2008

Hesitation abound as I sit at my laptop, reviewing the reading I have done during 2008. It is well known that I struggle with the arbitrariness of temporal distinctions, affording them, no truth. Despite this, I feel the desire to take an intellectual field trip and analyze what I read. Below I have ranked what I read by category. I find it difficult to define exactly how I arrived at such rankings. In a word I would say that the rankings reflect the impact the works had on my thought and development. I am excluding three works from the philosophy list: Kant’s Critique of Pure reason, Prolegomena and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. I read a considerable amount of the Critique, but do not feel that I fully understand it, thus excluding it from the list of read books. The same goes for the Prolegomena and Tractatus. This is not to say that I fully understand everything that I read, but with these works I am not comfortable including them on the list.

Novels

1. The Professor of Desire and The Dying Animal; Philip Roth

2. Nausea; Jean-Paul Sartre

3. Life is Elsewhere; Milan Kundera

4. Niels Lyhne; Jens Peter Jacobson

5. Crime and Punishment; Dostoyevsky

6. Portnoy’s Complaint; Philip Roth

7. Ignorance; Milan Kundera

8. Everything is Illuminated; Jonathan Safran Foe

9. The Immoralist; Andre Gide

10. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Junot Diaz

Philosophy

1. The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals; Immanuel Kant

2. On the Genealogy of Morals; Friedrich Nietzsche

3. Naming and Necessity; Saul Kripke

4. The History of Sexuality Volume 1: Michel Foucault

5. The Metastases of Enjoyment; Slavoj Zizke

Drama

1. The Three Sisters; Anton Chehov

2. The Frogs; Aristophanes

3. Peer Gynt; Henrik Ibsen

4. Uncle Vanya; Anton Chekhov

5. The Iceman Cometh; Eugene O’Neill

Poetry

1. Poems of Catullus

2. Poems of Martial

3. Jack Kerouac’s Book of Haikus

4. The Panther and the Lash; Langston Hughes

5. That Little Something; Charles Simic

2003 NBA Draft First Round Redo

This is what should have happened.

1. Lebron James-Cavs

2. Chris Bosh-Pistons

3. Dwayne Wade- Nuggets

4. Carmelo Anthony- Raptors

5. Josh Howard-Heat

6. Chris Caman-Clippers

7. Kirk Hinrich- Bulls

8. David West-Bucks

9. Nick Collinson-Knicks

10. Boris Diaw-Wizards

11. Leandro Barbosa- Warriors

12. Travis Outlaw-Sonics

13. Kendrick Perkins- Grizzlies

14. Luke Ridnour- Sonics

15. Mo Williams-Magic

16. Kyle Korver- Celtics

17. Sasha Pavlovic-Suns

18. Steve Blake- Hornets

19. Marquis Daniels- Jazz

20. Jarvis Hayes- Celtics

21. Luke Walton- Hawks

22. Darko Milicic-Nets

23. Troy Bell-Blazers

24. Zaza Paculia-Lakers

25. Dahntay Jones- Pistons

26. Willie Green- Timberwolves

27. Marcus Banks- Grizzlies

28. Sofoklis Schortsanitis- Spurs

29. Brian Cook-Pistons

yeah, i still write, what about it, punk?

Recently as I've been reading a lot of poetry, not entire sticking to my summer reading list I decided to blog this one. Not saying that any of my previous works are going to amount to anything, but I hope I'm on my way to mature poetic development.

Also, pretend this one is in a book; it doesnt work out of context. I'm not sure what to title it.

Binaries in life are agonizing beyond compare.
The fast-paced, what’s hot next, who’s doing
What with whom world where this morning
Is the new yesterday and yesterday is the new
Last week that which is or is not raises the self
To a new level of obsession and doubt, drenched
In anticipation of the ultimate pronouncement.

You either won or lost; you’re either accepted or
Rejected; you either had sex with the red head in
The green dress or you didn’t- no middle ground to
Be had. You currently reading this poem, maybe
By a pool or in a meadow or it is lost, abandoned
In the abyss of my hard drive, never to be read again.

My Ambitious Summer Reading List

My addiction to books makes me very susceptible to obsessions with lists of books. I am constantly tweaking and adding to my essential reading list, and I get butterflies in my stomach when I come across a new list of books. I am back from college for the summer, and have a few months (in between working, being social and trying to get into better shape) to read what I please as much as I can. I am currently in the midst of a drama-kick, but I do not know how long that will continue. I have amassed a list of books (all of which I own) that I plan to read. This is, obviously, subject to change, but as of right now, here is the list. It will be quite interesting to see how many of these I actually read, and what else I come across over the summer.


Philosophy

Language Truth and Logic by A.J. Ayer
The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus
Rameau’s Nephew by Dennis Diderot
D’Alembert’s Dream by Dennis Diderot
Poetry, Language and Thought by Martin Heidegger
Irrational Man by William Barrett
Essays and Aphorisms (Penguin Classics) by Arthur Schopenhauer
This is Not a Pipe by Michel Foucault
Philosophy in the Boudoir by The Marquis de Sade
The Prince by Niccoló Machiavelli
The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche

Literature

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Niels Lyhne by Jens Peter Jacobson
The Immoralist by André Gide
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Ignorance by Milan Kundera
Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Life is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera
The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy
The Plague by Albert Camus
Night by Elie Wiesel
The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Dubliners by James Joyce
Gilgamesh
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Miscellaneous

Mythologies by Roland Barthes
Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud
A Natural History of Latin by Tore Janson
The End of Faith by Sam Harris
The Greek Way to Western Civilization by Edith Hamilton


