false 6 28 28 true 6269126 read 0 true 3979401 currently-reading 0 true 3979400 to-read http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/65712684 Assignment In Eternity (Mass Market Paperback) by Robert A. Heinlein
Some of my favorite reading back in the day was "golden age" science fiction that I had found a stash of in the thrift store of the tiny town I grew up in. Much of that gold was from the pen of Heinlein, and reading this was like going home for summer vacation. The themes are familiar and I have always admired the way he could write bantering dialogue of the sort good friends use. This book contains four of his best stories because of--not in spite of--its abrupt ending. I'd also like to see the story "Jerry was a man" rewritten as a Boston Legal script someday (although, I don't know how they would work in the Martian!) In retrospect, some of the stories of this era and thier predictions about the advent of telekenesis, clairvoyance, etc. like in the stories Lost Legacy and Elsewhen (another favorite author of mine, Philip K. Dick writes along these themes,too) can seem a little dated, but the human hope in these stories is as inspiring now as it was then. This was worth the second read. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/65710889 Devil May Care (Hardcover) by Sebastian Faulks
The Bond formula is all here: sexy women, ubervillains, guns, gadgets, chases, escapes, and fights. There's nothing wrong with a formula as long as it is fast-paced, interesting, and something you want to read. I've been reading Bond novels since high school, not because they are literary or inspiring, but just because they are such good fun. I hope Faulks plans on adding some more to this legend. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/51432893 Michael's review of The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople
by Jonathan Phillips

In fact I am not a historian. Nor am I young. You have compiled quite a list there, and--yes--I would have to agree that my "modern" cynicism might well fit in all or any one those cases and a few more I could add. Age tends to do that to you. So does 27 years inside politics and another three outside of it as a journalist.
You have a good point that my cynicism does not apply well to the general "Medieval Mind" that has become a recent academic concept. But I am not talking about the medieval mind philosophically here and I did not invent Cynicism. And if you suppose there were no cynics in medieval times, I think you might find that thesis hard to support. Machiavelli, after all, mostly parroted what medieval thinkers before him had been saying all along. But you might consider him more "modern" than I do.
What I am applying my cynicism to is "Medieval Power Politics", too much of which actually contradicted (not paradoxed) the higher aspirations of that "medieval mind", which in some ways actually fostered a more humanistic point of view and more humane sense of morality than had previously existed in the past or even in more modern times. That sort of paradox is precisely what causes such aspirations and good intentions to fail. THAT is what I am being critical (or cynical, as you put it)about. I bow to your obvious expertise concerning the facts. But we don't let the historical facts of the Holocaust go uncriticized, nor those of Andersonville. There are things that, from the perspective of a caring and empathetic human of any era (and there were some back then), are just wrong. The medieval debates (and there were many) about the techniques of the inquisition and the modern debates over waterboarding are very much the same debate, and that debate is over how power should and should not be used and by whom and on whom it is used. And too much of this sort of politics has "anachronistically" found its way into modern democracy with similar results.
I am quite willing, also, to concede that during a person's life they can be a number of things during the course of a life, but much of medieval life was circumscribed in ways that we are not in a free modern country; One of the things you have to take into account with the facts of history, as with the facts of current events, is that what people profess in the available media and how they act may very well be contrary to what they are really trying to accomplish due to the pressures of economics, politics and religion. Your "experience" of medieval people is through the media and artifacts of the time, not the people themselves. My experience includes a trip I once took to North Korea, about as close to a medieval society as I ever want to get.

I would certainly be interested in any books you would reccommend and I would certainly like to discuss these things at length, as you suggested. I am not sure how to accommadate that as I am currently dealing with a certain medieval political crisis in California right now, but certainly I am interested.
I would also like to see that article you are working on when your done with it. I do, by the way have a Master's in English, magna cum laude, and its nice to communicate with someone who has actually thought out thier points a done good job of presenting them. My major probably also dictates my point of view on the material we are debating--a good writer is always seeking truth, but perhaps not in quite the same form as a historian (perhaps that why the historian Leo Tolstoy chose to write a novel). From the course of this discussion you can probably guess what my area of interest was; I also minored in Behavioral Sciences, another good reason to be cynical, but I won't drag you THERE.
I would encourage you to keep up the good studying. However, don't get too caught up in an intellectual trend that is likely to change with the advent of new facts by new writers later on. Always remember that you aren't studying History just to accept the written facts, you are studying it to improve the world you live in now. Those Greek historians (quite cynical, some of them) believed in gleaning lessons from history that would help them in the present. This is as relevant a reason for seeking the truth as ever. You should approach everything your read as critically as you would a politically spun sound byte. And I may be being cynical, but be careful of the medieval politics that often finds its way into college, too. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/64011809 A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate (Paperback) by Marc Reisner
What I learned from this book is that I should probably pick up a spare property in another state! Of couse, I've known for some time about the state of California's siesmic problems (my mom was a geologist) and it's water problems (I work for the state). I suppose some kind of well thought out emergency exit strategy is in order, in case this scenario Reisner proposes happens. I actually have little doubt that it will someday--I've watched the state's political debates over water and earthquake retrofitting ever since I came here in 1982--and I have read most of the code sections dealing with those problems, too. I'd have to say that Reisner's concerns in this book actually seem quite reasonable. The fact is some of the predictions I've heard in the hallways of the state capitol are a whole lot more worrisome than Reisner's. But this book is a very good introduction to the problem and its possible scale--it's a good starting place for getting an idea of what could happen and not, I suspect, to far off the mark.

