I'm currently in the middle of “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolte Taylor (a book about a 37 year old Harvard grad/brain scientist that had a stroke and was able to tell in detail exactly what was happening in her brain during that stroke), “Mere Christianity” by C. S. Lewis (basically a compelling discussion on the different theological points of christianity), and “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall (basically a book about the science, history and dynamics of running, like how metabolism and the design of the human foot will affect the way we run as opposed to horses or dogs).

For some reason the combination of these three books is causing my mind to wander down very dynamic paths these days.

So what about you? What does your book list look like this month?

Confessions of a Hypnotist, Hypnotism and Sex by Jonathan Royle (done by a hypnotist with a secular worldview but is unsure if the spiritual really exists)

The Hypnosis of Life by Roy Masters (done by a hypnotist who blends in Jewish and Eastern philosophies and spiritual practices. Basically talks about how most people on this earth are living in a hypnotic state. And their thoughts are not their own…)

The Black Awakening: Rise of the Satanic Super Soldiers by Russ Dizdar (done by a pastor who knows a lot about multiple personality disorder because he has dealt with them alot. You'd be surprised… he doesnt blame it all as “the work of the devil”)

Heaven On Earth: A Guide to Enlightenment & Human Unity by Stephen D'Amico (from the “new age” / Eastern philosophical point of view)


Thats about it. I just have tons of video and audio here on similar topics (psychology, spirituality, etc.) that I “consume” first. And it seems more and more I'm realizing… a very critical and important truth about this existence. I'd leave it at that. I dont wanna turn this topic into a debate and discussion thread. :)

These things can be consumed on the job or while drawing my comic. Reading a book takes time. haha.

i dont know. i've got about 20 million books im reading at he same time right now and dont have the time for any of em since ive come back home. it's a real cluster fuck.
im trying to find a copy of “the most dangerous game” though, and i cant find one around which is weird cuz i half ass read it in junior high, so i figured it was a classic and it'd be easy to find. alas, no.

im sure i can order it online, which i'll probably have to do.

i bought “the plague” by albert camus which im really looking forward to. i really liked reading “the stranger' or it was hard to put down anyways. i've got Don Quixote to read too, but that'll have to wait till i REALLY have the time. been reading ”the troy town story“ my mom bought me for christmas, o feed my ”Iliad“ hard on. it's a pretty cool read. this author took all sorts of different works that'd been written around the trojan war and wrote an indepth story about it, spanning through the entire war i think, and probing into the different characters. it changes viewpoints from character to character too, it's a pretty entertaining concept. and STILL working on ”Paradise Lost" i like it, i really do so far! and im used to he way Milton writes now. its just i dont have alotta time to read anymore and i got to many books goin at once.ah whatever….

…then lets not forget my stockpile of Sgt.Rock comics. :P
comics count too, guys.

kyupol
Confessions of a Hypnotist, Hypnotism and Sex by Jonathan Royle (done by a hypnotist with a secular worldview but is unsure if the spiritual really exists)

The Hypnosis of Life by Roy Masters (done by a hypnotist who blends in Jewish and Eastern philosophies and spiritual practices. Basically talks about how most people on this earth are living in a hypnotic state. And their thoughts are not their own…)

The Black Awakening: Rise of the Satanic Super Soldiers by Russ Dizdar (done by a pastor who knows a lot about multiple personality disorder because he has dealt with them alot. You'd be surprised… he doesnt blame it all as “the work of the devil”)

Heaven On Earth: A Guide to Enlightenment & Human Unity by Stephen D'Amico (from the “new age” / Eastern philosophical point of view)


Thats about it. I just have tons of video and audio here on similar topics (psychology, spirituality, etc.) that I “consume” first. And it seems more and more I'm realizing… a very critical and important truth about this existence. I'd leave it at that. I dont wanna turn this topic into a debate and discussion thread. :)

These things can be consumed on the job or while drawing my comic. Reading a book takes time. haha.

huh, i actually could go n check a fewa these outthey aint real preachy, are they?
sounds like they could have some good creative writing fuel in em.

Currently reading several Terry Pratchett books, including Soul Music, Monsterous Regiment, and The Truth, which I should really be finishing…

Also read 1984 by George Orwell a couple of weeks ago.

