What are you reading? Options

[Tapati]

I can't imagine who objected to the high heel clad feet avatar. I thought it was rather amusing myself.

No one official told you to remove it, so if you like it I say you should take it back.

This is not a holy shrine, this is an internet forum for former devotees. While I wouldn't want a pornographic or violent avatar, I don't have any other restrictions. Heck, go wild and show the bottom of your feet while you're at it!

It's nice if spiritual images and posts appear on this forum, but I've carefully allowed for fun, frivolity, and irreverence too. It's all part of life.

Blessed be--

Tapati

[0planetpriya0]

I can't imagine who objected to the high heel clad feet avatar. I thought it was rather amusing myself.

No one official told you to remove it, so if you like it I say you should take it back.

This is not a holy shrine, this is an internet forum for former devotees. While I wouldn't want a pornographic or violent avatar, I don't have any other restrictions. Heck, go wild and show the bottom of your feet while you're at it!

It's nice if spiritual images and posts appear on this forum, but I've carefully allowed for fun, frivolity, and irreverence too. It's all part of life.

Blessed be--

Tapati

Were they, in your opinion, better than my present Avatar ? Thank you Tapati. I liked them too but I'll tell you they're ( the shoes) really no good on the ice !

[0Aran0]

Has anyone read Joyce's Ulysses? Is it really the greatest English novel of all time? I tried two times to read it, but couldn't get past the first few pages. Maybe I have read too many thrillers lately....

Milla,
perhaps reading "Dubliners" or "Portrait of the Artist" by way of introduction may be helpful? These works along with "Ulysses" and the "Wake" are brimming with "laughtears", the bitter-sweet JOY of living, but are more accessible.
Unlike Yeats, Joyce was almost Zen-like in his concern with the transfiguration of the commonplace, the everyday, hence the "faeces and urine" quip.
"The New Bloomsday Book" is a good guide, if you have the annotated text (?)

Many feel that Joyce and Yeats are mutually exclusive; this, ironically, is symptomatic of the kind of linear thinking that both writers were in their own way(s) seeking to transcend.

This too could be of help:

How to read Joyce

[angrezi]

yes planetpriya, bring back the feet! (that doll one is freaking me out a bit )

[Tapati]

I liked the high heel clad feet avatar best, Planetpriya. But ultimately, your avatar should suit you, not everyone else on the forum.

[Milla]

Thank you, Aran.

[Milla]

I am reading "The War at Troy" by Lindsay Clarke. I snatched it one evening from the "Recommended to read" table at the library because I didn't have much time to look around and decided to trust the reviews by Ted Hughes and Alan Sillitoe on the cover and see what happens. It's a great summary of the ancient classic with some contemprorary touch (the emphasis is on the human drama and passions). It reads like Kamala Subramaniam's Mahabharata, no, much better, but it transports you in the same way thousands of years back in time and makes the heroes and the gods come alive.

[babu]

i'm at present reading 5/5/2000 Ice: The Ultimate Disaster by Kevin W. Noone

this book is a prophetic warning that the world will end in 5/5/2000 due to the antartic ice sheet sliding off due to lunar and planetary gravitational forces so everyone get ready

[zanardi]

I am reading the biography of Malcolm X. Interesting reading. Hard core.

[0Sam0]

Susan Vreeland's book on Artemisia Gentileschi, an Italian post-Renessaince painter (early 1600's). She was mostly forgotten, and her works attributed to her father or other artists, till 1980's or -90's. Her art can be viewed in Internet, just google "Artemisia Gentileschi". Especially her paintings on Judith are worth checking out. The book is an interesting read too.

Another book I'm reading with my partner (we often read books aloud to each other) is only available in Finnish ("Tuusulanjärven taiteilijaelämää"). It tells about four artist-families living in Finland at the turn of the century (beginning of 1900's): Jean Sibelius, Venny Soldan-Brofeldt and her husband Juhani Aho, Pekka Halonen and E. Järnefelt.

[babu]

Susan Vreeland's book on Artemisia Gentileschi\

Would there be any repercussions of Gaudiya philosophy in this book as generally I try to read such books? For instance, in Zanardi's book there are multiple repercussions of Gaudiyaism from Muhammed Ali being both courted by Malcom X to become a Muslim to his as showing some interest in chanting Hare Krishna from time spent with devotees. I think its important we stay true to our faith of the repercussions of Gaudiya philosophy.

[0madhavadasa0]

Susan Vreeland's book on Artemisia Gentileschi\

Would there be any repercussions of Gaudiya philosophy in this book as generally I try to read such books? For instance, in Zanardi's book there are multiple repercussions of Gaudiyaism from Muhammed Ali being both courted by Malcom X to become a Muslim to his as showing some interest in chanting Hare Krishna from time spent with devotees. I think its important we stay true to our faith of the repercussions of Gaudiya philosophy.

And, most important, babuji, does the founder guru of the forum for philosophy of repercussions of Gaudiya Vaishnavism authorize that book or not? I certainly wouldn´t like to read anything, and I repeat anything (!) , that she doesn´t approve!

[Dhyana]

Right now I am reading -- or laboriously plowing through -- the user's manual for my new camera, Konica Minolta Dynax 5D (known in the USA as Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D). It's the first digital camera I own. (I had a tiny Canon Ixus before, that used APS film). And it's an SLR. So my learning curve is rather steep right now. I didn't plan on buying such a sophisticated camera, but I absolutely don't regret it. It's a great camera. So now I am busy happily knipsing around whatever can be knipsed And hoping for the daylight to get a bit longer soon...

[evakurvan]

I am reading Nectar of the Holy Name by Manindranath Guha and it is sensational.

[0Stribor0]

At the moment i am reading:
Man and his symbols -Jung
The mystery of the Grail - Julius Evola
Auf der Marmorklippen - Ernst Junger
and Srila Ananta das Babajis commentaries on Radha Rasa Sudhanidhi.

[0Oneiros0]

I am reading (1) Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (still did not finish it, but it is a great book), (2) The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, (3) Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual by Walter Burkert, (4) De Insomnis by Aristotle, and (5) The Grass Harp by Truman Capote. But mostly I am preparing a talk for next week. Too many things at once...

[zanardi]

Talking about talking. I am currently reading anything Swedish, to refresh my skills, because I have to be speaking that particular language in a couple of days in a radio-program and try to say something understandable about my book. Ja visst ja, tack så mycket.

[Subhash]

I've just finished a beautiful (and very short) novel by Amit Chadhuri called Afternoon Raag. It's essentially a memoir about the writers time in Oxford, his first real experience of living in England. Very little actually happens, it's close to Proust in that it's essentially an attempt to recapture the beauty or profundity of certain moments. Also, I enjoy writers who try to communicate the beauty they've experienced through music, and it seems very rare to encounter this in regards to classical Indian music within fiction- i've certainly never read anything else in that vein.

[0Sam0]

I've actually went through various genres of books during my iskcon years, always finding justification to such maya by telling myself that they somehow contained hidden KC-stuff Any biography was ok, since they were true stories and we can always learn things from other people's lives. Books written by Indian writers must have been ok, so I read everything by Arundhati Roy. And so on and so on... Thus, Babuji, there must be some sort of hidden repercussionism in Vreeland's book, too So there!

[Adrija]

Three books I've read recently (part of a course I'm doing) are Shaw's Pygmalion, Euripides' Medea and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. I particularly enjoyed the last one - she read Jane Eyre and has taken the character of the first wife, portrayed as a lunatic in the attic and created a beginning for her in this book as a Creole heiress in the West Indies, married by Rochester for her money. It is a short book but reveals her interior life and passions.

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