Book Recommendations thread.

[radiobox]

OK. I searched and didn't find a thread on this subject. So starting one.

Jesus is Dead (2007) by Robert McNair Price

This book argues that (1) not only is there no good reason to think that Jesus ever rose from the dead, (2) there is no good reason to suppose that he ever lived or died at all.

This is for the guy frolicking in the void ;-)

[Wildcard]

I highly recommend this book:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig

I could paste the summary but I'd rather just say that you don't have to be Buddhist to appreciate this book-- you just have to be open-minded.

[Spud17]

^^I've read that about a hundred times and get something different from it each time.

A book I recommend is Zen and the Art of Archery - Eugen Herrigel, and like Wildy's recommendation, this buddhist sounding book is for everyone, regardless of beliefs, besides, the 3 main monotheistic faiths could do with touching on the spiritual side now and then to lift the mind.



Compared to motorcycle maintenance, archery was a breeze to get through, although I have reread it over 20 times, and am always silent for a long time after each read. The book was first published in 1948, Germany, and is said to have inspired Pirsig's Motorcycle Maintenance.

“The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.”

torrent

wiki

[velvetfog]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand


First edition


Paperback

The book was published in 1957 and remains in print to this day, as it sells more than hundred thousand copies each year.
By 2009 more than 7,000,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged had been sold by its U.S. publishers. A British edition was published by Penguin Modern Classics in 2007.

Most remarkable about a novel in print for more than 50 years is the increasingly strong trend in sales over recent years. Paperback sales by New American Library to the book trade averaged 77,600 copies a year in the 1980s, 95,200 copies a year in the 1990s, and in the current decade have averaged 166,003 a year. After 50 years, annual sales are reaching all-time highs. In 2009, annual sales reached an all-time high of 520,000 copies.

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness—not pain or mindless self-indulgence—is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.
— Ayn Rand

http://aynrandnovels.org/

Ayn Rand: Why is she so popular?

You can download a PDF copy of Atlas Shrugged via bit torrent here: -->

  Reading the book will provide the answer to its fundamental question   Hide

(This post was last modified: 05-19-2014, 02:03 PM by velvetfog.)

[srijantje]

I'm heavily into Thomas Pinchon at the moment

[LZA]

I highly recommend this book:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig

I could paste the summary but I'd rather just say that you don't have to be Buddhist to appreciate this book-- you just have to be open-minded.

^^I've read that about a hundred times and get something different from it each time.

A book I recommend is Zen and the Art of Archery - Eugen Herrigel, and like Wildy's recommendation, this buddhist sounding book is for everyone, regardless of beliefs, besides, the 3 main monotheistic faiths could do with touching on the spiritual side now and then to lift the mind.



Compared to motorcycle maintenance, archery was a breeze to get through, although I have reread it over 20 times, and am always silent for a long time after each read. The book was first published in 1948, Germany, and is said to have inspired Pirsig's Motorcycle Maintenance.

“The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.”

torrent

wiki

D/Led both recommendations... Been hard to get through books with lack of time. But I think I can take snippets by thumbing through before I actually read it front to back. Thanks!

[radiobox]

LZA as an alternative to leaving through pages, you could google for 'book summary' and similar words.
Eg., http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/atlasshrug...ion1.rhtml
Some people maintain blogs where they write good executive summaries of books.
Another 'toughie' book, for me where I went for notes, is 'The Great Gatsby'. I just couldn't connect with it.

I would heartily recommend the books of 'Jim Corbett'.
Most of his books are on hunting man-eating tigers, his encounters etc.
These true stories are from a time when the land was not divided by state boundaries as it is now.
It is amazing how Corbett committed himself to tracking man-eating tigers sometimes laying awake all night on the branches of a tree in total darkness, to save the lives of villagers and farmers. Great man.
I see some books on archive.org, but am sure I've seen a complete collection somewhere.
But these books are usually not expensive and can be purchased if you like them. :-)

[radiobox]

Update: Guys, I found a Jim Corbett ebook torrent on KAT. It has 6 epubs. Self seeding at slow speed now. Its got a few other seeds too.


PS: I dug up 6 books by JC, from my small book collection. This includes the Second Impression (1956) of the First edition of 'Tree Tops', that belonged to my dad. I hope it will be worth a million bucks someday. ;-)

JC has apparently also written one book on banking. You can find it on libgen.
Thank you.

Edit: That should have been leafing, not leaving, in the first sentence of my previous post.

(This post was last modified: 05-21-2014, 10:29 AM by radiobox.)

[radiobox]

A scanned copy, but has some good old paper craft and some pretty complex ones too.

Origami Step By Step - Robert Harbin, Dover Publications, 60 pages. [PDF]

[velvetfog]

The Satanic Bible is composed of four books: The Book of Satan, The Book of Lucifer, The Book of Belial, and The Book of Leviathan.
The Book of Satan challenges the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, and promotes hedonism.
The Book of Lucifer holds most of the philosophy in The Satanic Bible, with twelve chapters discussing topics such as indulgence, love, hate, and sex.
LaVey also uses the book to dispel rumors surrounding the religion.
In The Book of Belial, LaVey details rituals and magic.
He discusses the required mindset and focus for performing a ritual, and provides instructions for three rituals: those for sex, compassion, or destruction.
The Book of Leviathan provides four invocations for Satan, lust, compassion, and destruction.
It also lists the nineteen Enochian Keys (adapted from John Dee's Enochian keys), provided in both Enochian and translated to English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Bible

http://www.thesatanicbiblefree.com/