Public booklist

Memoir. Matthiessen, a long-time student of zen, undertakes a physically grueling trek through the Himalaya with his friend, the field biologist George Schaller. Schaller intends to study the Himalayan blue sheep and snow leopard; Matthiessen wants to visit the Crystal Monastery.

Nonfiction. Pulitzer, 1980s. Hofstadter uses the work of the titular three greats to examine symbolic systems with interesting properties that may grant insight into the nature of consciousness.

This 4-volume collection tends to be expensive. My library has it but not for checkout. I've gone in to read it. It will be slow.

• Textbooks on statics & dynamics and electrostatics, slowly
• Papers and reference materials on bivalves, mostly freshwater, periodically

Literary fiction. Markson presents a fictional author's last novel. The entire work consists of carefully aligned facts about dozens of historical artists of all media. The fictional author interjects only a few times, but somehow these alongside the particular facts chosen vividly frame the shape of the author's life and mind. A masterwork of implication.

Literary fiction.

I have read and loved The Overstory, Bewilderment, Generosity, and Playground.

Ergodic literary fiction. Kinda scary. Mind bending. A triumph of storytelling. (Or story-in-story-in-story-telling?)

Not done reading this one yet.

Started to read this one, then put it away and waited to get a physical copy.

Nonfiction. Subtitle: Learning to learn.

The engineer Hamming, whose information-theoretic work and error-correcting codes are vital to digital communication, delivered the content of this book to U.S. Naval Academy engineers. His thesis is that the greatest scientists are great due to teachable habits of mind. He endeavors to teach them.