| 1 | (((|Alan| |Moore|) |
| 2 | nil |
| 3 | ("Watchmen" :fiction 8) |
| 4 | ("V for Vendetta" :fiction 10)) |
| 5 | ((|Neil| |Gaiman|) |
| 6 | nil |
| 7 | ("The Sandman (series)" |
| 8 | :fiction 10 |
| 9 | "Perhaps the best comic book series of all time; I would say *The |
| 10 | Sandman* as a whole ranks higher than anything even Alan Moore has |
| 11 | written.")) |
| 12 | ((|William| |Blake|) |
| 13 | "Blake is my [[William Blake][favorite]] of the English poets. His |
| 14 | unique use of relief etching and watercoloring makes for very |
| 15 | interesting Illuminated works. There is a very high quality |
| 16 | [[http://blakearchive.org][complete archive of Blake's works]] online |
| 17 | with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other |
| 18 | things." |
| 19 | ("The Four Zoas" |
| 20 | :fiction 10 |
| 21 | "The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The |
| 22 | Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal woe |
| 23 | to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of |
| 24 | Beulah.") |
| 25 | ("Jerusalem" :fiction 10 "The finest of Blake's Illuminated works.")) |
| 26 | ((|Kahlil| |Gibran|) |
| 27 | "Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not |
| 28 | agree with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but *The Madman* onward are |
| 29 | all rather nice. A few of his works are |
| 30 | [[http://leb.net/~mira/][online]], but I recommend scouting used book |
| 31 | stores for old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least) |
| 32 | *hardcover* versions from *Alfred A. Knopf* are in fact permabound |
| 33 | paperbacks with a hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to |
| 34 | the editions from the 50s and 60s (and cost quite a bit more, |
| 35 | naturally)." |
| 36 | ("A Tear and a Smile" |
| 37 | :fiction 3 |
| 38 | "One of Kahlil Gibran's earlier works, I did not much like *A |
| 39 | Tear and a Smile* excepting the last poem (\"A Poet's Voice\").") |
| 40 | ("The Prophet" :fiction 9) |
| 41 | ("Sand and Foam" :fiction 7 "An interesting little book of aphorisms.") |
| 42 | ("The Madman" :fiction 8)) |
| 43 | ((|John| |Taylor| |Gatto|) |
| 44 | "Former teacher and now author-activist." |
| 45 | ("Underground History of American Education" |
| 46 | :nonfiction 9 |
| 47 | "An interesting *underground* history of the American education |
| 48 | system. Available |
| 49 | [[http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/][online for free]].")) |
| 50 | ((|Luke| |Rhinehardt|) |
| 51 | nil |
| 52 | ("The Dice Man" |
| 53 | :fiction 7 |
| 54 | "<quote> |
| 55 | And it's his illusions about what |
| 56 | constitutes the real world which are |
| 57 | inhibiting him... |
| 58 | His reality, his reason, his society |
| 59 | ...these are what must be destroyed |
| 60 | </quote> |
| 61 | |
| 62 | A quotation from one of my [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter_of_the_Soul][favorite metal songs]] inspired me to grab |
| 63 | this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found |
| 64 | in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an |
| 65 | autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression |
| 66 | through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through |
| 67 | random chance. |
| 68 | |
| 69 | The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part |
| 70 | attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often |
| 71 | difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.")) |
| 72 | ((|Neal| |Stephenson|) |
| 73 | nil |
| 74 | ("Snow Crash" |
| 75 | :fiction 9 |
| 76 | "As one must read the *Bible* to understand English literature, so one |
| 77 | must read *Snow Crash* today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop |
| 78 | fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in |
| 79 | a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come |
| 80 | up with enganging tales. *Snow Crash* has a nice undertone of (quite |
| 81 | accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading |
| 82 | as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.") |
| 83 | ("Cryptonomicon" |
| 84 | :fiction 8 |
| 85 | "I read *Cryptonomicon* when it was new, and at the time I thought it was |
| 86 | good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from |
| 87 | the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to |
| 88 | finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between |
| 89 | the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way. |
| 90 | |
| 91 | I'd still have to recommend *Snow Crash* if one wished to read only one |
| 92 | Stephenson novel.")) |
| 93 | ((|Marcus| |Aurelius|) |
| 94 | nil |
| 95 | ("Meditations" |
| 96 | :nonfiction 4 |
| 97 | "At the time, I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on |
| 98 | Stoic philosophy, and it was a fairly quick read (fifteen minutes a |
| 99 | day over the course of two weeks for me). Nowadays I've read |
| 100 | Epictetus, and I suggest reading his *Discourses* instead.")) |
| 101 | ((|Søren| |Kierkegaard|) |
