Which books sit on your nightstand?

[zerostao]

Stephen Apkon's  The Age Of the Image: Redefining Literacy In A World of Screens

 

also listening to Stephen Apkon talking about The Age of Image.

[Taomeow]

For a change of pace, check out "what books sit on Bill Gates's nightstand."  The one with the blue cover on top of the stack is noteworthy.   (In case you can't enlarge the picture enough to read its title -- it reads,  How to Lie with Statistics.)

 

 

   

 

   

Edited October 15, 2021 by Taomeow

[zerostao]

I think it was Mark Twain who said there are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics

[liminal_luke]

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

For a change of pace, check out "what books sit on Bill Gates's nightstand."  The one with the blue cover on top of the stack is noteworthy.   (In case you can't enlarge the picture enough to read its title -- it reads,  How to Lie with Statistics.)

 

 

Bill Gates is reading How to Lie with Statistics?  Well, I guess it never hurts to go back and repeat the basics.

Edited October 15, 2021 by liminal_luke

[Taomeow]

27 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Bill Gates is reading How to Lie with Statistics?  Well, I guess it never hurts to go back and repeat the basics.

 

It's common for authors to read other authors who write in their chosen genre and on their chosen subject. 

[silent thunder]

Diving in again... after a hiatus.

 

Ling Bao Tong Zhi Neng Nei Gong Shu: Wang Liping (Translation by Richard Liao)

[TheGrayJediKnight]

I have 2 books out near my nightstand lately...

 

"Qigong Teachings of a Taoist Immortal" by Stuart Alive Olson

 

"The Primo Vascular System: It's Role in Cancer and Regeneration" 

 

 

[gentlewind]

Silence of the Heart by Robert Adams.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07DMYCDNV/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2

 

A wonderful exploration of self inquiry. Robert's words indeed do speak to the Heart. I am only 37 pages into this spiritual masterpiece and I am truly looking forward to the reading the rest of the book.

 

http://robertadamsinfinityinstitute.org/

 

 

 

 

[Sketch]

Hooked on books about Catalhoyuk and other neolithic sites;   Annalee  Newitz' "Four Lost Cities " and Michael Balter's " The Goddess and the Bull" introduced me to archeologist Ian Hodder, who edited "Religion at work in a neolithic society " and his little book on entanglement, "Where are we going ". Awaiting a copy of his "Violence and the sacred in the Ancient Near East". 

 

In between these vocabulary builders, I read through Jin Yong's "Legends of the Condor Heroes", which I recommend highly. Ready to start " A Heart Divided " last in the series. I hope more of his stuff gets released in English translation.

 

N. K. Jemisin, " The City We Became",  an example of a  growing trend in speculative fiction to deal with themes of race and gender,  is some very fine writing. 

 

[TheGrayJediKnight]

"The Bliss of Inner Fire" by Lama Yeshe

 

"Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctines" edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz

 

"Fire Touched" by Patricia Briggs

 

"Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert 

 

 

 

[Sketch]

Maurice Bloch, "Prey into Hunter",anthropology on the origin of religion. 

A slow, tail biting read for such a slim volume. Cherry picked and incomplete examples to demonstrate a pet theory. Dismissive of themes at odds with his thesis; the Aghori are briefly passed by as "anthrophagous ascetics", which while accurate begs a lot of questions.

Howeve, I can see that it is prominent in the bibliographies of several books further down my reading list. Onward!

 

All this time on Archeology and related areas,  how about a nice comic book? Rutu Modan's "Tunnels" is set in the world of contemporary middle eastern archeologists, searching along the Israel/Palestine border. Soapy family drama. 

 

 

Annalee Newitz' sci fi novel " Autonomous ",  more of this new wave in speculative fiction. Human slaves, autonomous robots, and the people who love them. 

 

She's fast becoming a favorite. Excellent stuff. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Sketch

[silent thunder]

The Tao of Physics: Fritjof Capra

 

This book shifted my entire paradigm back in my 20's.

Curious to see how it affects, 30 years later.

[Shadao]

Real Magic by Isaac Bonewits(probably the most carefree book about magic that I will ever read).

 

Mind's Eye Theatre by White Wolf.

 

 

[silent thunder]

I found the WOD cosmology fascinating, complex and well formed.  Surprising depth and breadth of philosophy and detail.

 

I read nearly everything they published in their table top rpg sets from the 80's to 2000ish.  Ran a few storylines and played in another that lasted some 7 years.

