Edonis's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 10 Apr 2025 03:00:11 -0700 60 Edonis's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Prince 28862
1. So it is that to know the nature of a people, one need be a Prince; to know the nature of a Prince, one need to be of the people.
2. If a Prince is not given to vices that make him hated, it is unsusal for his subjects to show their affection for him.
3. Opportunity made Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and others; their virtue domi-nated the opportunity, making their homelands noble and happy. Armed prophets win; the disarmed lose.
4. Without faith and religion, man achieves power but not glory.
5. Prominent citizens want to command and oppress; the populace only wants to be free of oppression.
6. A Prince needs a friendly populace; otherwise in diversity there is no hope.
7. A Prince, who rules as a man of valor, avoids disasters,
8. Nations based on mercenary forces will never be solid or secure.
9. Mercenaries are dangerous because of their cowardice
10. There are two ways to fight: one with laws, the other with force. The first is rightly man’s way; the second, the way of beasts.]]> 144 Niccolò Machiavelli 0937832383 Edonis 0 3.85 1513 The Prince
author: Niccolò Machiavelli
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1513
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves:
review:

]]> Gradually, Then Suddenly 204730461 328 Parker A. Lewis Edonis 0 4.70 Gradually, Then Suddenly
author: Parker A. Lewis
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Defending the Undefendable 168861 256 Walter Block 0930073053 Edonis 0 to-read 3.96 1976 Defending the Undefendable
author: Walter Block
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything]]> 1202
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
(front flap)]]> 268 Steven D. Levitt 0061234001 Edonis 0 to-read 4.01 2005 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy]]> 3044
In The Vision of the Anointed , ThomasĚýSowell presents a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Sowell sees what has happened during that time not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a tainted vision whose defects have led to crises in education, crime, and family dynamics, and to other social pathologies. In this book, he describes how elites—the anointed—have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetorical assertions, thereby altering the course of our social policy.]]> 320 Thomas Sowell 046508995X Edonis 0 to-read 4.38 1995 The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
author: Thomas Sowell
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir]]> 78292253 Legendary filmmaker and celebrated author Werner Herzog tells in his inimitable voice the story of his epic artistic career in a long-awaited memoir that is as inventive and daring as anything he has done before

WernerĚýHerzogĚýwas born in September 1942 in Munich, Germany, at a turning point in theĚýSecondĚýWorldĚýWar. Soon Germany would be defeated and a new world would have to be made out the rubble and horrors of the war. Fleeing the Allied bombing raids,ĚýHerzog’s mother took him and his older brotherĚýtoĚýa remote, rustic part of Bavaria where he would spend much of his childhoodĚýhungry, without running water, in deep poverty. It was there,Ěýas the new postwar order was emerging, that one of the most visionary filmmakers of the next seven decades was formed. Ěý

Until age 11,ĚýHerzogĚýdid not even know of the existence of cinema. His interest in films began at age 15, but since no one was willing to finance them, he worked the night shift as a welder in a steel factory. He started to travel on foot. He made his first phone call at age 17, and his first film in 1961 at age 19. The wildlyĚýproductive working life that followed—spanning the seven continents and encompassing both documentary and fiction—was an adventure as grand andĚýotherworldly as any depicted in his many classic films.

Every Man for Himself and God Against All is at once a personal record of one of the great and self-invented lives of our time, and a singular literary masterpiece that will enthrall fans old and new alike. In a hypnotic swirl of memory,ĚýHerzogĚýuntangles and relives his most important experiences and inspirations, telling his story for the first and only time.]]> 367 Werner Herzog 0593490290 Edonis 0 to-read 4.24 2022 Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir
author: Werner Herzog
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains]]> 62050269 Sapiens, Behave, and Superintelligence, but wholly original in scope, A Brief History of Intelligence offers a paradigm shift for how we understand neuroscience and AI. Artificial intelligence entrepreneur Max Bennett chronicles the five “breakthroughsâ€� in the evolution of human intelligence and reveals what brains of the past can tell us about the AI of tomorrow. In the last decade, capabilities of artificial intelligence that had long been the realm of science fiction have, for the first time, become our reality. AI is now able to produce original art, identify tumors in pictures, and even steer our cars. And yet, large gaps remain in what modern AI systems can achieve—indeed, human brains still easily perform intellectual feats that we can’t replicate in AI systems. How is it possible that AI can beat a grandmaster at chess but can’t effectively load a dishwasher? As AI entrepreneur Max Bennett compellingly argues, finding the answer requires diving into the billion-year history of how the human brain evolved; a history filled with countless half-starts, calamities, and clever innovations. Not only do our brains have a story to tell—the future of AI may depend on it. Now, inĚýA Brief History of Intelligence, Bennett bridges the gap between neuroscience and AI to tell the brain’s evolutionary story, revealing how understanding that story can help shape the next generation of AI breakthroughs. Deploying a fresh perspective and working with the support of many top minds in neuroscience, Bennett consolidates this immense history into an approachable new framework, identifying the “Five Breakthroughsâ€� that mark the brain’s most important evolutionary leaps forward. Each breakthrough brings new insight into the biggest mysteries of human intelligence. Containing fascinating corollaries to developments in AI, A Brief History of Intelligence shows where current AI systems have matched or surpassed our brains, as well as where AI systems still fall short. Simply put, until AI systems successfully replicate each part of our brain’s long journey, AI systems will fail to exhibit human-like intelligence. Endorsed and lauded by many of the top neuroscientists in the field today, Bennett’s work synthesizes the most relevant scientific knowledge and cutting-edge research into an easy-to-understand and riveting evolutionary story. With sweeping scope and stunning insights,ĚýA Brief History of IntelligenceĚý proves that understanding the arc of our brain’s history can unlock the tools for successfully navigating our technological future.Ěý]]> 432 Max Solomon Bennett Edonis 0 to-read 4.43 A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
author: Max Solomon Bennett
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Maximes et ±Ę±đ˛Ô˛őĂ©±đ˛ő: Caractères et Anecdotes]]> 563045 446 Nicolas Chamfort 2070373568 Edonis 0 4.11 1982 Maximes et ±Ę±đ˛Ô˛őĂ©±đ˛ő: Caractères et Anecdotes
author: Nicolas Chamfort
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The State of the Art (Culture, #4)]]> 129131 188 Iain M. Banks 1597800740 Edonis 0 to-read 3.84 1991 The State of the Art (Culture, #4)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI]]> 198678736 **A New York Times Bestseller**

'Co-Intelligence is the very best book I know about the ins, outs, and ethics of generative AI. Drop everything and read it cover to cover NOW' Angela Duckworth

Consumer AI has arrived. And with it, inescapable upheaval as we grapple with what it means for our jobs, lives and the future of humanity.

Cutting through the noise of AI evangelists and AI doom-mongers, Wharton professor Ethan Mollick has become one of the most prominent and provocative explainers of AI, focusing on the practical aspects of how these new tools for thought can transform our world. In Co-Intelligence, he urges us to engage with AI as co-worker, co-teacher and coach. Wide ranging, hugely thought-provoking and optimistic, Co-Intelligence reveals the promise and power of this new era.]]> 243 Ethan Mollick 075356078X Edonis 3 3.98 2024 Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI
author: Ethan Mollick
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker]]> 10256723 If they were a hall of fame or shame for computer hackers, a Kevin Mitnick plaque would be mounted the near the entrance. While other nerds were fumbling with password possibilities, this adept break-artist was penetrating the digital secrets of Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Corporation, Nokia, Motorola, Pacific Bell, and other mammoth enterprises. His Ghost in the Wires memoir paints an action portrait of a plucky loner motivated by a passion for trickery, not material game. (P.S. Mitnick's capers have already been the subject of two books and a movie. This first-person account is the most comprehensive to date.)

