R.I. Book Group?

[brekin]

BrandonD wrote:

I just received a book for my birthday that I'm really looking forward to: "The Exegesis of Philip K Dick", so I'll go ahead and throw that one out there as a possibility since I'll be reading it anyway.

I like it. Here's the Amazon blurb. Definitely some interesting mind food to dig into. Looks like it would be fairly easy for people to get a copy to. At 976 pages a little long, but it looks like there is some annotation and commentary by the editors which probably caused it to swell.

The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

Based on thousands of pages of typed and handwritten notes, journal entries, letters, and story sketches, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick is the magnificent and imaginative final work of an author who dedicated his life to questioning the nature of reality and perception, the malleability of space and time, and the relationship between the human and the divine. Edited and introduced by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, this is the definitive presentation of Dick’s brilliant, and epic, work.

In the Exegesis, Dick documents his eight-year attempt to fathom what he called “2-3-74,” a postmodern visionary experience of the entire universe “transformed into information.” In entries that sometimes ran to hundreds of pages, in a freewheeling voice that ranges through personal confession, esoteric scholarship, dream accounts, and fictional fugues, Dick tried to write his way into the heart of a cosmic mystery that tested his powers of imagination and invention to the limit.

This volume, the culmination of many years of transcription and archival research, has been annotated by the editors and by a unique group of writers and scholars chosen to offer a range of views into one of the most improbable and mind-altering manuscripts ever brought to light.

So the first book for consideration is:

1. The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

[Wombaticus Rex]

Having just finished the Exegesis -- and having started it in late 2012 -- I would definitely recommend something a bit more accessable and less meandering.

Is KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev, by Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, worth reading (it's 800 pages)? Amazon reviews say yes and no, some citing missing or outdated (1992) info.

It's probably not a good selection for Book Group but it's been on my shelf for years and last night I was looking for a book to start.

As with any intelligence agency, there are no good books on the subject. The A&G tome is at least interesting, lucid, and thoroughly documented. What it documents is a wilderness of mirrors.

[brekin]

I'd like to suggest this book as our second consideration:
2. In the Dark Places of Wisdom
by Peter Kingsley

A set of ancient inscriptions on marble found 40 years ago in southern Italy, recording details so bewildering that scholars have kept silent about them ... Sensational new information about a group of ancient philosophers who were so intensely practical that, two and a half thousand years ago, they shaped our existence and the world we live in ... These are just two ingredients of this extraordinary book, which uncovers an astonishing reality right at the origins of the Western world. Written by a highly-acclaimed contemporary historian and expert in the field, it provides dramatic new evidence about one of the most important of ancient philosophers, Parmenides-and revolutionizes our un-derstanding of the history of religion, of the origins of philosophy, and of Western culture as a whole.

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Places-Wisdo ... +of+wisdom

I read the first 20 pages last night and stopped because I thought it might be a good possible selection. The book definitely goes big from the start, promising an insight in how Western Civilization veered off course in its very ancient beginnings and suggests how/why that happened and how/why the solution may have been (continues to be?) suppressed. Having read a little of another of the author's books I think I have a inkling to what the premise may be and I think it may be a strong thesis. Whether the writer is ultimately convincing and can bring it all home in the end I guess is the big question.

[BrandonD]

I'd like to suggest this book as our second consideration:
2. In the Dark Places of Wisdom
by Peter Kingsley

A set of ancient inscriptions on marble found 40 years ago in southern Italy, recording details so bewildering that scholars have kept silent about them ... Sensational new information about a group of ancient philosophers who were so intensely practical that, two and a half thousand years ago, they shaped our existence and the world we live in ... These are just two ingredients of this extraordinary book, which uncovers an astonishing reality right at the origins of the Western world. Written by a highly-acclaimed contemporary historian and expert in the field, it provides dramatic new evidence about one of the most important of ancient philosophers, Parmenides-and revolutionizes our un-derstanding of the history of religion, of the origins of philosophy, and of Western culture as a whole.

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Places-Wisdo ... +of+wisdom

I read the first 20 pages last night and stopped because I thought it might be a good possible selection. The book definitely goes big from the start, promising an insight in how Western Civilization veered off course in its very ancient beginnings and suggests how/why that happened and how/why the solution may have been (continues to be?) suppressed. Having read a little of another of the author's books I think I have a inkling to what the premise may be and I think it may be a strong thesis. Whether the writer is ultimately convincing and can bring it all home in the end I guess is the big question.

This book has been recommended to me in the past, I'm on board for this one.

[Jerky]

Here is a suggestion. When I first read Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle, it blew my mind and opened me up in a very rigorously intuitive way. I would LOVE to do a group reading of it with you brilliant people.

The big plus is that I have a copy of the book as a PDF and would be happy to send it to anybody who needs a copy (never fear... I've bought a dozen copies and handed them out to friends over the years, so I feel justified).

Whether or not we do it on RigInt, if you want a copy, email me at jerkyleboeuf at gmail dot com.
Jerky

[Elvis]

I must say, In the Dark Places of Wisdom does sound good, and seems like it would fit right into much of my current book-readin'.

It's readily available and rather inexpensive for used copies, fwiw.

