I heard good things about BookMooch.com, a community for exchanging used books, so I signed up.
I was looking for something to do with my many (still-up-to-date) Lonely Planet travel guides.
BookMooch is tech millionaire John Buckman’s baby. He is doing it for the good of the universe.
I will mail any of my used books to any Book Mooch member who wants one.
Later I will request books I want mailed to me.
Gourmet chef Dave Adlard tipped me on to The The Thirsty Traveler series on TV hosted by Kevin Brauch.
I had never heard of it.
But I got my hands on the “cookbook” — if you can call tinkering in the kitchen with vodka, tequila, single malt scotch and other fine alcohol, “cooking”.
It’s excellent.
Published 2003, this is a shocking expose of a lax Bolivian prison in La Paz. Backpackers bribe guards to stay the night inside & do drugs!
Seems tourists are no longer allowed into the party prison in 2006. BBC published a photo journal on the jail.
Normally I love John le Carré novels and have read most of his books.
This one had great potential.
I could not finish it. The dialogue, full of complex British slang, was too much work.
Le Carré is perhaps the most popular writer producing “literature” today. But in the case of Panama — I think I’ll prefer the movie.
I just heard Robert Fisk interviewed. Sounds like the most intelligent reporter in the world to me.
His home of the past 25 years, Beirut, Lebanon, has been destroyed by what Fisk feels was unnecessary military action. The Israelis over-reacted. And they came out second best in the conflict.
Fisk speaks Arabic and is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden.
I will be checking out his books.
Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion.
Published Nov. 2005, this is an essential survival guidebook for your panic room.
As much as I want a robot dog, I could never trust it completely.
Information this important should be forced on people too dumb to read. Gladly the RENO 911! TV folks are responsible for the movie (which I assume will be an alarmist documentary) hosted by Mike Myers.
![How to Survive a Robot Uprising [UNABRIDGED]](https://i0.wp.com/images.amazon.com/images/P/0786172908.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Thanks Ron & Kate for alerting me to this danger.
Ron & Kate invited me up to their comp. luxury suite at the Legends hotel resort in Whistler, BC. They also invited blues legend Colin James to play for me … and a few hundred other invited guests.
Rockin’ Ronnie was feeding barbecue to the great unwashed — including a whole hog. (Thanks for introducing me to hog jowl, Rockin’.)
The entire event was sponsored by Navan, Cognac in celebration of inebriation and Ron’s cookbooks.
I’ve been a fan of Thomas Friedman since I read From Beirut to Jerusalem years ago. He is one intelligent, articulate guy.
Now he’s cool, as well. Jon Stewart interviewed him on The Daily Show this week.
I highly recommend Friedman’s greatest book, an overview of where we are at in the evolution of this planet. The world is flattening. Trade & political barriers are falling. The internet makes it possible to do business or pleasure with anyone, anywhere.
I just got an email from Jason in the UK, for example, telling me about a product I have been seeking for years.
Friedman is an optimist. But I think the flattening of the world could go either way. Certainly we will see a huge backlash soon. The USA, for example, might put up trade barriers against China.
The best idea in the book, I thought, was Friedman’s call for the USA to set energy independence as the #1 goal for the future. He lays that argument out brilliantly. Jon Stewart was not convinced.
Rocketboom featured the Webby Awards with a short video clip of Friedman, their Man of the Year. Soundtrack by Prince.
Like every second person, I just finished another Dan Brown book — on MP3.
Angels and Demons is the prequel to The Davinci Code, and is similar. Brown has a good formula and he sticks to it. Short paragraphs with cliff-hanger endings. He drags the reader along, willing or no.
It’s not great literature, but the plot is superb. This time his targets are the Papacy and the Illuminati.
I recommend it.
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The most recent of the long awaited electronic books.
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