My Reading List

So I'm pretty excited about some of the books I've gotten recently, here's a rundown:

The Mind's I by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett. This is a collection of relevant essays, dialogues, short stories, creative fiction and non-fiction all about personal identity and philosophy of mind. Philosophy of mind and brain, reductionism, holism, computer intelligence, sense of self, etc. Really cool stuff, all with reflections by each of the authors and collectors. I read one chapter and I was hooked, the table of contents was impressive and intriguing, and the authors are both writers I've meant to read more of since I found them each in high school... or my freshman year in college at the latest.

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. From what I've read I can only reaffirm this books place as a key work in 20th century continental philosophy and the history of 2oth century thought. Also appears to be an amazingly well put piece of feminist literature. To those who know me, my interests in feminism have only been growing. Thanks to Morgan for this one. She gave it to me, and its with her that I would most like to share what I find in it and discuss it.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. A piece of what looks like light scifi, but is full of great ideas from the description. It was made into two movies, one of which is higly respect. Just a quick note on this aspect of it: why is it, if there's a highly produced hollywood film of a not so well known book I have to buy a copy of the book with a screenshot of the movie on it. I really don't want to have George Clooney Making out with some Star I don't recognize on the front of a novel neither had anything to do with, and nor did twentieth century fox.

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. This one's right up my alley. Just the kinda thing I'm a fan of: thick modernist prose with ideas and potential for great interpretation. I hear it's beautiful, I can't wait to get to it. Thanks to Philipp for this one. I hope the guy enjoyed his time in Chicago. Fantastic person, that one. I intend to discuss this with him sometime, if by letter.


I'm also still reading Underworld, and I've loved the first half of it but put it down for a while. I'll go through all of these slow with school and readings for school on top f it. I may be able to post to my blog from work (like now) but I can't read a novel so easily. I'll post my thoughts on eah of them as I finish them. You can expect this in just a week or two for Solaris. The thing is thin.