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16 <h1>A Not So Fancy Listing of Books
</h1>
17 <div class=
"contents">
20 <a href=
"#sec1">Marcus Aurelius
</a>
25 <a href=
"#sec2">Meditations
</a>
30 <a href=
"#sec3">William Blake
</a>
35 <a href=
"#sec4">The Four Zoas
</a>
38 <a href=
"#sec5">Jerusalem
</a>
43 <a href=
"#sec6">John Taylor Gatto
</a>
48 <a href=
"#sec7">Underground History of American Education
</a>
53 <a href=
"#sec8">Kahlil Gibran
</a>
58 <a href=
"#sec9">A Tear and a Smile
</a>
61 <a href=
"#sec10">The Prophet
</a>
64 <a href=
"#sec11">Sand and Foam
</a>
67 <a href=
"#sec12">The Madman
</a>
72 <a href=
"#sec13">William James
</a>
77 <a href=
"#sec14">The Varieties of Religious Experience
</a>
80 <a href=
"#sec15">The PhD Octopus
</a>
85 <a href=
"#sec16">Henry James
</a>
90 <a href=
"#sec17">The Altar of the Dead
</a>
95 <a href=
"#sec18">Gregor Kiczales
</a>
100 <a href=
"#sec19">The Art of the Metaobject Protocol
</a>
105 <a href=
"#sec20">Søren Kierkegaard
</a>
110 <a href=
"#sec21">Sickness Unto Death
</a>
113 <a href=
"#sec22">Either/Or
</a>
118 <a href=
"#sec23">Thomas More
</a>
123 <a href=
"#sec24">Utopia
</a>
128 <a href=
"#sec25">Friedrich Nietzsche
</a>
133 <a href=
"#sec26">Beyond Good and Evil
</a>
136 <a href=
"#sec27">On the Geneaology of Morals
</a>
139 <a href=
"#sec28">Ecce Homo
</a>
144 <a href=
"#sec29">Luke Rhinehardt
</a>
149 <a href=
"#sec30">The Dice Man
</a>
154 <a href=
"#sec31">Neal Stephenson
</a>
159 <a href=
"#sec32">Snow Crash
</a>
162 <a href=
"#sec33">Cryptonomicon
</a>
170 <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><h2><a name=
"sec1" id=
"sec1"></a>
175 <h3><a name=
"sec2" id=
"sec2"></a>
178 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> ••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">••••
</span> (
6) /
<em>Nonfiction
</em></p>
180 <p>I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic
181 philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books
182 before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the
183 collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting
184 according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but
185 each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A
186 number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in
187 my notebook to ponder further.
</p>
192 <h2><a name=
"sec3" id=
"sec3"></a>
195 <p class=
"first">Blake is my
<a href=
"William%20Blake.html">favorite
</a> of the English poets. His
196 unique use of relief etching and watercoloring makes for very
197 interesting Illuminated works. There is a very high quality
198 <a href=
"http://blakearchive.org">complete archive of Blake's works
</a> online
199 with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other
202 <h3><a name=
"sec4" id=
"sec4"></a>
205 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> ••••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad"> </span> (
10) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
207 <p>The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The
208 Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal woe
209 to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of
214 <h3><a name=
"sec5" id=
"sec5"></a>
217 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> ••••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad"> </span> (
10) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
219 <p>The finest of Blake's Illuminated works.
</p>
224 <h2><a name=
"sec6" id=
"sec6"></a>
225 John Taylor Gatto
</h2>
227 <p class=
"first">Former teacher and now author-activist.
</p>
229 <h3><a name=
"sec7" id=
"sec7"></a>
230 Underground History of American Education
</h3>
232 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•
</span> (
9) /
<em>Nonfiction
</em></p>
234 <p>An interesting
<em>underground
</em> history of the American education
236 <a href=
"http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/">online for free
</a>.
