10/16/2006

Reading The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, a translation of the Samyutta Nikaya, by Bikkhu Bodhi. The book is a collection of sutras, which had been orally transmitted for hundreds of years before being compiled in print (this is the first of five volumes--the fourth hasn't even been translated). The sutras exalain the basis of suffering.

He picked up this volume because a friend, upon returning from a three month retreat, told him about one of the sutras and, in researching it, he found this book. The sutra was about anger and how it can be dealt with.

When I asked him what his all time favorite book was he said V., by Thomas Pynchon, though qualified that with, "it's just what popped into my head." Here's the plot summary by HarperAcademic:
http://www.harperacademic.com/catalog/guide_xml.asp?isbn=0060930217

Recently he bought the science fiction novel, Axiomatic, by Greg Egan, for a friend.