I'm crazy about anything that has vaguely gnostic undercurrents, so I knew I'd like Valis. (I originally started reading it several months ago after finishing The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, which I was obsessed with, since I too was fully unhinged at the time + eyeballs-deep in my gnosticism phase)

That’s right up there with the best of the best.

Golden, your impression of VALIS is so funny and so you and so right on.

I'm reading something pretty unusual right now: my grandfather just finished writing a book on the history of my family. It's fascinating, very funny, and sometimes very confronting.

That's pretty cool.

I recently got a copy of Derek Bailey's Musical Improvisation. Starts off with explorations of improvisation within genres and interviews from a 1974 radio series that he did on the same subject (does anyone know if this is available anywhere?). Pretty sure that it goes into other stuff too later on but I'm not there yet.

Viram Jasani is the artist that he interviews for the Indian music section.

I came at it after reading Crumb's The religious experience of P.K.Dick, which was probably a very light version of the events, but definitely helped add an additional layer to reading VALIS, I'm not sure if I would have been so impressed if I hadn't know it was semi-autobiographical.

again...

https://i.imgur.com/5oBchxs.jpg

and

https://i.imgur.com/lQJ1F54.jpg

Finished reading "Consciousness Explained" by Daniel Dennett.
Great book.

How difficult is it?

Pretty difficult but manageable.
Keep in mind that I'm not a native speaker, though.
It might come easier to you.

I'll try to dumb myself down from now on so you can keep up.