Metal Reviews

So what I've read lately:

Foucault - Power/Knowledge
Hughes - In a Lonely Place (noir about a strangler with some pro-women undertones)
Timothy Brennan - Wars of Position
Some Marx for two classes
Introduction stuff on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
A textbook on Feminism and Pop Culture.

About to begin reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Octavia Bulter's Parable of the Talents.

I'm reading Storm Front by Jim Butcher. It's about this wizard who solves crimes and shit.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll pick up Shadow And Claw on Amazon.com as soon as my new credit card comes in the mail.

Currently reading:

King - Drawing of the Three
Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey

I really wish the DT books could have remained as consistently good as Drawing.

Meh, if wishes were horses, fools would ride.

Well you have heard of Wu-Tang Clan member Method Man, but I have decided to go one better and become Methodology Man.

I haven't got much background in academia but here I now find myself and I'm getting tired of hearing stuff like "You are doing a qualitative ethnographic study but you are identifying independent variables? Bwahahahaha you jackass".

So I got a load of books out of the library today on methodology which I am going to attempt to digest if it kills me with boredom and mental fatigue-

Social Analysis- A Marxist critique and alternative by Vic Allen
Sociological research methods- An introduction by Martin Bulmer
Dialectical Sociology by Pillip Bosserman
Management Research by various people

Soon I will be able to tell you all everything you wish to know about qualitative research methods.

Poor Rio, I don't envy you...

Now reading :

Didn't I recommend him to you years ago?

Ha! That was you!
I read about every book he's written since but I still like Ben Elton.

Does ANYONE want to talk about the first two books of A Song of Ice and Fire without ruining anything for me?

Why oh why oh why did I leave it this long to start reading it? Currently about halfway though the first book of book three (if you follow me) and man alive is it ever good. Just so staggeringly huge.

what's qualitative search? is it like anova, component analysis and all that stuff? or am i talking about, er, quantitative analysis?



because you're a fucking idiot people have been jizzing all over the book in this forum since i can remember
i'll be glad to talk about it, you kick off the conversation so i don't ruin something right at the startl

where have you been? i've been badmouthing Rangers in the footie thread while you were absent!

It's the opposite to all that anova stuff. Basically, you are analysing qualities, rather than quantities. So there are no statistics involved at all; it's mainly things like case studies where you look at specific things in detail to try and understand them.

So for example, if I'm studying an organisation, conducting interviews and doing participant observation, working out what it is like to work there, that is qualitative research.

Fuck you on both counts! Fuck you doubly!

To be fair I'd been planning on reading it for the best part of 3 years and constantly failing. Much like the Gers. Constantly failing. Ah, it's been a tough old season.

Thought you'd have been our new butt mascot now with Pedro Mendes around.

I ent reading it until the author finishes it.

Don't want to end up like the five or six robert jordan fans out there who were disappointed when he keeled over.

Robert Jordan's dead? *investigates*

I know I'm reading it far too fast for something that's only like half done and has been on the go for about 15 years already, but it's too late for that now. I'll just need to grin and bear it when I catch up.

Help me with an English assignment! For my composition class, we were given a list of books (mostly novels) the teacher has read, and told that for the final exam we would need to write an essay on one of the issues covered in the book. Right now, I'm reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, and he said I could write one on that, but it is very long and complex so writing about it might be pretty hard. I went to Salvation Army and picked up some other books from the list.

Out of these five books, which do you think would be the best for the assignment (or just general comments on the books):
Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children
Gabriel Garcia Marqez - One Hundred Years of Solitude
David Guterson - Snow Falling on Cedars
Frank McCourt - Angela's Ashes
Annie Proulx - Shipping News

Don't know about Frank McCourt (my mum loves all that "oh isn't it tough to be Irish" stuff though) but my Sixth Year Studies English (advanced English Final Year of high School) dissertation was on three books by Roddy Doyle. The Snapper, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and the Woman Who Walked Into Doors. I sort of made observations on Doyle's portrayal of typical wroking class life through the use of everyday situations and humour - revolutionary, I know Anywyay that Irish working class stuff is quie easy to find stuff to write about.

Post script: I read back over that dissertation I did recently - what a cringeworthy embarassment,

Been reading Welcome to the Desert of the Real! by Zizek for my independent study. I've become such a fan boy despite the fact that there are some major flaws in his presentation.

Garcia Marquez. There's so much to analyze in 100 Years, it's an incredible book.

stick with Rushdie sez my biased Rushdie-loving interior, but if you really have problems then try AA.