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1 | (((|William| |Blake|) |
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2 | "Blake is my [[William Blake][favorite]] of the English poets. His |
3 | unique use of relief etching and watercoloring makes for very |
4 | interesting Illuminated works. There is a very high quality |
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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\").") |
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29 | ("The Prophet" :fiction 9) |
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30 | ("Sand and Foam" :fiction 7 "An interesting little book of aphorisms.") |
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31 | ("The Madman" :fiction 8)) |
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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 |
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37 | system. Available |
38 | [[http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/][online for free]].")) |
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39 | ((|Luke| |Rhinehardt|) |
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40 | nil |
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41 | ("The Dice Man" |
42 | :fiction 7 |
43 | "<quote> |
44 | And it's his illusions about what |
45 | constitutes the real world which are |
46 | inhibiting him... |
47 | His reality, his reason, his society |
48 | ...these are what must be destroyed |
49 | </quote> |
50 | |
51 | A quotation from one of my [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter_of_the_Soul][favorite metal songs]] inspired me to grab |
52 | this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found |
53 | in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an |
54 | autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression |
55 | through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through |
56 | random chance. |
57 | |
58 | The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part |
59 | attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often |
60 | difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.")) |
61 | ((|Neal| |Stephenson|) |
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62 | nil |
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63 | ("Snow Crash" |
64 | :fiction 9 |
65 | "As one must read the *Bible* to understand English literature, so one |
66 | must read *Snow Crash* today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop |
67 | fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in |
68 | a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come |
69 | up with enganging tales. *Snow Crash* has a nice undertone of (quite |
70 | accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading |
71 | as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.") |
72 | ("Cryptonomicon" |
73 | :fiction 8 |
74 | "I read *Cryptonomicon* when it was new, and at the time I thought it was |
75 | good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from |
76 | the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to |
77 | finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between |
78 | the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way. |
79 | |
80 | I'd still have to recommend *Snow Crash* if one wished to read only one |
81 | Stephenson novel.")) |
82 | ((|Marcus| |Aurelius|) |
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83 | nil |
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84 | ("Meditations" |
85 | :nonfiction 6 |
86 | "I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on Stoic |
87 | philosophy. It is a fairly quick read; I read each of the twelve books |
88 | before sleeping over the course of two weeks. Toward the end of the |
89 | collection things get a bit topically repetetive (e.g. acting |
90 | according to the nature of man is reflected upon over and over), but |
91 | each repetition looks at the topic in a slightly different light. A |
92 | number of passages I found quite inspiring, and scratched them down in |
93 | my notebook to ponder further.")) |
94 | ((|Søren| |Kierkegaard|) |
95 | "Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is |
96 | interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused |
97 | disagreeable." |
98 | ("Sickness Unto Death" |
99 | :nonfiction 10 |
100 | "I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after |
101 | being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it |
102 | was better for me to have found this one. |
103 | |
104 | Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of |
105 | Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends, |
106 | the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is |
107 | reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation |
108 | forces reflection.") |
109 | ("Either/Or" |
110 | :nonfiction 10 |
111 | "Composed of two portions, *Either/Or* is a rather lengthy but |
112 | rewarding read. The first book is a series of essays and a diary of a |
113 | young esthetician; the second is a pair of long letters from an older |
114 | ethicist friend to this esthetician. You are then left to resolve the |
115 | conflict between the views.")) |
116 | ((|Thomas| |More|) |
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117 | nil |
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118 | ("Utopia" |
119 | :fiction 7 |
120 | "I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but |
121 | the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the |
122 | overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so |
123 | I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick |
124 | read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system |
125 | espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a |
126 | negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European |
127 | social customs.")) |
128 | ((|William| |James|) |
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129 | nil |
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130 | ("The Varieties of Religious Experience" |
131 | :nonfiction 7 |
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132 | "[[William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience][A partially finished extended summary]]") |
133 | ("The PhD Octopus" |
134 | :nonfiction nil |
135 | "<quote> |
136 | America is thus as a nation rapidly drifting towards a state of things |
137 | in which no man of science or letters will be accounted respectable |
138 | unless some kind of badge or diploma is stamped upon him, and in which |
139 | bare personality will be a mark of outcast estate. It seems to me high |
140 | time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye |
141 | upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly |
142 | from the Mandarin disease. Are we doomed to suffer like the rest? |
143 | </quote> |
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144 | |
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145 | [[William James - The PhD Octopus][Full Text]]")) |
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146 | ((|Henry| |James|) |
147 | "The novelist brother of William James; I've not read many (read: |
148 | one) of his books, but what I did was decent." |
149 | ("The Altar of the Dead" |
150 | :fiction 7 |
151 | "A short novella about a man who maintained an altar in a church |
152 | for all of his lost loved ones on the surface, but something a bit |
153 | more beneath.")) |
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154 | ((|Gregor| |Kiczales|) |
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155 | nil |
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156 | ("The Art of the Metaobject Protocol" |
157 | :nonfiction 10 |
158 | "AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with |
159 | the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first |
160 | half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a |
161 | series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations |
162 | and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for |
163 | CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general |
164 | object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly |
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165 | make mapping decisions customizable.")) |
166 | ((|Friedrich| |Nietzsche|) |
167 | "A bit acerbic and esoteric, Nietzsche is for me a good *secular* |
168 | counterpart to Kierkegaard's theistic philosophy. Nietzsche's |
169 | polemical works raise important questions for anyone who reads works |
170 | on ethics. As such it is a shame that he has gotten a bad reputation |
171 | by being read by far too many angsty teenagers who see (and relay) |
172 | only Nietzsche the asshole rather than Nietzsche the master of the |
173 | polemic." |
174 | ("Beyond Good and Evil" |
175 | :nonfiction 8 |
176 | "A somewhat more comprehensible, if a bit less aesthetically |
177 | pleasing, presentation of much of the philosophy found in *Thus Spoke |
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178 | Zarathustra* in the negative form. The final chapters are very |
179 | important (not to detract from the value of the rest of the work) if |
180 | one wishes to understand *On the Genealogy of Morals*.") |
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181 | ("On the Geneaology of Morals" |
182 | :nonfiction 9 |
183 | "*On the Geneaology of Morals* is a wonderful book of three |
184 | polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethic valuations, and the |
185 | blindness of modern philosphers whose very thinking is tainted by |
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186 | these valuations unknowingly.") |
187 | ("Ecce Homo" |
188 | :nonfiction 7 |
189 | "*Ecce Homo* is Nietzsche's very strange autobiography and |
190 | explanation of his own works. At points it is clear that it could have |
191 | used a bit more editing (prevented by Nietzsche ... falling into a |
192 | catatonic state and all), but is still a very useful book to read as |
193 | Nietzsche explains the overall structure of his works."))) |