I have been reading a lot recently more so then usual and as the weather here in Louisville drops so does my ability to motivate myself to do much. (I am not much of a fan of the cold) So I’m deciding to divulge my current reading list just because someone might want to pick one of these book up or all of them to read themselves. All the plot summery comes from amazon.com the reason is I am not done reading these book and not able to do full summary. I been reading Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant a little slow because its dense and is my second time reading it, since I like to read many books at once this philosophy book takes a lot of thinking so I am taking it slow but I highly recommend it, like I said it is a reread for me and the book is very worthy of knowing and applying in daily meditation.
Feynman’s Rainbow – A Search For Beauty In Physics And In Life by Leonard Mlodinow:
The late Nobel laureate Richard Feynman has been virtually canonized as the People’s Physicist-an earthy, bongo-playing free spirit who delighted in puncturing the pomposity of the establishment. In this memoir, by ex-physicist and Star Trek writer Mlodinow, of a stint as a post-doctoral colleague of Feynman’s at Caltech, the aging physicist still cracks wise, crashes parties, works on his physics at a strip joint and needles stuffed-shirt academics. Mlodinow was something of a Feynman-esque character himself-he liked to smoke pot with the garbage man next door and was working on a screenplay-so he turned to the older scientist for life lessons. And that’s where this otherwise engaging book goes wrong, because, truth be told, Feynman was at his best only when talking about physics. Mlodinow taped many of their conversations, and transcribes them at length here, to the book’s detriment. Feynman holds forth on the creative process, art and modern novels (”The few that I’ve looked at, I can’t stand them”), but as far as insights go, platitudes like “Remember, it’s supposed to be fun” (a thought inspired by the titular rainbow) are about as good as it gets. Fortunately, Mlodinow’s accessible style manages to convey Feynman’s cantankerous appeal as well as some of the weirdness of theoretical physics without overtaxing lay readers, while his deft, funny, novelistic portraits of its practitioners, like the (as portrayed here) toweringly pretentious and touchingly human Nobelist Murray Gell-Mann, bring this seemingly gray sub-culture to vivid life.
Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant:
One of the cornerstone books of Western philosophy, here is Kant’s seminal treatise, where he seeks to define the nature of reason itself and builds his own unique system of philosophical thought with an approach known as transcendental idealism. He argues that human knowledge is limited by the capacity for perception.
Consciousness Explained by Daniel C. Dennett:
Consciousness is notoriously difficult to explain. On one hand, there are facts about conscious experience–the way clarinets sound, the way lemonade tastes–that we know subjectively, from the inside. On the other hand, such facts are not readily accommodated in the objective world described by science. How, after all, could the reediness of clarinets or the tartness of lemonade be predicted in advance? Central to Daniel C. Dennett’s attempt to resolve this dilemma is the “heterophenomenological” method, which treats reports of introspection nontraditionally–not as evidence to be used in explaining consciousness, but as data to be explained. Using this method, Dennett argues against the myth of the Cartesian theater–the idea that consciousness can be precisely located in space or in time. To replace the Cartesian theater, he introduces his own multiple drafts model of consciousness, in which the mind is a bubbling congeries of unsupervised parallel processing. Finally, Dennett tackles the conventional philosophical questions about consciousness, taking issue not only with the traditional answers but also with the traditional methodology by which they were reached.
Dennett’s writing, while always serious, is never solemn; who would have thought that combining philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience could be such fun? Not every reader will be convinced that Dennett has succeeded in explaining consciousness; many will feel that his account fails to capture essential features of conscious experience. But none will want to deny that the attempt was well worth making. –Glenn Branch
American God’s by Neil Gaiman:
American Gods is Neil Gaiman’s best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn’t sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he’s been delivering since his Sandman days.
Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow’s dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost–the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.
Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow’s road story is the heart of the novel, and it’s here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book–the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. “This is a bad land for Gods,” says Shadow.
A Song of Fire and Ice book 1: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin:
I just finished reading Saga of the Seven Sun by Kevin J. Anderson and after reading those seven fast paced book I wanted to get into another series this time more fantasy rather then sci-fi I have always loved fantasy after starting with Tolkien, then going on to The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, then reading all the Dune series, that’s kinda how I got into Saga of The Suns Kevin J Anderson writes the Dune Hunters series with Frank Hebert’s son which I have never read but I hear good. So anyways A Song of Fire Ice seems like a good series I will read all and review later.
Readers of epic fantasy series are: (1) patient–they are left in suspense between each volume, (2) persistent–they reread or at least review the previous book(s) when a new installment comes out, (3) strong–these 700-page doorstoppers are heavy, and (4) mentally agile–they follow a host of characters through a myriad of subplots. In A Game of Thrones, the first book of a projected six, George R.R. Martin rewards readers with a vividly real world, well-drawn characters, complex but coherent plotting, and beautifully constructed prose, which Locus called “well above the norms of the genre.”
Martin’s Seven Kingdoms resemble England during the Wars of the Roses, with the Stark and Lannister families standing in for the Yorks and Lancasters. The story of these two families and their struggle to control the Iron Throne dominates the foreground; in the background is a huge, ancient wall marking the northern border, beyond which barbarians, ice vampires, and direwolves menace the south as years-long winter advances. Abroad, a dragon princess lives among horse nomads and dreams of fiery reconquest.
These are book I’m currently working on I hope to finish them soon, there are a couple of book I really want to read soon a lot more philosophy and a couple of Carlos Castaneda and I would like to reread the Wheel of Time series cause the last one is coming out soon and I want to read it badly but I need a refresher on the other eleven novels. Oh and more of Terence McKenna’s books, what can I say the man really captured my imagination.
Thank you very much for you time… This has been BrotherShine coming to you from the limitless void in the back of your mind.
