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    <h1>A Not So Fancy Listing of Books</h1>
   <div class="contents">
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec1">Marcus Aurelius</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec2">Meditations</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec3">William Blake</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec4">The Four Zoas</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec5">Jerusalem</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec6">Neil Gaiman</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec7">The Sandman (series)</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec8">John Taylor Gatto</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec9">Underground History of American Education</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec10">Kahlil Gibran</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec11">A Tear and a Smile</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec12">The Prophet</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec13">Sand and Foam</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec14">The Madman</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec15">William James</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec16">The Varieties of Religious Experience</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec17">The PhD Octopus</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec18">Henry James</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec19">The Altar of the Dead</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec20">Gregor Kiczales</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec21">The Art of the Metaobject Protocol</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec22">Søren Kierkegaard</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec23">Sickness Unto Death</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec24">Either/Or</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec25">Fear and Trembling</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec26">Alan Moore</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec27">Watchmen</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec28">V for Vendetta</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec29">Thomas More</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec30">Utopia</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec31">Friedrich Nietzsche</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec32">Beyond Good and Evil</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec33">On the Geneaology of Morals</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec34">Ecce Homo</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec35">Luke Rhinehardt</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec36">The Dice Man</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>
<a href="#sec37">Neal Stephenson</a>
</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>
<a href="#sec38">Snow Crash</a>
</dt>
<dt>
<a href="#sec39">Cryptonomicon</a>
</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>
</div>


<!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
Marcus Aurelius</h2>


<h3><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
Meditations</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••• </span> (6) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<p>I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic
philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books
before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the
collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting
according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but
each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A
number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in
my notebook to ponder further.</p>


<h2><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
William Blake</h2>

<p class="first">Blake is my <a href="William%20Blake.html">favorite</a> of the English poets. His
unique use of relief etching and watercoloring makes for very
interesting Illuminated works. There is a very high quality
<a href="http://blakearchive.org">complete archive of Blake's works</a> online
with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other
things.</p>

<h3><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
The Four Zoas</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad"> </span> (10) / <em>Fiction</em></p>

<p>The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The
Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal woe
to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of
Beulah.</p>


<h3><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
Jerusalem</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad"> </span> (10) / <em>Fiction</em></p>

<p>The finest of Blake's Illuminated works.</p>


<h2><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
Neil Gaiman</h2>


<h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
The Sandman (series)</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad"> </span> (10) / <em>Fiction</em></p>

<p>Perhaps the best comic book series of all time; I would say <em>The
Sandman</em> as a whole ranks higher than anything even Alan Moore has
written.</p>


<h2><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
John Taylor Gatto</h2>

<p class="first">Former teacher and now author-activist.</p>

<h3><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
Underground History of American Education</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">• </span> (9) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<p>An interesting <em>underground</em> history of the American education
system. Available
<a href="http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/">online for free</a>.</p>


<h2><a name="sec10" id="sec10"></a>
Kahlil Gibran</h2>

<p class="first">Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not
agree with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but <em>The Madman</em> onward are
all rather nice. A few of his works are
<a href="http://leb.net/~mira/">online</a>, but I recommend scouting used book
stores for old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least)
<em>hardcover</em> versions from <em>Alfred A. Knopf</em> are in fact permabound
paperbacks with a hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to
the editions from the 50s and 60s (and cost quite a bit more,
naturally).</p>

<h3><a name="sec11" id="sec11"></a>
A Tear and a Smile</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••</span><span class="rating-bad">••••••• </span> (3) / <em>Fiction</em></p>

<p>One of Kahlil Gibran's earlier works, I did not much like <em>A
Tear and a Smile</em> excepting the last poem (&quot;A Poet's Voice&quot;).</p>


<h3><a name="sec12" id="sec12"></a>
The Prophet</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">• </span> (9) / <em>Fiction</em></p>


<h3><a name="sec13" id="sec13"></a>
Sand and Foam</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••• </span> (7) / <em>Fiction</em></p>

<p>An interesting little book of aphorisms.</p>


<h3><a name="sec14" id="sec14"></a>
The Madman</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•• </span> (8) / <em>Fiction</em></p>


<h2><a name="sec15" id="sec15"></a>
William James</h2>


<h3><a name="sec16" id="sec16"></a>
The Varieties of Religious Experience</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••• </span> (7) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<p><a href="William%20James%20-%20The%20Varieties%20of%20Religious%20Experience.html">A partially finished extended summary</a></p>


<h3><a name="sec17" id="sec17"></a>
The PhD Octopus</h3>

<p><em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<blockquote>
<p class="quoted">
America is thus as a nation rapidly drifting towards a state of things
in which no man of science or letters will be accounted respectable
unless some kind of badge or diploma is stamped upon him, and in which
bare personality will be a mark of outcast estate.  It seems to me high
time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye
upon this decidedly grotesque tendency.  Other nations suffer terribly
from the Mandarin disease.  Are we doomed to suffer like the rest?</p>

</blockquote>

<p><a href="William%20James%20-%20The%20PhD%20Octopus.html">Full Text</a></p>


<h2><a name="sec18" id="sec18"></a>
Henry James</h2>

<p class="first">The novelist brother of William James; I've not read many (read:
one) of his books, but what I did was decent.</p>

