Summer Reading 2011
John Perry

27 May 2011

Each year Ken and I together with our listeners, previous guests, and special guests, come up with a number of suggestions for summer reading. The books don't have to be philosophy books, but they should have a philosophical angle. So the categories come down to philosophically interesting fiction, philosophically relevant non-fiction, and straight philosophy.

This year our special guest is John McMurtrie, book critic at the San Francisco Chronicle. John had a host of recommendation --- book critics read a lot of books. They are all listed on our website, along with all of the other suggestions we got. The two we discussed at some length with John are:
Garry Wills,Augustine's Confessions: A Biography.
T.C. Boyle,When the Killing's Done.
我很高兴地得知加里·威尔斯(Garry Wills)写了一本关于奥古斯丁的新书，他一直是一位引人入胜的作家。It's a good idea to read or reread theConfessions, or at least the first nine books, while reading what Wills has to say. Boyle's book sounds like a mystery novel, but its really built around the moral issues involved in ridding some of California's Channel Islands of non-native species.
My suggestions were books by Bernhard Schlink, author ofThe Reader; that book was on a previous year's list, and the movie based on it won a Dionysus Award. I've read and liked some of Schlink's mystery novels; the detective is named `Self', so the titles are things likeSelf's Deception.His novelThe Homecomingpicks up themes of memory and guilt found inThe Reader. And finally his bookGuilt About the Pastconsists at lectures he gave at Oxford, which direct these issues directly, or at least philosophically.
Ken plans to read only short books this Summer, fitting his reading into spaces left by his own writing and his baseball coaching duties. His choices: Nassim Taleb,The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms;Troy Jollimore,At Lake Scugog: Poems;and Robert Rowland Smith,与苏格拉底共进早餐:平凡一天中的非凡(哲学)旅程。不要错过肯在节目中朗读特洛伊·乔利莫尔的一首伟大的诗。

Two authors and former guests talked about books they have just finished. Psychiatrist and novelist Irv Yalom'sThe Spinoza Problem听起来会是一本很棒的读物，但今年夏天它不会出现在书店里;把它列为你明年夏天的首选。

Helen Fisher, the biological anthropologist told us about her latest bookWhy We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love;the theory she develops in this books and her earlierWhy Him? Why Her?: How to Find and Keep Lasting Lovemay help you use science to make good decisions (or understand bad ones).

Geoff Nunberg was enthusiastic about a book by another Berkeley prof, Martin Jay'sThe Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics.The subtitle at least makes this sound like a pretty huge topic, but the books comes in at just over 200 pages and Nunberg says it's a good read; might be a good warm up for appreciating the upcoming election season.

Other books we had a chance to discuss with listeners:

Noam Shpancer,The Good Psychologist
William Shakespeare,Coriolanus
Leo Tolstoy,The Devil
by Jorge Luis Borges, The Tower of Babel
Kathleen Dean Moore,Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature
Edward S. Casey,The Fate of Place

All the books we discuss, plus a number suggested by guests and listeners that we didn't get a chance to discuss, will be listed on ourwebsite当节目存档时，大约一周后。

Comments(6)

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Sunday, May 29, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

I enjoyed Taleb's The Black Swan and am happy to h

I enjoyed Taleb's The Black Swan and am happy to hear he has something newer. Will be certain to check it out---I have gift cards left over from Christmas. Lots of good to great reading out there. Jared Diamond, Gerald Edelman and Stewart Kauffman are favorites of mine when I'm not digging into the likes of Martin Heidegger, E.O. Wilson, et. al. I use the library a lot. Retiree budgets are more restrictive these days. Or maybe it is just the economy?

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, June 1, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

Hi Ken, Saw you had an interest in poetry and t

Hi Ken,
Saw you had an interest in poetry and thought you and others might like this:
Poetry
When words have no rules or regulations
And a sentence has no bounds
That is where the poet hides
Where truth can still be found
The word is mightier than the sword they say
When words are truly free
Poetry is the words of a poet
Then the poet has the power of Thee
There is a lesson to learn in poetry
A remedy and a cure
For poetry are words of freedom
And in freedom the truth shall set us free
What is the truth One wonders
In the phrase and phrases of a rhyme
The true poetry of a free poet
Will bring equality to All in Just time
For freedom is equality
Unity of not only mankind
The true words of a poets? poetry
Is the beautiful true Oneness of All kind.
=
MJA

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, June 22, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

Where is the list of the teen reads that the rover

Where is the list of the teen reads that the rovering philosopher did? These sound great and I would like to have them so that I can recommend them to my niece.

Guest's picture

Guest

Monday, April 16, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

I thought I might add my 2

我想我可能会在夏季阅读上增加我的观点:一般来说，我认为夏季阅读是你不需要在泳池边或海滩上思考太多的东西，我推荐亚历山大·麦考尔·史密斯的周日哲学俱乐部系列。主人公是伦理杂志《应用伦理学评论》的编辑伊莎贝尔·达尔豪西。当她忙着(以最好的方式)干涉别人的事情时，她思考了这些事件引发的道德问题。故事发生在苏格兰的爱丁堡，就像在阿加莎·克里斯蒂的小说中喝茶一样舒适。嗯，也许他们应该在寒冷的冬天坐在火边阅读……

Guest's picture

Guest

Monday, April 16, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

I have three ssuggestions,

I have three ssuggestions, immediately.
"The Undercover Philosopher" by Michael Philips is a revealing look into our thinking mistakes and, for example, shows decisively that most MD's do not think very well when it comes to what is suggested by false negative and false positive tests.
"Thinking, Fast and Slow' by Kahneman will be one of the most important books ever, perhaps, and among other things indicates why the MD's Philips talks about do not do the hard thinking, the counter-intuitive thinking, necessary for proper handling of statistical fact.
"The Ratttle Bag" edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes is poetry that has tickled and delighted them--a fantastic offering alphabetical by poem title, hence close to random.

katie's picture

katie

Monday, April 16, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

How about the Deptford

How about the Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies?
Jungian analysis, moral dilemmas, puns, magic and a fun read.