Books photographed on the awesome sumo gigantor beanbag…
So when I asked today’s PJ Lifestyle daily question about the best way to read, it was wholly with practical intent. I don’t read one book at a time; I’m always aways into dozens. It’s because my goal for many years now as a writer and editor has been to smash together ideas and thinkers to try to develop new approaches that transcend the stereotypes of Left vs Right, Believer vs Secularist, Liberal vs Conservative.
Here are six very different authors who I focused on last year and will continue dissecting this year to try to find fresh connections. The books of each of them will shock you in totally different ways. I recommend reading them alongside one another.
1. Counterculture intellectual and sci fi novelist Robert Anton Wilson
Page 7 of the introduction to the play Wilhelm Reich in Hell:
Page 221 of Volume 2 of Schrodinger’s Cat: The Trick Top Hat
2. Counter-jihad activist and religious scholar Robert Spencer
Page 139 of Islam Unveiled:
Page 63 of Did Muhammad Exist?:
3. Former Soviet Spymaster and Hero Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa
Page 207 of Pacepa’s memoir Red Horizons:
4. The #1 Conservative Columnist and Most Provocative Cable News Pundit Ann Coulter
Edward Hoffman’s The Wisdom of Maimonides page 46 juxtaposed with the cover of High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton:
Page 56 of High Crimes and Misdemeanors:
5. Foundational Thinker of Western Civilization and Jewish Philosopher Maimonides
Page 35 of Hoffman’s The Wisdom of Maimonides:
6. Cultural Critic and Literary Theorist Camille Paglia
Page 66 of Sex, Art, and American Culture, an essay collection from the early ’90s:
Page xiv from the introduction to Break Blow Burn, Paglia’s analysis of 43 significant poems from Western Civilization:
What connections do you see between these various excerpts featured today? And what other authors and books that you like should I add to my studies?
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