Clipmarks | Aribeth's Books/literature/poetry collection

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Cryptonomicon (2000), by Neal Stephenson
The Mount (2002), by Carol Emschwiller
Perdido Street Station (2002), by China Mieville
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003), by Cory Doctorow
Pattern Recognition (2003), by William Gibson
Newton's Wake (2004), by Ken MacLeod
Glasshouse (2006), by Charles Stross

Clip Source: io9.com

there's no better way to get ready for the seasonal change than to dig into some great science fiction books

this list of twenty science fiction novels

could change the way you see the world

and maybe even change your life

Whether it's because they've altered the course of science fiction writing, or simply provide a genuinely alien perspective on ordinary life, these are novels that will rearrange how you think.

These are in chronological order by publication date, not in order of importance.

Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Shelley

The Time Machine (1895), by H.G. Wells

At the Mountains of Madness (1931), by H.P. Lovecraft

I, Robot (1955), by Isaac Asimov

The Dispossessed (1974), by Ursula LeGuin

Kindred (1979), by Octavia Butler

Wizard (1979), by John Varley

Consider Phlebas (1987), by Iain M. Banks

He, She, and It (1991), by Marge Pierc

Sarah Canary (1991), by Karen Joy Fowler

A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), by Vernor Vinge

The Bohr Maker (1995), by Linda Nagata

The Sparrow (1996), by Mary Doria Russell

Tags: books

The George Orwell Diaries

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:59:20 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes
clipper's remarks: Published real-time in blog format with a 70 year lag.
http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/

Clip Source: orwelldiaries.wordpress.com

THE ORWELL PRIZE

In association with the Orwell Trust, Political Quarterly and Media Standards Trust

Clip Source: orwelldiaries.wordpress.com

The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog. From 9th August 2008, Orwell’s domestic and political diaries (from 9th August 1938 until October 1942) will be posted in real-time, exactly 70 years after the entries were written.

The diaries are exactly as Orwell wrote them.

For more information, click here.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Though as prolific as any blogger (his collected writings occupy some 20 volumes), Orwell, who died in 1950, never had the chance to spontaneously publish his thoughts to a waiting public. Now — with some lag time — they are being made available that way at orwelldiaries.wordpress.com.

Tags: george orwell, diary, politics, news, history, literature, writer

Scientists on their "life-changing" books

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:59:46 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.boingboing.net

I always enjoy hearing about the reading habits of people who are much smarter and more interesting than me. New Scientist has a feature package where seventeen big name scientists recommend books that they considered "life-changing." Here is the list of the scientists and the books they suggest, with each title linking to Amazon. Follow the link at the bottom of the post to the New Scientist article where you can read the scientists' thoughts on their picks. From New Scientist:

1. Farthest North - Steve Jones, geneticist

2. The Art of the Soluble - V. S. Ramachandran, neuroscientist

4. The Foundation trilogy - Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist

5. Alice in Wonderland - Alison Gopnik, developmental psychologist

6. One, Two, Three... Infinity - Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist

13. Catch-22 / The First Three Minutes - Lawrence Krauss, physicist

15. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Chris Frith, neuroscientist

Tags: books

What is the power of things we hold dear?

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:15:47 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: "In the interest of enriching these connections, Turkle pairs each autobiographical essay with a text from philosophy, history, literature, or theory, creating juxtapositions at once playful and profound."

Clip Source: mitpress.mit.edu

Evocative Objects

Things We Think With

For Sherry Turkle, "We think with the objects we love; we love the objects we think with." In Evocative Objects, Turkle collects writings by scientists, humanists, artists, and designers that trace the power of everyday things. These essays reveal objects as emotional and intellectual companions that anchor memory, sustain relationships, and provoke new ideas.

This volume's special contribution is its focus on everyday riches: the simplest of objects--an apple, a datebook, a laptop computer--are shown to bring philosophy down to earth. The poet contends, "No ideas but in things." The notion of evocative objects goes further: objects carry both ideas and passions. In our relations to things, thought and feeling are inseparable.

Evolution: What the Fossils Say ? (a book recomm)

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:03:25 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: Michael Shermer - is a science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating and debunking pseudoscientific and supernatural claims.

since April 2004 has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Shermer was once a fundamentalist Christian. Shermer is now a professed atheist, but prefers to use nontheist, and an advocate for humanist philosophy.

