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David’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at David’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
David Vernon’s Followers (12)
372 books
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289 friends
179 books
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45 friends
608 books
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332 friends
129 books
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447 friends
302 books
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18 friends
231 books
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9 friends
901 books
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256 friends
302 books
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517 friends
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David Vernon
Goodreads Author
Born
Australia
Website
Twitter
Genre
Member Since
March 2010
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David Vernon
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Men at Birth
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published
2006
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4 editions
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Artificial Cognitive Systems: A Primer
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published
2014
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7 editions
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A Good Yarn - seven mysteries that captivated Australia
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published
2021
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Dark Cognition: Evidence for Psi and Its Implications for Consciousness
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Birth Stories : real and inspiring accounts from Australian women
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published
2005
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3 editions
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The Umbrella's Shade and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Short Story Award
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published
2011
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3 editions
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Behind the Wattles
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published
2012
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2 editions
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Having a Great Birth in Australia
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published
2005
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Hitler Did It
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published
2013
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2 editions
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A Nice Boy
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David’s Recent Updates
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David Vernon
rated a book it was ok
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| This is a book of its time. Written shortly after WW2 it is too close to the action to provide a nuanced and clear explanation for the 'why' of the brutality and sheer horror that the Japanese inflicted on people of all races and colours. There are n ...more | |
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David Vernon
and
4 other people
liked
Noah Green's review
of
The Knights of Bushido: A History of Japanese War Crimes during World War II:
"Russell's books gives a cursory history of Japanese war crimes during World War II. The book is separated into chapters, each one describing Japanese war crimes in a specific context or carried out against a specific population. After a few chapters,"
Read more of this review »
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David Vernon
and
14 other people
liked
AC's review
of
The Knights of Bushido: A Short History of Japanese War Crimes:
"The three stars should not be taken as a criticism. This book gives a fairly detailed account of Japanese atrocities in WWII, written by a man who was himself a lawyer and one of the top British legal advisors at Nuremburg and at Tokyo. The first cha"
Read more of this review »
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David Vernon
rated a book liked it
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| A workman like tour of Australia's major and best know shipwrecks. I really would like to have read about some of the lesser known wrecks. As an introduction to Australian ship wrecks it's a good read. I appreciated his sceptical examination of some ...more | |
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David Vernon
rated a book liked it
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| Flashes of fascinating information are buried underneath academic dross. I only kept reading in the hope of finding more intriguing flashes, but they were few and far between. He explained eloquently why FWW graves were such a new phenomenon but that ...more | |
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David Vernon
rated a book it was ok
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| A fun little read. Very short. Very light on in detail. So very much more could have been written about the adventure - the people met, the places visited, the countryside, but was not to be. A big chance lost. | |
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David Vernon
rated a book liked it
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| A rather disappointing book from Australia's own professed wordsmith, Kel Richards. Structurally it didn't flow. Was this a book about Australia's first dictionary or was it a biography of a con man? It's clearly both but so poorly integrated it coul ...more | |
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David Vernon
rated a book liked it
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David Vernon
rated a book it was amazing
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| I have read many military history books, most pertaining to WW2. Despite my knowledge this cleverly compiled book provides an insight into the last days of the war that many other books fail to achieve. The juxtaposition of personal reminiscences and ...more | |
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David Vernon
rated a book really liked it
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“Above all, Sibelius's music concerns itself with the relationship between a melancholic yet ebullient mind and the wider world outside it; with the function of emotions, the imagination and the intellect in human life; with how art can survey, scrutinize and give meaning to the strangeness of existence.
“Frequently, therefore, not only do the abstract and the programmatic coalesce in Sibelius; the elemental - fire, earth, air, water - are also attached to the psychological. Nature painting in his music is never mere sonic landscaping but a penetrating examination of human mental processes, as well as insecurity and instability. The dark forests of Tapiola (1926) are the gloomy forests of the mind; the harsh, stark landscapes of the Fourth Symphony (1911) are soundscapes of spiritual, cerebral and ecological anguish; the erotic thrills and dangerous liaisons of Kullervo (1892), Lemminkäinen (1896), and the First Symphony (1899) serve as prophetic warnings not just about psychosexual licentiousness but environmental debauchery too.
“In his extraordinary symphonies and tone poems, Sibelius explores the stimulating forces and shadowy agencies lurking behind the locked doors of nature, the dense layers of myth and the misty windows of the soul. His is a captivating and increasingly pertinent musical mind we would do well to heed.”
― Sun Forest Lake: The Symphonies & Tone Poems of Jean Sibelius
“Frequently, therefore, not only do the abstract and the programmatic coalesce in Sibelius; the elemental - fire, earth, air, water - are also attached to the psychological. Nature painting in his music is never mere sonic landscaping but a penetrating examination of human mental processes, as well as insecurity and instability. The dark forests of Tapiola (1926) are the gloomy forests of the mind; the harsh, stark landscapes of the Fourth Symphony (1911) are soundscapes of spiritual, cerebral and ecological anguish; the erotic thrills and dangerous liaisons of Kullervo (1892), Lemminkäinen (1896), and the First Symphony (1899) serve as prophetic warnings not just about psychosexual licentiousness but environmental debauchery too.
“In his extraordinary symphonies and tone poems, Sibelius explores the stimulating forces and shadowy agencies lurking behind the locked doors of nature, the dense layers of myth and the misty windows of the soul. His is a captivating and increasingly pertinent musical mind we would do well to heed.”
― Sun Forest Lake: The Symphonies & Tone Poems of Jean Sibelius
Topics Mentioning This Author
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aussie Readers: **Spring Reading Challenge - 2014** | 861 | 232 | Dec 07, 2014 07:39PM | |
| Aussie Readers: **Winter Reading Challenge - 1/6/15 - 31/8/15** | 768 | 223 | Aug 31, 2015 07:15PM | |
| Goodreads Librari...: Same name, different authors | 3 | 5 | Oct 20, 2024 01:16AM | |
| The Life of a Boo...: A to Z Authors | 3981 | 1141 | Dec 25, 2025 07:35AM |
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
―
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
―
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