| 102 | "Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is |
| 103 | interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused |
| 104 | disagreeable." |
| 105 | ("Sickness Unto Death" |
| 106 | :nonfiction 10 |
| 107 | "I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after |
| 108 | being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it |
| 109 | was better for me to have found this one. |
| 110 | |
| 111 | Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of |
| 112 | Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends, |
| 113 | the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is |
| 114 | reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation |
| 115 | forces reflection.") |
| 116 | ("Either/Or" |
| 117 | :nonfiction 10 |
| 118 | "Composed of two portions, *Either/Or* is a rather lengthy but |
| 119 | rewarding read. The first book is a series of essays and a diary of a |
| 120 | young esthetician; the second is a pair of long letters from an older |
| 121 | ethicist friend to this esthetician. You are then left to resolve the |
| 122 | conflict between the views.") |
| 123 | ("Fear and Trembling" |
| 124 | :nonfiction nil |
| 125 | "An interesting dialectical lyric contrasting Despair and Faith.") |
| 126 | ("Repetition" |
| 127 | :nonfiction 10 |
| 128 | "He who despairs of esthetic repetition gets none; he who despairs |
| 129 | of ethical repetition receieves the esthetic. Is it true then that no |
| 130 | repetition exists? Is transition all one can hope for?")) |
| 131 | ((|Thomas| |More|) |
| 132 | nil |
| 133 | ("Utopia" |
| 134 | :fiction 7 |
| 135 | "I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but |
| 136 | the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the |
| 137 | overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so |
| 138 | I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick |
| 139 | read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system |
| 140 | espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a |
| 141 | negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European |
| 142 | social customs.")) |
| 143 | ((|William| |James|) |
| 144 | nil |
| 145 | ("The Varieties of Religious Experience" |
| 146 | :nonfiction 7 |
| 147 | "[[William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience][A partially finished extended summary]]") |
| 148 | ("The PhD Octopus" |
| 149 | :nonfiction nil |
| 150 | "<quote> |
| 151 | America is thus as a nation rapidly drifting towards a state of things |
| 152 | in which no man of science or letters will be accounted respectable |
| 153 | unless some kind of badge or diploma is stamped upon him, and in which |
| 154 | bare personality will be a mark of outcast estate. It seems to me high |
| 155 | time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye |
| 156 | upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly |
| 157 | from the Mandarin disease. Are we doomed to suffer like the rest? |
| 158 | </quote> |
| 159 | |
| 160 | [[William James - The PhD Octopus][Full Text]]")) |
| 161 | ((|Henry| |James|) |
| 162 | "The novelist brother of William James; I've not read many (read: |
| 163 | one) of his books, but what I did was decent." |
| 164 | ("The Altar of the Dead" |
| 165 | :fiction 7 |
| 166 | "A short novella about a man who maintained an altar in a church |
| 167 | for all of his lost loved ones on the surface, but something a bit |
| 168 | more beneath.")) |
| 169 | ((|Gregor| |Kiczales|) |
| 170 | nil |
| 171 | ("The Art of the Metaobject Protocol" |
| 172 | :nonfiction 10 |
| 173 | "AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with |
| 174 | the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first |
| 175 | half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a |
| 176 | series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations |
| 177 | and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for |
| 178 | CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general |
| 179 | object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly |
| 180 | make mapping decisions customizable.")) |
| 181 | ((|Friedrich| |Nietzsche|) |
| 182 | "A bit acerbic and esoteric, Nietzsche is for me a good *secular* |
| 183 | counterpart to Kierkegaard's theistic philosophy. Nietzsche's |
| 184 | polemical works raise important questions for anyone who reads works |
| 185 | on ethics. As such it is a shame that he has gotten a bad reputation |
| 186 | by being read by far too many angsty teenagers who see (and relay) |
| 187 | only Nietzsche the asshole rather than Nietzsche the master of the |
| 188 | polemic." |
| 189 | ("Beyond Good and Evil" |
| 190 | :nonfiction 8 |
| 191 | "A somewhat more comprehensible, if a bit less aesthetically |
| 192 | pleasing, presentation of much of the philosophy found in *Thus Spoke |
| 193 | Zarathustra* in the negative form. The final chapters are very |
| 194 | important (not to detract from the value of the rest of the work) if |
| 195 | one wishes to understand *On the Genealogy of Morals*.") |
| 196 | ("On the Geneaology of Morals" |