Clip Source: www.skeptic.com

Evolution: What the Fossils Say & Why it Matters, by Donald Prothero

One of the best books explaining evolution and new discoveries of the incredibly rich fossil record; plus a no holds barred critique of the claims of creationism and Intelligent Design. Over 200 illustrations.

The claims of the Intelligent Design creationists are brilliantly encapsulated and devastatingly dismantled by the geologist and paleontologist Donald Prothero in the best book ever produced on the subject. I’ve known Don since the early 1990s when I took an active role investigating the claims of the creationists

Throughout this odyssey Don has been my co-pilot, directing my efforts, focusing my concentration, checking my facts, and guiding me through the labyrinth of scientific sources, of which he is the master.

It’s a thankless job but someone has to do it, and the world is a better place for Don’s efforts.

—Michael Shermer

A poem.

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:25:42 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: the poem is here thanx to Jorge Luis Borges.
the anticipation of Love is here because of human's desire.
the Gangas river delta is here 10x to Aribeth clip..-)
Our Earth as Art is a site with views on earth through the eyes of the Landsat-7 satellite.

Both-to my eyes- Lansat-7 and Borges are working from space ...... ))

Clip Source: nonbeing.blogspot.com

anticipation of love

Neither the intimacy of your look, your brow fair as a feast day,
nor the favor of your body, still mysterious, reserved, and childlike,
nor what comes to me of your life, settling in words or silence,
will be so mysterious a gift
as the sight of your sleep, enfolded
in the vigil of my arms.
Virgin again, miraculously, by the absolving power of sleep,
quiet and luminous like some happy thing recovered by memory,
you will give me that shore of your life that you yourself do not own.
Cast up into silence
I shall discern that ultimate beach of your being
and see you for the first time, perhaps,
as God must see you --
the fiction of Time destroyed,

free from love, from me.

Jorge Luis Borges
(translated by Alastair Read)

Clip Source: earthasart.gsfc.nasa.gov

The Ganges River forms an extensive delta where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. The delta is largely covered with a swamp forest known as the Sunderbans, which is home to the Royal Bengal Tiger.

Tags: a poem, jorge luis borges, gangas delta, from space

Neruda. A Poem.

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:01:32 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: "That’s how I could keep on singing."

Clip Source: s197.photobucket.com

Clip Source: us.mg2.mail.yahoo.com

From so much loving and journeying , books emerge.

And if they don’t contain kisses or landscapes,

If they don’t contain a man with his hands full,

If they don’t contain a woman in every drop,

Hunger, desire, anger, roads,

They are no use as a shield or as a bell:

They have no eyes, and won’t be able to open them,

They have the dead sound of precepts.

I loved the entanglings of genitals,

And out of blood and love I carved my poems.

In hard earth I brought a rose to flower,

Fought over by fire and dew.

That’s how I could keep on singing.

Pablo Neruda

Ars Magnetica

Clip Source: s197.photobucket.com

Tags: neruda poem photo collage

Books Ahoy!

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:04:15 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: www.bookcrossing.com

Welcome to BookCrossing, where 612,950 people in over 130 countries come to share their passion for books with the world. How? It’s easy.

Simply click on the link below and sign up for free in less than 1 minute-- that's it!

At BookCrossing, you can register any book you have on the site, and then set the book free to travel the world and find new readers.

Leave it on a park bench, at a coffee shop, at a hotel on vacation. Share it with a friend or tuck it onto a bookshelf at the gym -- anywhere it might find a new reader! What happens next is up to fate, and we never know where our books might travel next. Track the book's journey around the world as it is passed on from person to person.

Join hundreds of thousands of active BookCrossers daily in our many forums to discuss your favorite authors, characters and books in every genre throughout history right up through current releases.

Tags: books, cool ideas

The Garden of Forking Paths (part 2)

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:47:25 GMT

clipped by: syncopath

Clip Source: etcetera.stumbleupon.com

A writer -- and, I believe, generally all persons -- must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

Conversations with Borges

1981-1983

No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist.

Jorge Luis Borges "The Immortal" (1949)

The exercise of letters is sometimes linked to the ambition to contruct an absolute book, a book of books that includes the others like a Platonic archetype, an object whose virtues are not diminished by the passage of time.

