X-Git-Url: https://git.hcoop.net/clinton/website/site/unknownlamer.org.git/blobdiff_plain/09c17a157e56a9d5eead53c6426e886a6874177d..9be210c03d9856c0f5a15e773e85d45636fc2c6c:/Book%20List.html diff --git a/Book List.html b/Book List.html index 82544b3..15dfe1d 100644 --- a/Book List.html +++ b/Book List.html @@ -17,284 +17,1026 @@
-Marcus Aurelius +Douglas Adams
-Meditations +Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (collected) +
+
+The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
-William Blake +Aeschylus
-The Four Zoas +Oresteia +
+
+Prometheus Bound
-Jerusalem +The Persians
-John Taylor Gatto +John Allison
-Underground History of American Education +Looks, Brains and Everything +
+
+Blame the Sky +
+
+Skellington +
+
+The Retribution Index +
+
+Great Aches +
+
+Ahoy Hoy! +
+
+Heavy Metal Hearts and Flowers +
+
+Ghosts
-Kahlil Gibran +Anonymous
-A Tear and a Smile +Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz +
+
+
+
+Aristophanes
+
+
-The Prophet +The Frogs
-Sand and Foam +The Clouds
-The Madman +Ecclesiazusae
-William James +Aristotle
-The Varieties of Religious Experience +Ethics
-The PhD Octopus +Categories +
+
+Poetics +
+
+Rhetoric
-Henry James +Marcus Aurelius
-The Altar of the Dead +Meditations
-Gregor Kiczales +William Blake
-The Art of the Metaobject Protocol +The Four Zoas +
+
+Jerusalem
-Søren Kierkegaard +Albert Camus
-Sickness Unto Death +The Plague +
+
+
+
+Mike Carey
+
+
-Either/Or +Lucifer (series)
-Thomas More +Confucius
-Utopia +Analects
-Friedrich Nietzsche +Neil Gaiman
-Beyond Good and Evil +The Sandman (series)
-On the Geneaology of Morals +Good Omens
-Ecce Homo +American Gods
-Luke Rhinehardt +John Taylor Gatto
-The Dice Man +Underground History of American Education
-Neal Stephenson +Kahlil Gibran
-Snow Crash +A Tear and a Smile +
+
+The Prophet +
+
+Sand and Foam
-Cryptonomicon +The Madman
+
+Homer +
+
+
+
+The Odyssey +
-
- - -

-Marcus Aurelius

- - - -

-Meditations

- -

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 -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.

- - - - -

-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 -complete archive of Blake's works online -with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other -things.

- -

-The Four Zoas

- -

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 -to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of -Beulah.

- - - -

-Jerusalem

- -

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Fiction

- -

The finest of Blake's Illuminated works.

- - - - -

-John Taylor Gatto

- -

Former teacher and now author-activist.

- -

-Underground History of American Education

- -

Rating: •••••••••• (9) / Nonfiction

- -

An interesting underground history of the American education -system. Available -online for free.

- - - - -

-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 -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

- -

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").

