1: Books I Re-Endorse

Let’s begin with the list of books I would gladly add my endorsement to:

1. The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. (and Tree and Leaf, by J.R.R. Tolkien)

I am actually a little surprised to see this listed as three separate works (especially when C.S. Lewis and the Twilight series works are listed as one work), but either way you view it I would recommend digging through all the Tolkien books you can get your hands on. Most of Tolkien’s work is just great, but in my opinion the excellence of Tolkien is that the more of his work one reads, the more one can appreciate it.  His body of work is among the least blatantly-intellectual (well, some of it) fiction of which I approve, and my suspicion is that his lack of superficial intellectual depth is more than compensated for by his mythic-historic depth and a complex set of relationships between the works.  This is why I would recommend tackling at least The Silmarillion with Lord of the Rings, in addition to at least glancing through lists and tables of relationships, name and word origins, language conventions, and the like.  What is fascinating is that Tolkien’s vast, mythological world is realistically consistent (it largely hangs together, but it is not without internal conflict or even contradiction) and well enough endowed with history and variety that if it were an actual set of traditional cultural lore (of, say, Britain), that tradition would be among the richest folklore traditions recorded.  Somehow, this body of work was composed by a single man over a few decades of his life, with jobs, wars, and other real-life factors constantly intruding upon his progress.

1. The Bible

This one is all too easy to make the case for, especially after having made the case for Tolkien.  Conveniently divided  into an array of books so variegated, I find it difficult to lump their value into a few qualities as a whole.  Leaving aside cultural, historic, and religious significance–a case which I do not think  I need to make–I find it most valuable for its great mixture of its wisdom, its narratives and art, and its broaching of salient examples of ethical and theological problems.

1. The Giver, by Lois Lowry

While not  one of my favorite books, it was certainly formative and I agree that it ought to be widely read.  For me, it was the fact that certain ideas were presented in the narrative–not the plot itself–that drew me in.  The book altered the way I think about religion, human experience, and social enclaves at an early age–and for the better, I believe.

1. The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein

This was a great combination of entertainment, lore, whim, and ethical thought for the young mind.

1. My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok

This was likely the most moving fiction book that I read during college.  I think Asher’s difficult and strange position mirrors a milder, but much more widespread set of conflicts that endure for many, if not most, humans–when they are susceptible to reflecting on them.  Potok’s glory in this book, though, is not that he presents the superficial conflict, but rather he forces the conflict into a zone beyond simple Manichean bifurcation.  Like a great early European New Wave film, he refuses to provide us with an adequate resolution to a seemingly simple problem that becomes so mired in emotional complexity as to be beyond defining.

1. Summa Theologica, by St. Thomas Aquinas
2. Confessions, by St. Augustine

It’s probably unfair to lump these together.  The former is fascinating and utterly analytic  in nature, and the latter is really (in my mind) to be prized for its exploration’s value in examining the subjective in the world (and, of course, being a thorough confession of a fascinating man), but I need to sacrifice something for the sake of some semblance of brevity…

1. A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold

This work of Leopold’s is perhaps my favorite conservationist account.  Leopold combines the best of the romantic naturalism of folks like Emerson, Thoreau, and Wendell Berry with a wonderful (if anecdotal) case study of the recuperation of a natural environment.  It is also a powerful endorsement of the value that can come from the slow application of thought and care to any environment–a case, I think, for the notion that work and time can bring change with determination without the need for drastic, disruptive alterations.

1. Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James

James’s account of religion qua experience is an unusual combination of mystical literature and systematic academic writing.  He is serious enough about the subject and about syncretism that his book can be eye opening to the most conservative and the most mystical among the religious (and nonreligious) alike.

1. “The Fixation of Belief” (essay), by Charles Peirce

This book is short enough, and–as far  as Peirce is concerned–accessible enough, that there is no good excuse for not reading it once you have heard of it.

1. Poetics and Metaphysics, by Aristotle

Not the best Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics?  Rhetoric?) nor the worst (don’t get me started on Categories), but well worth the read.  Now if only we had Aristotle’s Second book of Poetics¹…

1. Night Flight (Vol de nuit), by Antoine de St.-Exupéry

There are certainly a few deeper philosophical lessons to take from this book, but through St.-Exupéry’s wonderful style I think the value will be transmitted thoroughly simply through identification with characters and experience in the book (not unlike his other great work ².

1. Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis

This is one of the best Christian apologies I have read, and though I do not think it is Lewis’s greatest work (I’m probably quite outnumbered in thinking that work is A Grief  Observed), it deserves to be read by as wide an audience as possible.

1. Walden; “Walking”, by Henry David Thoreau
2. Nature, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Somewhat similar, thematically, I think these two works  actually express a rather different view of the experiential nature of the relationship between man and nature (or even mind and world), but they are both remarkable for their mellifluousness, character, and the romantic gravity they give to the humans and their interaction with the world.

1. The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco

This book perhaps has my vote for the greatest work of fiction (among those read by me, which is admittedly few).  While I am neither a fan of detective stories nor a fan of medieval settings, I found this book to be a real page-turner (even the beginning, despite what Eco purportedly intended).  I took away from this book not just entertainment, but a wealth of insight.  The crux of it, I take to be a Wittgenstein point on knowledge and experience (akin to a lesson in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus).  It is a lesson better put in Eco’s literature than non-fiction, but it is certainly not the book’s only insightful gem.

1. The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

One of the longest (nonfiction) works which I have read and still felt it had a ridiculously high payoff:page ratio.  Dostoevsky’s depth is remarkable.

1. Hop on Pop, by Dr. Seuss

Again, perhaps not the author’s greatest work, but certainly worth the 2.5 minutes to read.  Better still are Dr. Seuss’s creative, whimsical tales like Oh The Things You Can Think!, The Lorax, The Sneeches, and McElligot’s Pool.

1. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

The earliest work I read explicitly depicting a southern African American experience in a manner that was not exceedingly trite, I credit this book with altering some of my assumptions about constants of human experience.

1. Night, by Elie Wiesel

Along with Viktor Frankl’s work, there is no better account of the horrors of the Holocaust.  I think it ought to be read in tandem with The Trial of God, while you’re at it.

1. Don Quixote, by Cervantes
2. King Lear, by Shakespeare
3. Hamlet, by Shakespeare

These are classics which reward a read and a reread.  Call me arrogant, but I cannot suffer all classics.

1. Ulysses, by James Joyce

This work was eye-opening and esoteric enough to be extremely appealing throughout, despite it’s length, incoherence, and complexity.

2: Eh…

I read all of these books.  None of them were horrible; none were even “bad”.  I might even recommend reading a few of them–most would be worth the time if it weren’t the case that being “worth the time to read” also means “being worth the time to read rather than other, better books you might read”.

1. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
2. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes
4. The Chronicles of Narnia (series), by C. S. Lewis
5. A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
7. Good-Night Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown
8. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

3: Plans…

I really, really want to read the following books from the list, based largely on recommendations from others.  If there are some that you don’t believe are worth my time, though, feel free to critique!

1. Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust
2. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safron Foer
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson
5. Stones Into Schools, by Greg Mortenson
6. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
7. Smith of Wootton Major, by J.R.R. Tolkien
8. 1776, by David McCullough
9. The Life You Can Save, by Peter Singer
10. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
11. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoesvsky
12. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
13. A Very Easy Death, by Simone de Beauvoir
14. The Sparrow, by Mary Russell Doria
15. Children of God, by Mary Russell Doria

4: No Hurry…

This is a list of books which I have no intention of reading, currently.  Feel free to pitch for a book that is worth the time, though, as my judgments are based mostly on weakly-founded assumptions and the recognition of my finitude.

1. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

Honestly, from what I know, it just sounds like boring fiction.  Don’t forget that I’m not really a fiction kind of guy.

1. The Shack, by William P. Young

Religious fiction has occupied some of the lowest rungs of the drivel I have consumed.  Popularity of a work such as this really is not enough to dissuade me from making the presumption about this book as well, but feel free to defend it, as I would be eager to come across another work of religious fiction that is not banal or excessively dogmatic.

1. The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama

My experience with celebrity books (yes, the president is a celebrity–first and foremost in many cases in modern American politics, if you ask me) is that they tend to be shamelessly self-aggrandizing, uninteresting, and as insubstantial as would be implied by anything “ghost-written”.  Feel free to explain how this one’s the exception.

1. Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Adventure stories are not too appealing to me.  I presume that’s mostly what this is.  Defend it if you can.

1. A Time to Kill, by John Grisham

I read another John Grisham book once…or tried to.  Does anything make this one stand out?

