Genni's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 16 Apr 2025 05:10:24 -0700 60 Genni's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization]]> 68540
In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that the "peaceful" theory of Rome's "transformation" is badly in error. Indeed, he sees the fall of Rome as a time of horror and dislocation that destroyed a great civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Attacking contemporary theories with relish and making use of modern archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans, who were caught in a world of marauding barbarians, and economic collapse.

The book recaptures the drama and violence of the last days of the Roman world, and reminds us of the very real terrors of barbarian occupation. Equally important, Ward-Perkins contends that a key problem with the new way of looking at the end of the ancient world is that all difficulty and awkwardness is smoothed out into a steady and positive transformation of society. Nothing ever goes badly wrong in this vision of the past. The evidence shows otherwise.

Up-to-date and brilliantly written, combining a lively narrative with the latest research and thirty illustrations, this superb volume reclaims the drama, the violence, and the tragedy of the fall of Rome.

From Back Cover:
For decades, the dominant view amongst historians has been that the 'fall of Rome' was a largely peaceful transition to Germanic rule, within a period of positive cultural evolution. Now, Bryan Ward-Perkins argues for what you always thought but didn't dare say: the Roman Empire really did fall to violent invasion; the 'transformation' of the Roman world saw a catastrophic collapse of living standards; and the 'Dark Ages' were genuinely sombre.]]> 239 Bryan Ward-Perkins 0192807285 Genni 0 to-read 3.99 2005 The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization
author: Bryan Ward-Perkins
name: Genni
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the ModernWorld]]> 43982455 "Who am I becoming?"

That was the question nagging pastor and author John Mark Comer. Outwardly, he appeared successful. But inwardly, things weren't pretty. So he turned to a trusted mentor for guidance and heard these words:

"Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life."

It wasn't the response he expected, but it was--and continues to be--the answer he needs. Too often we treat the symptoms of toxicity in our modern world instead of trying to pinpoint the cause. A growing number of voices are pointing at hurry, or busyness, as a root of much evil.

Within the pages of this book, you'll find a fascinating roadmap to staying emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world.]]> 286 John Mark Comer 0525653090 Genni 0 to-read 4.51 2019 The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the ModernWorld
author: John Mark Comer
name: Genni
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Masterpieces of Music Before 1750: An Anthology of Musical Examples from Gregorian Chant to J.S. Bach]]> 3100483 Outstanding collection of musical examples � chants, motets, chansons, madrigals, more � illustrating the general course of musical style from the early Middle Ages to the mid-18th century. Works by Lassus, Josquin des Prez, Schutz, Handel, Bach, many others. Notes identify place of composition in history of music and suggest useful methods of analysis.
]]> 235 Carl Parrish 0393097390 Genni 0 3.88 1974 Masterpieces of Music Before 1750: An Anthology of Musical Examples from Gregorian Chant to J.S. Bach
author: Carl Parrish
name: Genni
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: music, currently-reading, re-read
review:

]]> The Book of Disquiet 6897011 The Book of Disquiet, an astonishing work that, in George Steiner's words, "gives to Lisbon the haunting spell of Joyce's Dublin or Kafka's Prague."Published for the first time some fifty years after his death, this unique collection of short, aphoristic paragraphs comprises the "autobiography" of Bernardo Soares, one of Pessoa's alternate selves. Part intimate diary, part prose poetry, part descriptive narrative, The Book of Disquiet is one of the greatest works of the twentieth century.

Fernando Pessoa, one of the founders of modernism, was born in Lisbon in 1888. Most of Pessoa's writing was not published during his lifetime: The Book of Disquiet was first published in Portugal in 1982.]]> 262 Fernando Pessoa 1846687357 Genni 0 to-read 4.15 1982 The Book of Disquiet
author: Fernando Pessoa
name: Genni
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> FDR 332980
This is a portrait painted in broad strokes and fine details. We see how Roosevelt’s restless energy, fierce intellect, personal magnetism, and ability to project effortless grace permitted him to master countless challenges throughout his life. Smith recounts FDR’s battles with polio and physical disability, and how these experiences helped forge the resolve that FDR used to surmount the economic turmoil of the Great Depression and the wartime threat of totalitarianism. Here also is FDR’s private life depicted with unprecedented candor and nuance, with close attention paid to the four women who molded his personality and helped to inform his worldview: His mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, formidable yet ever supportive and tender; his wife, Eleanor, whose counsel and affection were instrumental to FDR’s public and individual achievements; Lucy Mercer, the great romantic love of FDR’s life; and Missy LeHand, FDR’s longtime secretary, companion, and confidante, whose adoration of her boss was practically limitless.

Smith also tackles head-on and in-depth the numerous failures and miscues of Roosevelt’s public career, including his disastrous attempt to reconstruct the Judiciary; the shameful internment of Japanese-Americans; and Roosevelt’s occasionally self-defeating Executive overreach. Additionally, Smith offers a sensitive and balanced assessment of Roosevelt’s response to the Holocaust, noting its breakthroughs and shortcomings.

Summing up Roosevelt’s legacy, Jean Smith declares that FDR, more than any other individual, changed the relationship between the American people and their government. It was Roosevelt who revolutionized the art of campaigning and used the burgeoning mass media to garner public support and allay fears. But more important, Smith gives us the clearest picture yet of how this quintessential Knickerbocker aristocrat, a man who never had to depend on a paycheck, became the common man’s president. The result is a powerful account that adds fresh perspectives and draws profound conclusions about a man whose story is widely known but far less well understood. Written for the general reader and scholars alike, FDR is a stunning biography in every way worthy of its subject.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 880 Jean Edward Smith 1400061210 Genni 0 currently-reading, history 4.05 2007 FDR
author: Jean Edward Smith
name: Genni
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: currently-reading, history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Music-Study in Germany: The Classic Memoir of the Romantic Era (Dover Books On Music: History)]]> 3570773 The author describes the customs and mores, the place of interest, and the people she encountered during her stay in Germany, then the music capital of the world. In a vivid style and with youthful exuberance, she imparts to the reader her impressions of performances by Anton Rubinstein, Clara Schumann, Tausig, Liszt, the great violinist Joachim, Wagner (as conductor), and other notables of music history. Her account of a reception and concert in honor of Wagner is especially fascinating.
But the sections of this entirely engaging work that are of primary importance to music students, particularly to students and teachers of the piano, are the author's detailed accounts of the teaching methods of the great piano virtuosi. Interesting pictures of lessons of Tausig's conservatory, of Kullak's teaching techniques, and, above all, a unique portrait of Liszt the man, the teacher, and the performer emerge from these letters. So valued are Amy Fay's impressions of Liszt, in fact, that these sections alone are regarded as a miniature classic. For this Dover edition, Professor Frances Dillon of the Mannes College of Music contributed an informative introduction.
Because of her position as a student working closely with Liszt, Tausig, Kullak, and Deppe, Amy Fay was able to reveal many little-known facets of their work and their teaching techniques. Her obvious enthusiasm and serious attitude towards her study make this a work of great liveliness and rare insight. Not only students of the piano, but all musicologists will find her comments and descriptions invaluable. And the general reader should enjoy the many anecdotes and personal glimpses of these famous names in music.]]> 368 Amy Fay 0486265625 Genni 4 music 4.54 1886 Music-Study in Germany: The Classic Memoir of the Romantic Era (Dover Books On Music: History)
author: Amy Fay
name: Genni
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1886
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: music
review:

]]> Mere Christianity 11138 191 C.S. Lewis 0684823780 Genni 5 religion, re-read On Moral Duties. Both Cicero and Lewis are concerned with an orderly society. They are both seeking to put the thoughts and ideas of philosophers in to the layman's terms. The problem is Cicero ignores some fundamental questions.

Cicero and Lewis agree that following general rules of kindness, honesty, etc. are helpful in producing an orderly society where individuals can thrive. But Cicero appeals to Nature as a guide. The problem is that when we observe nature, we see conflicting elements. In Lewis's example, when you hear a cry for help, you may experience two desires. One is the desire to help (the herd instinct), the other is a desire to run (the instinct for self-preservation). The odd thing is, human beings also experience a third element in dilemmas like this. We experience an urging to follow the first desire in spite of the presence of the second desire. The thing that judges between the two instincts cannot actually BE the instinct. It is something outside of this. Lewis thinks this “outside� experience leads to an indication that there is a being behind this Moral law. Cicero can only endow Nature with anthropomorphic tendencies: she “demands� and “abhors� certain things, but even as you observe, these demands and abhorrences (our instincts) are arbitrary and could hardly serve as a guide. Cicero would probably chalk this judgmental factor up to reason. But according to Cicero, reason is given as a gift from Nature. So if both our contradictory instincts and the reason with which to judge between them are from Nature, wouldn't the principle of non-contradiction come into play and demand that there must be something else at play here? Nature is contradictory because it is currently flawed, but the Moral Law as Lewis sees it is not in contradiction with itself because it comes from a higher place. (Hope I got all of that right.) Basically, I think Lewis gives a solid, accessible presentation of the argument from morality.

That is probably the most apologetic part of the book and is not quite yet a case for the Christian God specifically. His case for the Christian God is not thorough or nuanced. If it were, it would be a completely different, much larger book. He rather moves into more of an introduction of why Christians think that intelligent being is the Judeo-Christian God. It is partially apologetic, but mostly exposition.

Part three assumes the position of Christianity and discusses how Christian behavioral ideals make sense. The point I appreciated most from this segment was the section on pride and humility. In spite of what we say, there seems to be more emphasis on outside acts or deeds rather than on the heart. The great sin is pride, not insert “favorite� sin . His caution that pride can often be used to beat down simpler vices is something I want to take more to heart. As Lewis says, “many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity-that is, by Pride.� We must never call in pride to cure our vices.

He also calls out Christians on expecting non-Christians to live Christian lives and obey Christian morality. It was interesting that he used marriage as an example. What grounds do we have for expecting those outside of the faith to have Christian marriages? Granted, he did not refer to gay marriage, but though I know what his views on homosexuality are, I wonder what he would say to the marriage question today...

Part four, Beyond Personality, concerns first teachings on the triune God, was published many years after the first three, and at first glance may seem to be a bit unrelated. But, as he argues, the doctrine of the Trinity has great personal and practical application. If God is intimately concerned with inner morality, and we want to know more about this being who asks so much of us, theology is one of the ways to embark on that journey. I really liked his analogy of a map (Lewis has a talent for analogies), so I'm going to include the whole thing here: ”In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, `I've no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I'm a religious man too. I know there's a God. I've felt Him out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that's just why I don't believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who's met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal !'

Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.

Now, Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God-experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion-all about feeling God in nature, and so on-is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.�

All in all, I think this is a good read if you are curious about the basic tenants of Christianity. And if you are a Christian, there is much encouragement and wisdom to gain.]]> 4.32 1952 Mere Christianity
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Genni
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: religion, re-read
review:
It was interesting to read this right after reading Cicero's On Moral Duties. Both Cicero and Lewis are concerned with an orderly society. They are both seeking to put the thoughts and ideas of philosophers in to the layman's terms. The problem is Cicero ignores some fundamental questions.

Cicero and Lewis agree that following general rules of kindness, honesty, etc. are helpful in producing an orderly society where individuals can thrive. But Cicero appeals to Nature as a guide. The problem is that when we observe nature, we see conflicting elements. In Lewis's example, when you hear a cry for help, you may experience two desires. One is the desire to help (the herd instinct), the other is a desire to run (the instinct for self-preservation). The odd thing is, human beings also experience a third element in dilemmas like this. We experience an urging to follow the first desire in spite of the presence of the second desire. The thing that judges between the two instincts cannot actually BE the instinct. It is something outside of this. Lewis thinks this “outside� experience leads to an indication that there is a being behind this Moral law. Cicero can only endow Nature with anthropomorphic tendencies: she “demands� and “abhors� certain things, but even as you observe, these demands and abhorrences (our instincts) are arbitrary and could hardly serve as a guide. Cicero would probably chalk this judgmental factor up to reason. But according to Cicero, reason is given as a gift from Nature. So if both our contradictory instincts and the reason with which to judge between them are from Nature, wouldn't the principle of non-contradiction come into play and demand that there must be something else at play here? Nature is contradictory because it is currently flawed, but the Moral Law as Lewis sees it is not in contradiction with itself because it comes from a higher place. (Hope I got all of that right.) Basically, I think Lewis gives a solid, accessible presentation of the argument from morality.

That is probably the most apologetic part of the book and is not quite yet a case for the Christian God specifically. His case for the Christian God is not thorough or nuanced. If it were, it would be a completely different, much larger book. He rather moves into more of an introduction of why Christians think that intelligent being is the Judeo-Christian God. It is partially apologetic, but mostly exposition.