[brekin]

So, looks like the third book suggestion for consideration is:

3. The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
by Howard K. Bloom

From Publishers Weekly
The "Lucifer Principle" is freelance journalist Bloom's theory that evil-which manifests in violence, destructiveness and war-is woven into our biological fabric. A corollary is that evil is a by-product of nature's strategy to move the world to greater heights of organization and power as national or religious groups follow ideologies that trigger lofty ideals as well as base cruelty. In an ambitious, often provocative study, Bloom applies the ideas of sociobiology, ethology and the "killer ape" school of anthropology to the broad canvas of history, with examples ranging from Oliver Cromwell's reputed pleasure in killing and raping to Mao Tse-tung's bloody Cultural Revolution, India's caste system and Islamic fundamentalist expansion. Bloom says Americans suffer "perceptual shutdown" that blinds them to the United States' downward slide in the pecking order of nations. His use of concepts like pecking order, memes (self-replicating clusters of ideas), the "neural net" or group mind of the social "superorganism" seem more like metaphors than explanatory tools.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Lucifer-Princ ... 0871136643

[Wombaticus Rex]

I'd sign up for either Bloom or Kingsley.

[Project Willow]

I've been meaning to read Bloom for a while now. Even had my library obtain a copy, but I never get there in time to check it out.

[widefidelity]

I would be interested in a (re-)read of Bloom, and would love to use it as an excuse to actually start posting here, instead of just lurking about furtively.

Or, you know, I'd be interested in about anything, as long as I'm able to get my hands on it.

[brekin]

I was thinking we could start the voting tomorrow Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.
There is still plenty of time for people to make book selection suggestions, though.
In fact, the more suggestions the deeper the pile we have to consider for future rounds.
Here are the three so far again:

1. The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
2. In the Dark Places of Wisdom
3. The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History

[BrandonD]

I was thinking we could start the voting tomorrow Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.
There is still plenty of time for people to make book selection suggestions, though.
In fact, the more suggestions the deeper the pile we have to consider for future rounds.
Here are the three so far again:

1. The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
2. In the Dark Places of Wisdom
3. The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History

I've always wanted to read this book but never started it, so I'll go ahead and add in "Morphic Resonance" by Rupert Sheldrake. This book is essentially his introductory work into the "heretical" theory of morphogenetic fields, non-material fields that direct individual species' development and behavior. This is the book that made him so hated in the mainstream scientific community, because it provided a scientific structure to support paranormal and "psychic" occurrences.

[brekin]

BrandonD wrote:

I've always wanted to read this book but never started it, so I'll go ahead and add in "Morphic Resonance" by Rupert Sheldrake. This book is essentially his introductory work into the "heretical" theory of morphogenetic fields, non-material fields that direct individual species' development and behavior. This is the book that made him so hated in the mainstream scientific community, because it provided a scientific structure to support paranormal and "psychic" occurrences.

Lovely. Our fourth book in the race:

4. Morphic Resonance: The Nature of Formative Causation
by Rupert Sheldrake

New updated and expanded edition of the groundbreaking book that ignited a firestorm in the scientific world with its radical approach to evolution
• Explains how past forms and behaviors of organisms determine those of similar organisms in the present through morphic resonance
• Reveals the nonmaterial connections that allow direct communication across time and space

When A New Science of Life was first published the British journal Nature called it “the best candidate for burning there has been for many years.” The book called into question the prevailing mechanistic theory of life when its author, Rupert Sheldrake, a former research fellow of the Royal Society, proposed that morphogenetic fields are responsible for the characteristic form and organization of systems in biology, chemistry, and physics--and that they have measurable physical effects. Using his theory of morphic resonance, Sheldrake was able to reinterpret the regularities of nature as being more like habits than immutable laws, offering a new understanding of life and consciousness.

In the years since its first publication, Sheldrake has continued his research to demonstrate that the past forms and behavior of organisms influence present organisms through direct immaterial connections across time and space. This can explain why new chemicals become easier to crystallize all over the world the more often their crystals have already formed, and why when laboratory rats have learned how to navigate a maze in one place, rats elsewhere appear to learn it more easily. With more than two decades of new research and data, Rupert Sheldrake makes an even stronger case for the validity of the theory of formative causation that can radically transform how we see our world and our future.

http://www.amazon.com/Morphic-Resonance ... 1594773173

[Elvis]

I'm sold on Kingsley -- I plan to get & read it anyway.

I think Howard Bloom is brilliant but I definitely have "issues" with him, so I should also read Lucifer Principal. But it's frustrating for me because I don't think Bloom, with his great insights, will never really "get it" because (as I see it) his outlook is too narrow. That said, a group read & discussion would probably be helpful to me.

Heck, Sheldrake too -- they're all good.


(((RI)))

[Perelandra]

Funny, I recently picked up the Sheldrake book from one of my piles in order to read more. Due to a busy summer, it's a page or two at a time, it's currently by my bed. At least I have it, and could follow along. Don't know how much I could contribute to any choices, but I'm interested.

Whether or not it could be a choice, I have a book reco for anyone interested in the intersections of myth, anthropology, art, sciences, etc. It's been one of my obscure favorites for many years. A long time ago I stated that every page was packed with meaning, and it remains so, for me. Few reviews, but they give an idea, fwiw.

http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Sacred-Ecstasies-Love-War/dp/0060975113/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407867100&sr=1-1&keywords=dudley+young