]]> 413 Kevin D. Mitnick 0316037702 Edonis 4 3.94 2011 Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker
author: Kevin D. Mitnick
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> Naked Lunch 563798 Naked Lunch is the unnerving tale of a monumental descent into the hellish world of a narcotics addict as he travels from New York to Tangiers, then into Interzone, a nightmarish modern urban wasteland in which the forces of good and evil vie for control of the individual and all of humanity. By mixing the fantastic and the realistic with his own unmistakable vision and voice, Burroughs has created a unique masterpiece that is a classic of twentieth-century fiction.]]> 232 William S. Burroughs Edonis 0 to-read 3.29 1959 Naked Lunch
author: William S. Burroughs
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.29
book published: 1959
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful: With an Introductory Discourse Concerning Taste, and Several Other Additions]]> 114383134 0 Edmund Burke 0243814763 Edonis 4 3.50 A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful: With an Introductory Discourse Concerning Taste, and Several Other Additions
author: Edmund Burke
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain (History of Computing)]]> 62048451 How Bulgaria transformed the computer industry behind the Iron Curtain--and the consequences of that transformation for a society that dreamt of a brighter future.

Bulgaria in 1963 was a communist country led by a centralized party trying to navigate a multinational Cold War. The state needed money, and it sought prestige. By cultivating a burgeoning computer industry, Bulgaria achieved both but at great cost to the established order. In Balkan Cyberia, Victor Petrov elevates a deeply researched, local story of ambition into an essential history of global innovation, ideological conflict, and exchange.

Granted tremendous freedom by the Politburo and backed by a concerted state secret intelligence effort, a new, privileged class of technical intellectuals and managers rose to prominence in Bulgaria in the 1960s. Plugged in to transnational business and professional networks, they strove to realize the party's radical dreams of utopian automation, and Bulgaria would come to manufacture up to half of the Eastern Bloc's electronics. Yet, as Petrov shows, the export-oriented nature of the industry also led to the disruption of party rule. Technicians, now thinking with and through computers, began to recast the dominant intellectual discourse within a framework of reform, while technocratic managers translated their newfound political clout into economic power that served them well before and after the revolutions of 1989.

Balkan Cyberia reveals the extension of economic and political networks of influence far past the reputed fall of communism, along with the pivotal role small countries played in geopolitical games at the time. Through the prism of the Bulgarian computer industry, the true nature of the socialist international economy, and indeed the links between capitalism and communism, emerge.]]> 424 Victor P. Petrov 0262545128 Edonis 0 to-read 3.89 2023 Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain (History of Computing)
author: Victor P. Petrov
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet]]> 16153182
Now, in what is sure to be a wave-making new book, Assange brings together a small group of cutting-edge thinkers and activists from the front line of the battle for cyber-space to discuss whether electronic communications will emancipate or enslave us. Among the topics addressed are: Do Facebook and Google constitute "the greatest surveillance machine that ever existed," perpetually tracking our location, our contacts and our lives? Far from being victims of that surveillance, are most of us willing collaborators? Are there legitimate forms of surveillance, for instance in relation to the "Four Horsemen of the Infopocalypse" (money laundering, drugs, terrorism and pornography)? And do we have the ability, through conscious action and technological savvy, to resist this tide and secure a world where freedom is something which the Internet helps bring about?

The harassment of WikiLeaks and other Internet activists, together with attempts to introduce anti-file sharing legislation such as SOPA and ACTA, indicate that the politics of the Internet have reached a crossroads. In one direction lies a future that guarantees, in the watchwords of the cypherpunks, "privacy for the weak and transparency for the powerful"; in the other lies an Internet that allows government and large corporations to discover ever more about internet users while hiding their own activities. Assange and his co-discussants unpick the complex issues surrounding this crucial choice with clarity and engaging enthusiasm.]]> 192 Julian Assange 1939293006 Edonis 5 3.74 2012 Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet
author: Julian Assange
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy]]> 190855053
Tor, one of the most important and misunderstood technologies of the digital age, is best known as the infrastructure underpinning the so-called Dark Web. But the real “dark web,� when it comes to Tor, is the hidden history brought to light in this where this complex and contested infrastructure came from, why it exists, and how it connects with global power in intricate and intimate ways. In From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy , Ben Collier has written, in essence, a biography of Tor—a cultural and technological history of power, privacy, politics, and empire in the deepest reaches of the internet.

The story of Tor begins in the 1990s with its creation by the US Navy’s Naval Research Lab, from a convergence of different cultural worlds. Drawing on in-depth interviews with designers, developers, activists, and users, along with twenty years of mailing lists, design documents, reporting, and legal papers, Collier traces Tor’s evolution from those early days to its current operation on the frontlines of global digital power—including the strange collaboration between US military scientists and a group of freewheeling hackers called the Cypherpunks. As Collier charts the rise and fall of three different cultures in Tor’s diverse community—the engineers, the maintainers, and the activists, each with a distinct understanding of and vision for Tor—he reckons with Tor’s complicated, changing relationship with contemporary US empire. Ultimately, the book reveals how different groups of users have repurposed Tor and built new technologies and worlds of their own around it, with profound implications for the future of the Internet.]]> 242 Ben Collier 0262548186 Edonis 4 4.20 Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
author: Ben Collier
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> Fabula Rasa 39989991 224 Agron Tufa Edonis 0 to-read 4.55 Fabula Rasa
author: Agron Tufa
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.55
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Decline of the West 801754 The Decline of the West has ranked as one of the most widely read and most talked about books of our time. In all its various editions, it has sold nearly 100,000 copies. A twentieth-century Cassandra, Oswald Spengler thoroughly probed the origin and "fate" of our civilization, and the result can be (and has been) read as a prophesy of the Nazi regime. His challenging views have led to harsh criticism over the years, but the knowledge and eloquence that went into his sweeping study of Western culture have kept The Decline of the West alive. As the face of Germany and Europe as a whole continues to change each day, The Decline of the West cannot be ignored.

The abridgment, prepared by the German scholar Helmut Werner, with the blessing of the Spengler estate, consists of selections from the original (translated into English by Charles Francis Atkinson) linked by explanatory passages which have been put into English by Arthur Helps. H. Stuart Hughes has written a new introduction for this edition.

In this engrossing and highly controversial philosophy of history, Spengler describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity. Guided by the philosophies of Goethe and Nietzsche, he rejects linear progression, and instead presents a world view based on the cyclical rise and decline of civilizations. He argues that a culture blossoms from the soil of a definable landscape and dies when it has exhausted all of its possibilities.

Despite Spengler's reputation today as an extreme pessimist, The Decline of the West remains essential reading for anyone interested in the history of civilization.

]]> 486 Oswald Spengler 0195066340 Edonis 0 to-read 4.09 1918 The Decline of the West
author: Oswald Spengler
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1918
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life]]> 26530386 The Vital Question, award-winning author and biochemist Nick Lane radically reframes evolutionary history, putting forward a solution to conundrums that have puzzled generations of scientists.

For two and a half billion years, from the very origins of life, single-celled organisms such as bacteria evolved without changing their basic form. Then, on just one occasion in four billion years, they made the jump to complexity. All complex life, from mushrooms to man, shares puzzling features, such as sex, which are unknown in bacteria. How and why did this radical transformation happen?

The answer, Lane argues, lies in energy: all life on Earth lives off a voltage with the strength of a lightning bolt. Building on the pillars of evolutionary theory, Lane’s hypothesis draws on cutting-edge research into the link between energy and cell biology, in order to deliver a compelling account of evolution from the very origins of life to the emergence of multicellular organisms, while offering deep insights into our own lives and deaths.

