we're not really talking architecture books, but still several years later i'm glad i read 'how buildings learn' by stewart brand. smartest architecture book by a non-architect i've ever read and very influential in the way i look at things.
his 'clock of the long now', though it draws on too long and could have been pamphlet-sized, is also pretty compelling.
eco is always good, if challenging, and yes much better than dan brown...
book with the most lasting impression is by daniel dennet, called "darwin's dangerous idea". a book about the philosophy of evolution. helped me to understand the nature of change without teleology. much better than "emergence" ;-)
i'd say almost always good. loved name of the rose, foucault's, baudolino, island of the day before, and many of his nonfiction writings.
thought the most recent novel 'the mysterious flame of queen loana' was beautifully produced, illustrations in color, etc, but as a reading experience it was a waste of time. i was angry when i finished it, at least hoping for a payoff at the end.
Marshall Berman's inspiring analysis of modernism, city-planning, poetry, literature etc. in "All that is solid melts into air" scores very high on my list - perhaps because it has inspired me to read so many other books.
Dostojevskij's Karamazov, so detailed, ambiguous and with a breadth that I haven't encountered in any other piece of literature. For religious and philosophical inspiration.
Thomas Mann's "Doctor Faustus" - as great parallell to Marshall Berman's book. Inspired me to listen more to classical music.
Robin Evan's "The projective cast" for some good old fashioned art and architecture theory. Inspirational for critical thinking.
Anything by Jorge Luis Borges. Exquisite!
Superstudio's "Twelve Cautionary Tales for Christmas" - fantastic, short and a great satire of the modernist project.
On the Road, Jack Kerouac - A personal revelation of sorts for me, helped me to really understand the freedom of my life and focus on who I am.
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy - A beautiful tale of two people, one tragic and one epic, a great experience in love and religion.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee - So many great life lessons, a great character study of Atticus Finch, a true man in every sense of the word.
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand - call it archi-cliche, but reading it my first semester of college really had a profound impact on me at the time. Atlas Shrugged was her pinnacle work, but The Fountainhead opened the realm of free thought to me, something I will always relish.
a-f:
I'm in the middle of Karamazov right now, I'm really digging it so far.
wow. another jorge louis borges fan. read his collection cover to cover and loved almost all of it. i've never thought the same. (although, it's only been a month)
I have not been reading any high literature lately but here are a few of the things i have read in the last few months or so:
Everything is Illuminated- really a great book. It takes a little effort to get into it, but it is beautiful. The movie is good, the book is great.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Really a good book. I read it when i was 14 in school, and I decided to read it again. It was worth it. Beautiful.
God Bless Dr. Kavorkian - by Kurt Vonnegut -Very good, Very short. no reason not to.
to see the rest of the books i have been reading you can look here http://zenorschnitzel.com/books.htm
these are only the books i have finished. I have started a bunch, and if they dont hold me, i will not finish them.
books that have not kept me some of these i am still working on - the pearl, madame bovary
ehhhh.....I dont remember, i just have them on a stack in my desk
I have not been reading any high literature lately but here are a few of the things i have read in the last few months or so:
Everything is Illuminated- really a great book. It takes a little effort to get into it, but it is beautiful. The movie is good, the book is great.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Really a good book. I read it when i was 14 in school, and I decided to read it again. It was worth it. Beautiful.
God Bless Dr. Kavorkian - by Kurt Vonnegut -Very good, Very short. no reason not to.
to see the rest of the books i have been reading you can look here http://zenorschnitzel.com/books.htm
these are only the books i have finished. I have started a bunch, and if they dont hold me, i will not finish them.
books that have not kept me some of these i am still working on - the pearl, madame bovary
ehhhh.....I dont remember, i just have them on a stack in my desk
addictionbomb, I quote evanchakroff 'that Emergence book is pure pulp trash. in a good way.'
'Everything Bad Is Good for You' is pure pulp trash, in a bad way. Johnson could have said everything from that book in one sentence: Media has changed as society has changed to a complex world.