| 197 | :nonfiction 9 |
| 198 | "*On the Geneaology of Morals* is a wonderful book of three |
| 199 | polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethic valuations, and the |
| 200 | blindness of modern philosphers whose very thinking is tainted by |
| 201 | these valuations unknowingly.") |
| 202 | ("Ecce Homo" |
| 203 | :nonfiction 7 |
| 204 | "*Ecce Homo* is Nietzsche's very strange autobiography and |
| 205 | explanation of his own works. At points it is clear that it could have |
| 206 | used a bit more editing (prevented by Nietzsche ... falling into a |
| 207 | catatonic state and all), but is still a very useful book to read as |
| 208 | Nietzsche explains the overall structure of his works.")) |
| 209 | ((|Aristotle|) |
| 210 | nil |
| 211 | ("Ethics" |
| 212 | :nonfiction nil) |
| 213 | ("Categories" |
| 214 | :nonfiction nil) |
| 215 | ("Poetics" |
| 216 | :nonfiction nil) |
| 217 | ;;; ("Prior Analytics" |
| 218 | ;;; :nonfiction nil |
| 219 | ;;; "*Prior Analytics* is essential reading if one wishes to understand |
| 220 | ;;; [[Term Logic][traditional logic]]. Given that traditional logic is |
| 221 | ;;; used by most philosophers prior to the mid-1800s it is a *bit* |
| 222 | ;;; important. Luckily *Prior Analytics* is |
| 223 | ;;; [[http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8pra/index.html][available online for free]] and is fairly short.") |
| 224 | ("Rhetoric" |
| 225 | :nonfiction nil)) |
| 226 | ((|Aristophanes|) |
| 227 | nil |
| 228 | ("The Frogs" :fiction nil) |
| 229 | ("The Clouds" :fiction nil) |
| 230 | ("Ecclesiazusae" :fiction nil)) |
| 231 | ((|Plato|) |
| 232 | nil |
| 233 | ("Symposium" :fiction nil) |
| 234 | ("Euthyphro" :fiction nil) |
| 235 | ("Apology" :nonfiction nil) |
| 236 | ("Crito" :fiction nil) |
| 237 | ("Phaedo" :nonfiction 10) |
| 238 | ("Protagoras" :fiction nil)) |
| 239 | ((|Aeschylus|) |
| 240 | nil |
| 241 | ("Oresteia":fiction 10) |
| 242 | ("Prometheus Bound" :fiction 9) |
| 243 | ("The Persians" :fiction 8)) |
| 244 | ((|Homer|) |
| 245 | nil |
| 246 | ("The Odyssey" :fiction 10)) |
| 247 | ((|George| |Orwell|) |
| 248 | nil |
| 249 | ("1984" :fiction 10) |
| 250 | ("Animal Farm" :fiction nil)) |
| 251 | ((|Aldous| |Huxley|) |
| 252 | "Perhaps the most overrated modern writer. Other people have written |
| 253 | everything he has to write better and many years before he got around |
| 254 | to it." |
| 255 | ("The Doors of Perception" |
| 256 | :nonfiction 0 |
| 257 | "Huxley stains the name of Blake by naming this horrible |
| 258 | pseudo-scientific and pseudo-poetic essay after a line from *The |
| 259 | Marriage of Heaven and Hell*. Subjectivity and objectivity are |
| 260 | incommensurable; his attempt and being subjectively objective is |
| 261 | utterly worthless.") |
| 262 | ("Heaven and Hell" |
| 263 | :nonfiction 0 |
| 264 | "Blah blah LSD blah blah Mushrooms blah blah Peytoe blah blah I'm |
| 265 | Aldous Huxley I'm a pretentious jerk. Don't bother.")) |
| 266 | ((|Douglas| |Adams|) |
| 267 | nil |
| 268 | ("Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (collected)" :fiction 8) |
| 269 | ("The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" :fiction 6)) |
| 270 | ((|H.G.| |Wells|) |
| 271 | nil |
| 272 | ("The Island of Dr Moreau" :fiction 7)) |
| 273 | ((|JRR| |Tolkien|) |
| 274 | nil |
| 275 | ("The Lord of the Rings" :fiction 9) |
| 276 | ("The Silmarillion" :fiction 10) |
| 277 | ("The Lost Tales" :fiction 7)) |
| 278 | ((|Bjarne| |Stroustrup|) |
| 279 | nil |
| 280 | ("The C++ Programming Language (3rd edition)" |
| 281 | :nonfiction nil |
| 282 | "Once upon a time I was fifteen and I read this book. It was more |
| 283 | or less what taught me how to write programs just large enough to do |
| 284 | useful things, and so shall forever be remembered by me. A year and a |
| 285 | half later I stumbled upon a little language called Scheme and fell |
| 286 | down the rabbit hole.")) |
| 287 | ((|Confucius|) |
| 288 | nil |
| 289 | ("Analects" :nonfiction nil)) |
| 290 | ((|Mencius|) |
| 291 | nil |
| 292 | ("Mencius" :nonfiction nil)) |
| 293 | ((|Walter| |Miller|) |
| 294 | nil |
| 295 | ("A Canticle for Leibowitz" :fiction 10)) |
| 296 | ((|David| |Lamkins|) |
| 297 | ("Successful Lisp" |
| 298 | :nonfiction 8 |
| 299 | "After learning Scheme, I read *Successful Lisp* and was able to |
| 300 | pick up Common Lisp fairly easily.")) |
| 301 | ((|John| |Allison|) |
| 302 | "The author of the rather amazing [[http://scarygoround.com][ScaryGo Round]. |
| 303 | I highly recommend procuring the printed collections; the printing |
| 304 | quality is superb (full color on glossy paper), and the long story |
| 305 | arcs are much easier to read." |
| 306 | (("Looks, Brains and Everything" :fiction nil) |
| 307 | ("Blame the Sky" :fiction nil) |
| 308 | ("Skellington" :fiction nil) |
| 309 | ("The Retribution Index" :fiction nil) |
| 310 | ("Great Aches" :fiction nil) |
| 311 | ("Ahoy Hoy!" :fiction nil) |
| 312 | ("Heavy Metal Hearts and Flowers" :fiction nil) |
| 313 | ("Ghosts" :fiction nil)))) |
| 314 | |