The Epic Of Gilgamesh, tr. N. K. Sandars. 1972 revised edition. ISBN 0 14 044 100 X. I've owned this book for many years. Probably purchased at Powells. This is the oldest surviving written story. Contains a flood story similar to the one in Genesis. Because of the condition of the clay tablets that this story was written on, there are parts of the text that are missing. The translator in this version has filled in or smoothed over these rough spots, making the story easier to read. This is not a version for experts, but rather a version for the more average reader. I found the introduction very interesting because it explained the context in which this story was written.

The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. 1895. (the edition I read was published in 1902.) This is a collection of short stories. The stories are horror and fantastic in nature. Some take place in an imaginary future (is there any other kind of future?) Some of the stories have the characters reading and under the influence of a play called "The King in Yellow." Portions of this fictional play are quoted in the stories. This author was read by H. P. Lovecraft and some of the elements of the play are mentioned in his stories. The book I read was a PDF scan I downloaded from Google. I read it using the Kindle. This edition had several line drawings illustrating the stories.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. Bantam Books 1972, 553-07077-195. Subtitled: An Indian History of the American West. Presents the events of the American West from the Indian point of view from 1865 to 1890. A very sad story and a great injustice. The clash of the Indian culture and the European resulted in the destruction of the Indians, mostly because of the greed and ignorance of the Europeans.

One Hundred and One Famous Poems With A prose Supplement, An Anthology Compiled by Roy J. Cook. 1958. The copyright is 1958, however, I think that there were previous editions. How many I do not know. For example, here is a full view edition in books.google.com. First edition maybe 1916. The book is still in print and probably could be found at Powells or Amazon. I have never been a big fan of poetry and many of these poems I could not begin to understand. Some of the authors are Emerson, Whitman, Wordsworth, Shelley, Longfellow. I got this book at Camerons's Books for one dollar probably five to ten years ago.

The Koran translated and with notes by J. M. Rodwell. 1909. ISBN 978-0-486-44569-4. This Dover Thrift Edition is an unabridged republication of the 1909 edition with the notes and the chronological ordering of the Suras. It is amazing how much different translations can vary. See here for example. A PDF of this book can be obtained at books.google.com. I purchased this copy at Borders sometime last winter (2010) for $5.00.

About Time by Paul Davies, 1995, ISBN 0-671-79964-9. The subject of this book is the temporal realm, the dimension of time. The author is a physicist. In technical literature he is listed as P. C. W. Davies. The subtitle is "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution" and much of the book is about general relativity and time dilation. The book starts with a brief history of how people have (and still do) think about time. Everyone experiences time. In some cultures they claim that all times exists together, others only see the Now. In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, the character Billy Pilgrim becomes aware of his disjointed time travels. Most of "About Time" is about time as it relates to modern physics. Good book. The book has 285 pages, a Preface, a Prologue, 14 chapters and an Epilogue. Plus Notes describing sources of quotes, etc., a Biblography and an Index.

The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, edited and with Introduction by S. T. Joshi.
This book contains four stories by H. P. Lovecraft, "The Rats In The Walls", "The Colour Out Of Space", "The Dunwich Horror", and "At The Mountains Of Madness". These were all good stories. The annotated part is mostly footnotes added to explain the more obscure words in the stories. The book also has a number of pictures showing various places where Lovecraft lived. I purchased this book used at Powells, $10.95.

The Spawn of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft and others. 1971. Ballantine Books 02394-3-095 (SBN 345-02394-3-095). Edited by Lin Carter. This is a book of short stories which illustrates the development and growth of the "Cthulhu Mythos" stories. The other authors include Ambrose Bierce, Robert W. Chambers, Vincent Starrett, August Derleth, Lin Carter, Robert E. Howard, Walter C. DeBill Jr., Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, Zealia Bishop and J. Ramsey Campbell. This book was purchased in the early 1970s. I liked these stories for the most part, I might try to read them again sometime. I am also interested in reading more by the other authors (besides Lovecraft.) I have about a quarter of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. The cover art is fantastic, like the previous two books (Dream Quest and Doom) by Gervasio Gallardo.

The Doom That Came To Sarnath by H. P. Lovecraft. 1971. Ballentine Books 02146-0-095 (SBN 345-02146-0-095.) Edited by Lin Carter. This collection of short stories is related to the "Dream Quest" collection. Some of these stories are dreams, others are horror and even science fiction. One story was co-authored with Harry Houdini. Like "dream Quest" I purchased and read this first in the early 1970s. The cover art is fantastic, probably the reason I bought the book. The story can be read here or here.