I was really disappointed of that book. But I read that he's publishing a new book about the cholera in London. Maybe that one is better.
after hearing about Eyes Of The Skin and Thinking Architecture, from the archinect faithful, i have bought both and have been quite humbled by what i have read. almost a religious experience. douglas cooper's amnesia and delirium in the fiction, as well as Winkie the story of a teddy bear terrorist. hejduk's chronotope is one i always come back to read.
speaking of russians...check out a quick read by alexandr solzhenitzyn called 'one day in the life of ivan denisovich'. great imagery and quite powerful.
i'm currently reading the '...of queen loana' by eco. i'm sad that
i may be disappointed by the end...ah well such is life.
i've read most of eco's books and found them all to be worthwhile
experiences for whatever that's worth.
favorites.
one of my all time favorites is east of eden by steinbeck..before
oprah liked it.
franzen is pretty good...as is david foster wallace..and i liked
middlesex too..but i feel a bit cliche in saying that.
arturo perez reverte...interesting mystery stories...the club dumas
and the flanders panel were of particular interest to me..fast
easy reads.
cider house rules by irving..read most of his books..good summer
reading but very repetitive after a while.
ross king - i loved brunelleschi's dome and was really interested in
michelangelo and the pope's ceiling..and read most of the rest of
his work..the first two are definitely worth the read if you're into
that sort of thing.
capote - before the movie and even afterwards...in cold blood was
worth making the movie alone..and his short stories are great..
'like water for chameleons' was very visually inspiring.
I almost forgot 'The Consolations of Philosophy' by Alain De Botton. That book was fun. He's publishing 'The Architecture of Happiness' in a few weeks, the abstract sounds interesting.
larslarson, sounds like our reading tastes are, while not exactly aligned, sort of parallel.
sorry to be a spoiler on the eco. i hate doing that. i'll just say that's it's a beautifully designed book, so enjoy it for the beauty of the thing itself. (i had run out and bought a first edition when it came out, so i also love the way mine is made: nice cover, firm binding, great paper and ink.)
no worries. i enjoy the book for it's interesting premise more than anything else. my main reading tastes come down to interesting stories/characters. I liked the idea of a character who has completely lost his memory and is attempting to remember who he is.
on a similar note:
motherless brooklyn by lethem sp?
and tropical night falling by puig.
and steven, i think you're far more well-read than myself, so if you have any suggestions for authors off of eco and the like let me know.
Brihad Aranyanka Upanishad
(circa ~~5000 B.C--somewhere in ancient India )
Invocation :- Om. That is full; this is full. This fullness has been projected from that fullness. When this fullness merges in that fullness, all that remains is fullness.
That's nice to hear - I saw Robin Evans mentioned in your blog a few times, also parts from "Translations from Drawing to Building", which contains one of my favourites: "Figures, doors and passages". What I really enjoy is Evans ability to lure the reader into some fixed way of thinking only to counterprove it a few paragraphs later. It gives the text a certain tension and informality. Who would have thought it could be so entertaining to read about the layout of renaissance villas for example?
and a question: to whoever reads Vonnegut: what book would you say is his most evocative?? i just read Cat's Cradle... and am still curious about it... hm..
PROPHET by Khalil Gibran
RELIGION OF MAN by Rabindranath Tagore
Apart from these, Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene as writers provide some realistic insights into the human mind. Dosteyevsky is good but dark and Orwell explains political systems beautifully.
So i must add 1984 by George Orwell.
Inspiring books
Which books swept off your feet?
I'll start:
Catalytic Formations by Ali Rahim (it's the new bible in our studio, the renderings are amazing and the text is very interesting)
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson (that book is just brilliant)
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (he wrote that book long before Dan Brown came up with his dumb story)
foucault's pendulum is definitely high on my list.
others:
glass bead game - hesse
magic mountain - thomas mann
ada - nabokov
that Emergence book is pure pulp trash. in a good way.
I read it in a few hours a few weeks ago. fun stuff. (very zeitgeist.)
oh, and i'm still realing from the 1-2-3 punch of Jared Diamond's "The Third Chimpanzee", "Guns Germs and Steel", and "Collapse"
good stuff.
we're not really talking architecture books, but still several years later i'm glad i read 'how buildings learn' by stewart brand. smartest architecture book by a non-architect i've ever read and very influential in the way i look at things.
his 'clock of the long now', though it draws on too long and could have been pamphlet-sized, is also pretty compelling.
eco is always good, if challenging, and yes much better than dan brown...
book with the most lasting impression is by daniel dennet, called "darwin's dangerous idea". a book about the philosophy of evolution. helped me to understand the nature of change without teleology. much better than "emergence" ;-)
i'd say almost always good. loved name of the rose, foucault's, baudolino, island of the day before, and many of his nonfiction writings.
thought the most recent novel 'the mysterious flame of queen loana' was beautifully produced, illustrations in color, etc, but as a reading experience it was a waste of time. i was angry when i finished it, at least hoping for a payoff at the end.
Informal by Cecil Balmond
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
Small Things Considered by Henry Petroski
The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery
Ugh, the little prince...
