lilbrattyteen's attempt.

I tend to read books in thematic chunks anyway, so this just adds to the fun.

Trying to balance between fiction and nonfiction. One rule: at least 1/2-2/3 of the books for the year must be in my library as of December 31, 2012. (Otherwise I'll just buy/check out more books and not read the TBR pile at home...) The ones I already own will be in my "Possible candidates" list. I'll shoot for 5 books in each category.

1. Books used for school
2. Classics of Science Fiction
3. Fiction inspired by the Bible
4. Books I will give away after reading
5. Books written by women
6. Books in other languages
7. Pope Benedict XVI
8. "Thou shalt have no other books before me": Old Testament
9. "In the Beginning was the Book, and the Book was with God": New Testament
10. Carl Jung
11. Science
12. Gifford Lectures

13. Group reads, LT or otherwise

(I'm studying religion and theology so these categories mostly tie into my studies.)

1. Books used for school

1. An Introduction to Theology in Global Perspective by Stephen B. Bevans
2. The World is Charged: The Transcendent with Us by Francis R. Smith
3. The Roman Empire and the New Testament: An Essential Guide by Warren Carter
4. Turning Suffering Inside Out: A Zen Approach to Living with Physical and Emotional Pain by Darlene Cohen
5. Being Upright: Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts by Reb Anderson

6. Lives of Roman Christian Women (Penguin Classics) by Carolinne White
7. How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment by Eihei Dogen
8. Daring to Cross the Threshold: Francis of Assisi Encounters Sultan Malek al-Kamil by Kathleen A. Warren
9. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
10. Turning Suffering Inside Out by Darlene Cohen
11. When a Woman Becomes a Religious Dynasty: The Samding Dorje Phagmo of Tibet by Hildegard Diemberger
12. The Evolving God: Charles Darwin on the Naturalness of Religion by J. David Pleins
13. Charles Darwin: A Memorial Poem by George John Romanes
14. Zen Keys: A Guide to Zen Practice by Thich Nhat Hanh
15. Introduction to Greek, 2/e by Cynthia W. Shelmerdine
16. Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road by Johan Elverskog
17. Islam by Ismail R. Al-Faruqi
18. Christian Hermit in an Islamic World: A Muslim's View of Charles De Foucauld by Ali Merad
19. Hardships and Downfall of Buddhism in India by Giovanni Verardi
20. Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China by Christine Mollier
21. Dialogue of Life: A Christian Among Allah's Poor by Bob McCahill
22. Vain Debates: The Buddhist-Christian Controversies of Nineteenth-Century Ceylon by Richard Fox Young
23. Conference of the Birds by Farid al-Din Attar
24. Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World's Religions Can Come Together by Dalai Lama
25. Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells
26. The Earliest English Poems, ed. by Michael Alexander
27. The Shiites by David Pinault
28. Beowulf and Other English Poems, trans. and ed. by Constance Hieatt
29. The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha by Ravi Zacharias
30. Harlots of the Desert: A Study of Repentance in Early Monastic Sources by Benedicta Ward
31. The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity by Teresa M. Shaw

2. Classics of Science Fiction

1. Flatland by Edwin Abbott
2. The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4.
5.

3. Fiction Inspired by the Bible

1. Megillat Esther by JT Waldman
2. King David by Kyle Baker
3. Eve's Diary and Extracts from Adam's Diary by Mark Twain
4. As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg
5.

Possible candidates:
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace

4. Books I will give away after reading
A necessary category for someone like me. This category is bigger for a reason...

1. The Giver by Lois Lowry
2. Love's Executioner: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin Yalom
3. Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine by Bart D. Ehrman
4. Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
5. Welcome to the Episcopal Church: An Introduction to Its History, Faith, and Worship by Christopher L. Webber
6. Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account Of The Death Penalty In The United States by Helen Prejean
7. The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine by Alister McGrath
8. The World is Flat: a Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman
9. Altered Egos: How the Brain Creates the Self by Todd E. Feinberg
10. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
11. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
12. The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness by Martha Stout
13. Blood Brotherhood by Robert Barnard
14. Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor
15. The Grace of Silence: A Family Memoir by Michele Norris
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

5. Books in other languages

I'm studying Biblical Hebrew and Greek as well as Classical Tibetan. (Long story.) This category will include texts I've read with these languages.

