Books I enjoyed and would recommend

The World As a Total System by Kenneth E. Boulding, Sage, 1985.
Brilliant, cross-disciplinary book, clear and concise. The chapter headings capture it: 1. What Systems Can We Percieve in the World? 2. The World as a Physical System 3. ...Biological System 4. ....Social System. 5...Economic System. 6. Political System. 7. Communication System. 8. Evaluative System.
Towers: A Historical Survey by Erwin Heinle and Fritz Leonhardt, Rizzoli, 1989.
An irresistible concept, starting with mountain peaks and the Tower of Babylon and ending with city skylines, with plenty of radio towers, minarets, and castles in between. The endpapers are a location map of the world and comparative charts of all the heights. After the 30th German telecommunication tower you start to realize that these folks are TOWER GEEKS! , but that's what they did for a living. Wonderful illustrations. Get it from your university library--that's where I stumbled across it. (Although of course I'd love to add it to the collection...)
Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman.
The Door Into Summer, Robert Heinlein. We recently had a discussion about Heinlein on BELIEF-L and I picked this up again to refer to--and had to stay up late to finish rereading it. A great example of Golden Age SF.
Lotsa art books. Favorite so far was World Impressionism (Broude). J & I both enjoy Roy Lichtenstein, and the book by Waldman is excellent.
The Barretts of Wimpole St. by Rudolf Bieser (play, 1931) I picked up Sixteen Famous British Plays (along with 6 others bags of books) at my library's book sale, and as I was putting it away just turned to read the first page of this because I had heard of the movie. I was hooked. Very dramatic, sentimental at times, but I like that kind of thing. Also I'm intrigued by Robert Browning. A quick read.
Just re-read the C.S. Lewis s-f trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and This Hideous Strength. Exciting & interesting books (you don't have to be Christian, I'm not!). I used to like the first and third best, but Perelandra is my favorite now because of its dreamlike quality. Lewis' Venus (POotSP) are wonderfully evoked worlds, the kind that you fantasize about visiting after you close the book.
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, by Scott McCloud (HarperPerennial, 1993) A mind-blowing book, worth reading even if you don't like comics as it addresses ideas about thought, identification with characters, time and space. And if you do like comics it's a blast. I bought it new for my collection (that's a high accolade from me, I like/can afford used better).

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