</p>
241 <h2><a name=
"sec8" id=
"sec8"></a>
244 <p class=
"first">Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not
245 agree with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but
<em>The Madman
</em> onward are
246 all rather nice. A few of his works are
247 <a href=
"http://leb.net/~mira/">online
</a>, but I recommend scouting used book
248 stores for old hardcover editions. The (late
90s onward at least)
249 <em>hardcover
</em> versions from
<em>Alfred A. Knopf
</em> are in fact permabound
250 paperbacks with a hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to
251 the editions from the
50s and
60s (and cost quite a bit more,
254 <h3><a name=
"sec9" id=
"sec9"></a>
255 A Tear and a Smile
</h3>
257 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•••••••
</span> (
3) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
259 <p>One of Kahlil Gibran's earlier works, I did not much like
<em>A
260 Tear and a Smile
</em> excepting the last poem (
"A Poet's Voice
").
</p>
264 <h3><a name=
"sec10" id=
"sec10"></a>
267 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•
</span> (
9) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
273 <h3><a name=
"sec11" id=
"sec11"></a>
276 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•••
</span> (
7) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
278 <p>An interesting little book of aphorisms.
</p>
282 <h3><a name=
"sec12" id=
"sec12"></a>
285 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> ••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">••
</span> (
8) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
292 <h2><a name=
"sec13" id=
"sec13"></a>
297 <h3><a name=
"sec14" id=
"sec14"></a>
298 The Varieties of Religious Experience
</h3>
300 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•••
</span> (
7) /
<em>Nonfiction
</em></p>
302 <p><a href=
"William%20James%20-%20The%20Varieties%20of%20Religious%20Experience.html">A partially finished extended summary
</a></p>
306 <h3><a name=
"sec15" id=
"sec15"></a>
309 <p><em>Nonfiction
</em></p>
313 America is thus as a nation rapidly drifting towards a state of things
314 in which no man of science or letters will be accounted respectable
315 unless some kind of badge or diploma is stamped upon him, and in which
316 bare personality will be a mark of outcast estate. It seems to me high
317 time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye
318 upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly
319 from the Mandarin disease. Are we doomed to suffer like the rest?
</p>
323 <p><a href=
"William%20James%20-%20The%20PhD%20Octopus.html">Full Text
</a></p>
328 <h2><a name=
"sec16" id=
"sec16"></a>
331 <p class=
"first">The novelist brother of William James; I've not read many (read:
332 one) of his books, but what I did was decent.
</p>
334 <h3><a name=
"sec17" id=
"sec17"></a>
335 The Altar of the Dead
</h3>
337 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•••
</span> (
7) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
339 <p>A short novella about a man who maintained an altar in a church
340 for all of his lost loved ones on the surface, but something a bit
346 <h2><a name=
"sec18" id=
"sec18"></a>
351 <h3><a name=
"sec19" id=
"sec19"></a>
352 The Art of the Metaobject Protocol
</h3>
354 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> ••••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad"> </span> (
10) /
<em>Nonfiction
</em></p>
356 <p>AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with
357 the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first
358 half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a
359 series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations
360 and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for
361 CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general
362 object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly
363 make mapping decisions customizable.
</p>
368 <h2><a name=
"sec20" id=
"sec20"></a>
369 Søren Kierkegaard
</h2>
371 <p class=
"first">Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is
372 interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused
375 <h3><a name=
"sec21" id=
"sec21"></a>
376 Sickness Unto Death
</h3>
378 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> ••••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad"> </span> (
10) /
<em>Nonfiction
</em></p>
380 <p>I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after
381 being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it
382 was better for me to have found this one.
</p>
384 <p>Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of
385 Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends,
386 the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is
387 reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation
388 forces reflection.
</p>
392 <h3><a name=
"sec22" id=
"sec22"></a>
395 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> ••••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad"> </span> (
10) /
<em>Nonfiction
</em></p>
397 <p>Composed of two portions,
<em>Either/Or
</em> is a rather lengthy but
398 rewarding read. The first book is a series of essays and a diary of a
399 young esthetician; the second is a pair of long letters from an older
400 ethicist friend to this esthetician. You are then left to resolve the
401 conflict between the views.
