Edinburgh Skeptics’ book group meets upstairs in the Counting House, West Nicolson St. We read “books of interest to Skeptics”. If you don’t like fiction because it’s made up, or if you are underwhelmed by Richard and Judy’s book of the month, this may be the book-club for you.
What books do we read?
We read fiction and non-fiction, the guiding rule is that the
books are of interest to a Sakeptical readership.
We also read books written from a Woo point of view, but we
reserve the right to critique with extreme sarcasm.
We avoid covering the same topic (eg religion, alt med,
parapsychology) twice in 3 months.
We avoid reading same author twice in 6 months.
We don’t read fiction twice in a row.
These are the books we’ve already read.
Who chooses the books, and when?
Anyone at a meeting can volunteer to choose a book, and we give
priority to new members and then to existing members who have not
already chosen a book. If you choose a book, then you should make
every effort to be at the meeting where your book is discussed.
Book are announced two months ahead to give everyone up to 8 weeks
to read the book; so you need to volunteer three months ahead to
give yourself time to make your choice and announce it at the next
meeting.
In practice, this means that if you are at the January meeting,
then you’ll find out what the March book will be, and you can
volunteer to choose the April book.
Practical considerations
Books should be low cost (certainly under a tenner) and available
(ie several for under a tenner incl p&p from Amazon resellers).
It’s a definite plus if they are available electonically or as
audio books.
They should be less than 300-400 pages.
It doesn’t matter whether or not you have already read the book
you choose.
The Book for 13th February 2011 is Mirage Men: A Journey into Disinformation, Paranoia and UFOs: The Weird Truth Behind UFOs by Mark Pilkington
Pilkington leads us into a hall of mirrors where the shadowy intelligence officers may be the deluded fantasists, and the craziest ufologists may be the ones guarding the biggest secrets. As the rug of reality is pulled repeatedly from under our feet, one thing becomes clear: the standard narrative, in which governments and the military are concealing the existence of extraterrestrials, is the opposite of the truth. Mirage Men turns the baffling world of UFOs and their investigators into a master key for decoding the twentieth century s dreams and nightmares. –Mike Jay, author of The Atmosphere of Heaven
And the book for March is “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess – a dystopian view of the future.
Thanks Dalradian. There’s a post up for February, and there’ll be one for March a month ahead.
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