Drama

Exiles by James Joyce
Volpone by Ben Johnson
Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Phadra by Jean Racine (Wilbur Translation)
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
The Piano Lesson by August Wilson
The Way of the World by William Congreve
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Alcestis by Euripides
The Persians by Aechylus
Seven Against Thebes by Aeshcylus
Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus
The Emperor Jones by Eugene O’Neill
The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare
The Second Shepherd’s Play
Electra by Sophocles
Philoctetes by Sophocles
The Mandrake Root by Nicolló Machiavelli
Dulcitius by Hrotswitha of Gandersheim
Timon of Athens by Shakespeare
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
Our Town by Thornton Wilder
Miss Julie by August Strindberg
King John by William Shakespeare
Casina by Plautus
The Mother in Law by Terence
Undecided Arsitophanes
Undecided Henrik Ibsen
Undecided Euripides (more)
Undecided George Bernard Shaw

Already Read

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Women at the Thesmophoria by Aristophanes

Ranked List

Seeing as I have an obsession with making lists, I have updated the list from two posts ago and ranked the books that are most important to me. I will be updating this list henceforth. (Can one end a sentence with henceforth?) Enjoy

Twilight of the Idols: or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer; Friedrich Nietzsche
Hamlet; William Shakespeare
Ecclesiastes
Poems of Eliot
Poems of Keats
The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals: Immanuel Kant
The Unbearable Lightness of Being; Milan Kundera
The Great Gatsby; F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Trial; Kafka
Beowulf
King Lear; William Shakespeare
The Odyssey; Homer (Fitzgerald)
Niels Lyhne; Jens Peter Jacobson
Candide; Voltaire
The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps; Charles Bukowski
The Anxiety of Influence; Harold Bloom
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; James Joyce
The Merchant of Venice; William Shakespeare
The Three Sisters; Anton Chekhov
The Frogs; Aristophanes
Night; Elie Wiesel
The 100; Michael H. Hart
The Prophet; Khalil Gibran
The Aeneid; Vergil
Ethan Frome; Edith Wharton
The Stranger; Albert Camus
Slaughterhouse-Five; Kurt Vonnegut
The Short Reign of Pippin IV; Steinbeck
The Fall; Albert Camus
The Literary 100; Daniel S. Burt
Animal Farm; George Orwell
A Farewell to Arms; Ernest Hemingway
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian; Kurt Vonnegut
The Panther and the Lash; Langston Hughes
Washington Square; Henry James
The Art of Reading Poetry; Harold Bloom
Great Expectations; Dickens
The Iceman Cometh; Eugene O’Neill
The Bacchae; Euripides
Peer Gynt; Henrik Ibsen
The Sorrow of War; Bao Ninh
Mother Night; Kurt Vonnegut
Cymbeline; Shakespeare
Naming and Necessity; Saul Kripke
The Elegant Universe; Brian Greene
Notes From the Underground; Fyodor Dostoevsky
Deep River; Shusaku Endo
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus; Ludwig Wittgenstein
No Exit; Jean-Paul Sartre
Life is Elsewhere; Milan Kundera
The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde; Robert Louis Stevenson
,Said the Shotgun to the Head; Saul Williams
The Painted Bed; Donald Hall
Oxford History of the Biblical World
“Master Harold”…and the boys; Athol Fugard

UChicago

I have been admitted to The University of Chicago as a transfer from Brandeis University for the fall quarter, 2008. I will begin my sophomore year there.

Heretofore Essential Reading List

A Few of my peers have inquired as to what I would consider my essential reading list. Granted, there are countless works that I have not read, e.g. Don Quixote, that would merit a spot on any list of books. But this is a list of suggested readings, that for one reason or another I have recommended. I do not want to get into the specifics of why I have included them, but trust me that I have good ones. After a point they are ordered in the order which I have read them, I believing beginning with Hart's The 100. So enjoy, and I will be adding to this list as I read more.

The Merchant of Venice; William Shakespeare
Animal Farm; George Orwell
Beowulf
The Short Reign of Pippin IV; John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby; F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Trial; Kafka
The Prophet; Khalil Gibran
The 100; Michael H. Hart
The Elegant Universe; Brian Greene
Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?; Harold Bloom
Freakonomics; Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Ecclesiastes
Ethan Frome; Edith Wharton
Intro to Mathematical Philosophy; Bertrand Russell
Washington Square; Henry James
Atheism: The Case against God; George H. Smith
A Farewell to Arms; Ernest Hemingway
Hamlet; William Shakespeare
The Sorrow of War; Bao Ninh
Mother Night; Kurt Vonnegut
The End of Poverty; Jeffery D. Sachs
Deep River; Shusaku Endo
Twilight of the Idols: or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer; Friedrich Nietzsche
The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems; Charles Bukowski
The Bacchae; Euripides
Cymbeline; Shakespeare
The Anxiety of Influence; Harold Bloom
Talking Dirty to the Gods; Yusef Komunyakaa
The Cherry Orchard; Anton Chekhov
Candide; Voltaire
The Aeneid; Vergil
No Exit; Jean-Paul Sartre
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; James Joyce
Eats, Shoots & Leaves; Lynne Truss
The Stranger; Albert Camus
The Fall; Albert Camus
The Unbearable Lightness of Being; Milan Kundera
The Pig that Wants to be Eaten; Julian Baggini
Poems from Guantánamo; Marc Falkoff
Naming and Necessity; Saul Kripke
The God Delusion; Richard Dawkins
The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals; Immanuel Kant