Part three assumes the position of Christianity and discusses how Christian behavioral ideals make sense. The point I appreciated most from this segment was the section on pride and humility. In spite of what we say, there seems to be more emphasis on outside acts or deeds rather than on the heart. The great sin is pride, not insert “favorite� sin . His caution that pride can often be used to beat down simpler vices is something I want to take more to heart. As Lewis says, “many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity-that is, by Pride.� We must never call in pride to cure our vices.

He also calls out Christians on expecting non-Christians to live Christian lives and obey Christian morality. It was interesting that he used marriage as an example. What grounds do we have for expecting those outside of the faith to have Christian marriages? Granted, he did not refer to gay marriage, but though I know what his views on homosexuality are, I wonder what he would say to the marriage question today...

Part four, Beyond Personality, concerns first teachings on the triune God, was published many years after the first three, and at first glance may seem to be a bit unrelated. But, as he argues, the doctrine of the Trinity has great personal and practical application. If God is intimately concerned with inner morality, and we want to know more about this being who asks so much of us, theology is one of the ways to embark on that journey. I really liked his analogy of a map (Lewis has a talent for analogies), so I'm going to include the whole thing here: ”In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, `I've no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I'm a religious man too. I know there's a God. I've felt Him out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that's just why I don't believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who's met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal !'

Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.

Now, Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God-experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion-all about feeling God in nature, and so on-is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.�

All in all, I think this is a good read if you are curious about the basic tenants of Christianity. And if you are a Christian, there is much encouragement and wisdom to gain.
]]> Free Food for Millionaires 40727626
Free Food For Millionaires offers up a fresh exploration of the complex layers we inhabit both in society and within ourselves. Inspired by 19th century novels such as Vanity Fair and Middlemarch, Min Jin Lee examines maintaining one's identity within changing communities in what is her remarkably assured debut.]]> 577 Min Jin Lee Genni 0 to-read 3.91 2007 Free Food for Millionaires
author: Min Jin Lee
name: Genni
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Pachinko 34051011
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.]]> 496 Min Jin Lee Genni 0 to-read 4.35 2017 Pachinko
author: Min Jin Lee
name: Genni
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time, #12)]]> 1166599
Tarmon Gai'don, the Last Battle, looms. And mankind is not ready.

The final volume of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light, was partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn books, and now Stormlight Archive, among others, was chosen by Jordan's editor--his wife, Harriet McDougal--to complete the final volume, later expanded to three books.

In this epic novel, Robert Jordan's international bestselling series begins its dramatic conclusion. Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, struggles to unite a fractured network of kingdoms and alliances in preparation for the Last Battle. As he attempts to halt the Seanchan encroachment northward--wishing he could form at least a temporary truce with the invaders--his allies watch in terror the shadow that seems to be growing within the heart of the Dragon Reborn himself.

Egwene al'Vere, the Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai, is a captive of the White Tower and subject to the whims of their tyrannical leader. As days tick toward the Seanchan attack she knows is imminent, Egwene works to hold together the disparate factions of Aes Sedai while providing leadership in the face of increasing uncertainty and despair. Her fight will prove the mettle of the Aes Sedai, and her conflict will decide the future of the White Tower--and possibly the world itself.]]> 824 Robert Jordan 0765302306 Genni 0 4.41 2009 The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time, #12)
author: Robert Jordan
name: Genni
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: currently-reading, classic-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Singing in Style: A Guide to Vocal Performance Practices]]> 1832309 368 Martha Elliott 0300109326 Genni 4 music 4.11 2006 Singing in Style: A Guide to Vocal Performance Practices
author: Martha Elliott
name: Genni
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: music
review:
Excellent resource for those wanting a pretty in-depth discussion of the appropriate length of appoggiaturas in each century. The later chapters become less connected with the beginning chapters, partly because of how vocal music developed in more recent decades, and partly because she loses focus. In the chapter on the Second Viennese School, she spends most of the chapter on one work by Schoenberg, one it had just so happened that she had sung. And this was the main problem with the last chapter on working with living composers. Much of it sounded more like a humble brag about composers she had worked with and how wonderfully she had performed their works. She does talk of some other singers, but it is mostly her experience. In fitting with her earlier chapters, it would have been better to have more balance in the voices expressed.
]]> <![CDATA[The Singer As Interpreter: Claire Croiza's Master Classes (1989-10-03)]]> 125099074 0 unknown author Genni 0 to-read 0.0 The Singer As Interpreter: Claire Croiza's Master Classes (1989-10-03)
author: unknown author
name: Genni
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Francis Poulenc: The Man and his Songs]]> 2696525 240 Pierre Bernac 1871082773 Genni 0 to-read 4.77 1977 Francis Poulenc: The Man and his Songs
author: Pierre Bernac
name: Genni
average rating: 4.77
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[On the Interpretation of the Melodies of Claude Debussy (Vox Musicae Series, No. 2) (English, French and French Edition)]]> 1797766 -- From the letter preface by Darius Milhaud]]> 101 Jane Bathori 1576470083 Genni 0 to-read 5.00 1998 On the Interpretation of the Melodies of Claude Debussy (Vox Musicae Series, No. 2) (English, French and French Edition)
author: Jane Bathori
name: Genni
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time, #7)]]> 13890
Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.]]> 880 Robert Jordan 0812550285 Genni 3 4.05 1996 A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time, #7)
author: Robert Jordan
name: Genni
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion]]> 210454061 A sharp Christian voice makes a bold when politics are driven by empathy rather than truth, innocent people pay the price.We are told that empathy is the highest virtue—the key to being a good person. Is that true? Or has “empathy,� like so many other words of our day� “tolerance,� “justice,� “acceptance”—been hijacked by bad actors who exploit compassion for their own political ends?In Toxic Empathy, Allie Beth Stuckey argues that empathy has become a tool of manipulation by left-wing activists who bully people into believing that they must adopt progressive positions to be loving. She explores the five most heated issues through which toxic empathy is abortion, gender, sexuality, immigration, and social justice. Progressives use catchy mantras to present their perspective as empathetic, like “abortion is healthcare,� “love is love,� or “no human being is illegal,� but in each case, they ignore the other side of the moral equation. For example, abortion is presented as compassionate for the woman, but what about the human life the procedure kills?This book isn’t about killing empathy; it’s about submitting our empathy to God’s definitions of love, goodness, and justice. Stuckey exposes thelogical pitfalls and moral consequences of toxic empathy, equipping Christians with research-backed, Biblical truths to dismantle the progressive lies that have permeated our culture� and our church.]]> 224 Allie Beth Stuckey 0593541944 Genni 2 4.35 2024 Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion
author: Allie Beth Stuckey
name: Genni
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves:
review:
Do progressives exploit Christian compassion? Yes. If a Christian disagrees with something progressives say, they are often shamed and called unloving, racist, or whatever. But if I can indulge in a little both-sidesism, Conservatives abuse “speaking the truth in love.� I’m honestly exhausted by the idea of trying to break down each chapter on this so, in summary, I agreed with some of her points, but it is surrounded by a lot of dog whistles. She gives lip service to being kind and loving, but then calls some Christians “useful idiots� for using preferred pronouns with transgender people. If you are surprised by the idea of compassion being exploited, then maybe this would be a good book to read. But if you are already aware, I wouldn’t waste my time. She speaks as though she has God and everything else figured out, and there is a LOT of room for disagreement on the issues she engages with here.
]]> 1984 61439040
Alternate cover edition can be found here.]]> 368 George Orwell 0452284236 Genni 4 classic-literature 1984 was written as an indictment on socialism, but this novel really portrays the horrors of ANY totalitarian society. Looking at our current political environment, you can see elements of it in both parties and it is concerning. And Orwell offers no prescriptions for prevention. It’s a warning�.a very dismal one.]]> 4.21 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Genni
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1949
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: classic-literature
review:

1984 was written as an indictment on socialism, but this novel really portrays the horrors of ANY totalitarian society. Looking at our current political environment, you can see elements of it in both parties and it is concerning. And Orwell offers no prescriptions for prevention. It’s a warning�.a very dismal one.
]]> <![CDATA[The Vicomte de Bragelonne (Trilogie des Mousquetaires #3.1)]]> 369042 The Vicomte de Bragelonne opens an epic adventure which continues with Louise de La Valliere and reaches its climax in The Man in the Iron Mask. This new edition of the classic translation presents a key episode in the Musketeers saga, fully annotated and with an introduction by a leading Dumas scholar.]]> 768 Alexandre Dumas 0192834630 Genni 0 classic-literature 3.97 The Vicomte de Bragelonne (Trilogie des Mousquetaires #3.1)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Genni
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Paradoxes of Education in a Republic]]> 6341 Paperback 178 Eva Brann 0226071367 Genni 0 to-read 4.21 1989 Paradoxes of Education in a Republic
author: Eva Brann
name: Genni
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Singing Book 4850714 384 Meribeth Dayme 0393930521 Genni 4 music 4.14 2007 The Singing Book
author: Meribeth Dayme
name: Genni
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: music
review:
Noted for inclusion of repertoire rather than lists, introductions to genres and individual songs, and annotations.
]]> <![CDATA[Nurtured by Love: The Classic Approach to Talent Education]]> 177508 108 Shinichi Suzuki 0874875846 Genni 4 music 4.05 1966 Nurtured by Love: The Classic Approach to Talent Education
author: Shinichi Suzuki
name: Genni
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1966
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: music
review:
If you read this book from a Western perspective looking for scientific evidence to back up Suzuki’s claims about nurture versus talent, then you will be disappointed. But if you read as though listening to a teacher with much experience, then you will be inspired by his many anecdotes and touched by his biography.
]]> <![CDATA[FULL VOICE Teacher Guide: Private and small Group Voice Lessons for Singers 5 to 12 Years Old]]> 40788571 0 Nikki Loney Genni 3 music 3.71 FULL VOICE Teacher Guide: Private and small Group Voice Lessons for Singers 5 to 12 Years Old
author: Nikki Loney
name: Genni
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: music
review:
Noted for its encouragement of young singers and dispelling the myth that voice lessons are dangerous for them. Has some good repertoire lists and ideas, but overall, not terribly in-depth.
]]> <![CDATA[The Private Voice Studio Handbook Edition: A Practical Guide to All Aspects of Teaching]]> 1946081 216 Joan Frey Boytim 0634047388 Genni 4 music 4.10 2002 The Private Voice Studio Handbook Edition: A Practical Guide to All Aspects of Teaching
author: Joan Frey Boytim
name: Genni
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: music
review:
Covers everything from the first lesson to how to fill out your Schedule C. If you have been teaching a while, you will probably have already figured much of this out, but still valuable to experienced teachers for repertoire lists and Sol-fa worksheets as well as other nuggets of wisdom.
]]> <![CDATA[A Philosophy of Music Education: Advancing the Vision (3rd Edition)]]> 128580 320 Bennett Reimer 0130993387 Genni 5 music 3.87 2002 A Philosophy of Music Education: Advancing the Vision (3rd Edition)
author: Bennett Reimer
name: Genni
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: music
review:
Many make a case for general music education for extra-musical benefits, such as increased brain function, learning discipline, etc. Reimer correctly points out that many of these benefits can obtained in playing sports and other activities so there is no need to look for these things in music (though of course those things are found there as well.) Instead, Reimer argues for general music education for its unique ability to educate our subjective selves, and he makes the case thoroughly and well. Highly recommended for music educators, or parents with kids who do not want to take music lessons. :-)
]]> <![CDATA[Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time, #6)]]> 35231
On the slopes of Shayol Ghul, the Myrddraal swords are forged, and the sky is not the sky of this world ...

In Salidar the White Tower in exile prepares an embassy to Caemlyn, where Rand Al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, holds the throne -- and where an unexpected visitor may change the world ...

In Emond's Field, Perrin Goldeneyes, Lord of the Two Rivers, feels the pull of ta'veren to ta'veren and prepares to march ...

Morgase of Caemlyn finds a most unexpected, and quite unwelcome, ally ...

And south lies Illian, where Sammael holds sway ...]]> 1011 Robert Jordan 0812513754 Genni 3 classic-literature 4.17 1994 Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time, #6)
author: Robert Jordan
name: Genni
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Chosen (Reuven Malther, #1)]]> 187181 304 Chaim Potok 0449213447 Genni 4 classic-literature 4.06 1966 The Chosen (Reuven Malther, #1)
author: Chaim Potok
name: Genni
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1966
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: classic-literature
review:
A quiet book, but powerful in themes and truth.
]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Genni 5 classic-literature 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Genni
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> Theaetetus 340960
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators.]]> 264 Plato 0140444505 Genni 0 re-read, philosophy 4.15 -369 Theaetetus
author: Plato
name: Genni
average rating: 4.15
book published: -369
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: re-read, philosophy
review:

]]> Phaedo 982310 Phaedo is acknowledged to be one of Plato's masterpieces, showing him both as a philosopher and as a dramatist at the height of his powers. For its moving account of the execution of Socrates, the Phaedo ranks among the supreme literary achievements of antiquity. It is also a document crucial to the understanding of many ideas deeply ingrained in western culture, and provides one of the best introductions to Plato's thought.]]> 144 Plato 0192839535 Genni 5 re-read, philosophy
I did a quick read-through of this while traveling a couple of days ago. What stuck out to me this time was Simmias's analogy of the soul to the attunement of a lyre. One of Socartes's objections is that the attunement theory is inconsistent with the theory of recollection, itself not established, but also that the attunement theory does not explain the soul's rule of the body. I am wondering: if the soul rules the body, is this not rather proof that the soul and body are inextricably linked and not separate entities?