1. The Book of Jonah
2.
3.
4.
5.

Possible candidates:
Book of Jonah
Book of Ruth
Book of Amos
Gospel of Mark
Didache

6. Books written by or about women
My LT stats say only 10% of my library consists of female authors. This makes me sad.

1. Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism by Miranda Shaw
2. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
3. Lives of Roman Christian Women (Penguin Classics), ed. Carolinne White
4. When a Woman Becomes a Religious Dynasty: The Samding Dorje Phagmo of Tibet by Hildegard Diemberger
5. Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism by Rita M. Gross

6. The First Buddhist Women by Susan Murcott
7. Harlots of the Desert: A Study of Repentance in Early Monastic Sources by Benedicta Ward
8. Hypatia of Alexandria by Maria Dzielska
9. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
10. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature by Liz Wilson

7. Pope Benedict XVI

Being a convert Catholic, I hear a lot about what this man thinks but don't know much. I've read enough of him to know he's hard to read - dense prose!

1. On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century by Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Rabbi Abraham Skorka
2.
3.
4.
5.

8. "Thou shalt have no other books before me": Old Testament Books and Commentaries

1. The Book of Daniel and The Book of Daniel (Cambridge Bible Commentaries on the Old Testament) by Raymond Hammer
2. The Book of Jonah and Jonah: A Psycho-Religious Approach to the Prophet by Andre Lacocque and Pierre-Emmanuel Lacocque
3.
4.
5.

Possible candidates:

9. "In the Beginning was the Book, and the Book was with God": New Testament Books and Commentaries

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Possible candidates:

10. Carl Jung

1. The Unconscious Christian: Images of God in Dreams (Jung and Spirituality) by James A. Hall
2. Animal Guides: In Life, Myth and Dreams by Neil Russack
3.
4.
5.

Possible candidates:
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of Self
The Undiscovered Self
Psychology and Religion: East and West
Jung's Map of the Soul by Murray Stein

11. Science
I am woefully ignorant of science. This will push me to be less so.

1. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex by Charles Darwin
2. Cosmos by Carl Sagan
3. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
4. The Planets by Dava Sobel
5. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

12. Gifford Lectures

1. The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan
2.
3.
4.
5.

Possible candidates:
The Nature and Destiny of Man by Reinhold Neibuhr
The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
Religion in an Age of Science by Ian Barbour
Knowledge and Sacred by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt
Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy by Michael Polanyi
Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead

13. Group Reads, LT or otherwise

1. The Sandman, Volume 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman
2. Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Line by Jason Rosenhouse
3. The Sandman: The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman
4.
5.

Possible candidates:

Quite inspiring categories. Go forth and read!

Welcome to the challenge! You have caught my eye with your Carl Jung category, as well as the Carmelite authors, something I know next to nothing about.

> 16

Well, I'm aspiring to be a lay Carmelite, so I want to make sure I read up on some of their big name saints and writers. They have three Doctors of the Church, two of them women. We have John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Edith Stein, and probably more I'm forgetting.

Wow, love your categories (especially the Catholic ones, haha). If you're looking for more Benedict XVI books, I really loved Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration. I found it pretty accessible, and there's some great stuff in there about the Sermon on the Mount in particular.

"Otherwise I'll just buy/check out more books and not read the TBR pile at home"
I think we all suffer from that particular inclination. :)

Looking forward to your Arthurian category and the Sci-Fi classics - I'm behind on those myself, so I'll be looking out for recs!

I've got the Mary Stewart series (The Crystal Cave, etc.) on my pile of books that I want to revisit. It's been decades. I loved them when I was in high school.

I am planning to read those Mary Stewarts in 2013 as well!

Interesting categories. I bought a book by Teresa of Avila at the library book sale and will have to find it. (I have about 1000 books in my house in a very random order.) Are you familiar with Susan Cooper's children's series based on the Arthurian legend. I read them several years ago and liked them.

I've never heard of them, Bjace. They sound interesting!

The two main versions of Teresa or Avila floating around are the older E. Allison Peers translations and the more current Institute for Carmelite Studies translations. I prefer the latter, as they are both newer and edited/translated by people in that tradition. They also put out study editions with notes explaining the historical context and questions for spiritual reflection.

