New Books for the Thesis

The end is in sight, but if anything that means I need even more books. I've had it with going to the library by now - I am at home writing up, and when I need a book I want it right next to me with a cup of coffee and my favourite harp concerto.
So here's what I decided I couldn't live without, and what I will be reading over the next couple of weeks:




The Heart of William James ed. by Robert Richardson - My obsession with William James continues apace.




Inevitable Grace by Piero Ferrucci - Ferrucci was a student of Assagioli, a radical Italian psychotherapist who was a major influence on the work of Australian author Stephanie Dowrick.




Derrida for Beginners by Jeff Collins and Bill Mayblin - Here I am almost at the end and I still don't really have my head around theory or philosophy. I keep bumbling ahead, however, doing my level best. And still I'm at this level.




George Herbert Mead: A Unifying Theory for Sociology by John D. Baldwin - Just looking at this book terrifes me.




How to Know God by Deepak Chopra - Much more familiar terrain here.




Reason in the Age of Science by Hans-Georg Gadamer - What the hell was I thinking? I remember - Stephanie Dowrick references Gadamer in her book on Rilke, and he seemed fascinating. Now he just seems terrifying.




The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore - No idea.




Self-Help Inc. by Micki McGee - I have actually read this book several times over, but always from the library. I figured it was time to get my own copy.

Prometheus

Prometheus really should be the God of self-help, being the ultimate creator of humankind, and therefore representative of the creative instinct within each and everyone of us. Our desire to work on ourselves and to re-create our own identities is easily comparable to Prometheus' legend, though there are elements as well of a self-directed Pygmalion impulse - but I don't want to mix my classical references.
So it should be no surprise that self-help should be such a divisive idea, because it would seem that the Promethean idea has always inspired different, and quite opposite reactions in people. There are those who think that Prometheus was a wonderfully inventive rebel, a god determined to stick it to the other gods and create a name for himself. In this pro-Promethean camp I would place all the writers, readers and exponents of self-help. In a book I've just been reading called The Divided Self of William James, author Richard M. Gale describes the fascinating Mr. James as possessing a "Promethean pragmatism."
But others (and Mary Shelley springs to mind here) take the view that Prometheus was an overly-optimistic, monstrously self-obsessed meddler in nature. He had no right to attempt to create a new destiny, all of his attempts being foolish and misguided and ultimately disastrous.