----------------
Good stuff. What I find interesting here are some of the thoughts that melded so well with Christianity later on. Denying the physical pleasures of the body to discover spiritual truths is a wonderful ideal, yet if not tempered by the message of grace from the New Testament can lead to extremes in self-denial.

The final point of the dialogue was to prove the immortality of the soul. After several attempts by argument, he resorts to mythology to explain his belief. Indeed, it is difficult when discussing things metaphysical to stay purely in the realm of reasoning, so no blame there. I love wandering around in his arguments to and from contraries. At what point does hot become cold and cold become hot? I have no idea, but as an argument for his point this fails because it depends on the shaky premise (that his companions seem to accept without question) that our souls existed before in hades, which is as difficult to prove as that they exist after death.

Great, thought-provoking dialogue.]]> 4.08 -380 Phaedo
author: Plato
name: Genni
average rating: 4.08
book published: -380
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: re-read, philosophy
review:
---Update 2017---

I did a quick read-through of this while traveling a couple of days ago. What stuck out to me this time was Simmias's analogy of the soul to the attunement of a lyre. One of Socartes's objections is that the attunement theory is inconsistent with the theory of recollection, itself not established, but also that the attunement theory does not explain the soul's rule of the body. I am wondering: if the soul rules the body, is this not rather proof that the soul and body are inextricably linked and not separate entities?

----------------
Good stuff. What I find interesting here are some of the thoughts that melded so well with Christianity later on. Denying the physical pleasures of the body to discover spiritual truths is a wonderful ideal, yet if not tempered by the message of grace from the New Testament can lead to extremes in self-denial.

The final point of the dialogue was to prove the immortality of the soul. After several attempts by argument, he resorts to mythology to explain his belief. Indeed, it is difficult when discussing things metaphysical to stay purely in the realm of reasoning, so no blame there. I love wandering around in his arguments to and from contraries. At what point does hot become cold and cold become hot? I have no idea, but as an argument for his point this fails because it depends on the shaky premise (that his companions seem to accept without question) that our souls existed before in hades, which is as difficult to prove as that they exist after death.

Great, thought-provoking dialogue.
]]> <![CDATA[The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard]]> 117463


Mr. Bernstein considers music ranging from Hindu ragas through Mozart and Ravel, to Copland, suggesting a worldwide, innate musical grammar. Folk music, pop songs, symphonies, modal, tonal, atonal, well-tempered and ill-tempered works all find a place in these discussions. Each, Mr. Bernstein suggests, has roots in a universal language central to all artistic creation. Using certain linguistic analogies, he explores the ways in which this language developed and can be understood as an aesthetic surface. Drawing on his insights as a master composer and conductor, Mr. Bernstein also explores what music means below the surface: the symbols and metaphors which exist in every musical piece, of whatever sort. And, finally, Mr. Bernstein analyzes twentieth century crises in the music of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, finding even here a transformation of all that has gone before, as part of the poetry of expression, through its roots in the earth of human experience.

These talks, written and delivered when Leonard Bernstein was Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University, are the newest of the author's literary achievements. In addition to a distinguished career as conductor, pianist, and composer, Mr. Bernstein is the recipient of many television Emmys for the scripts of his Young People's Concerts, Omnibus programs, and others, and is the author of The Infinite Variety of Music and The Joy of Music, for which he received the Christopher Award.]]> 440 Leonard Bernstein 0674920015 Genni 4 music 4.49 1976 The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard
author: Leonard Bernstein
name: Genni
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1976
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: music
review:

]]> Seven Types of Ambiguity 765167 256 William Empson 081120037X Genni 0 to-read 3.83 1930 Seven Types of Ambiguity
author: William Empson
name: Genni
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1930
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Moral Man and Immoral Society: Study in Ethics and Politics]]> 55235 Moral Man and Immoral Society is Reinhold Niebuhr's important early study in ethics and politics. Forthright and realistic, it discusses the inevitability of social conflict, the brutal behavior of human collectives of every sort, the inability of rationalists and social scientists to even imagine the realities of collective power, and, ultimately, how individual morality can overcome social immorality.

The Library of Theological Ethics series focuses on what it means to think theologically and ethically. It presents a selection of important and otherwise unavailable texts in easily accessible form. Volumes in this series will enable sustained dialogue with predecessors though reflection on classic works in the field.]]> 284 Reinhold Niebuhr 0664224741 Genni 0 to-read 4.11 1932 Moral Man and Immoral Society: Study in Ethics and Politics
author: Reinhold Niebuhr
name: Genni
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1932
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Symposium 81779
In the course of a lively drinking party, a group of Athenian intellectuals exchange views on eros, or desire. From their conversation emerges a series of subtle reflections on gender roles, sex in society and the sublimation of basic human instincts. The discussion culminates in a radical challenge to conventional views by Plato's mentor, Socrates, who advocates transcendence through spiritual love. The Symposium is a deft interweaving of different viewpoints and ideas about the nature of love--as a response to beauty, a cosmic force, a motive for social action and as a means of ethical education.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 90 Plato 0140449272 Genni 0 philosophy, re-read 4.11 -380 The Symposium
author: Plato
name: Genni
average rating: 4.11
book published: -380
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: philosophy, re-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Kant's Philosophical Revolution: A Short Guide to the Critique of Pure Reason]]> 36854854
Perhaps the most influential work of modern philosophy, Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is also one of the hardest to read, since it brims with complex arguments, difficult ideas, and tortuous sentences. A philosophical revolutionary, Kant had to invent a language to express his new ideas, and he wrote quickly. It's little wonder that the Critique was misunderstood from the start, or that Kant was compelled to revise it in a second edition, or that it still presents great challenges to the reader. In this short, accessible book, eminent philosopher and Kant expert Yirmiyahu Yovel helps readers find their way through the web of Kant's classic by providing a clear and authoritative summary of the entire work. The distillation of decades of studying and teaching Kant, Yovel's "systematic explication" untangles the ideas and arguments of the Critique in the order in which Kant presents them. This guide provides helpful explanations of difficult issues such as the difference between general and transcendental logic, the variants of Transcendental Deduction, and the constitutive role of the "I think." Yovel underscores the central importance of Kant's insistence on the finitude of reason and succinctly describes how the Critique 's key ideas are related to Kant's other writings. The result is an invaluable guide for philosophers and students.]]> 128 Yirmiyahu Yovel 0691180520 Genni 0 philosophy 4.29 Kant's Philosophical Revolution: A Short Guide to the Critique of Pure Reason
author: Yirmiyahu Yovel
name: Genni
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: philosophy
review:

]]> Meno 846122 Meno (/ˈmiːnoʊ/; Greek: Μένων, Menōn) is a Socratic dialogue by Plato. In it, Socrates tries to determine the definition of virtue, or rather arete, meaning virtue in general, rather than particular virtues, such as justice or temperance. The first part of the work is written in the Socratic dialectical style, and depicts Meno as being reduced to confusion or aporia. In response to Meno's paradox (or the learner's paradox), however, Socrates introduces positive ideas: the immortality of the soul, the theory of knowledge as a recollection (anamnesis), which Socrates demonstrates by posing a mathematical puzzle to one of Meno's slaves, the method of hypothesis, and, in the final lines, the distinction between knowledge and true belief.]]> 33 Plato 0915144247 Genni 0 re-read, philosophy 3.94 -386 Meno
author: Plato
name: Genni
average rating: 3.94
book published: -386
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/24
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: re-read, philosophy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lost in Ideology: Interpreting Modern Political Life]]> 199506707
"An intellectual feast ... Blakely joins the ranks of great theorists of ideology." - Frank Pasquale, Cornell Law School

Modern political life is a confusing and disorientating terrain of competing ideologies. Jason Blakely offers readers a lively, fresh and insightful guide through the labyrinth of conflicting and competing ideas in order to better understand why ideology in the modern era can be so divisive.



Lost in Ideology sets out from the conviction that the current disorientation engulfing the world’s liberal democracies is in no small part ideological in origin. People feel confused because there are multiple ideological maps, so to speak, each marked by dramatically different points of interest, rivers, summits, roads, and total topographies. Ideology in the modern era has the paradoxical effect of orienting millions even as it disorients millions. This leads us to the present-day predicament in which individuals of every imaginable political stripe confidently “I have a theory � but you? You have an ideology!”]]> 189 Jason Blakely 1788216652 Genni 0 to-read 4.55 Lost in Ideology: Interpreting Modern Political Life
author: Jason Blakely
name: Genni
average rating: 4.55
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915]]> 53138202 A penetrating, character-filled history “in the manner of David McCullough� (WSJ), revealing the deep roots of our tormented present-day politics.

Democracy was broken. Or that was what many Americans believed in the decades after the Civil War. Shaken by economic and technological disruption, they sought safety in aggressive, tribal partisanship. The results were the loudest, closest, most violent elections in U.S. history, driven by vibrant campaigns that drew our highest-ever voter turnouts. At the century's end, reformers finally restrained this wild system, trading away participation for civility in the process. They built a calmer, cleaner democracy, but also a more distant one. Americans' voting rates crashed and never fully recovered.

This is the origin story of the “normal� politics of the 20th century. Only by exploring where that civility and restraint came from can we understand what is happening to our democracy today.

The Age of Acrimony charts the rise and fall of 19th-century America's unruly politics through the lives of a remarkable father-daughter dynasty. The radical congressman William “Pig Iron� Kelley and his fiery, Progressive daughter Florence Kelley led lives packed with drama, intimately tied to their nation's politics. Through their friendships and feuds, campaigns and crusades, Will and Florie trace the narrative of a democracy in crisis. In telling the tale of what it cost to cool our republic, historian Jon Grinspan reveals our divisive political system's enduring capacity to reinvent itself.]]> 384 Jon Grinspan 1635574625 Genni 0 to-read 3.97 The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915
author: Jon Grinspan
name: Genni
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> I Capture the Castle 31122 408 Dodie Smith 0312181108 Genni 0 to-read 3.99 1948 I Capture the Castle
author: Dodie Smith
name: Genni
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1948
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Shape of the Ruins 38256287 A sweeping tale of conspiracy theories, assassinations, and twisted obsessions -- the much anticipated masterpiece from Juan Gabriel Vasquez.

The Shape of the Ruins is a masterly story of conspiracy, political obsession, and literary investigation. When a man is arrested at a museum for attempting to steal the bullet-ridden suit of a murdered Colombian politician, few notice. But soon this thwarted theft takes on greater meaning as it becomes a thread in a widening web of popular fixations with conspiracy theories, assassinations, and historical secrets; and it haunts those who feel that only they know the real truth behind these killings.

This novel explores the darkest moments of a country's past and brings to life the ways in which past violence shapes our present lives. A compulsive read, beautiful and profound, eerily relevant to our times and deeply personal, The Shape of the Ruins is a tour-de-force story by a master at uncovering the incisive wounds of our memories.]]> 509 Juan Gabriel Vásquez 0735211140 Genni 0 to-read 3.76 2015 The Shape of the Ruins
author: Juan Gabriel Vásquez
name: Genni
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Protagoras 305528 128 Plato 0023610905 Genni 0 philosophy, re-read 3.60 -390 Protagoras
author: Plato
name: Genni
average rating: 3.60
book published: -390
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: philosophy, re-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, #5)]]> 13895
In The Fires of Heaven, the fifth novel in Robert Jordan’s #1 New York Times bestselling epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time, four of the most powerful Forsaken band together against the Champion of Light, Rand al’Thor.

Prophesized to defeat the Dark One, Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, has upset the balance of power across the land. Shaido Aiel are on the march, ravaging everything in their path. The White Tower's Amyrlin has been deposed, turning the Aes Sedai against one another. The forbidden city of Rhuidean is overrun by Shadowspawn.

Despite the chaos swirling around him, Rand continues to learn how to harness his abilities, determined to wield the One Power--and ignoring the counsel of Moiraine Damodred at great cost.

Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The last six books in series were all instant #1 New York Times bestsellers, and The Eye of the World was named one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read.

