http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/198340 en-US Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:11:32 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 11660703 Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:11:32 -0700
author: Lynne Truss
name: Jim
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 04/29/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 16994073 Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:33:14 -0700
author: Jonah Goldberg
name: Jim
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/21/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 16611564 Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:05:30 -0800
author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
name: Jim
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1979
rating: 4
read at: 01/86
date added: 02/28/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014487 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:23:49 -0700
author: Christopher Lasch
name: Jim
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014485 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:23:48 -0700
author: Philip Rieff
name: Jim
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014482 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:23:47 -0700
author: Alan Jacobs
name: Jim
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014480 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:23:46 -0700
author: Russell Kirk
name: Jim
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014479 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:23:45 -0700
author: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
name: Jim
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014478 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:23:44 -0700
author: Edmund Burke
name: Jim
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014476 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:23:43 -0700
author: Charles de Montesquieu
name: Jim
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014474 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:23:42 -0700
author: James K. A. Smith
name: Jim
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014473 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:23:40 -0700
author: Pope Benedict-XVI
name: Jim
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014470 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:23:39 -0700
author: Pope Benedict-XVI
name: Jim
average rating: 4.83
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014335 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:17:52 -0700
author: David Brooks
name: Jim
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014326 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:17:18 -0700
author: Paul Fussell
name: Jim
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014258 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:11:49 -0700
author: Søren Kierkegaard
name: Jim
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 8014253 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:11:33 -0700
author: Søren Kierkegaard
name: Jim
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1983
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 10/21/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3180838 Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:12:06 -0700 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor, read it now. If you have, read it again. Winner of the 1971 National Book Award, these are mighty strange stories of broken people in a fallen world: hermaphrodites who proclaim themselves visible, inscrutable sign of God; physically maimed men and women, tormented by spirits and passions they can't fathom; landowners, proletarian whites and Jim Crow blacks colluding in nameless, unspeakable guilt.

Flannery O'Connor's work, at its best, made manifest and palpable abstractions such as sin and redemption. Her work shouts of a world of spirit that is larger than all our categories and schema, encountered in experience but never contained or mastered. Only through difficult and painful revelation can the Kingdom be realized. Writing about the South in the middle of the twentieth century, her work is suffused with the divisions and nuances of race and class. She was a master of the short story form, as well. You get the solid setup, the telling character detail, the punch at the end of the story. Especially good are "Parker's Back," "The Displaced Person," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," "A Temple of the Holy Ghost," "Good Country People," "The Comforts of Home," "The Lame Shall Enter First," and the classic "A Good Man is Hard to Find." This is a wonderful anthology of work from a powerful writer. Again, do yourself a favor and take a walk in the darkness of these stories.]]>
author: Flannery O'Connor
name: Jim
average rating: 4.81
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at: 08/05
date added: 10/04/07
shelves:
review:
Do yourself a favor, treat yourself. If you've never read The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor, read it now. If you have, read it again. Winner of the 1971 National Book Award, these are mighty strange stories of broken people in a fallen world: hermaphrodites who proclaim themselves visible, inscrutable sign of God; physically maimed men and women, tormented by spirits and passions they can't fathom; landowners, proletarian whites and Jim Crow blacks colluding in nameless, unspeakable guilt.

