Book Tagging Game

All right, Karen, I’ll get in on this. I have to admit that, when I go into the home of someone I do not know very well, the first thing I do is scan the bookshelves to get a sense of what their thinking is like. I had a very potent experience a number of years ago – an “epiphany” is the current buzzword – while visiting the home of one of my heroes, Ralph Waldo Emerson (he was not at home). I wandered through various rooms looking at the books on his shelves, a number of which being titles I had read. I noted bookmarks still in some of the books, and had this powerful feeling of being connected to Emerson’s mind, . . . a feeling that lasted for a few days.

I have been influenced by such a hodge-podge of thinkers – whose works have entered into a synthesis that is difficult to unravel, . . . but here goes:

Total number of books I’ve owned:

I have never counted them, but they must run into the thousands, . . . and I’m not even finished coloring in some of them yet!

Last book I bought:

Robert Kaplan, THE NOTHING THAT IS: A NATURAL HISTORY OF ZERO (bought it yesterday, in fact, at one of my favorite places “The Museum of Jurassic Technology” in Culver City. If any of you come to LA give me a call and my wife and I will take you there).

Last book I read:

I will list three that I read at about the same time: Leonard Shlain, ART AND PHYSICS; Chris Hedges, WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING; Michael Pollan, THE BOTANY OF DESIRE.

Five books that mean a lot to me:

J. Krishnamurti (a number of titles); Humphrey Neill, THE ART OF CONTRARY THINKING; Leopold Kohr, THE BREAKDOWN OF NATIONS; H.L. Mencken, CHRESTOMATHY; Carl Jung, THE UNDISCOVERED SELF; and a bonus work – recommended to me by Rothbard back in 1963, and got me started in the field of revisionist (i.e., accurate) history – Gabriel Kolko, THE TRIUMPH OF CONSERVATISM.

Tag five others and have them do this on their blogs:

Marc Victor
Justin Raimondo
Dave Ferguson
Stu Krone
George W. Bush (other than the “Grinch” series!)

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4:22 pm on June 18, 2005