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Edited: Dec 27, 2021

Monday, 27th December, 2021

in Rants, chats and videos

Holidays is a time for reading.

I love reading.

I can basically trace myself back through what I read...

It would be interesting to see what lists come up for you (if you don’t read, poor thing, maybe some TV shows).

**When I was young, some things I read:

The Green Caterpillar

The Brothers Grimm

The Secret Seven

The Famous Five

James and the Giant Peach

The Twits

The Tale of Scruffy Pete

The Communist Manifesto

Dictatorship of the Proletariat

If not now, When?

War and Peace

The Idiot

The Brothers

The Conquest of Bread

**When I was at university:

Oscar Wilde

Shakespeare

Mary Shelley

Sinclair Lewis

Arthur Miller

Thoreau

De Tocqueville

William Faulkner

Mark Twain

Then Russian

Maxim Gorky (Gorky park)

Turgenev

**After University:

Flaubert

Voltaire

Locke

RousseauFoucault

Freud

**When I was travelling**

On the Road

The Beat Stuff

Naked Lunch

Green Ham and Eggs

**When I was working in Japan

Murakami

Yukio Mishima

Ai Kenzoaburo

Natsume Soseki

**When I started working in a job in Australia

Money Magazine

How to Get Rich Quickly

Sell Stuff

Get Rich Quick

Get Money Right Now

Money, Money, Money

The Barefoot Investor

**When I realise that having a job was BS:

Milton Friedman

Von Mises

Hayek

**When I realised that not only having a job was BS but I was really stressed:

The Pilates Bible

Uses of the Self Dr Sarno’s Back Pain Book

**When I realised that self-care is important

At a Journal Workshop

Pilates Handbook

**And on and on

I really feel sorry for young people. Instagram, selfies, and the like mean that they have really missed out on so much.

Keeping a good book with you is awesome.

So this holidays, I’m planning to catch up on reading... wherever the mind takes me...

15 comments

15 Comments

Nadia

Jan 05, 2022

dear @Brendan, you made me smile. Thank you!

Nadia

Jan 05, 2022

to add to the above post for you and hopefully many this might have value. I said - might : )

"Man never on any account wants to pay for anything; and above all he does not want to pay for what is most important for him. You now know that everything must be paid for and that it must be paid for in proportion to what is received. But usually a man thinks to the contrary. For trifles, for things that are perfectly useless to him, he will pay anything. But for something important, never. This must come to him of itself."

G.I. Gurdjieff

Unknown member

Jan 05, 2022

Replying to

Thank you Nadia. I am about 20 pages into the Miraculous and feeling like you may have given me a great gift. What has my life come to, being paid in Cream Buns? Actually I like the absurdity of it. Thank you so much for your generous heart and soul (and prepayment :-) You know those days when you have so much to do, but you start reading something, and you push the bridges to burn and chaos to another day. I think you've set me up for that kind of day - thank you!

Nadia

Jan 05, 2022

Dear Dr B,

how about I dare you to read something. While you are still actually available to respond to us mere mortal fans ; )

It is NOT mandatory though : )

"In search of the Miraculous" P.D. Ouspensky

How about that? and then throw me a line. This is not for faint-hearted... It requires something more... And I feel you have it....

and I buy you 5 coffees and cream buns...

your official fan (not a stalker - yet : )

PS: why are you so timid about the money? Your value and your contribution is significant...

Unknown member

Jan 05, 2022

Replying to

I'm already hooked by the little vignettes they place in tables of content for each chapter. "The question of schools. Plans for further travel". Old school. I love it. "When DB met the dragon. After the dragon fell. The moment of quiet contemplation". Lol. Just being silly. Thanks for the recommendation. Let me read this and write about it when I'm done.

Nadia

Jan 05, 2022

Replying to

@Brendan, DONE!

I am getting you coffee and the cream bun now as a prepayment : )

Nadia

Jan 05, 2022

Replying to

@Brendan, jokes aside, thank you for being open.

goodtogrow

Jan 03, 2022

I read all the same childhood books that you did and come from a family of avid readers.

My parents, in their late 80s still read several books a week. Have you ever noticed the pensioners coming out of libraries with really heavy bags of books? That is until the Rona B.S stopped a lot of them.

I remember the last novel I ever read and I do mean the very last novel.

It was the sequel to Silence of the Lambs and it meant I was done with fiction for good.

I can't explain how sickened I was by that book, (I think it was Hannibal ) even though I'd read lots of other Police/murder type thrillers, without noticing how violent and depraved they were becoming.

Even though I read the book to the end, I was so unsettled by the content and the idea that an author could even conceive of the torture portrayed, that I vowed I would never read another novel.

Life is short and there are way too many books of non fiction to fill my hours.

Unknown member

Jan 04, 2022

Replying to

I'm totally with you. The last fiction book I read was 'American Psycho'. It is obviously black humour, so I can't say I didn't enjoy the absurdity of it all. The violence went too far for my liking. And then I thought well if this is what other people like, hmmm. Maybe I should make a run for it. For me, it's non-fiction all the way. Loads of good stuff for sure. Love reading. It really is a pleasure, isn't it?

Tomka Thoday

Dec 27, 2021

Hey Brendan, I read natural health, energy, self help, nutritional and metaphysical books. Christmas night, I looked at my book case and found a book I bought a few years ago and never read and it was time to read it

"frequency" - the Power of Personal Vibration by Penney Peirce. I have a book for everything but stopped reading for a while.

Yes totally agree having a job is BS and most are stressed and Covid slowed everyone down for a little while, but not everyone thinks like you and I and get caught in the hamster wheel. Questioning the meaning of life is bloody difficult when everyone around you questions 'You".

"Think and grow rich" by Napoleon Hill is great, something I read 9 years ago and started me on my journey not to riches but to self.

Unknown member

Jan 04, 2022

Replying to

Thanks Tomka. I realised when I wrote that list that I totally forget a bunch of books like Napolean Hill, and similar ones like 'As a Man Thinketh' and the 'The Science of Getting Rich'. I love those books as much for what they say about the zeitgeist of when they were writing, as the positive philosophy. It's interesting that as I've gotten older, I'm way more into health and wellbeing. Maybe it's a response to having a mental heath breakdown a few years back, or we just get wiser as we get older? Lol. On second thoughts, I guess it's just a challenge to keep well in this crazy environment :-) Speaking of which, I'm really getting into light and frequency lately. So interesting.

Tomka Thoday

Jan 04, 2022

Replying to

Hey Brendan, I think some of us as we get older will question and get into health and well being. I also believe when we go through a 'mental health BREAKTHROUGH' that's when we get wiser or NOT......that's when we make the choice to grow as a person or NOT. Light and frequency is so interesting.....obviously you have now been led to a new exciting path. Oooh I just discovered the Science of getting Rich by Wallace Wattle last year (2021) - awesome.

Leah D

Dec 27, 2021

Too funny Dr. B... Great reading list...!