Memberkeylawk

Real Name

Thomas George Key

About My Library

From approximately 22,000 books, I am down to ~5000 after selling off. And most of these remaining are available for FREE to writers and scholars. We speak of Dictionaries of various kinds, Practical Sciences, History, Literature and Poetry, Words/Language, and Theology. I have a Shelf of Humor, Woman materials, and Womanist works. Feel free to make inquiries. Most remain "free"; I can pay costs of boxing/packing, but I appreciate a donation toward postage. Explore.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS/Themes:

Seafaring/ Riparian History / Great Rivers (Argonaut);
Collective and Personal Guilt (Engines of Change);
Animals and People that look alike (morphology);
American Indian (compare Natives generally);
Futurist Studies (prediction/seering Pythia);
Religions ( Biodynamic Consciousness ) ;
Vanishing Women (desaparecida);
Museum of Life Sentences;
Stones (Famous Rocks);
Jungle, Amazon Delta;
Cave Paintings;
History of Fire;
Biography;
Cities;
War

THEMES. A kind of sleeper-theme is Conflict Resolution. I also come from the School of Slow Reading, where we learned not to choke everything down too quickly. As for "communicating" or "understanding", just quietly let those go too. Once you realize the utter futility, the burden of effort falls away, and the world fills with joy. Of course this is not a Theme you tell your clients or people who look to you with specific hopes.

MAUSOLEUM. Yes, LibraryThing can also be used as a living Mausoleum. My "reviews" are a kind of legacy. Each of us leave a legacy -- and in these reviews I hope there is light, and pathways for your walk. I try to leave smooth stones for skipping, and stories, and bits of seminal information.

TAGS. I use multiple Tags a lot. Try to tag every book with appropriate categories, especially if there is irony, or a Korzybski "cloud" in mind. For me, however, most words are arbitrary Zipfs, and I have no clear picture of how labeling works. In that regard, my Library has a fairly large collection on Words -- writing and semiotics. I delight in Aristotelean categories, Platonic absolutes, and Derida-derived deconstructions. Metaphor Gospel.

SHELVING. I brutally culled the collection and corralled my impulse to come home with bags of treasure from book sales. Still, retrieval is a problem even for this smaller size. I have five tall back-to-back shelf racks, with bays between them. I've named the bays and racks. It's like walking into Wood-henge.

REVIEWS AND COMMENTS ("R" and "C"). I am intent on reviewing each book. Among other Cautions:

(1) These Reviews are simply my "notes" and are NOT what I would put up against "book reviews" the professionally published critics provide for us.

(2) Still working with the difference between "Reviews" and "Comments". I try to introduce the author and capture the gems and qualities of the work in the Review. I try to put the Perspectivity and possible Usage in the Comments. I am not very successful in accomplishing these goals, perhaps belayed by conditions and passions I hardly contain.

(3) Still working on the difference between information drawn from the work itself, distinct from my "re"-view. Trying to make useful and true comments, even quoting from the text -- see QUOTES below.

(4) Bracketed numbers refer to page of the work, and if a small letter accompanies the number, it is an attempt to refine the location in text.

(5) I try not to be "funny", or Judgmental, because I know "they" are not laughing. I intend no aid to ideologues or idiots of any persuasion. (Of course, I am FOTFL, or weeping.)

(6) And with 8 billion people on the planet, dogmatic and extreme opinions of any kind from any of them, are simply -- excuse me -- rude. With Cyndi Lauper, I want friends "with good table manners" -- we want to break bread together, and be able to digest things. We are here to eat and drink together.

(7) (https://www.census.gov/popclock/world) The Planet has 7.9 billion people as of this writing. [Nota bene: This demographic projection uses an algorithm which assumes facts which are false or unknown.]

(8) QUOTE/S -- Gems/Gifts. I do try to pull out the "gift" or unique or helpful contribution made in a book work, usually in the "Comment" section. [Nota Bene -- I am lobbying for a separate QUOTE section for the entry device; cf. the Book Entry].

