Now, ordinarily I’d be doing this over at the BCReadalong blog (I see I haven’t actually utilised that venue in over a year!), but I’ve decided that I want to invite people from places other than just BookCrossing to join me (the discussion threads will still be on the Book Talk Forum over at Bookcrossing.com).

So what is this all about?
Well, Charles Darwin’s masterpiece, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. I thought this provided a perfect opportunity to read it, and what better way than to do it with company? So I’m setting up a “readalong” and inviting anyone who sees this to read On the Origin of Species along with me, and to come by BookCrossing to participate in (optional) weekly discussions. (I’ll be posting links to the appropriate threads on the BookCrossing Book Talk forum as soon as they’re created.) The schedule for the Readalong can be found below. I hope you’ll find it a reasonable pace (I’m finding it a bit hard to judge since my copy has a lot of pictures and materials from other sources). Don’t worry if you fall behind; previous threads will remain active. Remember: this is for fun, not for school.

The Book

From a publisher:
“’A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die…’. Darwin’s theory of natural selection issued a profound challenge to orthodox thought and belief: no being or species has been specifically created; all are locked into a pitiless struggle for existence, with extinction looming for those not fitted for the task. Yet The Origin of the Species (1859) is also a humane and inspirational vision of ecological interrelatedness, revealing the complex mutual interdependencies between animal and plant life, climate and physical environment, and - by implication - within the human world. Written for the general reader, in a style which combines the rigour of science with the subtlety of literature, The Origin of the Species remains one of the founding documents of the modern age.”

The Schedule
Week 1: October 4, Introduction, Chapter 1
Week 2: October 11, Chapters 2-3
Week 3: October 18, Chapter 4
Week 4: October 25, Chapters 5-6
Week 5: November 1, Chapter 7
Week 6: November 8, Chapters 8-9
**note: The reading for Week 7 was moved ahead one week, to allow participants to catch up**
Week 7: November 22, Chapters 10-11
Week 8: November 29, Chapter 12
Week 9: December 6, Chapter 13
Week 10: December 13, Chapter 14

The Participants
Ibis3
Vekiki
FeistyPom2Love
grooble
swan-scot
Dunzy
Londonlife
miketroll
AZquark
geishabird
Cee-Blue

The Resources
Please let me know if you’d like me to add something here!
Dialogues With Darwin exhibit
Intelligent Design on Trial (a PBS doc on the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial)

The Vid
If you rate it, it’s more likely to come up in searches.

Book Alpha
3. The successive recognition by earlier philosophers of the material, efficient, and final causes

Notes:

• recap of the four types of causes: material (of what a thing consists), formal (how a thing results from patterns or laws), efficient (the agent of change), and final (to what end)
• earliest philosophers focused on material causes, trying to figure out what the basis of the existence of things is (i.e. what is the cosmos made of?)
• different philosophers saw different “elements” as primary (e.g. water, air, fire, four principal elements, infinite elements)
• from material causes, speculation grew respecting the efficient cause of the cosmos—why do things come to be and be destroyed?
• some proposed a single unchanged actor (Nature) that was the efficient cause of change
• though some thought change was random, that idea was considered by others as unseemly

From the publisher:
“First published in 1895, America’’s greatest novel of the Civil War was written before 21-year-old Stephen Crane had “smelled even the powder of a sham battle.” But this powerful psychological study of a young soldier’’s struggle with the horrors, both within and without, that war strikes the reader with its undeniable realism and with its masterful descriptions of the moment-by-moment riot of emotions felt by me under fire. Ernest Hemingway called the novel an American classic, and Crane’’s genius is as much apparent in his sharp, colourful prose as in his ironic portrayal of an episode of war so intense, so immediate, so real that the terror of battle becomes our own … in a masterpiece so unique that many believe modern American fiction began with Stephen Crane.

The Red Badge Of Courage has long been considered the first great ‘modern’ novel of war by an American–the first novel of literary distinction to present war without heroics and this in a spirit of total irony and skepticism.”

My thoughts:
I didn’t know what to expect when I started this book. I knew it was a nineteenth century American novel about a soldier, but aside from that I had no knowledge. The writing itself was very good, but the entire novel was really one long description, so it was more than a tad dull. On the other hand, the description was quite accurate, I could tell & I couldn’t help but compare Henry’s experience to those related in recent read, Fifteen Days. Also brought back memories of my time in basic training. I enjoyed the essay that ended the book, putting the events in their ironic context.

Book Alpha
2. Characteristics of ‘wisdom’ (philosophy)

Notes:

• the wise man’s knowledge is not of particulars
• the wise man’s knowledge knows things that are difficult, not things common to know (i.e. knowledge gleaned from the senses)
• the man who is able to teach causes is generally the wiser
• the higher form of knowledge is knowledge for its own sake, rather than knowledge for achieving results
• the most exact of the sciences are those that deal with primary things
• theoretical knowledge is more capable of teaching causes
• through primary things and causes we know other things and causes
• the most fundamental science is the one that “discerns the end for which each thing must be done”
• philosophy arose out of wonder at the heavenly bodies and curiosity about the origins of the universe, and is therefore knowledge for its own sake
• this is the one science that is divine if any science is