Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Books (again): The Ones I Want To Acquire

One of my readers requested that I post my newly compiled list of books to look for and purchase or seek out from the library. So here it is.

New recommendations are welcome.

Tool's Recommended Reading List

  1. Behold the Protong! by Stanislav Szukaslsi
  2. Love and Sleep and AEGYPT by John Crowley
  3. And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave
  4. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
  5. Squeak the Mouse by Massimo Mattioli
  6. Nothing In This Book Is True ... by Bob Frissell
  7. Earth by David Brin
  8. Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain
  9. Diary Of A Genius by Salvador Dali
  10. Interior Design with Feng Shui by Sarah Rossbach
  11. Archaic Revival by Terence McKenn
  12. The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav
  13. The Mayan Prophecies
  14. The Legacy of the Beast ...
  15. The Age Of Reason by Thomas Paine
  16. Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baignet, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln
  17. What The Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula
  18. Fourth Way by P. D. Ouspensky
  19. Four Treatises Of Theophratus Von Hohenheim Called Paracelus by Paracelus
  20. The Origin Of Satan by Elaine Pagels
  21. Dune by Frank Herbert
  22. One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  23. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  24. Black Spring by Henry Miller
  25. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
  26. Hellboy: The Lost Army by Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden
  27. High Priest by Timothy Leary

Books Recommended By Friends
  1. Tropic Of Cancer by Henry Miller
  2. Tropic Of Capricorn by Henry Miller
  3. Going Deeper by Jean-Claude Koven
  4. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
  5. 1984 by George Orwell
  6. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
  7. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
  8. On The Road by Jack Kerouac
  9. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  10. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Casey
  11. Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
  12. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salmon Rushdie
  13. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  14. Breakfast Of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
  15. Poetry by Charles Bukowski (any)
  16. Zen Mind Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
  17. Simulacra And Simulations by Jean Baudrillard
  18. Transparency Of Evil by Jean Baudrillard
  19. Fatal Strategies by Jean Baudrillard
  20. Seduction by Jean Baudrillard
  21. To have Or To Be by Erich Fromm
  22. Escape From Freedom by Erich Fromm
  23. The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
  24. The Meaning Of it All by Richard Feynman
  25. Surely You re Joking Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman
  26. The Minds I by Douglas Hofstadter
  27. Godel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
  28. The Metaphysics Of Love by (and anything from) Arthur Schopenhauer
  29. How the Universe Got its Spots by Janna Levin
  30. The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose
  31. Our Cosmic Habitat by Martin Rees
  32. Before the Beginning by Martin Rees
  33. Asimov on Physics by Isaac Asimov
  34. Asimov on Numbers by Isaac Asimov
Other Books I Want To Get
  1. The Doors Of Perception by Aldous Huxley
  2. The Infernal Desire Machine by Angela Carter
  3. Anything By The Marquis De Sade


7 comments:

Metamatician said...

I'll mention the ones I've read.

List One
3. Excellent
12. Pretty good
16. Guilty pleasure
20. Good topic, a little dry
21. Dense

List Two
7. Very good
10. Excellent
17. Excellent but wordy
18. Very good, typical Feynman
19. Same as previous
20. Not his best but interesting
21. The best book ever?

Haven't read any of the others, but this gives me some ideas now. Thanks for sharing.

Metamatician said...

Some more ideas, all recommended: "How the Universe Got its Spots" by Janna Levin; "The Road to Reality" by Roger Penrose (difficult reading but good where I understood it); "Our Cosmic Habitat" and "Before the Beginning" by Martin Rees; "Asimov on Physics" and "Asimov on Numbers" by Isaac Asimov, obviously. Lots more too but that should tide you over for awhile =)

Sphinx said...

Hey Meta...
Thanks for the comments and recommendations. Your recommendations have been added to my list.

If you own any of these I would be interested in purchasing them for a reasonable price or working out an exchange. Just an idea.

BTW..are you a Tool fan?

Metamatician said...

Can't say I'm a Tool fan. I respect their fanbase though and I just need to get around to listening to them. Intelligent people seem to like them.

A smattering of my musical interests would be Nick Drake, Smiths, Dead Can Dance, Pink Floyd, Swans, Nick Cave, Stina Nordenstam, Bjork, Nirvana.

Yes, I own all the books I mentioned and would not be willing to sell them, but would happily loan them to you whenever you like. I'm a sort of book collector, you see.

Glad I found your blog. Very refreshing to know I'm not the only one who thinks so abstractly! Cheers. -Meta

Sphinx said...

You definitley should give Tool more of a chance. Even if their sound isn't your thing, it is very appealing intellectually, philosophically and metaphysically as well.

I like Nirvana, Pink Floyd is ok, Bjork is plain weird and I can't say I recognize any of the others.

I am a collector of sorts as well (although a part of me feels a bit claustrophobic and tied down if I too many 'things') so I can understand not wanting to sell.
I will see if I can find the titles you mentioned at a second-hand bookstore or at the library first. If that fails perhaps an exchange would be suitable. My titles are all posted, although I didn't mention the ones I haven't read yet.

Miao 妙 said...

Ah. These are some books I love:

Kazuo Ishiguro - Remains of the Day

Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Italo Calvino - If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

Yann Martel - Life of Pi

Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis

Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time

Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything

Miao 妙 said...

Well those are the only ones I can think of right now. Maybe include Antoine Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince and George Orwell's Animal Farm too.