What are you Reading?

Etagloc

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Mar 26, 2017
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What are you reading? Or- what have you read that you liked, what would you like to read, what would you recommend for others to read?

For Muslims, maybe you can post about cool Islam-related books you want to recommend and for Christians, maybe you can post about good Christian-related books.

Talk about whatever as long as its book-related. I mean I guess people can post links to articles but I would like for this to be a thread about books, so please come here to talk about books and recommend good stuff for people to read.

What I'm reading right now is Ariel by José Enrique Rodó. I haven't read the English version and so I don't know if I'd recommend the English version. Lately I've been reading Ariel by Rodó and Prometeo Vencedor by José Vasconcelos.

What I would recommend, some books I think are fascinating that I would recommend are Children of the Revolution: a Yankee Teacher in the Cuban Schools by Jonathan Kozol (the prologue is by Paulo Freire!) , Dreams of Freedom which is a great compilation of English translations of writings by Ricardo Flores Magón and Philosophy of Liberation by Enrique Dussel.

So basically Children of the Revolution is where Jonathan Kozol, a schoolteacher, visits Cuba (I think in the 70's if I remember right.... it might have been the 80's....) and basically the book is him writing down what he saw in Cuba and what conversations he had with Cuba and him seeing the results of the Cuban Revolution for himself and him talking to the Cubans themselves. It's a great book if anyone is curious about Cuba and what actually happened. You can read about Cuba's war against illiteracy and a lot of other fascinating stuff brought about by the Cuban Revolution. There was this bit I wanted to quote, as I thought it was rather beautiful:

Ferrer stopped to give his patient friend a chance to speak. "It is correct, of course, we did not have a citrus crop," Prieto said. "Yet there are many other changes in the active language of the people too. My son, who is only five years old, hears me speaking of a time when blacks and whites were not allowed to dance together. He asks me why, but when I tell him that it is because of 'racist' views, he does not know that word. He says it is 'ridiculous,' not racist. The whole idea does not make sense! He does not understand that there was once a time when 'racist' was a necessary word in our land. We needed it in order to describe a real phenomenon- one that does not exist except in isolated situations anymore."

Philosophy of Liberation by Dussel is honestly one of the best books I've ever read in my life and I think it will honestly fundamentally alter the lens through which you view the world. I consider Dussel as standing on a mountain-top in contemporary philosophy.



What I haven't read that I would like to read is


Definitely one I want to read. Let's see... and I forgot to mention this one but this is actually a really great book



When I read it, I was tempted to think that Toussaint L'Ouverture was the black Napoleon. However, actually this would be inaccurate. Toussaint L'Ouverture was a Haitian former slave who led the Haitians in the Haitian Revolution.... and it would be inaccurate to call Toussaint L'Ouverture the black Napolean- because Toussaint L'Ouverture defeated Napolean. And so this is the story of how a bunch of ex-slaves rose up, won their freedom and defeated Napolean :eek: (Haiti was a French colony). So I mean.... it's sort of like a James Bond story except more James Bond than James Bond. It's very cool stuff.

Also, the Haitian Revolution inspired a young man known as Simon Bolívar.... Bolívar was influenced by the Haitians and went on to free a huge portion of South America from the Spanish. Venezuela is actually officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and so.... the repurcussions of the Haitian Revolution are still continuing to this very day. I think the Haitians actually carried the spirit of the French Revolution further than the French themselves.
 

Etagloc

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Mar 26, 2017
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5,291
Eta, I read 'Savage Inequalities' by Jonathan Kozol many years ago and it had an impact.
I am currently into spiritually thoughts/gems that allow for contemplation:
Al-Fawaid:
A collection of wise sayings by Ibn al qayyim al Jawziyyah
https://archive.org/details/BooksOfIbnQayyimAl-jawziyyah
I read some of his stuff too! I was interested in Kozol's book because of that.... I forget which books of his I'd read but..... if you've read his stuff, you know he is a guy who is sincere and who really cares about people. He has a good heart. I really like his writings.

And thank you for the books of ibn qayyim al-jawziyyah link. I looked at it and it looks interesting.
 
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