+ +
+Aldous Huxley +
+
+
+
+The Doors of Perception +
+
+Heaven and Hell +
+
+Brave New World +
+
+
+
+William James +
+
+
+
+The Varieties of Religious Experience +
+
+The PhD Octopus +
+
+
+
+Henry James +
+
+
+
+The Altar of the Dead +
+
+
+
+Gregor Kiczales +
+
+
+
+The Art of the Metaobject Protocol +
+
+
+
+Søren Kierkegaard +
+
+
+
+Sickness Unto Death +
+
+Either/Or +
+
+Fear and Trembling +
+
+Repetition +
+
+The Concept of Anxiety +
+
+
+
+Alisa Kwitney +
+
+
+
+Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold +
+
+
+
+David Lamkins +
+
+
+
+Successful Lisp +
+
+
+
+Mencius +
+
+
+
+Mencius +
+
+
+
+Walter Miller +
+
+
+
+A Canticle for Leibowitz +
+
+
+
+John Milton +
+
+
+
+Paradise Lost +
+
+
+
+Alan Moore +
+
+
+
+Watchmen +
+
+V for Vendetta +
+
+
+
+Thomas More +
+
+
+
+Utopia +
+
+
+
+Friedrich Nietzsche +
+
+
+
+Thus Spoke Zarathustra +
+
+Beyond Good and Evil +
+
+On the Geneaology of Morals +
+
+Ecce Homo +
+
+
+
+George Orwell +
+
+
+
+1984 +
+
+Animal Farm +
+
+
+
+Plato +
+
+
+
+Symposium +
+
+Euthyphro +
+
+Apology +
+
+Crito +
+
+Phaedo +
+
+Protagoras +
+
+
+
+Edgar Allan Poe +
+
+
+
+Tales of Mystery and Suspense +
+
+
+
+Luke Rhinehardt +
+
+
+
+The Dice Man +
+
+
+
+Neal Stephenson +
+
+
+
+Snow Crash +
+
+Cryptonomicon +
+
+
+
+Bjarne Stroustrup +
+
+
+
+The C++ Programming Language (3rd edition) +
+
+
+
+JRR Tolkien +
+
+
+
+The Lord of the Rings +
+
+The Silmarillion +
+
+The Lost Tales +
+
+
+
+Kurt Vonnegut +
+
+
+
+Cat's Cradle +
+
+
+
+H.G. Wells +
+
+
+
+The Island of Dr Moreau +
+
+
+
+Robert Anton Wilson +
+
+
+
+The Illuminatus! Trilogy +
+
+
+
+Yevgeny Zamyatin +
+
+
+
+We +
+
+
+ + + + +

+Douglas Adams

+ + + +

+Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (collected)

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Fiction

+ + + + + +

+The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (6) / Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Aeschylus

+ + + +

+Oresteia

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Prometheus Bound

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (9) / Fiction

+ + + + + +

+The Persians

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+John Allison

+ +

The author of the rather amazing Scary Go Round. +I highly recommend procuring the printed collections; the printing +quality is superb (full color on glossy paper), and the long story +arcs are much easier to read.

+ +

+Looks, Brains and Everything

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Blame the Sky

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Skellington

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+The Retribution Index

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Great Aches

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Ahoy Hoy!

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Heavy Metal Hearts and Flowers

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Ghosts

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Anonymous

+ + + +

+Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Aristophanes

+ + + +

+The Frogs

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+The Clouds

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Ecclesiazusae

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Aristotle

+ + + +

+Ethics

+ +

Nonfiction

+ + + + + +

+Categories

+ +

Nonfiction

+ + + + + +

+Poetics

+ +

Nonfiction

+ + + + + +

+Rhetoric

+ +

Nonfiction

+ + + + + + +

+Marcus Aurelius

+ + + +

+Meditations

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (4) / Nonfiction

+ +

At the time, I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on +Stoic philosophy, and it was a fairly quick read (fifteen minutes a +day over the course of two weeks for me). Nowadays I've read +Epictetus, and I suggest reading his Discourses instead.

+ + + + +

+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 +complete archive of Blake's works online +with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other +things.

+ +

+The Four Zoas

+ +

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 +to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of +Beulah.

+ + + +

+Jerusalem

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Fiction

+ +

The finest of Blake's Illuminated works.

+ + + + +

+Albert Camus

+ + + +

+The Plague

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Mike Carey

+ + + +

+Lucifer (series)

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (6) / Fiction

+ +

Of the Sandman spinoffs, Lucifer stands out as the best for +the first half, but then the writer appears to take on far too great a +task, and, with the introduction of some disagreeable character +relations, fails to execute the story as well as it could have +been. Still, it was worth reading to the end even though most of the +stories after issue 35 or so were merely ok. If you like Kierkegaard I +suggest issues 2, 3, and 62—they show the form of the incommensurable +relation of the single individual to the absolute perfectly.

+ + + + +

+Confucius

+ + + +

+Analects

+ +

Nonfiction

+ + + + + + +

+Neil Gaiman

+ + + +

+The Sandman (series)

+ +

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.

