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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 |
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10 | Sandman* as a whole ranks higher than anything even Alan Moore has |
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11 | written.") |
12 | ("Good Omens" |
13 | :fiction 8 |
14 | "A friend of a friend decided one evening that I needed to read |
15 | so-called *normal people books*, and so she lent me *Good Omens*. It |
16 | was an enjoyable read and unearthed vague memories of comic book |
17 | magazines I read when I was small and the name *Sandman*; thus through |
18 | one book I found something far greater.")) |
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19 | ((|William| |Blake|) |
8725b57e |
20 | "Blake is my [[William Blake][favorite]] of the English poets. His |
21 | unique use of relief etching and watercoloring makes for very |
22 | interesting Illuminated works. There is a very high quality |
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23 | [[http://blakearchive.org][complete archive of Blake's works]] online |
24 | with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other |
25 | things." |
26 | ("The Four Zoas" |
27 | :fiction 10 |
28 | "The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The |
29 | Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal woe |
30 | to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of |
31 | Beulah.") |
32 | ("Jerusalem" :fiction 10 "The finest of Blake's Illuminated works.")) |
33 | ((|Kahlil| |Gibran|) |
34 | "Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not |
35 | agree with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but *The Madman* onward are |
36 | all rather nice. A few of his works are |
37 | [[http://leb.net/~mira/][online]], but I recommend scouting used book |
38 | stores for old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least) |
39 | *hardcover* versions from *Alfred A. Knopf* are in fact permabound |
40 | paperbacks with a hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to |
41 | the editions from the 50s and 60s (and cost quite a bit more, |
42 | naturally)." |
43 | ("A Tear and a Smile" |
44 | :fiction 3 |
45 | "One of Kahlil Gibran's earlier works, I did not much like *A |
46 | Tear and a Smile* excepting the last poem (\"A Poet's Voice\").") |
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47 | ("The Prophet" :fiction 9) |
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48 | ("Sand and Foam" :fiction 7 "An interesting little book of aphorisms.") |
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49 | ("The Madman" :fiction 8)) |
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50 | ((|John| |Taylor| |Gatto|) |
51 | "Former teacher and now author-activist." |
52 | ("Underground History of American Education" |
53 | :nonfiction 9 |
54 | "An interesting *underground* history of the American education |
8c288476 |
55 | system. Available |
56 | [[http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/][online for free]].")) |
874f8ca9 |
57 | ((|Luke| |Rhinehardt|) |
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58 | nil |
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59 | ("The Dice Man" |
60 | :fiction 7 |
61 | "<quote> |
62 | And it's his illusions about what |
63 | constitutes the real world which are |
64 | inhibiting him... |
65 | His reality, his reason, his society |
66 | ...these are what must be destroyed |
67 | </quote> |
68 | |
69 | A quotation from one of my [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter_of_the_Soul][favorite metal songs]] inspired me to grab |
70 | this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found |
71 | in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an |
72 | autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression |
73 | through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through |
74 | random chance. |
75 | |
76 | The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part |
77 | attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often |
78 | difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.")) |
79 | ((|Neal| |Stephenson|) |
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80 | nil |
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81 | ("Snow Crash" |
82 | :fiction 9 |
83 | "As one must read the *Bible* to understand English literature, so one |
84 | must read *Snow Crash* today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop |
85 | fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in |
86 | a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come |
87 | up with enganging tales. *Snow Crash* has a nice undertone of (quite |
88 | accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading |
89 | as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.") |
90 | ("Cryptonomicon" |
91 | :fiction 8 |
92 | "I read *Cryptonomicon* when it was new, and at the time I thought it was |
93 | good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from |
94 | the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to |
95 | finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between |
96 | the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way. |
97 | |
98 | I'd still have to recommend *Snow Crash* if one wished to read only one |
99 | Stephenson novel.")) |
100 | ((|Marcus| |Aurelius|) |
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101 | nil |
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102 | ("Meditations" |
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103 | :nonfiction 4 |
104 | "At the time, I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on |
105 | Stoic philosophy, and it was a fairly quick read (fifteen minutes a |
106 | day over the course of two weeks for me). Nowadays I've read |
107 | Epictetus, and I suggest reading his *Discourses* instead.")) |
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108 | ((|Søren| |Kierkegaard|) |
109 | "Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is |
110 | interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused |
111 | disagreeable." |
112 | ("Sickness Unto Death" |
113 | :nonfiction 10 |
114 | "I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after |
115 | being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it |