The Wheel of Time®
New Spring: The Novel
#1 The Eye of the World
#2 The Great Hunt
#3 The Dragon Reborn
#4 The Shadow Rising
#5 The Fires of Heaven
#6 Lord of Chaos
#7 A Crown of Swords
#8 The Path of Daggers
#9 Winter's Heart
#10 Crossroads of Twilight
#11 Knife of Dreams

By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
#12 The Gathering Storm
#13 Towers of Midnight
#14 A Memory of Light]]> 912 Robert Jordan 1857232097 Genni 0 4.19 1993 The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, #5)
author: Robert Jordan
name: Genni
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves:
review:

]]> Trust 58210933 An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly boundless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

Hernan Diaz's TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.

At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.]]> 402 Hernan Diaz 0593420314 Genni 0 3.77 2022 Trust
author: Hernan Diaz
name: Genni
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves:
review:

]]> Crito 780072 200 Plato 1853994693 Genni 0 philosophy, re-read
The question arising as Socrates sits in prison, condemned to die, is, "Do I surrender to democracy's judgement and die willingly? Or do I fight the ruling, declaring myself right, and fight for my life?" Ok. That is two questions. Socrates generally comes to the conclusion that he has reaped the benefits of living in a democracy his entire life. Now that it is against him, how can he reject the ruling? I think it is a moot point to wonder if he would have given a different answer had he been younger.

Short, interesting read.]]> 3.94 -385 Crito
author: Plato
name: Genni
average rating: 3.94
book published: -385
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: philosophy, re-read
review:
Again, We don't read Plato for answers. We read him to ask the right questions.

The question arising as Socrates sits in prison, condemned to die, is, "Do I surrender to democracy's judgement and die willingly? Or do I fight the ruling, declaring myself right, and fight for my life?" Ok. That is two questions. Socrates generally comes to the conclusion that he has reaped the benefits of living in a democracy his entire life. Now that it is against him, how can he reject the ruling? I think it is a moot point to wonder if he would have given a different answer had he been younger.

Short, interesting read.
]]> <![CDATA[The Apology of Socrates According to Plato]]> 54861316



RUNNING TIME � 1hr. and 10mins.

Public Domain (P)2020 Robin Homer]]> Plato Genni 4 4.00 -399 The Apology of Socrates According to Plato
author: Plato
name: Genni
average rating: 4.00
book published: -399
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bach, Beethoven and the Boys: Music History as It Ought to Be Taught]]> 177500 160 David W. Barber 0920151108 Genni 3 music 3.91 1986 Bach, Beethoven and the Boys: Music History as It Ought to Be Taught
author: David W. Barber
name: Genni
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1986
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/05
date added: 2024/12/05
shelves: music
review:

]]> The Wapshot Chronicle 11890 The Wapshot Chronicle is a stirring family narrative in the finest traditions of Trollope, Dickens, and Henry James]]> 352 John Cheever 0060528877 Genni 0 classic-literature 3.77 1957 The Wapshot Chronicle
author: John Cheever
name: Genni
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/29
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> Aristophanes: The Birds 9692866 70 Aristophanes 1453683925 Genni 0 classic-literature 3.56 -414 Aristophanes: The Birds
author: Aristophanes
name: Genni
average rating: 3.56
book published: -414
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, #4)]]> 9539
In Tar Valon, Min sees portents of hideous doom. Will the White Tower itself be broken?

In the Two Rivers, the Whitecloaks ride in pursuit of a man with golden eyes, and in pursuit of the Dragon Reborn.

In Cantorin, among the Sea Folk, High Lady Suroth plans the return of the Seanchan armies to the mainland.

In the Stone of Tear, the Lord Dragon considers his next move. It will be something no one expects, not the Black Ajah, not Tairen nobles, not Aes Sedai, not Egwene or Elayne or Nynaeve.

Against the Shadow rising stands the Dragon Reborn.....]]> 1007 Robert Jordan 0812513738 Genni 0 classic-literature 4.27 1992 The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, #4)
author: Robert Jordan
name: Genni
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lysistrata / The Acharnians / The Clouds]]> 1565 256 Aristophanes 0140442871 Genni 0 classic-literature 4.15 -423 Lysistrata / The Acharnians / The Clouds
author: Aristophanes
name: Genni
average rating: 4.15
book published: -423
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Genni 0 classic-literature 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Genni
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> Faust 406373 Faust reworks the late medieval myth of a brilliant scholar so disillusioned he resolves to make a contract with Mephistopheles. The devil will do all he asks on Earth and seeks to grant him a moment in life so glorious that he will wish it to last forever. But if Faust does bid the moment stay, he falls to Mephistopheles and must serve him after death. In this first part of Goethe’s great work, the embittered thinker and Mephistopheles enter into their agreement, and soon Faust is living a rejuvenated life and winning the love of the beautiful Gretchen. But in this compelling tragedy of arrogance, unfulfilled desire, and self-delusion, Faust heads inexorably toward an infernal destruction.]]> 503 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 0385031149 Genni 0 classic-literature 3.90 1808 Faust
author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
name: Genni
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1808
rating: 0
read at: 2015/09/13
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rivers of London (Rivers of London, #1)]]> 9317452 392 Ben Aaronovitch 0575097566 Genni 0 to-read 3.83 2011 Rivers of London (Rivers of London, #1)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Genni
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe]]> 39028438 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - With a new afterword - From one of the world's most influential spiritual thinkers, a long-awaited book exploring what it means that Jesus was called "Christ," and how this forgotten truth can restore hope and meaning to our lives.

"Anyone who strives to put their faith into action will find encouragement and inspiration in the pages of this book."--Melinda Gates

In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus. Most know who Jesus was, but who was Christ? Is the word simply Jesus's last name? Too often, Rohr writes, our understandings have been limited by culture, religious debate, and the human tendency to put ourselves at the center.

Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God's constant, unfolding work in the world. "God loves things by becoming them," he writes, and Jesus's life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God--except by its own negative choice. When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator's presence all around us, and in everyone we meet.

Thought-provoking, practical, and full of deep hope and vision, The Universal Christ is a landmark book from one of our most beloved spiritual writers, and an invitation to contemplate how God liberates and loves all that is.]]> 260 Richard Rohr 1524762091 Genni 0 religion 4.43 2019 The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe
author: Richard Rohr
name: Genni
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/03
shelves: religion
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Art of War (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (B&N Classics) by Tzu, Sun (2003) Mass Market Paperback]]> 86108927 0 Sun Tzu Genni 0 philosophy 3.67 -400 The Art of War (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (B&N Classics) by Tzu, Sun (2003) Mass Market Paperback
author: Sun Tzu
name: Genni
average rating: 3.67
book published: -400
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/03
shelves: philosophy
review:

]]> Four Views on Hell 26309268
This second edition of Four Views on Hell, featuring all new contributors, highlights why the church still needs to wrestle with the doctrine of hell. In the familiar counterpoints format, four leading scholars introduce us to the current views on eternal judgment, with particular attention being given to the new voices that have entered the debate.

Contributors and views include:

Denny Burk: Eternal Conscious Torment
John Stackhouse: Annihilationism (Conditional Immortality)
Robin Parry: Universalism (Ultimate Reconciliation)
Jerry Walls: Purgatory
General editor Preston Sprinkle concludes the discussion by evaluating each view, noting significant points of exchange between the essayists. The interactive nature of the volume allows the reader to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of each view and come to an informed conclusion.]]> 224 Stanley N. Gundry 0310516463 Genni 3 religion 3.90 1996 Four Views on Hell
author: Stanley N. Gundry
name: Genni
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/31
date added: 2024/10/31
shelves: religion
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time, #3)]]> 34897 The Dragon Reborn—the leader long prophesied who will save the world, but in the saving destroy it; the savior who will run mad and kill all those dearest to him—is on the run from his destiny.

Able to touch the One Power, but unable to control it, and with no one to teach him how—for no man has done it in three thousand years—Rand al'Thor knows only that he must face the Dark One. But how?

Winter has stopped the war—almost—yet men are dying, calling out for the Dragon. But where is he?

Perrin Aybara is in pursuit with Moiraine Sedai, her Warder Lan, and Loial the Ogier. Bedeviled by dreams, Perrin is grappling with another deadly problem—how is he to escape the loss of his own humanity?

Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve are approaching Tar Valon, where Mat will be healed—if he lives until they arrive. But who will tell the Amyrlin their news—that the Black Ajah, long thought only a hideous rumor, is all too real? They cannot know that in Tar Valon far worse awaits...

Ahead, for all of them, in the Heart of the Stone, lies the next great test of the Dragon reborn....
]]> 624 Robert Jordan 0765305119 Genni 4 classic-literature, re-read 4.27 1991 The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time, #3)
author: Robert Jordan
name: Genni
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/27
date added: 2024/10/27
shelves: classic-literature, re-read
review:
This volume strikes me as filler, if something as anticlimactic as this could actually strike a person.
]]> <![CDATA[The Critique of Pure Reason (Great Books in Philosophy)]]> 766143 492 Immanuel Kant 0879755962 Genni 0 philosophy 3.96 1781 The Critique of Pure Reason (Great Books in Philosophy)
author: Immanuel Kant
name: Genni
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1781
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves: philosophy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time, #2)]]> 233649
Rand cannot run for ever. With every passing day the Dark One grows in strength and strives to shatter his ancient prison, to break the Wheel, to bring an end to Time and sunder the weave of the Pattern.

And the Pattern demands the Dragon.]]> 705 Robert Jordan 0812517725 Genni 4 classic-literature, re-read 4.25 1990 The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time, #2)
author: Robert Jordan
name: Genni
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/17
date added: 2024/10/17
shelves: classic-literature, re-read
review:
Have to up my rating after a second reading...
]]> <![CDATA[The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War]]> 27222 You can find an alternative cover for this ISBN here.

Thucydides called his account of two decades of war between Athens and Sparta "possession for all time, " and indeed it is the first and still most famous work in the Western historical tradition. Considered essential reading for generals, statesmen, and liberally educated citizens for more than 2,000 years, The Peloponnesian War is a mine of military, moral, political, and philosophical wisdom.

However, this classic book has long presented obstacles to the uninitiated reader. Written centuries before the rise of modern historiography, Thucydides' narrative is not continuous or linear. His authoritative chronicle of what he considered the greatest war of all time is rigorous and meticulous, yet omits the many aids to comprehension modern readers take for granted—such as brief biographies of the story's main characters, maps and other visual enhancements, and background on the military, cultural, and political traditions of ancient Greece.

Robert Strassler's new edition amends these omissions, and not only provides a new coherence to the narrative overall but effectively reconstructs the lost cultural context that Thucydides shared with his original audience. Based on the venerable Richard Crawley translation, updated and revised for modern readers, The Landmark Thucydides includes a vast array of superbly designed and presented maps, brief informative appendices by outstanding classical scholars on subjects of special relevance to the text, explanatory marginal notes on each page, an index of unprecedented subtlety and depth, and numerous other useful features. Readers will find that with this edition they can dip into the text at any point and be immediately oriented with regard to the geography, season, date, and stage of the conflict.

In any list of the Great Books of Western Civilization, The Peloponnesian War stands near the top. This handsome, elegant, and authoritative new edition will ensure that its greatness is appreciated by future generations.]]> 713 Thucydides 0684827905 Genni 4 history 4.25 -411 The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War
author: Thucydides
name: Genni
average rating: 4.25
book published: -411
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/17
date added: 2024/10/17
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II]]> 18874122 The Rape of Nanking tells the story from three that of the Japanese soldiers who performed it; of the Chinese civilians who endured it; and finally of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved almost 300,000 Chinese. It was Chang who discovered the diaries of the German leader of this rescue effort, John Rabe, whom she calls the “Oskar Schindler of China.� A loyal supporter of Adolf Hitler but far from the terror planned in his Nazi-controlled homeland, he worked tirelessly to save the innocent from slaughter.But this book does more than just narrate details of an orgy of violence; it attempts to analyze the degree to which the Japanese imperial government and its militaristic culture fostered in the Japanese soldier a total disregard for human life.Finally, it tells one more shocking Despite the fact that the death toll at Nanking exceeded the immediate deaths from the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (and even the total wartime casualty count of entire European countries), the Cold War led to a concerted effort on the part of the West and even the Chinese to court the loyalty of Japan and stifle open discussion of this atrocity. Indeed, Chang characterized this conspiracy of silence, which persists to this day, as “a second rape.”]]> 376 Iris Chang 046502825X Genni 0 to-read 4.39 1997 The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
author: Iris Chang
name: Genni
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America]]> 11872852 One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Non fiction Books of 2011. From modest beginnings as a tea shop in New York, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company became the largest retailer in the world. It was a juggernaut, the first retailer to sell $1 billion in goods, the owner of nearly sixteen thousand stores and dozens of factories and warehouses. But its explosive growth made it a mortal threat to hundreds of thousands of mom-and-pop grocery stores. Main Street fought back tooth and nail, enlisting the state and federal governments to stop price discounting, tax chain stores, and require manufacturers to sell to mom and pop at the same prices granted to giant retailers. In a remarkable court case, the federal government pressed criminal charges against the Great A&P for selling food too cheaply—and won.


