[Lokutus]

I've only read The Long Emergency so far.

What books would you say are the 5 best ones on PO?

Should I go with The Party's Over as my next read?

[FireJack]

I would say it depends on what you want to know. I would say books of self sufficiency would be more usefull. I just bought "the self-sufficient life and how to live it" by john seymour, lots of useful info in there. There is the SAS survival handbook.
For me I don't think any more books will help right now. I need to go out and actually do this stuff.

[Armageddon]

please list your favorite, or better yet, your top 3 . I need more reading materials , and dont want to waste my time on just any book.
i have read two already, crossing the rubicon, and twilight in the desert.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('armegeddon', 'p')lease list your favorite, or better yet, your top 3 . I need more reading materials , and dont want to waste my time on just any book.
i have read two already, crossing the rubicon, and twilight in the desert.

[Heineken]

I started a forum on this same subject several months ago.

The best, most eye-opening book (of any sort) that I've read in the past few years is "The Sorrows of Empire," by Chalmers Johnson. It will rock your Weltanschauung.

I also think everyone should read Heinberg's radical-leaning "The Party's Over." You may not agree with it, but you should read it.

"Petrodollar Warfare" should be on any PO reading list. It clarifies the real reasons behind Bush's Iraq War.

I finished "Twilight in the Desert" a few weeks ago. It is a very, very important book, but be prepared for a lot of incredibly boring, technical details about individual Saudi oil fields. I frankly had to skip over some pages. On the other hand, I learned a lot about oil that I never knew before.

[Armageddon]

i also want something that is very current that shows new data. any suggestions ?

[Armageddon]

i just googled petrodollar warefare and read the info on it. Sounds interesting, i think im going to order it. Do you think major bookstores will have it, or do i have to order it online ? thanks for the info

[Armageddon]

crossing the rubicon ties it all togather. it explains why and how bush and cheney needed to attack iraq, and the whole 911 conspiracy ( which i totally agree with ) They were either behind it ( likely ) or at the very minimum, allowed it to happen.

[Heineken]

amazon has it, last time I checked.

[untothislast]

'Harry Potter & The Mysterious Data of Ghawar'

[medicvet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('untothislast', ''')Harry Potter & The Mysterious Data of Ghawar'

[clv101]

The single best peak oil book I've read (well I'm half way through it at the moment) and I've read most of them is Half Gone: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis by Jeremy Leggett (in the US the same book has a different title, The Empty Tank : Oil, Gas, Hot Air, and the Coming Global Financial Catastrophe).

[locomotive]

my top 5 on peak oil :

5 copies of Crossing the Rubicon, Michael C. Ruppert !!

Read one, give away 4 !

100, 000 copies sold and no review whatsoever !

it explains the whole landscape of peak oil : ressource depletion, economic collapse... and the covert mechanism that inextricably agravates it all.

absolutely must read & discuss !

PS : the Hirsh Report is also a very valuable source on the issue :
http://www.energybulletin.net/4638.html

[Guest]

Heinberg "Party's Over" is the best of the peak oil books I've read so far. He also wrote a followup called Powerdown which attempts to chart the possible scenarios that result out the peak oil premise - but I thoughth this book was weaker.

Julian Darley "High Noon for Natural Gas" is a pretty good read too.

"Twilight in the Desert" had a lot of interesting information but it may be a bit too specialised for the more generalist reader.

"The Long Emergency" had some interesting speculations on how the US would look post-peak. But Kunstler's alignment with neocon ideology of late has me more than a little distraught though I guess his book is still worth getting. Bruce Sterling's fiction book "Dies the Fire" is not about peak oil, but it is an excellent extrapolation of how things could look in a post-economic collapse world. What it did for me was to go beyond the first year or so of 'survivalism' to how things would develop after this initial period.

Even though I have yet to read it "petrodollar warfare" is high on my list and I am recommending it to friends.

I've also read part of "Oil, Jihad and Destiny" but couldn't get into it.

[Leanan]

I like Ken Deffeyes (Hubbert's Peak) and David Goodstein (Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil). IMO, they complement each other. Deffeyes knows geology. He explains how we find oil, where we find oil, and why we know we will not make any major new oil discoveries. Goodstein is a physicist, and takes a thermodynamic view. He runs the numbers, and shows why solar, nuclear, wind, coal, etc., will not be enough to replace oil.

These books are not as fun to read as Kunstler's tales of pirate attacks, but IMO they are very useful in understanding the scope of the problem.

