# What's beside your bedside?



## Martinelv (Aug 10, 2004)

Apart from bottles of tablets, condoms, guns and, perhaps like me, a lampshade that talks to me and tells me to set fire to things.

I mean books. What are you reading? This is a big thing with me. People MUST read. You only have to go into a library and what a wealth of knowledge!! I can't bare the thought of dying without cramming in as much information, literature and poetry as I can. There is so much I don't know about.

Anyway, my beside books are, all half read or less, as I can't read one in a single sitting:

Atonement, by Ian Mckewen.
Grimms' Fairy Tales, by the Brothers Grimm.
Genius - a biogrophy of Richard Feynmann.
Voss, by Patrick White
Baltisar and Blimunda, by Jose Saramanga.
Bleak (f*****g) House, by Dickens.

I hate Dickens. Hate it. I just can't read more than a page at a time. But I feel I must, just like Shakespear, and the only one I've managed of his in the childrens version.


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## jc (Aug 10, 2004)




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## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

Wow. You hate Dickens? There's your life's problems right there man. Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist are genius. Now Robert Louis Stevenson, he was pedantic, and yet Treausure Island is one of my favorite boyhood reads. I grew up devouring classics. I sent my first book to a publisher when I was six - it was entitled_ How to Be a Magician_ (I took up sleight of hand that year), and the next year I read _The Phantom Toll Booth_ which I still love. When I was eight I read Robert Louis Stevenson (I loved pirates) and Herman Mellville's _Moby Dick_. I realized, even then, that Herman Melville was one of the driest reads you can have, and I stand by that opinion to this day.

Books I am reading? Well, they are more meditation books of late.

In my Own Words: Memorial Edition ; Pope John Paul II

Time Magazine

Clinical Evidence : Compendium of Medical Studies

Kabbalah of Money (Rabbinical Wisdom on the use of money - honestly, I'm not impressed. Charity doesnt play a large part in their mindset )

Deus Caritas Est

Independent Digital Filmmaking and Low Budget Filmmaking (both for the film I'm making)

St. Athanasius's treatise on St. Antony of the Desert (also for the film)

I'd like to get back to more entertaining reads eventually, but right now I think its important to focus on growing and learning.

peace
Homeskooled

PS - Martin, Grimm's and Genius are great books. A collection of their worst stories called Grimm's Grimmest is interesting.


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## Ayato (Jul 1, 2006)

Here is what im currently working on;

Designer Evolution
A Scanner Darkly
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
Confessions of a crap artist
Foundations
Natural Born Cyborgs
Crash


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## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

> Here is what im currently working on;
> 
> Designer Evolution
> A Scanner Darkly
> ...


Heavy. I looked up Designer Evolution on B&N and here is a quote about the book that I thought was quite interesting...

Refuting theistic metaphysics for biopsychology, the author declares "'the soul is dead'-not because we do not believe in love-quite the opposite-but because we no longer need to believe there is an immortal ghost living inside us in order to appreciate its value. For we recognize both the neurochemical basis and the logic of love. 'Goodwill to all men' is a rational tactic for mutual survival and well-being. We no longer need God in order to be good-though a suicide bomber needs him to be bad."


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## Pancthulhu (May 27, 2006)

The Idiots Guide to Buddhism

Liber Null - Peter Carroll

Angels and Demons - Dan Brown (like the Da Vinci Code, only really really crap)


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## falling_free (Nov 3, 2004)

The da vinchi code








jesus and the godess








dr who - the monsters inside








The book of secrets









Abstract art book (cant remember full title)


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## Epiphany (Apr 28, 2006)

Up the Duff - Kaz Cooke 
(Some other pregnancy book that is so boring I can't remember the title) 
The Nameless - Ramsey Campbell (horror / thriller)
Silence of the Lambs & Red Dragon - Thomas Harris (haven't started yet)
Emotional Alchemy - Tara Bennett-Goleman
(Some Taoist mini-book that one of my friends sent me to read as a thankyou for helping him edit his Taoism website...have picked it up a hundred times to read but keep putting it down...I keep it next to my bed to remind me in case he asks me again if I've read it yet, but seeing it just makes me feel like a lousy friend...wish I shared his enthusiasm).


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## Guest (Jul 13, 2006)

Slaughterhouse-Five (or: The children's crusade: a duty-dance with death) by Kurt Vonnegut

'Regeneration' and 'the Ghost Road' by Pat Barker


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## Martinelv (Aug 10, 2004)

> Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist are genius


Yes, I know they are, and that's what infuriates me. I just can't get into them for some reason. I've read quite a lot of classics, from Crime and Punishment to Moby Dick (incidently, is the Starbuck franchise named after one of it's characters?), and enjoyed them. But it's just something with Dickens. His writing just seems...well.....sticky.

Incidently Epiphany, Manhunter is a great book - far, far better than Silence of the Lambs. And the film, directed by my favourite director (Michael Mann - Heat, etc) is stupendous. Absolutely fantastic. The remake of it was a travesty.

Regarding Dan Brown, I must confess to reading the Da-Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, becaus they are such an easy read. But they are so...well...similar. Attractive woman/Intelligent professor invesitage something with 1,100,101 million twists and turns, and you know after the first page what the outcome will be.


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## Axel19 (Aug 11, 2004)

'Critique of Pure Reason' by Immanuel Kant. It's a real page turner.

'Sharks and other Sea Predators'

'Spanish Vocabulary Builder'

A picture of Michael.J.Fox.


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## Epiphany (Apr 28, 2006)

> Incidently Epiphany, Manhunter is a great book - far, far better than Silence of the Lambs.


Thanks...will have to check it out. I only bought the Silence of the Lambs / Red Dragon one because it was in a discount bin for $6. Never read it and I like to compare the book with the film.



> A picture of Michael.J.Fox.


Axel??? Please don't tell me it's in a pink frame smeared with lipstick. Actually, have you read his autobiography "Lucky Man"? I really enjoyed it...have read it twice in fact.


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## sebastian (Aug 11, 2004)

Just to further frustrate people on dial-up i thought i'd just post the cover of the main book i'm reading right now,


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