Member pmowrey

About My Library

As I look at it in its entirety, it seems a pretty eclectic mix of stuff. Books I've bought as an adult for pleasure reading or lifelong learning mingle with my professional books and scores, pedagogical materials, guilty pleasures, and a large number of childhood relics that I still reread from time to time.

Sorting this collection in "Tag" order provides me with a rough approximation of where these books actually sit on my non-virtual shelves.

A few of the books that have changed my life, whether in childhood or adulthood:

The Bible (and Gnostic Gospels)
Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will
Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God
Dorothy Dunnett, A Game of Kings
Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy
Edith Hamilton, Mythology
Lao-Tzu (attr.), Tao Te Ching
Ursula K. LeGuin, Earthsea series
Thomas Malory, Le morte d'Arthur
Julian May, The Saga of Pliocene Exile
Anne McCaffrey, Pern novels (first six)
James Michener, Tales of the South Pacific
James Michener, Hawaii
John Cowper Powys, Wolf Solent
Charles Schulz, Peanuts collections
Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music
William Shakespeare, The Complete Works
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival

...and of course, throughout my life, the scores of Bartok, Beethoven, Lili Boulanger, Brahms, Chopin, Crumb, Debussy, Grieg, Prokofiev, Ravel, Stravinsky, and many, many others.

Finally, let's not forget the guilty pleasures! I can't help but notice that if I ever had to defend my library to a jury of English professors, I'd probably have some 'splainin' to do about all the Isaac Asimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ian Fleming, and Star Trek novels. I plead guilty to enjoying such literary fast food from time to time, and throw myself on the mercy of the court!

About Me

Writer, composer, pianist, and teacher; also passionate about philosophy, science, art, nature, film, comparative mythology, and politics

Favorite Authors

Karen Armstrong, Jane Austen, Henri Bergson, Berkeley Breathed, Joseph Campbell, John le Carré, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emily Dickinson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, Dorothy Dunnett, Lord Dunsany, Will Durant, Roger Ebert, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parke Godwin, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William Goldman, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ursula K. Le Guin, Edith Hamilton, James Herriot, Homer, Victor Hugo, Molly Ivins, Rumi, James Joyce, Pauline Kael, John Keats, Gary Larson, Harper Lee, Thomas Malory, Julian May, Anne McCaffrey, James A. Michener, A. A. Milne, Michel de Montaigne, Michael Moore, Guy Murchie, Ovid, Thomas Paine, Michael Palin, Sharon Kay Penman, Steven Pinker, Plato, John Cowper Powys, J. K. Rowling, Carl Sagan, Charles M. Schulz, David Sedaris, Dr. Seuss, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Irving Singer, John Shelby Spong, Mary Stewart, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Studs Terkel, Henry David Thoreau, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lao Tzu, Voltaire, Bill Watterson, Walt Whitman, Howard Zinn

Member Connections

Friends

Michael.Sherbon, TheresaWilliams, yeldabmoers