Jorge Luis Borges "Note on Walt Whitman"

"Borges 2.0: From Text to Virtual Worlds" by Perla Sassón-Henry

Books you should read before you die

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:28:54 GMT

clipped by: Brimstone
clipper's remarks: Most of the books on the list I have not heard of.
Like most lists, and most people, they have different perspectives. I'm glad to see that Haruki Murakami has several books on the list. Though i do believe that his new novel After Dark and his short stories are better that his popular Kafka

Currently I'm reading a Robert Ludlum (The Matarese Countdown), cant say that I'm that impressed.

What are you reading? And is it worth reading.

Clip Source: www.listology.com

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

Saturday – Ian McEwan

On Beauty – Zadie Smith

Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee

Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson

The Sea – John Banville

The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble

The Plot Against America – Philip Roth

The Master – Colm Tóibín

Vanishing Point – David Markson

The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd

Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair

Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle

The Colour – Rose Tremain

Thursbitch – Alan Garner

The Light of Day – Graham Swift

What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon

Islands – Dan Sleigh

Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee

London Orbital – Iain Sinclair

Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry

Fingersmith – Sarah Waters

The Double – José Saramago

Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer

Unless – Carol Shields

Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami

The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor

That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern

Mistakes Were Made, But Not by Me! (a book recomm)

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:25:39 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: Dr. Tavris - is a social psychologist and author of Anger and The Mismeasure of Woman. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Scientific American, and many other publications.

This lecture, entitled “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts,” is based on her new book, co-authored with Dr. Elliot Aronson.

Clip Source: www.skeptic.com

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), by Carol Tavris

Why do people dodge responsibility when things fall apart? Why the parade of public figures unable to own up when they screw up? Why the endless marital quarrels over who is right? Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in ourselves? Are we all liars? Or do we really believe the stories we tell? Renowned social psychologist Dr. Carol Tavris takes a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification.

When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right — a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong.

There is magic in reading books...

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:33:26 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee
clipper's remarks: THE PLEASURE OF READING BOOKS...MY,MY...

Clip Source: www.bookstove.com

Only a lover of books can understand the meaning of being alive in the rainy season…the light chill creeping through the windows and the parapet, the steaming cup of coffee within the reach of your hands

the torrential rain crafting the musical melody that perfects one's mood for the reading at hand, the dark night blanketing the sky and the surroundings…rainy nights enchant the reader into reading well into the wee hours of the morning!

The winter is exclusively made for the reading! The cozy comfort of the happily crackling fire place, the complete and unconditional peace of the cold dark night, the heavy woolens draped around the body making one to snuggle well against the harsh chill, the silence, sharp and melancholy, uninterrupted and overpowering silence… no other footprints are louder than those of the footprints of the characters of your book, the footsteps roaming around the room, standing close to you, making

you to feel whether it is you or them within the book and out of it!

Tags: books, reading, interesting.

The Garden of Forking Paths (part1)

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:40:00 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: "Let heaven exist, though my own place may be in hell."
Jorge Luis Borges "The Library of Babel" (1941)

Clip Source: etcetera.stumbleupon.com

A Conversation with Jorge Luis Borges

labyrinth: it's the most evident symbol of perplexity. I feel completely lost, and the labyrinth is an obvious symbol of being lost. Now, the mirror is not so easy. It's the idea of "I," for example, what one has been, and later one will be a third person, it's an aspect of the mirror.

Ts'ui Pe must have said once: I am withdrawing to write a book. And another time: I am withdrawing to construct a labyrinth. Every one imagined two works; to no one did it occur that the book and the maze were one and the same thing.

Jorge Luis Borges "The Garden of Forking Paths" (1942)

by horse the Huns broke into the Monastic library and they tore the incomprehensible books and they vituperated them and they burnt them, fearing their symbols and characters might be concealing secret blasphemies against their God, who was an iron scimitar...

Jorge Luis Borges "The Theologians"

I cannot think it unlikely that there is such a total book on some shelf in the universe.

The Alexandrian Library : Digital Resources

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:12:44 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Very cool site, take a look:

http://www.bibalex.org/Libraries/Presentation/Static/12600.aspx?d=0

Clip Source: www.bibalex.org

As a library of the 21 st Century, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), along with its affiliated academic and cultural centers, is committed to digitization as a means of preserving, managing, and disseminating information and knowledge. The BA sets out to share them with a worldwide audience via the internet, thus promoting greater understanding and tolerance between cultures. To achieve this goal, the BA has formed partnerships with various cultural, academic, governmental, and corporate organizations for the creation of many significant and compelling digital projects. These projects cover a wide array of cultural and educational themes.

Tags: egypt, library, alexandrian, restored