Reading Suggestions and Top Ten Books

[ParisianAttackMonkey]

Not in His Image by John Lash w/afterword from Derrick Jensen

Burning All Illusions by David Edwards

Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America by Michael Taussig

Fury On Earth: A Biography Of Wilhelm Reich by Myron Sharaf

[H_C_E]

Well, there are an over abundance of suggestions already, but I'll suggest some titles to give you some that might well boggle your mind and possibly cause your brain to see the world a bit differently....

"The Cosmic Serpent" by Jeremy Narby
"The Invisible Landscape" By the brothers McKenna
"Quantum Psychology" by Robert Anton Wilson
"Mind and Nature" by Gregory Bateson
"The New Inquisition" by RAW
"Beyond The Brain" by Stanislov Grof

Sorry, nothing conspiritorial there, except that there *might* be an unspoken conspiracy to keep humanity from seeing that Life is far, far bigger than we give it credit for being.

OR "Life isn't stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose."

[KeenInsight]

This thread reminds me that I should start reading again...

For "Conspiracy" books, I haven't read much (literally 3 on my book shelf):
-Alien Agenda
-Rule by Secrecy
-Unsolved UFO Mysteries

[ultramegagenius]

as for Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Wolf has a lot of nice deep background on the precursor to the DEA, the FBN. He ultimately fingers the ultra-paranoid James Jesus Angleton as a likely high-level source of the corruption perennially plaguing the CIA's entanglements with counter-narcotics enforcement during that era.

it is a bit dry in many places, and Valentine does not put forth much effort to make the narrative flow. i was expecting The Phoenix Program to be a more readable parable of brutal imperial hijinx. sadly, it is an even drier tome with barely any narrative structure to speak of. it reads like an endless chronicle of bureaucratic reformations, with little to no mention of operational details. not recommended!

Killing Hope, by William Blum, is a far more engaging account of the military machine. it is organized into short chapters that offer snapshots of interventions overt and covert in many assorted countries within given timeframes.

a gem not on the thread yet is The Assassination of Julius Caesar, by Michael Parenti. it uncovers how the Roman Senate were a bunch of greedy slumlords and profiteers steeped in skulduggery, not unlike our modern political representatives. it also details how Cicero was a recent entrant to the patrician class, eager to supply their version of history, also not dissimilar to the cadre of academic apologists in our own era. quite fascinating!

[jingofever]

A book I have been eyeing, Oil 101. Only in hardcover right now.

[hanshan]

...


all great picks & some to add to my list

The following all had a profound effect:

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

The Stones of Summer - Dow Mossman

A Scanner Darkly - Philip K Dick



...

[semper occultus]

Colin Wilson's written a loooooot of books but this is one of his better ones :

http://www.amazon.com/Criminal-History-Mankind-Colin-Wilson/dp/1845600029/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240928978&sr=8-1

[lightningBugout]

Kept forgetting to post this

phenomenal world by joan d'arc
(remote viewing, astral travel, apparitions, extraterestrials, lucid dreams and other forms of intelligent contact in the magical kindom of mind at large)

If you like the Woo / holographic aspects of Jeff's blog, this is pretty much mandatory reading. it operates with a kind of mad charm and ambition that is irresistible. oh, and if noone else listed it - holographic universe by michael talbot.

[vanlose kid]

deleted

[jam.fuse]

History

'A People's History of the World' by Christopher Harman - Marxist historian breaks it down for those who need it relatively short and to the point considering the ground covered.

'The Beast Reawakens' by Martin A. Lee - history of fascism post WW2 to around 1999.

'Homage to Catalonia' by George Orwell - story of the onetime British police officer's experiences in the Spanish Civil War.

Fiction

'Last Exit to Brooklyn' by Hubert Selby, Jr. - disturbingly violent tales of thugs, prostitutes, drag queens et al in post WW2 Brooklyn.

'Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess (far superior to the film, imho)

'Glue' by Irvine Welsh - reminiscent of a marriage of the previous two books (also at times depicting truly horrifying acts of violence); the story of four friends, set in seventies to nineties Scotland.

