Three Stations - Martin Cruz Smith

A mystery/detective novel.

Suitably grubby.  Suitably convoluted.  Suitably located in a foreign locale.  With a suitably socially challenged detective...
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Collapse - Jared Diamond

An excellent, if somewhat depressing, account of the many (he says 12 main) challenges facing us as 1st world society.  He begins with a very interesting examination of several societies from the past and how they failed - I found the Greenland account most interesting, and most reflective of our society, I suppose because we are both european societies in origin.
His discussion of our current situation is clear and each of the 12 problems is presented succinctly.  None of the problems are really news to anyone who has followed environmental issues over the past decade or two.

One idea that caught my attention was the idea that we in North America are not really wealthy - what we have been doing over the past 300 years is spending/depleting (devouring) the natural capital that was here in North America before colonization.  The equivalent of spending your financial capital - this is false wealth that leads to crisis and poverty.

Another thing I got from the book is a different perspective on the daily news of conflict from around the world.  It gives this news a different context, and environmental context.  You can see many of the current conflicts in the world as stemming from some of the environmental issues he mentions - shortage of resources equals conflict between countries and elements of society.

The chapter on China is also interesting - the news coverage of China does not portray the deep environmental hole they continue to dig themselves into.  Expenditure of natural capital on an unprecedented scale.

Highly recommened. With an extensive bibliography at the back if you want to depress yourself further...

His final comment - "cautious optimism", which I think is generous.

How Much is Enough - R & E Skidelsky

An attempt to build a moral argument against rampant materialism.  Some interesting ideas, but my attention kept wandering as the points or arguments were too wordy and long-winded.  It would probably make a good longish essay.  Your ideas lose power when you spin them out too long.  I am writing this a couple of weeks after finishing the book, and I can't remember much.
At the end of the book, there are some interesting ideas on how to address the expanding income gap and deal with income redistribution to reintroduce an element of choice into work. - that's all I remember.

The Book of Genesis - R. Crumb

Worth a look.  Some fabulous black and white drawings - the faces are wonderful.  Also less dry than reading just the words, which he has remained faithful to.

He has some interesting commentary at the back giving some background on the life and times and looks at some of the more confusing aspects of the genesis story, particularly the role of women in society in a pre-patriarchal society and how it might be showing up as last remnants in the Genesis story.

The Rediscovery of North America - Barry Lopez

I was wondering what Barry Lopez had been up too.   Seems he hasn't published much lately - I wonder how that happens to a writer?  Hit a dead end?  Mine the vein out?
A sad story of North America since the arrival of the europeans.  An optimism about possibilities in the future that was imaginable 15 or 20 years ago, but is now hard to hand onto.

The Green Man - Michael Bedard

To me he still stands as one of the great canadian writers - for children or adults.  He has such a classical way of building his stories.
This time I also enjoyed, yet again, seeing what is so obviously Toronto through his novelist's eyes.  It brings a different kind of magic to the streets that what I can find there.
I also appreciate his sense of the Toronto of the Beat era that is there in the background of the story and the bookstore in the story.
Makes me want to reread Redwork.

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot - Robert MacFarlane

An absolutely brilliant book.  Wakes up the desire to explore the world from up close and inside the landscape.
An interesting contrast to Barry Lopez's writing on nature as wilderness.  Inevitably with MacFarlane, when he writes about Spain or England, it is both about nature and the layer upon layer of traces of human habitation that lie buried in these landscapes.  North America is just too new and too raw (and places far too high a value on the privacy of private property...)

Many references:

-  Icknied Way by Edward Thomas
-  Edward Thomas' poetry
- MacFarlane's other books
- George Borrow, Lavengro/Wild Wales 19th c
- Robert Louis Stevenson,  Songs of Travel
- John Muir
- Henry Williamson, Tarka the Otter
- Sarn Helen (an old path in Wales)
- Tim Robinson - Stones of Aran
- Adam Nicolson - Sea Room:  An Island Life
- Nan Shepherd - The Grampian Quartet; The Living Mountain
- Raja Shehadeh - Palestinian Walks; A Rift in Time
- Christopher Tilley - The Phenomenology of Landscape
- Eric Ravilious - artist early 20th C
- Philip Gosse - Go to the Country
- Richard Holmes - Footsteps
- William Cobbet - Rural Rides