+ + + +

+Good Omens

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Fiction

+ +

A friend of a friend decided one evening that I needed to read +so-called normal people books, and so she lent me Good Omens. It +was an enjoyable read and unearthed vague memories of comic book +magazines I read when I was small and the name Sandman; thus through +one book I found something far greater.

+ + + +

+American Gods

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (6) / Fiction

+ +

Entertaining, but the end was a bit much rushed.

+ + + + +

+John Taylor Gatto

+ +

Former teacher and now author-activist.

+ +

+Underground History of American Education

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (9) / Nonfiction

+ +

An interesting underground history of the American education +system. Available +online for free.

+ + + + +

+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 +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

+ +

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").

+ + + +

+The Prophet

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (9) / Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Sand and Foam

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Fiction

+ +

An interesting little book of aphorisms.

+ + + +

+The Madman

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Homer

+ + + +

+The Odyssey

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Fiction

+ + + -

-The Prophet

+

+Aldous Huxley

-

Rating: •••••••••• (9) / Fiction

+

Perhaps the most overrated modern writer. Other people have written +everything he has to write better and many years before he got around +to it.

+

+The Doors of Perception

+

Rating: •••••••••• (0) / Nonfiction

+

Huxley stains the name of Blake by naming this horrible +pseudo-scientific and pseudo-poetic essay after a line from The +Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Subjectivity and objectivity are +incommensurable; his attempt and being subjectively objective is +utterly worthless.

-

-Sand and Foam

-

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Fiction

+

+Heaven and Hell

-

An interesting little book of aphorisms.

+

Rating: •••••••••• (0) / Nonfiction

+

Blah blah LSD blah blah Mushrooms blah blah Peyote blah blah I'm +Aldous Huxley I'm a pretentious jerk. Don't bother.

-

-The Madman

-

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Fiction

+

+Brave New World

+

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Fiction

+

A nice light read; the story is obvious and by the hundreth page +the ending is clear, but it provided a bit of a break from heavier +reading for me. I must say that anyone who has read Brave New World +and does not despise modern society has the intellectual capacity of +an Epsilon. 1984 is perhaps easily misread, but Brave New World +is very clear with its message and is a bit like being smacked upside +the head with a hammer.

-

+

William James

-

+

The Varieties of Religious Experience

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Nonfiction

@@ -303,7 +1045,7 @@ The Varieties of Religious Experience -

+

The PhD Octopus

Nonfiction

@@ -325,13 +1067,13 @@ from the Mandarin disease. Are we doomed to suffer like the rest?

-

+

Henry James

The novelist brother of William James; I've not read many (read: one) of his books, but what I did was decent.

-

+

The Altar of the Dead

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Fiction

@@ -343,12 +1085,12 @@ more beneath.

-

+

Gregor Kiczales

-

+

The Art of the Metaobject Protocol

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Nonfiction

@@ -365,14 +1107,14 @@ make mapping decisions customizable.

-

+

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

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Nonfiction

@@ -389,7 +1131,7 @@ forces reflection.

-

+

Either/Or

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Nonfiction

@@ -402,13 +1144,144 @@ conflict between the views.

+

+Fear and Trembling

-

+

Nonfiction

+ +

An interesting dialectical lyric contrasting Despair and Faith.

+ + + +

+Repetition

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Nonfiction

+ +

He who despairs of esthetic repetition gets none; he who despairs +of ethical repetition receieves the esthetic. Is it true then that no +repetition exists? Is transition all one can hope for?

+ + + +

+The Concept of Anxiety

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Nonfiction

+ +

...Very clearly an early work of Kierkegaard. It is rather formal +and difficult to get through. I'd recommend reading a lot of other +Kierkegaard before this.

+ + + + +

+Alisa Kwitney

+ + + +

+Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+David Lamkins

+ + + +

+Successful Lisp

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Nonfiction

+ +

After learning Scheme, I read Successful Lisp and was able to +pick up Common Lisp fairly easily.

