X-Git-Url: https://git.hcoop.net/clinton/website/src/unknownlamer.org.git/blobdiff_plain/de5d3f072e875ac180075e68334742b155522038..ba5275a053f690c5d27e7c8ac6ae1d30026e22a2:/book-list.lisp diff --git a/book-list.lisp b/book-list.lisp index e498a6c..99cd1e1 100644 --- a/book-list.lisp +++ b/book-list.lisp @@ -1,4 +1,22 @@ -(((|William| |Blake|) +(((|Alan| |Moore|) + nil + ("Watchmen" :fiction 8) + ("V for Vendetta" :fiction 10)) + ((|Neil| |Gaiman|) + nil + ("The Sandman (series)" + :fiction 10 + "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" + :fiction 8 + "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.")) + ((|William| |Blake|) "Blake is my [[William Blake][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 @@ -26,9 +44,9 @@ naturally)." :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 "") + ("The Prophet" :fiction 9) ("Sand and Foam" :fiction 7 "An interesting little book of aphorisms.") - ("The Madman" :fiction 8 "")) + ("The Madman" :fiction 8)) ((|John| |Taylor| |Gatto|) "Former teacher and now author-activist." ("Underground History of American Education" @@ -37,7 +55,7 @@ Tear and a Smile* excepting the last poem (\"A Poet's Voice\").") system. Available [[http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/][online for free]].")) ((|Luke| |Rhinehardt|) - "" + nil ("The Dice Man" :fiction 7 " @@ -59,7 +77,7 @@ 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|) - "" + nil ("Snow Crash" :fiction 9 "As one must read the *Bible* to understand English literature, so one @@ -80,17 +98,13 @@ 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|) - "" + nil ("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.")) + :nonfiction 4 + "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.")) ((|Søren| |Kierkegaard|) "Kierkegaard was a master of style and philosophy; his writing is interesting even if one finds the theistic extentialism espoused @@ -112,9 +126,17 @@ forces reflection.") 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.")) +conflict between the views.") + ("Fear and Trembling" + :nonfiction nil + "An interesting dialectical lyric contrasting Despair and Faith.") + ("Repetition" + :nonfiction 10 + "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?")) ((|Thomas| |More|) - "" + nil ("Utopia" :fiction 7 "I read most of Utopia in high school with the TI-89 ebook reader, but @@ -126,7 +148,7 @@ 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|) - "" + nil ("The Varieties of Religious Experience" :nonfiction 7 "[[William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience][A partially finished extended summary]]") @@ -141,6 +163,7 @@ time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly from the Mandarin disease. Are we doomed to suffer like the rest? + [[William James - The PhD Octopus][Full Text]]")) ((|Henry| |James|) "The novelist brother of William James; I've not read many (read: @@ -151,7 +174,7 @@ one) of his books, but what I did was decent." for all of his lost loved ones on the surface, but something a bit more beneath.")) ((|Gregor| |Kiczales|) - "" + nil ("The Art of the Metaobject Protocol" :nonfiction 10 "AMOP is useful as a reference to the CLOS MOP (although less so with @@ -174,12 +197,144 @@ polemic." :nonfiction 8 "A somewhat more comprehensible, if a bit less aesthetically pleasing, presentation of much of the philosophy found in *Thus Spoke -Zarathustra*. The final chapters are very important (not to detract -from the value of the rest of the work) if one wishes to understand -*On the Genealogy of Morals*.") +Zarathustra* in the negative form. The final chapters are very +important (not to detract from the value of the rest of the work) if +one wishes to understand *On the Genealogy of Morals*.") ("On the Geneaology of Morals" :nonfiction 9 "*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."))) \ No newline at end of file +these valuations unknowingly.") + ("Ecce Homo" + :nonfiction 7 + "*Ecce Homo* is Nietzsche's very strange autobiography and +explanation of his own works. At points it is clear that it could have +used a bit more editing (prevented by Nietzsche ... falling into a +catatonic state and all), but is still a very useful book to read as +Nietzsche explains the overall structure of his works.")) + ((|Aristotle|) + nil + ("Ethics" + :nonfiction nil) + ("Categories" + :nonfiction nil) + ("Poetics" + :nonfiction nil) +;;; ("Prior Analytics" +;;; :nonfiction nil +;;; "*Prior Analytics* is essential reading if one wishes to understand +;;; [[Term Logic][traditional logic]]. Given that traditional logic is +;;; used by most philosophers prior to the mid-1800s it is a *bit* +;;; important. Luckily *Prior Analytics* is +;;; [[http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8pra/index.html][available online for free]] and is fairly short.") + ("Rhetoric" + :nonfiction nil)) + ((|Aristophanes|) + nil + ("The Frogs" :fiction nil) + ("The Clouds" :fiction nil) + ("Ecclesiazusae" :fiction nil)) + ((|Plato|) + nil + ("Symposium" :fiction nil) + ("Euthyphro" :fiction nil) + ("Apology" :nonfiction nil) + ("Crito" :fiction nil) + ("Phaedo" :nonfiction 10) + ("Protagoras" :fiction nil)) + ((|Aeschylus|) + nil + ("Oresteia":fiction 10) + ("Prometheus Bound" :fiction 9) + ("The Persians" :fiction 8)) + ((|Homer|) + nil + ("The Odyssey" :fiction 10)) + ((|George| |Orwell|) + nil + ("1984" :fiction 10) + ("Animal Farm" :fiction nil)) + ((|Aldous| |Huxley|) + "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" + :nonfiction 0 + "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.") + ("Heaven and Hell" + :nonfiction 0 + "Blah blah LSD blah blah Mushrooms blah blah Peyote blah blah I'm +Aldous Huxley I'm a pretentious jerk. Don't bother.")) + ((|Douglas| |Adams|) + nil + ("Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (collected)" :fiction 8) + ("The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" :fiction 6)) + ((|H.G.| |Wells|) + nil + ("The Island of Dr Moreau" :fiction 7)) + ((|JRR| |Tolkien|) + nil + ("The Lord of the Rings" :fiction 9) + ("The Silmarillion" :fiction 10) + ("The Lost Tales" :fiction 7)) + ((|Bjarne| |Stroustrup|) + nil + ("The C++ Programming Language (3rd edition)" + :nonfiction nil + "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.")) + ((|Confucius|) + nil + ("Analects" :nonfiction nil)) + ((|Mencius|) + nil + ("Mencius" :nonfiction nil)) + ((|Walter| |Miller|) + nil + ("A Canticle for Leibowitz" :fiction 10)) + ((|David| |Lamkins|) + nil + ("Successful Lisp" + :nonfiction 8 + "After learning Scheme, I read *Successful Lisp* and was able to +pick up Common Lisp fairly easily.")) + ((|John| |Allison|) + "The author of the rather amazing [[http://scarygoround.com][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 nil) + ("Blame the Sky" :fiction nil) + ("Skellington" :fiction nil) + ("The Retribution Index" :fiction nil) + ("Great Aches" :fiction nil) + ("Ahoy Hoy!" :fiction nil) + ("Heavy Metal Hearts and Flowers" :fiction nil) + ("Ghosts" :fiction nil)) + ((|Mike| |Carey|) + nil + ("Lucifer (series)" + :fiction 6 + "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.")) + ((|Anonymous|) + nil + ("Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz" :fiction nil)) + ((|Alisa| |Kwitney|) + nil + ("Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold" :fiction 8))) +