</p>
406 <h2><a name=
"sec23" id=
"sec23"></a>
411 <h3><a name=
"sec24" id=
"sec24"></a>
414 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•••
</span> (
7) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
416 <p>I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-
89 ebook reader, but
417 the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the
418 overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so
419 I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick
420 read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system
421 espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a
422 negative ideal), but with an strange blend of
14th century European
428 <h2><a name=
"sec25" id=
"sec25"></a>
429 Friedrich Nietzsche
</h2>
431 <p class=
"first">A bit acerbic and esoteric, Nietzsche is for me a good
<em>secular
</em>
432 counterpart to Kierkegaard's theistic philosophy. Nietzsche's
433 polemical works raise important questions for anyone who reads works
434 on ethics. As such it is a shame that he has gotten a bad reputation
435 by being read by far too many angsty teenagers who see (and relay)
436 only Nietzsche the asshole rather than Nietzsche the master of the
439 <h3><a name=
"sec26" id=
"sec26"></a>
440 Beyond Good and Evil
</h3>
442 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> ••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">••
</span> (
8) /
<em>Nonfiction
</em></p>
444 <p>A somewhat more comprehensible, if a bit less aesthetically
445 pleasing, presentation of much of the philosophy found in
<em>Thus Spoke
446 Zarathustra
</em> in the negative form. The final chapters are very
447 important (not to detract from the value of the rest of the work) if
448 one wishes to understand
<em>On the Genealogy of Morals
</em>.
</p>
452 <h3><a name=
"sec27" id=
"sec27"></a>
453 On the Geneaology of Morals
</h3>
455 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•
</span> (
9) /
<em>Nonfiction
</em></p>
457 <p><em>On the Geneaology of Morals
</em> is a wonderful book of three
458 polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethic valuations, and the
459 blindness of modern philosphers whose very thinking is tainted by
460 these valuations unknowingly.
</p>
464 <h3><a name=
"sec28" id=
"sec28"></a>
467 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•••
</span> (
7) /
<em>Nonfiction
</em></p>
469 <p><em>Ecce Homo
</em> is Nietzsche's very strange autobiography and
470 explanation of his own works. At points it is clear that it could have
471 used a bit more editing (prevented by Nietzsche ... falling into a
472 catatonic state and all), but is still a very useful book to read as
473 Nietzsche explains the overall structure of his works.
</p>
478 <h2><a name=
"sec29" id=
"sec29"></a>
483 <h3><a name=
"sec30" id=
"sec30"></a>
486 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•••
</span> (
7) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
490 And it's his illusions about what
491 constitutes the real world which are
493 His reality, his reason, his society
494 ...these are what must be destroyed
</p>
498 <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
499 this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found
500 in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an
501 autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression
502 through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through
505 <p>The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part
506 attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often
507 difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.
</p>
512 <h2><a name=
"sec31" id=
"sec31"></a>
517 <h3><a name=
"sec32" id=
"sec32"></a>
520 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> •••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">•
</span> (
9) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
522 <p>As one must read the
<em>Bible
</em> to understand English literature, so one
523 must read
<em>Snow Crash
</em> today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop
524 fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in
525 a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come
526 up with enganging tales.
<em>Snow Crash
</em> has a nice undertone of (quite
527 accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading
528 as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.
</p>
532 <h3><a name=
"sec33" id=
"sec33"></a>
535 <p><em>Rating:
</em> <span class=
"rating-good"> ••••••••
</span><span class=
"rating-bad">••
</span> (
8) /
<em>Fiction
</em></p>
537 <p>I read
<em>Cryptonomicon
</em> when it was new, and at the time I thought it was
538 good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from
539 the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to
540 finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between
541 the
1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way.
</p>
543 <p>I'd still have to recommend
<em>Snow Crash
</em> if one wished to read only one
544 Stephenson novel.
</p>
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574 <p class=
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575 which in the dreamy Subliminal might remain ajar...
577 <p class=
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578 September
28,
2008</p>