Favorite books

All-time favorite books I've read:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
by Robert M. Pirsig



Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
by Douglas R. Hofstadter



The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul
by Douglas R. Hofstadter



The Chronicles of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis



The Hobbit
by J.R.R. Tolkien



The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams



The Collected Dialogues of Plato



The Complete Pelican Shakespeare



Miles Davis, The Autobiography



Tao Te Ching
Translated by Man-Ho Kwok, Martin Palmer, and Jay Ramsay
Calligraphy by Kowk-Lap Chan



Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley



Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury



books to read / re-read in future:

Journey to the West
by Wu Cheng'en (Author), W.J.F. Jenner (Translator)



Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand



The Analects of Confucius



The Book of Chuang Tzu
Translated by Martin Palmer with Elizabeth Breuilly



The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell
by Aldous Huxley



The Digital Photography Book volume 1
by Scott Kelby



The Digital Photography Book volume 2



Jean Christophe
by Romain Rolland



Stalking Microbes
by Richard P. Wenzel, M.D.

451 to Atlas

Song of the Day: Atlas Shrugged - Jeff Sipe

Quote of the Day: "The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour." --Beatty, from Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451

Thought of the Day: Just finished Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451, what a wonderful book. The book that pumps you up about reading books. Set in the future, in a time and place where books are banned and government censorship rules. The firemen of the future, including main character Beatty, set fires instead of putting them out. Their most popular target: those curious thinking rebels who still keep books in their hidden home libraries contrary to the rule of the land. Solution: burn the books, the houses, and sometimes the book-readers themselves.

In this future dystopia, government censorship means no literature, no teachers, no creative individual thought. Its replacement is 'the family' which in actuality is more like mass entertainment. 'The family' is our current TV and youtube culture combined and on crack. The hapless populace assemble in their parlors, which are rooms with full-wall media screens where fast moving images of cartoons, soundbite sensationalist news, and cheap pulp fiction are offered like an all-you-can-eat buffet for convenient in-home standardized mass consumption.

The themes of the book, written over 50 years ago, still run quite true. How far are we from this picture today, where the population is more concerned with who will be the next American Idol than with the often destructive policies of our short-sighted politicians? The elected leaders love our pre-occupation with professional sports teams and mind-numbing reality television shows. No need for overt censorship in this age as the populace is content to ignore the goings on in Washington unless it is an election year and only if the complex news is filtered down to catchy slogans like 'Change' and 'Hope'.

After finishing 451 I immediately cracked open a new novel, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. In this sprawling work Rand details her own philosophy, dubbed Objectivism, and asks the question: "Who is John Galt?" The Song of the Day references the work it it's title. Not sure of the connection, but it's a pretty song. I'm already enjoying the book immensely and will likely post on it as I read more.

Cheers, Dr. Kowawa

Ricercar

Song of the Day: The Musical Offering, BWV 1079 - Ricercar a 6 - Johann Sebastian Bach

Quote of the Day: "If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism." Albert Einstein

Thought of the Day: Just finished reading Godel, Escher, Bach, An Eternal Golden Braid. What a brilliant book! Can't say I understood every concept in the 777 pages, but I definitely enjoyed the book immensely. This book is intellectual exercise, but Hofstadter has a wonderful sense of humor so it's fun. The last chapter ends with a 6 part dialogue that re-explains some of the author's methods and mirrors Bach's masterpiece 6 part fugue that concludes the Musical Offering. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone interested in music, philosophy, mathematics, or religion who is looking for a challenging, intellectual read.