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Others' Stories.
Find below some of the things I've read that may merit an opinion.
Feel free to suggest things you've found, drop me a line.
Check out GoodReads.com too, it's a handy way to see what your friends are reading, and help you find new interesting bits!
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'The Dying Animal' by Philip Roth |
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"People think falling in love makes themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open. She was a foreign body introduced into your wholeness. And for a year and a half you struggled to incorporate it. But you'll never be whole until you expel it. You either get rid of it or incorporate it through self-distortion. And that's what you did and what drove you mad.
Attachment is ruinous and your enemy. He who forms a tie is lost. That you should sit there looking like you do is absurd. You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste? That's all we're given in life, that's all we're given of life. A taste. There is no more."
And there we have it.
This is a solid chunk of a masonry brick, thrown most eloquently through the window of politically correct convention. Meet Roth's thought provoking observations about love, sex, and marriage. Marvel at the detailed accounts of the consequences resulting from his quest for lots and lots of booty.
To make things appropriately interesting, the story is of a university professor about to crack his 70th birthday. And the booty in question are his students. The whole thing really is compelling. Especially so if you're into well written insight into human nature, by a guy who has a thing or two to say about the subject.
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'Molecules of Emotion' by Candace Pert |
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 Here's a well written molecular biologists autobiography, mixed in with the tale of fascinating discoveries of some biomolecular stuff. Not to spoil the plot or anything, but it's all about the role of neuropeptides in regulating body functions down to the cellular level - and in the process playing a key role in various emotional states.
So when you're craving a burger or maybe getting in on a little road rage action, it's just a pile of cells trying to get high on some peptides.
Drugs, man. That's your problem.
There is no going wrong with this one. Rather than just being a hapless puppet to the chemicals controlling our emotional state, a little understanding of what drives us can go a long way in affecting our lives constructively and with purpose.
Just kidding.
Did you know though, that every cell in your body has a built-in receptors for morphine ... and weed?
Now THAT's some information worth a little read!
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'Do Travel Writers go to Hell?' - by Thomas Kohnstamm |
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Good stuff.
A desk job escapee turned travel writer for Lonely Planet telling his story. It's not the usual oh-I'm-so-free-and-adventurous-and-enlightened type of rhetoric, which is a nice change for a start. It'll probably appeal more to the generally vagrant afflicted personality types, but in any case it's a worthwhile read.
Measure your emotional response to it, it could be a good gauge to relate and see if you really feel that you're on the right path, life and all.
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'The Birdman and the Lapdancer' - by Eric Hansen |
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If you need some encouragement to meet more people, travel, and squeeze a little more of the juicy bits out of life, this is a pretty good primer. Some well told little short stories, making it easy to remember what you're missing, sitting on your couch.
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'How to Lose Friends And Alienate People' - by Toby Young |
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Take the overused cliché horse, beat it to its' proverbial death, then skin it, make a beat-the-dead-horse suit out of it, wear it to crash weddings, and then be incredibly proud about telling your life story. That's Toby-fucking-Young, ladies and gentlemen.
It's really generally not worth bothering ... mentioning all the shitty writing that makes it to print (and into Borders Books, even). In this special, special case though, an exception is in order. This painful narration of some British writers' personal failures, and pointless, rambling observations definitely gives great justice to the title of the book.
It's really not so much a title, as it is a warning.
Imagine that for the rest of your life you'll have recurring dreams of a mutant dwarf version of David Hasselhoff doing "I can't believe it's not butter" commercials. At full volume, and in slow motion. That's exactly the emotional state that reading this book will impart. Don't do it, for the sake of all of us.
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'Eat to Live' - by Joel Fuhrman |
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Listen up, fatsacks. Near 30% of the U.S. population is overweight, and the numbers are rapidly growing. It's NOT sexy to be fat, all your jiggling and labored breathing and sweat is not hot, no matter what you tell yourselves. You're addicted to food, bad food, fat food, and it's no more attractive than watching somebody get high on crystal meth.
Unfortunately, I can't solely blame you for it all. We're eating what we're told is good for us, we're eating what all the advertising tells us, and we tell each other it's ok. But of course it's not.
'Eat to Live' offers some great insight and perspective into what happens when we eat how we generally eat. It also offers a great deal of information about several popular (and dangerous) diets, and how to ultimately conquer the bad eating disease and get back to a healthy and attractive lifestyle and appearance.
Please, read it. It's only thanks to my poor vision that I can go to the beach without getting sick from looking at you in bathing suits.
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'The China Study' - by T. Campbell |
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The New York Times called this one the "Grand Prix of epidemiology". While it's maybe not as mindlessly entertaining as a Stephen King novel, it's just about as scary. Especially since its' contents pertain to most of our lives and eating habits, and our primary mortality causes (heart disease and cancer).
You owe yourself the few days of your life it'll take to read this one. Wether or not it'll cause you to change some of your habits, it is a moment of enlightenment about our food culture and medical establishment you won't want to miss.
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'Water for Elephants' - by Sara Gruen |
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You can go read countless self-help books about how to improve your life. Of course if you do that, I suggest that there's something more fundamentally wrong than a book will help you fix. But, be that as it may, this novel will provide far more entertainment and the "message in a story" on what matters in life.
For once there's a fun story to be read that offers perspective and a real hook to make you ponder your existence. At least, that's what it did for me. Enjoy a great read!
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'The Universe in a Single Atom' - by the Dalai Lama |
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By all accounts it would be arrogant and poignantly close-minded to have a negative opinion about anything written by the Dalai Lama. Fortunately I did enjoy the book, with some personal quibbly caveats.
Mainly, there are a whole lot of digressions at many key points in the book in the style of 'math at that level is beyond my grasp but it's a fascinating subject'. Uhmaaahhh ... ok. I suppose it's a fair statement, but it leaves one without the means to follow the man's path of thinking to arrive at similar conclusions. That notwithstanding, the book is a nice introduction and perspective on Buddhist thought molded to involve modern science for a more holistic discovery of our spiritual life and surroundings.
I found it most usable when accompanied by a notebook to write down ideas about other reading material to get some understanding of what the Dalai Lama discovered in his many stated discussions with scientists. It's almost a thought provoker / shopping list, and then go find your own conclusions. Alternately it can serve to throw out mini brain teasers relating physics concepts such as the Uncertainty Principle to fundamental Buddhist concepts - and make yourself sound really intellectual and generally brilliant (not that you should but at least it's better than going home to watch reality TV).
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