Vitamins

Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy

Curious about Christian mystics, the wacky feats of Brahmin yogis, peyote-smoking shamans, and what they all have in common? Feast your mind on this eyebrow-raising collection of wisdom from one of the twentieth century's most brilliant men.

Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer

Lehrer's book makes the claim that several great artists from recent times (in fields as disparate as symphony composition and french cuisine) anticipated some of this century's biggest leaps in neuroscience.

Lehrer brought my awe at the human situation into even sharper focus. The fact that we are aware that we are not fully aware of ourselves is a very special conundrum - ours is a way of knowing that can understand that this way of knowing is innately limited. Not just that it will never have enough time or brain space to acquire all knowledge, but that it is incapable of knowing some things - and to get even more epistemological on you, this way of knowing could never know it knew everything, it would have no way of knowing there was no more to be known. Ouch...

I digress - the point is we have ways of knowing that the conscious mind is not involved in, undeniably. Think of the easiest example - all involuntary bodily processes. I don't remember the last time I told my heart to beat. And it does, thankfully. And when you ate that bad pasta salad - threw up an hour later, right? Using rather prosaic examples I'm trying to expose a fact that we consider obvious and irrelevant - we have a kind of knowing in our very flesh, an "intelligence". I think Lehrer is saying that art too is an intelligence - a kind of knowing. It's almost as if, at the end of each fascinating character study on a brilliant artist, he is reminding science that the "self", the "mind" or a "person" cannot be investigated as a peptide or a salt ion can be, (as the Buddhist's say, it's like trying to bite your teeth) and that perhaps the only way to grasp these concepts is to fully surrender to the subjectivity of self - art. Even though art is created using the will and the conscious mind to a certain extent, something else creeps in there - a knowing that is beyond thought's reach. I think that's why the history of art has always served as a prophetic mirror to the changing way humans think about the world and their place in it...

A Confession and Other Religious Writings by Tolstoy

This man will always be one of my heroes. Gandhi once referred to himself as Tolstoy's "humble follower". Reading A Confession, one can begin to understand why. A kinship with Spinoza's thoughts can be found throughout - notably, a call to reform the hypocritical religious institutions that twist and betray the core tenets of Judaeo-Christian teachings. Tolstoy makes the very important point that all of the great religious traditions have the same heart - do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and a responsibility to strive towards perfecting oneself morally. So much fascinating material... Too much to say here.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Memoir of a holocaust survivor / brilliant psychiatrist / passionate human.
This book was mailed to me by one of my most treasured philosophical friends and guides, a man in the thick of it all working overseas as an epidemiologist.

This passage says everything:
"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love."

Talks and Dialogues by J. Krishnamurti

Challenging, provocative and resonant... at times frustrating...

Your Sacred Self by Wayne Dyer

Dyer has a knack for weaving Hindu, Sufi, Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian thought together into simple, practical insights. Ignore that it appears, superficially, to be New Age-y. It's not.

The Life and Times of George Sand, a biography by Frances Winwar

All I can say is, what a life. No fiction could equal her magnificent true tale.

Sue Kwock Kim

A brilliant poet. Look up and be moved by "Leaving Chinatown" or her other Governor General's Award winning pieces... masterful. "Monologue for an Onion", what to say.... sheeeeeeesh.

The Sound and the Fury and Nobel Prize address by William Faulkner

I didn't know very much about Faulkner before I dug right in to The Sound and The Fury, and now I plan on climbing the mountain of his output. This story didn't flatten me, but the writing did. It's like a feast of camera angles. He writes convincingly from mouths as disparate as a long-suffering black servant named Dilsey and a handicapped man-child named Benjy. Faulkner surprised everyone when he agreed to give an acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in 1949. It is remarkable... a compass of sorts.

Anne Sexton

So clear, fierce and potent. There is something so resonant for me in her work - the search, the struggle the aching, the frustrated urgency. Her throaty, dramatic-yet-leaden readings are absolutely captivating - like Burroughs but beautiful, sad. Images bloom so fast they overlap. Ruthlessly good. "God", "With Mercy For the Greedy", "Her Kind", "The Fury of Overshoes", "Jesus Walking" .... my new heroine of letters. Be wary of web sites with woefully inaccurate transcriptions.... Books, always trust the books.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

This book is a tour-de-force eye-opener. I've described Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" as an epiphany-a-page. The same applies to Dawkins' latest book. I've read some of his science writing, but this, this.... It could not be more relevant, more brave, more informed. Controversial, but difficult to refute. Some passages had me raising my eyebrows, but more had me lean back in reluctant awe, "he's right...." Basically, he is calling for the complete and utter separation of church and state, in that religious issues should have absolutely no place in the laws of a civilized society, and instead, we should seek to define one moral ideology that frees and protects all citizens equally. And for this, his angle (being an evolutionary biologist by trade) is of course reason, rationality, empiricism. Judging from the world's current state, how can we move elsewhere? "Imagine no religion....."

