Initial book listing equivalent to old Reading.muse page

diff --git a/book-list.lisp b/book-list.lisp
dissimilarity index 96%
index 4048dee..ccbd07c 100644 (file)
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+++ b/book-list.lisp
@@ -1,20 +1,143 @@
-(((|William| |Blake|)
-     "Blake is my favorite of the English poets."
-     ("The Four Zoas"
-      :fiction 10
-      "The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The
-      Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal
-      woe to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the
-      cycle of Beulah.")
-     ("Jerusalem" :fiction 10 "The finest of Blake's Illuminated works."))
-    ((|Kahlil| |Gibran|)
-     "A strange prophet"
-     ("Sand and Foam" :fiction 7 "Aphorisms")
-     ("The Prophet" :fiction 9 "The says of the Prophet.")
-     ("The Madman" :fiction 8 "The ramblings of a madman."))
-    ((|John| |Taylor| |Gatto|)
-     "Former teacher and now author-activist."
-     ("Underground History of American Education"
-      :nonfiction 9
-      "An interesting *underground* history of the American education
-      system.")))
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+(((|William| |Blake|)
+  "Blake is my favorite of the English poets. His unique use of
+relief etching and watercoloring makes for very interesting
+Illuminated works. There is a very high quality
+[[http://blakearchive.org][complete archive of Blake's works]] online
+with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other
+things."
+  ("The Four Zoas"
+   :fiction 10
+   "The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The
+Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal woe
+to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of
+Beulah.")
+  ("Jerusalem" :fiction 10 "The finest of Blake's Illuminated works."))
+ ((|Kahlil| |Gibran|)
+  "Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not
+agree with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but *The Madman* onward are
+all rather nice. A few of his works are
+[[http://leb.net/~mira/][online]], but I recommend scouting used book
+stores for old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least)
+*hardcover* versions from *Alfred A. Knopf* are in fact permabound
+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)."
+  ("A Tear and a Smile"
+   :fiction 3
+   "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\").")
+  ("The Prophet" :fiction 9 "")
+  ("Sand and Foam" :fiction 7 "An interesting little book of aphorisms.")
+  ("The Madman" :fiction 8 ""))
+ ((|John| |Taylor| |Gatto|)
+  "Former teacher and now author-activist."
+  ("Underground History of American Education"
+   :nonfiction 9
+   "An interesting *underground* history of the American education
+system."))
+ ((|Luke| |Rhinehardt|)
+  ""
+  ("The Dice Man"
+   :fiction 7
+   "<quote>
+And it's his illusions about what
+constitutes the real world which are
+inhibiting him...
+His reality, his reason, his society
+...these are what must be destroyed
+</quote>
+
+A quotation from one of my [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter_of_the_Soul][favorite metal songs]] inspired me to grab
+this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found
+in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an
+autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression
+through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through
+random chance.
+
+The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part
+attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often
+difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time."))
+ ((|Neal| |Stephenson|)
+  ""
+  ("Snow Crash"
+   :fiction 9
+   "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
+fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in
+a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come
+up with enganging tales. *Snow Crash* has a nice undertone of (quite
+accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading
+as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.")
+  ("Cryptonomicon"
+   :fiction 8
+   "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
+the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to
+finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between
+the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way.
+
+I'd still have to recommend *Snow Crash* if one wished to read only one
+Stephenson novel."))
+ ((|Marcus| |Aurelius|)
+  ""
+  ("Meditations"
+   :nonfiction 6
+   "I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic
+philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books
+before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the
+collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting
+according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but
+each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A
+number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in
+my notebook to ponder further."))
+ ((|Søren| |Kierkegaard|)
+  "Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is
+interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused
+disagreeable."
+  ("Sickness Unto Death"
+   :nonfiction 10
+   "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
+was better for me to have found this one. 
+
+Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of
+Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends,
+the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is
+reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation
+forces reflection.")
+  ("Either/Or"
+   :nonfiction 10
+   "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
+young esthetician; the second is a pair of long letters from an older
+ethicist friend to this esthetician. You are then left to resolve the
+conflict between the views."))
+ ((|Thomas| |More|)
+  ""
+  ("Utopia"
+   :fiction 7
+   "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
+overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so
+I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick
+read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system
+espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a
+negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European
+social customs."))
+ ((|William| |James|)
+  ""
+  ("The Varieties of Religious Experience"
+   :nonfiction 7
+   "[[William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience][A partially finished extended summary]]"))
+ ((|Gregor| |Kiczales|)
+  ""
+  ("The Art of the Metaobject Protocol"
+   :nonfiction 10
+   "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
+half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a
+series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations
+and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for
+CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general
+object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly
+make mapping decisions customizable.")))
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