116 | was better for me to have found this one. |
117 | |
118 | Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of |
119 | Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends, |
120 | the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is |
121 | reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation |
122 | forces reflection.") |
123 | ("Either/Or" |
124 | :nonfiction 10 |
125 | "Composed of two portions, *Either/Or* is a rather lengthy but |
126 | rewarding read. The first book is a series of essays and a diary of a |
127 | young esthetician; the second is a pair of long letters from an older |
128 | ethicist friend to this esthetician. You are then left to resolve the |
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129 | conflict between the views.") |
130 | ("Fear and Trembling" |
131 | :nonfiction nil |
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132 | "An interesting dialectical lyric contrasting Despair and Faith.") |
133 | ("Repetition" |
134 | :nonfiction 10 |
135 | "He who despairs of esthetic repetition gets none; he who despairs |
136 | of ethical repetition receieves the esthetic. Is it true then that no |
137 | repetition exists? Is transition all one can hope for?")) |
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138 | ((|Thomas| |More|) |
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139 | nil |
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140 | ("Utopia" |
141 | :fiction 7 |
142 | "I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but |
143 | the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the |
144 | overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so |
145 | I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick |
146 | read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system |
147 | espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a |
148 | negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European |
149 | social customs.")) |
150 | ((|William| |James|) |
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151 | nil |
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152 | ("The Varieties of Religious Experience" |
153 | :nonfiction 7 |
de5d3f07 |
154 | "[[William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience][A partially finished extended summary]]") |
155 | ("The PhD Octopus" |
156 | :nonfiction nil |
157 | "<quote> |
158 | America is thus as a nation rapidly drifting towards a state of things |
159 | in which no man of science or letters will be accounted respectable |
160 | unless some kind of badge or diploma is stamped upon him, and in which |
161 | bare personality will be a mark of outcast estate. It seems to me high |
162 | time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye |
163 | upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly |
164 | from the Mandarin disease. Are we doomed to suffer like the rest? |
165 | </quote> |
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166 | |
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167 | [[William James - The PhD Octopus][Full Text]]")) |
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168 | ((|Henry| |James|) |
169 | "The novelist brother of William James; I've not read many (read: |
170 | one) of his books, but what I did was decent." |
171 | ("The Altar of the Dead" |
172 | :fiction 7 |
173 | "A short novella about a man who maintained an altar in a church |
174 | for all of his lost loved ones on the surface, but something a bit |
175 | more beneath.")) |
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176 | ((|Gregor| |Kiczales|) |
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177 | nil |
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178 | ("The Art of the Metaobject Protocol" |
179 | :nonfiction 10 |
180 | "AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with |
181 | the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first |
182 | half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a |
183 | series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations |
184 | and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for |
185 | CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general |
186 | object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly |
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187 | make mapping decisions customizable.")) |
188 | ((|Friedrich| |Nietzsche|) |
189 | "A bit acerbic and esoteric, Nietzsche is for me a good *secular* |
190 | counterpart to Kierkegaard's theistic philosophy. Nietzsche's |
191 | polemical works raise important questions for anyone who reads works |
192 | on ethics. As such it is a shame that he has gotten a bad reputation |
193 | by being read by far too many angsty teenagers who see (and relay) |
194 | only Nietzsche the asshole rather than Nietzsche the master of the |
195 | polemic." |
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196 | ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra" |
197 | :fiction 8 |
198 | "A masterpiece of indirect communication depsite the occasional |
199 | flaw and overly dramatic passage. Certainly a book worth reading many |
200 | times over the course of one's life.") |
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201 | ("Beyond Good and Evil" |
202 | :nonfiction 8 |
203 | "A somewhat more comprehensible, if a bit less aesthetically |
204 | pleasing, presentation of much of the philosophy found in *Thus Spoke |
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205 | Zarathustra* in the negative form. The final chapters are very |
206 | important (not to detract from the value of the rest of the work) if |
207 | one wishes to understand *On the Genealogy of Morals*.") |
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208 | ("On the Geneaology of Morals" |
209 | :nonfiction 9 |
210 | "*On the Geneaology of Morals* is a wonderful book of three |
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211 | polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethical valuations, and the |
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212 | blindness of modern philosphers whose very thinking is tainted by |
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213 | these valuations unknowingly.") |
214 | ("Ecce Homo" |
