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On liberty by John Stuart Mill

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Friends: biblioadonis, brkgnews, greghendrix, heina, Jessa0711, jmcgarve, Johnruexp, mrgrooism, ryner

Interesting libraries: NativeRoses, NCSE, thomasjefferson, vq5p9, yapete

LibraryThing authors: Brandon Sanderson (BrandonSanderson), Adrienne Mayor (afmayor), Carl Zimmer (cwzimmer), William Kamkwamba (wkamkwamba)

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Member: Atomicmutant

CollectionsYour library (1,380), Read in 2009 (38), Currently reading (1), Read but unowned (7), All collections (1,381)

Reviews65 reviews

Tagsreligion (320), history (293), science (238), literature (160), christianity (145), read '07 (123), art (104), novel (91), read '08 (79), paleontology (79) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

GroupsAmazon's Kindle, Ancient History, Archaeology, Atheists review books, Audiobooks, Banned Books, Biblical History, Book Arts, Book Care and Repair, Book Design! — show all groups

Favorite authorsKaren Armstrong, Bill Bryson, Albert Camus, Joseph Conrad, Robert Green Ingersoll, John Michlig, Thomas Paine, Carl Sagan, Michael Shermer, John Steinbeck (Shared favorites)

Favorite bookstoresHalf Price Books - Crystal

About meFreed by atomic testing from the encumbrance of a fleshy corpus, the Atomicmutant floats freely in the Plasmystical aether, reading and collecting books over all sorts of domains of inquiry. Currently on an Evolution of Consciousness kick, but could suddenly and inexplicably veer off into Elvis or the History of Popcorn at any time. I recently joined a book club and have been allowing it to open my reading to books I never would have picked up before. Thanks for visiting, feel free to leave a note!

CURRENT OBSESSIONS/READING TOPICS:

The Evolution of Consciousness
History of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism
Early Christianity 30-120 C.E.
Evolution, and the Evolution/Creation Culture Wars
Christian Dominionism and American Politics
Apollo space program and space exploration
Paleontology and Geology
Cave Art and Petroglyphs
Catching up on "Great Literature" that I've missed.

About my libraryOtherwise known as "my piles of books", my library is pretty representative of the range of interests that I've cultivated over the years. I'm a sucker for an esoteric topic, engagingly and wittily presented, and am just as likely to nod off as anyone else on a dry topic. So I search out good writing to make history, science, and religion come alive. The horror, and movie books that I have are from way back, I'm more likely at any given time to be reading non-fiction these days. Check out my tags under "read '06", "read '07", "read '08", and "read '09" to see what I've been chewing on lately.

CLICK HERE FOR MY "READ IN '09" LIST . . . 74 books read

CLICK HERE FOR MY "READ IN '08" LIST . . . 79 books read . . .
including "On the Origin of Species"....finally!
Also, all four books of the "Lonesome Dove" series . . . *phew*
And . . . *double phew* the entirety of Dante's Divine Comedy

CLICK HERE FOR MY "READ IN '07" LIST . . . 123 books read! phew!

CLICK HERE FOR MY "READ IN '06" LIST . . . 71 books read!

CURRENTLY AND RECENTLY READ:

The Soul in the Brain: The Cerebral Basis of Language, Art, and Belief by Michael R. Trimble

Paradise Lost by John Milton

The Aeneid by Virgil

The Black Hole War by Leonard Susskind

The Bodhicaryavatara by Santideva

Disney War by James B. Stewart;

Walt Disney: Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler;

The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria;

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs;

The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri;
(currently in Purgatory!)

A Death in the Family by James Agee;

Relics of Eden by Daniel J. Fairbanks;

BONK by Mary Roach;

Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry;

The Road by Cormac Mcarthy;

The Wild Trees by Richard Preston;

The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby;

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin;

The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols

Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs by Phillip Manning

Real nameAtomicmutant

LocationFloating about.

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/Atomicmutant (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Atomicmutant (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (150), Awards (297), Characters (4080), Places (926)

Member sinceApr 26, 2006

Currently readingTheodore Rex (Modern Library Paperbacks) by Edmund Morris

Most recent activity

Atomicmutant added:
The Whisperer in Darkness: Collected Short Stories Vol I (Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural) (v. 1) by H.P. Lovecraft

Atomicmutant added:
A Princess of Mars (Mars, Bk. 1) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Atomicmutant rated, added:
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux

Atomicmutant added:
The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust by Mark I. Pinsky

Atomicmutant rated:
The Precious Lord: The History and Practice of the Cult of the Jo Bo Sakyamuni in Lhasa, Tibet by Cameron David Warner

Atomicmutant rated, added:
Tibet - A Hidden World (Postcard Books) by The Newark Museum

I'm totally jealous you're going to Disney World! (I saw your post in The Green Dragon.) I loooooooove Disney. I'm getting married in March - pretty much the only thing we have planned so far is our honeymoon, which will be in Disney World. I can't wait! :)

Have a great time!

