What's on YOUR bookshelf with Randi?

[Beleth]

Randi included a picture of his bookshelf with all his books on it in his latest commentary.

If you own any of his books, what are on the same bookshelf with them?

I'll start.
I own two of his books: Flim-Flam! and The Mask of Nostradamus. Now, I'm posting this some miles away from that bookshelf, but I'll see if I can remember what else is there:

- Three Bibles
- a copy of the Popul Vuh
- A couple books on the Tarot
- The Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs
- A few other Wiccanesque books
- Dante's Divine Comedy (all three books)
- Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things

So the hard-core skeptical books are outnumbered, but it seems appropriate to have them all together like that for some reason.

So how about your Randi bookshelf?

[Chaos]

I own "Flim-Flam!" (signed by the author at TAM2) and the "Encyclopedia".

Their sitting right next to "Bad Astronomy", four books on creative writing and "Brief History of Time" and "Universe in a Nutshell" by Stephen Hawking - it´s the Non-fiction part of the shelf.
BTW the shelf above it holds about two dozen issues of "Walt Disney´s Pocket Book Comics" ("Walt Disney´s Lustige Taschenbücher").

[deBergerac]

I am currently out of bookshelves. But Flim-Flam is in a pile with many books opposite in their reasoning.

[T'ai Chi]

Well a lot of my books are in my shed in boxes, but when I get a new bookshelf for them to go on I have these to put on:

I have the first Skeptic issue, I believe I might still have Why People Believe Weird Things, How We Believe, as well as Flim Flam! and How To Think About Weird Things by Schick et al. (I had these all at once, but may have gave some away during a move since I've already read them many times). I have Broca's Brain, , an autographed magic booklet by Andrew Mayne, The Blind Watchmaker by Dawkins, Daodejing:Making this Life Significant by Ames and Hall, about a dozen or more statistics and mathematics books, some birdwatching books, a writing style guide (whose contents I regularly ignore), the coin magic book by BoBo, Leaves of Grass, Walden Pond or whatever the title is, and that is all I can recall right now. :)

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by Chaos
I own "Flim-Flam!" (signed by the author at TAM2) and the "Encyclopedia".

Their sitting right next to "Bad Astronomy", four books on creative writing and "Brief History of Time" and "Universe in a Nutshell" by Stephen Hawking - it´s the Non-fiction part of the shelf.
BTW the shelf above it holds about two dozen issues of "Walt Disney´s Pocket Book Comics" ("Walt Disney´s Lustige Taschenbücher").

I've read Bad Astronomy, but need to buy it sometime. :)

[StuBob]

Of course, any book should be proud to sit next to Randi's "Flim Flam". My shelf also has:
Sagan's "Demon Haunted World"
Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things"
"The Way Life Works" (don't recall author)
"The Ascent of Science" by Brian Silver
"Evolution" by Carl Zimmer
"The Case for Mars" by Bob Zubrin
"The Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in 8 easy steps" by Marshall Savage (this one is fun)
"Terraforming" (don't recall author)
Also one by Dawkins and one by Gould, but don't recall which ones.

[BPScooter]

Oh boy! This is fun.

I bought Flim Flam since discovering the forum just weeks ago, so it is still in a pile by my bed. But in that pile:

Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays v.2 (includes his 1920s travel writing from India and Burma)

Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society

The Portable Jung

Lerdahl and Jackendoff, Generative Theory of Tonal Music

Tarbell's Course in Magic, v. 2

On the shelf it will go on,

The Unabridged Mark Twain
Oxford Classical Dictionary
Hodge, Galaxies
Eco, The Island of the Day Before

But don't bother asking whether I've put all these pieces together! ;)

[psy kick]

Its right between my Bible and mycopy of Revolution For The Hell Of It.

[T'ai Chi]

I just added Some Theory of Sampling, by Deming.

[kittynh]

I have several shelves of skeptic books.

I have almost everything Mr.Randi wrote. Need the Houdini book...hey, do you have "The Magical World of the Amazing Randi"?

Carl Sagan
thomas Hoving - a critical thinking MUST "False Impressions"
Martin Gardner (lots, including his first book which blasted Scientology "Fads and Fallacies")
Philip Klass, about all his UFO books
Michael Shermer

Joe NIckell ( a must for anyone that wants to actually investigate the paranormal, and doesn't want to get sued)

Extroidinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (I used that recently to show that magnetic therapy isn't new at all, including debunking it. The French had a lovely test to disprove it years ago)

And my all time favorite, which I keep meaning to give to Mr.Randi as I know he would love reading it, but I keep rereading it myself.