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft. Ballantine Books 01923-7-095, 1970 (SBN 345-01923-7-095). Edited by Lin Carter (assumed to be no relation to Randolph Carter!) Dream Quest is both the title of this collection of six stories and the title of the longest story. I think these stories are in the public domain, so you can probably find them for free (for example, here.) This book is a paperback that I purchased new in the early 1970s. It is a part of a series of books published by Ballantine Books, Adult Fantasy Series. This book has several of the stories from Lovecraft's Dream Cycle. These stories are related because they have some of the same characters or locations.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Popular Library 445-00300-125. This is a book of short stories. The most famous is "The Lottery." I think I either saw a film version of this story or read it when I was in High School. It is quite shocking the first time you read it. Many of the other stories feature a character named Jim Harris (or something like that.) This is a reference to a popular English ballad "The Daemon Lover." Most of the stories are quite short, with a few being only two or three pages. Most have tricky, surprise endings. This book was purchased at Powell's a few years ago for 95 cents. It is a cheap paper back probably printed in the 1970s. The book "Night in Funland" also had a story by Shirley Jackson.

Fear Of Flying by Erica Jong. Signet 451 J6139. Novel. This the story of Isadora Wing, a young woman trying to determine who she is and what she wants. She is a feminist or at least is searching for what that means. The novel describes many of her sexual adventures and coins the term zipless f*ck. Well written and easy to read, the novel contains many references to literature and psychology.
This book was purchased on February 7, 1978 at the Varsity Book Exchange for one dollar.

Black Cargoes, History of the Atlantic Slave Trade by Daniel P. Mannix in collaboration with Malcolm Cowley. ISBN 0 1400 4253 9. Covers the four hundred year history of Europeans purchasing people in Africa and transporting them to North and South America. Well written and refers in many places to historical documents. Has several pages of drawings depicting conditions on the ships, etc. The sad thing is that in many places in the world slavery is still allowed, e.g., in Haiti (a former French colony that was freed by slave revolt) people still sell their children into slavery. (See Restavec.)

Genesis: A Living Conversation by Bill Moyers. ISBN 0-385-48345-7. This book is a series of transcripts of conversations recorded for a PBS television series of the same name. The series first appeared in the late 1990s. I found this book interesting to read, however sometimes the comments seemed to be a bit silly. The stories of Genesis were written thousands of years ago for a completely different social-economic context. To expect them to represent some modern value system (in other words, to be politically correct) seems to me to be unrealistic. Most of the participants were professional religionists, i.e. people who have made a career out of studying religion.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction by J. D. Salinger. ISBN 978-0316766944. Two short stories. The stories are about Buddy Glass and his brother Seymour Glass. The first story is about Buddy and some other people on the day that Seymour was to get married, but failed to show up at the altar. The second story appears to be an introduction to a book of poems by Seymour, an introduction written by Buddy.

On Genesis, A New Reading by Bruce Vawter. 1977, ISBN 0-385-06104-8. I really enjoyed reading this book. It uses the New American Bible (NAB) as its English translation. I first purchased this book back when it was new. It has taken me 32 years to get around to reading it. I wish I had read it when I first bought it. The book explains Genesis in terms of the four different sources of text, Priestly (P), Yahwist (J), Elohist (E) and the Redactor (R) and how these contribute to the inconsistencies in the text. It also relates many of the stories and names to information found in other sources and through archeology, etc. In some places it discusses the NAB and how it relates to the Masoretic Text (MT), Septuagint (LXX) and othe sources (Syriac etc.)

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger. ISBN 0-316-76950-9. I enjoyed reading this book. It was easy to read. The stories contain a lot of conversation and smoking! Too bad all of his stories are not available in book form, maybe someday.

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Sallinger. ISBN 0316769495. This book contains two stories, actually two episodes of one story. There isn't much action, it is mostly just conversations.

Night In Funland And Other Stories From Literary Cavalcade, edited by Jerome Brondfield. TK1056. This is a collection of short stories published by Scholastic Book Services in 1968. I first read this book in high school sometime around 1970. The story Night In Funland is by William Peden. He also has a book of short stories called Night In Funland. I found this book in a used book store about 20 years ago. The stories are mostly written in the 1950's but there are a few from the 30's, 40's and 60's. Contains 13 easy to read stories, including Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes and One Ordinary Day with Peanuts by Shirley Jackson.

