Bookshelf

A History of Western Philosophy

Generally considered flawed due to Russell's strong bias toward logical positviism, it's still a classic and well worth reading. We don't have to agree with every idea in order to consider it, and learn from it.

Algebra to Go: A Mathematics Handbook

Covers Algebra I concepts. Small format, jam-packed, well-written, full-color, richly illustrated, with clear explanations. Excellent index and glossary. There's even good inspiration in this mainstream book for quality Waldorf-inspired lessons.

Classical Guitar Making: A Modern Approach to Traditional Design (Music Sales America)

A beautifully crafted book with hundreds of detailed color photos. You can' t build a guitar only from reading this book (or any other book), but this one will take you a long way in the right direction. I appreciated the detailed information on wood, tools and jigs.

Desert Solitaire

One of the top ten North American books.

Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology: A Complete Reference for the Design & Construction of the Steel-String Folk Guitar & the Classical Guitar (Guitar Reference)

Hailed by Guitar Player magazine as 'perhaps the finest book on guitars ever produced,' and by Booklist as 'a Rolls Royce of construction guidebooks,' this impressive volume is the first book of its kind to describe in depth how both steel-string and classical guitars are actually designed and built. Over 450 photographs, drawings, and diagrams reveal in exquisite detail the hows, whys, and how-to's of the traditional craft of guitarmaking, all accompanied by fascinating historical and technical notes. A comprehensive bibliography; a list of tools, materials, and supply sources; and a full index complete this uniquely authoritative reference -- and essential acquisition -- for guitar and craft enthusiasts, woodworkers, and students of instrument making everywhere.

Making Math Meaningful: A Middle School Math Curriculum for Teachers and Parents

Written by an experienced Waldorf teacher, this book provides a clear overview of a typicalWaldorf middle school math curriculum. Filled with detailed examples and clear explanations. Unfortunately, it's somewhat dated due to ever increasing state pressures to teach complex skills at inappropriately young ages. This is an excellent book for home schoolers and others who are free to teach to the students rather than to politically-motivated  mandates.

Mark Twain on Religion: What is Man, The War Prayer, Thou Shalt Not Kill, The Fly, Letters from the Earth (Forgotten Books)

Most of Mark Twain's most important works have been systemactially ignored due to their uncompromising truthfulness and passion. This collection contains many of the best.

Another great anthology is, Mark Twain in Eruption. This book is no longer in print, but used copies can still be found.

Mein Kampf (German)

To understand what leads societies toward fascism (an alliance of elite business and political interests), it's important to understand the fears, frustrations, hopes, and dreams of those who fall under the spell of simplistic dogmas. Ignorance is no defense against the approach of night.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition

Should be required reading for all educators.

Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization (Leonardo Books)

Is the Internet a vast arena of unrestricted communication and freely exchanged information or a regulated, highly structured virtual bureaucracy? In Protocol, Alexander Galloway argues that the founding principle of the Net is control, not freedom, and that the controlling power lies in the technical protocols that make network connections (and disconnections) possible. He does this by treating the computer as a textual medium that is based on a technological language, code. Code, he argues, can be subject to the same kind of cultural and literary analysis as any natural language; computer languages have their own syntax, grammar, communities, and cultures. Written for a nontechnical audience, Protocol serves as a necessary counterpoint to the wildly utopian visions of the Net that were so widespread in earlier days.

Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

Small is Beautiful launched a global humanistic movement in economics. It's a wholistic approach containing ethical, ecological, and metaphysical components that are missing from mainstream statistical models that focus solely onmeasurements, such as the GNP. Schumacher sounded the alarm regarding globalization by asking "how much further 'growth' will be possible, since infinate growth in a finite environment is an obvious impossibility". He was critical of economic models that assumed unbounded materialism and advocated greed and envy as the primary human motivators.

Essays include: "Peace and Permanence", "The Role of Economics", "Buddhist Economics", "The Greatest Resource - Education", "Technology with a Human Face", "Development of Intermediate Technology", and "Two Million Villages".

Although the book was written in 1973, it is as timely now as it was then. The 25th anniversary edition contains provocative updates provided as sidebars by contributors such as Hazel Henderson, Peter Warshall, Amory Lovins, and Godric Bader.

The Complete Book of Woodworking: Detailed Plans for More Than 40 Fabulous Projects

Great book with plenty of breadth, depth and detail. The projects are a little simple, but they are good starting points.

The Gnostic Gospels

An easy introduction to many of the lost books of the early Christians. Shows what Christianity might have become if it's early history had not be so brutally controlled by gangs of bitter old men.

The Pursuit of Loneliness, 20th Anniversary Edition

Contrary to the distortions of the corporate media, the sixties generation stood for much more that "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll." The counterculture they devised, was first and foremost an intellectual, philosophical, and even spiritual movement against the bankrupt morals, ideas, and lifestyles of dominant society. One of the predominating characteristics of the counterculture was its sense of moral outrage at blatant racism.

Philip Slater details how and why the two cultures clashed, and what the likely results would be. Unlike his younger admirers, Slater understood the power of the dominant culture, and just how perilous the position of the counterculture was growing to be. In this sense, he anticipated the kinds of events--such as the shootings at Kent State and in the Deep South--that began the reaction and eventual distruction of the counterculture.

To read this book is to take a step back into the maelstrom that whirled around us in the sixties, and to see the nature of contemporary society in an even clearer light than is possible without it.

The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (American Empire Project)

Since September 2001, the United States has "undergone a transformation from republic to empire that may well prove irreversible," writes Chalmers Johnson. Unlike past global powers, however, America has built an empire of bases rather than colonies, creating in the process a government that is obsessed with maintaining absolute military dominance over the world, Johnson claims. The Department of Defense currently lists 725 official U.S. military bases outside of the country and 969 within the 50 states (not to mention numerous secret bases). According to the author, these bases are proof that the "United States prefers to deal with other nations through the use or threat of force rather than negotiations, commerce, or cultural interaction." This rise of American militarism, along with the corresponding layers of bureaucracy and secrecy that are created to circumvent scrutiny, signals a shift in power from the populace to the Pentagon: "A revolution would be required to bring the Pentagon back under democratic control," he writes.

In Sorrows of Empire, Johnson discusses the roots of American militarism, the rise and extent of the military-industrial complex, and the close ties between arms industry executives and high-level politicians. He also looks closely at how the military has extended the boundaries of what constitutes national security in order to centralize intelligence agencies under their control and how statesmen have been replaced by career soldiers on the front lines of foreign policy--a shift that naturally increases the frequency with which we go to war.

Thinking Mathematically

A well-designed guide for those in recovery from drill-and-kill indoctrination. If you were taught to fear or hate math, this book may be your cure. Rather than expecting you to memorize and regurgitate meaningless formulas invented by others, you are offered various interesting challenges to explore. As you progress through the book, your problem solving skills expand and you begin to think like a mathemetician.