Are you implying he’s too subtly expressed for my dim intellect? 
Same here; I haven’t read Point Counter Point but I have managed to read Island and Eyeless in Gaza, both of which I recommend.
Maybe 
Or you might just not have the attention for it if you find his writing uninteresting.
I started reading Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist, finally. I’d been planning to read it for so long and I finally have read first 22 pages. I like it actually:)
But then that suggests I have some form of attention deficit. How about, I simply dislike his writing, but that in no way reflects negatively upon my character. 
Sure, but I wasn’t referring to any type of disorder. Preferences affect attention. Nothing deficient about that.
And I don’t consider ADD to reflect negatively on a person’s character anyway.
BESIDES, do you think I would aim veiled insults at you? I’m not the passive aggressive type.
Don’t worry fuse, I was just jesting around.
got’cha 
Prometheus Rising
-Robert Anton Wilson
This is a cool book. It’s written by one of the major figures in the new age/drug movement, but I think pretty much everyone here would agree it’s surprisingly scientific, and in no way really focuses on drugs, as I think it was written after he had matured into the enlightenment stage. It’s funny. It’s short, and concise. I loved this book.
Basically it focuses on what he calls the 8 stages of awareness. It doesn’t really matter if you think there are 8, or whatever; what matters is that he presents a series of exercises at the end of each chapter which tackles it from different viewpoints (druggie, scientist, skeptic, wide-mouthed believer) that, even if you just read them, illustrates his perspective pretty well: he’s trying to blend all of these, as no one is really any one particular.
The more I type the more I don’t do justice to this read-it-in-a-couple-hours type book. Check it out.
And maybe a RAW youtube sometime…
Is that anything like Leary’s eight-circuit model of consciousness?
It is exactly that.
i am re-reading “The China Study”…i think it is a spectacular and highly disturbing book…
I began reading some Ray Bradbury recentl. Farenheit, and The Illustrated Man. Excellent, excellent, excellent.
@fuse, I think I understand my dislike for Hesse, maybe still too much self-loathing to take his sincerity seriously. Shame on me 
I’ve been snacking on SImulacra and Simulations (Baudrillard).
I recently finished Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man (which was a bit of light reading after Crime and Punishment…The Brothers Karamazov is staring at me, begging me not to begin Kafka’s The Castle first). Decisions, decisions…
Bradbury is decent. Read Fahrenheit 451 and some of his Martian Chronicles…
ah…the aesthetics of self-loathing…you should start a new thread
Man, The Castle, if ever I read a book that felt like it was going anywhere, it was, ironically, The Castle, but maybe that’s the whole point of it. I don’t know though because I never finished it but neither did Kafka so, meh. I probably should give Kafka another read but I’ve mostly been unimpressed by what I have read. I’d opt for the Dostoyevsky if I were you. And speaking of Russian lit. I’d also recommend Oblomov.
Really? I am absolutely enamored with Kafka, especially his short stories. Investigations of a Dog is one of the best allegorical critiques of religion and ceremony I’ve ever read. Sure, most of his work is unfinished and fragmented, but that’s the attraction of it: in most authors, you always see the final product whereas with Kafka, you see the process. In addition, it is incredibly layered, so one partial reading is certainly not going to do it for you. Also very important as one of the premier stream of consciousness authors.
Dostoyevsky is, so far, one of my favorite reads. The only problem is I feel obliged to not pick him up unless I can dedicate a few hours a day. For example, with Crime and Punishment, I was reading an average of five hours daily and after Svidrigailov accosted Raskolnikov in the street, I read every chance I got–while I was eating breakfast or dinner, on the toilet, brushing my teeth, lunch break, ride to and from work (I car pool). After finishing, I picked up a copy of Chernyshevsky’s What is to be Done? and read that before going through Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground…which I covered in two sittings. So in essence, I worry that I will become a total recluse in full body atrophy if I start The Brothers Karamazov.
I still have to finish Les Miserables at some point, though right now I hold it in contempt in the beginning of Marius…and after I enjoyed Fantine and Cossette so much. I will, however, add Oblemov to the queue, as it sounds interesting from the wiki description.
I’m reading “The Help”. I seriously can’t put it down, i read it every night before bed and I cant seem to stop reading. I end up going to bed so late because of it
A Thousand Plateaus: Schizophrenia And Capitalism By Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
Good call. I assume you read Anti-Oedipus, then? I was reading A Thousand Plateaus until I was side tracked by Baudrillard’s Simulacra & Simulations.