Favourite books?

Unrelated to books but I know we share similar behaviours to chimpanzees who are extremely territorial, engage in patrols of their land and even kill each other sometimes attacking in groups. So we have early-stage nationalistic chimps who have created an army to protect their land and all done very naturally. They’ve even been observed to scout out perceived threats by climbing up to higher points in their environments. I think humans beings have slowly tried to become more diplomatic for the sake of peace, many a civilisation’s have come and gone and we’ve progressed so much by learning from each other over time however our ancestral roots are very much part of our DNA in such a way that it takes equal effort from all groups and parties to maintain a level of cooperation and stability, 

Wordsmith said:

PS As an astronomer turned theologian, I find it hard to believe that there is such a thing as ‘just an astrophysicist’!

Do you mean it is because your understanding of astrophysics has led to your interest in understanding God? 

I've heard that about the Plague too, it seems to have mutated in some way and become more infectious?

I've not read Gimbutas for many years, but I've read a lot of stuff where she is quoted, either negatively or possitively, to be honest I do think she let her imagination run away with her a bit. But more recently studies of bones of the Durotriges Tribe in modern Dorset show that the women stayed put and its the men who moved in with thier wives, women were often buried with very high staus goods, some previously thought to be "male" grave goods. It's probably that many peoples practiced Matrilocality, Men moving into a female family, instead of the other way around, it's even thought that it was widespread in northern Europe, which would be why so many Roman writers refer to the prominence of women in the societies they encountered.

It was always supposed that any graves with weapons, chariots, ships must have been male graves, but this says more about the attitudes of those assessing these things than what was practised by the peoples being studied. Anthropology, osteology and DNA testing have advanced how we look at graves and the bodies that remain in them. 

I've often wondered where and when things like patriarchy started and of course why. Some years ago I read all of Jean M Auel's The Earths Children series, they were very good until the last one, which annoyed me. Trouble is she spent so long researching each book that the first was outdated by the time the third one was published, but they still make interesting reading, as long as you remember she wrote over a span of about 20 years.

I read a piece about Brehon law in Ireland, this was in place from pre-history up until Henry VIII's time, although it was modified especially by the arrival of Christianity. But it says that a man owns the land and the building/house upon it, but the woman owns the animals on the land and everything within the house. If the couple divorce, which they were allowed to do, then they each take what they brough to the relationship and any further gains are shared between them. I think this is a good example of patrilocality and gives an idea of how the Durotiges and others may have lived and divided assests. It seems a much more equitable way of life whether it's matrilocality or patrilocality.

My favourite fiction, un no particular order:

Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let me Go

Robert Silver erg Dying Inside

Bram Stoker Dracula 

HG Wells The Time Machine

John Wyndham The Chrysalids

Arthur C are The City and the Stars

Patrick Mc Graph Asylum

Robert Pirsig Zen and the Art of motorcycle maintenance

Bodies Jed Mdrcurio

Dr Death Jed Mercurio

Non fiction includes the series by Joseph Campbell on mytbology

Monica Sjoo New Age and Armageddon

The Gnostic Gospels Elaine Pagels 

Robert Lanza Biocentrism

Utopia for Realista Rutger Bergman

There's plenty more

Great post!

I don’t have an all time favourite book, but I have chosen some of my stand-out books.

Non-fiction

The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines. Edited by Timothy Insoll. 
This reference book offers a comparative survey of approaches to figurine studies from around the world. It is an excellent resource although it could do with being updated as it doesn’t include contemporary theories and approaches since 2017. Nevertheless, it remains an invaluable resource.

God: An Anatomy. Francesca Stavrakopoulou                                                                                                                                               This has been described as a remarkable book and I would agree. The author is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter. She discusses God’s physical attributes as described in sources going back to El.  Many of the things she discusses are common knowledge for theologians, archaeologists and historians, yet she is the first person to categorise God’s anatomy over the ages and to put it into a single book. The paperback edition is a handy size, is extremely well bound, and has been produced on good paper. It feels good in the hand and I just love this book. 