(9) FOR FREE. Post iucundam iuventutem, post molestam senectutem, and having glaucoma issues. Virtually all of these books are FREE to an appropriate person.

About Me

Happily married 73 year old wounded warrior in Orange County, California. My wife is English (Sherwood Forest, Druids and Hobbits having tea...). We have garden, dogs, cats and large library. Oh, and bows and arrows, and musical instruments hanging from trees.

I bring good fortune to everyone; even my enemies are rich. Brought up in the Amazon jungle, most of what I know I learned from plants and amphibians. Technologically, we lived in the Stone Age. The Stone Age with radios, and lousy with lice.

I would like to show ambitious young people how to get away with being kind. For I am old, injured and retired from the military, from law, from college teaching, from music, and from any extended family life. I have failed at many things. I am now an almost perfect listener for all who are heavily-burdened with cares. I work as a Chaplain, and am on staff and on-call by hospitals for people in pain or suffering.

And now I have forgotten more than I ever knew. Now I quietly study Theology -- which is the discovery of Oneself, in a multi-valent plane of things which exist and which do not. For example, Self does not exist. After studying theology for decades, I realize that no gods exist. Nor do believers. It goes without saying--it is almost never said--that belief does not exist. As children, we play games of belief. Most of us outgrow them.

Also I read and proclaim great literature. "Behold!", and "Woe!" -- Jeremiah 23:32, Isaiah 10:1. Love to read about Nasty Tyrants getting fought good and proper. And honest Liberals who win against bullies. Because "science". Education favors the free, and thugs who oppress others are not "free beings". Bullies are here to be fought, at peril of our extinction. The only rest I have ever found is at the foot of the intersection of beauty and kindness, having done all I could do to vanquish evil intent.

Location

Tustin, California USA

Homepage

http://www.keylawk.blogspot.com "Shorn Again Believer&a

Memberships

TinyCat

LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Also On

("Tom Key"), blogspot, Facebook, Google

Currently Reading

Fishers of men or founders of empire? : the Wycliffe Bible translators in Latin America by David Stoll

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

Abraham Lincoln - the War Years, in Four Volumes by Carl Sandberg

The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History by Gordon S. Wood

Body, Mind, and Sport: The Mind-Body Guide to Lifelong Health, Fitness, and Your Personal Best by John Douillard

In the Frame by Dick Francis

Favorite Authors

Gaston Bachelard, E. M. Cioran, Norman Cousins, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Kieran Healy, Mary Ritchie Key, Julia Kristeva, Les Leopold, Malcolm Muggeridge, Norb Vonnegut

Member Connections

Friends

AlanWPowers, almigwin, AMZoltai, bhowell, carterchristian1, cns1000, deepsettpress, Doug1943, ecw0647, Ganeshaka, Garp83, jannid, JeremyCShipp, John_Vaughan, KarenFunt, Lemeritus, MaryNovik, MeditationesMartini, nbmars, pomonomo2003, PsibrReadHead, Randy_Hierodule, rossrice, schatzi, Schmerguls, sgtbigg, SomeGuyInVirginia, speljamr, steve_law, thewildflower, ThufirHawat, tomcatMurr, urania1, WCHagen

Interesting Library

angrymagill, Arctic-Stranger, chuck_ralston, cns1000, dmcolon, efeltonf, elmyra, GirlFromIpanema, gregfromgilbert, hasprintwillread, herschelian, JanWillemNoldus, Jaybernstein, keigu, kjhealy, lawecon, librisalexandria, lquilter, Marshdrifter, MeditationesMartini, melvinsico, Meredy, miche-lu, peterdmark, Porius, qebo, Rafa21k, Randy_Hierodule, Rule42, servetus, slickdpdx, Smiley, sphinx, tamara_gm3, tomcatMurr, TomVeal

Contacts

Evolutionist