Finished Crime and Punishment, which I thought was fantastic. It really makes you want to think twice before taking an axe to someone’s head.
Also read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. I couldn’t put it down but overall didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. Can’t put my finger on exactly why. Would still recommend and it’s a quick read.
Finished A World of Curiosities. I was pretty sure I had guessed the ending this time but I was wrong. Close but wrong. And man, Louise Penny can drag out a half hour.
Looking forward to the next one. Also maybe interested in rereading the series and paying attention to stuff that I now know is important.
I was surprised to see the amount of scientific and medical research on psychedelics that had gone on in the 1950’s and 1960’s in the US and Canada. It was sad that the FDA shut down all the US research and the US federal government banned these drugs for both medical and recreational purposes despite the positive earlier research.
I blame the drug prohibitions partially on Timothy Leary as he focused only on recreational uses that scared the government into thinking the younger generation would turn into revolutionaries after turning on. The amount of misinformation communicated by the government was staggering.
The book makes you want to seek out an underground guide to lead you through a psychedelic experience.
I’m about halfway through The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin
I’d started Carrie Soto Is Back on audiobook, but I was in the car a lot this weekend with my kid and wanted something that didn’t have bad language. So I tried the last of the Murderbot short books that I"d had laying around. I forgot how many f-words were in there. Yikes. So it ended up being a sports radio weekend.
A little change of order to have some for travel, Historical was up, what I have tends to be larger and not always what I want for public display, political reasons
Changed to Action, Adventure and decided a war story fit, hard to decide if Historical Fiction, but for that I want it centered on familiar events or people.
So, A Thin Red Line, James Jones
There has been extensive research into psychedelics in the past decade with positive results in several areas of medical application. Sadly politics, rather than scientific research, may decide their status.
In Vancouver, the possession of a small amount of ANY drug has been decriminalized but anyone wishing to use psychedelics must go underground to get them. It is likely that their use for certain medical conditions will be approved soon in Canada and they may then possibly follow the path of marijuana: medical legalization followed by recreational approval.
Will say no more here except that Pollan went from skeptic to advocate in his book due to his personal experiences with psychedelics.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post.
Since I started it, I finished Exit Strategy, one of the Murderbot series.
Just started on The Brothers Karamazov… this one is going to take me a while
Brothers Karamazov is on my read-again list as it has been over 50 years since I last read it. Enjoyed it the first time.
Yeah, I’m doing a re-read of Crime & Punishment right now, but should do Karamazov again next
I found it a slow start, but ended up enjoying it
I am right down to the end pages of the third Wax and Wayne trilogy part of the Mistborn series. They have been enjoyable. I am now done with 10 Sanderson books (4 Stormlight books and 6 Mistborn). I think I am ready to move onto something else for a bit.
Started the Bhagavad Gita,
Pretty good read if you like the gospels.
The basic message is pretty similar to Jesus.
– Deep down everyone has a soul, which is referred to as the “Self”.
– The Self is the same in everyone. It’s immortal. And it’s divine.
– We are sort of deluded by our senses, thoughts, feelings, into feeling separate from each other and from the world.
– But wise people see the Self (see God) in everyone. This makes them selfless because they don’t think of themselves as separate anymore. It also makes them joyful because they stop being haunted by their various desires, fears, and frustrations.
–These enlightened people also go to something like heaven? They join God, forever. Krishna (God) loves you and wants to help you get to heaven.
–To become enlightened you need to work at it. There’s different methods. They all lead to the same place though.
One is selfless action. If you work on helping people instead of yourself, you’ll be more able to lose your self-centered way of thinking.
Another is meditation. Which is basically the same as prayer. You close your eyes and focus on God.
Another is worship or love. Curiously, if you truly worship another God, then you are actually worshipping Krishna anyway, and will join Krishna in heaven.
All of this is pretty similar to Jesus IMO, suggesting all the different things that ultimately save your soul. And similar to Jesus, there is an apostle (Arjuna) to ask all the dumb questions you might have, like “but really, what’s the Best way to get to heaven?”
One thing I like is that the Jesus character (Krishna) is extremely practical. He tells Arjuna to focus on the things that come easiest (in Arjuna’s case that’s selfless action.) And he really emphasizes that you just have to work at it. You need to practice, and form habits, which become lifestyles. Very self-help-esque.
Unlike Christianity, there’s the concept of reincarnation. At first I thought it was a bit cheesy. But once you accept the idea of an immortal Soul-- that temporarily inhabits a body-- it makes plenty of sense that your soul might inhabit another body after your body dies. I mean why not?
By the way, there is definitely a bunch of other cheesy Hindu stuff, that makes no sense. Similar to how the new testament occasionally has some references to the old testament that make no sense. *shrug.
Also the background is weird af.
The Gita is actually a short chapter in the middle of an ancient Hindu epic that’s 10x the length of Homer. There’s all these wars and gods and shit.
And at one point, Prince Arjuna is super depressed because he has to go to war with his own family, so he chats about it with his chariot driver.
And his chariot driver is like, “Yo, I’m actually God. Lemme tell you the good news…”
The concept of “tat tvam asi” comes up repeatedly in Huxley’s “The Perenniel Philosophy”. He focuses on the role of the Self in many different religions so once again I would recommend his book to you after you have finished your exploration into the Hindu religion. I think you would find it interesting given your post. Huxley also believed the Self could be circumvented: he used psychedelics rather than meditation for that.
actually was a collection of short stories.
will have to chuck it as it is coming apart in my hands.
The stories appear to include a pre-cursor for 2001 and an inspiration for Little Shop of Horrors
275 books delivered, a new bookshelf found in my FiL’s house, yes we missed a whole bookshelf
also, the downstairs neighbor I am moving books for had two large duffels I put in my garage (otherwise she wouldn’t be able to go out her front door). I finally looked in them to see if something I could put in her shed. One was more books. So a bunch more to deliver.
All in all my kids took 5 or 6 of them and I kept maybe 10.
Beautiful Country: A Memoir - Wang, Qian Julie