"Foibles and Fallacies of Science" by Daniel Haring, C.E., Phd.,LL.D.
1924 one of the most blasting chapters totally dispells dowsing in such terms and language that I have actually changed several peoples minds about dowsing by using his logic. The man was a genius, and yet is so readable. Reminds me of Mr.Randi is so many ways.

[Soapy Sam]

I'm going to emerge from the closet and admit that I have never read anything by JR except on this website. By the way, Kittynh, what did you get when you were ill a while back? I recall there was a plan to send you some cheer-up books.

I do have books by all the usual suspects from Azimov to (E.O. ) Wilson. (No X, Y or Z- strange!), I really must sort these shelves this year.

[BillyJoe]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
I'm going to emerge from the closet and admit that I have never read anything by JR except on this website.You are not alone.
They are reputedly worth reading but I am always put off by the fact that they were written so long ago. Perhaps if he wrote a new book.

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
No X, Y or Z- strangeI once made an alphabetical list of all the songs by Jethro Tull. I remember there were enough songs for every day of the year but none begining in X,Y or Z.

[kittynh]

Oh I got a book that CSICOP put out for their 25th anniversary with people writing "Why I became a skeptic". Interesting how many times Mr.Randi's name came up! At TAM3, my favorite skeptic (after Mr.Randi of course) is going to speak. Joe Nickell wrote in his chapter quite movingly about how Mr.Randi got him involved in the skeptic community.

I also got a MST3K video and some more books by Joe Nickell. He's a great read for the "starter skeptic". And since I like to do some local investigations his books are great for what to do and NOT do (especially if you don't want to get sued!)

[kittynh]

Also, I just got Penn and Tellers "How to Play in Traffic". I can see why it was on the sale shelf. Lots of great laughs, but if you did some of the "tricks" in the book you would be arrested these days. I really don't think it would be wise to check in at the airline with a clown nose on ( and have a clown nose on your ID)

Plus, there was something about sneaking little dogs on planes under your shirt. Not too good a plan these days.

[darren]

Also, I just got Penn and Tellers "How to Play in Traffic". I can see why it was on the sale shelf. Lots of great laughs, but if you did some of the "tricks" in the book you would be arrested these days. I really don't think it would be wise to check in at the airline with a clown nose on ( and have a clown nose on your ID)

I know a guy who flies regularly in Clown post 9/11. He had to commute back forth from Dallas to Houston every day for a week, and on each evening he returned in full clown makeup because of time restrictions. The airline staff loved it.

I also know a guy who smuggles dogs even since 9/11. He lives in cambodia and his kids love dogs and when he goes to Thailand he occasionally picks up a puppy. Smuggles them in his jacket. I really REALLY cannot fathom how that works, but I've seen the dogs myself. He also snuck in ostrich eggs. How does security miss that? I dunno.

[jj]

They sit in a bookshelf with about 150 DSP, Physical Chem, BioChem, Physics, QM, Linear Algebra, Functional Algebra, Control Systems, EE, Audio coding and other texts. At the bottom is a Chem CRC.

[Polux]

By Randi: Flim flam!
Then,
Why people believe... (Shermer)
Billions and billions (Sagan)
3 astronomy books by different authors...
Three men of the Beagle
Genius (James Gleick, about R. Feynman)
3 books by M. Bunge (famous Argentine-Canadian epistemologist) including: Sciece, it's method and philosophy (a classic)
Don Quijote de la Mancha (Cervantes)
Ficciones (Borges)
The character of physical law (Feynman)
The whys of a philosophical scrivener (M. Gardner)
The songs of distant Earth (A. Clarke)
The name of the rose (U. Eco)
Sophia's world (Gaarder)
...and more literary stuff by Julio Cortázar, Bioy Casares, Alejandro Dolina.
I have many more books, also fully read, that should be there, but not enough room...

In the same shelf: special editions of REM's "New adventures in Hi Fi" and Pink Floyd's "Is there anybody out there?" (The Wall live).
And a UNO card deck.

[BillyJoe]

A scanner
A printer
A television

...and a pair of bookends sitting cheek to cheek.


BJ

[Clancie]

Flim-Flam

Demon-Haunted World

Why People Believe

Full Facts Book of Cold Reading (Rowland)

Best Evidence (Schmicker)

Psychic Sleuths (Nickell)

The Psychic Mafia (Keene)

Probing the Unexplained (Spraggett)

The Spiritual Frontier (Rauscher)

Mediumship and Survival (Gauld)

Immortal Remains (Braude)

The Other Side (Pike)

If the Spiirit Moves (Picardie)

David Blaine: Mysterious Stranger

[Keneke]

An excellent thread, by the way.

