Friday, February 7, 2014

Most Interesting Books Review

(from squidoo.com)




Over the last ten years there have been thousands of books produced, but there are only a few that can be classed as the most interesting books of the last decade.

I have compiled this list of the 10 Most Interesting Books of the Last Decade after completing a project of research to establish exactly which are the most interesting books of the last ten years.

Over many years I have been a writer and avid reader of books, so it gave me great pleasure to undertake this review of most interesting books.

You will find in this list a varied array of subject matter and you will discover some great pieces of literary work by highly talented authors.

In this modern fast paced world that we all now live in it is good to see that the enjoyment of reading is still firmly a part of our everyday activities.

Browse through the most interesting books review and if there are any books that you have not read, but would like to, just click.

Then you can sit back in a comfortable chair with a full glass and do your own personal review of some wonderful literature.

So for your reading pleasure here is the list of the 10 most interesting books of the last decade.

Enjoy your reading.


#10 Most Interesting Book of the Last Decade


Burning Books
By Matthew Fishburn



Burning Books
by Matthew Fishburn

Matthew Fishburn offers an original and often disturbing perspective on a dark chapter in literary history. He has a genius for drawing unexpected connections and he writes with the kind of elegance that was long ago banished from most academic books. What makes Burning Books so impressive is the author's going well beyond the usual instances. The book is supported by an excellent bibliography and notes, and there is a fine selection of reproduced posters, cartoons and photographs which enhance the value of the text.

Buy now.


#9 Most Interesting Book of the Last Decade



The Hundred-Year Lie
By Randall Fitzgerald


The Hundred-Year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals That Are Destroying Your Health
by Randall Fitzgerald

This provocative and frightening look at the synthetic chemicals used by the processed foods, pharmaceutical and chemical industries delivers an excellent, up-to-date summary of "what is really in our food, water, vitamins, prescription drugs, childhood vaccines, cosmetics, and in our homes. The "hundred-year lie" dates from 1906, the year Congress enacted the Pure Food and Drug Act. Utilizing a range of articles from science journals and government reports, along with interviews with scientists and environmentalists, Fitzgerald looks at synthetic chemicals-from artificial sweeteners to antidepressants-that are diminishing our health. Throughout, Fitzgerald explodes various myths such as that one right dose of a particular drug works for everyone and that all food additives have been tested for safety.

Buy now.


#8 Most Interesting Book of the Last Decade


Future Hype
By Bob Seidensticker


Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change
by Bob Seidensticker

Conventional wisdom says that technology change is exponential, giving us an ever-growing number of exciting new products. According to this view, we live in an unprecedented golden age of technological expansion. Not so, according to Future Hype. Author Bob Seidensticker, who has an intimate understanding of technology on professional, theoretical, and academic levels, asserts that today's achievements are not unprecedented. He explodes nine major myths of technology, including "Change is exponential," "Products are adopted faster," and "The Internet changes everything," and he argues that we can't control technology change unless we know how it changes. Examining the history of tech hype, Seidensticker uncovers the inaccuracies and misinterpretations that characterize the popular view of technology.

Buy now.

#7 Most Interesting Book of the Last Decade


Our Culture, What's Left Of It
By Theodore Dalrymple


Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses
by Theodore Dalrymple

Rampant alcoholism and drug use; increasing illegitimacy; children raised without any form of parental supervision or guidance; the destruction of traditional morals and respect for law and order; a refusal to see the dangers of failing to insist upon the assimilation of foreign, even hostile, immigrants are contributing to the deterioration of our society. By implication, Dalyrmple makes it plain that this same kind of social destruction will soon infect and ultimately destroy all the Western nations.

Buy now.


#6 Most Interesting Book of the Last Decade


History On Trial
By Deborah E. Lipstadt


History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier
by Deborah E. Lipstadt

In a much-publicized case, David Irving, the author of numerous books about WWII, sued Emory University historian Lipstadt and her British publisher, Penguin, for libel. Lipstadt had called Irving a Holocaust denier in a book about the Holocaust denial movement, and Britain's libel laws put the burden of proof on her to show that the charge was true. Did that mean proving the Holocaust had happened? Was Lipstadt, as Irving claimed, trying to restrict his freedom of speech, or was he restraining hers? Was the courtroom the proper place to examine historical truth? The press hotly debated these issues, but as Lipstadt relates in this powerful account, she and her adept lawyers felt they simply had to discredit a man who had said that "no documents whatsoever show that a Holocaust had ever happened.

Buy now.


Taking A Short Break
A Few Words From Your Host

You are half way through the 10 Most interesting Books of the Last Decade.

So far you have discovered some really great novels, but the most interesting top 10 list now continues with books that are even more interesting.

Please take the time to leave a comment with your thoughts about this list of top 10 most interesting books of the last decade.

