[BorntobeWild]

How about Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway? Duende, bull fighting and Spain.

[hobersmith]

I recently finished the 6 volumes of Frank Herbert's "Dune", and I'm now at the 5th book "the foundation" from Isaac Asimov. Both books are science fictions but really about politics.

Dune is much harder to read and I found the 4th book (God emperor of Dune) the most entertaining (it's about a 3millenia old guy who kind of rules the galaxy). Anyway the basis of the book is prescience, the ability to see the future and how it's possible for humans.

Asimov's book is light to read and is also about predicting the future, but this time mathematically.

I had these books recommended to me by a friend and I've really enjoyed both.

[falseta]

@borntobewild - Bullfighting + Hemingway... I am curious about this book... any mentions of Flamenco?

[Alatriste]

You can tell by username who one of my favorite authors is.

Currently I am reading The Rebel by Albert Camus. This is a non-fiction treatise on his views of rebellion and revolution.

Just prior to starting The Rebel, I read Revolution and Intervention: The Diplomacy of Taft and Wilson with Mexico, 1910-1917.

[Aurelio]

I partially share Hobersmith's enthusiasm for both Dune and Azimov's Foundation series. Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman cites reading the Foundation trilogy (first 3 books) at an early age with igniting his desire to predict humankind's future behavior. Since he couldn't become a psychohistorian, he studied economics instead. My own personal opinion is that Azimov should've left well enough alone after completing the first 3 books. Ditto with Herbert's Dune--the first two-thirds of the initial book comprises some of the most creative evocation of another world since Tolkien. But he ran out of steam thereafter, and I found the subsequent books unreadable. Again, my own opinion. David Lynch's film of Dune was a truly noble failure--he gave a very difficult subject his best shot, though, and it's well worth seeing.

Just finished reading Catching fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham. Wrangham convincingly postulates how the discovery/invention of cooking led to the rapid evolutionary advance of the earliest humans from Homo habilis (no cooking) to Homo erectus (cooking), about 1.9-1.7 million years ago. Great book! If you like books like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, you'll love Catching Fire.

Aurelio