Reading.muse

   1 #title The Printed Word Is Stronger Than Nuclear Arms
   2
   3 I enjoy classical literature and works of philosophy and politics with
   4 a side of cyberpunk novels for when my brain is tired. When I was in
   5 High School I read technical books for fun, but now I tend to find
   6 most of them useless (thank you Internet) excepting a few really well
   7 written ones (*L.i.s.p*, *TAOCP*, ...).
   8
   9 I spend most of my time reading. A full list of things I have read
  10 would be impossible to compile, but here I am collecting links and
  11 small summaries of things I have read and find interesting enough to
  12 mention, but not always recommend, to others.
  13
  14 * Authors
  15
  16 ** William Blake
  17
  18 His poetry is the result of spending too much time etching copper
  19 plates and breathing the fumes. Quite wonderful indeed.
  20
  21 ** Kahlil Gibran
  22
  23 Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not agree
  24 with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but *The Madman* onward are all
  25 rather nice. So far I've read *A Tear and a Smile* (not so good
  26 excepting the last poem), *The Madman*, *The Prophet* (both excellent),
  27 and *Sand and Foam* (an interesting little book of aphorisms). A few of
  28 his works are [[http://leb.net/~mira/][online]], but I recommend scouting used book stores for
  29 old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least) *hardcover*
  30 versions from *Alfred A. Knopf* are in fact permabound paperbacks with a
  31 hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to the editions from
  32 the 50s and 60s (and cost quite a bit more, naturally).
  33
  34 * Fiction
  35
  36 ** General
  37
  38 *** Luke Rhinehardt - The Dice Man
  39
  40 <quote>
  41 And it's his illusions about what
  42 constitutes the real world which are
  43 inhibiting him...
  44 His reality, his reason, his society
  45 ...these are what must be destroyed
  46 </quote>
  47
  48 A quotation from one of my [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter_of_the_Soul][favorite metal songs]] inspired me to grab
  49 this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found
  50 in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an
  51 autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression
  52 through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through
  53 random chance.
  54
  55 The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part
  56 attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often
  57 difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.
  58
  59 ** Philosophical
  60
  61 ** Sci-Fi
  62
  63 *** Neal Stephenson
  64
  65 **** Cryptonomicon
  66
  67 I read *Cryptonomicon* when it was new, and at the time I thought it was
  68 good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from
  69 the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to
  70 finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between
  71 the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way.
  72
  73 I'd still have to recommend *Snow Crash* if one wished to read only one
  74 Stephenson novel.
  75
  76 **** Snow Crash
  77
  78 As one must read the *Bible* to understand English literature, so one
  79 must read *Snow Crash* today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop
  80 fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in
  81 a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come
  82 up with enganging tales. *Snow Crash* has a nice undertone of (quite
  83 accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading
  84 as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.
  85
  86 * Non-Fiction
  87
  88 ** Education
  89
  90 ***  John Taylor Gatto - [[http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm][Underground History of American Education]]
  91
  92 Contained within this book (available online for free, but the printed
  93 copy sits wonderfully on a shelf) is a detailed and seemingly well
  94 researched history of American Education with a particular focus on
  95 the transformation that has occured before our eyes in the last
  96 century. I am unsure if Gatto is entirely correct and not exaggerating
  97 anything; I have failed to find any negative criticisms, but it is not
  98 clear to me if that is because he is entirely correct or if no one
  99 cares enough to write a counterargument. I am in the process of
 100 tracking down as many of his sources as possible (a good number of
 101 them are out of print and not in the public domain yet), and will make
 102 an attempt to verify his argument over the course of the next year
 103 (that being 2007).
 104
 105 If he is correct then every one of us has had the first eighteen years
 106 of our lives stolen from us, and we have collectively suffered massive
 107 intellectual damage. My intuitions tell me he is correct (which is why
 108 I am driven to verify; I cannot trust myself because I *want* to
 109 believe) for my individuality and intelligence were nearly stolen from
 110 me. The only reason I survived relatively unscathed is because I
 111 became completely socially withdrawn for the last half of elementary
 112 school until late in high school due to the abuse I received at the
 113 hands of my peers creating a deep fear of social interaction in
 114 me. The downside is that I had the confidence crushed from my soul,
 115 but now that I have begun to regain it (the good that bicycling
 116 enabling me to stand straight and gradual realization of my own worth
 117 as a human have done) I would never trade the ability to think freely
 118 for the social skills I lack.
 119
 120 ** Philosophy
 121
 122 *** Chinese
 123
 124 **** Tao Te Ching
 125
 126 **** Confucianism
 127
 128 ***** The Analects
 129
 130 *** Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
 131
 132 I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic
 133 philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books
 134 before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the
 135 collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting
 136 according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but
 137 each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A
 138 number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in
 139 my notebook to ponder further.
 140
 141 *** Søren Kierkegaard - The Sickness Unto Death
 142
 143 I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after
 144 being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it
 145 was better for me to have found this one.
 146
 147 Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of
 148 Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends,
 149 the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is
 150 reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation
 151 forces reflection.
 152
 153 ** Politics
 154
 155 *** Thomas More - Utopia
 156
 157 I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but
 158 the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the
 159 overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so
 160 I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick
 161 read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system
 162 espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a
 163 negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European
 164 social customs.
 165
 166 ** Religion
 167
 168 *** [[William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience]]
 169
 170
 171 ** Technical
 172
 173 *** C J Date - Database in Depth
 174
 175 This was a complete waste of time. The author rants on for 180 pages
 176 and presents the information in a disorderly and shallow manner. It
 177 could be rewritten in about fifty pages and contain the same amount of
 178 information if it were organized properly and the off topic commentary
 179 were minimized.
 180
 181 *** Gregor Kiczales - The Art of the Metaobject Protocol
 182
 183 AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with
 184 the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first
 185 half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a
 186 series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations
 187 and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for
 188 CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general
 189 object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly
 190 make mapping decisions customizable.
 191
 192
 193 * Reports
 194
 195 ** [[http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006483.pdf][2003 National Assesement of Adult Literacy]]
 196
 197 A depressing view of American literacy rates. Literacy skills
 198 decreased across almost every population segment in the US between
 199 1993 and 2003; a mere 31% of college graduates are considered
 200 proficient in quantitative literacy (defined as being able to do
 201 things as terribly complicated as comparing two editorials).
 202
 203
 204 * Books That I Cannot Find
 205
 206 If you know anyone who has copies I'd appreciate an email. I'm willing
 207 to buy books for a reasonable cost, and for ones that are more than 25
 208 years old and out of print I am not opposed to *piracy* (no one is
 209 making money from them, and I feel that long copyrights are unethical
 210 and therefore feel no pangs of moral guilt).
 211
 212  - *Crystallizing Public Opinion* by Edward Bernays
 213    - A supposed classic in the field of public relations. Curiosity
 214      demands that I read the writings of the father of the field to
 215      better understand the way the international media works.
 216    - Another example of out of print books clearly having a market,
 217      but no publisher due to copyright (used copies go for nearly a
 218      thousand dollars in poor condition and hit five thousand or so
 219      for ones in good shape).
 220
 221 * Essays
 222
 223 ** Computing
 224
 225 *** Design
 226
 227 **** [[http://deadhobosociety.com/index.php/Essays/ESSAY12][Confucianism and Technical Standards]]