1. The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough

Yes, sad, but I am judging this book by it’s film.  I recall catching part of this movie as a child and being turned off.

1. Wizard of Oz series, by L. Frank Baum

I’ve read a bit of the first book, but I couldn’t get into it.

1. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

It’s possible that I have already read this.  It certainly wasn’t memorable, nor was the film, if you ask me.

1. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

Another book wherein I suspect the film has spoiled the paper copy.  It was good enough, but I suspect I would not be much more drawn in by the book itself.

1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle

I read The Hound of the Baskervilles and enjoyed it–but not enough to give a similar work another go.

1. Twilight Series, by Stephanie Meyer

Sometimes popularity makes a seemingly uninteresting work that much more unappealing.  This is a case in point, but defend it if you can.

1. The Wedding, by Nicholas Sparks

Call me hypermasculine, but I cannot imagine sitting down to read this and feeling like I was not wasting my time.  Tell me if you can make the case for it.

1. Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris

In a world where my time is limited, if I need entertainment, I’ll reach for something less time consuming than a book.  Comedy seems to me to be mostly about entertainment, and I presume (perhaps unjustly) that Sedaris’s work is primarily about comedy.  If there’s some more substantive, lasting value here please let me know.

5: Call me a philistine, but… who?

Most of these books, I really know nothing about.  In a few cases, I have read other works by the author, but was not intrigued enough to seek further works or I just simply have no reason to believe that the following would be the work to seek.  In a few cases, I did not even know the author existed until I found him or her on this list.  I’d love to hear more about any of these books.  Tell if you can.

1. Illusions: Tales of a Reluctant Messiah, by Richard Bach
2. The Snow Tree, by Caroline Repchuck
3. Black Child, by Camara Laye
4. If it Die, by André Gide
5. The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch
6. Straight Man, by Richard Russo
7. Last Moon Dancing, by Monique Schmidt, ’98
8. Saint Maybe, by Anne Tyler
9. Practical Gods, by Carl Dennis
10. Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger
11. The Next Place, by Warren Hanson
12. Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett
13. Up the Down Staircase, by Bel Kaufman
14. QB VII, by Leon Uris
15. Nicholas & Alexandra, by Robert K. Massie
16. My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult
17. The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
18. Dear & Glorious Physician, by Taylor Caldwell
19. London, by Edward Rutherford
20. Possessing the Secret of Joy, by Alice Walker
21. Love you Forever, by Robert Munsch
22. The Worldly Philosophers, by Robert Heilbroner
23. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
24. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
25. The Magus, by John Fowle
26. Christ and Culture, by H. Richard Niebuhr
27. The Second Coming, by Walker Percy
28. Perelandra, by C.S. Lewis
29. Miracles, by C.S. Lewis
30. The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis
31. Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney
32. Jeeves and Wooster, by P.G. Wodehouse
33. The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy Sayers
34. The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, by Lewis Hyde
35. Five Quarters of the Orange, by Joanne Harris
36. Sarah’s Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay
37. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
38. Mary Russell series, by Laurie R. King
39. The Question of Hu, by Jonathan Spence
40. Aging: The Fulfillment of Life, by Henri J.M. Nouwen
41. Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
42. D-Day, by Anthony Beavor
43. The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig
44. The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams
45. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, by Lisa See
46. Blind Your Ponies, by Stanley Gordon West
47. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
48. Master Butchers’ Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich
49. The Greatest Miracle in the World, by Og Mandino
50. The Gift From the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
51. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler
52. The Cave, by Jose Saramago
53. Free To Choose, by Milton & Rose Friedman
54. Alphabet series mysteries, by Sue Grafton
55. My Antonia, by Willa Cather
56. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
57. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
58. The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
59. The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shield
60. Traveling Mercies, by Anne Lamott
61. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engel
62. A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
63. The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
64. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
65. Snow, by Orhan Pamuk
66. Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan
67. The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow
68. Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
69. A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry
70. The Witness of Combines, by Kent Meyers
71. Two-Part Invention: the story of a marriage, by Madeleine L’Engel
72. Waterland, by Graham Swift
73. People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks
74. March, by Geraldine Brooks
75. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
76. The Dante Club, by Matthew Pearl
77. Good Harbor, by Anita Diamant
78. Buffalo For The Broken Heart, by Dan O’Brien
79. Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver
80. Asylum, by Patrick McGrath
81. Staggerford, by John Hassler
82. The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion
83. It’s Your Ship, by Mike Abrashoff
84. Once a Runner, by John L. Parker
85. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
86. Five Smooth Stones, by Ann Fairbairn
87. The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck

A good way to wrap up would be to give my own list of books, and I am probably arrogant enough to actually put one up and think others would care about it.  Luckily, I’m also impatient to publish this list, so you’re spared.  Anyone who happens to read this, though, talk back about your book choices, please, as I love recommendations (especially nonfiction!).  If you are interested in the books I like, though, you can always peek in my library, or look at some of the books I found very influential.

