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• 3/3/2009 7:45 PM charlaxreader wrote:
  http://apps.facebook.com/causes/236649/51651239?m=f6a2e5a8
  GOOD LIST JOHN
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  1. 3/4/2009 8:38 AM Jesus Crisis wrote:
     Thanks, Charles!  And congratulations on your recent publication in the Cartier Street Review!
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     1. 3/4/2009 1:45 PM charlaxdickenson wrote:
        CharlesDickenson
        Charles ye Yevette le commande the comorant deteste avette avette avec la plume de nome. Arrears ye horrores limning swollenly lefttenant ye com areba horsey. Commending spillage portant moreover pollage. Mayhappenstance the villages es aide mot applies. Streake la outlay peerage ever hallow finde es strangere leeking. The constable corn haloes turning pences into pieces of eighte. Sacreblue hirry Yevette misplaced her sipper. Finde ye olde cupe yon holy grail led anon near Capreston near the left hand border. Tres bien mer see auf weidershen the polecate lies trimming. Aunts linning les roadaway as far eye eye can see the sea is near the hollaway dos beaches dos many beaches how dare they encroach. The breaches of the gunes the breaches as they loade the breaches the breaches avast. Avaste on gaurd they com they poad. Until the last Englishman gives breathe as rising we give lighte to all. As CharlaX sweeps the seconds ticke the candle dripps the waxed as Dickenson he sends the prose up every readere nase it looks like rose colored glass the cupe is overflowe. The end at last.
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     2. 3/5/2009 7:00 PM charlaxheinlein wrote:
        http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=Robert+A+Heinlein&source=an&ei=9WawSciiLZmMsQOCu5SNAQ&sa=X&oi=book_group&resnum=4&ct=title&cad=author-navigational
        Robert Heinlein wrote 806 books to l()()K @ Jesus Crisus
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• 3/3/2009 8:28 PM B. T. Forsythe wrote:
  Forgive me if I asked before -- I kinda dove into my Blogger blogs without giving it the due diligence of research, wondering why you're paying for the privilege rather than using a free option?
  
  I'll do my best to remember to click through your site before I order from Amazon. I've been making an effort to buy used books, though (to encourage reuse), and I'm guessing you don't get credit for those. Do you get credit for non-book items sold by Amazon and/or its marketplace sellers?
  
  My top book list would be embarrassing. (Even moreso than my spelling of 'embarrassing', one of those words I seem unable to spel without electronic assistance.) I think folks assume I'm much more steeped in the classics than I am - I've been racing to catch up before they find me out!
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  1. 3/3/2009 9:10 PM Jesus Crisis wrote:
     I find GoDaddy more user friendly - and it has a lot more options (though I haven't fully exploited them all) than any other blogware I've seen.  It also allows me to upload photos, videos, music without limits and maintain control of it all - create a private blog in addition to the public ones - and not have to worry about censorship or account deletion (as I've encountered on MySpace.  I can also add any ads I want - though I have a general distaste for ads (I make an exception for books and music... lol).
     
     I get credit for used books, non book items, anything you can buy through Amazon and/or it's marketplace sellers.
     
     Thanks, Brian!
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• 3/3/2009 11:17 PM Vertigo Xi'an Xavier wrote:
  GoDaddy's overcharging you... I'm paying less than that to rent an entire "virtual" server, where I can host a number of sites limited only by space and bandwidth. (I host 15 sites now, including Poet's Haven and neopoets.org, and haven't even used 5% of my space and have at most used 35% of the bandwidth in a month with five new podcast episodes.)
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  1. 3/4/2009 8:44 AM Jesus Crisis wrote:
     Hmm... we'll have to talk more about this.  I've been reluctant to go cheaper, as I've known friends who had huge sites they'd worked on for years completely disappear when the server they were using broke down, went out of business, or something of the sort.  Plus I've tried others, like Yahoo, in the past and come away unsatisfied.  So far GoDaddy's user-friendliness is the biggest draw (I'm learning, but I'm not as tech-savvy as I might appear to the average viewer of my site), though I'd certainly be open to better options.
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     1. 3/4/2009 9:37 AM Jesus Crisis wrote:
        
        
         Charles Robert Hice at 7:47pm March 3

        http://apps.facebook.com/causes/236649/51651239?m=f6a2e5a8
        
        
        

         Dianne Borsenik at 10:23pm March 3

        What would have surprised me is if you HADN'T read all the ones on your list! Although "Stranger In A Strange Land" DID surprise me, a little. Grok!
        
