Whatca Readin'?
Twyla at the Whimsical Mystic blog recently posted an entry asking her readers, "Whatcha Readin'?" Here were my answers. As usual there's a stack of books I'm in the middle of reading...
Why the Mystics Matter Now, by Frederick Bauerschmidt, a wonderful little introduction to the Christian mystics; this is the book our Christian Mysticism Meetup Group is reading.
The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, a well-written and truly suspenseful novel about a scholar's search for the truth about Dracula.
The Gospel of Thomas: I'm re-reading the excellent translation by Stevan Davies, recently released in a new edition (with ribbon marker!) by the Buddhist publisher, Shambhala Library.
Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, by an anonymous Russian theosophist who converted to Roman Catholicism. I will definitely be blogging in-depth about this book in the near future. The book is highly recommended by the Cistercian monks who re-introduced Centering Prayer to the church, Fr. Thomas Keating and the late Fr. Basil Pennington (that last link is from a comprehensive website devoted to the book). It's a massive book that relates the Major Arcana of the Tarot to Christian mysticism, Jungian psychology, the Kabbalah, Buddhist and Hindu thought, and philosophy (he quotes Nietzsche and Teilhard de Chardin a lot). It's precisely the kind of eclectic stew that appeals to a theological mutt like myself.
So to the readers of this blog: I invite you to share, by clicking on the "comments" button, Whatcha Readin'?
Darrell
www.WildFaith.com
Why the Mystics Matter Now, by Frederick Bauerschmidt, a wonderful little introduction to the Christian mystics; this is the book our Christian Mysticism Meetup Group is reading.
The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, a well-written and truly suspenseful novel about a scholar's search for the truth about Dracula.
The Gospel of Thomas: I'm re-reading the excellent translation by Stevan Davies, recently released in a new edition (with ribbon marker!) by the Buddhist publisher, Shambhala Library.
Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, by an anonymous Russian theosophist who converted to Roman Catholicism. I will definitely be blogging in-depth about this book in the near future. The book is highly recommended by the Cistercian monks who re-introduced Centering Prayer to the church, Fr. Thomas Keating and the late Fr. Basil Pennington (that last link is from a comprehensive website devoted to the book). It's a massive book that relates the Major Arcana of the Tarot to Christian mysticism, Jungian psychology, the Kabbalah, Buddhist and Hindu thought, and philosophy (he quotes Nietzsche and Teilhard de Chardin a lot). It's precisely the kind of eclectic stew that appeals to a theological mutt like myself.
So to the readers of this blog: I invite you to share, by clicking on the "comments" button, Whatcha Readin'?
Darrell
www.WildFaith.com
posted by Darrell Grizzle | 8:18 PM
12 Comments:
Currently, The Gospel of Thomas is the only "interesting" thing I'm reading. But there's also PHP texts, ColdFusion, and always, always, more about CSS.
It's late, so maybe I'm not catching on... What are PHP and CSS???
You already saw what I'm reading, but I want to add this: I just started the Gospel of Thomas and I find it electrifying! Honestly, it's the first "Christian" wisdom text that has spoken much to me in quite awhile. It made me kind of sad, so I'm excited at this (to me) totally new thing.
(I'm reading the translation by Leloup, which has commentary written in with it)
I'm always reading a bunch of things as well. Right now I don't have a page-turner.
A find in an east Atlanta junk shop - Rationale of the Dirty Joke, by G. Legman (yes, that's the name), 1968 (811 pp!).
"The resistance to the prevention and cure of venereal disease by penicillin, during World War II, was based on the same jeaous confusion on the part of the patria potestas running the world."
And rereading two others:
Syncope: The Philosophy of Rapture, by Catherine Clement
"Philosophers constitutionally hate syncope and everything that resembles it - the upheaval of wit, the unruliness of passion and anger. And since delay exists, at least its practice will not escape philosophy. The philosophers' true goal is control: to control the rhythm of thought, its stops, its hesitations, and even what are commonly called its ulterior motives."
Zombification, by Andrei Codrescu
"This is the time when the music that seems to come from your head actually comes from the street. When the music you hear from the street comes from your head. When the music you hear in your head lodges itself in your dreams. And the music that was in your dreams comes from the street. This is the time when the part of you that is music overcomes the part of you that is silence. This is when music rules the fools. It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans, ladies and gentlemen, and the good times roll, and you might as well roll with them because there is only music to hold on to."
Right now I'm finishing up "The Essential Writings of Thich Nhat Hanh.
Thanks for the reference to the translation of the Gospel of Thomas by Stevan Davies. I have been wanting to get a "Thomas" and now my librarian, one time book retailer partner has that version on order.
Otherwise I just finished reading "The Naked Civil Servant". Quentin Crip's autobiography. A long overdue and interesting read.
Just started a novel by Tom Spanbauer "The Man Who Fell in Love with The Moon" and so far I'm intrigued by the social setting which is indigenous North American and homosexual and lat nineteenth century and Idaho.
D
Interesting... Just yesterday a friend recommended "The Man Who Fell in Love with The Moon" -- he said it was a "gay classic" that I should read.
PHP is PHP:Hypertext Preprocessor, one of the most popular Web server languages. CSS is Cascading Style Sheets, the language that tells browsers how to display HTML.
I've posted my list on my blog.
Wow! Earthmystic (Carl McColman) is currently reading 31 books! Go to his blog for a fascinating and detailed explanation of what he is reading and why.
Darrell ~ How did you like The Historian?
I liked The Historian. It kept me up late several nights, both because I didn't want to stop reading and also because of the level of suspense at times. It's a vampire novel, with the focus on a scholarly search for information about Dracula's history. So we enter the world of dusty manuscripts, ancient monasteries, family secrets, and undead librarians. Some reviewers have called it "The Dracula Code," comparing it to The Da Vinci Code. I think it's every bit as good as, and maybe even better than, The Da Vinci Code (which I really liked).
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