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">Luke Rhinehardt</a>
 113 </dt>
 114 <dd>
 115 <dl>
 116 <dt>
 117 <a href="#sec23">The Dice Man</a>
 118 </dt>
 119 </dl>
 120 </dd>
 121 <dt>
 122 <a href="#sec24">Neal Stephenson</a>
 123 </dt>
 124 <dd>
 125 <dl>
 126 <dt>
 127 <a href="#sec25">Snow Crash</a>
 128 </dt>
 129 <dt>
 130 <a href="#sec26">Cryptonomicon</a>
 131 </dt>
 132 </dl>
 133 </dd>
 134 </dl>
 135 </div>
 136
 137
 138 <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
 139 Marcus Aurelius</h2>
 140
 141
 142
 143 <h3><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
 144 Meditations</h3>
 145
 146 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••••</span> (6) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 147
 148 <p>I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic
 149 philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books
 150 before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the
 151 collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting
 152 according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but
 153 each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A
 154 number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in
 155 my notebook to ponder further.</p>
 156
 157
 158
 159 <h2><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
 160 William Blake</h2>
 161
 162 <p class="first">Blake is my favorite of the English poets. His unique use of
 163 relief etching and watercoloring makes for very interesting
 164 Illuminated works. There is a very high quality
 165 <a href="http://blakearchive.org">complete archive of Blake's works</a> online
 166 with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other
 167 things.</p>
 168
 169 <h3><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
 170 The Four Zoas</h3>
 171
 172 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••••</span> (10) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 173
 174 <p>The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The
 175 Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal woe
 176 to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of
 177 Beulah.</p>
 178
 179
 180 <h3><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
 181 Jerusalem</h3>
 182
 183 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••••</span> (10) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 184
 185 <p>The finest of Blake's Illuminated works.</p>
 186
 187
 188
 189 <h2><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
 190 John Taylor Gatto</h2>
 191
 192 <p class="first">Former teacher and now author-activist.</p>
 193
 194 <h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
 195 Underground History of American Education</h3>
 196
 197 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•</span> (9) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 198
 199 <p>An interesting <em>underground</em> history of the American education
 200 system.</p>
 201
 202
 203
 204 <h2><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
 205 Kahlil Gibran</h2>
 206
 207 <p class="first">Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not
 208 agree with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but <em>The Madman</em> onward are
 209 all rather nice. A few of his works are
 210 <a href="http://leb.net/~mira/">online</a>, but I recommend scouting used book
 211 stores for old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least)
 212 <em>hardcover</em> versions from <em>Alfred A. Knopf</em> are in fact permabound
 213 paperbacks with a hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to
 214 the editions from the 50s and 60s (and cost quite a bit more,
 215 naturally).</p>
 216
 217 <h3><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
 218 A Tear and a Smile</h3>
 219
 220 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••••••</span> (3) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 221
 222 <p>One of Kahlil Gibran's earlier works, I did not much like <em>A
 223 Tear and a Smile</em> excepting the last poem (&quot;A Poet's Voice&quot;).</p>
 224
 225
 226 <h3><a name="sec10" id="sec10"></a>
 227 The Prophet</h3>
 228
 229 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•</span> (9) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 230
 231
 232
 233
 234 <h3><a name="sec11" id="sec11"></a>
 235 Sand and Foam</h3>
 236
 237 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••</span> (7) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 238
 239 <p>An interesting little book of aphorisms.</p>
 240
 241
 242 <h3><a name="sec12" id="sec12"></a>
 243 The Madman</h3>
 244
 245 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••</span> (8) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 246
 247
 248
 249
 250
 251 <h2><a name="sec13" id="sec13"></a>
 252 William James</h2>
 253
 254
 255
 256 <h3><a name="sec14" id="sec14"></a>
 257 The Varieties of Religious Experience</h3>
 258
 259 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••</span> (7) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 260
 261 <p><a href="William%20James%20-%20The%20Varieties%20of%20Religious%20Experience.html">A partially finished extended summary</a></p>
 262
 263
 264
 265 <h2><a name="sec15" id="sec15"></a>
 266 Gregor Kiczales</h2>
 267
 268
 269
 270 <h3><a name="sec16" id="sec16"></a>
 271 The Art of the Metaobject Protocol</h3>
 272
 273 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••••</span> (10) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 274
 275 <p>AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with
 276 the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first
