded Factory'. Here's one bit that falls into the catagory of 'questionable' (as I meant it in my earlier post) -
'The structure is actually a converted farm, and some rooms, the workers tell me, are really pigpens with roofs slapped upon them'.
It creates atmosphere I suppose, but I wonder at the truth of that statement. It's picky, I don't deny that, but that's the kind of thing I don't like in non-fiction. A few pages on from that she makes the statement that 'it's clear by now that the factories...don't create local infrastructures' when all the evidence she has supplied is the word of one polititian. I don't know if she gives any more evidence later on in the book.
> And with regards to sweatshops, you may say the people earn a
> 'reasonable' wage, but compared to what? The money they require
> to survive or the money the companies then make out of the
> clothes when they sell them on to the end consumer? And it still
> does nothing to address poor working conditions, human rights
> abuses, child labour and the other problems associated with
> sweatshops.
That was a bit of a wild statement actually - thinking about it, I have almost no evidence for it. I know that in the late 90s Vietnam Nike were paying $42US a month to employees in its factory near Ho Chi Minh city, which, although the equivilent of £20, seems more when you consider that in Hanoi I was eating from the street stalls for 5,000 Vietnamese dong, or about 17p. That's all the evidence I have, and if you have any more sophisticated than that then please share (and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, I'm genuinely interested).
Clucking Trout Trout wrote:
> No Logo is a book that really opened my eyes when I was 14, the
> first thing that got me interested in politics. Reading it now,
> a bit more criticly, there are a few things she says, statements
> she makes, evidence she uses, that are questionable in thier
> accuracy. She also neglects to mention that a lot of the time
> the wages people in sweatshops earn are reasonable, and that,
> even if clothes are made in an EPZ and so not taxed, a lot of
> foreign money still comes into the country via wages, which is
> in general a good thing for a countrys development.
Just read a couple more chapters, stopped when I reached the 'No Jobs' section.
I don't think the book (thus far) has anything particularly questionable. Not that I've looked at all the sourced information, but I assume the sources are all there (I'd expect people would have picked up on it if they weren't). While the book is obviously mostly critical of brands and the corporations that own them, it also saves some criticism for activists (for example, when she mentions that some claim sponsorship for events is taking over when infact sponsorship for such events had always existed, and also the mention of the activists of her generation having the pre-occupation with equal rights, etc. and not noticing the image of equal rights were just being used as another way to advertise brands to that demographic).
And with regards to sweatshops, you may say the people earn a 'reasonable' wage, but compared to what? The money they require to survive or the money the companies then make out of the clothes when they sell them on to the end consumer? And it still does nothing to address poor working conditions, human rights abuses, child labour and the other problems associated with sweatshops.
> No Logo is a book that really opened my eyes when I was 14, the
> first thing that got me interested in politics. Reading it now,
> a bit more criticly, there are a few things she says, statements
> she makes, evidence she uses, that are questionable in thier
> accuracy. She also neglects to mention that a lot of the time
> the wages people in sweatshops earn are reasonable, and that,
> even if clothes are made in an EPZ and so not taxed, a lot of
> foreign money still comes into the country via wages, which is
> in general a good thing for a countrys development.
Just read a couple more chapters, stopped when I reached the 'No Jobs' section.
I don't think the book (thus far) has anything particularly questionable. Not that I've looked at all the sourced information, but I assume the sources are all there (I'd expect people would have picked up on it if they weren't). While the book is obviously mostly critical of brands and the corporations that own them, it also saves some criticism for activists (for example, when she mentions that some claim sponsorship for events is taking over when infact sponsorship for such events had always existed, and also the mention of the activists of her generation having the pre-occupation with equal rights, etc. and not noticing the image of equal rights were just being used as another way to advertise brands to that demographic).
And with regards to sweatshops, you may say the people earn a 'reasonable' wage, but compared to what? The money they require to survive or the money the companies then make out of the clothes when they sell them on to the end consumer? And it still does nothing to address poor working conditions, human rights abuses, child labour and the other problems associated with sweatshops.
Last book I read was also "is it just me..." that Sibs mentioned.
Its like the book form of the tv show Grumpy Old Men.
Ive also recently read The Messiah Code by Michael Cordy. It was rubbish.
Its like the book form of the tv show Grumpy Old Men.
Ive also recently read The Messiah Code by Michael Cordy. It was rubbish.
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