Behold A Pale Horse by William Cooper. ISBN 0-929385-22-5. This book purports a theory that there is a vast conspiracy of a group known as the Illuminati that has involved numerous other groups, including, the Masons, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, FEMA, etc. This conspiracy has been on going for hundreds of years and its purpose is to either 1) control the world (i.e., establish the New World Order), 2) protect the world from extraterrestrial beings (UFOs, etc.) or 3) deliver the world to extraterrestrial beings to be used as a slave planet. Also contains a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Cooper claims that the protocols are really the secret plans of the Illuminati.

Interpretation of the Meaning of The Noble Quran Translated into the English Language By Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali Ph.D. and Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan. This is a pocket sized edition of a popular translation of the Quran. According to the Wikipedia article, this translation of the Quran is disliked by Western Muslims (what is a Western Muslim? verse 3.149 and an associated Hadith by Samara bin Jundab indicate that Muslims shouldn't live in the land of al-shirk, i.e. western countries. See here number 2781.) because it is too blunt, contains grotesque misogyny, and is more like a supremacist Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian polemic than a rendition of the Islamic scripture. Harsh. The book has both Arabic and English, 975 pages for the Quran and about another 130 pages of preface and appendix. There are many notes attached to the Quran translation taken from Hadith, etc. Here is the text of the translation.

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. ISBN 0-440-32497-1. This is the Twentieth Anniversary edition, printed 1984. Purchased at Powell's, 1992-08-14 for $2.95, used, regular sized paperback (the one I read, not the one pictured.) This book is credited by some as starting the second women's liberation movement. It is well written and full of information, even though it is now more than 45 years old (originally published in 1963.)

50 Physics Ideas You Really Need To Know by Joanne Baker. ISBN 978-1-84724-148-1. This book, like the other "50 Ideas" books, contains 50 short descriptions of physics related subjects. Each subject gets four pages. This also includes diagrams and boxes on special terms (for example, in the section on chaos theory there is a box on the "butterfly effect".) Other subjects include Mach's Principle, Newton's laws, Nuclear fission, Nuclear fusion, the Big Bang, etc. These descriptions are very high level and aimed at a general audience. There are no references to help pursue a subject further, however, one can easily look them up in Wikipedia. I got his book for $5.99 at Borders.

Dictionary of Islam by Thomas Patrick Hughes. ISBN 978-812060672-2. This book was originally published in 1885. It has been re-published in recent times by several companies. There is also a PDF version available for free.
I find it interesting to read, even though it is out of date in many areas.

Interlinear Chumash Bereishis. ISBN 978-1-4226-0202-7. This book is a part of an Artscroll series. Interlinear means that the original Hebrew text is shadowed by a word for word English translation. This can be a bit difficult to follow at times, but it gives you a sense of how the original text reads. These books are probably only for those who are seriously interested in the Hebrew religion. There is also a commentary drawn from various medieval Rabbis, such as Rashi, Ramban, etc. The commentary frequently refers to the Midrash. This is a beautiful book, very well typeset, etc. I wish that they would have provided more information about the source of the commentary.

Infinity and the Mind, by Rudy Rucker. ISBN 0-691-00172-3. This is an excellent introduction to some complex ideas. Probably the reader who has little or no exposure to these ideas will find this book very difficult. Chapter titles are Infinity, All the Numbers, The Unnameable, Robots and Souls, The One and the Many, The Transfinite Cardinals, Godel's Incompleteness Theorems. I enjoyed this book (I have read it three times), but I find the Unnameable and the sections on Large Cardinals and Incompleteness difficult to understand.

The Mystery of the Aleph by Amir D. Aczel. ISBN 1-56858-105-X. The subtitle is Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity. This book is about the history of infinity. It is less technical than the David Foster Wallace book. Like that other book this one is mostly about Georg Cantor, but also covers Zeno (and other Greeks), Galileo, Gödel, Cohen and others. The book is well written and easy to read. The explanations of the more technical parts of the story are a bit over simplified, but still enjoyable for someone interested in this subject. This book plays up the idea that the study of infinity causes insanity.

