CCAA Books

On a whim I picked this one up, knowing of it and recognizing the book title. I knew nothing of what the book was about, except what I could surmise from the cover.

I was a little put off initially with the way Hesse wrote, kind of flighty with nothing too concrete or definite. Is it a spiritual quest, a personal quest and so on. Then as Siddhartha grows older within the book we begin to see the natural progression from one mental/spiritual situation to the next. We see him go from spiritual, to rich, gambling, to being poor to a heightened spiritual state and so on.

All in all, after I worked my way into the flesh of Hesse's writing, I began to enjoy Siddhartha. You feel as though you are on the spiritual voyage with him and can understand where he is coming from. I am glad that there were only 150 pages and it was a fast read, because I most certainly would not want to read this style of writing for very long. I would recommend.

4 stars.

A journey through the life of a man with a single purpose: to find his own truth.

Knowing that the only way to discover life's greatest mysteries is to go through the heart of them alone, he finds himself living one extreme after another until he finally rests in the balance.

The ending will either leave you glowing or pondering, but either way you will not regret taking the time to read this remarkable tale.

Although I can understand the longing to separate oneself from the frustrations and hypocrisy of human life, it does seem like an abandonment rather than an accomplishment to me. Maybe because of this, and because I had been exposed to the tenets of both Buddhism and Hinduism prior to reading this novel, I didn't find it as life-altering and uplifting as many others find it. If you're new to eastern philosophy, this could be a good general introduction.

I have never been a huge fan of philosophy, but I can see why this little tome is considered a classic. It is a life's journey and a profound look into the soul. Siddhartha's journey and his desire to be spiritually fulfilled began as a Brahmin's son, then as an ascetic, then into a life of lust and material possessions, and finally into a peaceful life as a ferry driver. With all his outward searching, Siddhartha comes to realize that inner peace is not achieved through lessons from a teacher, or fasting, or worldliness. It is an inward reflection, a recognition of self. This book challenges the ideas of love and nature, among other things.

Siddhartha is a man on a spiritual journey. German writer, Herman Hesse, starts off strong about a man who is willing to give up everything in search of his self and to live without the needs and comforts of life. Siddhartha is searching for meaning which includes a spiritual journey without material possessions and even relationships. He has a love relationship with Kamalah who would provide him his son, something that she predicted. That is where the story, I think gets lost. Instead the book sort of lost it's way rearding Siddhartha's journey by his relationship with Kamalah and his search for religion and spiritualism is brushed aside by his relationships with one woman and his quest to continue to find himself. Hesse is an interesting writer in that he starts strongly trying to help us find our own spiritual center much like Siddhartha has in his life and he gets lost along the way or is detoured. Despite it's short length, it's quite a powerful book but it loses it's punch midway in the novel

I'm never disappointed with Dummies books and this one is no exception. Great read, easy to learn.

As a novice or someone thinking about working with HTML, I think this book was over my head. If one had some background in HTML they could probably make full/better use of its content. Pork Chops and Applesauce: A Collection of Recipes and Reflections

I found this item to be informative, easy to follow and well worth the price that I paid for it. The book arrived when I expected it.
I would recommend this book, as a starting point, to anyone who is interested in learning HTML.

This is not a book for jumping into WEB development. It claims to be but it really is not.

It's a good intro book for HTML for the absolute beginner. But, I must mention you have to be a reader versus an examples person. There is a great deal of discussion and only so much code examples. However, it did answer a couple questions.

I found this book good for getting to know what is out there. The book offers useful links to sites for getting more information. This saved time and it offers a "warm fuzzy" since it is suggested versus wandering around the Net.

The book also suggests some tools to use which again saved a little time.

I don't know if I would call this a good reference book. For example, it lightly touches CSS, XHTML and CGI and the design suggestions? Well you probably could get a design book to handle that better as I think they are rather basic in this book.

If you can get it from the library or get it used, it might be worth a look.

If you understand basic HTML, you might avoid it.

Caveat emptor to the absolute beginner. This book is not written for the beginning web page creator. It is not written in a tutorial style. It is good as a reference source as you study a true tutorial type book. It discusses tags and their attributes one at a time without showing you how they fit into your web page code. The beginning chapters throw lots of advanced features at you and tell you they will be discussed in chapter 19 etc.
I was completely overwhelmed after 20 min of reading. So what's a beginner to do? I recommend Create Your First Web Page in a Weekend. By the time you get half way through that book then you can use this dummies book as a reference.
william