<h3><a name="sec19" id="sec19"></a>
The Altar of the Dead</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••• </span> (7) / <em>Fiction</em></p>

<p>A short novella about a man who maintained an altar in a church
for all of his lost loved ones on the surface, but something a bit
more beneath.</p>


<h2><a name="sec20" id="sec20"></a>
Gregor Kiczales</h2>


<h3><a name="sec21" id="sec21"></a>
The Art of the Metaobject Protocol</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad"> </span> (10) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<p>AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with
the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first
half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a
series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations
and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for
CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general
object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly
make mapping decisions customizable.</p>


<h2><a name="sec22" id="sec22"></a>
Søren Kierkegaard</h2>

<p class="first">Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is
interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused
disagreeable.</p>

<h3><a name="sec23" id="sec23"></a>
Sickness Unto Death</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad"> </span> (10) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<p>I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after
being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it
was better for me to have found this one.</p>

<p>Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of
Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends,
the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is
reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation
forces reflection.</p>


<h3><a name="sec24" id="sec24"></a>
Either/Or</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad"> </span> (10) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<p>Composed of two portions, <em>Either/Or</em> is a rather lengthy but
rewarding read. The first book is a series of essays and a diary of a
young esthetician; the second is a pair of long letters from an older
ethicist friend to this esthetician. You are then left to resolve the
conflict between the views.</p>


<h3><a name="sec25" id="sec25"></a>
Fear and Trembling</h3>

<p><em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<p>An interesting dialectical lyric contrasting Despair and Faith.</p>


<h2><a name="sec26" id="sec26"></a>
Alan Moore</h2>


<h3><a name="sec27" id="sec27"></a>
Watchmen</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•• </span> (8) / <em>Fiction</em></p>


<h3><a name="sec28" id="sec28"></a>
V for Vendetta</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad"> </span> (10) / <em>Fiction</em></p>


<h2><a name="sec29" id="sec29"></a>
Thomas More</h2>


<h3><a name="sec30" id="sec30"></a>
Utopia</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••• </span> (7) / <em>Fiction</em></p>

<p>I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but
the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the
overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so
I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick
read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system
espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a
negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European
social customs.</p>


<h2><a name="sec31" id="sec31"></a>
Friedrich Nietzsche</h2>

<p class="first">A bit acerbic and esoteric, Nietzsche is for me a good <em>secular</em>
counterpart to Kierkegaard's theistic philosophy. Nietzsche's
polemical works raise important questions for anyone who reads works
on ethics. As such it is a shame that he has gotten a bad reputation
by being read by far too many angsty teenagers who see (and relay)
only Nietzsche the asshole rather than Nietzsche the master of the
polemic.</p>

<h3><a name="sec32" id="sec32"></a>
Beyond Good and Evil</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•• </span> (8) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<p>A somewhat more comprehensible, if a bit less aesthetically
pleasing, presentation of much of the philosophy found in <em>Thus Spoke
Zarathustra</em> in the negative form. The final chapters are very
important (not to detract from the value of the rest of the work) if
one wishes to understand <em>On the Genealogy of Morals</em>.</p>


<h3><a name="sec33" id="sec33"></a>
On the Geneaology of Morals</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">• </span> (9) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<p><em>On the Geneaology of Morals</em> is a wonderful book of three
polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethic valuations, and the
blindness of modern philosphers whose very thinking is tainted by
these valuations unknowingly.</p>


<h3><a name="sec34" id="sec34"></a>
Ecce Homo</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••• </span> (7) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>

<p><em>Ecce Homo</em> is Nietzsche's very strange autobiography and
explanation of his own works. At points it is clear that it could have
used a bit more editing (prevented by Nietzsche ... falling into a
catatonic state and all), but is still a very useful book to read as
Nietzsche explains the overall structure of his works.</p>


<h2><a name="sec35" id="sec35"></a>
Luke Rhinehardt</h2>


<h3><a name="sec36" id="sec36"></a>
The Dice Man</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••• </span> (7) / <em>Fiction</em></p>

<blockquote>
<p class="quoted">
And it's his illusions about what
constitutes the real world which are
inhibiting him...
His reality, his reason, his society
...these are what must be destroyed</p>

</blockquote>

<p>A quotation from one of my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter_of_the_Soul">favorite metal songs</a> inspired me to grab
this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found
in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an
autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression
through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through
random chance.</p>

<p>The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part
attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often
difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.</p>


<h2><a name="sec37" id="sec37"></a>
Neal Stephenson</h2>


<h3><a name="sec38" id="sec38"></a>
Snow Crash</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> •••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">• </span> (9) / <em>Fiction</em></p>

<p>As one must read the <em>Bible</em> to understand English literature, so one
must read <em>Snow Crash</em> today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop
fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in
a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come
up with enganging tales. <em>Snow Crash</em> has a nice undertone of (quite
accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading
as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.</p>


<h3><a name="sec39" id="sec39"></a>
Cryptonomicon</h3>

<p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good"> ••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•• </span> (8) / <em>Fiction</em></p>

<p>I read <em>Cryptonomicon</em> when it was new, and at the time I thought it was
good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from
the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to
finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between
the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way.</p>

<p>I'd still have to recommend <em>Snow Crash</em> if one wished to read only one
Stephenson novel.</p>


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<p class="cke-footer">Corinne: this is why we should have designated bath buddies
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<p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified:
    December 14, 2008</p>
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