1 #title A Not So Fancy Listing of Books
8 ** Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (collected)
10 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•• </class> (8) / *Fiction*
15 ** The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
17 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•••• </class> (6) / *Fiction*
28 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Fiction*
35 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">• </class> (9) / *Fiction*
42 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•• </class> (8) / *Fiction*
49 The author of the rather amazing [[http://scarygoround.com][Scary Go Round]].
50 I highly recommend procuring the printed collections; the printing
51 quality is superb (full color on glossy paper), and the long story
52 arcs are much easier to read.
54 ** Looks, Brains and Everything
75 ** The Retribution Index
96 ** Heavy Metal Hearts and Flowers
114 ** Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz
184 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•••••• </class> (4) / *Nonfiction*
186 At the time, I enjoyed reading this collection of meditations on
187 Stoic philosophy, and it was a fairly quick read (fifteen minutes a
188 day over the course of two weeks for me). Nowadays I've read
189 Epictetus, and I suggest reading his *Discourses* instead.
194 Blake is my [[William Blake][favorite]] of the English poets. His
195 unique use of relief etching and watercoloring makes for very
196 interesting Illuminated works. There is a very high quality
197 [[http://blakearchive.org][complete archive of Blake's works]] online
198 with high resolution plate scans and full transcriptions among other
203 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Fiction*
205 The unfinished manuscript of Blake's longest apocalypse. The
206 Four Zoas divide from Albion and rage through the ages of dismal woe
207 to bring about the end of the cycle of Ulro and restore the cycle of
213 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Fiction*
215 The finest of Blake's Illuminated works.
224 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•••• </class> (6) / *Fiction*
226 Of the *Sandman* spinoffs, *Lucifer* stands out as the best for
227 the first half, but then the writer appears to take on far too great a
228 task, and, with the introduction of some disagreeable character
229 relations, fails to execute the story as well as it could have
230 been. Still, it was worth reading to the end even though most of the
231 stories after issue 35 or so were merely ok. If you like Kierkegaard I
232 suggest issues 2, 3, and 62--they show the form of the incommensurable
233 relation of the single individual to the absolute perfectly.
251 ** The Sandman (series)
253 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Fiction*
255 Perhaps the best comic book series of all time; I would say *The
256 Sandman* as a whole ranks higher than anything even Alan Moore has
262 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•• </class> (8) / *Fiction*
264 A friend of a friend decided one evening that I needed to read
265 so-called *normal people books*, and so she lent me *Good Omens*. It
266 was an enjoyable read and unearthed vague memories of comic book
267 magazines I read when I was small and the name *Sandman*; thus through
268 one book I found something far greater.
273 Former teacher and now author-activist.
275 ** Underground History of American Education
277 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">• </class> (9) / *Nonfiction*
279 An interesting *underground* history of the American education
281 [[http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/][online for free]].
286 Kahlil Gibran is fairly interesting; his earlier works do not
287 agree with my æsthetic sense (blah blah), but *The Madman* onward are
288 all rather nice. A few of his works are
289 [[http://leb.net/~mira/][online]], but I recommend scouting used book
290 stores for old hardcover editions. The (late 90s onward at least)
291 *hardcover* versions from *Alfred A. Knopf* are in fact permabound
292 paperbacks with a hardcasing, and are of seriously inferior quality to
293 the editions from the 50s and 60s (and cost quite a bit more,
296 ** A Tear and a Smile
298 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••</class><class name="rating-bad">••••••• </class> (3) / *Fiction*
300 One of Kahlil Gibran's earlier works, I did not much like *A
301 Tear and a Smile* excepting the last poem ("A Poet's Voice").
306 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">• </class> (9) / *Fiction*
313 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">••• </class> (7) / *Fiction*
315 An interesting little book of aphorisms.
320 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•• </class> (8) / *Fiction*
331 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Fiction*
338 Perhaps the most overrated modern writer. Other people have written
339 everything he has to write better and many years before he got around
342 ** The Doors of Perception
344 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> </class><class name="rating-bad">•••••••••• </class> (0) / *Nonfiction*
346 Huxley stains the name of Blake by naming this horrible
347 pseudo-scientific and pseudo-poetic essay after a line from *The
348 Marriage of Heaven and Hell*. Subjectivity and objectivity are
349 incommensurable; his attempt and being subjectively objective is
355 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> </class><class name="rating-bad">•••••••••• </class> (0) / *Nonfiction*
357 Blah blah LSD blah blah Mushrooms blah blah Peyote blah blah I'm
358 Aldous Huxley I'm a pretentious jerk. Don't bother.
365 ** The Varieties of Religious Experience
367 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">••• </class> (7) / *Nonfiction*
369 [[William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience][A partially finished extended summary]]
377 America is thus as a nation rapidly drifting towards a state of things
378 in which no man of science or letters will be accounted respectable
379 unless some kind of badge or diploma is stamped upon him, and in which
380 bare personality will be a mark of outcast estate. It seems to me high
381 time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye
382 upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly
383 from the Mandarin disease. Are we doomed to suffer like the rest?
386 [[William James - The PhD Octopus][Full Text]]
391 The novelist brother of William James; I've not read many (read:
392 one) of his books, but what I did was decent.
394 ** The Altar of the Dead
396 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">••• </class> (7) / *Fiction*
398 A short novella about a man who maintained an altar in a church
399 for all of his lost loved ones on the surface, but something a bit
407 ** The Art of the Metaobject Protocol
409 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Nonfiction*
411 AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with
412 the online MOP spec), but the true value of the book lies in the first
413 half of the book. It presents the design of the CLOS MOP through a
414 series of revisions that fix limitations of earlier implementations
415 and gradually work toward a generic and well designed MOP for
416 CLOS. Through that process one is made more aware of a few general
417 object protocol design skills, and gains insight into how to cleanly
418 make mapping decisions customizable.
