What 📔book are you reading right now?

the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy!

It's actually the first time which I'm reading it, and it's really funny. I still have the movie to see, but my parents have said not to see it until my exams aree over and dome with... and I have to follow the silly rules... which "apparently" I'll understand when I'm older...

Inderjit S said:

Ah-the Communist Manifesto-or a political fallacy in action.

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Indeed, but still a worthwhile read.

Some of Plato's writings.

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Which? I have just been having another look at his Symposium. Are you at all interested in other classical works? I have something of a penchant for classical comedy myself.

@Barely

Thank you for the recommendation. I shall have a look for that book, it sounds most interesting.

Which? I have just been having another look at his Symposium. Are you at all interested in other classical works? I have something of a penchant for classical comedy myself.

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I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a classicist, I am no expert in the matter, more of a dilettante to be honest, though that is more due to lack of time than lack of interest.

Of Plato's works I have read The Republic, which I read some time ago, I can't say I like some of the ideas which it espoused, as de Tocqueville said, if the classicists gave reasons against slavery rather than arguing for slavery he would have respected them more, I also dislike it because of its totalitarian nature, though I agree it is nevertheless a erudite and brilliant work and has many good points. I have also read The Last Days of Socrates, which is a collection of various works. I have a lot of other books sitting on my shelf waiting till my exams are over so I can read them, or read them thoroughly-Tacitus, Gibbons, Josephus, Caesar, Confucius, Livy, Lucretius, Cicero, Suetonius, Herodotus, Hesiod and the basic works of Aristotle, which I have read in part.

As for classical comedy-Aristophanes is great, though the tragedians are funny, albeit somewhat unintentionally, Sophocles also laid the groundwork for that great comedian Sigmund Freud. Lucian's satires are good-especially the one about the philosophers.

Barley's All-Time Great Reads

Here as promised, given in the order in which I spotted 'em on my bookshelves, are the books that have stayed with me through the years:

A Policy of Kindness
Dalai Lama XIV

Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery
Head & Cranston

1. How We Believe
2. Why People Believe Weird Things
3. The Science of Good and Evil
Michael Shirmer

Beethoven: Impressions By His Contempories
Ed. Sonneck

Beethoven: His Spiritual Development
J.W.N. Sullivan

The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Julian Jaynes

Autobiography of a Yogi
Paramahansa Yogananda

Memoirs
Hector Berlioz

Evenings in the Orchestra
Hector Berlioz

The Gnostic Gospels
Elaine Pagels

Positive Illusions
Shelley Taylor

Words of Sri Anandamayi Ma
Atmananda

The Spiritual Heritage of India
Swami Prabhavananda

Dreams, Illusions and Other Realities
Wendy O'Flaherty

The Concise Yoga Vaseeshta
Swami Venkateshananda

The I Ching
Tr. Richard Wilhelm

The Varieties of Religious Experience
Wm. James

The Principles of Psychology
Wm. James

Conversations With Adam and Natasha
R.D. Laing

Facing the Music
Henri Temianka

Dumbth
Steve Allen

The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
A. H. Maslow

Letters from the Earth
Mark Twain

Memories, Dreams, Reflections
C.G. Jung

I and That
Alex Comfort

1. Gestalt Therapy Verbatim
2. In and Out the Garbage Pail
Friederich "Fritz" Perls

1. The Wizard of Oz
2. The Scalawagons of Oz
3. Lucky Bucky in Oz
L. Frank Baum

The writings of JRR Tolkien

Those who read my posts have heard me say again and again that human beings cannot perceive the existence of things that are beyond the range of our sensoria (including the existence of the "God" of holy books). The books by Jaynes and James are classic cases in point: We have two absolutely stellar geniuses offering brilliant concepts about the way the brain and mind work — and they are wrong! They are wrong because they were operating on insufficient data.

This happened very early on with the towering genius Leonardo da Vinci, who proffered an absolutely brilliant thesis on the method by which the eye sees. He was fundamentally wrong. And yet these works still make riveting reading, just to see the display of sheer intellectual brilliance in these men. My point: we are limited by our physicomental structure. We have limits we cannot transcend. We can extend our knowledge, but whatever we learn must all be filtered through the limits of our mental and physical natures. And no matter how much we learn, it will never extend to the realities that are forever beyond our abilities to perceive in the first place.

Barley

Inderjit S said:

I have a lot of other books sitting on my shelf waiting till my exams are over so I can read them, or read them thoroughly-Tacitus, Gibbons, Josephus, Caesar, Confucius, Livy, Lucretius, Cicero, Suetonius, Herodotus, Hesiod and the basic works of Aristotle, which I have read in part.

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Gibbons is heavily biased, but still a very worthwhile read. Herodotus is also very much worthwhile, the Iliad being the obvious choice for many, but perhaps the Histories being the more interesting, to me at least.

The Aeneid is also an excellent choice to consider once you have read the Histories. Albeit a work of propoganda it very much captures the essence of Roman nationalism. You may like to compare the Aeneid with the Georgics, which give a very idelaised pastoral view of Italy. Both works are important in the understanding of the Roman ethos being espoused at the time, but of course one should keep Virgil's imperial connection in mind as one is reading them.

As for classical comedy-Aristophanes is great, though the tragedians are funny, albeit somewhat unintentionally, Sophocles also laid the groundwork for that great comedian Sigmund Freud. Lucian's satires are good-especially the one about the philosophers.

