Joining John and Andy today is John Williams, the daily books editor and a staff writer at the New York Times, where he has worked since 2011. Before that, John spent several years on the editorial side of book publishing, and founded and ran the website The Second Pass, which was built partly on the love of older and more obscure books.

The book under discussion is The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, brother of Henry, professor of philosophy at Harvard, who delivered twenty hour-long talks as part of the prestigious Gifford lecture series at the University of Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902. The texts of these were gathered together and first published in book form in 1902 by Longmans, Green & Co, with the subtitle A Study in Human Nature. An immediate bestseller, it is a landmark book that continues to to influence our attitudes to, and understanding of, religious experience in all its diverse kinds.

Books mentioned:

William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience; The Varieties of Religious Experience (audio book read by John Pruden); The Will to Believe; A Pluralistic Universe
Eve Babitz - Eve’s Hollywood
J.D. Salinger - For Esmé, With Love & Squalor (Nine Stories); Franny & Zooey; Uncollected Stories (PDF)

Other links:

The Second Pass archive site
Backlisted no 57 on Á Rebours by J.-K. Husymans
’My Sweet Lord’ - George Harrison
’God’ - John Lennon
Mary Midgley on Desert Island Discs
’Cosmically Conscious’ - Paul McCartney
I Think Therefore I Rock’n’Roll’ - Ringo Starr