SUGGESTED FICTION

Michel Houellebecq, Whatever, translated from the French by Paul Hammond, with an Introduction by Toby Litt (London: The Serpent's Tail, 1998, 2011) ("Obviously, I couldn't come up with anything to say, but I returned to my hotel deep in thought. It's a fact, I mused to myself, that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these to systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reason, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five of six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women; others with none. It's what known as 'the law of the market'. In an economic system where unfair dismissal is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their place. In a sexual system where adultery is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their bed mate. In a totally liberal economic system certain people accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment and misery. In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude. Economic liberalism is an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society. Sexual liberalism is likewise an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society. On the economic plane Raphael Tisserand belongs in the victors' camp; on the sexual plane in that of the vanquished. Certain people win on both levels; others lose on both. Businesses fight over certain young professional; women fight over certain men; men fight over certain young women; the trouble and strife are considerable." Id. at 98-99.).

Joyce Carol Oates, Mudwoman: A Novel (New York: Ecco, 2012) ("Paradox: how do we know what we have failed to see because we have no language to express it, thus cannot know that we have failed to see it. That was the human predicament, was it?--the effort to remain human." Id. at 416-417. Also see Maria Russo, "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 4/1/2012.).

Lionel Shriver, The New Republic: A Novel (New York: Harper, 2012) (" 'Ever hear of the 'impostor syndrome'?' Edgar asked diffidently. 'It's a problem especially for professionals--doctors, lawyers. You work and study and aspire away and suddenly someone hands you a piece of paper that says, okay, you're a lawyers. A lawyer! And you don't feel any different, You know you're still that kid with a Spyder bike who shoplifted Ho-Hos. You think you're a fraud. It can get pretty bad, this terror of being discovered. Happened to me, I think-and I dealt with it by debunking the whole profession instead of just myself. If a former fat boy looking for love could be an attorney, bar membership wasn't worth much. I figure the impostor syndrome applies to adulthood in general. After all, being a grown-up is disillusioning. I guess being a fetishized grown-up is disillusioning in spades.' " Id. at 217.).

C. P. Snow, The Affair: A Novel (Stranger and Brothers Series) (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1960) ("He was innocent in this case. I had no doubt. And he had another kind of innocence. From it came his courage, his hope, and his callousness. It would not have occurred to him to think what Skeffington and Tom had risked; and yet anyone used to small societies would have wondered whether Skeffington stood much chance of getting his Fellowship renewed, or Tom, for years to come, any sort of office. Howard did not care. He still had his major hopes. They were indestructible. Men would become better, once people like him had set the scene. He stamped out of the room, puzzled by what had happened, angry but not cast down, still looking for, not finding, but hoping to find, justice in this world." Id. at 372.).

Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy: A Novel (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992).

THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE . . . NOT!

Thubten Chodron, Open Heart, Clear Mind, with a Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1990) ("Closed-mindedness is an attitude that doesn't want to look at a new idea or event. It makes us tight, prejudiced and defensive." Id. at 54. "With open minds, we'll be tolerant. Having logically examined a new idea and checked for evidence to validate it, if we decide we don't agree with it, we can still be calm and friendly with another person who does. Disagreeing with an idea doesn't mean that we hate a person who accepts it. The idea and the person are different. Also, people's ideas change. We can appreciate what others say--be it correct or nonsensical--because it challenges us to think and thus to increase our wisdom." "When we find ourselves across the table from a person talking about a new subject or idea, we decide we don't agree we can approach the conversation with joy in learning, rather than with a judgmental attitude that has already decided the other person is wrong We'll let ourselves listen, reflect, grow and share, while we re-examine our previous ideas." Id. at 55. "The primary tenet of the selfish mind is that we are the center of the universe, the most important one, whose happiness and miseries are the most crucial. Why do I feel I'm the most important> 'Because I'm me,' says the selfish attitude, ''I'm not you.' " "I feel I'm the center of the universe (although I'm much too discreet to say that publicly). But so do you, and so do many other people. Just feeling that our happiness is the most important doesn't make it so." Id. at 71.).