The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America is the story of a stunningly successful company that forever changed how Americans shop and what Americans eat. It is a brilliant business history, the story of how George and John Hartford took over their father’s business and reshaped it again and again, turning it into a vertically integrated behemoth that paved the way for every big-box retailer to come. George demanded a rock-solid balance sheet; John was the marketer-entrepreneur who led A&P through seven decades of rapid changes. Together, they built the modern consumer economy by turning the archaic retail industry into a highly efficient system for distributing food at low cost.]]> 384 Marc Levinson 0809095432 Genni 0 to-read 3.89 2011 The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America
author: Marc Levinson
name: Genni
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Guide to Financial Markets (The Economist)]]> 601473 250 Marc Levinson 157660201X Genni 0 to-read 3.46 2000 Guide to Financial Markets (The Economist)
author: Marc Levinson
name: Genni
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger]]> 316767
Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. It recounts how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur, Malcom McLean, turned containerization from an impractical idea into a massive industry that slashed the cost of transporting goods around the world and made the boom in global trade possible.

But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a new technology. It required years of high-stakes bargaining with two of the titans of organized labor, Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason, as well as delicate negotiations on standards that made it possible for almost any container to travel on any truck or train or ship. Ultimately, it took McLean's success in supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam to persuade the world of the container's potential.

Drawing on previously neglected sources, economist Marc Levinson shows how the container transformed economic geography, devastating traditional ports such as New York and London and fueling the growth of previously obscure ones, such as Oakland. By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world's workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the globe.]]> 392 Marc Levinson 0691123241 Genni 0 to-read 3.79 2006 The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
author: Marc Levinson
name: Genni
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World]]> 2714607 442 Niall Ferguson 1594201927 Genni 3 3.90 2007 The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
author: Niall Ferguson
name: Genni
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)]]> 186074
The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature.

A high-action story written with a poet's hand, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that will transport readers into the body and mind of a wizard.]]> 662 Patrick Rothfuss 075640407X Genni 0 to-read 4.52 2007 The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)
author: Patrick Rothfuss
name: Genni
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1)]]> 37794149
Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.]]> 448 Arkady Martine 1529001587 Genni 0 to-read 4.08 2019 A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1)
author: Arkady Martine
name: Genni
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Grace in the Shadows (Grace, #2)]]> 40895841 Two women. One collision course with truth.

Physiotherapist Esther has survived cancer, but wounds within her family remain unhealed. Is her revived faith the reason for the rift or could a simmering secret be the root cause?
Cosmetics consultant Rachel buried her past - and her father’s God - but the past refuses to stay buried. Will she continue to run or is confronting her pain the way to freedom?

Can God’s grace shine even in the darkest of shadows?



Available in print ,LARGE PRINT, digital, and AUDIO.]]> 312 Christine Dillon 0648129632 Genni 0 4.63 Grace in the Shadows (Grace, #2)
author: Christine Dillon
name: Genni
average rating: 4.63
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/31
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves:
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]]> Descent into Hell 24954774
Certain inhabitants of Battle Hill, a small community on the outskirts of London, are preparing to mount a new play by the neighborhood’s most illustrious resident, the writer Peter Stanhope. Each actor struggles with self-absorption, doubt, fear, and sin. But “the Hill� is not like other places. Here the past and present intermingle, ghosts walk among the living, and reality is often clouded by dreams and the dark fantastic. For young Pauline Anstruther, who is caring for an aging grandmother and frightened by the specter of a doppelgänger who gets closer with each visitation, the prospect of heaven exists in the renowned playwright’s willingness to bear the burden of her terror. For eminent historian Lawrence Wentworth, the rejection of his desire pulls him deeper inside himself, leaving him vulnerable to the lure of the succubus and opening wide the entrance to hell.

A brilliant theological thriller, Descent into Hell is an extraordinary fictional meditation on sin and personal salvation by one of the twentieth century’s most original and provocative literary artists. Charles Williams, a member of the Inklings alongside fellow Oxfordians C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Owen Barfield, has written a powerful work at once profoundly disturbing and gloriously uplifting, an ingenious amalgam of metaphysics, religious thought, and darkest fantasy.]]> 134 Charles Williams Genni 0 classic-literature 3.84 1937 Descent into Hell
author: Charles Williams
name: Genni
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at: 2018/07/21
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Grace in Strange Disguise (Grace #1)]]> 36316806 Instead of a wedding, Esther is facing radical surgery and chemotherapy. Where is God when she needs him most?

Esther is a people pleaser. It’s never been a major problem because she’s just gone with the flow. Her father has always preached, “Follow Jesus and you’ll be blessed.� And up until age twenty-eight, Esther has never had any reason to doubt it.

Will she appease her father? Or will she listen to the words of a stranger who challenges everything she believes?

Grace in Strange Disguise is a soul-stirring contemporary Christian novel. Book 1 in the Grace series.

If you like compelling Christian fiction, relatable characters and real emotion, then you’ll love Christine Dillon’s inspiring series.



Available in print, Large Print, audio, ebook and as part of a box set (ebook only).]]> 260 Christine Dillon 0648129616 Genni 0 4.59 2017 Grace in Strange Disguise (Grace #1)
author: Christine Dillon
name: Genni
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures]]> 8969723
With more than 130 reading selections and 300 photographs of ancient art, architecture, and artifacts, this volume provides a stimulating introduction to some of the most significant and widely studied texts of the ancient Near East, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Creation Epic (Enuma elish), the Code of Hammurabi, and the Baal Cycle. For students of history, religion, the Bible, archaeology, and anthropology, this anthology provides a wealth of material for understanding the ancient Near East.


Represents the diverse cultures and languages of the ancient Near East--Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Hittite, Ugaritic, Canaanite, and Aramaic--in a wide range of genres:

Historical texts
Legal texts and treaties
Inscriptions
Hymns
Didactic and wisdom literature
Oracles and prophecies
Love poetry and other literary texts
Letters


New foreword puts the classic translations in context
More than 300 photographs document ancient art, architecture, and artifacts related to the texts
Fully indexed]]> 614 James B. Pritchard 0691147264 Genni 5 history 4.03 1958 The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures
author: James B. Pritchard
name: Genni
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1958
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/26
date added: 2024/08/26
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Coming of the Third Reich (The History of the Third Reich, #1)]]> 319473 From one of the world's most distinguished historians, a magisterial new reckoning with Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany.

In 1900 Germany was the most progressive and dynamic nation in Europe, the only country whose rapid technological and social growth and change challenged that of the United States. Its political culture was less authoritarian than Russia's and less anti-Semitic than France's; representative institutions were thriving, and competing political parties and elections were a central part of life. How then can we explain the fact that in little more than a generation this stable modern country would be in the hands of a violent, racist, extremist political movement that would lead it and all of Europe into utter moral, physical, and cultural ruin?

There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand, and Richard Evans has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans's history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as he shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. With many people angry and embittered by military defeat and economic ruin; a state undermined by a civil service, an army, and a law enforcement system deeply alienated from the democratic order introduced in 1918; beset by the growing extremism of voters prey to panic about the increasing popularity of communism; home to a tiny but quite successful Jewish community subject to widespread suspicion and resentment, Germany proved to be fertile ground for Nazism's ideology of hatred.

The first book of what will ultimately be a complete three-volume history of Nazi Germany, The Coming of the Third Reich is a masterwork of the historian's art and the book by which all others on this subject will be judged.]]> 622 Richard J. Evans 0143034693 Genni 4 history 4.28 2003 The Coming of the Third Reich (The History of the Third Reich, #1)
author: Richard J. Evans
name: Genni
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/26
date added: 2024/08/26
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One]]> 36058052
It is conventional wisdom that there is one true path in life for each of us. But what about those with a wide array of interests, a dynamic curiosity about the world, and an ever-renewing wellspring of passions? Margaret Lobenstine calls these people “Renaissance Souls,� and in this groundbreaking book, she offers a life-planning strategy in tune with their dynamic, change-loving personalities. Renaissance Souls often get stuck, moving from entry-level job to entry-level job, degree to degree, or hobby to hobby, unwilling to settle on just one thing to do “for the rest of my life.� Or, after achieving success in one field, they yearn for new challenges and begin looking around for something different. Yet they are also afraid that if they pursue their changing interests, they will have to give up on financial security, becoming “a jack of all trades and master of none.�

The Renaissance Soul, the first book devoted to this personality type, not only shows that it’s possible to design a successful, vibrant life built on multiple passions, but also gives readers the practical advice to do so. Lobenstine arms the reader with powerful life-design strategies, including how to:

*Understand the exciting and powerful difference between choice and focus

*Transform your day job so that it carries your dreams forward

*Manage your time the Renaissance Soul way

*Thrive on many interests without feeling scattered

*Get paid for your passions

*Learn a new field without going back to school

*Get inspired by Renaissance Souls from ancient times to the present, from Leonardo da Vinci to Ben Franklin to Oprah Winfrey

Stocked with creative exercises, relevant resources, and interviews with successful Renaissance Souls, this profoundly inspiring guide will show readers the way to a richer, more fulfilling life—big enough to embrace all their dreams.]]> 323 Margaret Lobenstine Genni 0 3.87 2006 The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One
author: Margaret Lobenstine
name: Genni
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/26
date added: 2024/08/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: with Hume's Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature and A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh (Hackett Classics)]]> 23794234

A landmark of Enlightenment thought, Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is accompanied here by two shorter works that shed light on it: A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh, Hume's response to those accusing him of atheism, of advocating extreme skepticism, and of undermining the foundations of morality; and his Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature, which anticipates discussions developed in the Enquiry.

In his concise Introduction, Eric Steinberg explores the conditions that led Hume to write the Enquiry and the work's important relationship to Book I of Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature.

]]> 151 David Hume 1624662870 Genni 4 philosophy, re-read
This second time around, I see that it was not quite as chaotic as my first experience had me believe. It did become clear that Hume was not so much in the business of constructing a solid argument as he was poking holes in the rationalism of his day. As a work of deconstruction, it asks very good questions.]]> 4.25 1748 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: with Hume's Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature and A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh (Hackett Classics)
author: David Hume
name: Genni
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1748
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/08
date added: 2024/08/26
shelves: philosophy, re-read
review:
I love rereading things. The last time I read this, I was in the middle of moving. At the time it felt all over the place, but I thought it was because *I* was all over the place.

This second time around, I see that it was not quite as chaotic as my first experience had me believe. It did become clear that Hume was not so much in the business of constructing a solid argument as he was poking holes in the rationalism of his day. As a work of deconstruction, it asks very good questions.
]]> <![CDATA[The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories]]> 99300
Written from a feminist perspective, often focusing on the inferior status accorded to women by society, the tales include "turned," an ironic story with a startling twist, in which a husband seduces and impregnates a naïve servant; "Cottagette," concerning the romance of a young artist and a man who's apparently too good to be true; "Mr. Peebles' Heart," a liberating tale of a fiftyish shopkeeper whose sister-in-law, a doctor, persuades him to take a solo trip to Europe, with revivifying results; "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and three other outstanding stories.

These charming tales are not only highly readable and full of humor and invention, but also offer ample food for thought about the social, economic, and personal relationship of men and women � and how they might be improved.

Collects:
—The Yellow Wallpaper
—Three Thanksgivings
—The Cottagette
—TܰԱ
—Making a Change
—If I Were a Man
—Mr. Peebles' Heart]]> 129 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0486298574 Genni 0 classic-literature 4.05 1892 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Genni
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1892
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Twenty Years After (Trilogie des Mousquetaires #2)]]> 7184
Twenty Years After (1845), the sequel to The Three Musketeers, is a supreme creation of suspense and heroic adventure.

Two decades have passed since the musketeers triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Time has weakened their resolve, and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and stratagems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, while in England Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. Dumas brings his immortal quartet out of retirement to cross swords with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. But their greatest test is a titanic struggle with the son of Milady, who wears the face of Evil.]]> 845 Alexandre Dumas 0192838431 Genni 0 classic-literature 4.06 1845 Twenty Years After (Trilogie des Mousquetaires #2)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Genni
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1845
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: classic-literature
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories]]> 463533 The Landmark Thucydides, a new Landmark Edition of The Histories by Herodotus, the greatest classical work of history ever written.

Herodotus was a Greek historian living in Ionia during the fifth century BCE. He traveled extensively through the lands of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and collected stories, and then recounted his experiences with the varied people and cultures he encountered. Cicero called him “the father of history,� and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature. With lucid prose that harks back to the time of oral tradition, Herodotus set a standard for narrative nonfiction that continues to this day.