I recently took it upon myself to read Charles Taliaferro and Stewart Goetz‘s work Naturalism (for sale here).  I highly recommend the book for anyone looking for a good summary of some considerations of modern philosophy on the topic of naturalism.  The work is pithy, cogent, and I think easy to follow even for those not well-versed in the technical jargon and historic arguments surrounding this traditional metaphysical debate.  I would caution, though, that I think that the book seems to me overly critical of some features of naturalism, and also to me seems to overgeneralize many characteristics which I think abound in naturalists and non-naturalists alike.

I had the great pleasure of being introduced to Taliaferro last fall, and will likely be meet him again in a few days, so I took the time to throw together a little gut-reaction response to the work Natualism (which, I rather think might be better titled “Against Naturalism”, which indicates better that the purpose of this book seems to be the construction of an argument against naturalism, rather than some merely informational and “objective” presentation of historic facts and debates).

Here is my response to their work (in either ogg vorbis or mp3 format).

If you don’t feel like taking the 15 minutes to listen, here’s the gist of my thoughts, without most of the explanatory substance:

1. Yes, I agree with Goetz and Taliaferro that naturalism as they characterize it (through examples) stands on shaky ground, but…
2. Naturalist perspectives, being based on the ever-expanding realm of scientific advancement, are not simply reductionist.  Rather, their role can expand as our empirical observations and theories about these observations expand.  My feelings on this follow from my (mildly Kuhnian, i think) view that science is a primarily pragmatic rather than epistemological endeavor.
3. Because science offers us the opportunity to challenge traditional “supernatural” explanations, it bears the possibility to act as a corrective check for, or at least calls us to critically reflect upon, our folk psychology/physics/philosophy/metaphysics/dogmas.
4. Finally, I think that a strict, parsimonious, positive naturalism is not just likely epistemically problematic–it is psychologically untenable even for its most outspoken adherence (but so is anti-naturalism in some ways).  In the long run, though, if the apparent choice is between accepting on or the other tradtional dogma (either naturalist or unnaturalist), I would just assume have both perspectives around as long as possible duking it out, as neither seems wholy cogent to me.  With the argument preserved, we can pragmatically utilize one assumption in one context generally (say, anti-naturalism for religion; naturalism for science), but allow these perspectives to challenge each other in their own contexts as well.  In this way, I hope we can either realize that these distinctions are irrelevant, or that they are somehow complimentary, or that some better alternatives exist instead–and enjoy the fruits of continued argument.

What struck me as interesting, was that when I was looking for some alternative perspectives on naturalism while writing my response, one of the first results provided by my friend Google was lil’ ol me.  Yes, on the first page of my google results was an entry that I posted in October last year, entitled “Hobbes and Modern Science v. Descartes“.  Back in October, though, I was sort of on the other side of the argument.  Back then, I was chastizing modern science for its naturalist assumptions, rather than lauding it for bringing options to the table–at least until the end of the article.  In the end, though, it seems that both today and last october, I was arguing from one side (first against naturalists, then against anti-naturalists) in order to get to the middle.  In both places, I criticized dogmatism, dualism, and hubristic assumptions that we already know what types of substances make up the entirety of the cosmos.

The major discrepancy between my old article and my new one, it seems to me, is that I was content to characterize science in my October post as presuming the sort of materialistic naturalism that Goetz and Taliaferro seem to see in it, but this week I argued that that view of science is short-sighted.  Which description is more accurate?  In a way, I think both.  I think the end paragraph of my recorded response hints at the answer.  It seems that real human beings simply don’t portray stable, context independent dispositions of this sort.  In one context, we might all predictably be naturalists (say, when you consider whether or not you should worry about a 1,000 anvil falling on you from above), and in others we may all be anti-naturalists (say, when considering our plans for the future or interpreting our emotions).  It may simply not be possible to separate these two categories in a way that is both meaningful and able to be held by a real person over time.