'The Silmarillion' by JRR Tolkien - for the truly, deeply escapist.

'The Dwarf' by Par Lagerkvist - fictional first person account of life as the Little Person of a Medici-like Renaissance prince. He may be small but he is a real bastard.

'The Western Lands' by William S. Burroughs - ultimately incomprehensible, to me anyway, yet a haunting read involving ancient Egyptian cosmological concepts among other things. Other than 'Junky' the only WSB Burrough's novel I have actually finished...

Psychology

'The History and Origins of Conciousness' by Erich Neumann - I read this a long time ago. Neumann opines the development of human conciousness in the individual recapitulates the development of conciousness in the human race, as history has unfolded, or something.

[bubblefunk]

I don't see much recent fiction on these lists so I thought I'd toss a few your way, take or leave them as you will. All of them have meant a lot to me recently. They're all serious indeed, in intent and execution.

Joyce Carol Oates - I don't know where to begin. She's never written a bad book!

HIGH LONESOME (40 Years of short stories) is a good place to start. WILD NIGHTS and DEAR HUSBAND are both humorous and heartbreaking. She really has her finger on the pulse of human suffering, as THE TATTOOED GIRL and MAN CRAZY will attest (not a lot of humor in those, buyer beware). And, my God, there are so many more.

INFINITE JEST, seconded heartily.

Evan Dara: THE LOST SCRAPBOOK

Matthew McIntosh: WELL

Joanna Rose: LITTLE MISS STRANGE

William Vollmann: Well, everything, both fiction and non-. RISING UP AND RISING DOWN was the most captivating 7-book non-fiction series I've ever had the pleasure of finishing! And YOU BRIGHT AND RISEN ANGELS will please fans of Burroughs and James Joyce no end, I suspect.

The PHINEAS POE trilogy by Will Christopher Baer goes down all kinds of RI-style rabbit holes, as does Michael Marshall Smith's (goes by Michael Marshall in the states) trilogy. Both are quite thrilling and deeply disturbing. I am always surprised to see stuff like this published Smith also has a book called THE INTRUDERS that rang very true to me in a para-para sense: deeply dramatic and convincing woo.

I've also been on a Selby kick lately: what he lacks in dialogue skills (always rang false, contrived to me) he makes up in plot, description and human-condition outright horror.

If anyone wants more let me know. Dinner's ready.

[Jeff]

Lives of the Monster Dogs, Kirsten Bakis
In the Beauty of the Lilies, John Updike
Dictionary of the Khazars, Milorad Pavic

[myriadsmallcreature]

"The Great Frontier"

Courtesy of Amazon and the NYT.

Walter Prescott Webb writes interestingly about large problems, the solution of which should help mankind to understand its past and assist in formulating more socially desirable public and private policies. He is blessed with both a bold mind and a brilliant pen, two assets that have raised him to a position of respect among members of the profession to which he belongs. In [The Great Frontier] Mr. Webb attempts to interpret the history of Western culture from 1500 to the present in terms of the expansion of Europe overseas. Although this theme is not new... it has never before been treated in such a grand manner and with the same points of emphasis as in the present volume." - New York Times Book Review

First published in 1951, "The Great Frontier" has become one of the undisputed classics of Western history, its conclusions still hotly debated by scholars but nonetheless essential and engrossing reading for anyone who wishes to understand the history and significance of this vast and often puzzling region.

The final work of pioneer Western historian Walter Prescott Webb, "The Great Frontier" represents a daring attempt to interpret the settlement of the American West in the global context of the expansion of European civilization between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries. According to Webb's "boom hypothesis," the expansion of Europe's "Great Frontier" into the Western Hemisphere energized a static society and made possible the development of such fundamental institutions of the modern era as individualism, capitalism, and political democracy. Webb contends that the closing of the global frontier at the end of the nineteenth century, with the end of easily available empty land and readily exploited natural resources, was responsible for the crises and violence of the twentieth century and boded ill for the future of the United States's treasured democracy.

[thesmokingpants]

I am looking for some good books on 50's 60's and 70's subcultures, ufo cults, etc...

any suggestions ?

[stickdog99]