book-list.lisp

   1 (((|William| |Blake|)
   2   "Blake is my favorite of the English poets. His unique use of
   3 relief etching and watercoloring makes for very interesting
   4 Illuminated works. There is a very high quality
   5 [[http://blakearchive.org][complete archive of Blake's works]] online
   6 with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other
   7 things."
   8   ("The Four Zoas"
   9    :fiction 10
  10    "The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The
  11 Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal woe
  12 to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of
  13 Beulah.")
  14   ("Jerusalem" :fiction 10 "The finest of Blake's Illuminated works."))
  15  ((|Kahlil| |Gibran|)
  16   "Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not
  17 agree with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but *The Madman* onward are
  18 all rather nice. A few of his works are
  19 [[http://leb.net/~mira/][online]], but I recommend scouting used book
  20 stores for old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least)
  21 *hardcover* versions from *Alfred A. Knopf* are in fact permabound
  22 paperbacks with a hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to
  23 the editions from the 50s and 60s (and cost quite a bit more,
  24 naturally)."
  25   ("A Tear and a Smile"
  26    :fiction 3
  27    "One of Kahlil Gibran's earlier works, I did not much like *A
  28 Tear and a Smile* excepting the last poem (\"A Poet's Voice\").")
  29   ("The Prophet" :fiction 9 "")
  30   ("Sand and Foam" :fiction 7 "An interesting little book of aphorisms.")
  31   ("The Madman" :fiction 8 ""))
  32  ((|John| |Taylor| |Gatto|)
  33   "Former teacher and now author-activist."
  34   ("Underground History of American Education"
  35    :nonfiction 9
  36    "An interesting *underground* history of the American education
  37 system."))
  38  ((|Luke| |Rhinehardt|)
  39   ""
  40   ("The Dice Man"
  41    :fiction 7
  42    "<quote>
  43 And it's his illusions about what
  44 constitutes the real world which are
  45 inhibiting him...
  46 His reality, his reason, his society
  47 ...these are what must be destroyed
  48 </quote>
  49
  50 A quotation from one of my [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter_of_the_Soul][favorite metal songs]] inspired me to grab
  51 this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found
  52 in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an
  53 autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression
  54 through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through
  55 random chance.
  56
  57 The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part
  58 attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often
  59 difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time."))
  60  ((|Neal| |Stephenson|)
  61   ""
  62   ("Snow Crash"
  63    :fiction 9
  64    "As one must read the *Bible* to understand English literature, so one
  65 must read *Snow Crash* today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop
  66 fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in
  67 a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come
  68 up with enganging tales. *Snow Crash* has a nice undertone of (quite
  69 accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading
  70 as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.")
  71   ("Cryptonomicon"
  72    :fiction 8
  73    "I read *Cryptonomicon* when it was new, and at the time I thought it was
  74 good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from
  75 the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to
  76 finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between
  77 the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way.
  78
  79 I'd still have to recommend *Snow Crash* if one wished to read only one
  80 Stephenson novel."))
  81  ((|Marcus| |Aurelius|)
  82   ""
  83   ("Meditations"
  84    :nonfiction 6
  85    "I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic
  86 philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books
  87 before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the
  88 collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting
  89 according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but
  90 each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A
  91 number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in
  92 my notebook to ponder further."))
  93  ((|Søren| |Kierkegaard|)
  94   "Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is
  95 interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused
  96 disagreeable."
  97   ("Sickness Unto Death"
  98    :nonfiction 10
  99    "I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after
 100 being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it
 101 was better for me to have found this one.
 102
 103 Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of
 104 Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends,
 105 the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is
 106 reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation
 107 forces reflection.")
 108   ("Either/Or"
 109    :nonfiction 10
 110    "Composed of two portions, *Either/Or* is a rather lengthy but
 111 rewarding read. The first book is a series of essays and a diary of a
 112 young esthetician; the second is a pair of long letters from an older
 113 ethicist friend to this esthetician. You are then left to resolve the
 114 conflict between the views."))
 115  ((|Thomas| |More|)
 116   ""
 117   ("Utopia"
 118    :fiction 7
 119    "I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but
 120 the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the
 121 overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so
 122 I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick
 123 read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system
 124 espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a
 125 negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European
 126 social customs."))
 127  ((|William| |James|)
 128   ""
 129   ("The Varieties of Religious Experience"
 130    :nonfiction 7
 131    "[[William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience][A partially finished extended summary]]"))
 132  ((|Gregor| |Kiczales|)
 133   ""
 134   ("The Art of the Metaobject Protocol"
 135    :nonfiction 10
 136    "AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with
 137 the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first
 138 half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a
 139 series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations
 140 and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for
 141 CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general
 142 object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly
 143 make mapping decisions customizable.")))