        
        

         John Burroughs at 9:35am March 4

        I got turned on to Stranger after Green Egg (the magazine of the Church of All Worlds) published one of my poems in the mid-90s. I joined the church by mail and they sent me a copy of the book, which I drank deeply.
        
        
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• 3/4/2009 7:36 AM chris wrote:
  I already know about the Amazon book purchase info and how it helps to self-maintain this site. I like that... and support it. I 'm glad you are reminding people. I think a lot of people don't know.
  
  I guess what I'd like to know is since you are also now doing other peoples chapbooks as well as your own it would put you in the category of a small independent press. Are you going to also have those titles available through your site for purchase in the future like Green Panda and Bottom Dog do? I hope so.. Or will they just be available only through the author/poet?
  
  Also more info on why those particular books had as strong an influence on you as they did would be interesting. I always am interested in back story.. I know that is annoying, but it tells me a lot about people... the why of things. I know that would make for a long blog or response but even a little about one of them would be interesting.
  I've read half of what's on this particular list but could only point to the Tao Te Ching and the Gita as life changing for me the rest would be more opening for frame of reference I suppose.. to think new thoughts.
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  1. 3/4/2009 11:17 AM Jesus Crisis wrote:
     

     Thanks for your support, Chris!
     
     All Crisis Chronicles Press titles will be available for purchase through this site, as my Bloggerel chapbook already is.

     It'll take a long time to describe why I picked these 20 books, partly because I used varying criteria for each.  I'll have to answer that later when I have more time.  I read 10 of these before I went to prison in 1993, and I read 15 of them while I was locked up - which shows there are at least 5 I've read more than once.  I've read none of them since my release in 2004, unless you count short excerpts of the Rimbaud and Nietzsche works when I was looking for something specific for my blog.
     
     You know you can read the whole Bible out loud in 72 hours if you don't stop?  I've done it at least four times (with the help of friends - we took turns reading so folks could rest their voices, eat, etc.)

     
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     1. 3/4/2009 12:19 PM chris wrote:
        Well.. then when you don't have blog ideas you can go through your list. And share sometime...
        
        Does one get a lot out of reading the Bible straight thru like that? Or is it the equivalent of a marathon... more a feat of endurance?
        
        I know they do that sort of thing with the Gita and the Tibetan's do it as a death bed ritual with the Book of the Dead as do the Sufi's with the Koran from what I understand. So I imagine it sets a mood ...and since it is read in one sitting the story fits together in an interesting way... differently I suppose than reading it piece meal as most people do.
        Anyway that was my further thought on it.
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        1. 3/4/2009 12:39 PM Jesus Crisis wrote:
           Some of those books would require me to write a whole small book to explain how they've mattered in my life.
           
           You do get a lot of the Bible that way.  Everytime I read it I notice something I didn't quite notice before.  It also gives you a better idea of how it fits together.  You catch allusions you might otherwise miss reading it piecemeal.  Suddenly the words of Jesus or Paul have added meaning when it hits you that they were paraphrasing Old Testament texts that had completely different contexts.  It was also great for promoting literacy.  Guys in prison who had trouble reading but who were devout Christians would sign up to read with us.  Some were Hispanic guys who were trying to become better at English.  Sometimes the Jewish brothers would join in and read portions in Hebrew.  One time I read the whole thing in Spanish.  By the time I was finished, my Spanish was significantly better - but it took me 76 hours, a little longer than it did in English.  I also think the more you read it, the more you can see through the bullshit.  It's hard to read the Bible through so many times and still see it as infallible, as totally God-inspired, or even as one book.
           
           
           Here are some more Facebook comments on my list:
           
           
           
            Dianne Borsenik at 8:37am March 4

           I want to read several of these, beginning with The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and continuing with The Last Temptation of Christ. And I must read To Kill A Mockingbird, as well. Ah, so many books, so little time (and eyesight, lol)...! Great list, JC.
           
           

            Elise at 9:54am March 4

           the movie last temptation was great! TKAMockingbird...classic! necessary!
           
