Meta Math! The Quest for Omega
by Gregory Chaitin

Reading list: Spanish Masters exam

This is what I read over the past 4 months for my master's exams in Spanish:

Plays
Sánchez, Florencio. Barranca abajo
Usigli, Rodolfo. El gesticulador
Lope de Vega. Fuenteovejuna.
Pedro Calderón de la Barca. La vida es sueño.
Leandro Fernández de Moratín. El sí de las niñas.
José de Zorrilla. Don Juan Tenorio.
Duque de Rivas. Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino.
Federico García Lorca. La casa de Bernarda Alba.
Alfonso Sastre. Escuadra hacia la muerte.
Antonio Buero Vallejo. En la ardiente oscuridad.

Essays
Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino. Facundo (fragmentos).
Acosta de Samper, Soledad. Las mujeres en la sociedad moderna.
Rodó, José Enrique. Ariel (fragmentos).
Ocampo, Victoria. La mujer y su expresión
Paz, Octavio. El laberinto de la soledad.
Galeano, Eduardo. Las venas abiertas de América Latina.
Fernández Retamar, Roberto. Calibán.
Ferré, Rosario. Sitio a Eros.

Short stories
Echeverría, Esteban. "El matadero."
Gutiérrez Nájera, Manuel. "Memorias de un paraguas."
Darío, Rubén. "El rey burgués."
Lugones, Leopoldo. "Yzur."
Quiroga, Horacio. "El hombre muerto" y "La insolación."
Bosch, Juan. "La mujer."
Arguedas, José María. "Agua."
Céspedes, Augusto. "El pozo."
Bombal, María Luisa. "El árbol."
Borges, Jorge Luis. "La muerte y la brújula," "La biblioteca de Babel" y "El hombre de la esquina rosada."
Onetti, Juan Carlos. "Bienvenido Bob."
Rulfo, Juan. "El hombre."
García Márquez, Gabriel. "Un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes."
Cortázar, Julio. "Autopista del sur," y "Cartas a mamá."
Bryce Echenique, Alfredo. "El descubrimiento de América."
Arenas, Reinaldo. "Bestial entre las flores."
Skármeta, Antonio. "A las arenas."
Piglia, Ricardo. "El gaucho invisible."
Valenzuela, Luisa. "De noche soy tu caballo"

Novels
Isaacs, Jorge. María.
Cambeceres, Eugenio. Sin rumbo.
Azuela, Mariano. Los de abajo.
Bioy Casares, Adolfo. La invención de Morel.
Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Páramo.
García Márquez, Gabriel. Cien años de soledad.
Cortázar, Julio. Rayuela.
Vargas Llosa, Mario. La ciudad y los perros.
Puig, Manuel. El beso de la mujer araña.
Peri Rossi, Cristina. Solitario de amor.
Piglia, Ricardo. Respiración artificial.
Zapata Olivella, Manuel. Chambacú, corral de negros

Poetry
Anónimo. Poema de Mio Cid.
Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita. Libro de buen amor.

Prose
Alfonso X el Sabio. Prosa histórica.
Don Juan Manuel. El conde Lucanor (o Libro de los enxiemplos del conde Lucanor et de Patronio).
Libro del caballero Zifar. )
Fernando de Rojas. La Celestina. Ed. Dorohy Severyn.
Diego de San Pedro. Cárcel de amor. Ed. Carmen Parrilla.
Juan Luis Vives. Diálogos [in Selecciones].
Anónimo. Lazarillo de Tormes. Ed. Francisco Rico.
Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quijote de la Mancha.
Teresa de Jesús. Las moradas.
Francisco de Quevedo. El Buscón.
María de Zayas y Sotomayor. Desengaños amorosos.
Benito Jerónimo Feijoo. Teatro crítico universal.
José Cadalso. Noches lúgubres.
Mariano José de Larra. Fígaro.
G.A. Bécquer. Leyendas.
Leopoldo Alas. Su único hijo.
Benito Pérez Galdós. Fortunata y Jacinta.
Benito Pérez Galdós. La de Bringas
José María de Pereda. Pedro Sánchez.
Emilia Pardo Bazán. Los Pazos de Ulloa.
Josefina Aldecoa. Historia de una maestra.
Ana María Matute. Historias de Artámila.
Esther Tusquets. El mismo mar de todos los veranos.
Mercé Rodoreda. La plaza del diamante

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
I think I liked it even better 2nd time around. 

The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber

by Nicholson Baker

-The section of essays labeled "Mixed" was a waste of space. One essay is just a collection of typos he's made and saved in a file on his computer. Another terrible piece is written high on pot, which might not be a problem, but it's just stupid fancy vocab words and nonsense. But I enjoyed the rest, more or less. I liked this least when Baker tries too hard to be fancy and "writerly" with his descriptions and vocabulary. But "Lumber," the huge essay that ends the book was really fun to read, and the library science section was, too. I recommend those, if you like the kinds of things I like. Of course I really like it when Baker is sensitive to the potential to go "meta" and play with recursion in any subject, and which he really piles on in the amazing "Lumber" essay, and you find it also in "Model Airplanes" with the model-making machine that might make models of itself.

Zen and the Brain

James H. Austin, MD

-I don't know about this book. I started reading it because I was looking for exactly something that talked about meditation in a scientific context, and came across this book at the library. It's 697 pages and obviously a labor of love. I skimmed a lot of the brain stuff, which was not really for a general reader, even though it wanted to be. The rest of it...I can't really recommend reading the whole thing, though I learned a few things. If you're interested, you can really just skip to the summary chapters, written in Q&A form. The main point seems to be that meditation, over years of practice, desynchronizes the many systems of perception and awareness which are woven together in the brain in egocentric and delusional ways, and allows them to loosen up their patterns, which improves things, and at some point these systems can, possibly, snap back together in a simpler and awakened enlightened state. I have more to say but I'll leave it there for now.