And also visit some of the other places that are featured, where you will find more most interesting books to read.

Enjoy your reading.


#5 Most Interesting Book of the Last Decade


The Things That Matter
By Edward Mendelson


The Things That Matter: What Seven Classic Novels Have to Say About the Stages of Life
by Edward Mendelson

What Mendelson accomplishs, and brilliantly, is to analyze these novels as extraordinary representatives of changes in moral and cultural mores in the 19th and 20th centuries. He offers a fascinating glimpse into the hidden visionary narrative in Wuthering Heights; convincingly finds that Middlemarch ("Marriage") and other of George Eliot's novels "expound more knowledge than any other body of fiction in English, and more wisdom than most"; and credits Woolf with groundbreaking insights into human emotions. As literary guides to these seven books, Mendelson's essays offer significant intellectual pleasure.

Buy now.


#4 Most Interesting Book of the Last Decade


Coincidence, Chaos, and All That Math Jazz
By Edward B. Burger


Coincidences, Chaos, and All That Math Jazz: Making Light of Weighty Ideas
by Edward B. Burger, Michael Starbird

The book consists of four parts. The first part is on "Understanding Uncertainty" and covers topics related to chaos, coincidences, and statistics. The second part, "Embracing Figures", deals with cryptography and patterns and has an especially nice section on `sizing up numbers' which deals with orders of magnitude and topics which should be a part of anybody's quantitative literacy. "Exploring Aesthetics" is the subject of the third part, which includes discussions of fractals and chaos and a nice introduction to the coffee cups and doughnuts of topology. The final section, which is entitled "Transcending Reality", deals with the fourth dimension and various notions of infinity.

Buy now.


#3 Most Interesting Book of the Last Decade


The End of Youth
By Robert Gibson


The End of Youth: The Life and Work of Alain-Fournier
by Robert Gibson

For over half a century, Robert Gibson has published extensively on Alain-Fournier's life and work and is now acknowledged as the leading authority on this subject in the English-speaking world. Gibson provides a re-appraisal of Fournier's complex love-life, his undervalued career as a journalist, a re-examination of the long and complicated genesis of "Le Grand Mealnes", the fullest analysis in any language of all his poetry and prose together with an authoritative overview of the remarkable range of critical interpretations to which his haunting masterpiece has been subject. The result is a compelling piece of literary detective-work and a human story sensitively and movingly told. Lavishly illustrated, this is a book which will appeal both to the serious scholar and the general reader.

Buy now.


What Contents Make These Books Interesting?

Books can cover a varied set of subject matter, but it is worthy of noting that this list of the top 10 most interesting books of the last decade contains novels that are historic, full of facts, revealing, exploring the truth and very informative.

Maybe this is the formula as to why they became the top 10 most interesting books of the last decade.

Ok, so now we are down to the last two books in the top 10 most interesting books list.

Any guesses as to which books they are?

Enjoy your reading.


#2 Most Interesting Book of the Last Decade


Slaughterhouse Five
By Kurt Vonnegut Jr


Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel (Modern Library 100 Best Novels)
by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

Don't let the ease of reading fool you--Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." Slaughterhouse-Five (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945.

Buy now.


#1 Most Interesting Book of the Last Decade


The Adventures of Mr Marigold
by Michael Tobias

Michael Tobias's breathtaking novel, The Adventures of Mr Marigold, was first published in New Zealand, and is illustrated by the great nature photographer Craig Potton (who also did still imagery backgrounds for the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "King Kong") The Adventures of Mr Marigold is a groundbreaking fiction - it is at once eloquent, complex, wry, disturbing and forever enchanting. At well over 1,800 pages, this is the closest the 21st century is likely to get to a modern day Don Quixote. It is Ulysses, Remembrance of the Things Past, The Divine Comedy, the Meditations of Saint Augustine, and of Marcus Aurelius, Sartre's Nausea, and Beckett's Waiting for Godot - in one book whose originality and relevancy, brilliant literary style and inexplicably lush prose - every sentence -will leave true readers breathless, sleepless, astounded and joyouse.

Buy now.


What Makes A Book Most Interesting?

The word "interesting." literally means: Engaging or exciting and holding the attention or curiosity. Arousing a feeling of interest. A state of curiosity or concern about or attention to something. Involvement with or participation in something. An excess or bonus beyond what is expected or due. Something, such as a quality, subject, or activity that evokes this mental state.

In Edward DeBono's book, I Am Right You Are Wrong, he answers the question about what makes something interesting:

"There is always interest in a pattern-rich repertoire. If around any subject there is a rich networking of patterns, that subject becomes interesting."

What these authors have managed to do is to make the mundane memorable, they are not one-dimensional, they have learned the principles of amazing storytelling, they know how to be more challenging and they have expanded their references.

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