Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

[Cain]

I've heard that its quite good, from a couple of people, but extremely convoluted and with more obscure occult references than an entire Rosicrucian and OTO combination catalogue.

[LMNO]

If Illuminatus! was well-written (though a bit dry), it might look like Pendulum.

[Bhode_Sativa]

The occult references are prolific, and sometimes the prose drags, but so far the basic ideas have been worth my time.  It just doesn't suck me in like my favorite fictions.  I do get the feeling, though, of layers of hidden messages and meanings a la the David Blaine Quest book thingy found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%24100%2C000_Challenge

The funny thing is that one of the characters in the book talks about the ability of people that look hard enough to find connections between anything, but it doesn't guarantee validity.

[Cain]

LMNO: Yeah, thats kind of how BMW described it to me.  I'm trying to see if I can make a relative buy it for me for Christmas.

Bhode:  Thats pretty cool.  I looked at Wikipedia for the esoteric references for Foucalt's Pendulum - good god it never stops.  Hundreds of links.

[LMNO]

I love the basic premise, that a joke randomizer program comes up with one of the great Freemason Secrets.

But yeah, it often reads more like a history textbook than a novel.

But that's Eco for you.

[Triple Zero]

i still wanna read pendulum as well.

currently reading:
- PPK on Javascript (awesome book, if you care about javascript )
- Neil Gaiman - Anansi Boys (ok i still have to start, but I will this weekend)
- Mystical Qabalah (printed off a PDF link i got months ago from mang @ EB&G)
- The Act of Will (some obscure esoteric stuff i picked up in a 2nd hand bookshop for cheap, i suppose it's trash)
- Bill Clifford by Godfried Bomans (a classic Dutch semishort funny detective story)
- Goedel Escher Bach (must-read for anybody ever who wants to think some thoughts about the "meaning" of anything. my 2nd time, going a bit slower this time)

[Bhode_Sativa]

Anansi Boys was a good read.  I like all of Gaiman's stuff that I've read so far.  I really got a kick out of this http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/shortstories/chulthhustory

[Sepia]

Turingmachines!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine

[Thurnez Isa]

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE4/Feed-The-World-GMOs.htm

I found it while looking for an article for another thread
its not the most well writen essay the author jumps all over the place, in reguards to tons of different topics which have nothing to do with the orginal premise and has an obvious
but he makes some good points about what hes talking about
expecially when he says that most of the western world thinks hunger is caused by a lack of food and in fact we have eough food on this planet to feed everyone comfortably
havent read it all cause i have to go to work in like 20 minutes
but will read the rest when i get back

[Thurnez Isa]

Cicero - Politacal Speeches -bought for my dad for christmas so gotta read it now

[Bhode_Sativa]

I just finished Daniel Quinn's The Story of B.  It was excellent.  The ideas presented blew my mind in a historical way, and answered a couple of questions that I had about evolution, such as "If humans in various forms have been around for two to three million years, and in the modern version for two hundred thousand years, why are we only now as technologically advanced?"

It also got me to think about Eris/chaos through a lens of Animism/Natural Selection.  The random interconnections of innumerable individuals producing what works over time and eliminating failures as parts of (and) the whole.  Recommended reading, by Me.

Right now I'm reading Derrick Jensen and George Draffan's Welcome to the Machine.  I'm only three chapters in, but it's fairly interesting so far in its discussion of surveillance and power/control. 

Also on my list are Gilles Deleuze:  An Introduction, some John Zerzan, more Derrick Jensen, Christopher Boehm's Hierarchy in the Forest:  The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, and Society Against the State by Pierre Clastres. 

[Bob the Mediocre]

Let's see, I'm in the middle of The Master and Margarita, really should get back to reading that soon (It's a good thing the college library lets us renew things indefinately), I'm in the middle of Undoing Yourself by Christopher Hyatt, and I'm rereading a few Terry Pratchett books.

And this topic, of course.

[Cain]

Being and Nothingness by Satre.

Damn this is a tough read. I'm not really up on Husserl or Heidegger, who he references constantly and the obtuseness of the translation makes Satre sound more German than French (and I find German philosophers incredibly hard and boring to read).

Still, if I can ever make sense of it, it could be promising.  I'm quite interested in the idea of how bad faith relates to acting and freedom.

[Jasper]

"Wicked- The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West"
Greg Maguire
"The Last Continent"
Terry Pratchett
"Chaos"
James Gleick
"Wraeththu"
Storm Constantine

All at the same time.

[Cain]

Just ordered Camus' The Rebel and The Stranger and Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive and his masterpiece, Guns Germs and Steel.

I less than three Amazon, to the depths of my soul.