Now reading...

[Persephone]

Currently I am reading René Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy

[Aluqak]

I also not so much for hallucinogens so I think from 3rd book it is better. But I liked to read the previous ones to - just to be in picture

+1

+2

[Persephone]

Currently I am reading René Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy

After few more pages I need to say that his "doubt way" of thinking fits me in my current longterm mood (crisis for L) a lot.

[lavaniegosII]

I started to read once again an excellent book of hermetic nordic theme in spanish. It is called "El destino de los dioses" -Interpretaci0n de la mitología N0rdica The fate of the gods - An interpretation of the Nordic Mithology (Author - Patxi Lanceros  / from Spain). It's about the big importance and the role of Fate in the Nordic Mythos.  The book has 3 parts:

1.- Ases y Vanes: Estructura y dinámica de la mitología N0rdica (Aesir and Vanir: Structure and dinamic of Nordic Mithology)
- La primera guerra (the first war)
-Ases (Aesir)
-Vanes
-Tras la guerra (---- war :p)

2.- Balder y Loki: Tragedia y destino.
- Balder: el dios-símbolo (Balder: The god-symbol)
- Loki: la sombra diab0lica (Loki: The diabolic shadow)

3.- Ragnarok: El destino de los dioses (Ragnarok: The fate of the gods)
-El poder del destino en la mitología N0rdica (The power of fate/destiny in Nordic Mythos)
-El destino, el mundo y los disoes (Fate, the world and the gods)

Conclusi0n.

[Loke]

  Gods, monsters and men , we ll day together in the end 


  yo yo yo

[The One]

Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men"

[Loke]

  Encore Proence . really nic... nah it sucks up to now


  yo yo yo http://www.plume-noire.com/culture/books/provence.html


 

[saphira]

Kate Mosse - Labyrinth    Brilliant! Really a book  I've been looking forward and it's even better than I expected!

[Persephone]

Neil Gaiman - Coraline

wonderful, absolutely.

[Persephone]

Did someone around here read both - "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" and for example some Castaneda books or "Four Agreements" by Ruiz? 

[Lucy]

Why, are those similar?

I just started to read "Ungeduld des Herzens" by Stefan Zweig, in Hungarian. It's about... compassion...

[Persephone]

I think that in result they are talking about the same. - very very freely said.

[saphira]

Huh..I've started reading this..about a week ago...and I'm still at the beggining..  Bob Curran - The Creatures of Celtic Myth..

Giants, demons, fairies,monsters..merfolk..halflings..solitary fairies and sprites..witches, wizards and wise women.. ancient heroes...anything you want.. 

[Aluqak]

Well, after a month or so, I finally got something worth reading... and it is a good one .
I'm now reading "Historia secreta de Costaguana" (the secret story of Costaguana) by Juan Gabriel Vásquez.
It's a delicious and very cynic story about Colombia's history during the 19th century, written in the most hilarous Colombian Spanish I have read in ages.
And you know, it's pretty odd, because it's the first time of my life that I read something written by someone of my age, and say: "Man, this guy is a mature author now".
It makes me realize that I am part of the mature and adult generation . Man, I'm a freaking fossil!

[Mystique]

Huh..I've started reading this..about a week ago...and I'm still at the beggining..  Bob Curran - The Creatures of Celtic Myth..

Giants, demons, fairies,monsters..merfolk..halflings..solitary fairies and sprites..witches, wizards and wise women.. ancient heroes...anything you want.. 

Fairies?! 

now I know which book to read next

[Elizabeth]

Currently reading Orhan Pamuk's "The Black Book". I recall mentioning him before, he's truly amazing, his way of writing, the hidden quotes ("Sometimes it snows with snow, and sometimes with darkness"), the huge amount of Turkish culture.... it's really helpful, and I am sooo thrilled when I find a name I recognize ("Yay, I was there with Jack!") 

[Aluqak]

Heya Livi!
That was one of the best books I read last year. Pamuk really has a very nice and original way to tell his stories. Every time I read one of his book I fell a huge need to go to Istambul and explore that city.

[Persephone]

Next the  "Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Dictionary" for studies I borrowed from our SH new translation of book written by Norwegian journalist. "Bokhandleren i Kabul, et familiendrama"- The bookseller of Kabul.

The journalist (Åsne Sierstad) was working in Serbia, Baghdad, Iraq, Afhghanistan and Pakistan. This story comes from her experiences in Afghanistan where she decided to live for some time in family of one bookseller.
And it's very far from being funny. Anyway it's very interesting reading.

[Lucy]

I'm reading a book of Franz Kafka's short stories. Somehow it's about time to read them again. I found one on the subway today touching me more than usual. Sorry, my Queen, I just have to post the whole English translation here.




Before the Law



Before the law sits a gatekeeper.  To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law.  But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment.  The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on.  “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.”  At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside.  When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition.  But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper.  But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other.  I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.” 

The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside.  The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate.  There he sits for days and years.  He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests.  The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet.  The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper.  The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” 

During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously.  He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law.  He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself.  He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper.  Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him.  But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law.  Now he no longer has much time to live.  Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper.  He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body.  The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know, then?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.”  “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?”  The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you.  I’m going now to close it.”



MY door won't be closed in front of me.

[Persephone]

You know, I don't like Kafka... but this is nice