The Christian and his books
I too think there’s more than a modicum of truth to the idea that you are what you read.
Piper books for Christmas
Just for the holidays, a collection of most of John Piper’s books is on sale here.
Of course, many of them are freely available to read online or download (PDF) as well.
Burma Days
“Have you read George Orwell’s Burmese Days?”
“Yeah. It’s good. But Orwell actually wrote a Burmese trilogy. The first was Burmese Days which was about the colonial period. The second was Animal Farm which was about the Burmese path to socialism. And the third, 1984, is about the present regime.”
“I have just been to India to see the dentist.”
“Why did you go all the way to India? Don’t we have dentists here in Burma?”
“Yes, but I had to go to India because here in Burma you are not allowed to open your mouth.”
The nervous system in action
I’ve been browsing through The Nervous System in Action by Michael D. Mann, who is a physiologist.
Based on what I’ve seen, it looks like a solid intro to the physiology of the nervous system. It seems to get the detail just right: it doesn’t underwhelm you, and it doesn’t overwhelm you either (or at least not too badly). It’s written clearly and seems to explain concepts well. I also like that he frequently seems to provide explanations of experiments on which the theory is based. On the downside, it does look a bit dated. But I doubt the principles would change too much.
I think I’ll have to bookmark it for later reference.