In The Histories, Herodotus chronicles the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city-states. Within that story he includes rich veins of anthropology, ethnography, geology, and geography, pioneering these fields of study, and explores such universal themes as the nature of freedom, the role of religion, the human costs of war, and the dangers of absolute power.

Ten years in the making, The Landmark Herodotus gives us a new, dazzling translation by Andrea L. Purvis that makes this remarkable work of literature more accessible than ever before. Illustrated, annotated, and filled with maps, this edition also includes an introduction by Rosalind Thomas and twenty-one appendices written by scholars at the top of their fields, covering such topics as Athenian government, Egypt, Scythia, Persian arms and tactics, the Spartan state, oracles, religion, tyranny, and women.

Like The Landmark Thucydides before it, The Landmark Herodotus is destined to be the most readable and comprehensively useful edition of The Histories available.]]> 953 Herodotus 0375421092 Genni 4 history 4.40 -430 The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories
author: Herodotus
name: Genni
average rating: 4.40
book published: -430
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/04
date added: 2024/08/04
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In the Morning We Played Quartet: Diary of a Young Czechoslovak, 1945�1948]]> 68042173
In the summers of 1946 and 1947, Vclav travels to Denmark, where he meets a young Danish woman, Vibeke Hauer, with whom he falls in love, and later marries. In this respect, Vclav Polivkas diary is a Czech-Nordic love story with a happy ending.

But Czechoslovakia would not enjoy such good fortune. Almost immediately after the country was liberated, Polvka expresses his doubts about the intentions of the Russians. He realizes early on that indoctrination, censorship, and outright lies do not bode well for the future of freedom, and he shares his thoughts with surprising clarity in the pages of his diary.]]> 368 Vaclav Polivka 1458215865 Genni 4 history 4.00 In the Morning We Played Quartet: Diary of a Young Czechoslovak, 1945–1948
author: Vaclav Polivka
name: Genni
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/04
date added: 2024/08/04
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century]]> 59470384 378 Donald M. Lewis Genni 0 to-read 4.55 A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century
author: Donald M. Lewis
name: Genni
average rating: 4.55
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Case Red: The Collapse of France]]> 33584193 Case Red captures the drama of the final three weeks of military operations in France in June 1940, and explains the great impact it had on the course of relations between Britain and France during the remainder of the war. It also addresses the military, political, and human drama of France's collapse in June 1940, and how the windfall of captured military equipment, fuel, and industrial resources enhanced the Third Reich's ability to attack its next foe--the Soviet Union.]]> 464 Robert Forczyk 1472824423 Genni 0 to-read 4.02 Case Red: The Collapse of France
author: Robert Forczyk
name: Genni
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ancient Jewish and Christian Scriptures: New Developments in Canon Controversy]]> 54158681 274 John J. Collins 161164982X Genni 0 to-read 5.00 Ancient Jewish and Christian Scriptures: New Developments in Canon Controversy
author: John J. Collins
name: Genni
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Flower Drum Song 818871 The Flower Drum Song was a groundbreaking work of popular literature. An immediate bestseller, it inspired the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. This charming, bittersweet tale of romance and the powerful bonds of family tells the story of Wang Ta, who wants what every young American man wants: a great career and a woman to love. Living in San Francisco's Chinatown—with his widowed father, Old Master Wang, who misses the old way of life in China, and his younger brother, who just wants to be a normal American teenager—Wang Ta becomes involved with a series of women as he searches for love and the American dream. Comic, poignant, and sexy, The Flower Drum Song is an astute portrayal of immigrants struggling with assimilation. This edition features a new introduction by David Henry Hwang.]]> 244 C.Y. Lee 0142002186 Genni 4 classic-literature
Many authors have written of generational conflict and cultural clashes. Lee stands out as one of the earliest ones to break through to elevate Asian voices. The way historical acts of immigration affected Chinese immigrants in San Francisco was one fascinating aspect. But also, his characters were very nuanced for the time in spite of the work's brevity, and also absolutely hilarious. I found myself completely invested in all of the relationships, from old married couples, to friendships, to Wang Ta's numerous attempts at finding love. Definitely worth a read!]]> 3.68 1957 The Flower Drum Song
author: C.Y. Lee
name: Genni
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/07
date added: 2024/07/07
shelves: classic-literature
review:
I didn't know why at the time, but I was obsessed with "The Flower Drum Song" musical as a child. My sisters, however, were not. XD They loathed it every time I wanted to watch it. It's so funny to see now how I ended up living in Taiwan and Indonesia, speaking both languages, and having mixed Chinese-Indonesian kids. And I had no idea this was originally a book until I saw this in a used book store recently. I'm so glad I picked it up because, as is usually the case, the book was so much better.

Many authors have written of generational conflict and cultural clashes. Lee stands out as one of the earliest ones to break through to elevate Asian voices. The way historical acts of immigration affected Chinese immigrants in San Francisco was one fascinating aspect. But also, his characters were very nuanced for the time in spite of the work's brevity, and also absolutely hilarious. I found myself completely invested in all of the relationships, from old married couples, to friendships, to Wang Ta's numerous attempts at finding love. Definitely worth a read!
]]> <![CDATA[The Myth of the Resurrection and Other Essays (The Freethought Library)]]> 713323
These are the fundamental questions posed by ex-priest Joseph McCabe (1867-1955), a prodigious scholar, translator, and lecturer, who tirelessly promoted scientific inquiry, skepticism, and anticlericalism in works that were exhaustively researched yet accessible to the general reader.

In these three lively, informative, and combative essays, McCabe takes us through the ancient Mediterranean world to show how Christianity appropriated the ceremonies and myths of paganism to elaborate the Resurrection story. McCabe cogently demonstrates that the Jesus of the gospels is not historical at all but a curious amalgam built up after his death. The gospels themselves are completely unreliable as biographies of Jesus. Critically examining all the ancient sources, McCabe reveals a series of shameless distortions by Christian apologists who, he argues, destroyed classical civilization and inaugurated the Dark Ages.]]> 168 Joseph McCabe 0879758333 Genni 2 religion
The easiest critique to get out of the way is the editing. This was originally published in 1925, then republished in 1993 by Prometheus Books. There are errors on EVERY SINGLE PAGE. It is, quite frankly, some of the most atrocious editing I've seen to date (assuming the editing process occurred at all?!)

On to content: essays are divided into three sections-1) The Myth of the Resurrection, 2) Did Jesus Ever Live?, and 3) How Christianity "Triumphed."

His main point from section one is that the resurrection of Jesus is no different from previous stories of Greek gods that were resurrected from the dead, spending a lot of time on Adonis. But Adonis was associated with the changing of seasons, the rebirth in spring, if I understand correctly, not a physically resurrected form of a human body. So this section contained a lot of interesting historical Greek tales, but the main premise fell flat.

In the second section, he argues that Jesus was a historical person, whose biography "grew" as time went on. In some sense, yes, it did. I grant that. I don't think that makes the witness of the gospels untrue. And though they don't contain NT writings, per se, I also could not help but wonder how he would have responded to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Finally, he argues that Christianity triumphed through no natural means of appeal, but through violence. Much of this is very true after Constantine. However Christianity "triumphed" though, isn't really relevant in relationship to it's truth.

In all, there are no new criticisms of Christianity here. Similarly, there is nothing new in the Greek tales to warrant reading. There is some humor, but the combination with poor editing makes this overall of little value.

]]> 3.92 1993 The Myth of the Resurrection and Other Essays (The Freethought Library)
author: Joseph McCabe
name: Genni
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1993
rating: 2
read at: 2024/07/06
date added: 2024/07/06
shelves: religion
review:
I dislike reading things simply with a view of critiquing them. I find that an almost useless process, so I try to read even things with which I think I'm going to disagree with the view that I will learn SOMETHING along the way. This work was no exception. There are some solid historical bits and humor mixed in with a lot of things that I didn't find persuasive. So this will read more negatively, but so it is.

The easiest critique to get out of the way is the editing. This was originally published in 1925, then republished in 1993 by Prometheus Books. There are errors on EVERY SINGLE PAGE. It is, quite frankly, some of the most atrocious editing I've seen to date (assuming the editing process occurred at all?!)

On to content: essays are divided into three sections-1) The Myth of the Resurrection, 2) Did Jesus Ever Live?, and 3) How Christianity "Triumphed."

His main point from section one is that the resurrection of Jesus is no different from previous stories of Greek gods that were resurrected from the dead, spending a lot of time on Adonis. But Adonis was associated with the changing of seasons, the rebirth in spring, if I understand correctly, not a physically resurrected form of a human body. So this section contained a lot of interesting historical Greek tales, but the main premise fell flat.

In the second section, he argues that Jesus was a historical person, whose biography "grew" as time went on. In some sense, yes, it did. I grant that. I don't think that makes the witness of the gospels untrue. And though they don't contain NT writings, per se, I also could not help but wonder how he would have responded to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Finally, he argues that Christianity triumphed through no natural means of appeal, but through violence. Much of this is very true after Constantine. However Christianity "triumphed" though, isn't really relevant in relationship to it's truth.

In all, there are no new criticisms of Christianity here. Similarly, there is nothing new in the Greek tales to warrant reading. There is some humor, but the combination with poor editing makes this overall of little value.


]]> <![CDATA[The Ants' Gold: The discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas]]> 518570 Michel Peissel 0002725142 Genni 0 to-read 1.00 1984 The Ants' Gold: The discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas
author: Michel Peissel
name: Genni
average rating: 1.00
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England, 400�1066]]> 52025940 A sweeping and original history of the Anglo-Saxons by national bestselling author Marc Morris.

Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters.

The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings. It explores how they abandoned their old gods for Christianity, established hundreds of churches and created dazzlingly intricate works of art. It charts the revival of towns and trade, and the origins of a familiar landscape of shires, boroughs and bishoprics. It is a tale of famous figures like King Offa, Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, but also features a host of lesser known characters - ambitious queens, revolutionary saints, intolerant monks and grasping nobles. Through their remarkable careers we see how a new society, a new culture and a single unified nation came into being.

Drawing on a vast range of original evidence - chronicles, letters, archaeology and artefacts - renowned historian Marc Morris illuminates a period of history that is only dimly understood, separates the truth from the legend, and tells the extraordinary story of how the foundations of England were laid.]]> 508 Marc Morris 1643133126 Genni 0 to-read 4.29 2021 The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England, 400–1066
author: Marc Morris
name: Genni
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Welsh Girl 137796
Young Esther Evans has lived her whole life within the confines of her remote mountain village. The daughter of a fiercely nationalistic sheep farmer, Esther yearns for a taste of the wider world that reaches her only through broadcasts on the BBC. Then, in the wake of D-day, the world comes to her in the form of a German POW camp set up on the outskirts of Esther's village.

The arrival of the Germans in the camp is a source of intense curiosity in the local pub, where Esther pulls pints for both her neighbors and the unwelcome British guards. One summer evening she follows a group of schoolboys to the camp boundary. As the boys heckle the prisoners across the barbed wire fence, one soldier seems to stand apart. He is Karsten Simmering, a German corporal, only eighteen, a young man of tormented conscience struggling to maintain his honor and humanity. To Esther's astonishment, Karsten calls out to her.

These two young people from worlds apart will be drawn into a perilous romance that calls into personal question the meaning of love, family, loyalty, and national identity. The consequences of their relationship resonate through the lives of a vividly imagined cast of characters: the drunken BBC comedian who befriends Esther, Esther's stubborn father, and the resentful young British "evacuee" who lives on the farm-even the German-Jewish interrogator investigating the most notorious German prisoner in Wales, Rudolf Hess.

Peter Ho Davies has been hailed for his "all-encompassing empathy that is without borders" (Elle). That trancendent compassion shines through The Welsh Girl, a novel that is both thought-provoking and emotionally enthralling.]]> 338 Peter Ho Davies 0618007008 Genni 5 The Welsh Girl, his characters filled with a nuance and consistency paired with growth that I rarely come across.

He also decided on a more complex structure that he handled beautifully. It was not obvious at first, but by the end, his skill was on full display making this, in my opinion, one of the finer examples of historical fiction. ]]> 3.44 2007 The Welsh Girl
author: Peter Ho Davies
name: Genni
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/24
date added: 2024/06/24
shelves:
review:
Peter Ho Davies is an exceptionally talented writer. He has an incredible gift for convincingly inhabiting his characters, whether male or female. Authors do not always write the opposite sex well. Examples abound from the more popular romantic genre, most often written by women, who portray most men with laughable inaccuracy, to more serious literature, where authors I love, such as Dickens, have female characters that are two-dimensional at best. But Davies had me invested in The Welsh Girl, his characters filled with a nuance and consistency paired with growth that I rarely come across.

