Friday Afternoon Confessional: Reading List

I confess I put my life on hold for the last 12 months chasing a ghost. It took me more than a month just to start to remember how life was. Was it worth it? I confess I have no idea. Am I done chasing ghosts? I confess my best answer is: time will tell.

The piles of books which have amassed to the left and right of me do suggest I kept on reading though. I confess I want to boast about that.

To my left, pile n°1: Kripke, Naming & Necessity; Bolaño, Amberes, El Tercer Reich & Estrella Distante; Zweig, Schachnovelle.

Across older piles lying open on pp. 150-151 for reasons I confess I forgot entirely: Gadamar, Elogio de la teoría. Which brings me to the piles to my right featuring more Gadamer, On Education, Poetry And History as well as Wer bin Ich und wer bist Du. The latter sits on top of Fitch, Saul Kripke and Peinado, Futbolistas de izquierdas. Further down in that pile: Gass, Middle C and the almost most recent one: Piketty, Le capital au XXIe siècle.

To my left, pile n° 2: Jaeger, Paideia: los ideales de la cultura griega & Aristoteles; Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwicklung.

I confess all this name dropping leaves me feeling I really have something to confess about. I am unsure however whether it is arrogance or lack of reading quality/quantity (certainly as far as fiction goes). In order not to have to dwell on that issue I’ll just mention what I’m reading now (& only talk about that one below the fold): Steven Johnson, Everything Bad is Good for You. As you can tell from the Capital letters in the title I’m turning to vulgarized science from time to time (I blame Dawkins for that) but I’m not addicted to it, yet (I might add now I’m at it that I quit smoking if, I confess, without quitting nicotine given I just have put an “e-” before my cigarettes).

I confess it was not my plan to write that many words before I got to this pink book by (the maybe venerable) Steven Johnson and the Flynn effect.

Bay Area Books

Though the Bay Area is teeming with high quality bookstores — Green Apple, Moe’s, Pegasus, Booksmith, Modern Times, etc. — I was wondering last night, while following the Reeses-pieces path I laid so that I might find my way out of the labyrinth that is Green Apple, why I’ve yet to find a really quality theology/religion bookstore.  With Moe’s as the only notable exception, most of the good stores only seem to care about alternative & eastern religion, with very token gestures toward Christian theology.  This makes sense, of course, considering where I’m living, but we do have the GTU around here.  Don’t those students ever need to sell their books?  I only recently learned of the University Press Bookstore in Berkeley, even though I’d walked by it dozens of times, so it’s possible (given I’m only prone to browse theology, and not actually read it) I’ve simply overlooked such a place.  Any Bay Area natives or former residents know of such a place?

I could probably find my answer via Google or Yelp, but what’s the fun in that?

Also … anyone, is Meillassoux’s After Finitude worth my time?