The Susan Cooper books are:

Over sea, under stone
The Dark is rising
Greenwitch
The Grey King
Silver on the Tree

They're set in modern times, but Arthurian characters who move back and forth in time. The Grey King was a Newbery award winner.

Good luck with your challenge!

Thank you, Rachel! Do you have one?

A possible addition to your 7th category is The Spirit of the Liturgy with Benedict XVI being the stated author. I think it is well written, and I say this as an Episcopalian.

For John of the Cross' poetry, my favorite version is: The Poems of St. John of the Cross: (Dual English/Spanish) -- Ken Krabbenhoft as the translator.

I especially liked Susan Cooper's books when I read them some 20 years ago.

>26 JDHomrighausen: No. I tried the challenge last year but kind of petered out after about half a year. I made the categories too easy. But I don't want to make them more difficult because I like having the option of spontaneity. But I think it's fun watching other people challenge themselves. :)

Good luck with your challenge. Interesting possibilities.
I asked in my thread if you were interested in Buddhism and now I see that one of the languages you're studying is Classical Tibetan. That's fascinating. Looking forward to seeing what you read.
Oh, and I second the recommendation for the Susan Cooper books.

> 27

Indeed, part of the problem with reading the pope's books is that he has so Matty. How do I know where to start? I'll look at the one you recommended, although liturgical theology is not my main interest.

I think I have that edition of San Juan de la Cruz. Thanks for the recs. :)

Greetings fellow 13 in 13ers! This is my first time posting in.... forever. I am proud to say that I have managed to hit a few of my requirements for this year so far. My favorite has been Megillat Esther, a graphic novel adaptation of the biblical book incorporating Talmudic and Midrashic commentary into some amazing artwork. My only complaint - only! - is that it is in black and white; some of the sumptuous and showy scenes of that book would, I felt, have been done more justice in color.

I have Megillat Esther on my wishlist - the art looks great from the preview I saw. Looking forward to whenever I get around to it!

Passionate Enlightenment by Miranda Shaw
Finished 3/18/13

One issue I've become more aware of in the past academic quarter is Orientalism and the study of Buddhism. What assumptions and presuppositions do we bring to other religions? How might these hinder us from fully understanding them?

Shaw's work aims to refute the received notion in studies of early Tantra that women were oppressed and used by the male Tantric masters. She looks at the "Golden Age" of Tantra - seventh through twelfth century beginnings of Tantric traditions in India - and finds that far from being low-caste consorts used by monks for religious ends, women were spiritual teachers on par with men. When Tantric rituals refer to deity yoga in the form of goddess worship, sexual uniting as a mode of awakening, and great female masters, these are not exceptions to the rule or fictitious masters invented by a male voice. Women were equal to men in the development of Tantric texts and lineages.

Shaw argues that previous scholars were unable to see this because they had blinders on. They may have been sexist themselves, unable to view women as equal teachers. Shaw's book, which dropped like a bomb in 1994 and is still controversial today, may suffer from its own blinders. First, Shaw bases her entire book on Tantric texts, but fails to address the always-thorny issue of how texts relate to lived practice. As is clear with the Bible and Christians, different groups emphasize certain texts to the exclusion of others, which often lies at the heart of debates on issues like women's' ordination or gay marriage. Second, Shaw's approach seems biased from the start: "one of my operative principles is to view women as active shapers of history and interpreters of their own experience rather than as passive objects or victims of history" (12). This almost seems to presuppose her conclusion. Perhaps she wishes to see Tantric Buddhism in a positive light because she herself is a Buddhist (so she hints at).

But the brightest red flag to me is how her view of liberated women in Tantra comes out. They are liberated in the way a Western 21st-century feminist is: equal in ability and power, in a very individualistic way. That to me indicates that she is reading her opinion into the text. I would have taken her analysis more seriously if she qualified her thesis by looking at ways in which women negotiated power differently than they do in contemporary contexts.

This book fits category 6: books by or about women.

King David by Kyle Baker
Finished 3/20/13

Baker's graphic novel is a retelling of the story of King David, complete with sex, violence, and naked Bathsheba. Being a sucker for retellings of biblical stories, I picked it up at a local comics shop. It was an unsure buy. Now I see why.