Marshall Berman's inspiring analysis of modernism, city-planning, poetry, literature etc. in "All that is solid melts into air" scores very high on my list - perhaps because it has inspired me to read so many other books.
Dostojevskij's Karamazov, so detailed, ambiguous and with a breadth that I haven't encountered in any other piece of literature. For religious and philosophical inspiration.
Thomas Mann's "Doctor Faustus" - as great parallell to Marshall Berman's book. Inspired me to listen more to classical music.
Robin Evan's "The projective cast" for some good old fashioned art and architecture theory. Inspirational for critical thinking.
Anything by Jorge Luis Borges. Exquisite!
Superstudio's "Twelve Cautionary Tales for Christmas" - fantastic, short and a great satire of the modernist project.
On the Road, Jack Kerouac - A personal revelation of sorts for me, helped me to really understand the freedom of my life and focus on who I am.
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy - A beautiful tale of two people, one tragic and one epic, a great experience in love and religion.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee - So many great life lessons, a great character study of Atticus Finch, a true man in every sense of the word.
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand - call it archi-cliche, but reading it my first semester of college really had a profound impact on me at the time. Atlas Shrugged was her pinnacle work, but The Fountainhead opened the realm of free thought to me, something I will always relish.
a-f:
I'm in the middle of Karamazov right now, I'm really digging it so far.
The Clearing by Jens Jensen
'Scientific Autobiography' from Aldo Rossi is terrific
wow. another jorge louis borges fan. read his collection cover to cover and loved almost all of it. i've never thought the same. (although, it's only been a month)
Frank Herbert's Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune and God-Emperor of Dune.
Heartless stuff. Yet a million lessons on human psychology are contained in those four books.
oh and nicole, im reading emergence right now. stephen johnson is amazing. read everything bad is good for you. also a great book by him.
I have not been reading any high literature lately but here are a few of the things i have read in the last few months or so:
Everything is Illuminated- really a great book. It takes a little effort to get into it, but it is beautiful. The movie is good, the book is great.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Really a good book. I read it when i was 14 in school, and I decided to read it again. It was worth it. Beautiful.
God Bless Dr. Kavorkian - by Kurt Vonnegut -Very good, Very short. no reason not to.
to see the rest of the books i have been reading you can look here
http://zenorschnitzel.com/books.htm
these are only the books i have finished. I have started a bunch, and if they dont hold me, i will not finish them.
books that have not kept me some of these i am still working on - the pearl, madame bovary
ehhhh.....I dont remember, i just have them on a stack in my desk
I have not been reading any high literature lately but here are a few of the things i have read in the last few months or so:
Everything is Illuminated- really a great book. It takes a little effort to get into it, but it is beautiful. The movie is good, the book is great.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Really a good book. I read it when i was 14 in school, and I decided to read it again. It was worth it. Beautiful.
God Bless Dr. Kavorkian - by Kurt Vonnegut -Very good, Very short. no reason not to.
to see the rest of the books i have been reading you can look here
http://zenorschnitzel.com/books.htm
these are only the books i have finished. I have started a bunch, and if they dont hold me, i will not finish them.
books that have not kept me some of these i am still working on - the pearl, madame bovary
ehhhh.....I dont remember, i just have them on a stack in my desk
I've been reading Oakley Hall's Warlock and Ernst Jünger's The Storm of Steel side by side.
I second Borges, especially "Death and The Compass."
“I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased.â€
The Russians are very popular in this thread. I don't like Dostojewski, Tolstoi is ok, but I adore 'Oblomow' by Gontscharow.
addictionbomb, I quote evanchakroff 'that Emergence book is pure pulp trash. in a good way.'
'Everything Bad Is Good for You' is pure pulp trash, in a bad way. Johnson could have said everything from that book in one sentence: Media has changed as society has changed to a complex world.
I was really disappointed of that book. But I read that he's publishing a new book about the cholera in London. Maybe that one is better.
I agree with Nicole ... I am highly skeptical of these "gee-whiz" books about media. Steven Berlin Johnson figures highly in that list.
after hearing about Eyes Of The Skin and Thinking Architecture, from the archinect faithful, i have bought both and have been quite humbled by what i have read. almost a religious experience. douglas cooper's amnesia and delirium in the fiction, as well as Winkie the story of a teddy bear terrorist. hejduk's chronotope is one i always come back to read.
i was with you until delerium, beta. that one just pissed me off.
well, truth be told that book is one of many i have yet to finish...i think i have ADD...i hear ritalin is good for that.