Flannery O'Connor's work, at its best, made manifest and palpable abstractions such as sin and redemption. Her work shouts of a world of spirit that is larger than all our categories and schema, encountered in experience but never contained or mastered. Only through difficult and painful revelation can the Kingdom be realized. Writing about the South in the middle of the twentieth century, her work is suffused with the divisions and nuances of race and class. She was a master of the short story form, as well. You get the solid setup, the telling character detail, the punch at the end of the story. Especially good are "Parker's Back," "The Displaced Person," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," "A Temple of the Holy Ghost," "Good Country People," "The Comforts of Home," "The Lame Shall Enter First," and the classic "A Good Man is Hard to Find." This is a wonderful anthology of work from a powerful writer. Again, do yourself a favor and take a walk in the darkness of these stories.
]]> 6860126 Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:37:24 -0700
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Jim
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 09/26/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 6860097 Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:36:39 -0700
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Jim
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 09/26/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 6222651 Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:34:15 -0700
author: Charles Taylor
name: Jim
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 01/99
date added: 09/14/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 6222228 Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:27:23 -0700 The Grail Code: Quest for the Real Presence is the thoughtful answer to a question that has been on my mind for years, well before Dan Brown unleashed the merchandising behemoth that The Da Vinci Code became: namely, what is the core of the Arthur/Grail stories, and how do we understand the relationship of these stories to Christian culture? Mike Aquilina and Christopher Bailey have done a bang-up job with this book. It's fun, with mock arthurian stylings in its chapter heads and allusions to such popular treatments as the 1981 John Boorman film Excalibur and 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Aquilina and Bailey highlight the changing contours of the legends in the hands of men like Chretien de Troyes, Walter Map, Sir Thomas Malory, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. They've turned the history of these romances into an engaging intellectual romance; they pull the reader in to a world that is much larger than he could ever have imagined. Aquilina and Bailey capture the sense of yearning that is the strong undercurrent of these stories. They liken the tale to a jewel-encrusted relic, a tale that grew in reverent retelling. Christian theology, British history, romance and adultery, this is a wide-ranging fun read.]]>
author: Mike Aquilina
name: Jim
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 12/06
date added: 09/14/07
shelves:
review:
One of my favorite books in 2006, The Grail Code: Quest for the Real Presence is the thoughtful answer to a question that has been on my mind for years, well before Dan Brown unleashed the merchandising behemoth that The Da Vinci Code became: namely, what is the core of the Arthur/Grail stories, and how do we understand the relationship of these stories to Christian culture? Mike Aquilina and Christopher Bailey have done a bang-up job with this book. It's fun, with mock arthurian stylings in its chapter heads and allusions to such popular treatments as the 1981 John Boorman film Excalibur and 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Aquilina and Bailey highlight the changing contours of the legends in the hands of men like Chretien de Troyes, Walter Map, Sir Thomas Malory, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. They've turned the history of these romances into an engaging intellectual romance; they pull the reader in to a world that is much larger than he could ever have imagined. Aquilina and Bailey capture the sense of yearning that is the strong undercurrent of these stories. They liken the tale to a jewel-encrusted relic, a tale that grew in reverent retelling. Christian theology, British history, romance and adultery, this is a wide-ranging fun read.
]]> 3170023 Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:19:39 -0700 Mike Aquilina has added more authors and focused more on the texts of the Fathers. He's also added a section on female writers in the early Church.

Aquilina's brief, readable book serves as an introduction to the Fathers and how their ideas relate to the great councils of the Church. He follows that foreword with 3 chapters, one for those thinkers who preceded the Council of Nicaea, those who were contemporaneous, and those who followed it. For each Father, Aquilina gives a well-researched biographical sketch, followed by a representive piece of that Father's writing. It's a nice blend of commentary and tract, context and text. The author's prose is sharp, direct, concise and unobtrusive, the selections well-chosen and, in this edition, greatly expanded. The result is an eminently readable book that leaves you wanting to drink more deeply at the Patristic well.]]>
author: Mike Aquilina
name: Jim
average rating: 4.80
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 07/07
date added: 09/14/07
shelves:
review:
This is an excellent, greatly expanded edition of an overview for intelligent Christians who are looking for a place to begin to understand Patristics (the writings of the Church Fathers). I can't think of anything that is more important for a Christian or a student of Christianity. We strive to hear the Spirit, but sometimes we disregard the Spirit speaking through Tradition. Mike Aquilina has added more authors and focused more on the texts of the Fathers. He's also added a section on female writers in the early Church.