           

            Brian Forsythe at 10:00am March 4

           There were few Heinleins that I could stand, that being among them. I must have been missing something (perhaps the right psychoactive substances) to appreciate many of his books - I couldn't see how a guy zipping about through space and time, having orgies with his granddaugters, yadda, yadda (scraping up memories of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls here). I loved his shorter fiction though, like The Puppet Masters and Magic, Inc.
           
           Stranger in a Strange Land was pretty significant to me, too, I guess, since it added "grok" to my vocabulary. Heinlein really found a hole in the language and filled it with that one.
           
           

            John Burroughs at 10:10am March 4

           That's the only Heinlein book I've ever read. I got turned on to Stranger after Green Egg (the magazine of the Church of All Worlds) published one of my poems in the mid-90s. I joined the church by mail and they sent me a copy of the book, which I drank deeply.
           
           

            John Burroughs at 10:14am March 4

           Believe it or not, as excellent as the Last Temptation movie is, the book is even better. Kazantzakis' rather sympathetic portrayal of Judas inspired one of the Easter plays I wrote in prison, For All Have Sinned.
           
           

            John Burroughs at 10:31am March 4

           Here's a list of 20 more books that could easily make the list:
           
           Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
           The End of the Road by John Barth
           Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
           The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
           Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes
           Paradise Lost by John Milton
           Night by Elie Weisel
           Blood Rites by Barbara Ehrenreich
           Der Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche
           Bleak House by Charles Dickens
           The Yoga of Discipline by Swami Chidvilasananda
           One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
           Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
           1984 by George Orwell
           Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
           Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
           Life Really Is That Simple by Harry Eisel
           Twilight of the Idols by Friedrich Nietzsche
           The Pearl by John Steinbeck
           The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
           
           

            Claudia at 11:30am March 4

           Love the list! I am always on the hunt for good books and will def read the ones that I haven't read yet! So happy The Tao of Pooh made it! It's one of my favorites also! =)
           
           
           

            Brian Forsythe at 12:02pm March 4

           I wanna read Ted Hughes, but after looking at its description, I'm not sure Birthday Letters is where I should start. Technically, I'm working through Winter Pollen so I'm reading him, but need to find a book of poetry. Suggestions?
           
           

            John Burroughs at 12:20pm March 4

           Thanks, Claudia! Interestingly, it was Harry Eisel, the author of another book on my 2nd list, who first turned me on to the Tao of Pooh. He was a psychologist at our prison who taught a Reiki-ish class - and he surreptitiously brought in copies of Hoff's book to give me and the others. He could have gotten fired for doing it.
           
           

            John Burroughs at 12:26pm March 4

           Brian, I might suggest a Hughes volume I have entitled Three Books (published by Faber and Faber). It might be out of print now, but I'm pretty sure its contents are available in another collection. Three Books, as you can guess, combines three collections of Hughes' poetry in one volume. They are Cave Birds (1978), Remains of Elmet (1979) and River (1983). I imagine these 3 played a significant role in his being chosen Poet Laureate in 1984.
           
           
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• 3/4/2009 1:34 PM Tara wrote:
  I love book lists. Some of these I've read, some I may read, although I don't think I'll ever read the bible cover to cover. My reccomendations would be Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow; Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison; The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin and Fatal Vision, Joe McGinnis.
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  1. 3/4/2009 3:59 PM Jesus Crisis wrote:
     Thanks, Tara!  I have Ragtime and Invisible Man on my shelves and have wanted to read them, but haven't taken the time yet.  I read The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck was the first adult author whose work I loved.  The others I will add to my list!
     
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• 3/5/2009 6:27 PM Ninure wrote:
  Well we have three in common.
  
  Autobiography of Malcolm X - helped me to heal from my racism against Whites
  Stranger in a Strange Land
  The Last Temptation of Christ -actually restored my faith.
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• 3/7/2009 6:09 PM smith wrote:
  i've read
  
  all of
  
  Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
  The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
  The Autobiography of Malcolm X
  The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
  Tao Te Ching by Lao Tze
  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
  The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis
  The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra
  
  read portions of
  
  The Bible
  Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche
  Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche
  The Bhagavad Gita
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• 4/13/2011 1:39 AM aesthref wrote:
  Why am I so afraid of depth?
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