The Celestine Prophecy

The Celestine Prophecy is an adventure by James Redfield.

In reality, it is a self-help book tricked out to look enough like fiction that it will get unsuspecting innocents to read it. (After realizing this, the traditional signs did pop out at me: the blurb on the front cover from an M.D., the subscription form in the back [$30 for a newsletter, $50 for an audio tape.])

That being said, I do think some of the less spectacular claims here could help some people. (People I don't know, but certainly someone.)

If I were to sum up this book, it would simply be: know thyself, know others, and act on it.

If you aren't easily duped into sending money to random people, I won't say that you shouldn't read this book, but maybe it wouldn't be an incredibly painful experience.

Sophie's World

This is a novel by Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder.

It sells itself as a juvenile fiction and a history of philosophy. Now this is an amazing book in one aspect only: it is the first book, since I started reading for fun, that I could not finish. This book is horrible. It is painful to read. I found I would rather fill my time sitting, thinking about how much I did not want to open this book, than reading it.

In terms of philosophy, there is a reason this book is in the fiction section and not the reference section; there is a reason this book was first published in Norwegian before being translated into English. If you want names and dates, this book could help, but you'd save a lot of time using wikipedia instead of this book. For a summary of the philosophies, there can be nothing worse than this book. The author is incredibly biased in what is included and what is not. Even within the philosophies included, I spotted numerous instances of half-truths, misleading information, and some simple lies. For example, at one point the author explains how Christians don't believe that humans have souls. This seemed ridiculous enough to me that I had to check just in case everything I had learned for the past 6 years was wrong, so I wrote to a reverend I know with the passage in question quoted. He replied that Gaarder was flat out wrong. I can't emphasize enough, if you want to learn about philosophy, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!!!

Now, there is a little bit of a story line about a 14 year old girl who secretly meets with a middle-aged man. (Maybe in Norway this is fine?) For the most part this is a boring and pointless attempt to string together long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, longlonglonglonglonglonglonglonglonglonglonglonglonglong.... dialogues about philosophy. In my humble opinion, this plot is superficial, lame, and worthless, but in all fairness, I only read 275 pages before giving up.

So, who should read this novel? No one. It should be avoided at any cost. If someone gives this book to you as a gift, hand it right back. If you happen to come across a pile of these soaking in gasoline in some back alley, do the world a favor and throw a match into the mix. Only an intellectual masochist or a complete idiot would manage to get through this entire book.

Twilight series

This is a 5 book series (I think) by Stephenie Meyer. The first 3 books (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse) have been published and the 4th (Breaking Dawn) is set for release on August 2, 2008.

Call me a little girl, but I really enjoyed reading these books. For no specific reason, they made me happy.

Other than that, they are sweet and enjoyable books targeted at teenage girls.

Anthem

This is a very short book by Ayn Rand.

Basically, it is the extremely abridged version of The Fountainhead with a 1984ish spin, and a much reduced understanding of the philosophy. If I thought cruelly of the author, I would say the only purpose of this book is to force high school English classes to read it. In my humble opinion, that is all it is good for.

If you are locked in a padded cell with nothing but this book and about an hour of time to waste, sure you can read it. Otherwise, don't waste your time; just pick up The Fountainhead and put some effort into understanding.

The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead is a fairly long novel by Ayn Rand.

Apparently I'm not the only person who has read it, and everyone I have talked to has loved it. In this, I have to agree with them.

The Fountainhead is an extremely powerful and philosophical novel (after writing Atlas Shrugged, Rand stopped writing fiction entirely to just do philosophical writing.) It is not exactly world crashing like House of Leaves was, but it will certainly make you rethink how you are living your life.

Personally, it scared me. I found I often had to set it down just to think about what it was saying and then get the courage to pick it back up again. I do have one complaint though: near the end it got a little preachy with a lot of dialogue that serves no other purpose than to explain in words what the rest of the book explained through characters. I suspect this is just for the imbeciles who would seek to read it, but whatever.

This is a book for those who have an appreciation for books, and art in general, in the respect that they are an extension of life. It is a book for the people of bold character, who would challenge the world, and in doing so make it better.