Book List.html

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  13     <h1>A Not So Fancy Listing of Books</h1>
  14    <div class="contents">
  15 <dl>
  16 <dt>
  17 <a href="#sec1">Marcus Aurelius</a>
  18 </dt>
  19 <dd>
  20 <dl>
  21 <dt>
  22 <a href="#sec2">Meditations</a>
  23 </dt>
  24 </dl>
  25 </dd>
  26 <dt>
  27 <a href="#sec3">William Blake</a>
  28 </dt>
  29 <dd>
  30 <dl>
  31 <dt>
  32 <a href="#sec4">The Four Zoas</a>
  33 </dt>
  34 <dt>
  35 <a href="#sec5">Jerusalem</a>
  36 </dt>
  37 </dl>
  38 </dd>
  39 <dt>
  40 <a href="#sec6">John Taylor Gatto</a>
  41 </dt>
  42 <dd>
  43 <dl>
  44 <dt>
  45 <a href="#sec7">Underground History of American Education</a>
  46 </dt>
  47 </dl>
  48 </dd>
  49 <dt>
  50 <a href="#sec8">Kahlil Gibran</a>
  51 </dt>
  52 <dd>
  53 <dl>
  54 <dt>
  55 <a href="#sec9">A Tear and a Smile</a>
  56 </dt>
  57 <dt>
  58 <a href="#sec10">The Prophet</a>
  59 </dt>
  60 <dt>
  61 <a href="#sec11">Sand and Foam</a>
  62 </dt>
  63 <dt>
  64 <a href="#sec12">The Madman</a>
  65 </dt>
  66 </dl>
  67 </dd>
  68 <dt>
  69 <a href="#sec13">William James</a>
  70 </dt>
  71 <dd>
  72 <dl>
  73 <dt>
  74 <a href="#sec14">The Varieties of Religious Experience</a>
  75 </dt>
  76 </dl>
  77 </dd>
  78 <dt>
  79 <a href="#sec15">Gregor Kiczales</a>
  80 </dt>
  81 <dd>
  82 <dl>
  83 <dt>
  84 <a href="#sec16">The Art of the Metaobject Protocol</a>
  85 </dt>
  86 </dl>
  87 </dd>
  88 <dt>
  89 <a href="#sec17">Søren Kierkegaard</a>
  90 </dt>
  91 <dd>
  92 <dl>
  93 <dt>
  94 <a href="#sec18">Sickness Unto Death</a>
  95 </dt>
  96 <dt>
  97 <a href="#sec19">Either/Or</a>
  98 </dt>
  99 </dl>
 100 </dd>
 101 <dt>
 102 <a href="#sec20">Thomas More</a>
 103 </dt>
 104 <dd>
 105 <dl>
 106 <dt>
 107 <a href="#sec21">Utopia</a>
 108 </dt>
 109 </dl>
 110 </dd>
 111 <dt>
 112 <a href="#sec22">Friedrich Nietzsche</a>
 113 </dt>
 114 <dd>
 115 <dl>
 116 <dt>
 117 <a href="#sec23">Beyond Good and Evil</a>
 118 </dt>
 119 <dt>
 120 <a href="#sec24">On the Geneaology of Morals</a>
 121 </dt>
 122 </dl>
 123 </dd>
 124 <dt>
 125 <a href="#sec25">Luke Rhinehardt</a>
 126 </dt>
 127 <dd>
 128 <dl>
 129 <dt>
 130 <a href="#sec26">The Dice Man</a>
 131 </dt>
 132 </dl>
 133 </dd>
 134 <dt>
 135 <a href="#sec27">Neal Stephenson</a>
 136 </dt>
 137 <dd>
 138 <dl>
 139 <dt>
 140 <a href="#sec28">Snow Crash</a>
 141 </dt>
 142 <dt>
 143 <a href="#sec29">Cryptonomicon</a>
 144 </dt>
 145 </dl>
 146 </dd>
 147 </dl>
 148 </div>
 149
 150
 151 <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
 152 Marcus Aurelius</h2>
 153
 154
 155
 156 <h3><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
 157 Meditations</h3>
 158
 159 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••••</span> (6) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 160
 161 <p>I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic
 162 philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books
 163 before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the
 164 collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting
 165 according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but
 166 each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A
 167 number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in
 168 my notebook to ponder further.</p>
 169
 170
 171
 172 <h2><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
 173 William Blake</h2>
 174
 175 <p class="first">Blake is my <a href="William%20Blake.html">favorite</a> of the English poets. His
 176 unique use of relief etching and watercoloring makes for very
 177 interesting Illuminated works. There is a very high quality
 178 <a href="http://blakearchive.org">complete archive of Blake's works</a> online
 179 with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other
 180 things.</p>
 181
 182 <h3><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
 183 The Four Zoas</h3>
 184
 185 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••••</span> (10) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 186
 187 <p>The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The
 188 Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal woe
 189 to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of
 190 Beulah.</p>
 191
 192
 193 <h3><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
 194 Jerusalem</h3>
 195
 196 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••••</span> (10) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 197
 198 <p>The finest of Blake's Illuminated works.</p>
 199
 200
 201
 202 <h2><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
 203 John Taylor Gatto</h2>
 204
 205 <p class="first">Former teacher and now author-activist.</p>
 206
 207 <h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
 208 Underground History of American Education</h3>
 209
 210 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•</span> (9) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 211
 212 <p>An interesting <em>underground</em> history of the American education
