Rating: (6) / Nonfiction
+Rating: (6) / Nonfiction
I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books @@ -182,6 +214,7 @@ my notebook to ponder further.
+Rating: (10) / Fiction
+Rating: (10) / Fiction
The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal woe @@ -203,24 +236,43 @@ to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of Beulah.
+Rating: (10) / Fiction
+Rating: (10) / Fiction
The finest of Blake's Illuminated works.
+Rating: (10) / Fiction
+ +Perhaps the best comic book series of all time; I would say The +Sandman as a whole ranks higher than anything even Alan Moore has +written.
+ + + + +Former teacher and now author-activist.
-Rating: (9) / Nonfiction
+Rating: (9) / Nonfiction
An interesting underground history of the American education system. Available @@ -228,7 +280,8 @@ system. Available -
Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not @@ -241,54 +294,59 @@ 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).
-Rating: (3) / Fiction
+Rating: (3) / Fiction
One of Kahlil Gibran's earlier works, I did not much like A Tear and a Smile excepting the last poem ("A Poet's Voice").
-Rating: (9) / Fiction
+Rating: (9) / Fiction
-Rating: (7) / Fiction
+Rating: (7) / Fiction
An interesting little book of aphorisms.
-Rating: (8) / Fiction
+Rating: (8) / Fiction
+ -Rating: (7) / Nonfiction
+Rating: (7) / Nonfiction
A partially finished extended summary
-Nonfiction
@@ -304,20 +362,22 @@ upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly from the Mandarin disease. Are we doomed to suffer like the rest? -Full Text + -The novelist brother of William James; I've not read many (read: one) of his books, but what I did was decent.
-Rating: (7) / Fiction
+Rating: (7) / Fiction
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 @@ -325,15 +385,16 @@ more beneath.
-Rating: (10) / Nonfiction
+Rating: (10) / Nonfiction
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 @@ -346,17 +407,18 @@ make mapping decisions customizable.
-Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused disagreeable.
-Rating: (10) / Nonfiction
+Rating: (10) / Nonfiction
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 @@ -369,10 +431,11 @@ reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation forces reflection.
-Rating: (10) / Nonfiction
+Rating: (10) / Nonfiction
Composed of two portions, Either/Or is a rather lengthy but rewarding read. The first book is a series of essays and a diary of a @@ -382,15 +445,49 @@ conflict between the views.
-Nonfiction
+ +An interesting dialectical lyric contrasting Despair and Faith.
+ + + + +Rating: (8) / Fiction
+ + + + + +Rating: (10) / Fiction
+ + + + + + +Rating: (7) / Fiction
+Rating: (7) / Fiction
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 @@ -403,7 +500,8 @@ social customs.
-A bit acerbic and esoteric, Nietzsche is for me a good secular @@ -414,22 +512,23 @@ 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.
-Rating: (8) / Nonfiction
+Rating: (8) / Nonfiction
A somewhat more comprehensible, if a bit less aesthetically pleasing, presentation of much of the philosophy found in Thus Spoke -Zarathustra. The final chapters are very important (not to detract -from the value of the rest of the work) if one wishes to understand -On the Genealogy of Morals.
+Zarathustra 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 On the Genealogy of Morals. -Rating: (9) / Nonfiction
+Rating: (9) / Nonfiction
On the Geneaology of Morals is a wonderful book of three polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethic valuations, and the @@ -438,15 +537,29 @@ these valuations unknowingly.
-Rating: (7) / Nonfiction
+ +Ecce Homo 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.
+ + + + +Rating: (7) / Fiction
+Rating: (7) / Fiction
@@ -471,15 +584,16 @@ difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.
-+ +
Neal Stephenson
-+
Snow Crash
-Rating: (9) / Fiction
+Rating: (9) / Fiction
As one must read the Bible to understand English literature, so one must read Snow Crash today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop @@ -490,10 +604,11 @@ accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.
-+ +
Cryptonomicon
-Rating: (8) / Fiction
+Rating: (8) / Fiction
I read Cryptonomicon 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 @@ -532,10 +647,12 @@ Stephenson novel.
- + December 14, 2008