The past weekend has been overly draining and excessively stressful.  Thank goodness things have lightened up at job no. 2 of 3 and I have time to surf.  I was  most excited to discover Google Books today and my stress levels have gone down appreciably since I’ve started to read William James’ Principles of Psychology. 

Quite shocking to think where this could lead.  I appreciate catching wind of the latest neuro research online as much as the next nerd, but to think that books, real books, are being scanned!  And searchable!  I can only shudder at the hippy googling ‘brain’ and making loose conjectures between Penfield, James, and hasheesh.  Or the somber, pretentious post-modernist writing a treatise on the hegemony of 19th century frog experiments and the resultant marginalization of the toad/other by simply clicking ’search’.  But, the future, the ability to compare translations, to thoughtfully rediscover past conjectures, this is quite exciting.  Makes one wonder what is happening at Google behind the scenes.  Murmurings from the CBC and the like already point to difficulties:  lawsuits on copyright, decisions made dictating which books will be scanned, access to books in different countries.  It’s brave new world out there.  Cowboy up.

Without further ado, The Bookshelf.  Gems located inside.