]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/64009787 The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Stories #1) by Bernard Cornwell
What I liked most about this book would have to be that it's main character is somewhat conflicted about whose side of this war between the Danes and the English he should be on and that gives the whole book a sense of realism. He has, in fact, reason to hate BOTH sides and the shifts he makes back and forth from one side to the other give the whole endeavor a complexity that makes me empathize with Uhtred.
I also found the state of England after it's abandonment by the Roman empire pretty interesting and the descriptions of the towns and villages, which today are large urban areas, fascinating. It is hard to imagine Britain in such a state when you look at it today.
This was good. I want to read the sequel. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/62057086 God's Gold: A Quest for the Lost Temple Treasures of Jerusalem (Hardcover) by Sean Kingsley
I've read Josephus' book on the Jewish War in response to some of the speculations propounded in this one. Sean Kingsley speculates on what might have become of the plunered golden table, Candlabra, and shells that were plundered by Titus after the fall of Jerusalem. It seems they traveled a lot--from Jerusalem to Rome, Carthage, Constantinople, and possibly back to Israel. Much of his reasoning is based on classical sources; there is little physical evidence, though Kingsley has dug up a couple of new things. Still, his findings are intriguing and the location of one of the most historically controversial treasure finds of modern time lays waitng to be found. What could make better reading?
And what if these treasures were found? The ownership of it today would be a bone to be growled over by the philosophical dogs of geography, relious superiority, and the racism that currently divides the Jews and Muslims today in the Arab-Israeli conflict over rights to the Temple Mount. Might such treasure make matters worse?
Maybe some things are better buried.
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/59555852 The Shadow: "The Golden Vulture" and "Crime, Insured" (Paperback) by Lester Dent
When I'm reading for fun, I love pulp, and The Shadow is about as pulpy as it gets. He is one of my favorite heroes, being based somewhat on the escape artist Houdini. Gibson himself was apparently an amateur magician himself and had written about Houdini, from whom he got the idea for the crimefighter "who clouds men's minds." The two strories here concern The Shadow's conflicts with a mastermind called the Golden Vulture who communicates only through statues of same with built in radios, and a business man who sees opportunity in insuring criminals for the commission of thier crimes. Admittedly, some of the nefarious villainies in these novels are over the top, but isn't that what you read this kind of thing for? The Shadow knows!
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/59555177 The Philosopher's Stone: Alchemy and the Secret Research for Exotic Matter (Paperback) by Joseph P. Farrell
Joseph P. Farrel's book was one of those I picked up on a whim, having some interest in the philosophies that collected under the term "alchemy" that later led to the protosciences that went underground in the secret societies of the 17th and 18th Centuries and emerged as the modern sciences of chemistry and physics. Farrel asserts that some of these alchemical quests have persisted into more modern scientific efforts, especially in the Soviet Union's experiments with nonscalar time and the Nazi experiments with nuclear physics and weapons. Among his more disturbing speculations are that the Nazis may have been further along toward the creation of the bomb than has been generally thought. Much of this information became the property of both the U.S. and U.S.S.R., both of whom worked over this research during the cold war. It does make you wonder what sorts of thinks our own government may be playing round with. And whether they should. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/59553419 The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran: The Essene Record of the Treasure of Akhenaten (Paperback) by Robert Feather
They Copper Scroll of Qumran is perhaps one of the most famous "treasure maps" ever discovered. Journalist and metallurgist Robert Feather, who has studied this list of places were the treasures of the Essene Jews was hidden before the Jewish War with the Romans, has studied the object and speculates as to the places those treasures might be located. Even more interesting are Feather's surmises, based on his studies, of the relationship of the Essenes' theology to the Egyptian beliefs of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, which would appear to have been closer than to those of the Mosaic jews of the temple of Jerusalem. If proven, these theories put the events of the New Testament into a different perspective (Christ would have been bringing Egyptian practices into a religion that prided itself on its seperation from Egypt) and the Old Testament to different conclusions (For Instance, Does Israel's right to exist cover the Falshas of Ethiopia, who may be a branch of the same theology that established the Essenes). There is potential dynamite here if any or all of these premises are proven.
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/44358793 Angela's review of The Shining
by Stephen King

This was one of my favorite Stephen King books.
The book is also more complicated than the movies. That only makes it better. ]]>