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I also enjoy Aristophanes though Plautus is very much one of my favourite classical authors, the Brothers Menaechmi springs to mind. I am something of a conservative though and I tend to prefer to older Greek comedies as opposed to the new Roman. If you haven't read it already I would highly recommend the Satyricon by Petronius, a sort of Roman Abigail's Party!

Barliman, wow. I gotta say you've got a pretty cool religious section. Are you... a buddist.

Hey, PM me if you wanna talk "Religion".

The Aeneid is also an excellent choice to consider once you have read the Histories

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I have read The Aeneid and it bored me to death. Virgil was and is over-rated, his best piece of work is when he guided Dante to hell; sadly Dante decided he didn't want to stay there, much against his best judgement.

Gibbons may be biased, but Herodotus is too.

Thanks for the recommendations!

spirit said:

Barliman, wow. I gotta say you've got a pretty cool religious section. Are you... a buddist.

Hey, PM me if you wanna talk "Religion".

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There are many things about Buddhism that are highly appealing to me, but I belong to no one path any more. I would enjoy talking religion with you, but on this thread:

http://thetolkien.forum/showthread.php?t=17370

As to "where I'm coming from," you might be interested in posts 7 and 8 in the following thread:

http://thetolkien.forum/showthread.php?t=16664



Barley

Let's see, since my last post I've read

Smoke & Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions by Neil Gaiman
Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho by Jon Katz
Clerks by Kevin Smith*
Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett (re-read)
A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories by Robin McKinley (re-read)
The Secret Life of Cowboys by Tom Groneberg (abandoned)
Samurai Deeper Kyo vol. 6 by Akimine Kamijyo*
The Sandman: Dream Hunter by Neil Gaiman et al*
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (re-read)

*manga/graphic novel

In progress:
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
Firebirds edited by Sharyn November

I just read The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory. It's historical fiction. I definately recommend it.

Niirewen said:

I just read The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory. It's historical fiction. I definately recommend it.

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*Promises self to check out*

I've just finished the hadfull of Redwall books that have been published since I last looked; Triss, Loamhedge and Rackety Tam. I've had a nostalgic fondness for the series for many years, but I must say I've recently been disappointed with his latest offerings. They are beginning to get very same-ey and unoriginal.

I'm still ploughing through Atlas Shrugged.

I haven't read those three either, though I own them (I've been collecting the series in hardback for eight years). I think the series started becoming less interesting with Taggerung--I may be wrong, but I think that was the first book to come out after Jacques' stroke. Maybe that has something to do with it.

I finished Reaper Man and started Pratchett's Sourcery, re-read Garth Nix's Sabriel and Sharon Creech's The Wanderer (a lot of nostalgic re-reading has been happening this year), finished Captivating by John and Stasi Eldridge, and started The Hemmingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley. I'm still working my way through the short stories in the Firebirds anthology.

Goodness, I'm out of touch. I never even heard that Brian had a stroke

I personally think the series went awry with Legend of Luke; it seemed that the story itself only took up a third of the book, with parts one and three occupied with travelling to and from the storytellers. Triss isn't bad, but it's basically Mariel of Redwall repeated, and hurried a bit too much at the end. Racketty Tam reminded me of Mossflower or Marlfox, mainly because of the interesting villain, but Loamhedge was a dry version of Mattimeo, not interesting at all. It's sad really, but I had two eight hour flights to read them all on, so I ended up enjoying them nonetheless

I'm currently reading:

-Crossroads of Twilight (book 10 of The Wheel of Time)
-La Vita Nuova (love poems Dante wrote to Beatrice in his youth)
-An anthology of French poetry

Elendil3119 said:

I'm currently reading LotR (again ) and The Canterbury Tales, by Chaucer. What about you guys?

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• Boston Blackie Comes Home for Passover
• How to Raise Children for Fun and Profit
• Latest Discoveries from the Dark Side of the Moon
• My Five Years in an Elevator
• Across the Sahara by Kayak
• Building Your Dream House on $3 a Day Using Tongue Depressors

Barley

Lets see. Here is something which might please Inderjit.


Right now I am going through the The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. Pretty fascinating, to say the least. (though I am sure I have read it before too, in another language)

Another book I just started is Girl 20 by Kingsley Amis. Funny, quirky and full of witty digs at the upper-middle class, twatish, pseudo-socialist hamsters of after ww2 era Britian. though sometimes he goes too overboard with the political stuff.

Neil Gaiman rules.

Beren,

Do you like what you have read of COT so far? How does it compare to the rest of the WOT books?

@Inderjit

Have you ever read the Decameron?

Beleg said:

Do you like what you have read of COT so far? How does it compare to the rest of the WOT books?

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Well, I've only gotten as far as chapter 6; although it's not much in terms of action and battles, I don't exactly HATE it!! (Certainly not like everybody else who say how CoT sucks etc...) But I do think that it's nothing compared to Lord of Chaos for instance.

Hammersmith said:

Goodness, I'm out of touch. I never even heard that Brian had a stroke

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It was some time ago--long enough that I was still active in a Redwall RPG at the time, and the news went around the forums. I would have to go searching to tell you exactly when it happened, though. It might have even been between Lord Brocktree and Legend of Luke.

I'm re-reading Artemis Fowl #1, by Eoin Colfer for the third time.