Addictive books

[shereads]

It's like having a bowl of M&Ms in the room. I don't want anymore. Until I can't think of anything else.

There are a few books I can't help going back to, no matter how many new ones are waiting in the pile beside the bed. Einstein's Dreams somehow puts itself in my hands every year-and-a-half or so. The chapters are no more than two or three pages long, but I read one chapter a day to make it last.

What do you re-read?

-----------

14 April 1905

Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.

For the most part, people do not know they will live their lives over. Tradesmen do not know that they will make the same bargain again and again. Politicians do not know that they will shout from the same lectern an infinite number of times in the cycles of time. Parents treasure the first laugh from their child as if they will not hear it again. Lovers making love the first time undress shyly, show surprise at the supple thigh, the fragile nipple. How would they know that each secret glimpse, each touch, will be repeated again and again and again, exactly as before?

~ Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams

 

[shereads]

"Some few people in every town, in their dreams, are vaguely aware that all has occurred in the past. These are the people with unhappy lives, and they sense that their misjudgements and wrong deeds and bad luck have all taken place in the previous loop of time.

"In the dead of night these cursed citizens wrestle with their bedsheets, unable to rest, stricken with the knowledge that they cannot change a single action, a single gesture. Their mistakes will be repeated precisely in this life as in the life before. And it is these double unfortunates who give the only sign that time is a circle. For in each town, late at night, the vacant streets and balconies fill up with their moans."

~ Einstein's Dreams

 

[Guest]

Many Lives, Many Masters~ Dr. Brian Weiss.
GWTW~Margaret Mitchell... honestly have no clue why.
Sleeping Beauty series by Ann Rice...cuz... WOW!
The Story of O
anything shakespeare... anyone who can insult and joke with words like that has my vote
He daily doth frequent with unrestrained loose campanions.

 

[impressive]

LotR ... every 3 years or so.

 

[Guest]

 

[NoJo]

"Some few people in every town, in their dreams, are vaguely aware that all has occurred in the past. These are the people with unhappy lives, and they sense that their misjudgements and wrong deeds and bad luck have all taken place in the previous loop of time.

"In the dead of night these cursed citizens wrestle with their bedsheets, unable to rest, stricken with the knowledge that they cannot change a single action, a single gesture. Their mistakes will be repeated precisely in this life as in the life before. And it is these double unfortunates who give the only sign that time is a circle. For in each town, late at night, the vacant streets and balconies fill up with their moans."

~ Einstein's Dreams

Once, after a few lines of amphetamine sulphate, I worked out what deja vu actually was. I think my theory was more plausible than the Groundhog day theory, but still misguided:

Deja vu is when you mistake a perception for a mental image (memory).
(conversely, Hallucination is when you mistake a mental image for perception).

What you have in deja vu (which people seem to get more when they're really tired) is a feeling that you have experienced something before. But it's only a feeling. After all, nothing repeats exactly. But to our tired minds, it triggers a false memory, and we say "this is all familiar". It tells more about the workings of the brain than it does about the nature of reality.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

What you have in deja vu (which people seem to get more when they're really tired) is a feeling that you have experienced something before. But it's only a feeling. After all, nothing repeats exactly. But to our tired minds, it triggers a false memory, and we say "this is all familiar". It tells more about the workings of the brain than it does about the nature of reality.

My theory is almost the same. How do we know whether we're remembering something or imagining it? We have a feeling. Memories are accompanied by a subtle emotion that tells us "This is a memory".

In deja vu, that memory emotion just gloms on to our currrent perception and gives it the feel of a memory.

Anyhow, as I've said ad nauseum, Patrick O'Brian's Aubry-Maturin Royal Navy series have become a part of my life. All 20 are stacked on a table near my bed, and at any given time one or two or three of them have bookmarks.

I have affairs with other books, but I seem to married to these.

 

[rgraham666]

John Ralston Saul, specifically his book Voltaire's Bastards - The Dictatorship of Reason in The West. Re-read it about once a year.

His book The Doubter's Companion - A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense is my favourite in-the-can and before-bed book.

 

[shereads]

Once, after a few lines of amphetamine sulphate, I worked out what deja vu actually was. I think my theory was more plausible than the Groundhog day theory, but still misguided:

Deja vu is when you mistake a perception for a mental image (memory).
(conversely, Hallucination is when you mistake a mental image for perception).

What you have in deja vu (which people seem to get more when they're really tired) is a feeling that you have experienced something before. But it's only a feeling. After all, nothing repeats exactly. But to our tired minds, it triggers a false memory, and we say "this is all familiar". It tells more about the workings of the brain than it does about the nature of reality.

Like I'd trust the theories of the man who announced on Dec. 17 that I had one more day to live.