Mind Wide Open by Steve Johnson

Where do all sciences, arts and faiths meet to perform an elaborate ballet? The brain, of course, the mysterious, bewitching brain. Mind Wide Open is an expertly written, highly readable nugget on my favourite subject.

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

Where have you been all my life Mr. Helprin. 'Peter Lake' is unforgettable... the most vivid character I've encountered in fiction since Holden Caulfield. So many moments from this book are still bright in my mind's eye.

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje

Careful. When closing his books you will suffer, and suffer wildly. The aftershock is deep. Only because the book is gone and can't ever be new to you again. It's somewhat like the drawbridge closing after a waltz through the enchanted castle.

Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs

Urban planner, philosopher and Torontonian Jane Jacobs will scare you silly about the future of cities. Sometimes, while reading this cautionary tale, I wanted to drop everything and start an organic farm - jump off the grid altogether. But her chapters always propose simple effective solutions to the terrifying predicaments she describes, which prevents a book with this kind of title from being cynical and depressing. Smart smart smart.

Charles Simic

When one of your writing heroes highly recommends another writer, you run to the library like your clothes are on fire. Well, if you're me you do. That is how I discovered Charles Simic. Poems like "A Book Full of Pictures", "The White Room" or "The Oldest Child" will chill your blood with their startling images. I'm particularly fond of one about a pair of shoes. But the finest discovery so far - (SO FAR!) is "To The One Upstairs". Holy Moses. Look out.

Necessary Secrets and On The Side of the Angels: The Journals of Elizabeth Smart

Ms. Smart - the unsung Canadian hero of poetic prose - records her struggle to write, her garden's progress, and the course of her tragic, doomed love affair with poet George Barker - with whom she had four children. She is the author of "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept". Sad... but lovely.... Reminds me of Plath a bit...

Herman Hesse

Have I gone on too much about this author?... perhaps... Demian and Siddharta were short and powerful works, but Steppenwolf, Steppenwolf has even meatier wisdom. It's clear he was lingering in the Eastern mysticism aisle of the library.... psychology too...Jung and Freud are all over the place in this work.... he proposes a person is a fractured kaleidoscope of souls and to insist on singularity is not only foolish but harmful.... he also has comforting theories about professional loners... good for the heart of a cabin dwelling nerd. Mozart also has a cameo....

Leaving Mr. MacKenzie by Jean Rhys

In my Rhys-loving mind this book is not as perfect as Good Morning Midnight, but there is an episode with a pair of gloves that is worth the three hours you'll spend with this depressing story.

The Reprieve by Jean-Paul Sartre

In my quest to further plumb existentialism (without suffering the painfully dry Heidegger) I've been spending time with it's members' fiction and art.... Dostoevsky, Sartre, Kafka and Camus. Though Sartre is clearly working through his theories when he writes, and seems to be an intellectual before he's an artist (yes yes, send the hate mail) the writing is so masterful... so clear and fluid, even in the difficult formal structure he set out for himself in this book - simultaneous narrative - different events in different places unfolding in real time at the SAME time.... wow. The Reprieve is the second in a trilogy that starts with The Age of Reason and ends with Iron on the Soul....

The Vilde Affair by Martin Blumenson

...the unbelievable story of an underground newspaper "Le Resistance" created by some fearless French during the German Occupation in WWII. Oh the fuel this gave me for my musical.... I cannot describe my awe of it, my joy, other than to note that it is truly amazing what humans can do for love - of their country, their ideals, eachother. Truly amazing. As they were being tied to the execution posts they started to sing "Le Marseillaise" (sp?) That is courage. They chose death instead of ratting out their friends. Heroism in real life is so much bigger, bolder, fiercer than in the movies. Sylvette Lelou actually said to her prosecutor in court "You don't have enough bullets to kill me and my kind." Chills.

That Summer In Paris by Morley Callaghan

..sort of a memoir of this Canadian's life as a young writer starting out at the Toronto Star (very funny) and leaving for a summer to be in the thick of the Paris scene.... a lot of gossip, some name-dropping... insight into Hemingway and Fitzgerald's relationship... sometimes scandalous.... juicy you could say....