~Jenny

posted by goddessladyj at 1:12 am (EST) on Oct 10, 2009

Thanks! Yep, it's been an unhealthy portion of my expenses column for several years now. LOL.

posted by brkgnews at 5:17 pm (EST) on Jun 27, 2009

I just read your review of Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. I also read the other reviews (wow, scary). Thanks for taking one for the team, reading it so I don't have to.

posted by mingfrommongo at 1:27 pm (EST) on May 17, 2009

Happy (belated) Thingaversary! ^-^

posted by Shanra at 6:08 pm (EST) on Apr 27, 2009

From the exercise thread I thought these two groups might be of interest. They aren't quite as active as GD though.

posted by reading_fox at 7:19 am (EST) on Apr 24, 2009

Ugh Yeah!

Pummz

posted by Pummzie at 9:16 pm (EST) on Apr 16, 2009

Atlas Shrugged,
reader clubbed.

Ugh.

Dorothy Parker lives in your Plasmystical aether, Atomicmutant. Bless you!

posted by nohrt4me at 7:54 pm (EST) on Apr 16, 2009

Brilliant and hilarious review of Atlas Shrugged.

Thank you!

posted by BeckyJG at 6:32 pm (EST) on Apr 16, 2009

The cowbell thing made me laugh out loud. Still chuckling. :)

posted by Carnophile at 6:32 pm (EST) on Apr 2, 2009

Turns out that calling Amazon on the old fashion telephone worked out pretty well. I think issue is resolved with a reset button which was pretty well disguised as nothing of any importance. (-;

posted by maggie1944 at 8:25 pm (EST) on Feb 25, 2009

Psssst! Come join us! We're about to post #1247!

posted by mrgrooism at 9:15 pm (EST) on Feb 7, 2009

LOL! Gandalf had stern looking halflings to fetch works (and put out small fires). Maybe they just start showing up when the stacks get large enough.

posted by vq5p9 at 8:21 pm (EST) on Jan 29, 2009

Thanks for the message!

I am glad to see some other people review the Disney-related books and materials. Sometimes, I think that most people that visit WDW have no idea about the history of the company or how WDW came to be.

I look forward to seeing more of your reviews!

George

posted by biblioadonis at 6:00 pm (EST) on Dec 21, 2008

If you do one thing for yourself, you should try and go to a TAM. The next one is in July. Until you have been, you can't even imagine what it is like to be around 1000 people who are like yourself - they are from all backgrounds, all educational levels, all ages, and you come away with a entire new sense of what skepticism, critical thinking, and pro-science attitudes can do. It's like a high. I've taken my two grown sons, and got my best friend to go two years ago with his wife. This year, he paid for his two grown children and their girlfriends to go, because he thought it was so important for them to be exposed to it all.

Honestly, it's not a cult. :)

posted by GeekGoddess at 8:11 pm (EST) on Dec 16, 2008

I will look into that.
If you haven't joined, come see us on the forums at randi's site. I have great friends there, and have been involved with his organization for over two years.

I'll check out the Heathens :)

posted by GeekGoddess at 4:35 pm (EST) on Dec 15, 2008

You have the honor of being the LibraryThing member who shares the most books with me, among other heathenisms. :D I notice you also have a Kindle - I need to add my ebooks to my library.

posted by GeekGoddess at 4:55 pm (EST) on Dec 12, 2008

Thank you for joining Pro and Con (Religion). I hope this is a place where the comfortable are afflicted and the afflicted are comforted. Let’s go it with all seriousness, but I hope we can have great fun at the same time. If I were God, I would part the waters of distance, and instantly transport us all to this great pub I used to frequent in Germany with a group of other Auslanders, but alas, I am but a lowly mortal, and so we have to do this via the internet.

All I ask is that every one remain respectful, even if there are times when you are spewing your coffee over the screen.

posted by Arctic-Stranger at 2:56 pm (EST) on Oct 2, 2008

Yeah, sometimes I'm in the mood to try to reach out across the chasm.

