CuSithBell comments on Plant Seeds of Rationality - Less Wrong
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Quite intriguing! Can you suggest any of his books in particular as a good place to start?
To suddenly discover Idries Shah is a bit like discovering the Sequences: there is so much.
I'd suggest The Magic Monastery (subtitled "Analogical and Action Philosophy of the Middle East and Central Asia"), which is a mixture of traditional teaching stories and stories of his own composition.
Then there are the books of Nasruddin stories (see the biblio at the end of the wiki article). Nasruddin is a traditional figure in stories all over the Middle East, and you can find a lot of Nasruddin stories on Google.
Shah's books are available in the US from ISHK and in the UK from Octagon. From places like Amazon too, of course, but the publishers' sites collect everything together more conveniently.
Hah! I'll have to check him out. I took a course on "Islamicate" literature and philosophy semi-recently, and found Sufism very interesting. Almost did my final paper on The Conference of the Birds (though the library's translation was ancient, called Muslims "Muselmen"). Thanks! :D