Aquilina's brief, readable book serves as an introduction to the Fathers and how their ideas relate to the great councils of the Church. He follows that foreword with 3 chapters, one for those thinkers who preceded the Council of Nicaea, those who were contemporaneous, and those who followed it. For each Father, Aquilina gives a well-researched biographical sketch, followed by a representive piece of that Father's writing. It's a nice blend of commentary and tract, context and text. The author's prose is sharp, direct, concise and unobtrusive, the selections well-chosen and, in this edition, greatly expanded. The result is an eminently readable book that leaves you wanting to drink more deeply at the Patristic well.
]]> 3180816 Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:06:52 -0700 Flannery O'Connor's literary reputation. She's a writer who will be part of the canon in a hundred years -- people will still be reading and discussing her. Wise Blood is the story of Hazel Motes, a man determine to strip Christ out of his life and out of the world, but, who, paradoxically, is also obsessed with Him. A walk through a haunted yet still good world filled with men who are made into monkeys, workaday street preachers, broke down autos, this is a kaleidoscope of sense, doubts, guilt, and humor: a must read tour de force.]]>
author: Flannery O'Connor
name: Jim
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1949
rating: 5
read at: 12/06
date added: 09/14/07
shelves:
review:
This novel combines startling images and an inscrutable Old Testament sensibility with funny scenes that will make you laugh out loud. It is the novel that helped cement Flannery O'Connor's literary reputation. She's a writer who will be part of the canon in a hundred years -- people will still be reading and discussing her. Wise Blood is the story of Hazel Motes, a man determine to strip Christ out of his life and out of the world, but, who, paradoxically, is also obsessed with Him. A walk through a haunted yet still good world filled with men who are made into monkeys, workaday street preachers, broke down autos, this is a kaleidoscope of sense, doubts, guilt, and humor: a must read tour de force.
]]> 5969617 Sun, 09 Sep 2007 20:14:42 -0700
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Jim
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 09/07
date added: 09/09/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 4532045 Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:14:29 -0700
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Jim
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 08/14/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3582927 Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:34:11 -0700
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Jim
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 08/07
date added: 08/04/07
shelves:
review:
Very fun book. Well crafted story.
]]> 3171518 Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:32:46 -0700
author: James Joyce
name: Jim
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 11/98
date added: 07/31/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3181567 Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:30:44 -0700
author: Mary McGarry Morris
name: Jim
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 01/90
date added: 07/31/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3181579 Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:28:08 -0700
author: Mary McGarry Morris
name: Jim
average rating: 3.37
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 01/98
date added: 07/31/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3667544 Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:27:07 -0700 Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 1) which was a best-seller, a publishing phenomenon. Truly, this book is less a conversation than a tiresome monologue by Neale Donald Walsch, who in the process of instructing the reader to liberate himself by recognizing his own Self as God, paints an image of a God as small as Walsch himself, and filled with Walsch's own parochialisms and scars. Walsch's God is intolerant of any consumption of wine, but tolerant of mass murder as being merely "different". He also shares Walsch's love of bad prose.]]>
author: Neale Donald Walsch
name: Jim
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1996
rating: 1
read at: 12/96
date added: 07/31/07
shelves:
review:
"You are about to have an extraordinary experience. You are about to have a conversation with God." So begins Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 1) which was a best-seller, a publishing phenomenon. Truly, this book is less a conversation than a tiresome monologue by Neale Donald Walsch, who in the process of instructing the reader to liberate himself by recognizing his own Self as God, paints an image of a God as small as Walsch himself, and filled with Walsch's own parochialisms and scars. Walsch's God is intolerant of any consumption of wine, but tolerant of mass murder as being merely "different". He also shares Walsch's love of bad prose.
]]> 3708080 Sat, 28 Jul 2007 11:22:34 -0700 Mike Aquilina's books on Christian culture and history (e.g., The Fathers of the Church, Expanded Edition) are not to be missed. The Resilient Church: The Glory, the Shame, & the Hope for Tomorrow is a respectful look at a number of episodes in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Not a comprehensive history (or even an attempt at a concise one), this book offers readers a number of vignettes from the life of the Church, through its encounters with heresy and holiness, scandal and salvation. Political events find their way in, but Aquilina's focus is on the Church as exemplifying one particular virtue: perseverance. Inasmuch as all Christian history is the story of a divine marriage, Christ and his Church, consider this book as an honest and sometimes humbling memoir of how that, as yet not fully consummated, marriage plays out in the lives of the faithful across millennia. It's an excellent read, and while not scholarly, the reader is bound to find something of interest. I particularly enjoyed the treatment of the Crusades. Inasmuch as the history of the West largely cannot be understood outside the history of the Church, this book is recommended for all.]]>
author: Mike Aquilina
name: Jim
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 07/07
date added: 07/28/07
shelves:
review:
Mike Aquilina's books on Christian culture and history (e.g., The Fathers of the Church, Expanded Edition) are not to be missed. The Resilient Church: The Glory, the Shame, & the Hope for Tomorrow is a respectful look at a number of episodes in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Not a comprehensive history (or even an attempt at a concise one), this book offers readers a number of vignettes from the life of the Church, through its encounters with heresy and holiness, scandal and salvation. Political events find their way in, but Aquilina's focus is on the Church as exemplifying one particular virtue: perseverance. Inasmuch as all Christian history is the story of a divine marriage, Christ and his Church, consider this book as an honest and sometimes humbling memoir of how that, as yet not fully consummated, marriage plays out in the lives of the faithful across millennia. It's an excellent read, and while not scholarly, the reader is bound to find something of interest. I particularly enjoyed the treatment of the Crusades. Inasmuch as the history of the West largely cannot be understood outside the history of the Church, this book is recommended for all.
]]> 3667084 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:44:50 -0700 Hitler's Pope, John Cornwell, after numbering the deported Roman Jews at 1,060, notes that "an unspecified number of Jews" were sheltered from deportation by the Vatican. This number is freely available, Cornwell must have known it well: about 5,000. As this would have undercut his thesis (that the diplomacy of Pius XII clearly was only self-serving and did not save lives), he assiduously keeps it from the reader. The book is rife with these sorts of distortions: Kenneth L. Woodward stated in his review in Newsweek that "errors of fact and ignorance of context appear on almost every page."