 277 half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a
 278 series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations
 279 and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for
 280 CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general
 281 object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly
 282 make mapping decisions customizable.</p>
 283
 284
 285
 286 <h2><a name="sec17" id="sec17"></a>
 287 Søren Kierkegaard</h2>
 288
 289 <p class="first">Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is
 290 interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused
 291 disagreeable.</p>
 292
 293 <h3><a name="sec18" id="sec18"></a>
 294 Sickness Unto Death</h3>
 295
 296 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••••</span> (10) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 297
 298 <p>I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after
 299 being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it
 300 was better for me to have found this one.</p>
 301
 302 <p>Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of
 303 Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends,
 304 the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is
 305 reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation
 306 forces reflection.</p>
 307
 308
 309 <h3><a name="sec19" id="sec19"></a>
 310 Either/Or</h3>
 311
 312 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••••</span> (10) / <em>Nonfiction</em></p>
 313
 314 <p>Composed of two portions, <em>Either/Or</em> is a rather lengthy but
 315 rewarding read. The first book is a series of essays and a diary of a
 316 young esthetician; the second is a pair of long letters from an older
 317 ethicist friend to this esthetician. You are then left to resolve the
 318 conflict between the views.</p>
 319
 320
 321
 322 <h2><a name="sec20" id="sec20"></a>
 323 Thomas More</h2>
 324
 325
 326
 327 <h3><a name="sec21" id="sec21"></a>
 328 Utopia</h3>
 329
 330 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••</span> (7) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 331
 332 <p>I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but
 333 the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the
 334 overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so
 335 I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick
 336 read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system
 337 espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a
 338 negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European
 339 social customs.</p>
 340
 341
 342
 343 <h2><a name="sec22" id="sec22"></a>
 344 Luke Rhinehardt</h2>
 345
 346
 347
 348 <h3><a name="sec23" id="sec23"></a>
 349 The Dice Man</h3>
 350
 351 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•••</span> (7) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 352
 353 <blockquote>
 354 <p class="quoted">
 355 And it's his illusions about what
 356 constitutes the real world which are
 357 inhibiting him...
 358 His reality, his reason, his society
 359 ...these are what must be destroyed</p>
 360
 361 </blockquote>
 362
 363 <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
 364 this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found
 365 in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an
 366 autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression
 367 through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through
 368 random chance.</p>
 369
 370 <p>The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part
 371 attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often
 372 difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.</p>
 373
 374
 375
 376 <h2><a name="sec24" id="sec24"></a>
 377 Neal Stephenson</h2>
 378
 379
 380
 381 <h3><a name="sec25" id="sec25"></a>
 382 Snow Crash</h3>
 383
 384 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">•••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">•</span> (9) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 385
 386 <p>As one must read the <em>Bible</em> to understand English literature, so one
 387 must read <em>Snow Crash</em> today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop
 388 fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in
 389 a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come
 390 up with enganging tales. <em>Snow Crash</em> has a nice undertone of (quite
 391 accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading
 392 as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.</p>
 393
 394
 395 <h3><a name="sec26" id="sec26"></a>
 396 Cryptonomicon</h3>
 397
 398 <p><em>Rating:</em> <span class="rating-good">••••••••</span><span class="rating-bad">••</span> (8) / <em>Fiction</em></p>
 399
 400 <p>I read <em>Cryptonomicon</em> when it was new, and at the time I thought it was
 401 good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from
 402 the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to
 403 finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between
 404 the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way.</p>
 405
 406 <p>I'd still have to recommend <em>Snow Crash</em> if one wished to read only one
 407 Stephenson novel.</p>
 408
 409
 410
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 436
 437 <p class="cke-footer">                                 So play today
 438                   Go make your hay beneath a warm sun shining
 439       But bear in mind one day you'll find the silver cloud's dark lining
 440 </p>
 441 <p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified:
 442     July 29, 2008</p>
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