mor reads

I’m back in Berlin!

I am here at least un­til ear­ly next year when my visa runs out. For July I have a place to live, then will look for a shared flat.

Here’s a read­ing update:
When Ni­et­zsche Wept: A Nov­el of Ob­ses­sion by Irvin D. Yalom
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ⁴⁄₅
This book came to me at a help­ful time as I was deal­ing with a fair amount of de­spair. It was re­al­ly elu­ci­dat­ing to see the way these two men dealt with their ir­ra­tional de­sires and sad­ness. It left me in sur­pris­ing­ly pos­i­tive spir­its, and I ap­pre­ci­at­ed hav­ing this in­tro­duc­tion to Ni­et­zsche and Freud in such a down to Earth and friend­ly way. It made their phi­los­o­phy much more ap­proach­able to have it pre­sent­ed in this nar­ra­tive style.

The Doors of Per­cep­tion & Heav­en and Hell by Al­dous Huxley
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    5/5
Top notch book. Re­al­ly elu­ci­dat­ing and con­stant­ly in­ter­est­ing. I will nev­er look at pat­terns or drap­ery the same way again. It was so re­fresh­ing that Hux­ley had also ex­pe­ri­enced death of the ego, and writes things like. “I, or one of the many not I’s, would do some­thing.” It was re­al­ly re­lax­ing to read some­one else had got­ten to that point. This book fo­cused both on the mun­dane as re­splen­dent and the in­ner re­al­i­ty as in­fi­nite and holy.
I loved the quote, “A Madon­na is 85% drapery.”

Eat­ing An­i­mals by Jonathan Safran Foer
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ³⁄₅
Whew, this book was a doozy. So – I read this at a point in my life where I was eat­ing ve­g­an but strug­gling to find enough to eat and al­ways feel­ing hun­gry. It in­creased the rage I feel to­wards fac­to­ry farm­ing tenfold.
I learned about how chick­ens are slaugh­tered, about how like­ly meat is to con­tain things which can make a per­son sick and about how fe­ces from the slaugh­ter­hous­es is a ma­jor pollutant.
I like Jonathan Safran Foer and it was in­ter­est­ing to hear him speak­ing about his strug­gle in what seemed like an hon­est yet still quite re­searched way. I didn’t think this nov­el came off as preachy, yet it took me a long time to read it (like 12 days) be­cause it was dif­fi­cult to stom­ach at times.
I can’t imag­ine be­ing some­one who wasn’t veg­e­tar­i­an and en­joy­ing read­ing it be­cause it’s filled with so many dif­fi­cult re­al­i­ties caused by meat production.

Sapi­ens: A Brief His­to­ry of Hu­mankind by Yu­val Noah Harari
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ⁴⁄₅
**SPOIL­ER ALERT**  This book took me a long time to get through, but when I had time to sit down and con­cen­trate on it I was re­al­ly in­ter­est­ed by his abil­i­ty to present his­to­ry in a sto­ry-like fashion.
It? was neat to get to trace the whole evo­lu­tion of peo­ple into so­ci­eties and into cul­tures. I learned a lot read­ing this book. Es­pe­cial­ly that the rise of em­pire didn’t ac­tu­al­ly de­crease hu­man suf­fer­ing. And that over­all we are of­ten still just as un­hap­py, al­though usu­al­ly less in dan­ger of starvation.
I thought the au­thor usu­al­ly did a good job in men­tion­ing both sides of an ar­gu­ment and he came across as ide­al­is­tic some­times, but usu­al­ly brought up a counter point on the next page.
This book talked a lot about re­li­gions and I ap­pre­ci­at­ed that the au­thor spoke about Bud­dhism at length as a pos­si­ble so­lu­tion to our prob­lem of not be­ing sat­is­fied in the mod­ern age.
It was also cool how he broke down the de­tails of Catholic and Protes­tant re­li­gions into di­gestable differences.
His dis­cus­sion of “imag­ined or­ders” was nov­el. The fact that all the rules and tra­di­tions gov­ern­ing our be­hav­ior are cre­at­ed and part of the imag­i­na­tion of peo­ple of the past.
The idea of the “ar­dent be­lief of ro­man­tic con­sumerism” shap­ing our de­sire for things and ex­pe­ri­ences was hard to hear but on point.
I thought that the fact he em­pha­sised that hu­man sub­ju­ga­tion of an­i­mals has led to the cur­rent heinous con­di­tions in fac­to­ry farm­ing was im­por­tant. Since he did an overview of the de­vel­op­ing world – he was right to men­tion that, and he did so mul­ti­ple times.
His posit­ing of a fu­ture where we might have the abil­i­ty to con­trol our genes, mor­tal­i­ty and neu­ro­trans­mit­ters was fright­en­ing and made me cu­ri­ous about the future.
I think as hu­mans we should talk more about this ques­tion he brought up: “what would we like to become?”
Quotes I liked in­clude: “Con­sis­ten­cy is the play­ground of dull minds,” “re­al­iz­ing that they are not their feel­ings and that pur­su­ing them traps them in mis­ery,” And the Bud­dhist idea, “rather the real root of suf­fer­ing is this nev­er end­ing point­less pur­suit of ephemer­al feel­ings, which caus­es us to be in a con­stant state of ten­sion, rest­less­ness and dissatisfaction.”