 213 system. Available
 214 <a href="http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/">online for free</a>.</p>
 215
 216
 217
 218 <h2><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
 219 Kahlil Gibran</h2>
 220
 221 <p class="first">Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not
 222 agree with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but <em>The Madman</em> onward are
 223 all rather nice. A few of his works are
 224 <a href="http://leb.net/~mira/">online</a>, but I recommend scouting used book
 225 stores for old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least)
 226 <em>hardcover</em> versions from <em>Alfred A. Knopf</em> are in fact permabound
 227 paperbacks with a hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to
 228 the editions from the 50s and 60s (and cost quite a bit more,
 229 naturally).</p>
 230
 231 <h3><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
 232 A Tear and a Smile</h3>
 233
 234 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••••••</span> (3) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 235
 236 <p>One of Kahlil Gibran's earlier works, I did not much like <em>A
 237 Tear and a Smile</em> excepting the last poem (&quot;A Poet's Voice&quot;).</p>
 238
 239
 240 <h3><a name="sec10" id="sec10"></a>
 241 The Prophet</h3>
 242
 243 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•</span> (9) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 244
 245
 246
 247
 248 <h3><a name="sec11" id="sec11"></a>
 249 Sand and Foam</h3>
 250
 251 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••</span> (7) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 252
 253 <p>An interesting little book of aphorisms.</p>
 254
 255
 256 <h3><a name="sec12" id="sec12"></a>
 257 The Madman</h3>
 258
 259 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••</span> (8) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 260
 261
 262
 263
 264
 265 <h2><a name="sec13" id="sec13"></a>
 266 William James</h2>
 267
 268
 269
 270 <h3><a name="sec14" id="sec14"></a>
 271 The Varieties of Religious Experience</h3>
 272
 273 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••</span> (7) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 274
 275 <p><a href="William%20James%20-%20The%20Varieties%20of%20Religious%20Experience.html">A partially finished extended summary</a></p>
 276
 277
 278
 279 <h2><a name="sec15" id="sec15"></a>
 280 Gregor Kiczales</h2>
 281
 282
 283
 284 <h3><a name="sec16" id="sec16"></a>
 285 The Art of the Metaobject Protocol</h3>
 286
 287 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••••</span> (10) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 288
 289 <p>AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with
 290 the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first
 291 half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a
 292 series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations
 293 and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for
 294 CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general
 295 object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly
 296 make mapping decisions customizable.</p>
 297
 298
 299
 300 <h2><a name="sec17" id="sec17"></a>
 301 Søren Kierkegaard</h2>
 302
 303 <p class="first">Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is
 304 interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused
 305 disagreeable.</p>
 306
 307 <h3><a name="sec18" id="sec18"></a>
 308 Sickness Unto Death</h3>
 309
 310 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••••</span> (10) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 311
 312 <p>I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after
 313 being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it
 314 was better for me to have found this one.</p>
 315
 316 <p>Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of
 317 Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends,
 318 the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is
 319 reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation
 320 forces reflection.</p>
 321
 322
 323 <h3><a name="sec19" id="sec19"></a>
 324 Either/Or</h3>
 325
 326 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••••</span> (10) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 327
 328 <p>Composed of two portions, <em>Either/Or</em> is a rather lengthy but
 329 rewarding read. The first book is a series of essays and a diary of a
 330 young esthetician; the second is a pair of long letters from an older
 331 ethicist friend to this esthetician. You are then left to resolve the
 332 conflict between the views.</p>
 333
 334
 335
 336 <h2><a name="sec20" id="sec20"></a>
 337 Thomas More</h2>
 338
 339
 340
 341 <h3><a name="sec21" id="sec21"></a>
 342 Utopia</h3>
 343
 344 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••</span> (7) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 345
 346 <p>I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but
