Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

I’ve decided to put my cell phone’s camera to use and show you all what’s on my bookshelf:

From left to right:

• Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings. This paperback version has all three books (technically it’s six, two parts per “book,” you know) in one volume. I haven’t actually read this beast all the way through, but at least I was able to find a copy that did not have Viggo Mortensen on the cover.
• Gerber’s Vibrational Medicine. This was course reading for a class called Stalking the Wild Mind. If you’ve ever talked to me in person you know how much I loved this class. I retain a significant amount of skepticism for a lot of alternative medicine, but I figure it’s good to have on the shelf.
• Joseph Epstein’s Fabulous Small Jews. A Christmas present from a few years back. Take a minute to process the irony. It’s a collection of allegedly fictional short stories, all revolving around near-elderly Jews, almost always divorced. Epstein should really just drop the pretense and write an autobiography. It’d probably be a lot easier to read.
• Neil Donald Walsh’s Conversations with God, Part I. Please. Rowan gave it to me, insisting that I read this feel-good, generic, New Age amateur philosophy lesson. Well, Rowan, I never got more than a few chapters into it. Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death pretty easily invalidates every word out of Walsh’s (sorry, God’s) pen.
• Deepak Chopra’s The Way of the Wizard. Another present from a good friend. Chopra’s collected works are suspiciously hit or miss. He’s just as likely to write about spiritual fulfillment in the face of death as he is to write about the spiritual way to lose weight. I’ve actually been meaning to read the rest of Wizard, particularly in light of this moronic article he wrote on genetics, in which he poses “mystery” questions that I can unravel with things I learned in high school.
• Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. At last, one of I’ve finished. The Prophet’s reputation precedes itself. It is deservedly called one of the greatest works of poetry ever written.
• Margaret Cho’s I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight. I enjoy Cho, even though sometimes she gets a little too vehement for her own good. This particular copy is signed.
• The David Sedaris Collection: Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Naked, and Barrel Fever (Holidays on Ice owned, but on loan to a friend). Sedaris is quite possibly the world’s funniest living writer. If you haven’t read any of his writing, do yourself a favor and correct that mistake. Me Talk Pretty One Day is my personal favorite.
• Jon Stewart’s Naked Pictures of Famous People. Written before he achieved worldwide fame on The Daily Show, the book takes the form of the hypothetical writings of historical figures and celebrities. It’s amusing, but you could live without this one if you had to.
• Tree of Sapphires. No, I can’t recall who wrote it. It’s another book that Rowan gave me, and one I’ve also never read all the way through. I’m sure he has the best of intentions whenever he hands me these things.
• Oliver Sacks’s Awakenings, Island of the Colorblind, and a selected anthology called Vintage Sacks. If Awakenings sounds familiar, that’s because it got made into a movie starring Robin Williams and Robert Deniro (it’s very good). Sacks is often described as the poet laureate of psychology. These books contain the blend of dense science and emotional sensitivity to the patient’s story for which Sacks has become famous. Well worth your time. Well, except maybe the last half of Colorblind, which is oddly botany heavy.
• Tarot card, Major Arcana #1, The Magician. I’m not really into Tarot, per se, but I found a deck that had really nice renditions of the traditional artwork, and I couldn’t resist. The Magician is said to represent mastery and completeness. I find that it helps with my procrastination, or at least guilts me into getting a move on.

This photo represents just a fraction of the books in my possession. I’m hanging onto all of GDeeeezl’s developmental/clinical psychology books while he’s in the land of Moulde, for instance. I also have a small mountain of GRE study books, which for some reason I have not yet set ablaze. Must remember to do that, and possibly cook a recently hunted animal over the flames. The only other book that’s really springing to mind right now is a limited, signed hardcover version of Penny Arcade, Year One. It’s not only a great retrospective on a website I’ve been visiting for, oh, eight years, it’s also a surprisingly concise history of the videogame industry.

Well, this has been revealing, hasn’t it? I have way more unfinished books than I had realized, not to mention a surprising percentage of religious (or psuedo-religious) material. Go figure. What’s on your shelf?