We do a significant amount of reading on our boat trips, so the construction of our ship's library is an important part of our preparation. All of the larger cruising destinations have book exchanges, but the books tend to be boating magazines and paperback novels, although there is the occasional work of non-fiction.

Sally likes novels, I like non-fiction. Tane enjoys a mix.

I try to pick a couple of general themes. One of my themes on recent trips has been religion, or more accurately, books that are critical of religion. The main books here were The End of Faith (Sam Harris), Breaking the Spell (Daniel Dennett), The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins), and God is Not Great (Christopher Hitchins). I decided to do this because I've always been uneasy with religion, was unable to handle pro-religious works, and wanted to spend some time working out my own views. What I've discovered is that these authors have quite a detailed knowledge of what religious texts actually say, and what actually happens in practice --- in many cases, a much better knowledge than most practitioners. Although I haven't developed a particularly clear viewpoint of my own, I am now much more comfortable having made the effort.

Another related theme has been skepticism. My first foray was with Why People Believe Weird Things (Michael Shermer). Michael writes the skeptic column for Scientific American, and founded Skeptic magazine. I've since read several more of Michael's books, and am continuing the general theme on this trip, more focused on medicine.

A third theme has to do with power law distributions. The first book to set me off in this direction was Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness, and more recently, his The Black Swan. On this trip, I have Ubiquity and Critical Mass.

Voodoo Science - Robert Park Mavericks of Medicine Snake Oil Science: The Truth about Complementary and Alternative Medicine - R. Barker Bausell Double Homicide: Santa Fe and Boston - Jonathan and Faye Kellerman What We Say Goes - Noam Chomsky A Life Decoded, My Genome, My Life - J. Craig Venter. Collins and religion in National Geographic. ##

---------- radio email processed by SailMail for information see: http://www.sailmail.com