 347 the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the
 348 overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so
 349 I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick
 350 read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system
 351 espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a
 352 negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European
 353 social customs.</p>
 354
 355
 356
 357 <h2><a name="sec22" id="sec22"></a>
 358 Friedrich Nietzsche</h2>
 359
 360 <p class="first">A bit acerbic and esoteric, Nietzsche is for me a good <em>secular</em>
 361 counterpart to Kierkegaard's theistic philosophy. Nietzsche's
 362 polemical works raise important questions for anyone who reads works
 363 on ethics. As such it is a shame that he has gotten a bad reputation
 364 by being read by far too many angsty teenagers who see (and relay)
 365 only Nietzsche the asshole rather than Nietzsche the master of the
 366 polemic.</p>
 367
 368 <h3><a name="sec23" id="sec23"></a>
 369 Beyond Good and Evil</h3>
 370
 371 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••</span> (8) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 372
 373 <p>A somewhat more comprehensible, if a bit less aesthetically
 374 pleasing, presentation of much of the philosophy found in <em>Thus Spoke
 375 Zarathustra</em>. The final chapters are very important (not to detract
 376 from the value of the rest of the work) if one wishes to understand
 377 <em>On the Genealogy of Morals</em>.</p>
 378
 379
 380 <h3><a name="sec24" id="sec24"></a>
 381 On the Geneaology of Morals</h3>
 382
 383 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•</span> (9) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 384
 385 <p><em>On the Geneaology of Morals</em> is a wonderful book of three
 386 polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethic valuations, and the
 387 blindness of modern philosphers whose very thinking is tainted by
 388 these valuations unknowingly.</p>
 389
 390
 391
 392 <h2><a name="sec25" id="sec25"></a>
 393 Luke Rhinehardt</h2>
 394
 395
 396
 397 <h3><a name="sec26" id="sec26"></a>
 398 The Dice Man</h3>
 399
 400 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••</span> (7) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 401
 402 <blockquote>
 403 <p class="quoted">
 404 And it's his illusions about what
 405 constitutes the real world which are
 406 inhibiting him...
 407 His reality, his reason, his society
 408 ...these are what must be destroyed</p>
 409
 410 </blockquote>
 411
 412 <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
 413 this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found
 414 in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an
 415 autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression
 416 through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through
 417 random chance.</p>
 418
 419 <p>The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part
 420 attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often
 421 difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.</p>
 422
 423
 424
 425 <h2><a name="sec27" id="sec27"></a>
 426 Neal Stephenson</h2>
 427
 428
 429
 430 <h3><a name="sec28" id="sec28"></a>
 431 Snow Crash</h3>
 432
 433 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•</span> (9) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 434
 435 <p>As one must read the <em>Bible</em> to understand English literature, so one
 436 must read <em>Snow Crash</em> today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop
 437 fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in
 438 a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come
 439 up with enganging tales. <em>Snow Crash</em> has a nice undertone of (quite
 440 accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading
 441 as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.</p>
 442
 443
 444 <h3><a name="sec29" id="sec29"></a>
 445 Cryptonomicon</h3>
 446
 447 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••</span> (8) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 448
 449 <p>I read <em>Cryptonomicon</em> when it was new, and at the time I thought it was
 450 good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from
 451 the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to
 452 finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between
 453 the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way.</p>
 454
 455 <p>I'd still have to recommend <em>Snow Crash</em> if one wished to read only one
 456 Stephenson novel.</p>
 457
 458
 459
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 485
 486 <p class="cke-footer">Mike: GOD DAMMIT CLINTON
 487 Mike: I need to get you a copy of everything from the renaissance.
 488 Mike: BECAUSE THE RENAISSACE WAS LIKE "Heyyyyyy we're starting to
 489       semi-doubt religion!  LOOK INVENTIONS!!!"
 490 </p>
 491 <p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified:
 492     August  6, 2008</p>
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