Both rigorous and enchanting, The Vital Question provides a solution to life’s vital question: why are we as we are, and indeed, why are we here at all?]]> 368 Nick Lane 0393352978 Edonis 0 to-read 4.19 2015 The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life
author: Nick Lane
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> On Liberty 385228 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780140432077

Published in 1859, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty presented one of the most eloquent defenses of individual freedom in nineteenth-century social and political philosophy and is today perhaps the most widely-read liberal argument in support of the value of liberty. Mill's passionate advocacy of spontaneity, individuality, and diversity, along with his contempt for compulsory uniformity and the despotism of popular opinion, has attracted both admiration and condemnation.]]> 187 John Stuart Mill Edonis 0 to-read 3.95 1859 On Liberty
author: John Stuart Mill
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1859
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge]]> 51660 For the first time in paperback, the counterculture manifesto on mind-altering drugs & hallucinogens. Illustrated.]]> 311 Terence McKenna 0553371304 Edonis 0 4.13 1992 Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge
author: Terence McKenna
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In the Beginning...Was the Command Line]]> 18937 151 Neal Stephenson 0380815931 Edonis 0 to-read 3.80 1999 In the Beginning...Was the Command Line
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Strategy 305909 "The most important book by one of the outstanding military authorities of our time." � Library Journal
Ěý
This is the classic book on war as we know it. During his long life, Basil H. Liddell Hart was considered one of the world's foremost military thinkers--a man generally regarded as the "Clausewitz of the 20th century." Strategy is a seminal work of military history and theory, a perfect companion to Sun-tzu’s The Art of War and Carl von Clauswitz’s On War.

Liddell Hart stressed movement, flexibility, and surprise. He saw that in most military campaigns dislocation of the enemy's psychological and physical balance is prelude to victory. This dislocation results from a strategic indirect approach. Reflect for a moment on the results of direct confrontation (trench war in WW I) versus indirect dislocation (Blitzkreig in WW II). Liddell Hart is also tonic for business and political planning: just change the vocabulary and his concepts fit.]]> 448 B.H. Liddell Hart 0452010713 Edonis 0 to-read 4.08 1941 Strategy
author: B.H. Liddell Hart
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1941
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World]]> 150437
Countering the prevailing theory that the Industrial Revolution was sparked by the sudden development of stable political, legal, and economic institutions in seventeenth-century Europe, Clark shows that such institutions existed long before industrialization. He argues instead that these institutions gradually led to deep cultural changes by encouraging people to abandon hunter-gatherer instincts-violence, impatience, and economy of effort-and adopt economic habits-hard work, rationality, and education.

The problem, Clark says, is that only societies that have long histories of settlement and security seem to develop the cultural characteristics and effective workforces that enable economic growth. For the many societies that have not enjoyed long periods of stability, industrialization has not been a blessing. Clark also dissects the notion, championed by Jared Diamond in "Guns, Germs, and Steel," that natural endowments such as geography account for differences in the wealth of nations.]]> 432 Gregory Clark 0691121354 Edonis 0 to-read 3.73 2007 A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World
author: Gregory Clark
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> On the Heights of Despair 117566
On the Heights of Despair shows Cioran's first grappling with themes he would return to in his mature works: despair and decay, absurdity and alienation, futility and the irrationality of existence. It also presents Cioran as a connoisseur of apocalypse, a theoretician of despair, for whom writing and philosophy both share the "lyrical virtues" that alone lead to a metaphysical revelation.

"No modern writer twists the knife with Cioran's dexterity. . . . His writing . . . is informed with the bitterness of genuine compassion."—Bill Marx, Boston Phoenix

"The dark, existential despair of Romanian philosopher Cioran's short meditations is paradoxically bracing and life-affirming. . . . Puts him in the company of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard."�Publishers Weekly, starred review

"This is self-pity as epigram, the sort of dyspeptic pronouncement that gets most people kicked out of bed but that has kept Mr. Cioran going for the rest of his life."—Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Book Review]]> 128 Emil M. Cioran 0226106713 Edonis 5 4.21 1934 On the Heights of Despair
author: Emil M. Cioran
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1934
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future (Updated With a New Epilogue)]]> 470367
The Chalice and the Blade tells a new story of our cultural origins. It shows that warfare and the war of the sexes are neither divinely nor biologically ordained. It provides verification that a better future is possible—and is in fact firmly rooted in the haunting dramas of what happened in our past.]]> 304 Riane Eisler 0062502891 Edonis 0 to-read 4.18 1987 The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future (Updated With a New Epilogue)
author: Riane Eisler
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking]]> 36448501 Bitcoin is the newest technology for money—find out how it fits in the future.
Bitcoin is the digital age's novel, decentralized, and automated solution to the problem of money: accessible worldwide, controlled by nobody. Can this young upstart money challenge the global monetary order? Economist Saifedean Ammous traces the history of the technologies of money to seashells, limestones, cattle, salt, beads, metals, and government debt, explaining what gave these technologies their monetary role, what makes for sound money, and the benefits of a sound monetary regime to economic growth, innovation, culture, trade, individual freedom, and international peace.

The monetary and historical analysis sets the stage for understanding the mechanics of the operation of Bitcoin, the reasons for its initial success, and the role it could play in an information economy. Rather than serving as a currency and network for consumer purchases, the author argues Bitcoin is better suited as a store of value and network for settlement between large financial institutions. With an automated and perfectly predictable monetary policy, and the ability to perform final settlement of large sums across the world in a matter of minutes, Bitcoin's true importance may just lie in providing a decentralized, neutral, free-market alternative to national central banks.]]> 304 Saifedean Ammous 1119473861 Edonis 0 4.14 2018 The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking
author: Saifedean Ammous
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/17
date added: 2024/10/17
shelves:
review:

]]> Permutation City 156784 Permutation City is the tale of a man with a vision—how to create immortality—and how that vision becomes something way beyond his control. Encompassing the lives and struggles of an artificial life junkie desperate to save her dying mother, a billionaire banker scarred by a terrible crime, the lovers for whom, in their timeless virtual world, love is not enough—and much more—Permutation City is filled with the sense of wonder.]]> 352 Greg Egan 006105481X Edonis 0 to-read 4.08 1994 Permutation City
author: Greg Egan
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sacred and Terrible Air 154527611 276 Robert Kurvitz Edonis 0 to-read 3.88 2013 Sacred and Terrible Air
author: Robert Kurvitz
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Road to Serfdom 299215 The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in England in the spring of 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program�The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would inevitably lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of nazi Germany and fascist Italy.

First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, The Road to Serfdom garnered immediate attention from the public, politicians, and scholars alike. The first printing of 2,000 copies was exhausted instantly, and within six months more than 30,000 were sold. In April of 1945, Reader's Digest published a condensed version of the book, and soon thereafter the Book-of-the-Month Club distributed this condensation to more than 600,000 readers. A perennial best-seller, the book has sold over a quarter of a million copies in the United States, not including the British edition or the nearly twenty translations into such languages as German, French, Dutch, Swedish, and Japanese, and not to mention the many underground editions produced in Eastern Europe before the fall of the iron curtain.

After thirty-two printings in the United States, The Road to Serfdom has established itself alongside the works of Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and George Orwell for its timeless meditation on the relation between individual liberty and government authority. This fiftieth anniversary edition, with a new introduction by Milton Friedman, commemorates the enduring influence of The Road to Serfdom on the ever-changing political and social climates of the twentieth century, from the rise of socialism after World War II to the Reagan and Thatcher "revolutions" in the 1980s and the transitions in Eastern Europe from communism to capitalism in the 1990s.

F. A. Hayek (1899-1992), recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974, was a pioneer in monetary theory and the principal proponent of libertarianism in the twentieth century.