He also decided on a more complex structure that he handled beautifully. It was not obvious at first, but by the end, his skill was on full display making this, in my opinion, one of the finer examples of historical fiction.
]]> <![CDATA[How to Learn the Alexander Technique: A Manual for Students]]> 617204 168 Barbara Conable 0962259543 Genni 4 music
Before embarking on this work, I had a session with a teacher of the Alexander technique for musicians and I was shocked at how incorrectly I was sitting, walking, etc. I based my ideas on how I was to move on things I had always heard such as, "Sit up straight!" My idea of sitting up straight, and the way my body is designed to sit up straight, were two completely different things.

I will say this, if I had not had a session before reading the book, some of it may have been a little lost on me because of the writing, which is not great. It assumes some knowledge on the part of the reader that many probably do not have. The writing is also rather cheesy. But the worth of the ideas surpasses these shortcomings, and I highly recommend it to all musicians, or anyone, really, who experiences daily pain and tension. ]]> 4.09 How to Learn the Alexander Technique: A Manual for Students
author: Barbara Conable
name: Genni
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/24
date added: 2024/06/24
shelves: music
review:
This book is essentially a deconstruction of the connection between our psychology and movement. If we are lucky, perhaps we had an anatomy class. Yet even with this knowledge, we move in ways that are socio-culturally conditioned, rather than natural, producing all kinds of tension and pain.

Before embarking on this work, I had a session with a teacher of the Alexander technique for musicians and I was shocked at how incorrectly I was sitting, walking, etc. I based my ideas on how I was to move on things I had always heard such as, "Sit up straight!" My idea of sitting up straight, and the way my body is designed to sit up straight, were two completely different things.

I will say this, if I had not had a session before reading the book, some of it may have been a little lost on me because of the writing, which is not great. It assumes some knowledge on the part of the reader that many probably do not have. The writing is also rather cheesy. But the worth of the ideas surpasses these shortcomings, and I highly recommend it to all musicians, or anyone, really, who experiences daily pain and tension.
]]> <![CDATA[Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History]]> 61685983 From formerNew York Timesreporter Nellie Bowles, a look at how some of the most educated people in America lost their minds—and how she almost did, too.

As a Hillary voter, aNew York Timesreporter,and frequent attendee at her local gay bars,Nellie Bowles fit right in with her San Francisco neighbors and friends—until she started questioning whether the progressive movement she knew and loved was actually helping people. When her colleagues suggested that asking such questions meant she was “on the wrong side of history,� Bowles did what any reporter worth her salt would do: she started investigating for herself. The answers she found were stranger—and funnier—than she expected.

InMorning After the Revolution, Bowles gives readers a front-row seat to the absurd drama of a political movement gone mad. With irreverent accounts of attending a multiday course on “The Toxic Trends of Whiteness,� following the social justice activists who run “Abolitionist Entertainment LLC,� and trying to please theNew York Times’s“disinformation czar,� she deftly exposes the more comic excesses of a movement that went from a sideshow to the very center of American life.

Deliciously funny and painfully insightful,Morning After the Revolutionis a moment of collective psychosis preserved in amber. This is an unmissable debut by one of America’s sharpest journalists.

]]> 272 Nellie Bowles 0593420144 Genni 0 to-read 3.90 2024 Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History
author: Nellie Bowles
name: Genni
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Lysander Spooner Reader 859293 343 Lysander Spooner 0930073266 Genni 0 to-read 4.50 2012 The Lysander Spooner Reader
author: Lysander Spooner
name: Genni
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Histories 831106 336 Tacitus 0140441506 Genni 4 history
“Mighty and wretched, Rome had endured an Otho and Vitellius in the same year and suffered every variety of humiliations at the hands of men like Vinius, Fabius, Icelus and Asiaticus, until finally Mucianus and Marcellus succeeded them-fresh faces rather than a new outlook.�

Mighty and wretched. Tacitus writes almost like a dramatist. There is no melodrama here, though. Just vivid descriptions and hard observations that perfectly capture what happened from April 68AD to September 70AD. (The end of Book five is lost, making the work incomplete.) For Books 1-4, he really had me hooked.

However, Book 5 happened, and it caused me to doubt Tacitus's complete reliability as a historian. There were occasional anti-semitic comments in the earlier books. But when he begins describing Jewish customs, it is absolutely clear that he did not do his homework. His blasé treatment reveals also that he did not care to. He has some strange offerings as to where they came from, his main one being that they came from Crete. He also claims that “the charms of idleness made them devote every seventh year to indolence.� He informs us that they keep an idol of an asses head in the inner temple, but later says they believe it is sinful to make idols (this was under his list of “sinister and revolting� practices) and that Pompey had discovered that there was no image or idol in the inner temple. This is a really strange charge to me, especially since it is one that apparently stuck around for a long time. Tertullian addresses this charge at some length over one hundred years later. However, he does grudgingly admit that "the physical health of the Jews is good, and they can endure hard work." Glowing words.

I could really go on and on with all of the errors in this book, but I suppose this is enough. There is no doubt that this is an important work, and it is engaging, but it should definitely be read with caution.]]> 4.14 The Histories
author: Tacitus
name: Genni
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2017/03/27
date added: 2024/06/20
shelves: history
review:
3.5 Stars

“Mighty and wretched, Rome had endured an Otho and Vitellius in the same year and suffered every variety of humiliations at the hands of men like Vinius, Fabius, Icelus and Asiaticus, until finally Mucianus and Marcellus succeeded them-fresh faces rather than a new outlook.�

Mighty and wretched. Tacitus writes almost like a dramatist. There is no melodrama here, though. Just vivid descriptions and hard observations that perfectly capture what happened from April 68AD to September 70AD. (The end of Book five is lost, making the work incomplete.) For Books 1-4, he really had me hooked.

However, Book 5 happened, and it caused me to doubt Tacitus's complete reliability as a historian. There were occasional anti-semitic comments in the earlier books. But when he begins describing Jewish customs, it is absolutely clear that he did not do his homework. His blasé treatment reveals also that he did not care to. He has some strange offerings as to where they came from, his main one being that they came from Crete. He also claims that “the charms of idleness made them devote every seventh year to indolence.� He informs us that they keep an idol of an asses head in the inner temple, but later says they believe it is sinful to make idols (this was under his list of “sinister and revolting� practices) and that Pompey had discovered that there was no image or idol in the inner temple. This is a really strange charge to me, especially since it is one that apparently stuck around for a long time. Tertullian addresses this charge at some length over one hundred years later. However, he does grudgingly admit that "the physical health of the Jews is good, and they can endure hard work." Glowing words.

I could really go on and on with all of the errors in this book, but I suppose this is enough. There is no doubt that this is an important work, and it is engaging, but it should definitely be read with caution.
]]> <![CDATA[Religion and Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War (American Theology Series)]]> 213687507 “Much of the conversation about a Christian America has been marked by either ideological nonsense or historical superficiality—or worse. In this book Miles Smith offers a corrective that is both timely and deeply thoughtful. In Religion & Republic, Smith argues for a distinctively Protestant understanding that corrects much of the confusion that surrounds so many of the historical assertions made by evangelicals. This is a really important book that arrives at a critical moment in the American experience and will greatly illuminate many contemporary debates.�

� R. ALBERT MOHLERThe Southern Baptist Theological Seminary


In recent years, America’s status as a “Christian nation� has become an incredibly vexed question. This is not simply a debate about America’s present, or even its future–it has become a debate about its past. Some want to rewrite America’s history as having always been highly secular in order to ensure a similar future; others seek to reframe the American founding as a continuation of medieval Christendom in the hopes of reviving America’s religious identity today.

In this book, Miles Smith offers a fresh historical reading of America’s status as a Christian nation in the Early Republic era. Defined neither by secularism nor Christendom, America was instead marked by “Christian institutionalism.� Christianity–and Protestantism specifically–was always baked into the American republic’s diplomatic, educational, judicial, and legislative regimes and institutional Christianity in state apparatuses coexisted comfortably with disestablishment from the American Revolution until the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Any productive discussion about America’s religious present or future must first reckon accurately with its past. With close attention to a wide range of sermons, letters, laws, court cases and more, Religion & Republic offers just such a reckoning.]]> 344 Miles Smith 1949716317 Genni 0 to-read 4.67 Religion and Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War (American Theology Series)
author: Miles Smith
name: Genni
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Federalist Papers 36166009
With nearly two-thirds of the essays written by Hamilton, this enduring classic is perfect for modern audiences passionate about his work or seeking a deeper understanding of one of the most important documents in US history.

AmazonClassics brings you timeless works from iconic authors. Ideal for anyone who wants to read a great work for the first time or revisit an old favorite, these new editions open the door to the stories and ideas that have shaped our world.]]> 592 Alexander Hamilton 1542099420 Genni 4
As much as I love American history, I haven’t spent much time in the early Americas. I don’t think watching Hamilton counts. So I knew of the
Federalist papers, but had several misconceptions going into these.

The first expectation I had was that these would be more rigorous than they were. These are essentially propaganda for adopting the constitution when the Articles of Confederation were still in effect. However, this is the best kind of rhetoric�.very well written, not engaged in fear-mongering (one of my pet peeves.) The one exception to the “well-written� adjective would be John Jay. But he only wrote five of these essays so didn’t drag down the collection as a whole.

They were also very repetitive. I have several writers on both the right and left that I love to follow (I.e. Ezra Klein and David French,) but I don’t think I’d want to read a book of their articles, because they do repeat the same ideas over and over, though in various ways.

I had also imagined that these were more influential than they were. They essentially circulated around New York in a limited capacity. But they were thought of highly enough to republish many of them after the constitution was adopted and are excellent for under understanding the constitution more, and also clarifying for how the founding fathers were thinking about it.

For example, I recently heard an argument about the second amendment that was different than one I had heard before. The author was arguing that the right to bear arms was awarded to states, not individuals. It has stumped me for a bit because it could indeed be read that way. But after this, it is clear to me that Hamilton and others WERE thinking of individuals bearing arms. I am not arguing for or against the idea itself. It just clarified for me how they were thinking about it. I offer the following quote:

”Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.�

It is also interesting to see their predictions and whether or not they have come true in present day. It is safe to say they definitely got some things wrong. But one thing is true, so far anyway, and that is that the safeguards they put in place are still holding. Time will tell if that will continue to be true�.]]> 4.20 1788 The Federalist Papers
author: Alexander Hamilton
name: Genni
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1788
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves: classic-literature, history, politics
review:
ETA: Correction about publication history.

As much as I love American history, I haven’t spent much time in the early Americas. I don’t think watching Hamilton counts. So I knew of the
Federalist papers, but had several misconceptions going into these.

The first expectation I had was that these would be more rigorous than they were. These are essentially propaganda for adopting the constitution when the Articles of Confederation were still in effect. However, this is the best kind of rhetoric�.very well written, not engaged in fear-mongering (one of my pet peeves.) The one exception to the “well-written� adjective would be John Jay. But he only wrote five of these essays so didn’t drag down the collection as a whole.

They were also very repetitive. I have several writers on both the right and left that I love to follow (I.e. Ezra Klein and David French,) but I don’t think I’d want to read a book of their articles, because they do repeat the same ideas over and over, though in various ways.

I had also imagined that these were more influential than they were. They essentially circulated around New York in a limited capacity. But they were thought of highly enough to republish many of them after the constitution was adopted and are excellent for under understanding the constitution more, and also clarifying for how the founding fathers were thinking about it.

For example, I recently heard an argument about the second amendment that was different than one I had heard before. The author was arguing that the right to bear arms was awarded to states, not individuals. It has stumped me for a bit because it could indeed be read that way. But after this, it is clear to me that Hamilton and others WERE thinking of individuals bearing arms. I am not arguing for or against the idea itself. It just clarified for me how they were thinking about it. I offer the following quote:

”Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.�

It is also interesting to see their predictions and whether or not they have come true in present day. It is safe to say they definitely got some things wrong. But one thing is true, so far anyway, and that is that the safeguards they put in place are still holding. Time will tell if that will continue to be true�.
]]> <![CDATA[Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants]]> 38911648 From New York Times bestselling historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how America's second generation of political giants--Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Calhoun--battled to complete the unfinished work of the Founding Fathers and decide the shape of our democracy.

In the early days of the nineteenth century, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a moment when the Founding Fathers were beginning to retire to their farms. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, a champion orator known for his eloquence, spoke for the North and its business class. Henry Clay of Kentucky, as dashing as he was ambitious, embodied the hopes of the rising West. South Carolina's John Calhoun, with piercing eyes and an even more piercing intellect, defended the South and slavery.

