Notes on Visiting Waterstones in the West End

[0olong]

1. I want all the books.
2. I want time to read all the books.
3. I am pleased to see that God Bless You, Dr Kevorkian has been released with a foreword by Neil Gaiman and is in the Staff Choices bit, but dismayed that people think it's okay to charge eight pounds for a book that is less than a hundred pages long, even with foreword, list of personages and so

Comments

[celiaka]

You know where you can get lots of books for free? The library.

[0olong]

Yes! Libraries!

I went to Archway Library a few weeks ago and strangely didn't find it very exciting. I keep passing other libraries when they're closed, and thinking 'oh! I must come in here when it's open!' but I haven't, yet.

[0olong]

The other thing, of course, is that I actually have more great books than I can physically read, already here in my house. Without even collecting all of my Edinburgh library.

[fluffworld]

Delusions of Gender (Cordelia Fine?) is really, really good. And funny when she starts very obviously losing her temper at some of the idiocy out there that people trot out about male and female brains being OMG TOTES DIFFERENT LIKE.

[0olong]

Good, I will definitely be reading it then. She is already being quite entertainingly furious at times.

I started reading The Essential Difference a few months ago, and stopped after a few pages because I was finding it incredibly irritating. Baron-Cohen's technique of argument seems to be along the lines of 'Look, here is some science! Everything I am saying now is definitely true. Because SCIENCE. See?'

So I guess I've been looking for scientifically-minded rebuttal to this sort of thing for a while now. I'm wary of scientists (and science communicators) getting caught up in their own prejudices, but also wary of assuming that must be what's happening whenever scientists reach unpalatable conclusions...

[dannye]

You might enjoy this article: http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article988723.ece