IN A SENSIBLE WORLD MY DOWNWARD FACING DOG WOULD BE SHOT. FORTUNATELY THE WORLD IS FORGIVING!

Martin Kirk, Brooke Boon & Daniel DiTuro, Hatha Yoga Illustrated, photographs by Daniel DiTuro (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2006) (Namaste.).

LOOK AROUND . . . THE WORLD IS TRULY A WONDERMENT

Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, with an Introduction by Charles Saumarez Smith (London: The Folio Society, 2010) ("The English language, with its elaborate generosity, distinguishes between the naked and the nude. To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word nude, on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenceless body, but of a balanced, prosperous and confident body: the body re-formed. In fact, the word was forced into our vocabulary by critics of the early eighteen century to persuade the artless islanders that, in countries where painting and sculpture were practiced and valued as they should be, the naked human body was the central subject of art." Id. at 3.).

Victoria Finlay, Colour: Travels though the Paintbox (London: The Folio Society, 2009) ("The first challenge in writing about colours is that they don't really exist. Or rather they do exist, but only because our minds create them as an interpretation of vibrations that are happening around us. Everything in the universe--whether it is classified as 'solid' or 'liquid' or 'gas' or even 'vacuum'--is shimmering and vibrating and constantly changing. But our brains don't find that a very useful way of comprehending the world. So we translate what we experience into concepts like 'objects' and 'smells' and 'sounds' and, of course, 'colours', which are altogether easier for us to understand." Id. at 3.).

Richard Fortey, The Earth: An Intimate History (London: The Folio Society, 2011) ("For some years I have been thinking about how best to describe the way in which plate tectonics has changed our perception of the earth. The world is so vast and so various that it is evidently impossible to encompass it all within one book. Yet geology underlies everything: it founds the landscape, dictates the agriculture, determines the character of villages. Geology acts as a kind of collective unconscious for the world, a deep control beneath the oceans and continents. For the general reader, the most compelling part of geological enlightenment is discovering what geology does, how it interacts with natural history, or the story of our own culture. Most of us engage with the landscape at this intimate level. Many scientists, by contrast, are propelled by the search for the inclusive model, a general theory that will change the perception of the workings of the world. Plate tectonics has transformed the way we understand the landscape, for the world alters at the bidding of the plates, but much of the transformation has been expressed in the cool prose of scientific treatise. The problem is how we can marry these two contrasting modes of perception--the intelligent naturalist's sensitive view of the details of the land with the geologist's abstract models of its genesis and transformation. My solution has been to visit particular places, to explore their natural and human history in an intimate way, thence to move to the deeper motor of the earth--to show how the lie of the land responds to a deeper beat, a slow and fundamental pulse." Id. at xiii.).

Richard Fortey, Life: An Unauthorized Biography: A Natural History of the First Four Thousand Million Years of Life on Earth (London: The Folio Society, 2008) ("The earth was born from debris that circled the nascent sun. It was a planet spun from dust and rock, and one of the smaller masses that were trapped in the thrall of the sun's attraction. The debris comprising the belt of asteroids testifies to this time of creation, being a circlet that never congealed into a planetary ball. The other planets show what the earth might have been like if just one or two circumstances of history had been different. Above all, it would have been dead." Id. at 28.).

Simon Goldhill, Richard barber, Theodore K. Rabb & Jonathan Glancey, Wonders of the World (London: The Folio Society, 2006) ('Behind science, philosophy, worship, art, poetry, sits human wonder, and with it the human need not just to stand in awe but also to ask why and how, to record, to explore. This book is an invitation to participate in the history of wonder in more than one way. It is, first to look at and explore with us some of the most amazing human achievements over the centuries of civilisation. . . . Second, however, every one of these wonders is itself a response to the world that stems form human wonder. The Pyramids are grand, religious and political responses to the crisis of death, and the pharaohs' monumental hope for immortality--a human attempt to come to terms with fearful wonder at the mystery of mortality. The silicon chip is one result of the extraordinary new understanding of the physical world which modern science has provided, from quantum physics to the genetic code. Einstein's wonder at the behavior of light led to his foundational contribution to modern physics, just as Watson and Crick's amazement at the molecular order of the world gave rise to the discovery of DNA. Our tour of the wonders of the world is not just an opportunity for some touristy gawping, but an attempt to understand the how and why of these monuments." "The second basic human response to the world that motivates this book is the list. . . . Lists are a primary means of ordering the world, of recording property in a systematic way, of maintaining the genealogies which give family history. That is, without lists society would lack its own history as well as its principles of organisation. If wonder is an awestruck feeling of amazement, a list is much calmer way of putting some order into a response to the world." Id.at at 8-9.).

