No Logo - Naomi Klein
Branding, corporate influence, 3rd world tax evasion, brilliant if you like to read Addbusters, and are interested in Corporate Poltics and their effect on the world
On the road - Jack Kerrouac
Nuff said, Quintessential beat generation classic. Inspired me to hitchhike all over canada and the USA.
Soon I'll be invinceible - Austin Grossman
Written from the prospective of the super villian. Is very well written, good sense of prose, very interesting writting style, superb narative. I look forward to reading this first time authors other books.
Climate Wars - Gwynne Dyer
How climate affects us, the failure of Kyoto, what the world will look like in 15 years, 20 years, 50 years time, if we continue doing what we're doing. AKA, if the artic continues to melt, less solar light will be reflected back into space, the more the oceans will heat up, the different weather that will be occur because of this +2 change, casscading effects, and reactions based on scientific data, and real world poltics. Very good read.
World War Z - Max Brooks
The book is written from the narative of an interviewer travelling the world, getting first hand accounts of people who were involved in the zombie wars, from the first line grunt, on tv, heavily publicised battle that ends in utter failure, to a blind person in japan, taking 1 week to scale down his appartment building, finding a samurhai sword, and living in the forrest attuned to nature, fighting zombies. I really like this book.
All Tomorows Parties - William Gibson
William Gibson, who coined "Cyberspace" I found his first 3 books too obtuse and weak in the character development, at the expense of pushing his new world. The bridge trilogy climax's with this book. There is a street hood named BoomZilla that is awesome! This book is too wicked to explain, so i'll let wiki do it for me
The first story features former rent-a-cop Berry Rydell, the protagonist of Virtual Light. Rydell quits a temporary job as a security guard at the Lucky Dragon convenience store to run errands for atrophied computer hacker Colin Laney (the protagonist of Idoru), who lives in a cardboard box in a subway in Shinjuku, Tokyo. As a child, Laney was administered an experimental, mind-altering drug called 5-SB. As a result, he has developed an ability to identify patterns within vast tracts of media information. From studying these patterns or "nodal points", Laney is able to form predictions.
A side effect of 5-SB causes the user to become attached to strong personalities. As a result, Laney has become obsessed with media baron Cody Harwood of Harwood/Levine, a powerful PR firm. He spends his life surfing the net from his enclave in the subway, searching for traces of Levine in the media. From this, Laney foresees a crucial historical shift which may precede the end of the world. He predicts Harwood, who had also taken 5-SB before (albeit voluntarily, with the knowledge of the consequences), knows this and will try to shape this historical shift to his liking. To stop Harwood, Laney hires Rydell under the guise of a courier to travel to San Francisco where the next nodal point will unfold.
The second story concerns ex-bicycle messenger Chevette Washington, also from Virtual Light, who is on the run from her ex-boyfriend. She escapes to her former home, San Francisco's bridge community, to find refuge and revisit her past. She is accompanied by Tessa, an Australian media sciences student. Tessa visits the bridge to film a documentary on "interstitial communities".
The third story follows a mysterious, left-handed swordsman named Konrad. Although Konrad is employed by Harwood, he appears to be directed by his own motives. In particular, Konrad aligns his movements with the Tao, the spontaneous, universal energy path of Taoist philosophy.
Secondary characters include Silencio, a mute boy who is fascinated with watches, holographic girl Rei Toei (the beautiful "emergent system" from Idoru) and self-described "student of existential sociology" Shinya Yamazaki (from Virtual Light and Idoru) as well as Fontaine, the pawn-shop owner and friend of Rydell and Chevette, having appeared first in Virtual Light.