Tag Archives: goodreads

Reminder about F Gwynplaine MacIntyre’s The Woman Between the Worlds, the next Hermetic Library book club selection


F Gwynplaine MacIntyre’s The Woman Between the Worlds

Just wanted to post a quick reminder that F Gwynplaine MacIntyre’s The Woman Between the Worlds is the Hermetic Library book club selection beginning Aug 1st.

Anyhow, I’m just leaping in to read books I’ve wanted to read and hope that people are interested in joining in. Like a lot of things, I’m going at my own pace, and seeing where this will end up; but, if you’re interested, come on over and participate in the Hermetic Library book club. There’s the ongoing discussion about the previous selection, René Daumal’s Mount Analogue, and soon the next book, F Gwynplaine MacIntyre’s The Woman Between the Worlds!

 

The Hermetic Library book club is for people interested a living Western Esoteric Tradition. The book selections will be wide ranging and may be from many genres, including fiction and non-fiction, that are of interest. Generally speaking the book selections will be related to the subject matter of the Hermetic Library, but this is a book club not a study group or an online teaching order of any kind. If you have comments, questions or suggestions contact the librarian.

Hermetic Library book club selection F Gwynplaine Macintyre’s The Woman Between the Worlds


F Gwynplaine Macintyre’s The Woman Between the Worlds

Looking at my “to read” stack, there was one book that caught my eye, so I’m selecting F Gwynplaine Macintyre’s The Woman Between the Worlds for the Hermetic Library book club, beginning Aug 1st.

Ran into this author, if I recall correctly, because of an article over at IO9, and this work because of the description. “[A] fabulous adventure begins in the realm of the occult and the fantastic. Wonderous shape-changers, mysterious dissappearances, and terrifying evils await on the other side of the shadows.” Moreover: “A female shape-changer, pursued by invisible aliens, escapes to Victorian London. . . where she is aided by Aleister Crowley and the disciples of the Golden Dawn.” This book seems overall to promise a kind of Philip K Dick / Kurt Vonnegut surreal ride. Will it deliver?

Anyhow, I’m just leaping in to read books I’ve wanted to read and hope that people are interested in joining in. So, come on over and participate in the Hermetic Library book club and the ongoing discussion about the previous selection, René Daumal’s Mount Analogue, or get a start on discussing the next book, F Gwynplaine Macintyre’s The Woman Between the Worlds!

 

The Hermetic Library book club is for people interested a living Western Esoteric Tradition. The book selections will be wide ranging and may be from many genres, including fiction and non-fiction, that are of interest. Generally speaking the book selections will be related to the subject matter of the Hermetic Library, but this is a book club not a study group or an online teaching order of any kind. If you have comments, questions or suggestions contact the librarian.

Introducing the Hermetic Library book club and René Daumal's Mount Analogue as the first selection


René Daumal’s Mount Analogue

Back at the beginning of May, I mentioned that Liber Astarte vel Berylli sub figura CLXXV was recently cataloged at Goodreads and that I would be thinking about ways that the new author profile I’ve ended up with might be used to help promote the materials at the library. So, I started to think about what, if anything, would be sensible, ethical and aesthetic to do. I settled on the idea of doing a book club. Although I mentioned this idea in passing on twitter and pointed to this over on the facebook page, while I was away over the last month I started the book club with a first selection. Now I’m just trying to catch up on everything!

I am today making the official announcement that I’ve started a new, and still quite experimental, Hermetic Library book club. I made the first selection back in May, but wasn’t able to mention it until now, so I apologize for the short notice; but, I’ve wanted to read René Daumal’s Mount Analogue for quite a long time, and so I decided that would be first.

The Hermetic Library book club is for people interested a living Western Esoteric Tradition. The book selections will be wide ranging and may be from many genres, including fiction and non-fiction. Generally speaking the book selections will be related to the subject matter of the Hermetic Library, but this is a book club not a study group or an online teaching order of any kind. The online discussion group for the Hermetic Library book club will be over at Goodreads, and I’ll work on expanding things there over time.

