Paul鈥檚 Year in Books

What did you read this year?

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2024

14,399

pages read

books read

Paul

Shortest Book

pages

The Complete Wizard of Oz Collection by L. Frank Baum

Longest Book

2,490

pages

Average book length in 2024

369

pages

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Most Shelved

914,248

people also shelved

Mindfulness in Plain English by VENERABLE H. GUNARATANA. MA...

Least Shelved

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Paul鈥檚 average rating for 2024

3.6

Highest Rated on 欧宝娱乐

it was amazing

5.00 average

You're Too Good to Feel This Bad by Nate Dallas

Paul鈥檚 first review of the year

I don't know what to say about this book rating wise until I make a more systematic attempt to implement it, which probably belongs after more Twelve Step work and the preventative medicine program I'm entering. It's certainly an attractive program of lifestyle change that brings together in one spot a lot of disparate forms of advice... pretty much what it says on the tin. ...more

笔础鲍尝鈥橲 2024 BOOKS

it was amazing

Probability And Statistics For Engineers And Scientists by Ronald E. Walpole

How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics by Al-Anon Family Groups

90 Days of Meditations by Sexaholics Anonymous

Is St. Thomas鈥檚 Aristotelian Philosophy of Nature Obsolete? by C Robert Koons

really liked it

The Spirit of the Liturgy by Joseph Ratzinger

Hiking Wyoming's Cloud Peak Wilderness by Erik Molvar

Introduction to Christianity by Pope Benedict XVI

it was amazing

The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum

Little Wizard Stories of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Royal Book of Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson

Lessons From the School of Suffering by Jim Willig

it was amazing

it was ok

Paul鈥檚 last review of the year

it was ok

This book is an exquisite example of some really good ideas absolutely tortured to death by the structure the author chose to inflict on the book. We start with the aftermath of a failed Jesuit mission to be the first humans to meet another intelligent species...we are given only uninteresting details about that failure, only the fact that it was catastrophic. Only gradually do we get other details: it was abjectly humiliating to the one survivor This book is an exquisite example of some really good ideas absolutely tortured to death by the structure the author chose to inflict on the book. We start with the aftermath of a failed Jesuit mission to be the first humans to meet another intelligent species...we are given only uninteresting details about that failure, only the fact that it was catastrophic. Only gradually do we get other details: it was abjectly humiliating to the one survivor, who was crippled by it; it probably led to some kind of war on the planet.

The story alternates between the bleak scenes where the one survivor is dealt with and questioned by the Jesuit Order of his relativistic future and the cute, optimistic ones of the absurdly motley group of friends who wind up as the crew of this first contact mission. Only with egregious pain do we gradually get any idea what went wrong in the future scenes; only with incredible tedium in the past scenes do we eventually see the mission take shape, finally get launched, and then plateau with the mission members hanging out in the first village they encounter for a very long time. At the very end the trap is closed on the mission, everyone gets killed, and the designated survivor is tortured into the condition we've seen him in during all the future scenes.

Because of the structure of the book, I can't say I've given any spoilers. You know all this has to happen from the future scenes; I'm just telling you its pacing.

In addition to all this, you are treated to liberal doses of a tedious 1990s liberal Catholic opining about everything, especially pelvic issues and priests who are too attractive to be priests. She muddles through an extended meditation on celibacy, which seems to end with a shrug and an implicit statement that it's a mystery. And of course, God forbid anyone mention Jesus to the aliens; the humans barely if ever speak about Him to each other. The Catholic faith of this book is the attitude of an organization dedicated to social justice. There is a vague--important, I will admit, but very vague--sense of a transcendental God with a providence of some kind, but ultimately that's just an unsatisfying mystery as well. ...more

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