On the first American edition of The Road to Serfdom:
"One of the most important books of our generation. . . . It restates for our time the issue between liberty and authority with the power and rigor of reasoning with which John Stuart Mill stated the issue for his own generation in his great essay On Liberty. . . . It is an arresting call to all well-intentioned planners and socialists, to all those who are sincere democrats and liberals at heart to stop, look and listen."—Henry Hazlitt, New York Times Book Review, September 1944

"In the negative part of Professor Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often—at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough—that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of."—George Orwell, Collected Essays]]> 274 Friedrich A. Hayek 0226320618 Edonis 0 to-read 4.14 1944 The Road to Serfdom
author: Friedrich A. Hayek
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1944
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Nose (Penguin Little Black Classics, #46)]]> 24874312
With this pair of absurd, comic stories Gogol indulges his imagination and delights readers.

Contains 'The Nose' and 'The Carriage'.]]> 53 Nikolai Gogol 0141397527 Edonis 0 3.77 1836 The Nose (Penguin Little Black Classics, #46)
author: Nikolai Gogol
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1836
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Sun & Steel 62804
At one level, it may be read as an account of how a puny, bookish boy discovered the importance of his own physical being; the "sun and steel" of the title are themselves symbols respectively of the cult of the open air and the weights used in bodybuilding. At another level, it is a discussion by a major novelist of the relation between action and art, and his own highly polished art in particular. More personally, it is an account of one individual's search for identity and self-integration. Or again, the work could be seen as a demonstration of how an intensely individual preoccupation can be developed into a profound philosophy of life.

All these elements are woven together by Mishima's complex yet polished and supple style. The confession and the self-analysis, the philosophy and the poetry combine in the end to create something that is in itself perfect and self-sufficient. It is a piece of literature that is as carefully fashioned as Mishima's novels, and at the same time provides an indispensable key to the understanding of them as art.

The road Mishima took to salvation is a highly personal one. Yet here, ultimately, one detects the unmistakable tones of a self transcending the particular and attaining to a poetic vision of the universal. The book is therefore a moving document, and is highly significant as a pointer to the future development of one of the most interesting novelists of modern times.]]> 108 Yukio Mishima 4770029039 Edonis 5 favorites 3.90 1968 Sun & Steel
author: Yukio Mishima
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1968
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/09/05
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> The Lessons of History 174713 119 Will Durant 1567310249 Edonis 0 4.05 The Lessons of History
author: Will Durant
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/08/24
shelves:
review:

]]> Wuthering Heights 6185 You can find the redesigned cover of this edition HERE.

At the centre of this novel is the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff - recounted with such emotional intensity that a plain tale of the Yorkshire moors acquires the depth and simplicity of ancient tragedy.

This best-selling Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1847 first edition of the novel. For the Fourth Edition, the editor has collated the 1847 text with several modern editions and has corrected a number of variants, including accidentals. The text is accompanied by entirely new explanatory annotations.

New to the fourth Edition are twelve of Emily Bronte's letters regarding the publication of the 1847 edition of Wuthering Heights as well as the evolution of the 1850 edition, prose and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and Edward Chitham's insightful and informative chronology of the creative process behind the beloved work.

Five major critical interpretations of Wuthering Heights are included, three of them new to the Fourth Edition. A Stuart Daley considers the importance of chronology in the novel. J. Hillis Miller examines Wuthering Heights's problems of genre and critical reputation. Sandra M. Gilbert assesses the role of Victorian Christianity plays in the novel, while Martha Nussbaum traces the novel's romanticism. Finally, Lin Haire-Sargeant scrutinizes the role of Heathcliff in film adaptations of Wuthering Heights.

A Chronology and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.]]> 464 Emily Brontë Edonis 0 3.89 1847 Wuthering Heights
author: Emily Brontë
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1847
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Birth of Tragedy / The Case of Wagner]]> 568047 240 Friedrich Nietzsche 0394703693 Edonis 0 4.17 1888 The Birth of Tragedy / The Case of Wagner
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1888
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Horace: Odes Book I (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)]]> 6342309 258 Horatius 0521671019 Edonis 0 3.88 1995 Horace: Odes Book I (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)
author: Horatius
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life]]> 56019043
In 12 Rules for Life, clinical psychologist and celebrated professor at Harvard and the University of Toronto Dr. Jordan B. Peterson helped millions of readers impose order on the chaos of their lives. Now, in this bold sequel, Peterson delivers twelve more lifesaving principles for resisting the exhausting toll that our desire to order the world inevitably takes.

In a time when the human will increasingly imposes itself over every sphere of life—from our social structures to our emotional states—Peterson warns that too much security is dangerous. What’s more, he offers strategies for overcoming the cultural, scientific, and psychological forces causing us to tend toward tyranny, and teaches us how to rely instead on our instinct to find meaning and purpose, even—and especially—when we find ourselves powerless.

While chaos, in excess, threatens us with instability and anxiety, unchecked order can petrify us into submission. Beyond Order provides a call to balance these two fundamental principles of reality itself, and guides us along the straight and narrow path that divides them.]]> 382 Jordan B. Peterson 0593084640 Edonis 0 4.14 2021 Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life
author: Jordan B. Peterson
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> The Horla 77999 Our woe is upon us.

This chilling tale of one man’s descent into madness was published shortly before the author was institutionalized for insanity, and so The Horla has inevitably been seen as informed by Guy de Maupassant’s mental illness. While such speculation is murky, it is clear that de Maupassant—hailed alongside Chekhov as father of the short story—was at the peak of his powers in this innovative precursor of first-person psychological fiction. Indeed, he worked for years on The Horla’s themes and form, first drafting it as “Letter from a Madman,� then telling it from a doctor’s point of view, before finally releasing the terrified protagonist to speak for himself in its devastating final version. In a brilliant new translation, all three versions appear here as a single volume for the first time.

The Art of The Novella Series

Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.]]> 79 Guy de Maupassant 0976140748 Edonis 0 to-read 3.89 1886 The Horla
author: Guy de Maupassant
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1886
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Composing for the Cinema: The Theory and Praxis of Music in Film]]> 18054848
In Composing for the The Theory and Praxis of Music in Film, Morricone and musicologist Sergio Miceli present a series of lectures on the composition and analysis of film music. Adapted from several lectures and seminars, these lessons show how sound design can be analyzed and offer a variety of musical solutions to many different kinds of film. Though aimed at composers, Morricone’s expositions are easy to understand and fascinating even to those without any musical training. Drawing upon scores by himself and others, the composer also provides insight into his relationships with many of the directors with whom he has collaborated, including Sergio Leone, Giuseppe Tornatore, Franco Zeffirelli, Warren Beatty, Ridley Scott, Roland Joffé, the Taviani Brothers, and others.

Translated and edited by Gillian B. Anderson, an orchestral conductor and musicologist, these lessons reveal Morricone’s passion about musical expression. Delivered in a conversational mode that is both comprehensible and interesting, this groundbreaking work intertwines analysis with practical details of film music composition. Aimed at a wide audience of composers, musicians, film historians, and fans, Composing for the Cinema contains a treasure trove of practical information and observations from a distinguished musicologist and one of the most accomplished composers on the international film scene.]]> 310 Ennio Morricone 0810892413 Edonis 0 to-read 3.57 2013 Composing for the Cinema: The Theory and Praxis of Music in Film
author: Ennio Morricone
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Persians: The Age of the Great Kings]]> 58684542 A stunning portrait ofĚýthe magnificent splendor andĚýenduringĚýlegacy of ancient PersiaĚý
Ěý
The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of Asia and from Ethiopia to Pakistan.ĚýFrom theĚýpalace-city of Persepolis,ĚýCyrus the Great, Darius, Xerxes, and their heirs reigned supreme for centuriesĚýuntilĚýthe conquests of Alexander of MacedonĚýbrought the empire to aĚýswift and unexpectedĚýend inĚýthe late 330s BCE.Ěý
Ěý
InĚýPersians, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the epic story ofĚýthis dynasty and the world it ruled.ĚýDrawing on Iranian inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, art,Ěýand archaeology, he shows how the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the world’s first superpower—one built, despite its imperial ambition, on cooperation and tolerance.ĚýThis is the definitive history of theĚýAchaemenid dynasty andĚýitsĚýlegacies in modern-day Iran, a book that completely reshapes our understanding of the ancient world.
Ěý]]> 448 Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones 1541600347 Edonis 0 to-read 4.04 2022 Persians: The Age of the Great Kings
author: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Story of Civilization 78159 14777 Will Durant 1567310230 Edonis 0 to-read 4.50 1975 Story of Civilization
author: Will Durant
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Revised Edition (C. G. Jung Foundation Books Series)]]> 444383 Ěý
Of the various types of mythological literature, fairy tales are the simplest and purest expressions of the collective unconscious and thus offer the clearest understanding of the basic patterns of the human psyche. Every people or nation has its own way of experiencing this psychic reality, and so a study of the world's fairy tales yields a wealth of insights into the archetypal experiences of humankind.