Fat of the Land
Skipping to Gomorrah
Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone
The Illuminatus Trilogy
House of Leaves
Towing Jehovah
a bible and the book of Mormon
Great Apes


Tons of textbooks
Tons of White Wolf's WOD. :D

[Joe_Black]

biochemistry
parrelled and distrobuted systems
electronics of radio
the velvet claw
electronic systems
internet resources for engineers
logistics engineering and mantinance
cisoc IOS bridging and IBM netwok solutions
flim-flam
Anylizing boradband networks
mechanical engineering science
holy bible
A-level physics
principles of corporate finance
the big con
hacking exposed
principles of criminal law
locks and locksmithing
the heres a stick up
PCS and didgial cellular technologies
techniques of safe cracking
financial freedom though electronic day trading
solarix 2.x admin guide
the lost world
underworld
the unreasonable silence of the world
success in electronics
captive state feel the fear and do it anyway
one no, many yeses
the einstien factor
influence science and practice
blackjack for blood
special forces guerrilla warfare manual
the spy who came in from the cold
solarix 8 the complete reference
limitless mind
using C++
linux hardware hand book
advanced knowledge discovery and data mining
consise dictionary of mathematics
distinctives
rainbox six
the complete book of enzyme therapy
sheathing the sword
7 habits of highly effective people
change your life in 7 days
psychic warrior
how to mind map
a life worth living
the structure of magic II
frogs into princes
mr nice
chickenhawk
i'm ok, your ok
storm of iron
remote viewing secrets
force vs power

I just have one long shelf for my books.

[BillyJoe]

Joe,

That looks like your genetic code and, hey, guess what? I think I've cracked it

:D

BillyJoe

[T'ai Chi]

I just added the Skeptical Environmentalist, by Lomborg.


principles of corporate finance
the big con


Coincidence? ;)

[JJM 777]

A boring topic... but I'll post a message, to come again one step closer to the coveted 50-post mark, and then finally get a custom-made avataaaarrrrrrr.


Flim-Flam!
Faith Healers
Three Bibles
40 less essential religious books
30 novels by Agatha Christie
30 novels by Alfred Hitchcock
50 novels by others

[T'ai Chi]

Just added a geology and an oceanography book, but shoot, I can't remember their titles, and I don't want to get up to look. :)

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by JohnJoeMittler
A boring topic... but I'll post a message, to come again one step closer to the coveted 50-post mark, and then finally get a custom-made avataaaarrrrrrr.


Flim-Flam!
Faith Healers
Three Bibles
40 less essential religious books
30 novels by Agatha Christie
30 novels by Alfred Hitchcock
50 novels by others

Nice avatar!

[rastamonte]

Flim-Flam!
Power vs. Force
The Demon-Haunted World
Dude, Where's My Country?
The Lexus and the Olive Tree
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide
The Science Fiction Century
Who's Afraid of Schrodinger's Cat?
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
Why People Believe Weird Things
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Still Life With Woodpecker
Winter's Tale
Tales from Earthsea
Great Expectations
A Tale of Two Cities
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Cider House Rules
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Inside Chiropractic
All Fires The Fire
The Rum Diary
The Fountainhead
Einstein Ideas and Opinions
Marijuana in Magic and Religion

[Tom Morris]

What a great thread. I'm currently setting up a reading room in my house, and I've been sorting out all my books on science/scepticism (etc.) for when I've got the shelves ready:

I haven't got any Randi, but I'm hoping to get some delivered from Abebooks or Amazon soon.

I have got:
* Richard Feynman: The Meaning of it All
* Christoper Wanjek: Bad Medicine
* Bible
* Julian Baggini - Atheism
* Skeptic's Dictionary
* Dawkins, A Devil's Chaplain
* Daniel Harbour - An Intelligent Person's Guide To Atheism
* Hume - Treatise
* English Humanism: Wyatt to Cowley
* numerous volumes of Nietzsche
* Robert Park - Voodoo Science
* Plato
* Bertrand Russell - Unpopular Essays, Why I'm not a Christian, Sceptical Essays
* Sokal and Bricmont - Intellectual Impostures
* Francis Wheen - How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World

I've got a few other things kicking about which will form the basis of my sceptical library(!) in a few days once it's running. I'll also have a TV+DVD up there, hopefully with a copy of P&T.