Also, if you’re in the Sioux Falls area, I heartily implore you to come to Charles Taliaferro’s talk at the Augustana Naturalism Symposium this week; it will make your life better.

Also, I tried to stream my recorded response to Naturalism, but it does not seem to work for me.  Try it, if it shows up for you:

As a disclaimer to this review, I ought to mention that Steve Long’s book is the first I’ve read on the subject of rock climbing, and I am an extremely callow climber. That said, my general inexperience as in the subject might be helpful for others interested in gaining introductory insights into climbing, and my review might also elucidate whether this book is too elementary for more experienced climbers.

The book has an ambitious, remarkably broad set range of topics discussed–including history of the sport, genre divisions in rock climbing, safety techniques, travel and climbing-site specific information, tips on picking out equipment, instructions on climbing maneauvers, tips on diet and exercise, notes on competitions, and much more. Considering both the eagerness of the project and the slightly-larger-than-pocket size of the text, it should not be unexpected that while the general topic of climbing is discussed in a very complete fashion, some specific individual topics are exceptionally abbreviated discussions.

Overall, the book seems inclusive, outlining most of the climbing approaches and equipment which i would have anticipated or hoped for, plus a few which i did not. The book is chock-full of illustrations, diagrams, photographs, and the like, which to me seem an absolute necessity for any adequate hands-off presentation of climbing technique. There were a few places in the text where perhaps a superfluous (but often aesthetically inviting) photo of a glorious rock face with an attached climber or a diagram for an exceedingly simple technique or a redundant tip bubble might have been omitted in order that the abridged description of a procedure might be made more clear. However, in general these tended to add clarity to my novice understanding of materials, procedures, setup, safety, knots, equipment, and the like.

There were two sections which I felt were particularly well-constructed–namely “essential safety skills” and “key techniques”. Each seemed helpful, descriptive, comprehensive, and–with several notable exceptions–left me with relatively few unanswered questions compared to many of the other sections. Thankfully, these two sections seemed to make up the real meat of the books, such that the best information was available from the largest and most interesting portions of the work. To me, the simplest of diagrams and photographs–those intending to portray only one idea, technique, or feature–were by far the most helpful. Grip techniques were very clear, as well as most of the vital diagrams describing safe anchoring techniques for cams, webbing, rope, pitons, and the like. I found some diagrams attempting to explain, for example, rope techniques which became confusing by attempting to illustrate full sequences of connections in a diagram without proper correlating explanations.

The most salient pitfalls of the text are with overall clarity and organization. Most notably, I think that readers as green or greener than myself might experience some difficulty with climbing techniques or terms not being properly described before they are used in the book. Some very basic terms in climbing have quite different jargoned meanings from their status quo definitions, and many of these–protection, jug, second, natural, and psych come to mind immediately–are defined much later than they are first used (and in some cases, never defined at all, even in the glossary). Perhaps the guide is not intended for those of us too callow to recognize these terms or techniques, but if this is the case, then it is a mistake for the work to define them–as it often does–later on. Prusik, for example, is used multiple times at the beginning of the book, but is not defined in the glossary and not explained in the book until page 48. Likewise, jug is needed to understand a suggested exercise on page 91, but is not defined until page 94. Psyching is used on page 82, but explained on 85. Conversely, sometimes terms or procedures are defined redundantly; the munter hitch, for example, is described in nearly the same words on both pages 53 and 64. Additionally, some portions simply seem out-of-place. Rigging a repel, ascending and descending, and constructing a prusik are relegated to the back of the book, away from the other sections on other related in-climb techniques. Sometimes a bit more information might have been provided, such as diagrams (page 57 could have used one concerning threads) or simply further description (page 53 mentions some configurations being “weak” for equipment, but does not describe them). I thought that the sections on techniques and safety skills might have benefited from the addition of a brief section consolidating and describing the fundamental ideas of loading, directionality, and force.

These weak points should not entirely overshadow the benefits of the book, however. By the end of the work, many of the questions and problems and confusions that were left by individual sections were largely answered. Unfortunately, this was often only after they were mentioned elsewhere in the book, such that a full understanding of equipment and procedure might require two readings for some novices. In general, instruction is succinct and clear, and the information is relevant. True, the book could use enough editing to warrant a second edition, but it is certainly an excellent source of information in its current form.