Good Morning Midnight by Jean Rhys

This is the closest thing to my inner narrative I've ever come across - the years where I was quite lost and drinking my face off...... it was frightening to read on a porch in the stifling Toronto summer heat... strange, sad...better with Scotch.... downright revelatory. Sasha, the main character/heroine (ha,...) is a major part of Emily and the creatures I call upon to write....Sasha is a bright colour in the paint box so to speak.....

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Brrr......Orwell and Huxley on a cold modern breeze.....our impending doom.....careful with this one kids.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I came across this poet by reading "Savage Beauty" - a biography by Nancy Melford. Her life dances all over the globe, from Paris, to the Orient, to grungy apartments in Manhattan's east side....

Music at Night by Aldous Huxley

This man is another Leonard Bernstein/GlennGould - irrepressible curiousity and thirst for knowledge- endlessly inspired and troubled by the world. Sigh.......This volume holds ideas on Beethoven, the American beauty industry, art, tragedy....treasures all.....

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

Just in case there's one person left on the planet who hasn't had the pleasure of knowing this thin, unassuming volume, I must express my much repeated, perhaps overzealous devotion to it and it's gifted author.

How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker

I put this up on the previous site, but it deserves reiteration - this is a miraclous, jaw-dropping, epiphany-a-page masterwork.... Gets a bit thick in the middle when he delves into insanely complex ocular processes, but pass over the bridge, give the troll a few bucks - the other side is a gold mine.....from evolutionary hypotheses on marriage, cosmetics, religion, art, and aggression to staggering descriptions of how language is received and understood by our brains. Wonder is here, big portions.

The Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

One of my all time, life-changer favourites. Phrases that astound.

Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders

...is set in a smokey post war Berlin...two fascinating actors Bruno Gantz and Otto Sander play angels who walk the Earth and listen to the thoughts of humans....one longs to participate in the mortal sphere, to feel the "weight of Now" growing inside of him....there are so many moments of light in this film, of revelation.....the angels long for something of *our* world, a world whose older inhabitants fail to see how glorious their reality is......there's some dramatic flashback war footage and poignant commentary on the subject.....also costars a beautiful trapeze artist and features a performance by Nick Cave...what more could you ask for..... Peter Falk --- that's right Peter Falk --- plays himself....oooooo...so good.

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories by Carson McCullers

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe is a masterwork in my humble opinion.....such a good story and such a well-made cast of characters...the build-up to the climax is perfectly paced.... sad and strange, beautiful and human....full of small, subtle magic, melancholy...wonder....it lingers...which is usually a reliable test for good works of art I think.... but the true gem in this collection is A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud. I have no words, you just have to read it. It'll take you 5 minutes. In fact, you could probably finish it in the book store without getting hassled. Do it.....your heart will swoon.

Naive. Super. by Erlend Loe

What is it with Norwegians. Last time I ran into any they were fall down drunk in a hotel lobby clad in viking helmets and norwegian-flag boxer shorts getting ready to be zealots at a football match in Glasgow. But the two Norwegian books I've read have absolutely floored me. One is Sophie's World, and the other is this gem (many thanks to Zach from Vancouver). The narrator perfectly describes what I struggle to describe when I talk about leaving for the woods. It seems the 'bottom falling out' phenomenon is a common one. Suddenly, everything seems ridiculous. Why on earth would you want anything, try anything, go anywhere, ...what on earth for? Vanity? Kicks? Habit?It was not because I thought dying made living pointless, it was just that our lives, especially in Western civilization (I use the term loosely), seemed like a terrible, sad, shallow little joke. We are the gluttons of the world, and the saddest, greediest, most pill-popping garbage-making nations the world has ever known. And yet so much nothingness. This guy ends up with the same hole in his chest, and decides to start spending his days bouncing a ball. Right on. Anyway..He slides down, he climbs up, with beautiful child-like simplicity that recalls The Tao of Pooh. His redemption is glorious....aided quietly and unconsciously by a kid named Borre. It can be read in an hour.... and then put somewhere very important....for re-reading and re-reading...... oh it's a goody. A reeeeal goody. Felt fixed after I put it down. Thanks again.... "Now I have both thought, and non-thought."

Cosmic Consciousness by Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke

Proof that the real knowledge is ancient and unchanging. this man was a doctor at the london ontario asylum for the insane. he believed walt whitman was as enlightened as Buddha or Muhammed or Jesus....expertly reveals the gossmaer threads between science, philosophy, religion, language, psychology, the origins of the species....fascinating.....

Al Purdy, 1960-1970s

Attention poets. here's one for the special shelf. found mr. purdy again by accident and this time it dazzled..... cold, vivid words, canadian humour... metaphysics.... this was a particularly good decade for Canadian poetry.....