"Robin Evan's "The projective cast" for some good old fashioned art and architecture theory. Inspirational for critical thinking."
good, old fashioned, inspirational...
double headed dildos, moist brothel beds, assphyxiation
s,m,l,xl
content..most of kipnis's writings are pretty informative too
speaking of russians...check out a quick read by alexandr solzhenitzyn called 'one day in the life of ivan denisovich'. great imagery and quite powerful.
tcw: My English might not be the best - feel free to write a better description.
steven..
i'm currently reading the '...of queen loana' by eco. i'm sad that
i may be disappointed by the end...ah well such is life.
i've read most of eco's books and found them all to be worthwhile
experiences for whatever that's worth.
favorites.
one of my all time favorites is east of eden by steinbeck..before
oprah liked it.
franzen is pretty good...as is david foster wallace..and i liked
middlesex too..but i feel a bit cliche in saying that.
arturo perez reverte...interesting mystery stories...the club dumas
and the flanders panel were of particular interest to me..fast
easy reads.
cider house rules by irving..read most of his books..good summer
reading but very repetitive after a while.
ross king - i loved brunelleschi's dome and was really interested in
michelangelo and the pope's ceiling..and read most of the rest of
his work..the first two are definitely worth the read if you're into
that sort of thing.
capote - before the movie and even afterwards...in cold blood was
worth making the movie alone..and his short stories are great..
'like water for chameleons' was very visually inspiring.
and i add my vote to borges
I almost forgot 'The Consolations of Philosophy' by Alain De Botton. That book was fun. He's publishing 'The Architecture of Happiness' in a few weeks, the abstract sounds interesting.
larslarson, sounds like our reading tastes are, while not exactly aligned, sort of parallel.
sorry to be a spoiler on the eco. i hate doing that. i'll just say that's it's a beautifully designed book, so enjoy it for the beauty of the thing itself. (i had run out and bought a first edition when it came out, so i also love the way mine is made: nice cover, firm binding, great paper and ink.)
Yes!!! The Projective Cast is a truly great book. The "Comic Lines" chapter is one of my favorite pieces of writing ever.
AA folios, any of those, they inspire me.
Paul Bowles - The Sheltering Sky, Delicate Prey, Let it come down
John Fonte - Bunker Hill
Borges - Dream Tigers
Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan
i love mc sweeney's
they offer well crafted, well written, and interesting books. i am currently reading Issue 18
dave eggers rules.
steven,
no worries. i enjoy the book for it's interesting premise more than anything else. my main reading tastes come down to interesting stories/characters. I liked the idea of a character who has completely lost his memory and is attempting to remember who he is.
on a similar note:
motherless brooklyn by lethem sp?
and tropical night falling by puig.
and steven, i think you're far more well-read than myself, so if you have any suggestions for authors off of eco and the like let me know.
ug The Little Prince, but try manifesting that reality buster.
i guess i havent missed much by not reading a book in fifteen years...
Brihad Aranyanka Upanishad
(circa ~~5000 B.C--somewhere in ancient India )
Invocation :-
Om. That is full; this is full. This fullness has been projected from that fullness. When this fullness merges in that fullness, all that remains is fullness.
Smokety Mc Smoke Smoke:
That's nice to hear - I saw Robin Evans mentioned in your blog a few times, also parts from "Translations from Drawing to Building", which contains one of my favourites: "Figures, doors and passages". What I really enjoy is Evans ability to lure the reader into some fixed way of thinking only to counterprove it a few paragraphs later. It gives the text a certain tension and informality. Who would have thought it could be so entertaining to read about the layout of renaissance villas for example?
'how to cook everything'
Yeah, Robin Evans is truly great, a-f --- I also love his quick wit and sense of humor. He died so young ... a tragedy.
The Alchemist-- Paulo Coehlo
Electric Koolade Acid Test--- Tom Wolfe
Cosmicomics-- Italo Calvino
EARTHSONG ( a picture book )
Atlas Shrugged-- Ayn Raynd
and a question: to whoever reads Vonnegut: what book would you say is his most evocative?? i just read Cat's Cradle... and am still curious about it... hm..
PROPHET by Khalil Gibran
RELIGION OF MAN by Rabindranath Tagore
Apart from these, Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene as writers provide some realistic insights into the human mind. Dosteyevsky is good but dark and Orwell explains political systems beautifully.
So i must add 1984 by George Orwell.
Nevermore, which translation did you read?
NIGHT by Elie Wiesel
Again, before Oprah liked it.
you guys are so much cooler than oprah.
reading right now: 100 years of solitude...
so far so good, book won nobel prize...
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