I've got a stack of about 30 books on my bedside table, but I actively read about only 6 at a time. Here's are a few of the books I'm currently reading or have recently finished. Link goes to Amazon where if you buy it, helps me pay my bills ;).
Recently Finished
- The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll
This is one of my all time favorite JCs. A high school reunion. Bookseller. A fabulous old woman with an amazing history. A magician. A magical love story. Ghosts, car drives, car crashes, Crane's View and Beechwood Canyon. Also, a dog on fire. Did I mention there's a vampire in it as well? Well I just did. I sucked this delight down in 2 days. It's another magical world!
- Tao Te Ching - Classic Taoist Material. I read this in one sitting - and finally understood it.
- Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - I've been sporadically reading this for several months, picking it up and opening it to whatever page. I read through the entire 2/3's the other night (and it actually made sense!)
- Foundation and Earth
by Asimov. Classic ending (almost) to the foundation series. If you love Science Fiction and have not read this series - YOU MUST. Start with Foundation, chant Harry Seldon. Every single SciFi author has borrowed from this series. It is the be-all, end-all. Eat your heart out Frank Herbert, PK Dick and Dan Simmons.
- The Anubis Gates
- I love Tim Powers and this is my favorite of his. Time travel, Coleridge, sorcerers, Egypt, Magicians, Scientists, stuck in time, body double's/ka, body changing, dark passages underground, une semanie de bonde type creatures. (Pre-China Mievelle)
- The Drunkard's Walk
- There's an explanation for all the illogical stuff people do.
- Predictably Irrational - And here's how you can predict what illogical stuff people will do - and why.
Current (re)Reads
- Kissing the Beehive
- I enjoyed the Marriage of Sticks so much, I plucked this one off my shelf. Page 20 inspired my post about Parkview Plaza memories. Crane's View again. Jonathan, the drink offer still stands. I'm still in LA.
- The Pentium Chronicles - A fascinating read about building the pentium 6 chip. Reading it really makes me want to go out and find a big company Product Management job. Really good insight into what it's really like to develop a technology product.
- Who Is Fourier?: A Mathematical Adventure
I started with their Quantum Physics book and realized I wanted more math background. So I got this. Although it's not perfect, you learn what a fourier series is in Chapter 1. The rest of the book builds from there.
- What Is Quantum Mechanics?
- this is the Quantum Book. From someone who is not a science person (but has always been fascinated by science and the natural world) this book is hard core science and equations and explanations along with the history and how it was all figured out.
- The Trillion Dollar Meltdown - I'm not sure it's necessary to finish this now. Was written before the economic crash explaining why there was an upcoming crash despite the in denial pundits. I bought this on a recommendation by Dr Housing Bubble (one of the only blogs I obsessively read.)
- Personal Development for Smart People - I've been following Mr Self Development (with a tiny bit of jealousy - I kind of wish my site was more like his.) This is his book based on his extensive self development experimentation. I'm enjoying it as I always enjoy a shot of Steve Pavlina.
- The Theory of Celestial Influence
- An early 20th Century application of new mathematical explanations to age old philosophical questions. Written by one of Gurdjieff's students, Rodney Collins, this book was written for another time, using words that were not necessarily correctly applied (they mean something different today). When I first read this book about 10 years ago, it blew me away with my first look at what the universe might be like - from the universe's perspective - in addition to my human perspective and a variety of perspectives in between. (From what position do you want to look at something in what position.) It really changed the way I thought about many things. I'm not sure I necessarily believe what it explains, but there is much truth in the words, if you can look between them. It will blow your mind if you catch the concepts.
And let's not forget the books from my Clients that came out this year while I'm in pimp mode:
- Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes by Jonathan Shaw
- Gasoline
by Dame Darcy
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