Member: DirtPriest

Thank you for reading my 50 Book Challenge thread. I'm glad to know that you enjoy it.

I am a mystery enthusiast and Agatha Christie is one of my favorite authors. I read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes and G.K.Chesterton's Father Brown before I read Christie and Holmes was what got me interested in reading mysteries. Poirot isn't my favorite though; I loved reading Christie's Miss Marple stories. I have read all of them. I appreciate the psychological angle that most Marple mysteries have. Murders and other crimes are not just bloody affairs, but the reasons behind them and the murderer's psychology in committing the murders is what interests me most. I'm not too fond of Christie's Tommy and Tuppence books (mostly because they are more thrillers than mysteries) but I do want to read By the Pricking of my Thumbs too as it sounds interesting.

posted by Porua at 5:07 am (EST) on Oct 16, 2009

The Hard Rain lyrics came to me early in the book. I'd spent years loving the archetypal feeling of Hard Rain but never really knew what it was about. Then it came to me... it's about the end of humanity (it was originally written around the time of the Cuban missile crisis). Once I thought about it that way, I was astonished how the lines of the song fit in with the chapters of Requiem. It's as though the book was explaining the song! The music kept going through my mind as I wrote each chapter, it really inspired me.

posted by jeremylent at 3:44 pm (EST) on Sep 29, 2009

Hi Ryan, I'm really glad you're enjoying "Requiem of the Human Soul". When I see comments like yours, it makes me feel that all the effort of writing/publishing the book was worth it! Jeremy.

posted by jeremylent at 5:05 pm (EST) on Sep 22, 2009

Hi, I hope you enjoy Requiem of the Human Soul. By the way, if you enjoyed Gleick's Chaos, you might want to check out Stuart Kauffman. His best book is probably At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity. It's a little more technical than Gleick, but it's worth it (and you can just skim the mathematical parts). I think Kauffman's the best current writer on complexity theory.

posted by jeremylent at 6:03 pm (EST) on Sep 9, 2009

you wrote >Like how language use includes things like 'The cat is behind the tree' but a tree has no behind if you think about it, or the good is up, bad is stinky metaphors. Or the container schema 'The butterfly is in the garden'. What really defines the word 'in' in this case is how your mind perceives the garden space as a 3D object, hence the embodiment.>

i loved the entire comment though it's the sort of thing i can only listen to and delight in but can't think in. . .if you see what i mean.

many thousands of years ago, i took a philosophy course at cal berkeley from which, sadly, i remember only two things [aside from the professor who was a riot--he thoroughly disliked women and strode about campus with a gaggle of myrmidons. i think he fancied himself a latter day socrates. he wasn't anything like though he must have been decent enough if he taught at cal.

anyway, one of the things i remember trying to wrap my mind around was this problem (ordinary language philosophers?): a squirrel is on a tree. a man, of course, is on the side of the tree opposite the squirrel. as the man moves around the tree, the squirrel moves around the tree so that she (grin) is always opposite the man who never sees her. the man walks around the tree. does he walk around the squirrel?

the other thing i remember is the parable of the cave. you know, Plato. i rather liked the republic although i hadn't the least clue what it was about really.

I'll have to look up 'container schema.' it makes me think of Schrodinger's cat.

great comment. i could 'listen' to you for hours. ;)

thanks. oh, and i realize you might have no interest in 'tangled wing.' you just sort of seem to think about things similar to those he discusses.

Descartes is, i fear, beyond me. along with Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell and Bucky Fuller though i really did *try* one of his books having listened agog to him speak at cal back in the day. he was 70 and left the lot of us exhausted after 4-1/2 hours of non-stop segues from which he bounced off, fresh as a daisy, to fly somewhere for a night time speech. unnerving man he was.

toodles.

posted by mirrordrum at 10:29 pm (EST) on Aug 2, 2009

based on your answer on silly game wherein you used Philosophy in the Flesh : The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought by George Lakoff, i wonder if you'd be interested in the tangled wing: biological constraints on the human spirit. by Melvin Konner. he has a relatively new edition out. the last one i was able to read was his first edition that i think came out in the 80's. i'd give a great deal to be able to read the new edition but alas, i can't find an audio version.

i used to teach a graduate course on cognitive-behavioral therapy and always recommended Konner's book along with more traditional books like Michael Mahoney's wonderful human change processes that's probably too psychotherapy specific for your tastes.

anyway, i thought I'd mention Konner as he's eminently readable: clear, comprehensive and thoughtful.

posted by mirrordrum at 3:26 pm (EST) on Aug 2, 2009

Hi, Ryan!
Thanks for adding me to your interesting libraries! I added you to mine as well. I love seeing what everyone else is reading. :) That's a great place to get new ideas for what to read next. Your books do indeed look happy in their home. Have a great day!
--BJ

posted by billiejean at 11:13 am (EST) on May 7, 2009