Perhaps the foremost authority on the psychological interpretation of fairy tales is Marie-LouiseĚývon Franz. In this book—originally published as An Introduction to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales —she describes the steps involved in analyzing and illustrates them with a variety of European tales, from Beauty and the Beast to The Robber Bridegroom .

Dr.ĚývonĚýFranz begins with a history of the study of fairy tales and the various theories of interpretation. By way of illustration, she presents a detailed examination of a simple Grimm’s tale, The Three Feathers , followed by a comprehensive discussion of motifs related to Jung’s concept of the shadow, theĚýanima, and the animus. This revised edition has been corrected and updated by the author.]]> 224 Marie-Louise von Franz 0877735263 Edonis 0 to-read 4.16 1970 The Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Revised Edition (C. G. Jung Foundation Books Series)
author: Marie-Louise von Franz
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Kokoro 762476 The New Yorker as "rich in understanding and insight,"

Kokoro�"the heart of things"—is the work of one of Japan's most popular authors. This thought-provoking trilogy of stories explores the very essence of loneliness and stands as a stirring introduction to modern Japanese literature.

What is love, and what is friendship? What is the extent of our responsibility to ourselves and to others? A trilogy of stories that explores the very essence of loneliness, Kokoro opens with "Sensei and I," in which the narrator recounts his relationship with an intellectual who dwells in isolation but maintains a sophisticated worldview. "My Parents and I" brings the reader into the narrator's family circle, and "Sensei and His Testament" features the eponymous character's explanation of how he came to live a life of solitude.

Natsume Soseki (1867�1916), perhaps the greatest novelist of the Meiji period, remains one of Japan's most widely read authors. He wrote this novel in 1914, at the peak of his career, and it remains an excellent introduction to modern Japanese literature.]]> 256 Natsume Sōseki 0809260956 Edonis 0 to-read 4.05 1914 Kokoro
author: Natsume SĹŤseki
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1914
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Storm of Steel 240485
Young, tough, patriotic, but also disturbingly self-aware, JĂĽnger exulted in the Great War, which he saw not just as a great national conflict, but more importantly as a unique personal struggle.

Leading raiding parties, defending trenches against murderous British incursions, simply enduring as shells tore his comrades apart, JĂĽnger kept testing himself, braced for the death that will mark his failure.

Published shortly after the war's end, 'Storm of Steel' was a worldwide bestseller and can now be rediscovered through Michael Hofmann's brilliant new translation.]]> 289 Ernst JĂĽnger 0141186917 Edonis 0 to-read 4.13 1920 Storm of Steel
author: Ernst JĂĽnger
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1920
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Twilight of the Idols 851994 Twilight of the Idols presents a vivid, compressed overview of many of Nietzsche’s mature ideas, including his attack on Plato’s Socrates and on the Platonic legacy in Western philosophy and culture. Polt provides a trustworthy rendering of Nietzsche’s text in contemporary American English, complete with notes prepared by the translator and Tracy Strong. An authoritative Introduction by Strong makes this an outstanding edition.]]> 128 Friedrich Nietzsche 0872203549 Edonis 5 4.03 1889 Twilight of the Idols
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1889
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/17
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Aphorisms on Love and Hate (Penguin Little Black Classics, #5)]]> 24702467
This volume contains a selection of Nietzsche's brilliant and challenging aphorisms, examining the pleasures of revenge, the falsity of pity, and the incompatibility of marriage with the philosophical life.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Nietzsche's works available in Penguin Classics are A Nietzsche Reader, Beyond Good and Evil, Ecce Homo, Human, All Too Human, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Birth of Tragedy, The Portable Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Twilight of Idols and Anti-Christ.]]> 55 Friedrich Nietzsche 014139790X Edonis 0 3.54 1878 Aphorisms on Love and Hate (Penguin Little Black Classics, #5)
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1878
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)]]> 11
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!]]> 216 Douglas Adams Edonis 3 4.21 1979 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1979
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/06/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Origins of Totalitarianism]]> 396931 Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism and an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history

The Origins of Totalitarianism begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Arendt explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time—Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia—which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination.]]> 527 Hannah Arendt Edonis 0 to-read 4.30 1951 The Origins of Totalitarianism
author: Hannah Arendt
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West]]> 394535 Blood Meridian is an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.]]> 351 Cormac McCarthy Edonis 5 4.18 1985 Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/05/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages]]> 20941 The Western Canon is more than a required reading list—it is a vision. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the great works ofĚýthe western literary traditionĚýand essential writers of the ages. The Western Canon was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award.]]> 546 Harold Bloom 1573225142 Edonis 0 to-read 3.88 1994 The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
author: Harold Bloom
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Earth: Portrait of a Planet 2190052 880 Stephen Marshak 039393036X Edonis 0 to-read 3.97 2001 Earth: Portrait of a Planet
author: Stephen Marshak
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> ±Ę±đ˛Ô˛őĂ©±đ˛ő 449407 334 Blaise Pascal Edonis 0 3.97 1670 ±Ę±đ˛Ô˛őĂ©±đ˛ő
author: Blaise Pascal
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1670
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/05/03
shelves:
review:

]]> Wittgenstein’s Mistress 51506 279 David Markson 1564782115 Edonis 0 to-read 3.94 1988 Wittgenstein’s Mistress
author: David Markson
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> White Noise 28251250
White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and four ultra­modern offspring as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event," a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladneys—radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings—pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous.

Part of the Penguin Orange Collection, a limited-run series of twelve influential and beloved American classics in a bold series design offering a modern take on the iconic Penguin paperback

Winner of the 2016 AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books | 50 Covers competition]]> 320 Don DeLillo 0143129554 Edonis 0 to-read 3.88 1985 White Noise
author: Don DeLillo
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Woman in the Dunes 9998 The Woman in the Dunes, by celebrated writer and thinker Kobo Abe, combines the essence of myth, suspense and the existential novel.

After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers that the locals have other plans. Held captive with seemingly no chance of escape, he is tasked with shoveling back the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten to destroy the village. His only companion is an odd young woman, and together their fates become intertwined as they work side by side through this Sisyphean of tasks.]]> 241 KĹŤbĹŤ Abe 0679733787 Edonis 0 to-read 3.90 1962 The Woman in the Dunes
author: KĹŤbĹŤ Abe
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Sound and the Fury 10975 366 William Faulkner Edonis 0 to-read 3.86 1929 The Sound and the Fury
author: William Faulkner
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1929
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Children of Dune (Dune #3) 44492286
The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, disappeared in the desert wastelands of Arrakis nine years ago. Like their father, the twins possess supernormal abilities--making them valuable to their manipulative aunt Alia, who rules the Empire in the name of House Atreides.

