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Stephen Batty

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Stephen’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (45)
currently-reading‎ (9)
read‎ (375)
did-not-finish‎ (0)

philosophy‎ (28)
biography‎ (18)
favorites‎ (18)
poetry‎ (14)

criticism‎ (13)
history‎ (12)
psychology‎ (11)
fiction‎ (6)

science‎ (6)
politics‎ (3)

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Stephen is Currently Reading

Stephen Batty is currently reading

Fragments

by Heraclitus

bookshelves: favorites, philosophy, poetry, currently-reading

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(page 97 of 97)
"...fragments maketh the Holistic, i guess..." — Nov 22, 2023 03:28AM

May 29, 2023 10:49PM

Stephen Batty is currently reading

The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

bookshelves: favorites, philosophy, poetry, currently-reading

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(page 670 of 880)
"...becoming part of my referential and reverential life, along with Michel de Montaigne... life as i know it..." — Nov 22, 2023 03:27AM

May 29, 2023 10:49PM

Stephen Batty is currently reading

The Complete Essays

by Michel de Montaigne

bookshelves: criticism, favorites, philosophy, currently-reading

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(page 13000 of 1344)
"becoming part of my referential and reverential life, along with Ralph Waldo Emerson, pretty much covers the world as i have seen and seen it...." — Nov 22, 2023 03:26AM

May 29, 2023 10:49PM

See all 9 books that Stephen is reading…

Stephen’s Notes & Highlights

Book cover for The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision

The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra

1 highlight

shift of metaphors from the world as a machine to the world as a network.

Stephen’s Quotes

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”
― E.L. Doctorow

tags: writing

4681 likes

“Resist much, obey little.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

tags: poetry

6216 likes

“Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.”
― Martin Heidegger

tags: obvious, scholastic

266 likes

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

tags: humor, life

119469 likes

“I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.”
― George Eliot

tags: love

1739 likes

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Stephen’s Groups

Just Literature — 333 members — last activity May 04, 2020 02:38AM
I feel there is the need for a forum where we can discuss literature. Not just rate books and say how much we like them, but anything to do with liter ...more

UK Book Club — 6961 members — last activity 36 minutes ago
This is a book group for Goodreads users in the UK, but members from other countries are welcome too so long as all posts are made in English. Please ...more

The BOOK/MOVIE Club — 794 members — last activity Nov 23, 2025 08:46AM
If you love a good story whether it’s on the page or the screen, then this group is for you! We love discussing book-to-movie adaptations, debating th ...more

¡ POETRY ! — 22521 members — last activity May 24, 2026 04:09PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more