The book on radio-decay they link to does present an interesting problem. (My physics education is a LONG time ago, though, and I now lack the chops to play with the strong force to see how their physics would actually work.)

posted by AsYouKnow_Bob at 8:19 pm (EST) on Aug 14, 2008

Young Earthers at:

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.ph...

posted by AsYouKnow_Bob at 9:11 pm (EST) on Aug 13, 2008

Thanks for the comment AM. We are working, slowly, towards tagging our books at NCSE. And we still have a number of books that just need to be entered. I estimate that we are a little over halfway done.

posted by NCSE at 2:07 pm (EST) on Jun 24, 2008

"I see you're a Physics professor, what level? I'm a graphic artist/illustrator/model
builder, but I have a deep and abiding love for science and education, so
I admire what you do."

My wife is an artist/scientist herself, so I can really appreciate art (Myself, I'm a bit hopeless at it). I think science & art are not so different: Both require skill & creativity, an ability to see what other people don't and the joy of thinking outside the box. There is a lot of cross-fertilization from both fields.

To your question: I teach at the undergraduate & graduate level at a big state research university. I also do research and run a lab with 4 Ph.D. students, a post-doc and an undergraduate student right now.

posted by yapete at 8:52 am (EST) on Jun 2, 2008

I seem to share more books with your library than with anybody else's (37/my 80 so far). Am I becoming a mutant? Then again, with over 1200 books in your amazing library, maybe it's just a statistical fluke?!

I will spend some time digging through your list for inspiration. --Pete

posted by yapete at 5:30 pm (EST) on Jun 1, 2008

I hope you enjoy it. It was several years ago now, but I recall finding it fascinating (all the red tape, the interpersonal conflicts among the scientists, etc.). I've always been interested in archaeology. There was a time when I considered the field, but I think I'm content to be an armchair observer nowadays.

I just picked up a book at Half Price Books today,
and when I entered it into LT, immediately saw that
you gave it 5 stars on the book info page!
"The Goddess and the Bull". I'm
excited to read it. I guess you can add "fellow
ancient history buff" to the list. :)
I'll let you know how many stars I come up with
when I'm through with it!

posted by ryner at 9:12 pm (EST) on May 29, 2008

Thanks for the list. I'm curious about The Wild Trees, I read the first 20 pages or so once, and I've been itching to get my hands on it again. cheers,d

posted by dchaikin at 9:00 am (EST) on Apr 30, 2008

I'm no expert with the pictures. But, here is the the command I use to post pictures as links. Replace these "()" with carrots. (If I can post it correctly, carrots are these "< or >")

(a href="http://www.somelink.com")(img style="border:1px solid black; height:150px; width:100px" src="http://some_image_location.jpg" /)(/a)

The image must already exist on a webpage. To find the image location, I use Firefox. A right click on the picture offers "Copy image location"; or, if the picture is a link, then right-click, choose properties, and then copy the location.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
d

posted by dchaikin at 10:06 pm (EST) on Apr 29, 2008

Pardon my typo's....

What kind of books? Well, see, that's part of the problem, I've forgotten them all. They were mostly in Happy Heathens, and a lot of them were on the evolution vs creationism. Some were on religion or religion and art. Occasionally you will start a post just to say "hey, I recently read this really great book." I think there was one on the Pennsylvania trial about teaching creationism in school. The latest one where you got my attention with was "Your Inner Fish". Does that help?

posted by dchaikin at 9:55 pm (EST) on Apr 29, 2008

Hi Atomic, There are a number of books you've suggested here and there in the Happy Heathens group. They alwasy sound good. But, when I have a chance to get a book, I can't mind most of them. Is there any chance you have a list? Maybe you need to start a thread "atomicmutants books suggestions." Cheers, d

posted by dchaikin at 3:01 pm (EST) on Apr 29, 2008

Hey Atomic,

I finished Have A Nice Doomsday and wrote up a review. It's a rough draft really because I knocked it out here at work and didn't have the book handy to look up some of the interviewees names.

Anyhow, I enjoyed the book.

I just ordered a book you may be interested in (and if nothing else, you should like the '50's UFO cover) - Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels in End Times America. I haven't read the book yet, so can't give it a recommendation, but it looked like something right up your alley.

posted by jseger9000 at 11:33 am (EST) on Apr 18, 2008

PS, if you post it, I would appreciate it if you stated it was written by someone who does believe in God. Well, kinda, sorta.

posted by Arctic-Stranger at 12:35 pm (EST) on Apr 7, 2008

That particular blog is not really on my radar. I have seen it mentioned a few times, and visited it maybe once. I don't think I will post it there, but I certainly don't mind you posting it. I would be interested in any feedback it generates.

posted by Arctic-Stranger at 12:31 pm (EST) on Apr 7, 2008

I haven't read that one, but I may look into it. Actually, I haven't read many books in the genre, except for a few of the big names. I have a hard time reviewing them because in most cases they're preaching to the choir, and I don't have an unbiased opinion while I'm lamenting in dismay that some people who desperately need to read such a book is one who will avoid it.