The Pi­anist: The Ex­tra­or­di­nary Sto­ry of One Man’s Sur­vival in War­saw, 1939–45 by Władysław Szpilman
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ⁴⁄₅
This book was in­cred­i­bly cap­ti­vat­ing … the im­agery is shock­ing and some­times hor­ri­fy­ing and the fact that this ex­pe­ri­ence is one that some­one lived through is as­tound­ing. read­ing this helped give me a per­spec­tive on my life and how priv­i­leged I am to have se­cu­ri­ty I would typ­i­cal­ly take for granted.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Mar­garet Atwood
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    ³⁄₅
I was ex­posed to this nar­ra­tive first through the show, but then found the book. I en­joyed the book less than I liked the show, which I felt used the vi­su­al sym­bols more effectively.
Still – this sto­ry is in­cred­i­bly captivating.
I had trou­ble putting the book down even though I knew what was go­ing to happen.
The phrase “change is not al­ways best for every­one, there will al­ways be those that suf­fer” stuck with me. This idea that every new so­ci­ety is built on the backs of those with less power.
The rit­u­al­ized as­pect of rape in this sto­ry was re­al­ly hor­ri­fy­ing. As was hear­ing about the ut­ter alone­ness the char­ac­ter feels through­out the nar­ra­tive. I also ap­pre­ci­at­ed how the char­ac­ter had to ex­pe­ri­ence so much dead, wait­ing time- like one might in real life.
Over­all this was a very nov­el and in­ter­est­ing story.

Per­di­do Street Sta­tion by Chi­na Miéville
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    5/5
Cap­ti­vat­ed by it as if it were a Slake Moth. While read­ing this, I went along with a in­dex card and end­ed up learn­ing around many new words – which was great.
I loved the con­trast of how hor­ri­fy­ing it was and how hu­man. The author’s clever ap­proach re­al­ly im­pressed me. In the scene where Isaac wired up the ma­chine con­scious­ness and the Weaver, it seemed like a di­rect par­al­lel to that of the left and right side of the brain. It was so cool that such an over­load would slay the moths.
I was im­pressed by how cru­el he was to his char­ac­ters and how much trau­ma he put them through. It was also great how many lit­tle se­cret nar­ra­tives, like the Eye­spy killer ran along with the main plot. This is the longest book I’ve read so far, and I was glad of how it didn’t end quick­ly. Be­com­ing en­gorged in this im­ple­men­ta­tion hor­ri­ble world was a delight.

The Eth­i­cal Slut: A Guide to In­fi­nite Sex­u­al Pos­si­bil­i­ties by Dossie Eas­t­on, Cather­ine A. Liszt
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    AU­THOR    ³⁄₅
Parts of this book were re­al­ly help­ful. It con­tained a lot of in­for­ma­tion which I found valu­able and the fact this book ex­ists as a primer for those try­ing out poly is great. It is rare be­cause it talks about top­ics that are of­ten not ap­proached or talked about like deal­ing with jeal­ousy, bound­aries and ex­pec­ta­tions. I ap­pre­ci­at­ed the per­son­al an­tecedents from the au­thors and thought it was sweet they wrote this together.

Rise of the Dun­geon Mas­ter: Gary Gy­gax and the Cre­ation of D&D by David Kush­n­er, Ko­ren Shadmi
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    AU­THOR    ³⁄₅
I found this com­ic pleas­ant and in­for­ma­tive. I liked the black and white style and how they didn’t waste mon­ey on col­or­ing. It was neat to get to hear the sto­ry of how Gy­gax and TSR grew into the mas­sive gi­ant D&D is to­day and I was pleased with how they brought it back to the point of the game be­ing about col­lab­o­ra­tive sto­ry­telling. I would give this to some­one who thought the game was evil just to ex­plain how it re­al­ly works.

The City & The City: A Nov­el by Chi­na Miéville
FIND IN LI­BRARY    BUY    AU­THOR    3.5/5
This book was in­ter­est­ing and con­cep­tu­al­ly very clever. While the idea be­hind it is very nov­el and in­ter­est­ing, it just didn’t grab me like Per­di­do Street Sta­tion and I found it dif­fi­cult to be­come en­grossed in the story.
Also I missed the usu­al flower ver­biage Miéville usu­al­ly uses.
This book took me two months to read, too which is crazy be­cause his 600 page book took 4 days for me. In the fu­ture I will seek out more of his books that have more of a ba­sis in fantasy.
This one is now cur­rent­ly read­ing Wade Davis’ The Ser­pent and the Rain­bow, Chi­na Miéville’s The Scar, and Ita­lo Calvino’s In­vis­i­ble Cities.

What writ­ten works are part of your sum­mer journey?

—car­nelian king

Flom­mist Car­nelian King is a per­form­ing artist, prod­uct de­sign­er, toy mak­er and non­bi­na­ry clown cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Berlin. Copy­right © 2019 Car­nelian King. Pic­tured: A Car­nelian in her nat­ur­al habitat.

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