Painfully giving this 4 stars - this is a classic in the history of computing and typesetting, and very funny and well written. However, actually trying to follow along with it and create the examples in TeX isn't as efficient and as well designed as it could be (it doesn't tell you how to actually use the software, for example!). This is likely just a sign of the times, but is also a reminder that you should probably just use LaTeX these days...
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Anthropologist, Esperantist.
Rediscovering a love of fiction after finishing a PhD, also reading plenty of non-fiction on: the humanities, religious studies, Buddhism, esotericism, Christianity, and language acquisition. Other things as they catch my interest.
Mi ankaŭ legas Esperanton!
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T. M. Sullivan's books
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T. M. Sullivan started reading Writing Futures by Ann Hill Duin
T. M. Sullivan rated World War One: 4 stars
World War One by Rupert Colley
Know your stuff: Read a concise history of World War One in just one hour. World War One brought with …
T. M. Sullivan started reading The Month that Changed the World : July 1914 by Gordon Martel
T. M. Sullivan rated The Kitab-I-Aqdas: 4 stars
The Kitab-I-Aqdas by Baha'u'llah
The Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Persian: کتاب اقدس), or simply Aqdas (Persian: اقدس) is the central religious text of the Baháʼí Faith written …
The Routledge Handbook of Instructed Second Language Acquisition by Shawn Loewen, Masatoshi Sato
The Routledge Handbook of Instructed Second Language Acquisition is the first collection of state-of-the-art papers pertaining to Instructed Second Language …
T. M. Sullivan started reading The LaTeX Companion: Parts I & II by Frank Mittelbach
The LaTeX Companion: Parts I & II by Frank Mittelbach, Ulrike Fischer
For nearly three decades The LaTeX Companion has been the essential resource for anyone using LaTeX to create high-quality documents. …
T. M. Sullivan reviewed The TeXbook by Donald Knuth
Historical Classic, Not Actually A Great Tutorial
4 stars
T. M. Sullivan reviewed Senchaku Hongan Nembutsu Shu by Hōnen (BDK English Tripitaka, #104-II)
The Senchaku Hongan Nembutsu Shū: A Collection of Passages on the Nembutsu Chosen in the …
Another BDK Essential
5 stars
A reminder of the BDK's origins in Pure Land Buddhism, this is a great translation of one of the key works in the history of Japanese Buddhism
T. M. Sullivan reviewed The Promise of Amida Buddha by Hōnen
The Promise of Amida Buddha is the first complete English translation of a seminal collection …
Honen's Smaller Pieces
5 stars
A collection of Honen's writings that aren't the Senchaku Hongan Nembutsu (which was already published by the BDK). Hugely important texts in Buddhist/Japanese religion, and a very readable translation.
*and its free online*
5 stars
Great translation of texts often under-read in Western Buddhism, not sure why the last rating was only 2 stars!
T. M. Sullivan started reading The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes by Edward L. Shaughnessy (Prognostication in History, #9)
The Zhou Changes, better known in the West as I Ching, is one of the …
This might be Shaughnessy's magnum opus: open access, new, complete and detailed discussion of the history of one of history's oddest books. No more fishing around between different volumes for bits of information (hopefully).
T. M. Sullivan finished reading Alchemical Divination by Ralph Metzner
Alchemy, like shamanism and yoga, with which it is related, involves teachings and practices of …
A flower of the post-60s cosmologies of spirituality: a broad definition of all divination (regardless of method) as fundamentally "intuition" from the self, a Jungian sense of individuation as the goal of divination, combined with a Michael Harner-style core shamanic animism that blends between the psychological and the literal.
Concretely, this book proposes several rituals, a "fire" yoga, and methods for divination for looking at the past, present, and future, trying to pass across method. I don't think Metzner is ever truly able to thread the needle he wants to thread between the psychological approach and the animistic approach, and the two in contrast can be jarring (why would I summon in support from power animals if this comes from me? why would I see divination as accessing myself if I bring in spirits? etc.), but its one of the more coherently put together attempts to do so, although perhaps …
A flower of the post-60s cosmologies of spirituality: a broad definition of all divination (regardless of method) as fundamentally "intuition" from the self, a Jungian sense of individuation as the goal of divination, combined with a Michael Harner-style core shamanic animism that blends between the psychological and the literal.
Concretely, this book proposes several rituals, a "fire" yoga, and methods for divination for looking at the past, present, and future, trying to pass across method. I don't think Metzner is ever truly able to thread the needle he wants to thread between the psychological approach and the animistic approach, and the two in contrast can be jarring (why would I summon in support from power animals if this comes from me? why would I see divination as accessing myself if I bring in spirits? etc.), but its one of the more coherently put together attempts to do so, although perhaps showing where the limits of such syncretisms are.
T. M. Sullivan started reading Alchemical Divination by Ralph Metzner
Alchemy, like shamanism and yoga, with which it is related, involves teachings and practices of …
Entering the wyrd.