First, contrary to Cornwell's assertions, there is precious little new material, and he did not enjoy "unprecendented" access to Vatican archives. Second, his assertion that he started the project with the intention of clearing the name Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII) is highly suspect, since by his own admission, his main point is that the papacy is itself an evil institution; it's unlikely that the reign of one man would have changed his mind on this, especially given the REALLY bad popes of history. If he really felt the papacy was an unreformable evil, what would be his motivation to clear the name of a pope who exercised such clear authority? Third, nothing is mentioned of Pacelli's support of Christian Democrat parties after the war, as this would undercut Cornwell image of a pope who distrusted democratic movements.

Structurally, the book is a mess. Is it a biography of Pacelli? Not really. Is it a story of the wartime behavior of Pius XII? About one-third of it is, but that is better covered by authors who focused on original sources, e.g., Pierre Blet, and not secondary and tertiary sources as Cornwell does. He takes the opportunity to tell us what he thinks about John Paul II (against, natch) and contraception (for, natch), all the while showing that, his claim to be a "devout Catholic" notwithstanding, he's clearly out of touch with both Catholic theology and Catholic life as practiced today. He's hilariously uninformed about NFP (no, I have no idea what this has to do with the Nazis or Pius, either), and only someone who's never read or understood John Paul II's philosophical work could call his work "a narrow reading of neo-Thomist philosophy," unless neo-Thomist philosophy somehow now includes 20th century phenomenology.