423 Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is
424 interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused
427 ** Sickness Unto Death
429 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Nonfiction*
431 I purchased this when I was looking through books at a store after
432 being unable to find the book I really wanted, and I must say that it
433 was better for me to have found this one.
435 Contained within is a beautiful analysis of despair in the context of
436 Christianity (really theism in general). Even if the argument offends,
437 the presentation cannot. The dialectical nature of despair is
438 reflected in every aspect of the work, and the method of presentation
444 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Nonfiction*
446 Composed of two portions, *Either/Or* is a rather lengthy but
447 rewarding read. The first book is a series of essays and a diary of a
448 young esthetician; the second is a pair of long letters from an older
449 ethicist friend to this esthetician. You are then left to resolve the
450 conflict between the views.
453 ** Fear and Trembling
457 An interesting dialectical lyric contrasting Despair and Faith.
462 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Nonfiction*
464 He who despairs of esthetic repetition gets none; he who despairs
465 of ethical repetition receieves the esthetic. Is it true then that no
466 repetition exists? Is transition all one can hope for?
473 ** Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold
475 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•• </class> (8) / *Fiction*
486 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•• </class> (8) / *Nonfiction*
488 After learning Scheme, I read *Successful Lisp* and was able to
489 pick up Common Lisp fairly easily.
507 ** A Canticle for Leibowitz
509 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Fiction*
520 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•• </class> (8) / *Fiction*
527 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Fiction*
538 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">••• </class> (7) / *Fiction*
540 I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but
541 the way the book was split up made it a bit difficult to grasp the
542 overall structure. I found a copy at a used book store one day, and so
543 I read it again, and found it much more comprehensible. It is a quick
544 read, and decent piece of literature. The interesting social system
545 espoused resembles resembles state communism (even if perhaps as a
546 negative ideal), but with an strange blend of 14th century European
550 * Friedrich Nietzsche
552 A bit acerbic and esoteric, Nietzsche is for me a good *secular*
553 counterpart to Kierkegaard's theistic philosophy. Nietzsche's
554 polemical works raise important questions for anyone who reads works
555 on ethics. As such it is a shame that he has gotten a bad reputation
556 by being read by far too many angsty teenagers who see (and relay)
557 only Nietzsche the asshole rather than Nietzsche the master of the
560 ** Beyond Good and Evil
562 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•• </class> (8) / *Nonfiction*
564 A somewhat more comprehensible, if a bit less aesthetically
565 pleasing, presentation of much of the philosophy found in *Thus Spoke
566 Zarathustra* in the negative form. The final chapters are very
567 important (not to detract from the value of the rest of the work) if
568 one wishes to understand *On the Genealogy of Morals*.
571 ** On the Geneaology of Morals
573 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">• </class> (9) / *Nonfiction*
575 *On the Geneaology of Morals* is a wonderful book of three
576 polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethical valuations, and the
577 blindness of modern philosphers whose very thinking is tainted by
578 these valuations unknowingly.
583 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">••• </class> (7) / *Nonfiction*
585 *Ecce Homo* is Nietzsche's very strange autobiography and
586 explanation of his own works. At points it is clear that it could have
587 used a bit more editing (prevented by Nietzsche ... falling into a
588 catatonic state and all), but is still a very useful book to read as
589 Nietzsche explains the overall structure of his works.
598 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Fiction*
644 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Nonfiction*
662 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">••• </class> (7) / *Fiction*
665 And it's his illusions about what
666 constitutes the real world which are
668 His reality, his reason, his society
669 ...these are what must be destroyed
672 A quotation from one of my [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter_of_the_Soul][favorite metal songs]] inspired me to grab
673 this book; at worst it would be a waste of time. Much reward was found
674 in this random stab in the dark. The book is framed as an
675 autobiography of the author as a psychoanalyst, and his progression
676 through life as a Dice Man after deciding to live his life through
679 The style, plot, and content are equally neurotic; part comedy, part
680 attack on psychoanalysis, and part deep philosophy. It was often
681 difficult to put down, and was read in under a week of spare time.
690 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">• </class> (9) / *Fiction*
692 As one must read the *Bible* to understand English literature, so one
693 must read *Snow Crash* today to be a nerd. In the realm of modern pop
694 fiction this is one of the better books I've read; it was devoured in
695 a mere four nights. Neal Stepheson may not be Milton, but he does come
696 up with enganging tales. *Snow Crash* has a nice undertone of (quite
697 accurate) political and social commentary that makes it worth reading
698 as more than mere cyberpunk fiction.
703 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">•• </class> (8) / *Fiction*
705 I read *Cryptonomicon* when it was new, and at the time I thought it was
706 good. It could have lost a hundred or so pages without detracting from
707 the plot, but it was easy reading and didn't take very long to
708 finish. The story was enganging, and the continual switching between
709 the 1940s and present day slowly unravelled the tale in a nice way.
711 I'd still have to recommend *Snow Crash* if one wished to read only one
719 ** The C++ Programming Language (3rd edition)
723 Once upon a time I was fifteen and I read this book. It was more
724 or less what taught me how to write programs just large enough to do
725 useful things, and so shall forever be remembered by me. A year and a
726 half later I stumbled upon a little language called Scheme and fell
727 down the rabbit hole.
734 ** The Lord of the Rings
736 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">• </class> (9) / *Fiction*
743 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> ••••••••••</class><class name="rating-bad"> </class> (10) / *Fiction*
750 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">••• </class> (7) / *Fiction*
759 ** The Island of Dr Moreau
761 *Rating:* <class name="rating-good"> •••••••</class><class name="rating-bad">••• </class> (7) / *Fiction*