(k) The 20 books I read in 2012 :)

Starting dates, titles, authors, and some comments / quotes that I could think of. (The best books have been linked to their own pages on Amazon.) Scroll down to books 18 and 16 if you're short of time! :9

 

4-Mar-2012: 1. "The Zahir" by Paulo Coelho

 

11-Mar-2012: 2. "Giving: How each of us can change the world" by Bill Clinton

Fave! I remember Clinton was in my town once and did a book-signing event in a Totally Normal Bookshop. Wish I'd gone there. D: If you like or are interested in this book, you may also like "The life you can save" by Peter Singer! :D

 

24-Mar-2012: 3. "Egalias döttrar" by Gerd Brantenberg

Fave! English title: "Egalia's daughters: A satire of the sexes". It's from the 70's, and a big fun "How would you like it if..." question.

 

27-Mar-2012: 4. "On the road: The original scroll" by Jack Kerouac

The uncensored version, which was published in 2007... I had seen "On the road" mentioned in a couple of other books and got curious. And as I was "planning" an epic North American trip (2013, YEAH?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!), I thought I'd better check this out (since it would suck to return home and THEN read the cult book and maybe become a huge fangirl and scream "AW MAN I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THAT KEWL SPOT THAT I'M SURE HASN'T EVEN BEEN DEMOLISHED SINCE 1947!!!!!!1"). It was pretty fun (as was the little 2012 movie), and I eventually decided to read his 400000000 other books as well.

 

5-Apr-2012: 5. "River out of Eden: A Darwinian view of life" by Richard Dawkins

Dawkins is always a good read. I had heard that this little book doesn't really mention anything one won't find in his other books, but I have to... collect the whole set, dammit. And refresh my biology. :p

 

14-Apr-2012: 6. "The Dharma bums" by Jack Kerouac

Fave! Well, there's quite a bit of stuff about Buddhism... and stuff... that I didn't... ahem... get... :p But word around the campfire is there are worse things than Buddhism. :B *wink* *wink* *wink* In any case, this books is said to have ignited the "rucksack revolution" and if that means the hobby of backpacking, I can see why. :D

"And as I say, that hummingbird, a beautiful little blue hummingbird no bigger than a dragonfly, kept making a whistling jet dive at me, definitely saying hello to me, every day, usually in the morning, and I always yelled back at him a greeting. Finally he began to hover in the open window of the shack, buzzing there with his furious wings, looking at me beadily, then, flash, he was gone. That California humming guy...

Though sometimes I was afraid he would drive right into my head with his long beaker like a hatpin." x)

 

19-Apr-2012: 7. "The town and the city" by Jack Kerouac

The first novel he published.

 

8-May-2012: 8. "The sea is my brother" by Jack Kerouac

A short early novel, and many letters from his youth.

 

28-May-2012: 9. "Lonesome traveler" by Jack Kerouac

I read it on mah travels. Hardcore quote from little Mexican village:

"And when I wanted to go to the john I was directed to an ancient stone seat which overlorded the entire village like some king's throne and there I had to sit in full sight of everybody, it was completely in the open - mothers passing by smiled politely, children stared with fingers in mouth, young girls hummed at their work."

 

22-Jun-2012: 10. "Big Sur" by Jack Kerouac

My second fave Jack book so far? Cute non-humans abound. ^_^ Here's a mule quote you may recognize from elsewhere on my Flickr:

"... So I feed Alf the last of my apples which he receives with big faroff teeth inside his soft hairy muzzle, never biting, just muffing up my apple from my outstretched palm, and chomping away sadly, turning to scratch his behind against a tree with a big erotic motion that gets worse and worse till finally he's standing there with erectile dong that would scare the Whore of Babylon let alone me."

 

6-Jul-2012: 11. "Visions of Gerard" by Jack Kerouac

About his kind dead brother. Actually part 1 in the "Duluoz legend", but I guess 99.99999999999999999999% of readers start with "On the road" and that works out too...

