THE LIBRARY: PUZZLING THINGS OUT
A WALK THROUGH MY PERSONAL LIBRARY
NATURE, BIOLOGY, AND EVOLUTION
This is my personal library on Nature, Biology and Evolution, which appears to have something like "reviews" attached to each book. Some explain the book's contents or main ideas, plus the reason I acquired the book -- what I was hoping to find within its pages and what I probably found instead. Here I may argue a few selected points that interested me, but these are by no means complete formal reviews. More info coming soon at my new "Natureligion" web site I have been particularly interested for a long, long time in the so-called Science "versus" Religion question. Do these disciplines REALLY conflict, or not? There are a surprising number of angles on this question. This is currently an area of intense interest to me, especially since reading this book by my new hero, Ernst Haeckel, the scientist often called "Germany's Darwin." Haeckel was originally an artist, who chose to pursue his second love, science; but he maintained his lifelong interest in his art as well, producing the beautiful book "Art Forms in Nature." RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY AND THE WISDOM TRADITIONS This is my personal library section on "Religion and Spirituality" which has been very important to me for decades, throughout the many changes in my religion/ personal philosophy. I have everything here from Atheism to Zarathustra. I have been particularly interested in what Conservatives, fundamentalists, and millennialists were thinking, as well as all the outspoken atheists of our time - plus many of the people in between. There are specialists here (e.g. theologians) and generalists (people in other fields with opinions on religion and spirituality.) Everyone has their say. New! Check out "Jesus was a Taoist" at my new web site: Click on "Let's go" at bottom of page http://kaylebrooks.wordpress.com ART, HUMANITIES, PSYCHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY
I have found some interesting game changers here, coming from many different disciplines. Shown here is Julia Cameron's book, "The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity," which has changed the lives of many people including me. I have thrown Art and Psychology together because there is recently much overlap with discussion of Jung's archetypes, via Joseph Campbell and George Lucas. Chris Vogeler writes his view of all this for the modern writer. Three popular books by the British philosopher, Julian Baggini, present his challenging "thought experiments." A book of particular interest is R.J. Richards's The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe, which explains the relation of the evolutionary biologists to the world of the arts, and artists to the new views of nature.. PEOPLE, HUMOR, MEMOIRS; SCI-FI, FANTASY, FICTION GENRES
Sometimes my brain gets frazzled from "puzzling" on all the above serious matters, and I have to take a break and simply be entertained. Have always been a big science fiction fan, with the late Michael Crichton at the top of my list. But Crichton's autobiographical "Travels," contains surprising things. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is... spectacular, as is his Black Swan Green. Reminds me so much of J.K. Rowling's adult fiction, Casual Vacancy. Also have some selected Stephen King, although not a horror fan; for example, Black House with Peter Straub. I have a huge collection of mystery paperbacks: Grisham, Cornwell, Tony Hillerman, and the complete set of Sue Grafton mysteries. C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia is here, along with Philip Pullmans' Golden Compass trilogy. As for comedy, I love Robert Benchley, James Thurber, and Shirley Jackson, from the good old days of the 1950's. Enjoyed Bill Bryson's best-seller, A Walk in the Woods. My hands-down comedy favorite is David Sedaris, borrowed from my daughter's library collection - which also supplies Ursula K. Leguin and Neil Gaiman. |