The book is also filled with fun, irrelevant, "zany" tidbits like what Orson Welles and Alec Guinness recalled of their meetings with the pontiff. Oh, and in case you missed it (most historians have), the Vatican was also responsible for World War I (p. 48-58)! This is just looney stuff.]]>
author: John Cornwell
name: Jim
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2000
rating: 1
read at: 05/00
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:
On p. 310 of Hitler's Pope, John Cornwell, after numbering the deported Roman Jews at 1,060, notes that "an unspecified number of Jews" were sheltered from deportation by the Vatican. This number is freely available, Cornwell must have known it well: about 5,000. As this would have undercut his thesis (that the diplomacy of Pius XII clearly was only self-serving and did not save lives), he assiduously keeps it from the reader. The book is rife with these sorts of distortions: Kenneth L. Woodward stated in his review in Newsweek that "errors of fact and ignorance of context appear on almost every page."

First, contrary to Cornwell's assertions, there is precious little new material, and he did not enjoy "unprecendented" access to Vatican archives. Second, his assertion that he started the project with the intention of clearing the name Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII) is highly suspect, since by his own admission, his main point is that the papacy is itself an evil institution; it's unlikely that the reign of one man would have changed his mind on this, especially given the REALLY bad popes of history. If he really felt the papacy was an unreformable evil, what would be his motivation to clear the name of a pope who exercised such clear authority? Third, nothing is mentioned of Pacelli's support of Christian Democrat parties after the war, as this would undercut Cornwell image of a pope who distrusted democratic movements.

Structurally, the book is a mess. Is it a biography of Pacelli? Not really. Is it a story of the wartime behavior of Pius XII? About one-third of it is, but that is better covered by authors who focused on original sources, e.g., Pierre Blet, and not secondary and tertiary sources as Cornwell does. He takes the opportunity to tell us what he thinks about John Paul II (against, natch) and contraception (for, natch), all the while showing that, his claim to be a "devout Catholic" notwithstanding, he's clearly out of touch with both Catholic theology and Catholic life as practiced today. He's hilariously uninformed about NFP (no, I have no idea what this has to do with the Nazis or Pius, either), and only someone who's never read or understood John Paul II's philosophical work could call his work "a narrow reading of neo-Thomist philosophy," unless neo-Thomist philosophy somehow now includes 20th century phenomenology.

The book is also filled with fun, irrelevant, "zany" tidbits like what Orson Welles and Alec Guinness recalled of their meetings with the pontiff. Oh, and in case you missed it (most historians have), the Vatican was also responsible for World War I (p. 48-58)! This is just looney stuff.
]]> 3652527 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:19:19 -0700
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

That bit of Ogden Nash whimsy came into my head as I thought about Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, a reflection on human history through the lens of evolutionary biology. Diamond, unlike Professor Twist, is seeking answers to real world problems. In this case, he seeks to understand the plight of indigenous peoples and their subordination to European and Asian cultures in light of evolutionary pressures. Even so, Diamond seems awkward in his attempts to justify the ways of the Blind Watchmaker to men as so. One false note comes early in the book, when he departs from his evenhandedness to assure us that not only should we not hold New Guineans to be less intellectually endowed than Europeans (a reasonable enough assumption), but that they are probably intellectually superior. He admits that he can't demonstrate that superiority empirically, so that assertion strikes the reader as an attempt to curry favor by a politically correct reverse bias.

On the other hand, there's a lot of really stimulating and interesting stuff in this book. Diamond talks about: what kinds of foodstuffs are necessary to support civilization; why disease almost always flowed from native Europeans to native Americans (and not vice-versa), whereas Europeans encounter many new diseases when they attempted to enter Africa; why those previous two topics are related; how innovation happens; etc. It seems like there's an interesting fact or point of view whenever you turn the page.

The book seeks a complete explanation for the course of human history. It has that sort of broad, sweeping intellectual appeal that a hefty work of philosophy or science has. For example, after someone learns Newtonian mechanics, he tends to see the entire universe as the interplay between physical forces that are expressed in terms of differential equations. A similar dynamic happens here, where the reader suddenly sees commonplaces in a new light.