National Sunday Law by A. Jan Marcussen. No ISBN. This booklet is being mail to people in the United States. This book purports to explain future events based on the Book of Revelation. The style is sensational, for example, on the cover it says "A Shocking Glimpse Behind the Scenes" and "Forces unite amid stupendous crisis...". The author is a Seventh-day Adventist. He is against the so called "National Sunday Law" (see here for example Lord's Day Act or here
Lord' Day Alliance.) His theory is that the Pope and the United States of America are two beasts from the Book of Revelation that are going to help Satan ruin the lives of millions by causing them to worship the Sun instead of G-D. The book can be obtained from websites like this.

Everything and More: A Compact History of ∞, By David Foster Wallace. ISBN 978-0-393-32629-1. This a really good book. A bit eccentric in style, but it works because the subject, infinity, is so complex. The story is mainly of Cantor's work in the modern theory of infinity, but it covers stuff from all periods of history, e.g., Zeno and other ancient Greeks to European mathematics of the 1600's and the discovery of Calculus (Leibniz and Newton.)
This book touches on many complex mathematical ideas, but doesn't get too bogged down with proofs, etc.

Before the Mayflower: A History of the Negro in America, 1619-1964

By Lerone Bennett, Lerone Bennett, Jr.

Published by Penguin Books, 1966

ISBN 0140208569, 9780140208566

435 pages

This book was written as a series of magazine (Ebony) articles in the early 1960s when the word Negro was still accepted. Now, of course, one would say African-American. Very well written, it describes this history of Africans in the Americas, mostly in the USA.

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. Bantam S2807. I've had this book for years, but I never read it. Lots of people read it in school, but it was never assigned to me and so I never got around to reading it. It doesn't seem very realistic to me. New York in the 1940's must have been a crazy place.

The History of Hell by Alice K. Turner. ISBN 0-15-140934-X. I got my copy of this book at Powells at the same time that I got the Biography of Satan (they were in the same section.) This book was easier to read than the Satan one, a bit less academic, but still very well written. The book covers the concept of Hell mostly from the view point of Western Civ. She includes stuff at the beginning about Middle Eastern and Mediterranean sources (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Jewish, etc.) but then mostly focuses in on the idea of Hell in Christian Europe, both in religious thought and in art and literature . The book contains many pictures of paintings of Hell done over the centuries. I learned a lot from this book and will be exploring some of the subjects she discusses in more detail. This book is not a religious book.

Anthem by Ayn Rand. Signet 451-W7846. My copy of this book is much older than the one I linked to. I am guessing that I bought it sometime in the late 80's, but it was probably used. It doesn't have an ISBN. Probably dates to the 60s. I have four other books by her, maybe I'll get around to reading them someday. The story in this book is not very believable. It is contrived to allow the author to make the point of how great is individualism. It was written at a time when the Soviet Union was considered a success by some people. Clearly, those days are gone. This book is a poor example of a genre (dystopian science-fiction) that I would say includes books like Brave New World, 1984, Animal Farm. Read them before you read this.

Screwed, The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class, by Thom Hartman. ISBN 1-57675-414-6. I got this book at Powells for cheap. My copy is the first edition (2006.) There is a more recent second edition. The book is easy to read and well written. It appears to me to be well researched, many stated facts are sourced with notes/references. The book is a bit of a downer, because Hartmann paints a pretty bleak picture. He does end it with recommended actions that the reader can pursue.

Satan A Biography, by Henry Ansgar Kelly. ISBN 0-521-60402-8. This book provides a discussion of the character Satan as it occurs in (mainly) Christian literature. Jewish and Muslim ideas are considered only briefly. The main thrust is the "Old" vs. the "New" Satan. The Old Satan is found in the Old Testament and New Testament books while the New Satan is developed later by Christian writers like Justin Martyr. I found this book very interesting and was especially interested in the wide variety of books the author consulted to make his case concerning the Old vs. New Satan.

What Would Jefferson Do? by Thom Hartmann. ISBN 1-4000-5209-2. This book discusses democracy in general and democracy in the USA. It describes the founding fathers and what their writings and actions indicate they believed concerning democracy and other subjects, e.g., religion. The book further discusses problems with the government in the USA and some things that the author thinks should be done to correct them. Well written and easy to read. One of the main themes is the evils of uncontrolled corporations and how they try to push the government towards fascism.

