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Category Archives: book reviews
Doomsday or Dawnsday?
I forget exactly why I bought the book The Population Puzzle: Overcrowding and Stress Among Animals and Men by A. H. “Lee” Drummond, Jr., in October 2009, but buy it and read it I did. It will have been part … Continue reading
Posted in book reviews, thoughts, writer's notes
Tagged A.H. Drummond, Age of Aquarius, doomsday, doomsday or dawnsday, global population, John Calhoun, overcrowding, personal space, Pisces, population, proletariat, reading, stress, The Age of Pisces, the astrological ages, The Population Puzzle, The Population Puzzle: Overcrowding and Stress Among Animals and Men by A. H. "Lee" Drummond, the world situation, U.S. Census Bureau
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The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene: the nice need not apply
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene My rating: 4 of 5 stars A comprehensive manual on how to gain worldly power. Not for the just, the kind, the ethical, or the fainthearted—but is that a surprise? I acquired … Continue reading
Posted in book reviews
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Alastair Smith, Beelzebub, Bobby Fischer, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Carl Jung, Il Principe, John Bunyan, Joseph Stalin, landmark books, Machiavelli, mastery, politics, power, reading, Robert Greene, the 48 laws of power, the dictator's handbook, The Pilgrim's Progress, The Prince, the world situation, Thomas Hobbes, Tyranny, Vanity Fair
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The Dictator’s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith: the black heart of politics
The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita My rating: 5 of 5 stars Finally! Someone has figured out why politics works the way it does. I first heard about this book … Continue reading
Forgiveness by Sidney B. Simon and Suzanne Simon: help for the walking wounded
Forgiveness: How to Make Peace With Your Past and Get on With Your Life by Sidney B. Simon My rating: 5 of 5 stars A straightforward, authoritative guide to the path of self-healing—which we all need more than we think. … Continue reading
Posted in book reviews
Tagged forgiveness, healing, psychology, self-help, Sidney B. Simon, Suzanne Simon
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The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger: then and now
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger My rating: 5 of 5 stars I was younger than Holden Caulfield when I first read this book; now I’m several multiples of his age. It’s still a brilliant and thought-provoking work, … Continue reading
Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come by Norman Cohn: the cosmic carrot on the stick
Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith by Norman Cohn My rating: 5 of 5 stars A dense, authoritative survey of the development of the myth of the millennium and a future paradise. Awaiters … Continue reading
Posted in book reviews
Tagged ancient history, apocalypses, Jehovah's Witnesses, millenarianism, Norman Cohn, Religion
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Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, volume 1: making the perfect human
Paideia 1: The Ideals of Greek Culture: Archaic Greece: The Mind of Athens by Werner Wilhelm Jaeger My rating: 5 of 5 stars An impassioned, authoritative, and in-depth account of how the character-shaping ideas of education and culture developed in … Continue reading
Posted in book reviews
Tagged ancient Greece, culture, Education, Homer, Mortimer J. Adler, paideia, Poetry, Thucydides, Werner Jaeger
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The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek: liberals of the world, unite!
The Road To Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek My rating: 5 of 5 stars A passionately felt and forcefully argued—and prescient—defence of liberalism, the doctrine of individual freedom that is opposed by all collectivists, whether of the left or right. … Continue reading
Posted in book reviews
Tagged collectivism, communism, F.A. Hayek, liberalism, Liberty, Nazism, socialism
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Journeys out of the Body by Robert A. Monroe: shuffling off the mortal coil
Journeys Out Of The Body by Robert A. Monroe My rating: 4 of 5 stars A persuasive and thought-provoking account of one man’s experiences and experiments with traveling outside his own body. My earliest memory of hearing about out-of-body experiences … Continue reading
Posted in book reviews
Tagged astral travel, Betty Eadie, ghosts, Life & Death, materialism, OOBEs, Raymond Moody, Robert A. Monroe
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the Iliad of Homer: first epic of the West
The Iliad by Homer My rating: 5 of 5 stars Western literature kicks off with the clash of civilizations. Crafting an epic of my own, I got the idea of exploring the great epics of Western literature in more detail. … Continue reading
Posted in book reviews
Tagged East vs. West, epic, Homer, Iliad, Robert Fagles, the Great Books
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