Tag Archives: books

...and other stuff, ART, FREE ADVICE, LOUD ZOO, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

I LISTEN TO WHAT I READ

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Johnathan RenshawSo far in my nearly 70 years I’ve written and published 8 books.  None of my books have enjoyed the global readership of a book I did NOT write, but edited.  I spend the vast majority of my time reading books written by literary adepts and master story-tellers.  Reading is not merely entertainment.  It is the mind and imagination of beings communicating their thoughts, memories and musings, through symbols, to others.  There are 450,000 NEW BOOKS published every year, in Kevin Hearneaddition to the millions that have accumulated since the printing press was “invented” in Europe in by the German Johannes Gutenberg around 1440.   Personally, I listen to audiobooks.  The combination of masterful writing combined with state of the art performance is nothing less than magic.  Since my personal interests tend to vary from esoteric to bizarre, it stick to science fiction, primarily.  However, I enjoy a good story, well told.

Benedict JackaIn modern publishing writers no longer write ONE book.  They write a SERIES of books.  This is based on the sales and marketing-driven capitalist culture that exploded in Europe a few hundred years ago.  So, lately,  I’m not reading “books”.  I’m reading a “series” 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 books!  However, when you find an author you really enjoy this is a good was to swim deeply into the ocean of a genre or universe, rather than surfing the shallow shores of television, film, or — gods forbid — social media.Jim Butcher

Here are a few of the “series” I’ve read or am reading.  Three of these books are my first voyage on the ocean of “Magic Mystery”, i.e. Druids, Mages and Wizards in the roles of  spell-casting superheros fighting an assortment of supernatural villains: to my delight and continuing enchantment! I recommend them to you.  Search the fantastic library available on Audible.com  and your favorite on-line bookstores to find your own.

...and other stuff, ART, FREE ADVICE, INSIDE THE BOOK, LIVES, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

BURNING BOOKS

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libraryalexandriaI recently re-read a book from my personal library about the destruction of the greatest library of antiquity in Alexandria, Egypt, The Vanished Library, by Luciano Canfora.  Because I write books, I also read books.  Books are a gateway to intellectual and spiritual freedom.

Although my personal library shelves contain only several hundred volumes, it is estimated by various sources that the Library at Alexandria housed tens of thousands of scrolls amassed by Ptolemy that were added to the sacred library of Ramses II, Pharaoh of Egypt!  (c. 1300 BCE)   At the time of it’s destruction there were reported to be more than 45,000 hand-written books, gathered from all of the civilized word — translated into Greek — and housed in a single building.

In 640 AD, this priceless library was burned at the order of Muslim Caliph Omar.  When the general of his army asked the Caliph what to do with the books of the library, the Caliph responded:

“If their content is in accordance with the book of Allah, we may do without them.  If they contain matter not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve them. Proceed then, to destroy them.”TRINITY COLLEGE LIBRARY DUBLIN

At that time the city of Alexandria had 4,000 public baths.  The water for the baths was heated by underground stoves or furnaces.  “The books were distributed to the public baths of Alexandria, where they were used to fuel the stove which kept the baths comfortably warm.  ….It took six months to burn all that mass of material.”  Only the writings of Aristotle were spared from the flames.

As has so often been the case in the history of Earth, religious fanaticism — the enemy of knowledge and freedom — was the cause of destruction of precious accumulated knowledge, technology and wisdom recorded by literate scientists, mathematicians, artists, philosophers and scholars.  The modern destruction by the United States of the priceless Library of Baghdad, the burning of books and burying of scholars under China’s Qin Dynasty, the destruction of Aztec codices by Itzcoatl, the Nazi book burnings, the Spanish Inquisition, and many others psychotic episodes serve to keep humanity stupid, superstition and enslaved by ignorance.

However, in 2013 we live in an age of unprecedented information access.  There are thousands of libraries all around the world.  The internet is a vast library of information that contains nearly every book that has ever been written!  (Of course there are huge numbers of “heretical” books that  have been burned by Caliphs or Nazis or hidden in the Vatican library or the Smithsonian Institute.)  However, in spite of intellectual terrorism, superstition, religious fanaticism, and government mind-control agendas, we are living in an unprecedented age when books are freely available in abundance!  All we need to do is read them.

Here is a WONDERFUL website wherein you can visit many of the truly magnificent libraries around the world!

http://www.beautiful-libraries.com/index.html