Ideagiant’s Library
These are a few of the books that have made their way to my permanent library and are consistently read.
Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
Review: Simply a marvelous book that travels through Mexico and eventually through Western Europe-following the pathways of a small group of avant garde poets. They smell of youth in the beginning, the brash and solipsitistic reasoning, full of virile vigor. We find out, though, how choices have consequences and that they often reverberate througout your life.
Bolano makes you ponder in a dizzying fashion on the impermanence of life, of the chaotic cause and effect of all choices, and to wonder at those that can face it all with a touch of humor and romance.
Introduction to the Middle Way Chandrakirti’s Madhyamakavatara with Commentary Jomgon Mipham by Chandrakirti
Review: Absolutely stuning and amazing. It is hard to follow because of the way that Tibetans set up such books, but the insights are amazing. I would suggest reading this before Nargarjuna’s treatise. Emptiness is something I can only touch upon but through this logical treatise one can expect to make that wild leap of faith into transcending the mundane with full knowlege that all the steps leading up to it are logical, rationale, and proofed. Amazing.
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika by Nagarjuna via Jay Garfield
Review: This was powerful teachings indeed. I would suggest as I said earlier in reading Chandrakirti’s commentary before embarking on this alone. The Commentary in this one is, at time, a bit overly pedantic but it does not detract from the wonder of this Mind. Truly a towering Man and work
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show business by Neal Postman
Review: Helped me forge my ideas on how to shape evolution via technology and why it is necessary-the Medium is the Message as Postman quotes Mcluhan. He delves into how this is possible, how media shapes our very minds, and how this understanding is necessary too be able to regain control of our tools.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil By Hannah Arendt
Review: A deep analysis by a person I greatly admire, Hannah Arendt. She delves into the problems of bureaucracies which breeds a banal type of Evil: the modern sort. Where most anyone can be and is at danger of becoming another Eichmann. Using this to focus my energies on holistic change, that a life without powerful positive value systems, without systems being based on benevolent values, real ones that shape agenda’s and decisions-we will await the next horror.
Chaos: Making a New Science By James Gleick
Review:A nice introduction into an amazing theory that seems to make sense and reify my beliefs that there are ’no small deeds’-all variables have affects on the whole system, thus every variable is “important’ to the existence as it is
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark By Carl Sagan
Review: One should, in this conventional world, at least hold a bit of reason. This is what Mr. Sagan suggests in this book where he worries we are traversing back to a dark age. Of which, to some extent, I will agree and am frightened of: however, I am always skeptical of the scientific crowd (I got a degree in Biology) that doesn’t acknowledge their own flaws and biases of their thought process. The whole scientist as objective is hogwash-if not through Heisenberg, through Neitzche we can see the fallacy of this. The Scientist is the new priesthood and priesthoods have always been more about power than about grace-the Modern version just puts a better spin on it and calls it Truth-but the same problem lay in that search as well.
The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung
Review: Jung’s looks into Man and how without Meaning he is stripped of his ability to connect with anything, and, in fact, is victim to the hegemonic state via laws. He no longer knows the basis of right and wrong and thinks that legal and illegal are the same (consequently that is the same argument that Confucius said). Wonderful stuff“
But, science is very good at what it does. It is a good tool that a wise man keeps, but a tool just, nary a carpenter made such a hub bub about a hammer.
The Republic By Plato
Review: This work taught me to think on a scale that I was not used too. To think on a scale of nation (city/state) building and how that each of those decisions to ‘rule’ are, in turn, foundational decisions. That “Athens’ was a manifestation of a belief structure, that it arose from a value foundations-and all the systems that arose from it (rules, etc) were to mirror and support this foundation.
He delves also, via Socratese, into the nature of belief-how to look upon it with both reverence and a critical mind.
The Discipline of Hope By Herbert Kohl
Review: Herbert Kohl goes over his career as a teacher and delves into the reasoning behind it. He inspires teachers to teach well, to think of it as a calling and a career. He gives examples that break your heart but also remind you of the importance, to me of paramount importance, of the need to be aware of our value foundations especially when doing something as important as teaching.
He tells us and shows us that all of us are deserving of being taught and that this desire to do so shows us in an explicitly material form how much we love our children. It is a mandate to make sure out children get this opportunity to craft their native intelligence into a purpose driven life.
Mind Beyond Death by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
Review: The Bardo teachings are complete and whole. Dzogchen Ponlop rinpoche shows how these teachings through an erudite but accessible lesson-can free the mind from its discursive, ignorant, mundane nature. “