Unleashing Your Dog: A Field Guide to Freedom. Mark Bekoff and Jessica Pierce.                            
The authors are highly respected in their fields and their book has received acclaim from canine behaviourists, veterinary surgeons, canine psychologists and ethologists around the world. Canine behaviour is one of my interests and I endeavour to follow the principles of this book as I want to give my dogs the best life possible. 

Fiction

The Island. Victoria Hislop

The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini

The Marriage Portrait. Maggie O’Farrell

I don't actually have the Gimbutas books, but I would imagine she is talking about neolithic times.That was from looking at the squat Venus figures, and so on. Riane Eisler followed up on this information, I know they hypothesized that it was Kurgan warriors that changed things. You can get a rough and ready take on what she was about on Gimbutas. She is seen as an eccentric now but just recently, an Elisha Daeva has contested this view, and that she was probably right. 

On a different note, I hear they are now saying that plague has been around since neolithic times: any period of famine or disease may have set humanity on newer, more violent trajectoiries. 

Nexus11 said:

humans having been more peacefully matriarchal in the beginning. 

That’s an interesting view, I haven’t read that. Does the book specify when the beginning would have been? 

Sapiens is good and vogently written but it could be the writer is a little too sold on the idea that our species is that war like and destructive. Recently I read a non academic who nevertheless did her homework and raised the idea again that Gimbutas may have been right about humans having been more peacefully matriarchal in the beginning. 

I have read some Ian Rankin, but I've gone off a lot of American writers. My favourites are Elly Griffiths, Ruth Galloway series, Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, David J Gatwood's Harry Grim series, Simon McCleave's DI Ruth Hunter series, Kate Ellis's Wesley Peterson series and so many more.

You could try, The Early Anglo-Saxon Kings, by Tony Sullivan, if you have a look at Pen and Sword book publishers they have good history books. I just looked on Amazon, but it's being awkward again and trying to give me everything but what I asked for.

Harry Potter is an amazing series of books. I think the Philosophers Stone was the first "big" book I read and I was hooked straight away.

My favourite is the Half Blood Prince followed very closely by the Chamber of Secrets.

I haven't heard of that before but I'll give it a try. I'm always on the look out for a new read! 

The HHGTTG series holds a dear place in my heart. I think it resonates with the orthogonal thinker in me.

I got put off Shakespeare in school. All that analysis of every single line of a poem or a play just seemed so ... unnecessary. He wrote his plays to be enjoyed first time at a live performance, so why did someone think that spending two years trying to read just one of them with forensic attention to detail was a good idea?

So, after a 35-year hiatus, I decided to give Shakespeare a go again. I picked up Hamlet and just read it from start to finish over the course of a day. (I didn't do Hamlet in school, so this was my first time.) If I didn't understand some words or allusions, I just ploughed ahead and didn't worry about it. The result? I liked it. Really liked it. I liked it enough that I then gave "the Scottish play" a read. I liked that, too (maybe not quite so much). Then I read King Lear (which I did in school) and, well, it seemed a bit flat. It seemed a bit short and one-dimensional compared to how I remembered it. Perhaps all that exegesis in school had ruined it for me, or maybe it had added something extra back then.

Anyway, the moral of the story: give Hamlet a read and don't worry if you don't understand all the words—it's worth it.

Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, and subsequent books. The style has always appealed to me.

I also like Orwell and some Shakespeare.

I like some of them more than others I find 

Terry Pratchett [drops mike]

You should try Babylon: Mesopotamia and the birth of civilisation in that case! It continues this idea rather nicely into the description of how the first Mesopotamian cities formed

TheCatWoman said:

I read loads of crime fiction

Any Michael Connelly or Ian Rankin? Those are my go-tos for crime.

I got a halo Nigel but I hope it’s not like the Star Wars ines where you left lost if you haven’t read the rest 

Ive read it several times since snd I always forget what happened and get half way through and spoil it for my self lol 

the best laid plans of mice and ment oft go awry 

190E(Taylor’s version) said:

Of mice and men

I remember this book, it was a study for my GCSE in English