Laurence Sterne: “Tristram Shandy, Gentleman”. Nietzsche called Sterne (1713-1768) a ‘free spirit’.
value free science : ideals and illusions
Hugh Allone - Sailor; by John Marshall Doggett
THE WAY OF RESPONSE: Martin Buber
Selections from his Writings
I’m working on The Road to Serfdom by Hayek, FREE: The future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson, and The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley.
I just finished Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson and look forward to The Skin Game by Jim Butcher next month.
Words of Radiance is a sequel, a thousand page sequel to a thousand page book, but Brandon Sanderson once again amazes me with his writing. If you’ve ever attempted to created any sort of art in your life, The Emperors Soul just might be the best book you’ve ever read, and it’s a novelette… Took like three hours to read the last time I read it, which was for the fifth or sixth time. Anytime I want to feel inspired, I pick it up.
I’ve been reading The Barbed Coil by J.V. Jones, who is a brilliant writer. Gonna be reading her ‘The Book of Words’ Trilogy again, next.
I couldn’t make it through the first of that trilogy. To many points of view change.
HEINRICH HEINE: “Florentine nights”
Dashiell Hammet’s The Maltese Falcon
Georg Steiner “On Difficulty” here referencing Ezra Pounds’s Canto LXXXI,
But to have done instead of not doing this is not vanity
To have, with decency, knocked
That a Blunt should open
To have gathered from the air a live tradition
or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame
This is not vanity.
Aristoteles “De Anima” re-read
It’s a shame that Kosta no longer trains or has any involvement with Mo Pai.
Nietzsche, Antichrist re-read
re-read Camus, ‘The Stranger’
Colin Wilson ‘The Outsider’
Herman Hesse’Steppenwolf’
2666, Bolano.
Finally getting round to reading the Wordsworth Classics Of World Literature’s version of ‘Machiavelli: The Prince’ after having bought it a few years ago, and finding that the 30 minute tube journey into work is a good excuse to finally read it, oh… and the clarity I now have after finding out my exact allergy and therefore being able to address it 
The Last Man
by P.T. Deuterman
Deutermann’s latest (Nightwalkers, 2009, etc.) is a strong thriller that mixes archaeology, history and geopolitics. In A.D. 73, a few desperate Jews in a mountaintop holdout are about to be overrun by the Roman army that has laid siege. They prefer suicide to surrender. The last man, Judah Sicarius, is selected to make sure all his compatriots are dead, down to the last woman and child, and then he is to kill himself. Two millennia later, the American David Hall receives reluctant permission from authorities to explore parts of Masada, the mountain that in real life has become a revered historical site in Israel. But they don’t fully trust him to leave the place undisturbed, so they assign archaeologist Dr. Judith Ressner to chaperone him. (Will the reader be surprised to learn that she’s beautiful?) Hall masquerades as an enthusiastic amateur, but he has a secret agenda that leads him to break rules and violate people’s trust. Even so, he acts without malice and is a likable character. Key to the story are natural cisterns inside the mountain that hold the accumulated rainwater of thousands of years. What is Hall’s true interest? And why do authorities even care what he finds as long as he doesn’t ruin any artifacts? Meanwhile, the widow Ressner provides an enjoyable subplot that threatens to turn romantic as she grapples with problems of her own. The perils in this novel come from an unexpected direction, and even once they are revealed there is one big secret left. Deutermann’s descriptions of Masada, its cisterns and the Dead Sea are well-done indeed. In particular, Deutermann skillfully maintains tension right to the end. Unlike some thrillers that keep the reader’s adrenaline going with increasing body counts and steamy sexual encounters, this one just tells a terrific story with a satisfying payoff. Damn good.
…
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
by Malcolm Gladwell
In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.
Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland’s Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms—all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity.
In the tradition of Gladwell’s previous bestsellers—The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw—David and Goliath draws upon history, psychology, and powerful storytelling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.
…
The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
by Leonard Mlodinow
With the born storyteller’s command of narrative and imaginative approach, Leonard Mlodinow vividly demonstrates how our lives are profoundly informed by chance and randomness and how everything from wine ratings and corporate success to school grades and political polls are less reliable than we believe.
By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives us the tools we need to make more informed decisions. From the classroom to the courtroom and from financial markets to supermarkets, Mlodinow’s intriguing and illuminating look at how randomness, chance, and probability affect our daily lives will intrigue, awe, and inspire.
Sounds like a nice topic. The staff of oedipus had a lot of insights taking examples from mythology. Now though, I’m reading one called the Aesthetics of Wine.
Some Harold Bloom.
King Lear
The Odyssey - I make it a point to reread this every year.
[tab]If some Nietzscheans are interested, let me know.
jstor.org/stable/20717869[/tab]
Right now I am not reading a book, but a text of a web forum called “I LOVE PHILOSOPHY”. if I will again have time to read , I will go on with the reading of a book with the title “Zeit und Tage” (“Time and Days”) by Peter Sloterdijk.