Good, here’s another list. I think it falsifies the one-item-in-common hypothesis. This is Phil Mole’s.

1) Bertrand Russell – Why I am Not a Christian and Other Essays. This book really stimulated my own thinking about religion, and probably gave me the decisive shove toward atheism.

2) William James – Varieties of Religious Experience. After reading this, I became very interested in the psychological components of religious experience.

3) Stephen Jay Gould- An Urchin in the Storm. This is a collection of Gould’s book reviews. Reading this collection taught me a great deal about the art of the book review, not to mention the art of critical thinking.

4) C. Vann Woodward – The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Opened … Read the rest

My colleague is, I believe, writing a list of books that have not changed his life, so while he is doing that I will go ahead and do the dull boring plodding literal humourless N&C I had in mind, which is partly an adaptation of my own list and partly a reaction to a new one as well as partly a reaction to Norm’s reaction. See how dull I am? Sigh. My colleague is the one who gets to make all the jokes around here, while I just trudge along, saying tedious flat-footed obvious things all the time. It’s so unfair.

Yes sure enough, there’s his list now, and it made me shriek with laughter. You see how unfair that … Read the rest

Okay, since people are very keen on listing books, I thought I’d offer up ten books which haven’t changed my life.

1. Thus Spake Zarathustra – haven’t read it (not sure I can spell it either).

2. A Critique of Pure Reason – nope, not read this either (pretty sure that’s all spelt correctly, though).

3. Capital, vol 1 – can’t really claim to have read this (have looked at it in a bookshop, though).

4. Capital, vol 2 – haven’t read it (but I have read Marx for Dummies).

5. On Liberty – I make a point of reading nothing written before 1893.

6. The Fountainhead – like I’d read that!

7. Economy and Society (Max Weber) – … Read the rest

Update. Norm comments on this post which itself is a comment on a post of his which itself was a comment on the death of Paul Foot. So? Nothing. I just like to follow trains of thought. Anyway, he notes that there is only one book in common between our two lists. Yes. But it would have been a bit boring to repeat the same list, wouldn’t it. Although I didn’t actually look at his list again before doing mine, so I didn’t make a systematic effort not to repeat his. But I did remember that he had Mill, and I rejoice to concur with the Normblog reader. I said my list isn’t definitive, isn’t exactly a top ten list … Read the rest

Speaking of Keats and Wordsworth and Bronte – speaking, in short, of books – I was going to do that Ten Books that changed my thinking list. So now I will. It’s not a literary list – more of an argumentative list. And it’s also not really a top ten or ten best or ten favorites list. It’s not definitive. That list would have to be much longer, and more fluctuating. But this is a sample of that list.

1. Montaigne’s essays.

2. Hazlitt’s essays. That’s cheating in a way, because they’re not all in one book (whereas Montaigne’s are). But just think of them as one huge super-book.

3. Keats’ letters.

4. On Liberty. Same what Norm said. I’m … Read the rest

Whew. That’s better. The weather has changed. It’s been blisteringly hot for three days, the kind of hot where it’s still blistering after sunset, and still hot at midnight, and still very warm at dawn – in other words, the kind of hot where it never gets a chance to cool off. That’s rare around here. (I know, I’m spoiled.) Most of the time even in summer it cools off sharply around 8 p.m., and a breeze kicks up, and you can go for a nice sunset walk and cool off. Except for a few days here and there every summer. The statistical average here is, I once heard, to get three days per summer when the temperature is over … Read the rest