Facing treason and rebellion on two fronts, Alia's rule is not absolute. The displaced House Corrino is plotting to regain the throne while the fanatical Fremen are being provoked into open revolt by the enigmatic figure known only as The Preacher. Alia believes that by obtaining the secrets of the twins' prophetic visions, she can maintain control over her dynasty.

But Leto and Ghanima have their own plans for their visions--and their destinies....

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]> 609 Frank Herbert 0593098242 Edonis 3 3.96 1976 Children of Dune (Dune #3)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1976
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/04/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Dune (Dune, #1) 44767458
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.]]> 658 Frank Herbert 059309932X Edonis 4 4.33 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/03/24
shelves:
review:

]]> Dune Messiah (Dune #2) 44492285
Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known--and feared--as the man christened Muad'Dib. As Emperor of the Known Universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremens, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne--and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence.

And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty...

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]> 336 Frank Herbert 0593098234 Edonis 0 3.89 1969 Dune Messiah (Dune #2)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/25
date added: 2024/03/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building]]> 24611649
From master language creator David J. PetersonĚýcomes a creative guide to language construction for sci-fi and fantasy fans, writers, game creators, and language lovers. Peterson offers a captivating overview of language creation, covering its history from Tolkien’s creations and Klingon to today’sĚýthriving global community of conlangers. He provides the essential tools necessary for inventing and evolving new languages, using examples from a variety of languages including his own creations, punctuated with references to everything from Star Wars to Janelle Monáe. Along the way, behind-the-scenes stories lift the curtain on how he built languages like Dothraki for HBO’s Game of Thrones and Shiväisith for Marvel’s The Dark World , and an included phrasebook will start fans speaking Peterson’s constructed languages. The Art of Language Invention is an inside look at a fascinating culture and an engaging entry into a flourishing art form—and it might be the most fun you’ll ever have with linguistics.

The Art of Language Invention includes a new chapter on phrases, specifically, word order, negation, question formation, pragmatic concerns, relativization, and subordination, providing a complete introduction to language creation and linguistics. Invented languages featured in the book now include Chakobsa from Legendary’s Dune , Trigedasleng (or Grounder) from The 100 , MĂ©nĂ­shè language from Fort Salem and Ravkan from the Netflix series Shadow and Bone . Ěý]]> 292 David J. Peterson Edonis 0 to-read 4.11 2015 The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building
author: David J. Peterson
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking]]> 721564
Logic is synonymous with reason, judgment, sense, wisdom, and sanity. Being logical is the ability to create concise and reasoned arguments—arguments that build from given premises, using evidence, to a genuine conclusion. But mastering logical thinking also requires studying and understanding illogical thinking, both to sharpen one’s own skills and to protect against incoherent, or deliberately misleading, reasoning.

Elegant, pithy, and precise,Ěý Being Logical Ěýbreaks logic down to its essentials through clear analysis, accessible examples, and focused insights. D. Q. McInerney covers the sources of illogical thinking, from naĂŻve optimism to narrow-mindedness, before dissecting the various tactics—red herrings, diversions, and simplistic reasoning—the illogical use in place of effective reasoning.

An indispensable guide to using logic to advantage in everyday life, this is a concise, crisply readable book. Written explicitly for the layperson, McInerny’sĚý Being Logical Ěýpromises to take its place beside Strunk and White’sĚý The Elements of Style Ěýas a classic of lucid, invaluable advice.

Praise for Being Logical

“Highly readable . . . D. Q. McInerny offers an introduction to symbolic logic in plain English, so you can finally be clear on what is deductive reasoning and what is inductive. And you’ll see how deductive arguments are constructed.� � Detroit Free Press

“McInerny’s explanatory outline of sound thinking will be eminently beneficial to expository writers, debaters, and public speakers.� � Booklist

“Given the shortage of logical thinking,
And the fact that mankind is adrift, if not sinking,
It is vital that all of us learn to think straight.
And this small book by D.Q. McInerny is great.
It follows therefore since we so badly need it,
Everybody should not only but it, but read it.�
—Charles Osgood]]> 160 D.Q. McInerny 0812971159 Edonis 0 to-read 3.72 2004 Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking
author: D.Q. McInerny
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Edonis 0 to-read 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History]]> 1044031
We may currently believe that atmospheric shifts, like global warming, result from our impact on the planet, but the earth's atmosphere has been dramatically shifting since its creation. This book reveals the crucial role that plants have played in determining atmospheric change - and hence the conditions on the planet we know today. Along the way a number of fascinating puzzles arise: Why did plants evolve leaves? When and how did forests once grow on Antarctica? How did prehistoric insects manage to grow so large? The answers show the extraordinary amount plants can tell us about the history of the planet -- something that has often been overlooked amongst the preoccuputations with dinosaur bones and animal fossils.

David Beerling's surprising conclusions are teased out from various lines of scientific enquiry, with evidence being brought to bear from fossil plants and animals, computer models of the atmosphere, and experimental studies. Intimately bound up with the narrative describing the dynamic evolution of climate and life through Earth's history, we find Victorian fossil hunters, intrepid polar explorers and pioneering chemists, alongside wallowing hippos, belching volcanoes, and restless landmasses.]]> 312 David Beerling 0192806025 Edonis 0 to-read 4.07 2007 The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History
author: David Beerling
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World]]> 28256439 The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. Much like human families, tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, and support them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling and creating an ecosystem that mitigates the impact of extremes of heat and cold for the whole group. As a result of such interactions, trees in a family or community are protected and can live to be very old. In contrast, solitary trees, like street kids, have a tough time of it and in most cases die much earlier than those in a group.

Drawing on groundbreaking new discoveries, Wohlleben presents the science behind the secret and previously unknown life of trees and their communication abilities; he describes how these discoveries have informed his own practices in the forest around him. As he says, a happy forest is a healthy forest, and he believes that eco-friendly practices not only are economically sustainable but also benefit the health of our planet and the mental and physical health of all who live on Earth.]]> 272 Peter Wohlleben 1771642483 Edonis 0 to-read 4.06 2015 The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World
author: Peter Wohlleben
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Absalom, Absalom! 373755 316 William Faulkner 0679732187 Edonis 0 to-read 3.97 1936 Absalom, Absalom!
author: William Faulkner
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1936
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Speak, Memory 30594 This is an older alternate cover edition for ISBN 0141183225/ 9780141183220. A newer edition may be found here.

From one of the 20th century's great writers comes one of the finest autobiographies of our time. Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov’s life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, and The Luhzin Defense.

One of the 20th century's master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.]]> 255 Vladimir Nabokov Edonis 0 to-read 4.06 1966 Speak, Memory
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Something Like an Autobiography]]> 93389 209 Akira Kurosawa 0394714393 Edonis 0 to-read 4.12 1981 Something Like an Autobiography
author: Akira Kurosawa
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ecce Homo 479356 144 Friedrich Nietzsche 0140445153 Edonis 0 3.87 1908 Ecce Homo
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1908
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves:
review:

]]> Cosmos 55030
The book also explores spacecraft missions of discovery of the nearby planets, the research in the Library of ancient Alexandria, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, the origin of life, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies and the origins of matter, suns and worlds.

Sagan retraces the fifteen billion years of cos-mic evolution that have transformed matter into life and consciousness, enabling the Cosmos to wonder about itself. He considers the latest findings on life elsewhere and how we might communicate with the beings of other worlds.

