Bookshelf Revelations

β€œTo know a man’s library is, in some measure, to know a man’s mind.”
― Geraldine Brooks

 

Can we be known by the books that we choose to read, the books we choose to keep or perhaps a bit of both? Most people who have read my blog before know that my tastes in most things is a bit eclectic (I think that’s the nice word for it) and my bookshelf tends to be even more so…Since the advent of ebooks (which has cut down on bookshelf space considerably. What? You say that there is nothing like the feel of a book in your hands? That’s true but with two or more avid readers in the house, book space tends to run into living space way too easily.) With the intent of sharing a bit of myself then, a selection from what’s currently on my e-reader.

 

  1. Over My Head by Charles deLint – I love Charles deLint’s writing. His characters are three-dimensional and they understand pain and joy, love and sorrow, art and music. Recently he started a series for young adults called the Wildings of which Over My Head is the second volume. It has many of the same themes that other popular teen fiction has these days but in typical deLint fashion the tropes are just a bit deeper and more thoughtful
  2. Lady Slings the Booze by Spider Robinson – One of Spider’s best and funniest. Lady Sally runs a place of healthy repute where the courtesans (both male and female) are known as artist’s. Spider’s characters and his humour and his understanding of the human heart are addictive. Plus this is the book where he brings in Nikolai Tesla as a regular character.
  3. Hyperreason by Mike Hockney. A unique and insightful viewpoint on reality
  4. Boomeritis by Ken Wilber. When I first heard that Ken Wilber had written a novel, I was fascinated. I have listened to his interviews and lectures and read a few of his books and wondered how his style would carry over. What we get are a few main characters listening and reacting to lectures, yet its Ken Wilbers ideas on integral thinking which I find so vital to the current period we are living in now. This book goes a long way towards explaining Spiral Dynamics in a coherent conversational fashion. I highly recommend this one.
  5. The Enneagram and Kaballah (Reading Your Soul) – I was looking for insight into the idea of the Enneagram. I have just begun skimming through this book.
  6. The Whole Elephant Revealed by Marja de Vries. This book is extremely insightful
  7. Cold Days by Jim Butcher. I love urban fantasy and Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novels are my favourite of these. A bit like Phillip Marlowe meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer .
  8. The Wandering Who? by Gilad Atzmon. Atzmon is fairly controversial but he asks some very important political questions.
  9. Daemons of Pleasure by Austin Osman Spare. Spare is a new discovery. I find his art beautiful and inspiring and his books on magick to be wonderfully poetic and cryptic.
  10. Outside the Circles of Time by Kenneth Grant. Fascinating views on Kaballism and Magick.

Ten books each of very different nature. I have a lot more but these in particular I have either read, read from or researched in the past week. Ten filters on which I look out on the universe. Ten windows through which people can see different facets of me. What books have you read lately?
Blessings, G

 

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Date NightDate Night by G A Rosenberg

 

Opal gatewayOpal Gateway by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – September 23 2012

You can’t stand up to the night until you understand what’s hiding in its shadows.
–Charles De Lint

Of late I’ve become more comfortable with my shadows. Everyone has them, these parts of ourselves that we try to repress, hold back. We become whole as we learn to accept our shadows, ask them in for a cup of tea, have long conversations with why they do the things they do and why we resist them and dance with them. Finally with any luck we may learn to integrate them. Of course there will still be shadows cast but fewer and fainter. Only when we resist our shadows do we run the risk of them biting us in the tail.

On a different note, today we started cleaning out our bookshelves, 30 boxes donated and counting. Saying goodbye to some old friends, well not goodbye as such, many of the characters I’ve internalized. There are a few that I have long conversations with but the covers that once contained them have gone to new homes. It is a cleansing of sorts.

Blessings, G

 

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She Wears the Night by G A Rosenberg

 

Circles by G A Rosenberg