As with most grand theories, it's important to see that there are some important limits to the analysis. While we can see why, in broad strokes, European and Asian peoples might have overwhelming advantages in human history in purely biological and geographical terms, Diamond's analysis is of no help in answering historical questions that still might strike us as large, but come within the realm of European or Asian culture, instead of at the border with other peoples. For example, it's hard to see how his analysis adds anything to our understand of conflicts such as the Greco-Persian wars, the rise and decline of Rome, the Napoleonic Wars, or the American Civil War. Certainly these questions are important, and we rightly inquire into agricultural, military, political, and culture causes for these events. In these cases Diamond's analysis is largely impossible, since we are dealing with peoples that share genetics, foodstuffs, climates, terrains, etc.

Perhaps I'm nit-picking. It's an excellent, thought-provoking book. I'd just like to temper the inevitable temptation to view all history through this lens.]]>
author: Jared Diamond
name: Jim
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 01/06
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:
The Purist

I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

That bit of Ogden Nash whimsy came into my head as I thought about Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, a reflection on human history through the lens of evolutionary biology. Diamond, unlike Professor Twist, is seeking answers to real world problems. In this case, he seeks to understand the plight of indigenous peoples and their subordination to European and Asian cultures in light of evolutionary pressures. Even so, Diamond seems awkward in his attempts to justify the ways of the Blind Watchmaker to men as so. One false note comes early in the book, when he departs from his evenhandedness to assure us that not only should we not hold New Guineans to be less intellectually endowed than Europeans (a reasonable enough assumption), but that they are probably intellectually superior. He admits that he can't demonstrate that superiority empirically, so that assertion strikes the reader as an attempt to curry favor by a politically correct reverse bias.

On the other hand, there's a lot of really stimulating and interesting stuff in this book. Diamond talks about: what kinds of foodstuffs are necessary to support civilization; why disease almost always flowed from native Europeans to native Americans (and not vice-versa), whereas Europeans encounter many new diseases when they attempted to enter Africa; why those previous two topics are related; how innovation happens; etc. It seems like there's an interesting fact or point of view whenever you turn the page.

The book seeks a complete explanation for the course of human history. It has that sort of broad, sweeping intellectual appeal that a hefty work of philosophy or science has. For example, after someone learns Newtonian mechanics, he tends to see the entire universe as the interplay between physical forces that are expressed in terms of differential equations. A similar dynamic happens here, where the reader suddenly sees commonplaces in a new light.

As with most grand theories, it's important to see that there are some important limits to the analysis. While we can see why, in broad strokes, European and Asian peoples might have overwhelming advantages in human history in purely biological and geographical terms, Diamond's analysis is of no help in answering historical questions that still might strike us as large, but come within the realm of European or Asian culture, instead of at the border with other peoples. For example, it's hard to see how his analysis adds anything to our understand of conflicts such as the Greco-Persian wars, the rise and decline of Rome, the Napoleonic Wars, or the American Civil War. Certainly these questions are important, and we rightly inquire into agricultural, military, political, and culture causes for these events. In these cases Diamond's analysis is largely impossible, since we are dealing with peoples that share genetics, foodstuffs, climates, terrains, etc.

Perhaps I'm nit-picking. It's an excellent, thought-provoking book. I'd just like to temper the inevitable temptation to view all history through this lens.
]]> 3652501 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:15:24 -0700
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Jim
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1943
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3652481 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:15:06 -0700
author: Madeleine L'Engle
name: Jim
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3652474 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:15:03 -0700
author: E.B. White
name: Jim
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3652338 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:12:52 -0700
author: Maurice Sendak
name: Jim
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3652319 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:12:40 -0700
author: Shel Silverstein
name: Jim
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1964
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3652292 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:11:59 -0700
author: George Orwell
name: Jim
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3652283 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:11:43 -0700
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Jim
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1950
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3652273 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:11:25 -0700
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Jim
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1932
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3645520 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:44:18 -0700
If you wanted to know the difference in structure (as opposed to scale) between a short story and a novel, Moby-Dick: or, The Whale is probably the as good an exemplar one would find of the novel form. Where a short story focuses on a single event, action, or mood, a novel tends to take the air a bit more -- perambulate, follow its own muse, wander. And wander Moby Dick does. It goes and goes and goes. Herman Melville wrote that he had written a wicked novel. I wonder if that is perceptible to a 21st century sensibility. Melville knows that he's depicting characters who have abandoned critical parts of their pasts, their society, and their souls, parts that many of us today no longer recognize, let alone miss. He strolls through various modernisms: pantheism, Kantianism, indifferentism, relativism, pessimism, Romanticism. Ahab -- what to make of him: sacrilegious, demonic, monomaniac, striving. A shadow of Christian belief, of Calvinism, no longer sufficiently vital to bring salvation, but more than adequate to reinforce notions of depravity and condemnation, hangs over the novel.