Aldenaire- My own novel (just checking to make sure there's no more revisions needed)
Pride and Prejudice - (don't judge me! It's awesome!)
The entire Middle Earth Saga from The Simarillian to Return of the King
And enough text books to make me want to cry

Someone
The entire Middle Earth Saga from The Simarillian to Return of the King

FAARRRRKKK, now you're making me want to re-read the Middle Earth Saga!

OnlyFoolsAndVikings
now you're making me want to re-read the Middle Earth Saga!

Oh trust me I'm bad… I read the books, while playing Lord of the Rings online, while watching the movies, while hand embroidering my Lord of the Rings Rohirrim cape…. Yes there is no hope for me

Dear god, a CAPE TOO? You're amazing.

Thankyou M'lady *bows deeply* I made a Gondorian one for my sister… really need to get back to work on mine :P

Most nights I can't go to sleep until I've read something. There's a couple of books on the nightstand. The long-term ones are
Egil's Saga (an amazing character - example: I'm really pissed at my Dad. So I'm going to kill his favorite farmhand. In front of him. At the dinner table.
and, to counterbalance, Awakening The Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das

Both are very deep in different kinds of details, so I generally have something lighter around to help keep my reading pace up because if I read too much dense material, I start reading more and more slowly. I finished up piecemealing through Wharton, Collected Stories 1911-1937, and will probably go to some of her novels. There's such a difference between being assigned an author's work for school and analyzing the hell out of it, and then returning to the author later and realizing how good he/she truly is.

I had to go for something very light after attempting maybe the driest book evah: a biography of Edward the Confessor. Couldn't finish it. The author would not refrain from emphasizing on just about every page that almost everything he was writing was conjecture. pooh.

So in the popcorn vein, just finished Turtle Moon by Alice Hoffman, and my daughter has loaned me Yotsuba&!.

And then when I really can't focus on reading, I have The World of Edward Gorey by Ross & Wilkin so I can look at the purdy pictures.

@Macattack- the saga is great, but Austin IS awesome

— (wildebeest remembering why she wanted to post in the first place)

@Ally: http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

huh, i actually could go n check a fewa these outthey aint real preachy, are they?
sounds like they could have some good creative writing fuel in em.

My comic MAG-ISA is partially influenced by Dizdar's book (Black Awakening). So yeah. They make good creative writing fuel. I have an entire list of books I want you to read as well. Just pm me if you are interested.

OnlyFoolsAndVikings
Also read 1984 by George Orwell a couple of weeks ago.

Ahh, definitely a great book, one of my favorites!

Personally, I don't read! Bah, what are books! Just leave me to my video games!

Actually, these days I'm reading nothing but textbooks. That's right. But for some reason they're pretty interesting to me, and they help me with work and all that. I'll refrain from listing any of them since I doubt anyone would care to read them.

Though I will say this: Stephen Hawking is my spiritual fuel.

im reding a book about Xenology

www.xenology.info/Xeno.htm
it was written in the 70s but its still mostly relevant . a lot of good ideas for creating alien worlds, species , an cultures . im only about half way through

Ally Haert
I'm currently in the middle of “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolte Taylor (a book about a 37 year old Harvard grad/brain scientist that had a stroke and was able to tell in detail exactly what was happening in her brain during that stroke),

I watched her TED video. It was very emotional. I'd love to read that book.

I'm currently reading “the Primal Blueprint”. It's a book about the new fad diets based on eating as our neanderthal brethren did. But the book isn't just about the diet, it's also inspiring towards “get up, and be active.”

I'm currently looking for a book recently written by Greg Bear. It's from the HALOverse, and is written about the forerunners. (i won't explain what those are, because you'll know if you know anything about halo). I forget what it's titled, but it doesn't seem to be on any book shelves. Unless….

Thanks Ayes, I've never seen that video presentation before. Her book is gripping! You don't have to “like” science to get caught up in the fascinating details of the brain. I'd recommend her book to most anyone.

The older I get, the less I find myself interested in fiction and the more I find myself interested in history and science. I used to read novels and trilogies…but lately I just want to sit down with a good civil war memorandum or a book that highlights human chemistry. Maybe it's a phase? Ah well.

Reading Schindler's Ark by Thomas Kenealy, its good, but very sad. Not sure how believable it is though, I know its based on a true story, but as so often happens, the truth may be a little distorted.

