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Jonathan's Canon
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Heretics, by G.K. Chesterton
A part of being in a culture means a kind of blindness, a "How else could anyone think of it?" Heretics unmasks the blindness.
How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, by Francis Schaeffer.
This book is on par with The Abolition of Man, providing a much more culturally in-depth treatment of how Western thought is falling. It is a deep and extensive writing, as well as a fascinating read. It deals with the interior schism between head and heart, something well worth escaping.
How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
The title sounds positively Machiavellian, doesn't it? Don't let that deceive you. I prefer to talk with people who are trying to follow the principles in this book. It tells a lot about how to be a person others will genuinely enjoy being with.
I Saw Gooley Fly, by Joseph Bayly
This book is a collection of short stories; the first one, from which the book takes its title, is about a college freshman who is a complete klutz, gets into all kinds of accidents, and can fly. Not fly an airplane or hang glider or kite, mind you; he can jump out of his third-storey window and sail over to the dining hall.
I read that story after my best friend Robin, who is quite busy, took the effort to type it up and posted the whole printout to a forum wall. It struck a deep enough chord that I poked around until I purchased one of two available copies from a suggested book dealers' network, by a friend who works at a used and rare bookstore. I recently read it, and am glad to have gone to the trouble to find it.
What's so impressive about this book? In a word, creativity. The stories are as creative as Dorothy Sayers' "Pantheon Papers", but it's not just one work like that in a book of essays (which are insightful and quite often creative, but do not fill the same literary niche). Someone who likes the creativity shown in my different writings may find I Saw Gooley Fly to be a rare treat.
Best odds for getting a copy? Probably inter-library loan.
Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus, by Dinesh D'Souza
This book helped me make sense of some of my own experiences, and offers an alternative analysis of racial tensions besides, "Continue with what we're doing, only more of it and faster!"
In Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster
This book was given to me when I was baptized in Malaysia, and I am glad to have read it. It guides the reader on a spiritual journey inward, upward, and outward, in four disciplines each:
Part I: Meditation, Prayer, Fasting, Study
Part II: Simplicity, Solitude, Submission, Service
Part III: Confession, Worship, Guidance, Celebration
The note on the first page reads:
Presented to MR. JONATHAN HAYWARD on the occasion of his baptism on 13 JUNE 1993, by the Petaling Jaya Gospel Hall.
--Ephesians 3:16-19--
Ephesians 3:16-19 RSV reads:
...that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.
Introduction to Eugenics, booklet
This booklet, which struck me as too weird to be true until I actually did some research, is something I haven't been able to find online, but I believe there are probably some good books on. Nutshell is that the eugenics movement is alive and well, appearing under various masks such as Planned Parenthood: Margaret Sanger, the organization's founder, being openly and actively interested in reducing the number of black babies born -- though her successors are much better than that, and instead work on having abortion clinics situated well to take on charity abortions ('situated well' meaning 'in minority neighborhoods'). The belief in a population explosion (which is a bit absurd, if you think about it: why should population growth in third world countries suddenly meet such astronomical growth after being more or less stable for millenia, and why is apocalyptic overpopulation still approaching despite repeated and careful predictions for the doomsday which have come and gone) is listed as a major eugenic success.
The Joy of Mathematics, by Theoni Pappas
When I tell people that I'm a mathematician, the reaction is usually some mixture of one or more of awe, fear, and pity. They've had a couple of bad math classes, and therefore they figure that a math major experiences a concentrated form of such torture. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and this book explains to a non-mathematician what joy and beauty lie in such a profession.
Kevin Trudeau's Mega Memory, by Kevin Trudeau
Long ago and far away, people had memories that were prodigious by our standards; in Somalia, a large minority of educated men have memorized the Koran--without knowing Arabic. There is a proficiency in using memory that is mostly neglected here, and it can be useful. As I write, I'm using the basic technique to keep with me about twenty distinct points in an hour-long speech.
I'm at a disadvantage using these skills; they work best for a concrete mind rather than a very abstract one like mine. You may well find it easier to use the techniques than I do, and I still find them useful. Kevin Trudeau's book is one of several practical how-to books, and knowing even some of it is useful.
Labyrinth (movie--out of print, check an older rental store)
This fantasy movie is visually exquisite, and has the penultimate scene in M.C. Escher's "House of Stairs". Morally, it is the only movie I can recall seeing whose villain really tempts someone instead of shooting at him; the story goes on and has more and more things fall apart; the heroine keeps saying, "That's not fair!" -- and finally says in her heart, "It's not fair, but I'm going to give it my determination and my elbow grease. I can identify with that; I have met difficulties I would not have imagined possible, and yet still I follow God -- all the more powerfully, if anything. The term 'eye of the tiger' refers to a soldier who has been wounded and then returns to battle; there is no warrior so fierce as the eye of the tiger. I am in spiritual warfare the eye of the tiger, and this movie means a lot to me.
Leadership Is an Art, by Max DePree
I was calling random recruiters to send a resume... one of them was AC Recruiters, and (having seen many meaningless acronyms) did not guess that the AC stood for 'air conditioning', and was meant to place air conditioning repairmen etc. So I called, and had a pleasantly relaxed conversation, and he happened to know one guy in Homewood, "the best boss you'll ever have." He passed on my resume, and Lou (the head of the company) wanted to meet me. I asked him, "What's the title of that book he's so enthusiastic about?", and when he told me "Leadership Is an Art", checked out a copy to be able to read it and be prepared for the interview... and checked it out, and found that it was solid gold. It is the most humane and moral -- not to mention effective -- form of capitalism I have yet seen, and I would like to work under it. Lou, acting out the principles in this book, had a sign at the front door saying, "Welcome Jonathan Hayward", and we talked for over an hour.
This little book could be summarized as the Sermon on the Mount applied to business.
This site is an anthology of a lot of the best stuff on the web; it is worth at least a week of reading. It was where I found Abortion: A Failure to Communicate, and other gems.
The Lefthander Syndrome, by Stanley Coren
Apart from trying to make left-handers into another angry minority (a cure which is worse than the disease), this is a fascinating book about left-handedness.
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