Fun that you met PZ! I have a fear of meeting idols (not that it's likely ever to happen). I tend to get tongue-tied easily, and I'd rather make no impression at all from afar than make a poor or unmemorable one in person (I think). What was he like?

posted by ryner at 2:37 pm (EST) on Apr 4, 2008

Yep, I'm not very vocal in real life either. I mention religious/anti-religious matters in my blog occasionally, but I'd guess most of my family and friends aren't aware of my "heathenism," though I'd certainly talk about it truthfully if someone asked. While I'm a fan of Pharyngula and feel a more informed citizen for it, I oscillate between dismay and amusement at the content covered. I've yet to attend a local event either, although the recent conference was tempting!

I should note that my LT catalog is only books I've read (and know the date finished). Because I work for the public library it's been ages since I've purchased books.

Thanks for replying, looking forward to reading more of what you have to say on Talk in the future!

posted by ryner at 11:30 pm (EST) on Mar 30, 2008

I've been wanting to say hello for some time, as a fellow Minnesotan, heathen and Pharyngula fan. So hello!

posted by ryner at 11:44 am (EST) on Mar 30, 2008

Hey, I didn't know you worked on the game! I wrote up a review for it at Moby Games (I'm user name Zod Wallop on there. Some time I need to consolidate my user names.)

I wrote a review for Desert Rats as well. Did you work on that one?

posted by jseger9000 at 12:12 pm (EST) on Mar 27, 2008

Very nice review for Have A Nice Doomsday. I went and ordered the book right after reading it.

By the way, I meant to tell you that I Was An Atomic Mutant! was a fun, fun game. The image on your profile makes me smile when I see it.

posted by jseger9000 at 9:01 pm (EST) on Mar 24, 2008

Hi again!
I finally read that Princess book, and it was quite interesting. According to a friend of mine who has a lot of friends and exes in the Saudi Royal Family, however, the book is "bull-shit." I don't know.

posted by heina at 11:58 am (EST) on Mar 12, 2008

Atomic,

I stole your entire post about Abunga and reposted it to the Banned Books group (giving you credit, 'natch). Just wanted to let you know.

Thanks for the heads' up on that site. LT seems like such a perfect place to fight something as narrow-minded as Abunga.

posted by jseger9000 at 3:47 pm (EST) on Jan 17, 2008

I searched all the varied and scattered places my mother stores her books (I gave her all my old Harun Yahyas) but was unable to scare up The Evolution Deceit. They give it out free at Islamic conferences so paying for it might be, I don't know, support where there is none needed.

They do have the full text online:
http://www.harunyahya.com/evolution_spec...

posted by heina at 2:01 pm (EST) on Dec 12, 2007

Have you been here yet?
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.ph...
Cheers,d

posted by dchaikin at 10:22 am (EST) on Dec 7, 2007

Not only are you hilarious, and have an amazingly diverse and interesting library, and great taste (Vonnegut!), but you joined LT on my b-day... well, except for the year, of course.

You mutant, you...

posted by TeacherDad at 3:20 am (EST) on Nov 8, 2007

Thanks for your interesting review of "The Children of Hurin". The point about the action occurring in a vacuum is well made, and I thought your comparison with Aragorn was a nice one.
The mythic precedents for the unknowing incest motif are firstly Kullervo in the Kalavala, and secondly Sigmund in some versions of the tale of the Volsungs (notably Wagner's Ring Cycle).

posted by Celebrimbor at 4:45 am (EST) on Jun 27, 2007

Hi! Notice you have Xinran's "Sky Burial." What is your opinion (pure fiction? re-creation of true event? retelling of yarn?) Esta1923

posted by Esta1923 at 3:16 pm (EST) on Mar 21, 2007

I didn't see either Bart Ehrman's refutation of the Da Vinci Code, nor Jaroslav Pelikan's Whose Bible Is It? cataloged - have you read them? I'm listening to Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus on audio these days, and while the narrator is certainly doing his best to be "lively" it's been a bit of a slog to get through compared with those two.

posted by Seajack at 2:03 am (EST) on Feb 19, 2007

In response to your note in Green Dragon I checked to see what we share, then did look at your library, but, best of all, read some of your reviews. You are a good example I'll try to follow! Have meant to review, but good intentions. . . . Esta1923

posted by Esta1923 at 1:07 am (EST) on Feb 12, 2007

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