Still reading several Terry Pratchet books, and have now decided to re-read some of my very big, bulky mythology books.

I'm currently digesting The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis….on deck:

Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku.

Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York

It's FANTASTIC so far, a great -true- murder mystery.

I usually get plenty of script ideas for my own comics, whenever I read any book. It may have nothing to do with the primary themes/ideas from the book; simply engaging my mind makes me come up with new scenes/characterizations for my own story.

Recently finished reading Ender's Game. Now reading the latest “direct sequel” Ender In Exile. I wanted to read the “proper sequels” first, but the bookstore didn't stock Speaker For The Dead.

The Ender series by Orson Scott Card, is a series of sci-fi novels which start with a prodigy in modern warfare (a prepubescent boy named Ender Wiggins) being trained in preparation for an impending alien invasion of Earth. It goes on from there.

I was pretty surprised that the author predicted internet, Youtube, Facebook, and iPad in the 70's. But then I realized that he probably updated his books (editions) over the years.

mlai
I was pretty surprised that the author predicted internet, Youtube, Facebook, and iPad in the 70's. But then I realized that he probably updated his books (editions) over the years.

Yup. He's pretty awful with re-edits. A regular George Lucus. -_-

The original is decent. The sequel (speaker for the dead) is good, very thoughtful and a completely different story basically with small relationship to the first and much better for it. It's like the first one was for kids, as Ender was in that book, and that book is for adults, which Ender is at that stage.
All other books in the “series” that I've read are just shit, basically. They're just cash-ins, trying to emulate and eke out more of the success from the first book. An author deserves to make money from his work and trying to leverage his most popular novel should be a good idea, but they're not fun to read- Pedestrian rewritings of the first events.

———

Reading more old Robert E Howard stories, currently “Skull Face”. Wow, more dodgy borderline racist 1920's mystery supernatural detective sort of stuff… I understand that people thought far more in terms of “race” back then and to find it in stories isn't at all unusual, but it's still a bit disappointing.
I mean, the writing isn't actually actively racist, it's just built with all those racial assumptions back then that were so tied up with old ideas of European empire and nationalism. …and to my more modern sensibilities that seems just oh soooo wrong.

Oh… Ender's Game. I loved that book.

People like that really exist, you know… :) I'd leave it at that.

I am currently reading porn, nothing more, nothing less.

The legacy of Heorot. One of my favourite books and I haven't read it for about ten years or so.

I'm rereading Carrie for the billionth time.

I recently finished Last Words, George Carlin's autobiography, though.

Just finished reading Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Really, REALLY good science-fiction.

Did you know that Lucifer is actually the Roman word/name for the planet Venus, i.e. the Morning Star?

Why the hell is Satan named after the Roman word for the planet Venus? Surely Jesus didn't see the bright planet Venus in the morning, point to it, and say "Lo, SATAN!“ If he did, he's a nutjob.

Unless… Satan isn't actually named Lucifer, or there is actually no Satan, and Christianity is just borrowing/inheriting concepts from Roman mythology?

Who named Satan, Lucifer, anyways? Was it in the bible that Satan was originally named Lucifer… or did the name Lucifer come from a ”fictional work" such as Paradise Lost. Is it from Paradise Lost? If it's from Paradise Lost, then why the hell are we still calling him Lucifer? Some author writes in his novel that Satan's name is Lucifer, and we all take it as fact???

Finished “skullface”. I revise my opinion of it. It WAS racist. :(

mlai
Who named Satan, Lucifer, anyways? Was it in the bible that Satan was originally named Lucifer… or did the name Lucifer come from a “fictional work” such as Paradise Lost. Is it from Paradise Lost? If it's from Paradise Lost, then why the hell are we still calling him Lucifer? Some author writes in his novel that Satan's name is Lucifer, and we all take it as fact???

As far as I know the name is related to “light”, “light bringer” and all that sort of thing… I like to think of him has being another example of the “naughty fire-god”, like Loki, or Proteas, they fall out of favour with the ruling god because they disagree with how man should be dealt with. Lots of parallels. :)

Wiki says the usage came about from early bible translations and just basically the general fudging off related mythology and writings.

It's a nice name, it used to be another name for matches ^_^

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

It is really scary how many of the obscure occult references made in the book I know.

George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones. Got it for Christmas…