Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Books I am torn

This week we were notified that on speech night  The_weapon is to receive an award for Services to the School at the Falcon Academy. I suspect this is in response to his twelve point action plan for any viral pandemic outbreak which included roving 'Health Monitors' with FULL AUTHORITY (his capitals not mine) to isolate, detain and neutralize any suspected infected.

The letter about the award came with a book voucher so we hived off to the local Borders and the_weapon got a bunch of books that will be wrapped up and presented to him by the
Teacher-General of the Falcon Academy on the night.

And here is my problem.

I am currently packing stuff to move to another place. Both my wife and I have always been voracious readers and hence we have a truckload of books we have collected over two lifetimes to pack and move.

I can only hope my son becomes similarly enraptured with the written word. But I think before much longer he will be using e-readers for most of his reading and here is my question. For special occasions such as awards an e-reader text is not going to make much of a memory.

So how do we recognize such an achievement in the world of E-texts? A Platinum Nook, unlikely.

Probably I'd go with some expensive leather bound copy of a book he really likes, but they don't make a hardened MIL-STD-810 ( its book equivalent) edition of Max Brooks 'How to Survive a Zombie Uprising' and he already has attractive hard back editions of The Art of War and The Book of Five Rings.

Any other suggestions?

9 comments:

  1. "...but they don't make a hardened MIL-STD-810"

    AHAHAHAHHA Gold. Special person you are my friend. You HAVE to have a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook and Terrorists Handbook there somewhere ... leather bound.

    I can't help ya, but BRILLIANT for the_weapon. Bravo and standing ovulation. Only school EVER that wouldn't call the cops for suggesting "neutralizing infected". Great stuff.

    Falcon Academy?...flying?.

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  2. Federation of American Scientists have the Al Qaeda training manual found on a bloke in Manchester - looks at Stu. Very interesting read ... in an Islamist fruit loopy sorta way. HE might like that too.

    Read the full translated text:

    http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ladin.htm

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  3. He is a bit too young yet for that one.

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  4. lol Okey dokey. Boundaries are good.

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  5. -'The Accidental Guerilla' & it's sequal "Counter insurgancy" by Kilcullen
    (for obvious reasons)
    -'Chernobyl' by piers paul reid (excellent example of being able to tell when everythings going to shite)
    -'Hot Zone' by Richard Preston
    -'Collapse' or 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond

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  6. Congratulations to your son! He's just as amazing as his father, I see. Maybe I'm a grizzled old man now but I'll always prefer a regular book to e-text.

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  7. Chazfh
    Thanks for the suggestions, I remember hearing an audio book of Chernobyl and it was chilling. Hot Zone I have on the shelf as well as another of his work 'the demon in the freezer' great read.

    PP
    Some will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

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  8. My mistake, book is called 'Ablaze' I've got it on my shelf!

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