Reading Matter Update

Been Reading / Re-Reading ….
Still haven’t got my bibliography fully up and running, but have been reading, re-reading and annotating furiously recently, so I’m just capturing the books involved in the process. Spookily again – Pirsig’s Lila focussed in the early passages on the authors battle to capture many diverse thoughts in a card index system, when he didn’t really know what case / argument he was trying to construct – a flexible way of cataloguing and linking “thoughts” which are clearly linked by gut-feel relevance and importance, but no coherent thread. Exactly where I am now. I’m trying an XML database approach, for capturing Mind-Map / Fuzzy Cognitive Map content, rather than a pile of index cards, but who knows I may find the lo-tech solution the better option !

Don’t bother reading this entry – it’s just a brain dump in need of organisation.

Douglas Adams – re-reading everything, partcularly Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, together with his H2G2 web-site stuff and his commentaries on people and technology for the BBC.
John Z Delorean / J Patrick Wright – re-reading On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors.
T E Lawrence – re-reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom (for the 6th time ! – this time capturing annotation.)
Franz Kafka – recently read for the first time Metamorphosis and Aeroplanes at Brescia, and starting The Trial, The Judgement and The Penal Colony
Friedrich Nietzsche – Thus Spake Zarathustra recently part-read for the first time. After reading the superb contemporary notes by Anthony M Ludovici – Will go back to some of Nietzsche’s earlier works before attempting to complete – difficult biblical style, but nevertheless compelling thought.
Bart Kosko – Fuzzy Thinking – mentioned below.
Ian Stewart – Does God Play Dice – mentined below.
John Maddox – What Remains to be Discovered – re-reading
Richard Feynman – just finished The Pleasure of Finding Things Out and The Meaning of it All. Will probably have to read more and also Murray Gell-Mann.
Charles Handy – just re-read Inside Organisations and The Age of Unreason, looking at The Gods of Management and others. Dionysus keeps recurring – a bad penny like Poincarre – only joking perhaps. TRM must research / read more Poincarre.
Tom Peters – scan re-read ISOE and also Thriving on Chaos.
Frederick Bodmer – re-reading The Loom of Language.
Nils Brunsson – re-reading The Irrational Organisation.
Jostein Gaardner – Sophie’s World, re-reading, previously incomplete. Not a patch on Pirsig, but similar intent to couch history of philosophy in a novel. Just not as compelling or as driven by a clear objective (ie too objective “scientific” ! ?)
Eugene Herrigel – only part read Zen in the Art of Archery, must re-start and complete. Too literally about Zen (unlike ZATAOMM, so educational on that subject, but not my main thread I fear.) Presumably inspired Pirsig’s title though ?
Lao Tsu – part read Tao Te Ching. Obligatory background poem on Zen Tao (“the way” of Zen Buddhist philosophy).
Michael Talbot – re-reading Mysticism and the New Physics the first book I read that made explicit link between these subjects, apart from allegorical / fictional.
Dave Edmonds / John Eidenow – read Wittgenstein’s Poker. Excelllent biographical backround on Wittgenstein and Popper and other contemporaries, as well as introduction to philosophy and history of philosophy – source of many references to follow-up.
Jim Powell – Post-Modernism for Beginners – although communication is key, main threads are art, architecture and the media, and the need to seek meaning on multiple levels simultaneously – entertaining summary and history, and a source of more serious references on Modernists, Late Modernists and Post Modernists. (All French – nearly.)
Ilya Prigogine – The End of Certainty. – Disappointing, given the guy’s credentials and the title – seems mainly a packaging of Chaos and Complexity. Will need to re-read once I’ve followed some of the references further.
Graham Priest – Introduction to Non-Classical Logic – gets deep and mathematically formal and tough very quickly – but some good insight as to what is involved.
Werner Heisenberg – The Physical Principles of Quantum Theory. Everyone quotes his uncertainty principle, I thought I better read the original source stuff.
Martin Rees – Just Six Numbers
Hans Walser – The Golden Ratio
John Gribben / Kate Charlesworth – A Cartoon History of Time. Refreshes parts the other book cannot reach. Fun but informative.
Friedrich Durrenmatt – Die Physiker / The Physicists – reading the original German (now accompanied by English translation.)
And surprisingly, many more.

So many notes, so little order or organisation – Aaaaggghhh !!!