Robin Hanbury-Tenison, ed., The Great Explorers (London: Thanes & Hudson, 2010).

Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects (New York: Viking, 2010) ("If you want to tell the history of the whole world, a history that does not unduly privilege one part of humanity, you cannot do it through text alone, because only some of the world has ever had texts, while most of the world, for most of the time, has not. Writing is one of humanity's later achievements, and until fairly recently even many literate societies recorded their concerns and aspirations not only in writings but in things." Id. at xvii.).

"SEEING THE BASIC IRONY"

Ghogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, with a Foreword by Sakyong Mipham (Boston & London: Shambhala Library, 2008) ("So a sense of humor is not merely a matter of trying to tell jokes or make puns, trying to be funny in a deliberate fashion. It involves seeing the basic irony of the juxtaposition of extremes, so that one is not caught taking then seriously, so that one does not seriously play the game of hope and fear. This is why the experience of the spiritual path is so significant, why the practice of meditation is the most insignificant experience of all. It is is insignificant because you place no value judgment on it. Once you are absorbed into that insignificant situation of openness without involvement in value judgment, then you begin to see all the games going on on around you. Someone is trying t be stern and spiritually solemn, trying to be a good person. Such a person might take it seriously if someone offended him, might want to fight. If we work in accordance with the basic insignificance of what is, then you begin to see the humor in the kind of solemnity, in people making a big deal about things." Id. at 134-135.).

REINVENTING ONESELF: CORPORATE STYLE

John Harwood, The Interface: IBM and the Transformation of Corporate Design 1945-1976 (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota Press, 2011) (From the bookjacket: "In February 1956 the president of IBM, Thomas Watson Jr., hired the industrial designer and architect Eliot F. Noyes, charging him with reinventing IBMs corporate image, from stationary and curtains to products such as typewriters and computers and to laboratory and administrative buildings. What followed--a story told in full here for the first time--remade IBM in a way that would also transform the relationship between design, computer science, and corporate culture.").

AMERICAN POLITICS 0.06--SUMMER READING FOR LAW STUDENTS--AMERICA'S SECRET POLICE(?)

Tim Weiner, Enemies: A History of the FBI (New York: Random House, 2012) ("Obama gave the FBI control over the toughest al-Qaeda captives, the high-value detainees. He entrusted [FBI Director] Robert Mueller and his agents with the task of arresting and interrogating terrorists without mangling American laws and liberties." 'The FBI was now a part of a growing global network of interwoven national security systems, patched into a web of secret information shared among police and spies throughout American and the world. The Bureau trapped more suspects with more stings, and more sophisticated ones. It sometimes worked at the edge of the law, and arguably beyond, in the surveillance of thousands of Americans who opposed the government with words and thoughts, not deed or plots. . . . " "On the home front, Americans had become inured to the gaze of close-circuit cameras, the gloved hand of airport guards, and the phalanx of cops and guardsmen in combat gear. Many willingly surrendered liberties for a promise of security. They might not love Big Brother, but the knew he was part of the family now. . . . " "The FBI, which still has no legal charter from Congress, had been fighting for a century over what it could do in the name of national security. Attorney General Edward Levi had been the first to try to goven the Bureau thirty-five years earlier, in the wake of Watergate. He had acted in the tradition of Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, the pillar of the law who first appointed J. Edgar Hoover, and who had warned that a secret police was a menance to a free society." Id. at 446-447. Also see Kevin Baker, "Foiled Again," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 4/1/2012.).