I'm reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks!
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I'm reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks!
Nekropolis by Tim Waggoner
A New Kind of Science - Stephen Wolfram
This is my third attempt to read this 1000+ page beast. And the first 350 pages have been sooooo slow and boring and layman. I want this book to be better because I really like cellular automata. ;___;
He's talking about fluids now. Which has been the most recent cool thing I've read. I used to think that the random swirly behavior of smokes and currents was due to randomness in the environment, but he's starting to show that there are far simpler systems which produce similar complexity, and furthermore they tend to 'cancel out' the effects of environmental noise rather than incorporating them. SO COOL.
I'm currently reading Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey the second in the Sandman Slim series and just started to read The Secret History of Dreaming by Robert Moss. I just found a book site Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends, Join Book Clubs, Answer Trivia. I think the site will motivate me to read more. :)
"Call Me Joe" by Poul Anderson, which Avatar ripped off horribly and a really poor guitar book.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep"
Game of thrones, I bought all seven books some weeks ago. Once I enter vacations, burst speed!
"Metaphors We Live By" by Heorge Lakoff and Mark Johnson
Just finished reading a number of Philip K. Dick novels, including but not limited to Ubik, Time out of Joint, Confessions of a Crap Artist, Martian Time Slip, and Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep. He's currently my favorite author but unfortunately I've run out of novels by him and I don't really like reading short stories. I just love the way he deals with the human mind. I don't think I've ever read a book that paints a better picture of insanity than pretty much any of his novels.
Now I've started Infinite Jest (again) and I'm starting to remember why I stopped reading it every other time I've tried. I'm a huge David Foster Wallace fan but this book is just so damn boring! The only reason I keep reading it is because his writing is so pretty. On the plus side it's one of the best sleep aids I've ever come across.
false memory by dean koontz
A New Kind of Science is really getting zany. The dude claims the universe can be simulated by a network automata. Actually, a simpler (single live cell) automata that simulates a network automata. Then he talks about consciousness and is vague. Then he talks about definitions of randomness and complexity, which were far too vague for me to take seriously. "Randomness is that whose underlying pattern cannot be readily identified by a simple program, such as a brain." "Complexity is that which increases with a pattern's description length." Ugh. The next 200 pages are going to drag and drag.
Which is why I'm taking a break and reading Robert Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. I'm 200 pages in, and there's a lot of math-nerd stuff in there, though it's predominantly sci-fi. It's also been unexpectedly slice-of-life, which has been enjoyable. It's told from four different perspectives, of the two freshly-married couples who are travelling in what amounts to a trans-universal TARDIS.
The Mortal Engines Quartet by Philip Reeve. Excellent post-apocalyptic novel series and has provided me some inspiration for lucid dreaming. :)
Oh man I love the Mortal Engines books so much! I also would highly recommend the View from the Mirror Quartet from Ian Irvine, and any of his other books, for a truly outstanding fantasy world which blew my mind when I read it, and inspires me to do some of the stuff in the books in a LD.
I am currently reading 'The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss, and while I have only read around 50 to 100 pages into it I already think it is going to be one of my favourite books, and it is written wonderfully. Also there is plenty of inspiration for LD's in the book.
I've had a few Name of the Wind dreams. Not as many as I'd like, considering how much I enjoy both The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear.
I just finished Codex of Alera (again) and I started reading H.P. Lovecraft, I bought one of those 'complete works of' books.
into the silence by wade davis. just started reading it so not much to say at this point.
The 48 Laws of Power.
Pretty interesting.
I am reading two books now:
"Discover the Power Within You" by Eric Butterworth. This book sounded interesting, but I expected to disagree with it more than I find myself doing so. It is one of those books that make me reexamine my own spirituality, though I do not agree with all if it, but I am reluctantly agreeing with more of it than I thought I would be willing to. A thought provoking book for me.
The second book I am reading is "Meditation for Beginners" by Jack Kornfield. I just started it tonight. I expected to love it and I do. The trouble is that my natural tendency with a good book is to stay up reading it from cover to cover, and with this book I feel I should stop after chapter one, start practicing what it taught me thus far, and only progress once I am ready for more. This is going to be hard. Did I think I am now more patient than I was when I was younger? How silly of me. I just tried meditating, and I have a renewed respect for the realization that I am an impatient human being who cannot sit still and be comfortable and focus yet. Hmm.
Jack Kornfield is the man. I keep a copy of The Wise Heart: a Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology next to my toilet and I've probably read it in bits and pieces like 20 times. I haven't read Meditation for Beginners, but what I love so much about The Wise Heart is that he uses a very logical and scientific approach to deal with spiritual topics. It seems like a lot of Buddhist literature is just like "do this, it'll make you feel better" with no explanation of why your mind works that way.
People should post pictures of the books they are reading, I love the draws of the covers ^^
About to start reading this one in preparation for my upcoming course "The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness":
http://img2.imagesbn.com/p/978033521...1_s260x420.jpg
I am reading this:
Flush: Carl Hiaasen: 9780375861253: Amazon.com: Books
Carl Hiaasen is one of my favorite authors, and I just finished reading the other three books of his, all amazing.
My favorite would have to be this one, Scat:
Scat: Carl Hiaasen: 9780440421047: Amazon.com: Books
"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho (when I went to juvie in 08 I was reading this book and hid it in my pants when I left wanting to finish it, but I never did. So i found it in my closet library. and BOOM here i am :])
"My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer" by Christian Wiman