Annual Reading List
I generally spend the last two weeks of the year researching what I might be interested in reading during the next twelve months. I made my selections late, and the following books showed up in early March:
On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt
On Violence, by Hannah Arendt
Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
Heart of a Dog, by Bulgakov
Kafka on the Shore, by Murakami
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
100 Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Unfortunately, It Was Paradise, by Mahmud Darwish
I still have to read the books by Marquez and Murakami, and am currently reading Heart of a Dog. It's an excellent satire on Stalinist Russia, and I recommend it highly. There are some parallels, I think, to more contemporary societies.
Frankfurt's essay makes an interesting point. What we're seeing from Bush & Company is not bullshit, but lying. Lying requires that you know the truth, but make a willful effort to move away from it. Bullshitting is easier, since you don't have to care what is truth and what is lies - you just make it up as you go.
What is everyone else reading this summer?
On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt
On Violence, by Hannah Arendt
Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
Heart of a Dog, by Bulgakov
Kafka on the Shore, by Murakami
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
100 Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Unfortunately, It Was Paradise, by Mahmud Darwish
I still have to read the books by Marquez and Murakami, and am currently reading Heart of a Dog. It's an excellent satire on Stalinist Russia, and I recommend it highly. There are some parallels, I think, to more contemporary societies.
Frankfurt's essay makes an interesting point. What we're seeing from Bush & Company is not bullshit, but lying. Lying requires that you know the truth, but make a willful effort to move away from it. Bullshitting is easier, since you don't have to care what is truth and what is lies - you just make it up as you go.
What is everyone else reading this summer?
posted by Walt at 8:35 PM
3 Comments:
Good start on the blog.
I'm reading Seymour Hersh's Chain of Command:The Road from 9/11 to Abu Gharib.Scary,sad and angering.
This summer I have a stack of books to get through.A book about the life of Crazy Horse,The Kite Runner,Jared Diamond's Germs,Guns and Steel,I'm planning on re-reading Derrick Jensen's Culture of Make Believe,and I still have to get through Eric Fromm's Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.Oh,and I have a copy of the Constitution,Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independance in one handy little book.I figure the way things are going they might end up being collectors items someday.
I'm thinking that we should see some movement in the '06 by-election. Either a weakening of the GOP position in both houses, or a majority shift in the Senate.
That will put more pressure on El Presidente to act in a bipartisan manner, if he ever hopes to get anything done, that lame duck sack of brainless shit.
I think Skippy was right - Bush is a nihilist. He believes in nothing.
He's an empty shell to be sure.I see nothing in that man's demeanor to suggest otherwise.It's like every thought he's ever had was planted there by someone else.No intellect,no curiosity,nothing.
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