Cosmos is the story of our long journey of discovery and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science, including Democritus, Hypatia, Kepler, Newton, Huy-gens, Champollion, Lowell and Humason. Sagan looks at our planet from an extra-terrestrial vantage point and sees a blue jewel-like world, inhabited by a lifeform that is just beginning to discover its own unity and to ven-ture into the vast ocean of space.]]> 384 Carl Sagan 0375508325 Edonis 0 to-read 4.39 1980 Cosmos
author: Carl Sagan
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Universe in a Nutshell 2095
Now, in a major publishing event, Hawking returns with a lavishly illustrated sequel that unravels the mysteries of the major breakthroughs that have occurred in the years since the release of his acclaimed first book.]]> 216 Stephen Hawking 055380202X Edonis 0 to-read 4.20 2001 The Universe in a Nutshell
author: Stephen Hawking
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid]]> 24113 777 Douglas R. Hofstadter 0465026567 Edonis 0 to-read 4.29 1979 Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will]]> 83817782 One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences.

Robert Sapolsky's Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: we may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at base of human behavior, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there's some separate self telling our biology what to do.

Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works--the tight weave between reason and emotion, and between stimulus and response, in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky tackles all the major arguments for free will and takes them out, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos and complexity science and quantum physics, as well as touching ground on some of the wilder shores of philosophy. He shows us that the history of medicine is in no small part the history of learning that fewer and fewer things are somebody's "fault"; for example, for centuries we thought seizures were a sign of demonic possession. Yet as he acknowledges, it's very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others, and to judge ourselves. Sapolsky applies the new understanding of life beyond free will to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. By the end, Sapolsky argues that while living our daily lives recognizing that we have no free will is going to be monumentally difficult, doing so is not going to result in anarchy, pointlessness and existential malaise. Instead, it will make for a much more humane world.]]> 528 Robert M. Sapolsky 0525560971 Edonis 0 to-read 4.22 2023 Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
author: Robert M. Sapolsky
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A New Kind of Science 238558
Wolfram uses his approach to tackle a remarkable array of fundamental problems in science, from the origins of apparent randomness in physical systems, to the development of complexity in biology, the ultimate scope and limitations of mathematics, the possibility of a truly fundamental theory of physics, the interplay between free will and determinism, and the character of intelligence in the universe.]]> 1280 Stephen Wolfram 1579550088 Edonis 0 to-read 3.61 2002 A New Kind of Science
author: Stephen Wolfram
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Tetris: The Games People Play 27414415
Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once Tetris emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega―game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications, and outright theft.

In this graphic novel, New York Times–bestselling author Box Brown untangles this complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture, and commerce. For the first time and in unparalleled detail, Tetris: The Games People Play tells the true story of the world’s most popular video game.]]> 253 Brian "Box" Brown 162672315X Edonis 0 to-read 3.80 2016 Tetris: The Games People Play
author: Brian "Box" Brown
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Genoa: A Telling of Wonders 1047308 208 Paul Metcalf 0826313000 Edonis 0 to-read 4.23 1965 Genoa: A Telling of Wonders
author: Paul Metcalf
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Selfish Gene 61535 360 Richard Dawkins 0199291152 Edonis 0 to-read 4.15 1976 The Selfish Gene
author: Richard Dawkins
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Stanley Kubrick Archives 62381 544 Stanley Kubrick 3822822841 Edonis 0 4.60 2005 The Stanley Kubrick Archives
author: Stanley Kubrick
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/08/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Aphorisms 26390887 For the first time, a single volume that collects all of the aphorisms penned by this universally acclaimed twentieth-century literary figure.

Kafka twice wrote aphorisms in his lifetime. The first effort was a series of 109, known as the ZĂĽrau Aphorisms, which were written between September 1917 and April 1918, and originally published posthumously by his friend, Max Brod, in 1931. These aphorisms reflect on metaphysical and theological issues—as well as the occasional dog. The second sequence of aphorisms, numbering 41, appears in Kafka's 1920 diary dating from January 6 to February 29. It is in these aphorisms, whose subject is “He,”Ěýwhere Kafka distills the unexpected nature of experience as one shaped by exigency and possibility.]]> 133 Franz Kafka 0805243364 Edonis 0 to-read 3.75 1931 Aphorisms
author: Franz Kafka
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1931
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu 19277381
Brian Browne Walker’s contemporary translations of Taoist classics have received high marks for their simplicity, clarity, and accessibility. This elegant ebook has been designed to mirror the beautiful look of the original paper edition, and will be a beloved companion for years to come.]]> 56 Lao Tzu 0982599307 Edonis 0 to-read 4.35 -350 The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu
author: Lao Tzu
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.35
book published: -350
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Thus Spoke Zarathustra 51893 Thus Spoke Zarathustra is translated from the German by R.J. Hollingdale in Penguin Classics.

Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary and subversive thinkers in Western philosophy, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra remains his most famous and influential work. It describes how the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains to tell the world that God is dead and that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. Nietzsche's utterance 'God is dead', his insistence that the meaning of life is to be found in purely human terms, and his doctrine of the Superman and the will to power were all later seized upon and unrecognisably twisted by, among others, Nazi intellectuals. With blazing intensity and poetic brilliance, Nietzsche argues that the meaning of existence is not to be found in religious pieties or meek submission to authority, but in an all-powerful life passionate, chaotic and free.]]> 327 Friedrich Nietzsche Edonis 0 4.10 1883 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1883
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/05/25
shelves:
review:

]]> My Struggle (3 Book Series) 39323821 From Book 1: My Struggle: Book One introduces American readers to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It has already been anointed a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intensely, irresistibly readable. Unafraid of the big issues—death, love, art, fear—and yet committed to the intimate details of life as it is lived, My Struggle is an essential work of contemporary literature.]]> Karl Ove Knausgård Edonis 0 to-read 4.24 2009 My Struggle (3 Book Series)
author: Karl Ove KnausgĂĄrd
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Notes on the Cinematographer 72334
Director of The Trial of Joan of Arc, Pickpocket, A Prisoner Escapes, Diary of a Country Priest, Money, and many other classic films, Robert Bresson is, quite simply, one of the most brilliant cinematographers in the history of film.]]> 136 Robert Bresson 1557133654 Edonis 5 4.26 1975 Notes on the Cinematographer
author: Robert Bresson
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/05/01
shelves:
review:

]]> Walden & Civil Disobedience 116020 Walden, is a collection of his reflections on life and society. His simple but profound musings—as well as Civil Disobedience, his protest against the government's interference with civil liberty—have inspired many to embrace his philosophy of individualism and love of nature.]]> 320 Henry David Thoreau 0451529456 Edonis 0 3.96 1849 Walden & Civil Disobedience
author: Henry David Thoreau
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1849
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/04/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft]]> 10569 (back cover)]]> 320 Stephen King 0743455967 Edonis 0 4.33 2000 On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
author: Stephen King
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Dream Story 157409 Like his Viennese contemporary Sigmund Freud, the doctor and dramatist Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) was a bold pioneer in exploring the dark tangled roots of human sexuality.

Arthur Schnitzler is probably most famous for La Ronde, a play too scandalous to publish or perform in his own lifetime but whose daisy-chain of couplings inspired both Max Ophuls's classic film and David Hare's modernized version, The Blue Room, which played to sell-out audiences in the West End and on Broadway. Dream Story is an equally erotic work, in which a married couple are first traumatized and then achieve a new depth of understanding by confessing to each other their sexual fantasies, dream-like adventures and might-have-beens . . .

Taking us on a guided tour of Vienna's seedy cafés, red-light district, decadent villas, hospitals and morgue, Schnitzler brilliantly uncovers the violence and depravity lurking beneath the surface of civilized society.

Dream Story is the inspiration for Eyes Wide Shut, co-written by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael.]]> 117 Arthur Schnitzler 0141182245 Edonis 0 3.86 1926 Dream Story
author: Arthur Schnitzler
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1926
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/04/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]]> 732562 "Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (originally "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere") is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written circa 1797 and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Modern editions use a later revised version printed in 1817 and featuring a gloss. Along with other poems in Lyrical Ballads, it was a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature.