"The Stories and Fables of Ambrose Bierce" by Ambrose Bierce. ISBN 0-916144-20-8. My main reason for reading this was a memory of a film of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge". It was a short black and white film. Many of the stories have military (civil war) related scenes. The Fables are mostly very short little bits that are supposed to be funny.

"In The Beginning, A New Interpretation of Genesis" by Karen Armstrong.
ISBN 0-345-40604-4. This book is an excellent read. Well written, clear and concise. The Genesis commentary is high level, covering the main ideas and themes as well as discussing the nature of the text. This is not a word for word discussion of Genesis. Also, contains the text of the New Revised Standard Version.

The Gospel of St. Matthew, By John C. Fenton. ISBN 9780140204889. This book was interesting to read because it yielded much information about the Book of Matthew. It uses the text from the Revised Standard Version. It has a short introduction and then goes through the book verse by verse. It restates each verse in plain english and explains how the verse relates to other Gospels or to the old testament.

Muhammad, The Prophet by Gabriel Mandel Khan. ISBN 1-59223-401-1. This book is well written and illustrated with many photographs. The author is clearly pro-Islam. In fact after reading this book one would think that everything good in the world was created by the Islamic peoples (and conversely everything bad by the non-Islamic peoples, especially the Europeans.) Since this is not the case, this book can be viewed as biased in favor of Islam. Still it might be worth reading, you just need to remember that the point of view is tilted towards Islam. Ironically, it appears that the author lives in Italy. You would assume that someone who is so pro-Islam would prefer to live in an Islamic country.

A Daily Dose of Torah. This is a series of 14 volumes. Author is Yosaif Asher Weiss. Each volume covers four weeks of torah study. The books are probably best used by Orthodox Jews as there is a great deal of discussion about the Mishnah and how the various rules are to be observed, etc. To non-jews these books might be of interest as they provide some insight to what Judaism is all about. I have read only volumes one through six. ISBN 1422601390.

50 Philosophy Ideas by Ben Dupre. ISBN 978-1847240064. This book presents 50 short discussions on various philosophical topics. Wikipedia has many good discussions like those in this book.

Book of Matthew, this was the New King James Version. (I wonder what they are going to call the next King James Version, New New King James Version, Newer King James Version???) The copy I read was a Gideons (orange cover) that I found on the sidewalk. It was in perfect condition so I decided to read it. I will be reading the rest of the New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs as time permits. I have read other translations before. This one is like King James, but with a slightly more modern vocabulary.

The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey. ISBN 978-0-380-01539-9. This is a funny little book. When it was written in 1969 it probably seemed very outrageous . Now it just seems silly. There are four sections: Fire (Book of Satan), Air (Book of Lucifer), Earth (Book ofBelial) and Water (Book of Leviathan). The first section is described as a version of "Might is Right". The second section is some philosophic discussions similar to the first section. The third and fourth sections describe rituals. The end of the fourth section has various "Enochian" calls that have been retranslated to be "satanic."

The Man Who Counted by Malba Tahan. ISBN 0 86241 883 6. The is a great little book. It is about a Persian man Beremiz Samir (the man who counted) and an Arab and some of the adventures they have. Each adventure involves some sort of mathematical problem,which Beremiz cleverly solves. This was an interesting book to read, especially if you are interested in mathematical puzzles.

Reading the book of Genesis. Seven different translations. I read the weekly Torah portion, a different translation every day. The translations I used were: (1) JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, ISBN 978-0-8276-0766-8. (2) The Sapirstein Edition, Bereishis/Genesis, The TORAH with Rashi's commentary, ISBN 1-57819-325-7.
(3) The Five Books of Moses, Everett Fox, ISBN 0-8052-1119-5.
(4,5,6,7) The Layman's Parallel Bible (King James Version KJV/Modern Language/Living Bible/Revised Standard Version RSV).

50 Mathematical Ideas You Really Need To Know, by Tony Crilly.
ISBN 978-1-84724-147-4. This book as the title implies covers 50 mathematical ideas. It has a four page section for each idea. Each section is just a basic overview of the topic, but they are fun to read if you are interested in this subject. The only thing I would have liked to have seen was a reference section at the end that would point the reader to additional information about the various topics. On the other hand, the reader can easily look these topics up in wikipedia to get more info and further references. Some of the topics covered are zero, number systems (numeral systems), fractions, squares and square roots. Other subjects include pi, e, infinity, imaginary numbers, primes.