Seriously, I bought this book back in 2004 and just haven’t gotten around to it. That I’ve had this book on my quite ridiculously high stack of “to read” books is actually one of the reasons I’m excited about the book club. Another reason is that I’ve been really missing the kind of engagement with others around particular texts that I remember from my undergraduate days. I’ll do more to create some basic guidelines and suggestions specifically for the book club over time, as things get rolling, but I am pretty likely going to base my vision and aspiration for the group on the idea of what a seminar was at my undergrad institution and book response outline from one of my courses. That’s not to say that I expect the discussion to and so forth to be academic, but it’s where I’m coming from when I think about a book club. I’m sure things will evolve over time and my idea will change some, but there it is.

I’ll probably also just make selections from my “to read” stack to begin with, but I’m actually hoping to have people participate that will not only have their own ideas about selections but also who want to participate as discussion leaders for some selections.

Anyhow, I’ve really not had much chance to get the idea sorted, so I’m just going to leap in and start reading books I’ve wanted to read and hope that people are interested in joining in. So, come on over and participate in the new Hermetic Library book club and the discussions about René Daumal’s Mount Analogue!

Liber Astarte vel Berylli sub figura CLXXV recently cataloged at Goodreads

Liber Astarte vel Berylli sub figura CLXXV as it appears in Equinox Vol I No vii has recently been added to the catalog at Goodreads, a “site for readers and book recommendations”. (ASTARTE vel Liber BERYLLI sub figurâ CLXXV is also available separately from the Equinox with the other Technical Libri along with so many other diverse works by Aleister Crowley at the library.)

 

The reason I mention this is several-fold. Primarily, it’s just kinda cool that the record was added, right? Also, having one of the Technical Libri cataloged is a very interesting development because this appears to be the very first item from the Hermetic Library added to the catalog at Goodreads. Further, because I was listed as an editor correcting and editing the text for presentation at the library, I have now ended up with an author profile at Goodreads. So, this now raises some interesting possibilities.

Let me be clear: I am not one to spend a lot of time asking people to promote the library by mostly meaningless shout-outs for more likes and clicks and followers who don’t actually use the site. Such activities that campaign for numbers are attention seeking distractions from the great materials on the site. Instead of seeking attention for having sought attention, I try to get attention that is focused on the actual materials being offered by the site. I do both very much welcome and rely on the organic development of support and word of mouth from people like you who actually use the site, people like you who find the materials useful, people like you who decide for yourselves that you want to tell other people about the Hermetic Library. I always value most the feedback of real people who actually use the site, and am constantly glad to be of service collecting, curating and creating materials for the site, but in doing that I just won’t get into some transparently shallow, and desperate for attention, game of numbers for the sake of numbers themselves. But, here is something very real: having a record for materials at the library appear in the catalog at Goodreads is a new opportunity for the Hermetic Library and for you, as someone who really uses the site, to help others find the fantastic and broad selection of materials available.

Perhaps you would consider, as you are gandering at something on the site you find valuable, adding an entry for that material as it appears at the Hermetic Library into the catalog at Goodreads? You can use the example provided by the entry for Liber Astarte vel Berylli to help know what to add. Do be sure you check if the work is already in the catalog, but you can add records by heading to the Add a New Book page.

For my part, I’m also considering ways that the new author profile I’ve ended up with might be used to help promote the materials at the library. If I can determine a good way, which for me means something that I feel is sensible, ethical and aesthetic, to use the author profile at Goodreads to promote the library then I’ll definitely do that. As I mentioned in a post previously, I try to engage on behalf of the Hermetic Library on social networks in ways that make sense to me and for me as long as they fit with the overall mission of the library and fit within my workflow. But, thanks to having an author profile at Goodreads, and thanks to the person who added the record for the material, a few new tools are open for my use that I otherwise wouldn’t have available.

After all, the mission of Goodreads “is to help people find and share books they love. Along the way, we plan to improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world” [via]. So, why not help share the materials at the library so other people around the world can find them even easier than before?

 

By the by, while looking at the pages for this liber, as it appeared on the site, I also ended up making several corrections and updates. So, you may want to also take a gander at it if you haven’t done so in a while. I don’t normally post about the many little updates and corrections I end up making, but since these changes are related to this post I’m mentioning them now. However, I do want to point out that while I constantly do my own work at finding mistakes and correcting them on the site, I do appreciate it when someone is kind enough to send me an email pointing out something specific that is in need of my attention. So, in conclusion, I’ll just mention that if you ever do find something amiss on the site, feel free to contact me.