BizCar - English Language Books: International supplier of books in the English language
|
|
|
| Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality | 
 enlarge | Author: Alan W. Watts
Publisher: New World Library
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95 (30.49 RON)
Buy New: $11.01 (25.92 RON)
You Save: $1.94 (4.57 RON) (15%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 334531
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 140
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.5
ISBN: 1577315855
Dewey Decimal Number: 170
EAN: 9781577315858
ASIN: 1577315855
Publication Date: October 28, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|
| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 9 | | NEXT » |
 Yes, but only if ... November 16, 2008
You need to be an Alan Watts fan to fully appreciate this book; it is not the place to start if you are just getting into him, but it is important if you want a fully representative collection of this brilliant man's work.
Watts' writings, considered as a whole, come close to providing a workable philosophy of life. This book contains essays, some quite funny, about materialism. But it wouldn't make much sense unless you were already familiar with his more important and serious work explaining and translating Buhddist and Hindu thought and practice into Western terms.
 Practical reflections on Alan's life December 7, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Certainly one of the best of Alan's books I've read! Written towards the end of his life, it details various things that had happened to him, and explains how and why he developed from them. Very readable. I'd suggest this is the book to get to see if you like Alan's style of writing, although his others are somewhat deeper.
Yes, it matters and its important February 27, 2004
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Alan Watts is one of my favorite philosophers. His wisdom is timeless, and his views refreshing in this age of mass media hype and overplayed political propaganda. Does it Matter? That is an important question for everyone to ask themselves. I'm not going to list here the many topics covered in this volume, and certainly I'm not equal to Watts in trying to explain it. The book is worth owning even for his writing about children. One can get a whole new perspective on the Columbine shootings, for example, by reading what Watts said about children several decades before. Columbine wasn't a surprise. It's a great book for those who take time to think about life and the real way of the world.
 The Radical Angry Sixties Redux February 13, 2002
4 out of 59 found this review helpful
If you think this book is about getting your priorities straight and considering what really matters, don't bother. This book is alot of junk ideas from the sixties. I threw the book in the garbage so that no other unsuspecting person would get it. What a disappointment.
Easily one of my favorites in my Watts library... February 21, 2000
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
It is subtitled "Essays on Man's Relationship to Materiality"...and my copy perhaps is almost ready for the Smithsonian. So much for my relationship with my materiality, eh? Well, I'm still learning. This book is one of his most accessible collections, his writing style here is so light and readable that it's clear that he is getting a kick out of his own whimsical turning of phrases. The words, the symbols, the images, the numbers in which we define reality are NOT reality and according to Watts, we confuse our descriptive world with what is really going on, thus we are distanced and numbed to real situations in the real world...we become blind to nature, we fail to connect to the living vibrations. These essays--I know, yet more descriptives--are designed for us to recognize the problem. (Money is not wealth. We are not our clothes. Food is not the packaging it is placed in.) These essays tell us ways we can connect to the cosmic consciousness...so we can avoid self destruction. One of the best essays is the short piece on Zen scholar DT Suzuki in which, I find, has the best line about both Suzuki and the Alan Watts of this text...it is "as if he had seen the Ultimate Joke and as if, out of compassion for those who had not, he were refraining from laughing out loud." Well, that is almost the way I have often been described, like I've told a joke that few people get...Anyway one of Watt's best, it's a pity is no longer in catalogue....
|
|
|