It relates the events experienced by a mariner who has returned from a long sea voyage. The Mariner stops a man on his way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience, fear, and fascination as the Mariner's story progresses, as can be seen in the language style: for example, the use of narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create a sense of danger, or the supernatural, or serenity, depending on the mood each different part of the poem.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772�1834) was an English poet, critic and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England, and one of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' (1792) and 'Kubla Khan' (1816), as well as his major prose work 'Biographia Literaria' (1817).]]> 77 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 0486223051 Edonis 0 3.95 1798 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1798
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/03/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Temple of the Golden Pavilion]]> 62798 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, celebrated Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima creates a haunting and vivid portrait of a young man’s obsession with idealized beauty and his destructive quest to possess it fully.

Mizoguchi, an ostracized stutterer, develops a childhood fascination with Kyoto’s famous Golden Temple. While an acolyte at the temple, he fixates on the structure’s aesthetic perfection and it becomes the one and only object of his desire. But as Mizoguchi begins to perceive flaws in the temple, he determines that the only true path to beauty lies in an act of horrendous violence. Based on a real incident that occurred in 1950, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion brilliantly portrays the passions and agonies of a young man in postwar Japan, bringing to the subject the erotic imagination and instinct for the dramatic moment that marked Mishima as one of the towering makers of modern fiction. With an introduction by Donald Keene; Translated from the Japanese by Ivan Morris.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

]]> 247 Yukio Mishima 0679433155 Edonis 4 4.04 1956 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
author: Yukio Mishima
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1956
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/03/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Selected Poems 625216 160 Fernando Pessoa 0141184337 Edonis 0 4.21 1971 Selected Poems
author: Fernando Pessoa
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/02/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Poor Folk 67326
Inspired by the works of Gogol, Pushkin, and Karamzin, as well as English and French authors, Poor Folk is written in the form of letters between the two main characters, Makar Devushkin and Varvara Dobroselova, who are poor third cousins twice removed. The novel showcases the life of poor people, their relationship with rich people, and poverty in general, all common themes of literary naturalism. A deep but odd friendship develops between them until Dobroselova loses her interest in literature, and later in communicating with Devushkin after a rich widower Mr. Bykov proposes to her. Devushkin, a prototype of the clerk found in many works of naturalistic literature at that time, retains his sentimental characteristics; Dobroselova abandons art, while Devushkin cannot live without literature.

Contemporary critics lauded Poor Folk for its humanitarian themes. While Vissarion Belinsky dubbed the novel Russia's first "social novel" and Alexander Herzen called it a major socialist work, other critics detected parody and satire. The novel uses a complicated polyphony of voices from different perspectives and narrators. Initially offered by Dostoyevsky to the liberal-leaning magazine Fatherland Notes, the novel was published in the almanac, St. Petersburg Collection, on January 15, 1846. It became a huge success nationwide. Parts of it were translated into German by Wilhelm Wolfsohn and published in an 1846/1847 magazine. The first English translation was provided by Lena Milman in 1894, with an introduction by George Moore, cover art design by Aubrey Beardsley, and publication by London's Mathews and Lane.]]> 167 Fyodor Dostoevsky 1592244319 Edonis 0 3.77 1846 Poor Folk
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1846
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/02/17
shelves:
review:

]]> Psychology and Religion 123636 138 C.G. Jung 0300001371 Edonis 0 to-read 4.16 1940 Psychology and Religion
author: C.G. Jung
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1940
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Film Technique and Film Acting]]> 147089 0 Vsevolod Pudovkin 0517013940 Edonis 0 to-read 4.14 1960 Film Technique and Film Acting
author: Vsevolod Pudovkin
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Shining (The Shining, #1) 11588 497 Stephen King 0450040186 Edonis 4 4.28 1977 The Shining (The Shining, #1)
author: Stephen King
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?]]> 36402034 258 Philip K. Dick Edonis 4 4.16 1968 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1968
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/01/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) 6088007 Neuromancer is a cyberpunk, science fiction masterpiece—a classic that ranks with 1984 and Brave New World as one of the twentieth century’s most potent visions of the future.

The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus-hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace...

Henry Dorsett Case was the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

The winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer was the first fully-realized glimpse of humankind’s digital future—a shocking vision that has challenged our assumptions about our technology and ourselves, reinvented the way we speak and think, and forever altered the landscape of our imaginations.]]> 288 William Gibson 110114646X Edonis 0 to-read 3.94 1984 Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)
author: William Gibson
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Alfred Stieglitz: Camera Work - The Complete Photographs 1903-1917]]> 4294125 Alfred Stieglitz (1864�1946) was a visionary far ahead of his time. Around the turn of the 20th century, he founded the Photo-Secession, a progressive movement concerned with advancing the creative possibilities of photography, and by 1903 began publishing Camera Work, an avant-garde magazine devoted to voicing the ideas, both in images and words, of the Photo-Secession. Camera Work was the first photo journal whose focus was visual, rather than technical, and its illustrations were of the highest quality hand-pulled photogravure printed on Japanese tissue. This book brings together all photographs from the journal’s 50 issues.]]> 552 Pam Roberts 3822837849 Edonis 0 4.39 1978 Alfred Stieglitz: Camera Work - The Complete Photographs 1903-1917
author: Pam Roberts
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> On Photography 52372 224 Susan Sontag 0141187166 Edonis 0 3.87 1973 On Photography
author: Susan Sontag
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> Napoleon: A Screenplay 7619306 155 Stanley Kubrick Edonis 0 4.12 1969 Napoleon: A Screenplay
author: Stanley Kubrick
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Decisive Moment: Photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson]]> 6048685 160 Henri Cartier-Bresson Edonis 0 to-read 4.59 1952 The Decisive Moment: Photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson
author: Henri Cartier-Bresson
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.59
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind]]> 17978489 The New York Times best-selling author of Physics of the Impossible, Physics of the Future and Hyperspace tackles the most fascinating and complex object in the known universe: the human brain.

For the first time in history, the secrets of the living brain are being revealed by a battery of high tech brain scans devised by physicists. Now what was once solely the province of science fiction has become a startling reality. Recording memories, telepathy, videotaping our dreams, mind control, avatars, and telekinesis are not only possible; they already exist.

The Future of the Mind gives us an authoritative and compelling look at the astonishing research being done in top laboratories around the world—all based on the latest advancements in neuroscience and physics. One day we might have a "smart pill" that can enhance our cognition; be able to upload our brain to a computer, neuron for neuron; send thoughts and emotions around the world on a "brain-net"; control computers and robots with our mind; push the very limits of immortality; and perhaps even send our consciousness across the universe.

Dr. Kaku takes us on a grand tour of what the future might hold, giving us not only a solid sense of how the brain functions but also how these technologies will change our daily lives. He even presents a radically new way to think about "consciousness" and applies it to provide fresh insight into mental illness, artificial intelligence and alien consciousness.

With Dr. Kaku's deep understanding of modern science and keen eye for future developments, The Future of the Mind is a scientific tour de force--an extraordinary, mind-boggling exploration of the frontiers of neuroscience.]]> 377 Michio Kaku 038553082X Edonis 0 4.07 2014 The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind
author: Michio Kaku
name: Edonis
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/11/07
shelves:
review:

]]> VALIS 216377 VALIS is the first book in Philip K. Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). This disorienting and bleakly funny work is about a schizophrenic hero named Horselover Fat; the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity; and reality as revealed through a pink laser. VALIS is a theological detective story, in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime.]]> 242 Philip K. Dick 0679734465 Edonis 4 3.94 1981 VALIS
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Edonis
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/27
date added: 2022/09/27
shelves:
review:

]]>