Thursday, September 10, 2009

Information and chance to win a book

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What’s the most informative book you’ve read recently?

Goodness, what book worth reading isn't informative, doesn't expose the reader to something new - either in its content or in the way it treats a subject I thought I knew already? Iris Murdoch's novel The Nice and the Good informed me about the experience of judging others while questioning one's own moral sense. The setting of the novel Little Boy Lost informed me about post World War II France. If by informative you mean "packed with facts," then any of the text books I have read for school qualify for that. Take Principles of Neural Science by Kandel, Schwartz and Jessell (I should say - take it, please!). It's about 10 pounds, 1400 pages on the electrical and chemical make-up of neurons and glia, their communicative properties, and how those result in behaviors such as motor movements, remembering, paying attention, perceiving the world. It's a feast of information and an aerobic workout all in one.

Anyone who can guess what the picture has to do with the question will be entered in a drawing to win a book! One answer each, through Friday evening. One winner will be drawn from any multiple correct answers randomly. Actually I didn't really handle that properly, since once one person wrote the answer in the comments, anyone could copy it! So I am going to close the contest and declare the person who gave the first right answer to be the winner in order to be fair to her. Congratulations Isabella! I'll be in touch.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it one of those weather ballons you're lying under? What a funny image!

I agree about how you take things away from fiction. In fact when I started my blog last year I wanted to write about learnings (although that got a bit long winded!).I've never read any Iris Murdoch but I really should, you've intrigued me now.

Isabella K said...

"What do you want?"
"Information."
"Whose side are you on?"
"That would be telling... We want information. Information! INFORMATION!"

gautami tripathy said...

I do get a lot of infomation from fiction too.

Booking through recent informative