More generally, I recommend Jared Diamond's Collapse, and Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies. Diamond's book is easier to read, and blames societal collapse largely on depletion of natural resources. Tainter is more theoretical, and makes what is basically a thermodynamic argument: that complexity has an energy cost, and that increasing complexity requires increased energy resources. A great book to read if you're wondering if technology can save us again.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'I') like Ken Deffeyes (Hubbert's Peak) and David Goodstein (Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil). IMO, they complement each other. Deffeyes knows geology. He explains how we find oil, where we find oil, and why we know we will not make any major new oil discoveries. Goodstein is a physicist, and takes a thermodynamic view. He runs the numbers, and shows why solar, nuclear, wind, coal, etc., will not be enough to replace oil.

These books are not as fun to read as Kunstler's tales of pirate attacks, but IMO they are very useful in understanding the scope of the problem.

More generally, I recommend Jared Diamond's Collapse, and Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies. Diamond's book is easier to read, and blames societal collapse largely on depletion of natural resources. Tainter is more theoretical, and makes what is basically a thermodynamic argument: that complexity has an energy cost, and that increasing complexity requires increased energy resources. A great book to read if you're wondering if technology can save us again.

[Leanan]

I like Twilight in the Desert, too, but the guy who started this thread said he already read that, so I didn't list it.

[clv101]

Here's my peak oil reading list.

My top five (in no particular order) would be:

Half Gone: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis
Jeremy Leggett

The Limits to Growth: The 30-year Update
Donella H. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis L. Meadows

Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage
Kenneth S. Deffeyes

Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble
Lester R. Brown

Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies
Richard Heinberg

[PhebaAndThePilgrim]

Good day from Pheba:
The problem I find with peak oil books is that they are like potato chips. You can't read just one. The entire concept hits like a freight train, so you have to keep reading.
The entire concept seems surreal at first. Then as it sinks in, it becomes like a bad habit. You have to keep reading.
All of it seems like some bad dream that has burst the bubble of our make-believe world.
Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael" was actually the first book I read that began my awakening.
The second book I read was "Taliban" by Rashid. What a hard read. I had to read the book twice because I just did not understand, no, that's not right. I refused to comprehend what was really happening.
My next book was "The Party's Over". My world finally crumbled. I felt like Alice, crawling back out of the rabbit hole.
Personally, I don't think reading just Peak Oil books can accurately give a person the grasp of what is really going on.
Here is a list of books I have read, and how they have helped me grasp the concept in a bigger way.
"Oil, Power and Empire": Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda" by Larry Everest. A very good book, easy to read.
"Party's Over and Powerdown. Make sure and get the 2nd edition of Party's Over. Heinberg had some errors in first edition that he corrected in second edition. My hubby and I are farmers. He had errors on farming corn acreage in first edition. We e-mailed him and asked him about them. He was so gracious, a delightful, modest, honest person. He explained that 2nd edition is updated with correction.
"the Stork and the Plow" by Ehrlich and Daily. A necessary book to understand the impact of population on our energy problems.
"The Official Guide to the X-Files". Volumes 1-6. When all of this reality gets to be too much.
"Entropy" or "Entropy Into the Greenhouse World" by Jeremy Rifkin. Both out of print, but on E-Bay. The absolute most important basic information to learn: The first and second law of thermodynamics.
"The Geography of Nowhere" by Kunstler. Sorry folks, but I like this book better than Kunstler's "Long Emergency". I like Kunstler, but I did not like his pro-war stance in Long Emergency, and I feel he tried to cover too much in one book with Long Emergency, so he just fell short.
"Hubbert's Peak by Deffeyes, and "The View From Hubbert's Peak"
"Earth Odyssey" by Mark Hertsgaard. Not an oil book, but an eye opener of the natural consequences of our energy sucking world. heart-wrenching
"Twlight In the Desert". An eye opener, but I wish somebody would have explained to Mr. Simmons that most people are not in the oil business and would have a difficult time understanding his technical terms. A glossary would have made all the difference in the world.
"This Place On Earth" by Alan Thein Durning. A beautiful book. In one chapter Durning describes the energy used just to give him his cup of morning coffee. A real eye opener.
"Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson and "The Sorrows of Empire" by Chalmers Johnson. "Blowback" is an awesome book.
"High Noon For Natural Gas" by Julian Darley
"Resource Wars" by Michael T. Klare. For some reason this book is often overlooked in a list of peak oil books. Written in 2001, this book still paints a very clear picture of our growing conflicts over natural resources, mainly oil and water.
I have read tons more, but can't remember them right now. Just pick five.
Personally , I found it necessary to also read books on politics and population and global warming. All of these problems tie in.
Just remember to take time out to read X-Files, or whatever, when it all gets to be too much.
Pheba