Which books sit on your nightstand?

[silent thunder]

[Taomeow]

2 hours ago, silent thunder said:

 

 

I read it.  Broke my heart...

 

"It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth,—you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered.  There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead." Black Elk, "The End of the Dream" (1932).

[Taomeow]

The first one in the English translation, the second one by the same author, "On Marble Cliffs," in the Russian translation which I'm told is better.  I've read Ernst Jünger only in excerpts so far and found his style striking and his choice of subjects to tackle both ambitious and natural.  Look forward to when these two arrive, ordered both.   

 

    

[silent thunder]

On 9/19/2020 at 1:44 PM, Taomeow said:

 

 

I read it.  Broke my heart...

 

"It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth,—you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered.  There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead." Black Elk, "The End of the Dream" (1932).

It absolutely cracked me open when I first read it thirty something years ago.

 

This time round I'm going in with the notion that Leonard Cohen was right and that's how the light gets in...

 

edit to add:

I can't read it at this time.

No reserve tank to process that trauma again.

Edited September 28, 2020 by silent thunder

[thelerner]

On the trashy fun front, HumbleBundle.com offered all 9 issues of the graphic novel The Wicked & The Divine for $20.  Great deal, I'd read the first one years ago and been enchanted with its remarkable archetypal world.  Great plot, good artwork and unpredictable.  A story 100's pages long, that you have to read and re-read to get all the subtleties. 

 

On the professional front, I'm reading Snap Judgement, a good book on behavioral finance.  When to follow your gut, when to ignore it.  Balancing a contrarian viewpoint with historical optimism.

 

On the spiritual front I'm listening to The Happiness of Pursuit.  A book on modern quests.  People caught up in a difficult, long term, challenges.  Many involve travel, walking across continents, sailing the seas.. others are completing 4 years of the MIT online computer science program in 1 year.    What it takes mentally, physically, financially to start and finish an epic quest.

 

[silent thunder]

[Sketch]

Reading Daniel Keown's "The Spark In The Machine:How the Science of Acupuncture Explains the Mysteries of Western Medicine".

 

He's got a great "voice", and takes the readers through the layers of the human body in development - a point he makes is that healing is embryology, and explains the development of the channels in terms of cellular development in early stages. 

 

While pondering that, I'm poking away at Jin Yong's "A Snake Lies Waiting", part of the Condor Heroes Saga.

 

Jin Yong is the pseudonym of an author who wrote "Kung Fu Adventure novels" in the era before the golden age of Kung Fu movies. Pressure points are poked! Kicks hang in the air like wire work! Chi is chucked about like shurikens, and so are all sorts of shuriken type objects. 

 

Heroic and fiendish characters abound, and there's plenty of books in the series. Good translation, too. 

[Taomeow]

3 hours ago, Sketch said:

Reading Daniel Keown's "The Spark In The Machine:How the Science of Acupuncture Explains the Mysteries of Western Medicine".

 

He's got a great "voice", and takes the readers through the layers of the human body in development - a point he makes is that healing is embryology, and explains the development of the channels in terms of cellular development in early stages. 

 

While pondering that, I'm poking away at Jin Yong's "A Snake Lies Waiting", part of the Condor Heroes Saga.

 

Jin Yong is the pseudonym of an author who wrote "Kung Fu Adventure novels" in the era before the golden age of Kung Fu movies. Pressure points are poked! Kicks hang in the air like wire work! Chi is chucked about like shurikens, and so are all sorts of shuriken type objects. 

 

Heroic and fiendish characters abound, and there's plenty of books in the series. Good translation, too. 

 

The first one sounds worthy of checking out, thank you.  I was amazed, many years ago, to discover (from reading Western books on embryology) that Chinese medicine's organ "relatedness" -- Kidneys to ears, Liver to eyes, Lungs to skin, etc. -- is fully congruent with the original development of those organs from the same embryonic layers whose functions remain related on the deepest level for the duration of the organism's lifetime.  Which helped convince me -- as an independent discovery that was really thrilling at the time -- that classical Chinese medicine is not only the real deal but the superior deal in its understanding of the human body.

 

As for Jin Yong, aka Louis Cha, I've read many of his novels with child-like fascination, including the Condor Heroes books.  Excellent kungfu! -- as the protagonists of The Deer and the Cauldron put it more than once.    

