Sophie's World by Jostein GaardnerI think I'd read this, a good while ago, but as I was reading through, I found it all seeming very new. It was a great book to read in close proximity to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, as it filled out some of the gaps in my understanding of the philosophy connected to that book. And it is an amazing ( Read more... )

The full text of ZATAOMM is available here

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig

Wow. Just... wow. My favourite film is It's a Wonderful Life; it's far and above everything else, even films I grew up with and have watched literally dozens if not hundreds of times. For awhile I've been aware that my pantheon of books has no similar head deity... I'd have probably ( Read more... )

The Pig That Wants to be Eaten by Julian BagginiThe title of this book is taken from the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, which scores it points from the word go. It's a book of thought experiments, or morality posers. Basically, 100 questions saying 'is x ok?' or 'what should a do in b situation?', and then drawing some often very interesting ( Read more... )

Watch these. They're by Alan Watts and Trey Parker/Matt Stone, and they are very short and quick to stream. And work safe (no, really). And...

Sheer Genius.

Yesterday I randomly picked up and read The Tao of Pooh. Aside from reminding me how brilliantly crafted A. A. Milne's stories are, it very effectively explained some of the concepts involved in the Tao, which I'd previously lumped in a mental bracket with 'religions', which of course is filed under 'sometimes interesting but essentially useless' ( Read more... )