 

[BlackShanglan]

The Picture of Dorian Gray. Deeply intoxicating. And for those prepared to take the next step toward decadent sensuality and possible insanity, A Rebours. I suggest Marius the Epicurean for the finish.

Repeat as needed or unable to resist.

Shanglan

 

[AppleBiter]

I re-read "The Catcher In The Rye" by JD Salinger and "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King. Every time I read them is like the first time. They never loose their luster.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

I have no idea what to call it, but every so often I find myself rereading portions of "KNOTS" by R. D. Laing

Maybe it's poetry?

 

[Quiet_Cool]

The Beach by Alex Garland. The only book I've ever read twice (no bullshit, and probably the only one I'll read a third time).

The Dark Tower books I read through fairly quickly. The first is sort of slow, but once you get to know the characters, you don't want the story to end.

And to anyone who hasn't read it, try Bag of Bones. It'll rope you in before you know what's going on.

Q_C

 

[NoJo]

I have no idea what to call it, but every so often I find myself rereading portions of "KNOTS" by R. D. Laing

Maybe it's poetry?

A great book. It's more poetry than psychology.

 

[The_Fool]

What do you re-read?

Everything...

 

[CharleyH]

It's like having a bowl of M&Ms in the room. I don't want anymore. Until I can't think of anything else.

There are a few books I can't help going back to, no matter how many new ones are waiting in the pile beside the bed. Einstein's Dreams somehow puts itself in my hands every year-and-a-half or so. The chapters are no more than two or three pages long, but I read one chapter a day to make it last.

What do you re-read?

Kafka and Huxley and plays by Genet and Beckett, philosphies by Sartre and Buddha because they never stick, and Carroll, 'Alice in Wonderland' may seem on surface a childs play, but it is wonderfully intellectual.

 

[NoJo]

Like I'd trust the theories of the man who announced on Dec. 17 that I had one more day to live.

Today is the worst day of the rest of your life.

 

[Guest]

Today is the worst day of the rest of your life.

despair: its always darkest before it goes pitch black.

[aside]
holy shitsky, joe... awesome av[/aside]

 

[SeaCat]

Oww, ouch, I just tripped over a cat going to the bookcase to check what's on it.

Top Shelf: (Books most often read.)
Talmud
Bible
Koran
On War (Sun Tzu)
The Haj (Leon Uris)
Barrack Room Ballads and other tales (Rudyard Kipling)
Reproduction of Playboy, November 1965
Kama Sutra (Shitty version, my good one was stolen damn it.)
Large collection of "FoxTrot"

Cat

 

[rgraham666]

Oww, ouch, I just tripped over a cat going to the bookcase to check what's on it.

Top Shelf: (Books most often read.)
Talmud
Bible
Koran
On War (Sun Tzu)
The Haj (Leon Uris)
Barrack Room Ballads and other tales (Rudyard Kipling)
Reproduction of Playboy, November 1965
Kama Sutra (Shitty version, my good one was stolen damn it.)
Large collection of "FoxTrot"

Cat

I forgot Sun Tzu! Damn I'm slow today.

Best book on war ever written. Pity the Shrubbies haven't read it.

 

[SeaCat]

I forgot Sun Tzu! Damn I'm slow today.

Best book on war ever written. Pity the Shrubbies haven't read it.

Nah I'm not going to say anything, too easy.

Cat

Besides I promised the wife I wouldn't run down the President for a little while. Damn now why did I make that promise?

 

[shereads]

What you have in deja vu (which people seem to get more when they're really tired) is a feeling that you have experienced something before. But it's only a feeling. After all, nothing repeats exactly. But to our tired minds, it triggers a false memory, and we say "this is all familiar". It tells more about the workings of the brain than it does about the nature of reality.

Wow. I just had the sudden realization that I've read this post and typed this response before. It can't have been in a past life, because we'd have had to be typing on paper and then holding it up so the other person could see it. That's not what I felt at all. No, we were actually exchanging these posts at this message board and I was using an imac with this operating system, and had selected this Literotica skin. So it would have to have taken place in an alternate state of existence, perhaps one identical to this life, happening almost simultaneously.

Cool.

Edited to add: I hope I'm taller there, and that I like celery better than ice cream.

 

[rgraham666]

Too deep for me. Left my hip waders at home.

 

[Dar~]

I reread Robert McCammon's Swan song twice a year. I also reread all of Jane Austen and Jane Eyer by Bronte.

 

[shereads]

Too deep for me. Left my hip waders at home.

See? See? Right after I replied to Sub Joe's post about deja vu, I remember Rob writing, "Too deep for me" followed by something about hip waders. Is this happening to anyone else?

It's not in my book.