On a lighter note, Moby-Dick will give you a new appreciation for Star Trek. The episodic nature of the novel makes possible a bunch of self-contained mini-plots, each of which could be spun into its own little story. There's the encounter with a ship that has been taken over by a charismatic preacher and his converted followers. There's a ship in search of an abandoned crew, and one that is filled with bon vivants, appropriately named "The Bachelor."

There's undoubtedly a lot more than I can write about in a tiny review like this. Like a whale, this novel's soul is submerged most of the time, only occasionally spouting or breeching to reveal awesome and fearful sights.]]>
author: Herman Melville
name: Jim
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1851
rating: 5
read at: 06/06
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:
This is a tough novel: big, confusing, it leaves you wanting to re-read it.

If you wanted to know the difference in structure (as opposed to scale) between a short story and a novel, Moby-Dick: or, The Whale is probably the as good an exemplar one would find of the novel form. Where a short story focuses on a single event, action, or mood, a novel tends to take the air a bit more -- perambulate, follow its own muse, wander. And wander Moby Dick does. It goes and goes and goes. Herman Melville wrote that he had written a wicked novel. I wonder if that is perceptible to a 21st century sensibility. Melville knows that he's depicting characters who have abandoned critical parts of their pasts, their society, and their souls, parts that many of us today no longer recognize, let alone miss. He strolls through various modernisms: pantheism, Kantianism, indifferentism, relativism, pessimism, Romanticism. Ahab -- what to make of him: sacrilegious, demonic, monomaniac, striving. A shadow of Christian belief, of Calvinism, no longer sufficiently vital to bring salvation, but more than adequate to reinforce notions of depravity and condemnation, hangs over the novel.

On a lighter note, Moby-Dick will give you a new appreciation for Star Trek. The episodic nature of the novel makes possible a bunch of self-contained mini-plots, each of which could be spun into its own little story. There's the encounter with a ship that has been taken over by a charismatic preacher and his converted followers. There's a ship in search of an abandoned crew, and one that is filled with bon vivants, appropriately named "The Bachelor."

There's undoubtedly a lot more than I can write about in a tiny review like this. Like a whale, this novel's soul is submerged most of the time, only occasionally spouting or breeching to reveal awesome and fearful sights.
]]> 3182183 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:34:22 -0700 Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles is a French novel which features two burned out victims of sexual liberation in the 60's: Bruno, who suffers through a humilating youth mired in excrement and spends his life eternally pursuing his next orgasm through degrading sexual acts, and Michel, the detached scientist who has difficulty maintaining normal human contact or expressing any tenderness or love and who can only find some semblance of fulfillment in the elevated life of the mind. The main difficulty is that it's a bit repetitive and not as amusing as it would like to be. Although the vast bulk of the novel could be taken (mistaken?) for a social conservative manifesto, the conclusion of the novel, involving a technological redemption of human nature, is difficult to know how to read. Is it a brief for transhumanism out of burned out Dionysian hippie excess, or is the resolution intended ironically? Most importantly, why should I care? If it's ironic, it's neither funny nor perceptive enough to retain my interest. The only motivation to read through to the end is to find out the promised resolution/breakthrough in both the plot and Michel's scientific endeavors. When it turns out to hinge on warmed over ideas from Ray Kurzweil, Julian Huxley, and Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, I'm left a bit cold.]]>
author: Michel Houellebecq
name: Jim
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 06/06
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:
Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles is a French novel which features two burned out victims of sexual liberation in the 60's: Bruno, who suffers through a humilating youth mired in excrement and spends his life eternally pursuing his next orgasm through degrading sexual acts, and Michel, the detached scientist who has difficulty maintaining normal human contact or expressing any tenderness or love and who can only find some semblance of fulfillment in the elevated life of the mind. The main difficulty is that it's a bit repetitive and not as amusing as it would like to be. Although the vast bulk of the novel could be taken (mistaken?) for a social conservative manifesto, the conclusion of the novel, involving a technological redemption of human nature, is difficult to know how to read. Is it a brief for transhumanism out of burned out Dionysian hippie excess, or is the resolution intended ironically? Most importantly, why should I care? If it's ironic, it's neither funny nor perceptive enough to retain my interest. The only motivation to read through to the end is to find out the promised resolution/breakthrough in both the plot and Michel's scientific endeavors. When it turns out to hinge on warmed over ideas from Ray Kurzweil, Julian Huxley, and Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, I'm left a bit cold.
]]> 3644282 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:31:42 -0700 Black Hawk Down, the absorbing story of the worst firefight for American forces since VietNam, is worth a look. It's a great, engaging read.