215 | :nonfiction 7 |
216 | "*Ecce Homo* is Nietzsche's very strange autobiography and |
217 | explanation of his own works. At points it is clear that it could have |
218 | used a bit more editing (prevented by Nietzsche ... falling into a |
219 | catatonic state and all), but is still a very useful book to read as |
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220 | Nietzsche explains the overall structure of his works.")) |
221 | ((|Aristotle|) |
222 | nil |
223 | ("Ethics" |
224 | :nonfiction nil) |
225 | ("Categories" |
226 | :nonfiction nil) |
227 | ("Poetics" |
228 | :nonfiction nil) |
229 | ;;; ("Prior Analytics" |
230 | ;;; :nonfiction nil |
231 | ;;; "*Prior Analytics* is essential reading if one wishes to understand |
232 | ;;; [[Term Logic][traditional logic]]. Given that traditional logic is |
233 | ;;; used by most philosophers prior to the mid-1800s it is a *bit* |
234 | ;;; important. Luckily *Prior Analytics* is |
235 | ;;; [[http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8pra/index.html][available online for free]] and is fairly short.") |
236 | ("Rhetoric" |
237 | :nonfiction nil)) |
238 | ((|Aristophanes|) |
239 | nil |
240 | ("The Frogs" :fiction nil) |
241 | ("The Clouds" :fiction nil) |
242 | ("Ecclesiazusae" :fiction nil)) |
243 | ((|Plato|) |
244 | nil |
245 | ("Symposium" :fiction nil) |
246 | ("Euthyphro" :fiction nil) |
247 | ("Apology" :nonfiction nil) |
248 | ("Crito" :fiction nil) |
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249 | ("Phaedo" :nonfiction 10) |
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250 | ("Protagoras" :fiction nil)) |
251 | ((|Aeschylus|) |
252 | nil |
253 | ("Oresteia":fiction 10) |
254 | ("Prometheus Bound" :fiction 9) |
255 | ("The Persians" :fiction 8)) |
256 | ((|Homer|) |
257 | nil |
258 | ("The Odyssey" :fiction 10)) |
259 | ((|George| |Orwell|) |
260 | nil |
261 | ("1984" :fiction 10) |
262 | ("Animal Farm" :fiction nil)) |
263 | ((|Aldous| |Huxley|) |
264 | "Perhaps the most overrated modern writer. Other people have written |
265 | everything he has to write better and many years before he got around |
266 | to it." |
267 | ("The Doors of Perception" |
268 | :nonfiction 0 |
269 | "Huxley stains the name of Blake by naming this horrible |
270 | pseudo-scientific and pseudo-poetic essay after a line from *The |
271 | Marriage of Heaven and Hell*. Subjectivity and objectivity are |
272 | incommensurable; his attempt and being subjectively objective is |
273 | utterly worthless.") |
274 | ("Heaven and Hell" |
275 | :nonfiction 0 |
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276 | "Blah blah LSD blah blah Mushrooms blah blah Peyote blah blah I'm |
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277 | Aldous Huxley I'm a pretentious jerk. Don't bother.")) |
278 | ((|Douglas| |Adams|) |
279 | nil |
280 | ("Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (collected)" :fiction 8) |
281 | ("The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" :fiction 6)) |
282 | ((|H.G.| |Wells|) |
283 | nil |
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284 | ("The Island of Dr Moreau" :fiction 7)) |
285 | ((|JRR| |Tolkien|) |
286 | nil |
287 | ("The Lord of the Rings" :fiction 9) |
288 | ("The Silmarillion" :fiction 10) |
289 | ("The Lost Tales" :fiction 7)) |
290 | ((|Bjarne| |Stroustrup|) |
291 | nil |
292 | ("The C++ Programming Language (3rd edition)" |
293 | :nonfiction nil |
294 | "Once upon a time I was fifteen and I read this book. It was more |
295 | or less what taught me how to write programs just large enough to do |
296 | useful things, and so shall forever be remembered by me. A year and a |
297 | half later I stumbled upon a little language called Scheme and fell |
298 | down the rabbit hole.")) |
299 | ((|Confucius|) |
300 | nil |
301 | ("Analects" :nonfiction nil)) |
302 | ((|Mencius|) |
303 | nil |
304 | ("Mencius" :nonfiction nil)) |
305 | ((|Walter| |Miller|) |
306 | nil |
307 | ("A Canticle for Leibowitz" :fiction 10)) |
308 | ((|David| |Lamkins|) |
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309 | nil |
310 | ("Successful Lisp" |
4aa6c876 |
311 | :nonfiction 8 |
312 | "After learning Scheme, I read *Successful Lisp* and was able to |
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313 | pick up Common Lisp fairly easily.")) |
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314 | ((|John| |Allison|) |
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315 | "The author of the rather amazing [[http://scarygoround.com][Scary Go Round]]. |
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316 | I highly recommend procuring the printed collections; the printing |
317 | quality is superb (full color on glossy paper), and the long story |
318 | arcs are much easier to read." |
d95bc162 |
319 | ("Looks, Brains and Everything" :fiction nil) |
320 | ("Blame the Sky" :fiction nil) |
321 | ("Skellington" :fiction nil) |
322 | ("The Retribution Index" :fiction nil) |
323 | ("Great Aches" :fiction nil) |
324 | ("Ahoy Hoy!" :fiction nil) |
325 | ("Heavy Metal Hearts and Flowers" :fiction nil) |
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326 | ("Ghosts" :fiction nil)) |
327 | ((|Mike| |Carey|) |
328 | nil |
329 | ("Lucifer (series)" |
330 | :fiction 6 |
331 | "Of the *Sandman* spinoffs, *Lucifer* stands out as the best for |
332 | the first half, but then the writer appears to take on far too great a |
333 | task, and, with the introduction of some disagreeable character |
334 | relations, fails to execute the story as well as it could have |
335 | been. Still, it was worth reading to the end even though most of the |
336 | stories after issue 35 or so were merely ok. If you like Kierkegaard I |
337 | suggest issues 2, 3, and 62--they show the form of the incommensurable |
338 | relation of the single individual to the absolute perfectly.")) |
339 | ((|Anonymous|) |
340 | nil |
341 | ("Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz" :fiction nil)) |
342 | ((|Alisa| |Kwitney|) |
343 | nil |
064cb94b |
344 | ("Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold" :fiction 8)) |
345 | ((|John| |Milton|) |
346 | nil |
347 | ("Paradise Lost" :fiction 10)) |
348 | ((|Yevgeny| |Zamyatin|) |
349 | nil |
350 | ("We" :fiction))) |
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351 | |