 

14-Jul-2012: 12. "Doctor Sax" by Jack Kerouac

"So one night, from the Phebe house, we walked Blanche (who later in such a walk insisted on bringing my dog Beauty because she's afraid of the dark and as the little beast escorted her home it rushed out and got run over by Roger Carrufel of Pawtucketville who was somehow driving an Austin tinycar that night and the low bumper killed it, previously on Salem Street at Joe's lawn door it got run over by an ordinary car but rolled with the wheels and never got hurt - I heard the news of its death at precisely that moment in my life when I was lying in bed finding out that my tool had sensations in the tip - they yelled up to me thru the transom, 'Ton chien est mort! (Your dog is dead!)' and they brought it home dying - on the kitchen floor we and Blanche and Carrufel with hat in hand watch Beauty die, Beauty dies the night I discover sex, they wonder why I'm mad -) ..."

 

29-Jul-2012: 13. "Baby driver: A story about myself" by Jan Kerouac

Jack's wild and independent daughter (1952-1996), whom he met twice. Wish I were as rootless and competent as she was. :p

"I was often deluged, in those days, by a feeling of fabulous freedom. Lasting only an instant, it washed over me like a bucket of cold water, reminding me I was no longer simply a housewife. John had never intended for me to become one; it was a role I had climbed into myself. For three years it had been a lovely change from being a juvenile delinquent. But now I could really sense a page turning - even remember looking out in my mind's eye toward Santa Fe and the rest of the general direction south, and seeing things laid out in the future - nothing in particular, but an immensely inviting vacuum waiting to be filled."

 

4-Aug-2012: 14. "Trainsong" by Jan Kerouac

The continuation of the above story. The edition I got also includes some interviews and photos. Btw, I believe Jan's books have gone out of print. I was able to find used copies and, contrary to my habit, I refrained from underlining or margin-scrawling. JUST SAYIN! *cough* *cough* *hums jolly little pirate tune* ... UPDATE: In 2013 I visited the little Beat Museum in San Francisco, and saw Jan's books (and a biography or two) in their shop.

 

16-Aug-2012: 15. "Maggie Cassidy" by Jack Kerouac

 

29-Aug-2012: 16. "The better angels of our nature: Why violence has declined" by Steven Pinker

Fave! THE MYTH-DESTRUCTION!!! THE ATTITUDE CHANGES!!! THE EXPERIMENTS!!! THE IDEAS!!! THE TRICKS!!! 8D I would say this was the second most important book I read this year. I'd come across a couple of articles on the decline of murder and war before, but this is A BIT more detailed.

In short, Pinker writes of the following: Six trends ("The Pacification Process" + "the Civilizing Process" + "the Humanitarian Revolution" + "the Long Peace" + "the New Peace" + "the Rights Revolutions"), five "inner demons" (predatory or instrumental violence + dominance + revenge + sadism + ideology), four "better angels" (empathy + self-control + the moral sense + reason), and five historical forces ("The Leviathan" + commerce + feminization + cosmopolitanism + "the escalator of reason").

He does point out that "the Animal Rights Revolution has been partly canceled out by another development, the Broiler Chicken Revolution." :/

 

17-Oct-2012: 17. "Vanity of Duluoz" by Jack Kerouac

Possibly my third fave Jack book so far, unless I forgot too much of "On the road". :)

"... so they ambulance me to the nut hatch. Where I'm greeted by a colloquial questionnaire in which is recorded the fact that I've had the highest IQ intelligence rating in the history of friggin Newport RI Naval Base and therefore I'm suspect. As being, mind you, an 'officer in the American Communist Party'."

 

28-Oct-2012: 18. "Practical ethics: Third edition" by Peter Singer

Fave! Probably the most important book I read this year. Peter Singer is pretty much the most logical and BULLSHIT-FREE person in the universe (of which he should be president). :D When I disagree with him, it's in an "Oh well, whatever" way. This book covers many walks of life such as abortion, environmentalism, charity, and animal rights.

