Some remarks about this page

If you find here an interesting book, but don't find it in a local bookstore, try the Net bookstores: http://www.books.com/, or http://www.amazon.com/.

Martial arts related stuff, Zen books etc

• Robert M. Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Thoughts about quality. The must of quasi-zen literature. Read also his Lila, which deals even more with Quality.
• Benjamin Hoff:The Tao of Pooh...in which The Way is revealed by the Bear of Little Brain. I loved it. I keep reading bits and pieces again and again. It's a book that is wise in a simple way. This is definitely not Zen, but affects via the same channels. I hear that also Nasu and Te is good, although haven't read it yet.
• Eugen Herrigel: Zen in the art of Archery, in Finnish Zen ja jousella ampumisen taito. A really nice introduction on some of the eastern thinking and what it is like to start one of the martial arts that requires the most concentration and patience, Kyudo.
• Eugen Herrigel: The Method of Zen
• Musashi: Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho). Old, strange warrior stuff, but must read.
• Takuan Soho: The Unfettered Mind. Heavy, old stuff.

The rest on this list I have not read, but they have been recommended by others:

• Forrest Morgan: Living The Martial Way.
• Eiji Yoshikawa: Musashi
• Reinhard Kammer: The Way of the Sword
• Dan Millman: Way of the Peaceful Warrior
• John Stevens (Shambhala, Boston, 1984): The Sword of No-Sword. This is supposedly a good book about the state of mind called "mushin (no mind)" or "munen muso (freedom from all thoughts").

SciFi

Comments on some of my more recent readings:

• Ammonite (Nicola Griffith): A non-typical scifi book. One difference is that practically all characters are women, because for the most part the tale happens at a small planet where a virus killed all the males and 20% of the females of a colonist population some generations ago. But the women thrived, nevertheless (also in making children...). Well written prose, I recommend.

Cognitive science

Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained is definitely worth looking into. He presents the current discussion about consciousness in a thorough way, and you will notice that nothing is as simple as you thought (as with all philosophical type of discussion). Warning for the dualist: Dennett is not one, and this material may make you change your views in a thorough fashion!

Gödel, Escher, Bach

Gödel was a mathematician famous for Gödel's incompleteness theorem, a disconcerting theorem that roughly says that no axiomatic system is provable, i.e. that you cannot ever prove all the truths that are expressible in that system. Hofstadter makes this sound much more interesting, and ties it together with Escher's paintings of "strange loops", Bach's strange experiments and musical "jokes" and other seemingly as unrelated things.

Few and very miscellaneous other authors

• J.R.R. Tolkien
• Umberto Eco
• Roger Penrose: cognitive science, philosophical physics etc.
• Vigdis Grimsdottir

Cartoons

• Sandman (Neil Gaiman): A superhero comic by looks and structure, but by content it is philosophical, mystical, strange and somewhat "about life".
• Matt Groening: Humor about everyday life, love, work, hilarious stuff about humans seen through animals
• Ralf König: "The killer condom", some gay stuff

Finnish books and authors (in Finnish)

Leena Krohn

En välttämättä jaa kaikkia hänen kognitiivisia mielipiteitään (vaikka kyllä yllättävän monia), mutta tärkeämpää on näkökulma, pohdiskelu, kyseenalaistaminen, ja vanhojen ajatusrakenteiden sekoittaminen uudeksi järjestykseksi, vähän kuin kaleidoskoopissa.

Mika Waltari

Muita:

• Märta Tikkanen
• Tommy Tabermann