my mind on books

The National Book Critics Circle recently published a list of recommended books, the “Good Reads – Winter List,” based on recommendations from book critics and award-winning authors. The nonfiction short list includes Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks.

There is also a long list of titles that received multiple votes. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain is one of the books on the nonfiction long list, along with How Fiction Works by James Wood, even though it’s not due out until July.

Steven Pinker recommends What is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect by James Flynn.

Times Online has a review by A.S. Byatt of Sleeping and Dreaming, “a scholarly and complex set of essays to accompany the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition” by the same name. (Amazon.co.uk link)
At the Wellcome Collection website there’s an “online taster” for those of us too far away to visit in person.

The title caught my mind, sounds interesting as a cultural analysis: American Angels: Useful Spirits in the Material World by Peter Gardella (University Press of Kansas, 2007)

Gardella’s engaging study is the first to look objectively at the place of angels in American culture. He explores in particular the emergence of a domestic religion of “useful angels”–especially outside mainstream churches–that has created a uniquely American faith, one that addresses everything from the sexuality of angels to how angels and demons literally figure in the War on Terror….
Beautifully and sympathetically written, but with a scholar’s eye for pattern and detail, American Angels mixes theology, psychology, sociology of religion, gender theory, and even film criticism to create an unusually well-rounded survey of a uniquely American phenomenon. It shows us how the utility of angels speaks to the very core of religion and will enlighten skeptics and believers alike.

In a similar vein there is American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon by Stephen Prothero (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004)

“When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.”

Kevin Kelly discusses sources of value that cannot be copied in the new network economy: immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity, accessibility, embodiment, patronage, and findability. (found via 43 folders)

See also ‘Out of Control‘ & other books available to read online.

The Open University (UK) has a unit on ‘Introducing consciousness’ in their free online course materials.

Glasgow University’s Consciousness podcast

Here is an OpenCourseWare search engine (with 92 courses listed under the tag “cognitive”!)