In 1993, US soldiers, enforcing UN mandates, sought to remove Somali warlord Aidid to aid relief efforts and establish a more democratic government. One autumn day, a Special Forces raid to seize two of Aidid's lieutenants ended with 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somali's dead. Mark Bowden examines the various things that went wrong, and avoids blaming the obvious suspects (the commanding general, the Secretary of Defense, the President). Indeed, as Bowden presents it, if the men who fought there had regrets about command, it was not that the casualty-ridden raid was ordered. Rather, it's that the policy that it served was abruptly changed immediately after, making the success of the mission moot.

Bowden has a nice style, very straight but very readable. He's not interesting in larger political points but seeks to tell a story and let the world know the bravery of some hundred-odd American soldiers. He's got a great way with detail, weaving it into his stories without overwhelming them. I'm looking forward to whatever topic he grabs next. ]]>
author: Mark Bowden
name: Jim
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 12/02
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:
Black Hawk Down, the absorbing story of the worst firefight for American forces since VietNam, is worth a look. It's a great, engaging read.

In 1993, US soldiers, enforcing UN mandates, sought to remove Somali warlord Aidid to aid relief efforts and establish a more democratic government. One autumn day, a Special Forces raid to seize two of Aidid's lieutenants ended with 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somali's dead. Mark Bowden examines the various things that went wrong, and avoids blaming the obvious suspects (the commanding general, the Secretary of Defense, the President). Indeed, as Bowden presents it, if the men who fought there had regrets about command, it was not that the casualty-ridden raid was ordered. Rather, it's that the policy that it served was abruptly changed immediately after, making the success of the mission moot.

Bowden has a nice style, very straight but very readable. He's not interesting in larger political points but seeks to tell a story and let the world know the bravery of some hundred-odd American soldiers. He's got a great way with detail, weaving it into his stories without overwhelming them. I'm looking forward to whatever topic he grabs next.
]]> 3644107 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:25:48 -0700
author: Lester Bangs
name: Jim
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 01/88
date added: 07/27/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3169805 Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:50:01 -0700 John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak's The Bad Catholic's Guide to Wine, Whiskey & Song is a hoot. If you look up "snarky" in the Catholic dictionary, you'll find a picture of this book. You'll find the answers to questions like:
Why do Kentucky whiskeys bear the name of the famous French royal house of Bourbon?
How did pisco become the national drink of Peru? (See answer below)
Is vodka Russian or Polish in origin?
It's a random walk through the history of Christendom, viewed from an epicure/enophile perspective. Thoroughly Catholic in its attitude and orthodoxy, chock full of recipes (Matychowiak is a chef), The Bad Catholic's Guide to Wine, Whiskey & Song takes the givenness and goodness of cr