[sagebrush]

Revival Now Through Fasting and Prayer

Gordon Cross

[rocala]

I have just started Bernie Glassman's 'The Eternal Circle'.

[Taomeow]

Got an awesome present!

 

[Toni]

A book everybody should read: gulag archiielago. It is the history of prisons, forced labor and the totalitarian law system in the former soviet union, from the perspective of an innocent man who spent many years of his life there. It is not a novel, it is real history. Everybody should know what happened there

[Taomeow]

5 hours ago, Taomeow said:

Got an awesome present!

 

 

Forgot to share what this Volume 3 is about:

 

 

[Sketch]

A box of books arrived - Damo Mitchell's "White Moon on the Mountain Peak" and Simon Bastian's "The Way Of The Demons, Shadow and Opposition in Taoist Thought, Ritual, and Alchemy" will take some digesting. 

 

Also got a new tablet, first in a few years, so I'm going through my digital comic book collection. 

The perfect antidote to all this serious Taoist stuff - Junji Ito's "Uzumaki". 

 

A graphic novel that plays reality games in a way that recalls "Ringu" and the fiction of Thomas Liggoti, characters lose themselves contemplating the Spiral, which causes strange effects on their bodies, minds, and spirits. Like I said, a great break from this Taoist lark. Highly recommended. 

 

Looking at a lot of anatomical reference these days, and just downloaded Theodore Dimons "Anatomy Of The Voice", which has very clear descriptions and excellent illustrations. 

Edited December 1, 2020 by Sketch

[idiot_stimpy]

[rocala]

I have just finished 'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro. When as a teenager I read 1984, I was left with this cold fearful feeling. Fifty years later Never Let me Go has done it again. An incredible book by a superb author.

[sagebrush]

The Chosen/40 days with Jesus(book one)

daily devotional

by Amanda Jenkins/Kristen Hendricks and Dallas Jenkins

 

Dallas Jenkins is the one who directed The Chosen series on dvd

[Sketch]

The Simon Bastian book, "The Way Of Demons" , went from eh to awful. He cites Damo Mitchell, and Kristopher Schipper's excellent "The Taoist Body", so he's got that much going on. 

 

But the writing. Like a presidential tweet. Careless. Full of mistakes. Evidently Dion Fortune was a notary, a magical notary. 

 

I was raised to be a grammar nazi. I try not to dump on everyone on the internet about their spelling and such but in a published book...Enough is enough.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Sketch

[Cleansox]

15 minutes ago, Sketch said:

The Simon Bastian book, "The Way Of Demons" , went from eh to awful. 

/... ... /

But the writing. Like a presidential tweet. Careless. Full of mistakes. 

Probably because of all that Dim Mak practice in the WTBA. 

Harmful for the mind, striking all those Gall Bladder points. 😁 

[helpfuldemon]

I dont read books anymore.  Ive studied and experienced enough that Ive reached a satisfying plane of enlightenment.

[Toni]

A book i read some years ago and has become one of my favourites: Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. I am not a fan of science fiction but this book is really good

[Sketch]

What I'm looking forward to is the next Murderbot. Fantastic science fiction series from Martha Wells. I notice that Taomeow has read the "Remembrance of Earth's Past " books from Liu Cixin. Hope the rest of you jump on board because these are a great ride.Murderbot fanart!

Edited December 21, 2020 by Sketch

[sagebrush]

An Exposition on the Eight Extraordinary vessels/Charles Chase Miki Shima

 

Acupunture alchemy and herbal medicine- found this at my acupuncture appointment and will order a copy today.

 

 

 

Coincidentally as I am contemplating and trying to locate the Bethlehem star in our sky last night and reading story of King Harrod and Magi.... the protocol for todays treatment was a five pointed star.

 

using the yintang as the center and then ankle wrist placements

 

there would be quite alot of information in this book and I like following along with learning about meridians.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by sagebrush

[Taomeow]

 

[steve]

I can’t say it sits on my nightstand because I read it in little more than a day, but I want to share for anyone who isn’t familiar with her work.

 

Octavia Butler’s “Kindred” was one of the more enthralling books I’ve read in a very long time. Looking forward to exploring her ouevre.