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Jul. 16th, 2013 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonfareI can sometimes go for months without finding anything in Audible.com to interest me greatly, but every once in a while, I find something I'm excited about. This month, it was two things!
The first is a book called "Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife" by Eben Alexander. Alexander is an academic neurosurgeon - i.e., a surgeon and a scientist - who had a near-death experience of an unusual and profound kind. I'll spare y'all any details and go right into why I consider this book a treasure, so much so that I plan to buy it in either Kindle or real book or both. Dr. Alexander brought back his experience of the afterlife, and due to the nature of the coma he was in, all the usual medical/scientific theories of why he couldn't actually have been in heaven did not apply. If you want or need belief in life after death or in heaven itself, this is a fascinating book. What made it wonderful for me, personally, is that everything he describes fits perfectly into the spiritual beliefs that began for me when I was about 5 years old and have continued to develop through time. It was a fit so close that it should have been scary or exciting, but instead my reaction was calm, like "Of course that's how it is," as if I were putting on an old, comfortable coat. My belief is strong enough that I don't need confirmation, but it was still a deep pleasure to read this book.
There is a quote that is tangentially relevant, which has been in my mind for a few weeks now - "I've found that just surviving was a noble fight". It's from Billy Joel's song, "Angry Young Man". So I picked my dear Kenshin for the image on this post.
The other item that Audible blessed me with is a new series (at least, new to me!) called "The Great Courses". It's a large collection of lecture courses on a wide variety of topics. For this month's credit, I picked up "The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World", a series of 48 lectures, about 1/2 hour each. I'm eagerly looking forward to this, and if it's as good as I think it will be, my next venture will be a lecture series on meditation.
The first is a book called "Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife" by Eben Alexander. Alexander is an academic neurosurgeon - i.e., a surgeon and a scientist - who had a near-death experience of an unusual and profound kind. I'll spare y'all any details and go right into why I consider this book a treasure, so much so that I plan to buy it in either Kindle or real book or both. Dr. Alexander brought back his experience of the afterlife, and due to the nature of the coma he was in, all the usual medical/scientific theories of why he couldn't actually have been in heaven did not apply. If you want or need belief in life after death or in heaven itself, this is a fascinating book. What made it wonderful for me, personally, is that everything he describes fits perfectly into the spiritual beliefs that began for me when I was about 5 years old and have continued to develop through time. It was a fit so close that it should have been scary or exciting, but instead my reaction was calm, like "Of course that's how it is," as if I were putting on an old, comfortable coat. My belief is strong enough that I don't need confirmation, but it was still a deep pleasure to read this book.
There is a quote that is tangentially relevant, which has been in my mind for a few weeks now - "I've found that just surviving was a noble fight". It's from Billy Joel's song, "Angry Young Man". So I picked my dear Kenshin for the image on this post.
The other item that Audible blessed me with is a new series (at least, new to me!) called "The Great Courses". It's a large collection of lecture courses on a wide variety of topics. For this month's credit, I picked up "The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World", a series of 48 lectures, about 1/2 hour each. I'm eagerly looking forward to this, and if it's as good as I think it will be, my next venture will be a lecture series on meditation.
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Date: Jul. 17th, 2013 12:55 pm (UTC)I'm still reading Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street series and enjoying it immensely. I can't seem to get into the ones set in Africa, although everyone else loves them. I guess I prefer Scotland. ;) I also am planning on a re-read of Fruits Basket and the Merlin trilogy by Mary Stewart this summer. I tend to get nostalgic in my reading choices in the summertime, and long to read books/series I've loved and/or read during summers gone by.
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Date: Jul. 17th, 2013 03:22 pm (UTC)I don't really recall the Mary Stewart series, although I know I read them - in fact, I believe I still have them on my shelf. That would be a bit of nostalgia, wouldn't it? I re-read a lot of things, but most often Stephen King's novels. Does that make me weird? hee. Seriously, I love going back to revisit a world in a novel. I just do it erratically, not just in the summer. I especially do it when I'm tired or depressed, and maybe that's why you do it in the summer, because summers are so hard on you. (I was just reading about your summer today - good GOD. I hope things improve SOON!!)
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Date: Jul. 17th, 2013 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 17th, 2013 04:55 pm (UTC)But I believe he does account for that in the same way as the other theories, which is that, in REM sleep, the cortex is involved in the dreaming, and his cortex, as he reminds us often, was out to lunch.
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Date: Jul. 18th, 2013 02:16 am (UTC)On a slightly different note, me and a bunch of other authors are doing a 777-Challenge. Can I tag Catherine Dove?
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Date: Jul. 18th, 2013 12:11 pm (UTC)I hate to seem ignorant, but what is a 777 Challenge?
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Date: Jul. 18th, 2013 03:39 pm (UTC)Basically the 777 challenge is you go to page 7 or page 77 of a WIP, go 7 lines down and post seven sentences on your blog. For our personal journals we'll be posting the 'next big thing' answers too, then you tag some authors. I don't have the questions in my author blog yet, but here's the spec-fic blog me and a few of the other Burst authors have been running:
http://worldsoftheimagination.wordpress.com/
I posted one of my WIP's at the beginning of the month, but there's a few others who we've tagged and contributed directly to the site. This next round is on personal blogs, so it doesn't have to be sci-fi/fantasy in scope to participae. That's why I thought I'd ask Catherine Dove.
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Date: Jul. 18th, 2013 05:48 pm (UTC)Except I don't know any other authors!
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Date: Jul. 18th, 2013 06:20 pm (UTC)If you like the questions and wanna do both, here's the link to my author blog:
http://ltgetty.wordpress.com/
So... Pretty please for WOTI?
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Date: Jul. 18th, 2013 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 18th, 2013 06:47 pm (UTC)Do the questions, I'll link from my blog.
For WOTI:
Email me at redpickleduck@yahoo.com, and I can post it on Monday! Give me links to whatever you'd like - I know you had a short story published, and if you want I can mention you have some regency novels out under a different pen name. Your call.