Moderators Lee Knight Posted November 7, 2014 Moderators Share Posted November 7, 2014 I'm enjoying reknowned atheist writer San Harris' Waking Up - A Guide To Spirituality Without Religion. This subject appeals to me greatly. I've always been very interested in higher consciousness, insight, mindfulness etc... and I've always been an atheist. Since being a little prepubescent Catholic school boy, this guy right here has rejected religious dogma of all varieties. Much to the chagrin of my dear departed, devout Catholic mother. Love you Mom! Miss you! Sam Harris explores the lack of contradiction in the idea of spirituality with no religion. Gosh bless Sam Harris!''' How about you? Whatcha reading? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dendy Jarrett Posted November 7, 2014 Members Share Posted November 7, 2014 Im reading this thread! Seriously, I am reading a book about my Native American ancestors (My Paternal Grandmother was Cherokee). D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mark L Posted November 7, 2014 Members Share Posted November 7, 2014 The Bible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AlamoJoe Posted November 8, 2014 Members Share Posted November 8, 2014 The Autobiography of Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted November 8, 2014 Members Share Posted November 8, 2014 Henderson The Rain King by Saul Bellow. wow, wow, and wow some more. Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats - no matter how many times I dip into Yeats, I find new amazing things. The Sea by John Banville - a very intense main character - as is Henderson in the Bellow novel. Another Irish word master...what do they do over there to produce all these incredible writers? I'm going to take another stab at Ulysses (Joyce not Homer) next - more Irish! Maybe this time I'll finish it. David Crosby's (heavily assisted) autobiography Long Time Gone. Pretty durn good for a rock star bio. Another intense main character! Dylan called Crosby an "obstreperous companion" in Chronicles. Now I see why. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members veracohr Posted November 8, 2014 Members Share Posted November 8, 2014 "The Prize" by Daniel Yergin. It's for a class but it's pretty interesting. Basically it's the history of the oil industry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted November 8, 2014 Author Moderators Share Posted November 8, 2014 The Bible Me too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted November 9, 2014 Members Share Posted November 9, 2014 I am still reading an Edward Abbey book called "Desert Solitaire" and about 3/4th through it, but have sort of stalled. Not sure why. And then I started reading "Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton" by Jeff Pearlman, which I am also really enjoying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted November 9, 2014 Members Share Posted November 9, 2014 That Edward Abbey books sounds interesting, from what I see on Amazon. Have you ever read "Goodbye to a River" by John Graves? You're not a Texan, so the local interest won't draw you, but it's a beautiful, profound book on Man In Nature from any point of view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted November 10, 2014 Members Share Posted November 10, 2014 Practical Real Estate Law…. work related… its a college textbook that I`m voluntarily reading. What a concept, huh? The Future of the Mind… another voluntary read…. fascinating book actually. Cash: The Autobiography… night stand reading… good stuff. Cash has a nice rhythm to his writing and speaks to the reader as if it were just you and the man in black in a room just talking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted November 10, 2014 Author Moderators Share Posted November 10, 2014 And what about books on CD. I turned my nose up for years. But... DRIVING IS A WASTE OF TIME!!! I highly recommend "The Great Courses". http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/all-formats/cd?ai=52512&cmp=PS_Branded_google_US&gclid=CjwKEAiA4YGjBRDOxa3XvfTnvSASJACC3bLBOJ-cHm10aiq4bB0RRvOg8OLCHt3R2Qyz30Qz3RCEphoCtBrw_wcB&mkwid=snCJUIcai_dc&pcrid=37263672662&pkw=the+great+courses&pmt=e&ps=923 I finished a 10 CD course of How to Listen and Understand Great Music. Essentially a history of "serious music". From Gregorian chants and before to Philip Glass. Heavy, deep, and a hell of a lot of fun. This is an instructor and his class being taped. No production values save for direct music into the program thank god. It's first gen music on the program, no ambient classroom recording of that. But other than that, no production values. Just content. Serious content. Great stuff. And currently I'm making my way through a course on The Art of War. It is not the text of a translation, but rather a teacher's take on the importance of it, how it can be misread, the core ideas within. I've tried to read the book a few times, a different translation each time and... I can't help wonder how studying the wind patterns of Northern China is going to bring me insight. But this course? The text is brought into its original context and reinterpreted for you and me. How we can use these time honored principles in our lives. Really cool. So... I study the Art of War on my way to and fro making a living. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted November 11, 2014 Members Share Posted November 11, 2014 And what about books on CD. I turned my nose up for years. But... DRIVING IS A WASTE OF TIME!!! I highly recommend "The Great Courses". http://www.thegreatcourses.com/cours...s&pmt=e&ps=923 I finished a 10 CD course of How to Listen and Understand Great Music. Essentially a history of "serious music". From Gregorian chants and before to Philip Glass. Heavy, deep, and a hell of a lot of fun. This is an instructor and his class being taped. No production values save for direct music into the program thank god. It's first gen music on the program, no ambient classroom recording of that. But other than that, no production values. Just content. Serious content. Great stuff. And currently I'm making my way through a course on The Art of War. It is not the text of a translation, but rather a teacher's take on the importance of it, how it can be misread, the core ideas within. I've tried to read the book a few times, a different translation each time and... I can't help wonder how studying the wind patterns of Northern China is going to bring me insight. But this course? The text is brought into its original context and reinterpreted for you and me. How we can use these time honored principles in our lives. Really cool. So... I study the Art of War on my way to and fro making a living. Lee, Yes, absolutely. I love The Great Courses as well. I have quite a collection, including the course you mention. I find myself listening more and more to audio books as well. I spend a lot of time in the car commuting during the week, sometimes up to 5 hours a day so its a great way to spend all that time. Also, I enjoy listening to NPR but thats not a book either... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rjt Posted November 11, 2014 Members Share Posted November 11, 2014 Currently am reading: The Thirty Years War: A Documentary History. I just finished a book on Thomas Becket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted November 11, 2014 Members Share Posted November 11, 2014 The Bible I don`t know if you were serious but I read it often and find it very inspiring. It may be outdated, archaic, and misunderstood in many places but I still find the stories very relevant and it does, at the end of the day, bring me some peace of mind and guidance for the present and future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Etienne Rambert Posted November 11, 2014 Members Share Posted November 11, 2014 Gogol, Kafka and Poe. Three historic literary weirdos. Gogol was by far the best writer of the three. He was just plain nuts, that's all. He was also the weirdest of the three -- by far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted November 11, 2014 Members Share Posted November 11, 2014 Same here. However, I think it's essential to have some help in reading the Bible - historical, interpretative, theological help. Protestants did such a bang-up job of bringing the Bible to the masses that the masses got the idea that the Bible can be instantly understood read as ignorantly as possible, even taking the uninformed approach as the "spiritually pure" approach. " However, just me and the Bible" in reality translates typically into "just me listening to just me". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philboking Posted November 12, 2014 Members Share Posted November 12, 2014 I've been gorging on Sci-Fi from guttenberg.org, which publishes stuff that the copyright ran out on. I'm currently in the middle of the first issue of a sci-fi magazine that came out in the '30s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dendy Jarrett Posted November 14, 2014 Members Share Posted November 14, 2014 Dang ... we got a good many readers here. It isn't my strong point (reading that is). I tend to read for a while, but the book down and then have to digress to catch back up to where I left off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ggm1960 Posted November 14, 2014 Members Share Posted November 14, 2014 I've been reading Up And Down with The Rolling Stones. I imagine this book has been out for many years but recently the price was right so I downloaded it to my iPad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted January 10, 2015 Members Share Posted January 10, 2015 http://www.amazon.com/The-Lost-City-Deadly-Obsession/dp/1400078458 I've been reading "The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon" by David Grann, which is difficult to put down. Really fascinating account of his attempt to figure out where famed explorer Percy Fawcett went, whether he discovered the mysterious large city he was looking for deep in the Amazon, and whether this place really existed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff Leites Posted January 11, 2015 Members Share Posted January 11, 2015 It's kind of funny that this topic came up again. I had a drummer friend in college in the late 60's. I'd long since lost contact with him, but since the internet came along, I'd been unsuccessfully trying to find him for a very long time. It didn't help that I remembered his first name incorrectly. Well, out of the blue, last month, he was looking at some school related web page, saw my name, Googled me, found my web page, and contacted me. He’s taken up novel writing in retirement, and has a written a few books. I’m not much a a novel reader, and the I’m not really in his target audience, but since he wrote them, I’m reading them. https://www.facebook.com/The.Village.Drummer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AlamoJoe Posted January 17, 2015 Members Share Posted January 17, 2015 http://www.amazon.com/The-Lost-City-Deadly-Obsession/dp/1400078458 I've been reading "The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon" by David Grann, which is difficult to put down. Really fascinating account of his attempt to figure out where famed explorer Percy Fawcett went, whether he discovered the mysterious large city he was looking for deep in the Amazon, and whether this place really existed. Gonna have to read that one myself after hearing about it on NPR this morning. It sounds fascinating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted January 17, 2015 Author Moderators Share Posted January 17, 2015 Just finished How To Control Your Anxiety by Albert Ellis. Ellis; the originator of REBT therapy and its offshoots. Cognitive therapy et al. That was book on iTunes/Audible for the ride to and fro. Ellis never ceases to inform me with stuff I already "know", but he has a way of putting it in your pocket for ready usage. Highly recommended. Not for the anxious as much as for the human. All hail Ellis! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted January 17, 2015 Members Share Posted January 17, 2015 Gonna have to read that one myself after hearing about it on NPR this morning. It sounds fascinating. Definitely a good read all the way through. Very interesting all the way through. He paints a good picture of the explorers, particularly Fawcett. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted January 17, 2015 Members Share Posted January 17, 2015 Just finished Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Pulitzer winner, FWIW. Fiction novel with some roots in reality - multi-generational tale of a Greek family in Symrna in the 1920s, emigrating to Detroit and ends in the late 70s more or less. Lots of fascinating history about Detroit, Greeks, and of all topics, hermaphrodites. Ties into the sexual revolution in the 70s but it's no stereotypical coming-out tale - very thoughtful, balanced. My grandfather was a big corporate higher up in the Detroit auto industry in the 20s - the family had property in Grosse Pointe and all that. Grandfather lost his fortune in the Depression, and my dad was a bootstrap guy who put himself through Michigan State, served in WWII, and had a long career with one mega oil business corporation. So all the Detroit stuff rings very true - a lot of the nightmare side of the American Dream has played out in Detroit. It's long, but pretty easy style to lighten the trek. You'll learn something I guarantee. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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