 

"The belief that issues about humans should always take precedence over issues about animals reflects a popular prejudice against taking the interests of animals seriously - a prejudice no better founded than the prejudice of white slave owners against taking seriously the interests of their African slaves. It is easy for us to criticize the prejudices of our grandfathers, from which our fathers freed themselves. It is more difficult to search for prejudices among the beliefs and values we hold. What is needed now is a willingness to follow the arguments where they lead, without a prior assumption that the issue is not worth our attention."

 

"In humans, prior to about eighteen weeks of gestation, the cerebral cortex is not sufficiently developed for synaptic connections to take place within it – in other words, the signals that give rise to pain in an adult are not being received. Between eighteen and twenty-five weeks, the brain of the fetus reaches a stage at which there is some nerve transmission in those parts associated with consciousness. Even then, however, the fetus appears to be in a persistent state of sleep and, therefore, may not be able to perceive pain. The fetus begins to 'wake up' at a gestational age of around thirty weeks. This is, of course, well beyond the stage of viability, and a 'fetus' that was alive and outside the womb at this stage would be a premature baby and not a fetus at all. … Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of abortions are performed much earlier than eighteen weeks – in the United States, over 85 percent of abortions are done in the first trimester, that is, when the fetus is less than thirteen weeks old. Therefore, most abortions are unlikely to involve any experience of pain for the fetus."

 

20-Nov-2012: 19. "Visions of Cody" by Jack Kerouac

"Well, Masturbation. There's absolutely no sense whatever in lettin your pants down à la shittin and then, cause you're too lazy to get up, or make other shifts, simply milk the cow (with appropriate thoughts) and let the milk at its sweet keen pitch spurt downward, between thighs, when the urge at that moment is upward, onward, out, straining, to make everything come out as though gathering it from all corners of the loins to purse it out the shivering push bone - No, with the thing flapping and milking below, not only that the seat cover restricting the natural quiver-bow jump of the cock - at the great moment there is a sudden sorrow 'cause you can't push in, out, over, onward, at it - but just sit dumbly (like a man sits down to piss) oozing below for miserable hygiene and convenience's sake in an awkward woebegone, in fact castrated with legs-tangled-in-pants position and dumb shirt tails hanging à la shit - and barely missing the real draining kick and ending up having done nothing but clean out the loins as if you'd stuck a dry rag in there and pull-mopped out your life's desire." o_O

 

21-Dec-2012: 20. "The hidden reality: Parallel universes and the deep laws of the cosmos" by Brian Greene

Fave! Well, I haven't got that far into it yet, and half expect him to lose me completely 5 pages from now... BUT... even if that happens, it may be THE BRUTALEST MINDFUCK I've ever read. (Update: Chapters 2 and 10, at least. :B ) I liked "The elegant universe" and "The fabric of the cosmos" too, but this book seems like the most interesting one. :D I hated physics class, but Greene's books are math-free. (There's some math in the notes for people who haz teh smart.) He'll say "The math shows this and this" and offer an analogy with something familiar.

"The subject of parallel universes is highly speculative. No experiment or observation has established that any version of the idea is realized in nature. So my point in writing this book is not to convince you that we're part of a multiverse. I'm not convinced - and, speaking generally, no one should be convinced - of anything not supported by hard data. That said, I find it both curious and compelling that numerous developments in physics, if followed sufficiently far, bump into some variation on the parallel-universe theme. It's not that physicists are standing ready, multiverse nets in their hands, seeking to snare any passing theory that might be slotted, however awkwardly, into a parallel-universe paradigm. Rather, all of the parallel-universe proposals that we will take seriously emerge unbidden from the mathematics of theories developed to explain conventional data and observations."

 

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Vegan FAQ! :)

 

The Web Site the Meat Industry Doesn't Want You to See.

 

Please watch Earthlings.

Done