Together this second generation of American founders took the country to war, battled one another for the presidency, and tasked themselves with finishing the work the Founders had left undone. Above all, they sought to remedy the two glaring flaws in the Constitution: its fudge on where authority ultimately rested, with the states or the nation; and its unwillingness to address the essential incompatibility of republicanism and slavery. They wrestled with these issues for four decades, arguing bitterly and hammering out political compromises that held the union together, but only just. Then, in 1850, when California moved to join the union as a free state, "the three great men of America" had one last chance to save the country from the real risk of civil war. But by then they were never further apart.

Thrillingly and authoritatively, H. W. Brands narrates the little-known drama of the dangerous early years of our democracy.]]> 378 H.W. Brands 0385542542 Genni 0 to-read 4.33 2018 Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants
author: H.W. Brands
name: Genni
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Ethics of Beauty 51277312 The original task of Ethics was to guide us to the most just and meaningful life possible. Today, ethicists define their discipline more narrowly, as “the rational investigation of morality.� This reduces Ethics to the examination of the Good by the True, tacitly suppressing the deep human need for the Beautiful.

In The Ethics of Beauty, Orthodox Christian theologian Timothy Patitsas first considers Beauty’s opposite, the dark events that traumatize victims of war and other ugly circumstances, and then invites us to rediscover the older Beauty-first response to moral questions and the integrity of the soul.

Covering topics ranging from creation to political theory to the Jesus Prayer, including war, psychology, trauma, chastity, healthy shame, gender, marriage, hospitality, art, architecture, theology, economics, urban planning, and complexity theory, The Ethics of Beauty lays out a worldview in which Beauty, Goodness, and Truth are each embraced as indispensable elements of the best possible human life.]]> Timothy G. Patitsas Genni 0 to-read 4.64 The Ethics of Beauty
author: Timothy G. Patitsas
name: Genni
average rating: 4.64
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mariana 617804
We chose this book because we wanted to publish a novel like Dusty Answer, I Capture the Castle or The Pursuit of Love, about a girl encountering life and love, which is also funny, readable and perceptive; it is a 'hot-water bottle' novel, one to curl up with on the sofa on a wet Sunday afternoon. But it is more than this.

As Harriet Lane remarks in her Preface: 'It is Mariana's artlessness, its enthusiasm, its attention to tiny, telling domestic detail that makes it so appealing to modern readers.' And John Sandoe Books in Sloane Square (an early champion of Persephone Books) commented: 'The contemporary detail is superb - Monica Dickens's descriptions of food and clothes are particularly good - and the characters are observed with vitality and humour. Mariana is written with such verve and exuberance that we would defy any but academics and professional cynics not to enjoy it.']]> 377 Monica Dickens 0953478017 Genni 0 to-read 3.88 1940 Mariana
author: Monica Dickens
name: Genni
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1940
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Vienna Prelude (Zion Covenant, #1)]]> 253047
John Murphy, a reporter for the New York Times in Berlin and Austria, becomes linked with English politicians in a plan to overthrow Hitler. Elisa and John's mutual connections with the Jewish Underground entangle them in a web of intrigue, danger, and conspiracy that neither could have known.]]> 461 Bodie Thoene 1414301073 Genni 0 to-read 4.27 1989 Vienna Prelude (Zion Covenant, #1)
author: Bodie Thoene
name: Genni
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/04
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]]> Medea and Other Plays 48554074 Euripides I contains the plays “Alcestis,� translated by Richmond Lattimore; “Medea,� translated by Oliver Taplin; “The Children of Heracles,� translated by Mark Griffith; and “Hippolytus,� translated by David Grene.Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent classicists David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, those translations combined accuracy, poetic immediacy, and clarity of presentation to render the surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in an English so lively and compelling that they remain the standard translations. Today, Chicago is taking pains to ensure that our Greek tragedies remain the leading English-language versions throughout the twenty-first century.In this highly anticipated third edition, Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most have carefully updated the translations to bring them even closer to the ancient Greek while retaining the vibrancy for which our English versions are famous. This edition also includes brand-new translations of Euripides� Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles’s satyr-drama The Trackers. New introductions for each play offer essential information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond. In addition, each volume includes an introduction to the life and work of its tragedian, as well as notes addressing textual uncertainties and a glossary of names and places mentioned in the plays.In addition to the new content, the volumes have been reorganized both within and between volumes to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship on the order in which the plays were originally written. The result is a set of handsome paperbacks destined to introduce new generations of readers to these foundational works of Western drama, art, and life.]]> 272 Euripides Genni 3 classic-literature, re-read 3.92 -428 Medea and Other Plays
author: Euripides
name: Genni
average rating: 3.92
book published: -428
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/03
date added: 2024/06/03
shelves: classic-literature, re-read
review:
Of the three great Greek playwrights I’ve read, Euripides was my least favorite. This collection was interesting to read, especially the closure it gives Helen, but mostly, they read too far on the extreme of dramatics for my taste. When reading Sophocles and Aeschylus, their genius was transparent, the drama was refined and poignant. With Euripides, I could not decide if it was closer to my experience of reading Dante or not, where much esoteric historical knowledge is required to fully grasp it. If not, then his brand of genius is rather too subtle. Still, I will return to these again later to see if I’m missing something.
]]> <![CDATA[Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence]]> 34763107 280 Gregory A. Boyd 1506420737 Genni 4 religion, re-read
Boyd rests his case largely on the verse in Hebrews that says that Jesus is the exact representation of God. If we look at all of the Old Testament through the eyes of the cross, then we must conclude that “something else is going on� in those commands of genocide, etc. He maintains that God allowed Himself to be viewed falsely while showing Scriptures where “true�, contrary revelation broke through. Simultaneously, he holds the evangelical view that the OT is inspired and that God is not a mushy God, but a God of justice.

His points are all thought provoking, and if true, could solve the problem of OT violence. However, there were some parts that didn’t hold together as well for me. For example, the section dealing with the flood and God wiping out everyone on earth save Noah and his family. This said, I am intrigued enough that I would really like to read the 1,400-plus-pages-previous-edition of this book. I need to continue thinking about the implications of some of his points, but overall, I think they deserve a hearing.
]]> 4.14 Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence
author: Gregory A. Boyd
name: Genni
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/03
date added: 2024/06/03
shelves: religion, re-read
review:
Cross Vision is one of those books that is game-changer for me. As many people have, I have struggled with the acts God apparently asks the Israelites to do (or that He, Himself, does) in the Old Testament. Boyd goes a long way towards showing that those “commands� are just that, apparent.

Boyd rests his case largely on the verse in Hebrews that says that Jesus is the exact representation of God. If we look at all of the Old Testament through the eyes of the cross, then we must conclude that “something else is going on� in those commands of genocide, etc. He maintains that God allowed Himself to be viewed falsely while showing Scriptures where “true�, contrary revelation broke through. Simultaneously, he holds the evangelical view that the OT is inspired and that God is not a mushy God, but a God of justice.

His points are all thought provoking, and if true, could solve the problem of OT violence. However, there were some parts that didn’t hold together as well for me. For example, the section dealing with the flood and God wiping out everyone on earth save Noah and his family. This said, I am intrigued enough that I would really like to read the 1,400-plus-pages-previous-edition of this book. I need to continue thinking about the implications of some of his points, but overall, I think they deserve a hearing.

]]> Under the Greenwood Tree 19252218 HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-love, essential classics.

‘Under the Greenwood Tree� is a tale of love, tragedy and the changing charm of traditional village life when it is met with the cold reality of modernity.

Centring on the quaint rural village of Mellstock, set deep within Hardy’s imagined and picturesque county of Wessex, the novel revolves around a double plot of the hopeful love story of Dick Dewey and Fancy Day and the tragic demise of the Mellstock Choir, and what the crumbling of long-held traditions means to the local community. The arrival of Mr Maybold, a new vicar with newfangled ideas, unsettles the local community with ideas of revolutionary change, in which the church and its generations-old choir are an anchor.

Considered one of Hardy’s most upbeat and optimistic novels, ‘Under the Greenwood Tree� explores issues of past and future, hope and love, and is a delightful addition to the Collins� canon of Thomas Hardy’s classic novels.

]]> 257 Thomas Hardy 0007502737 Genni 3 classic-literature 4.00 1872 Under the Greenwood Tree
author: Thomas Hardy
name: Genni
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1872
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/03
date added: 2024/06/03
shelves: classic-literature
review:
This was my first Hardy. I enjoyed it, and could see in this early work the seeds of something good and unusual. He spends the first few chapters “world-building� with his characters, which was delightful, but left the reader wondering what the conflict was going to be. It quickly turned into a romance. At this point, Hardy’s main female character became infuriating. After discussion my GR group, I am still unsure whether he did this intentionally or was just sexist. Either way, I was certainly engaged.
]]> Ancient History 2035046 Ancient History is a result of the early, exciting days of archaeological exploration. Even today, George Rawlinson's text remains the only brief introduction to the entire panorama of the ancient world. It gives equal weight to each of the civilizations of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean rather than subordinating them to the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome.

Born in Chadlington, Oxfordshire, on November 23, 1812, George Rawlinson began his long career as an ancient historian with an appointment at Exeter College in 1840. From 1861 to 1889, he held the distinguished Camden Professorship of Ancient History at Oxford. He died in 1902, his most lasting contribution to society being his translation of Herodotus.]]> 528 George Rawlinson 0760773580 Genni 4 history Barnes and Noble took this public domain work and published it in 1993. It traveled through many hands and ended up at a used book store that I frequent where I picked it up on a whim, and am glad I did regardless of the fact that this was originally published in the 1860s.

Rawlinson was a British scholar and professor at Oxford for over twenty years and it shows. The amount of detail on each of these little countries was fantastic for a book aiming to cover such a large period. He did not keep his focus on western countries only, providing a broader perspective for the development of history.

One aspect that might be a little odd for modern readers was the fact that the book contains no maps. I’m assuming it would have been too expensive to do so when it was originally published?? So Rawlinson compensated for this with huge descriptions of the geography of each place before he began the discussion of its people. I surprisingly liked this. I often feel a little overwhelmed when looking at maps, but reading the descriptions allowed me to draw my own mental maps, much as we do when reading fiction, and it was personally very effective.

As for the writing in general, it was rather uneven. As knowledgeable as he was, you can tell that he was far more comfortable when writing about the Greeks and Romans, and it became engaging. Other sections were covered in as much detail, but without the intimate familiarity he adopted with western countries.

All in all, although this is incredibly old, and out of date in some ways, I found it to still be a very valuable read.]]> 3.83 1899 Ancient History
author: George Rawlinson
name: Genni
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1899
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/03
date added: 2024/06/03
shelves: history
review:

Barnes and Noble took this public domain work and published it in 1993. It traveled through many hands and ended up at a used book store that I frequent where I picked it up on a whim, and am glad I did regardless of the fact that this was originally published in the 1860s.

Rawlinson was a British scholar and professor at Oxford for over twenty years and it shows. The amount of detail on each of these little countries was fantastic for a book aiming to cover such a large period. He did not keep his focus on western countries only, providing a broader perspective for the development of history.

One aspect that might be a little odd for modern readers was the fact that the book contains no maps. I’m assuming it would have been too expensive to do so when it was originally published?? So Rawlinson compensated for this with huge descriptions of the geography of each place before he began the discussion of its people. I surprisingly liked this. I often feel a little overwhelmed when looking at maps, but reading the descriptions allowed me to draw my own mental maps, much as we do when reading fiction, and it was personally very effective.

As for the writing in general, it was rather uneven. As knowledgeable as he was, you can tell that he was far more comfortable when writing about the Greeks and Romans, and it became engaging. Other sections were covered in as much detail, but without the intimate familiarity he adopted with western countries.

All in all, although this is incredibly old, and out of date in some ways, I found it to still be a very valuable read.
]]> <![CDATA[Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness]]> 150055416
A compelling and growing body of research has shown music and arts therapies to be effective tools for addressing a widening array of conditions, from providing pain relief, to enhancing speech recovery after stroke or traumatic brain injury through singing, to improving mobility of individuals with Parkinson’s disease using rhythm.

In Music and Mind Renée Fleming draws upon her own experience as an advocate to showcase the breadth of this booming field, inviting leading experts to share their discoveries. In addition to describing therapeutic benefits, the book explores evolution, brain function, childhood development, and technology as applied to arts and health.

Much of this area of study is relatively new, made possible by recent advances in brain imaging, and supported by the National Institutes of Health, major hospitals, and universities. This work is sparking an explosion of public interest in the arts and health sector.

Fleming has presented on this material in over fifty cities across North America, Europe, and Asia, collaborating with leading researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners. With essays from known musicians, writers, and artists, as well as leading neuroscientists, Music and Mind is a groundbreaking book and the perfect introduction and overview of this exciting new field.]]> 592 Renée Fleming 059365319X Genni 0 to-read 4.19 2024 Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness
author: Renée Fleming
name: Genni
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>