What Book Are You Currently Reading?

[Eldritch]

Will start reading this later:



The 18th, and supposedly (and hopefully) also the last installment of the Burke series.

I suppose that burnt match on the cover suggests that Baby Boy Burke (or possibly even Vachss himself) is all spent.

From Vachss' site:

Another Life is the end of a journey that began with Flood, Andrew Vachss' first novel featuring career criminal Burke and his Family of Choice. "I didn't set out to write a series. Who but a terminal narcissist would?" the author says of his 1985 debut. But twenty-three years--and seventeen Burke novels--later, Andrew Vachss is finally bringing down the curtain on a series that has been described as "urban nightmares" by Publishers Weekly, and "strong, gritty, gut-bucket stuff" by the Chicago Tribune. Anyone who has felt a part of the family that includes recurring series characters Max, the Mole, Michelle, the Prof, Terry, Clarence, and Mama--characters the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says "are as sharply defined as if they were etched in steel"--will want to be there for the end of the journey, as best-selling, award- winning author Andrew Vachss ties up the loose ends, and sends his Family of Choice off to ... Another Life.

[Amapola]

al-Andalus versus Spain by Serafin Fanjul

[Tony]

I've almost finished The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind , very intriguing.

Jaynes theorized that a shift from bicameralism marked the beginning of introspection and consciousness as we know it today. According to Jaynes, this bicameral mentality began malfunctioning or "breaking down" during the second millennium BC. He speculates that primitive ancient societies tended to collapse periodically, (as in Egypt's Intermediate Periods and the periodically vanishing cities of the Mayas) as changes in the environment strained the socio-cultural equilibria sustained by this bicameral mindset. The mass migrations of the second millennium BC, caused by Mediterranean-wide earthquakes, created a rash of unexpected situations and stresses that required ancient minds to become more flexible and creative. Self-awareness, or consciousness, was the culturally evolved solution to this problem. This necessity of communicating commonly observed phenomena among individuals who shared no common language or cultural upbringing encouraged those communities to become self-aware to survive in a new environment. Thus consciousness, like bicamerality, emerged as a neurological adaptation to social complexity in a changing world.

Jaynes further argues that divination, prayer and oracles arose during this breakdown period, in an attempt to summon instructions from the "gods" whose voices could no longer be heard.[3] The consultation of special bicamerally operative individuals, or of casting lots and so forth, was a response to this loss, a transitional era depicted for example in the book of 1 Samuel. It was also evidenced in children who could communicate with the gods, but as their neurology was set by language and society they gradually lost that ability. Those who continued prophesying, being bicameral according to Jaynes, could be killed.[6][7]

Leftovers of the bicameral mind today, according to Jaynes, include religion, hypnosis, possession, schizophrenia and the general sense of need for external authority in decision-making.

http://www.julianjaynes.org/bicameralmind.php

[Piparskeggr]

My set of the original Dungeons and Dragons rules, which I bought in the fall of 1975 when I first started playing RPG's, along with the 4 supplements that came out over the next few years...

[Psychonaut]

My set of the original Dungeons and Dragons rules, which I bought in the fall of 1975 when I first started playing RPG's, along with the 4 supplements that came out over the next few years...

I don't have anything quite that old, but I've still got my 1st edition AD&D set.

[Beorn]

England: The Autobiography. 2,000 Years of English History By Those Who Saw It Happen

[Piparskeggr]

I found my "Fumble" chart, but haven't located my "Critical Hit" one yet.

A couple of friends want to learn "old-school" RPGing.

[Óttar]

Just got these from my town library. The first book is a bit sensationalist. I'm sure I'll enjoy the second more.

Books I'll read soon:

(Thanks, Absinthe )

and



That doesn't include the books I'll be reading for the article I'm writing.

[Arrow Cross]

Just finished The Mystique of War by prominent Italian theologist-historian Dag Tessore.

Unfortunately, he has yet to publish it in English.

[The Lawspeaker]

A book borrowed from one of my pals:

Bronnen van onze beschaving (deel 7)- de vroeg-christelijke wereld en de islam.


And I know what he is reading too:

Ryokan- A Japanese tradition (Dr. Fahr Becker)- he borrowed it from me.