+ + + + +

+Mencius

+ + + +

+Mencius

+ +

Nonfiction

+ + + + + + +

+Walter Miller

+ + + +

+A Canticle for Leibowitz

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+John Milton

+ + + +

+Paradise Lost

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Alan Moore

+ + + +

+Watchmen

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Fiction

+ + + + + +

+V for Vendetta

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Fiction

+ + + + + + +

Thomas More

-

+

Utopia

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Fiction

@@ -425,7 +1298,7 @@ social customs.

-

+

Friedrich Nietzsche

A bit acerbic and esoteric, Nietzsche is for me a good secular @@ -436,7 +1309,18 @@ 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.

-

+

+Thus Spoke Zarathustra

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Fiction

+ +

A masterpiece of indirect communication depsite the occasional +flaw and overly dramatic passage. Certainly a book worth reading many +times over the course of one's life.

+ + + +

Beyond Good and Evil

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Nonfiction

@@ -449,19 +1333,19 @@ one wishes to understand On the Genealogy of Morals.

-

+

On the Geneaology of Morals

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 +polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethical valuations, and the blindness of modern philosphers whose very thinking is tainted by these valuations unknowingly.

-

+

Ecce Homo

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Nonfiction

@@ -475,12 +1359,113 @@ Nietzsche explains the overall structure of his works.

-

+

+George Orwell

+ + + +

+1984

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Animal Farm

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Plato

+ + + +

+Symposium

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Euthyphro

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Apology

+ +

Nonfiction

+ + + + + +

+Crito

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + +

+Phaedo

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Nonfiction

+ + + + + +

+Protagoras

+ +

Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Edgar Allan Poe

+ +

ULTRAGOTHIK

+ +

+Tales of Mystery and Suspense

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (6) / Fiction

+ +

This is when I learned that I still don't really like late 1800s +American literature all that much. Some of the tales were worth +reading, but most of it was not in a style I like all that much.

+ + + + +

Luke Rhinehardt

-

+

The Dice Man

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Fiction

@@ -509,12 +1494,12 @@ difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.

-

+

Neal Stephenson

-

+

Snow Crash

Rating: •••••••••• (9) / Fiction

@@ -529,7 +1514,7 @@ as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.

-

+

Cryptonomicon

Rating: •••••••••• (8) / Fiction

@@ -545,6 +1530,120 @@ Stephenson novel.

+ +

+Bjarne Stroustrup

+ + + +

+The C++ Programming Language (3rd edition)

+ +

Nonfiction

+ +

Once upon a time I was fifteen and I read this book. It was more +or less what taught me how to write programs just large enough to do +useful things, and so shall forever be remembered by me. A year and a +half later I stumbled upon a little language called Scheme and fell +down the rabbit hole.

+ + + + +

+JRR Tolkien

+ + + +

+The Lord of the Rings

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (9) / Fiction

+ + + + + +

+The Silmarillion

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Fiction

+ + + + + +

+The Lost Tales

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Kurt Vonnegut

+ + + +

+Cat's Cradle

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (9) / Fiction

+ +

There are few books that I have started to read before sleeping +and found myself watching the sun rise after finishing. Cat's Cradle +is definitely required nerd reading.

+ + + + +

+H.G. Wells

+ + + +

+The Island of Dr Moreau

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (7) / Fiction

+ + + + + + +

+Robert Anton Wilson

+ +

Or rather, Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea (but my book script +updating thing doesn't do multiple authors

+ +

+The Illuminatus! Trilogy

+ +

Rating: •••••••••• (10) / Nonfiction

+ +

e-cash MP5K-SD Adriatic Bellcore Lon Horiuchi 9705 Samford Road +jihad New World Order AVN FTS2000 ANZUS subversive SAPO PET Armani

+ + + + +

+Yevgeny Zamyatin

+ + + +

+We

+ +

Fiction

+ + +

@@ -571,11 +1670,9 @@ Stephenson novel.

-

Last Modified: - September 28, 2008

+ November 5, 2010

\ No newline at end of file