 

I found their Wyld Weaver Wyrm triad of creation/dissolution particularly elegant and flexibly expansive and suited to explaining modern psyche and mystery.  I'm sure Joseph Campbell would have appreciated many aspects of their symbology.

 

A modern mythos that provided me with many interesting perspectives and countless hours of entertainment and pondering fun.

 

Haven't cracked any of those books in a couple decades, might revisit again.  Thanks for sharing @Shadao

[Shadao]

2 hours ago, silent thunder said:

I found the WOD cosmology fascinating, complex and well formed.  Surprising depth and breadth of philosophy and detail.

Same.

 

The first time I found these books I thought "Wow, these are some deep thoughts and words for a RPG game" and also "This type of rich backstory is something that I wished I could find in most RPG videogames".A pity that so far the companies making videogames of these books seem to mostly not get it right(be it the mood, the mechanics or the story).

 

2 hours ago, silent thunder said:

I read nearly everything they published in their table top rpg sets from the 80's to 2000ish.

I have known of them for a while(8 years?), but only somewhat recently(5 years?) that I was able to get some of the books.I believe I don't have all, but I do know that at least I have "the basics" and some complements.To be fair though, never played any of them but do enjoy reading them alot, specially ones like Mage, Promethean and Second Sight.

 

 

[Draco]

The Taoist Art Of Feng Shou 'Hand of the Wind' Kung Fu by Chee Soo

[Taomeow]

 

This book was "sitting on my nightstand" since I first attempted reading it as a teenager and put it down perplexed.  At the time I was unable to grasp what the point was of painting, in a work of sci-fi, a dystopian picture so far removed from the actual realities of the world I was able to perceive.  It was written 102 years ago and predated both Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World as the classic of the dystopian realism genre.  (The former, incidentally, asserted that the latter was heavily influenced by it -- though Huxley denied it -- while I can see how both of them were.  Or, rather, I can see how all three were privy to The Plan rather than merely prophetic and insightful, and wrote about what was being planned behind closed doors, rather than what they merely fantasized or extrapolated.)

 

The future proved to be not so distant though in a lot of its aspects -- although instead of Zamyatin's transparent houses made of a material known in the book as "Our Glass" we have surveillance cameras and face recognition tech etc. overwhelmingly proliferating our lives; and the Glass Wall separating us from the world of nature and free movement is made out of economic realities and mandates and their enforcers ("Our Glass" of our time) rather than out of a physical substance; and food made of petroleum sneaks into our lives gradually and "peacefully" rather than as the outcome of a 200 year war that did away with all natural products in "We"; and so on.  But the future no one yet envisioned in Zamyatin's or Orwell's or Huxley's time, the future where "Our" One State new world order would not only enslave this planet but threaten the universe itself with its proliferation, with its aggressive enforcement of "obligatory happiness" as One State government understands it ("you will own nothing and you will be happy," to quote our very own Klaus Schwab of the WEF and their Plan for humanity), was a shocking detail in "We" -- and, come to think of it, not inconceivable.  If "we" gain enough technological capabilities, "we" will proceed to do exactly this, "liberate" the whole universe from the perils of freedom and love in the same fashion "we" have liberated this planet.  

 

I don't know, unfortunately, if it's readable in English (I read it in the original and have no idea how well or how badly it has been translated -- it's not one of the books that would be easy to translate).  If the translation happens to be decent, I would highly recommend it.  

 

 

[doc benway]

On 1/23/2022 at 1:07 PM, silent thunder said:

The Tao of Physics: Fritjof Capra

 

This book shifted my entire paradigm back in my 20's.

Curious to see how it affects, 30 years later.

 

You may also enjoy something I just read - Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli.

It detours a bit into history and politics for context but mostly concerns itself with modern physics (quantum mechanics primarily) and its implications regarding consciousness and reality. 

[Draco]

Eden In The East by Stephen Oppenheimer 

 

[Michael Sternbach]

On 23.3.2022 at 4:24 AM, Draco said:

Eden In The East by Stephen Oppenheimer 

 

 

I started reading this book, it contains a lot of useful information - thanks!

[awaken]

最近我的床頭書應該是周易參同契，莊子讀本，入楞伽經範本新譯。

 

Recently, my bedside book should be Zhou Yishen Tongqi, Zhuangzi's reading, and a new translation of the Langka Sutra.

[Draco]

"The mother of the mother of tobacco is a snake."

 

[RobB]

[Bhathen]

Tripura Rahasya : The Mystery beyond the Trinity

[silent thunder]