The art in this book is very hit-or-miss. It can be grand and beautiful. Baker illustrates with vibrant colors, and his rendering of characters such as Goliath could be great. But the panels often look chintzy, amateurish, even done with 3D animation from the 1980s. Even worse, the panels often don't march the words; a character's facial expression will be angry and his picture looks scared. David himself is animated very poorly; in the scene with Goliath he looks too young. I understand the biblical text emphasizes David's small statue, but he looks about 7 years old in the battle with Goliath. Somehow he morphs into a seven-foot tall man almost overnight.

The words don't help either. Baker adds contemporary lingo to the story, but it never fits. For example, when Jonathan is introduced he is asking his dad for the keys to the chariot, and Saul reprimands him, wanting to know what time he will be home. WTF? I understand the desire to creatively add to the story, but it comes off as misplaced and whimsical.

Overall I can't recommend this book. Unlike Megillat Esther, which was thoroughly researched and supplemented with added details from rabbinic tradition - details that fit - Baker's study seems to be a quick sketch by someone who has spent little time with what Robert Alter refers to as the "David epic."

Category 3: Fiction Inspired by the Bible

#33

I was interested to see you using orientalism for books referring to places east of the Middle East. I am so used to thinking about Edward Said's Orientalism, I forgot that orientalism can be as general a term as the orient. Of course there might be some comparison between Said's effort and that of Shaw in their both seeing a lot of misinterpretation of Eastern cultures by occidental scholars.

> 35

I think you make a good point there. Earlier scholars may have tended to see Tantra as sexist because they would view "other" religions in largely negative terms. But many responses to Shaw allege that she is projecting her own fantasies onto the history of Tantra - a fantasies of a feminist utopia. My professor, who is also a scholar of Tantra, told me that Shaw tends to quote from Tantric texts very selectively - so her argument looks good when you read the book, but if you know the texts she uses as evidence and how they were read at the time (which we can tell from commentaries) it looks weaker.

BTW what is the thread for your reading challenge?

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

I originally read this for the biblical fiction category in my 13 in 13 challenge, but now that I've finished it I think it is much more of a work of women's' literature than a work of biblical fiction. And that's fine, because it was a great read.

Shaw's book on women in early Tantric Buddhism (reviewed above) begins with the premise that women had agency in their own histories, and that we don't see it because scholarship blots it out. In a way, Diamant begins with the same premise. She retells the story of Dinah, daughter of Jacob, a very minor character in Genesis who is raped by a prince of a foreign city. Dinah's brothers retaliate by slaughtering all the men of the city after requesting they be circumcised before the prince can take their sister in marriage. Rather than focusing on this episode, Diamant tells the story of Dinah, from Dinah's perspective, from her infancy to her death.

This book created some controversy when it came out. Rather than being about Jacob or his God of Israel, this story focuses on the women in his family: his wives Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, and Bilhah. "The Red Tent" is the tent of menstruation the women go into every month - a space for women only. These women do not believe in Jacob's God, but worship the local polytheistic gods and goddesses, even naming her seraphim (statues of goddesses). While Jacob has his masculine deity, who is portrayed as tyrannical and strange, the women's' female deities are in tune with the rhythms of life, filled with the lore of forgotten deities. And Dinah, along with her aunt Rachel, is a part of the most female profession imaginable: midwifery.

With this background, the story mostly follows the saga of Dinah and her family. What I really like about it is seeing how the characters change over time, how Dinah evolves and changes, and in what ways this story does not match up with the biblical version. I had a hard time putting this book down.

Category 6: Books written by or about women

I read this book quite a while ago. I think I might give it another go. Especially since I recommend it to students (without much success).

I loved The Red Tent when I read it a long while back. Have you read anything by Marek Halter? I remember quite enjoying a couple of his Canaan trilogy too.

Kerry - Marek Halter looks somewhat interesting, but my biblical fiction category for the rest of the year is already filled. On my shelves - Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist, Jesus Son of Man by Kahlil Gibran, The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman, and Adiel by Shlomo DuNour.

That's an interesting lineup, I have the Kazantzakis and will have to add Adiel and Barabbas to my list. My next biblical fiction read will be The Liars' Gospel.

Kerry, I eagerly await your review, even as I think that there is a disproportionate amount of biblical fiction focused on Jesus!

Yes, there's a lot around once you start looking for it. I attended a session last month at the Jewish Book Festival in London where Alderman talked about her novel so I'm keen to read it. I've pre-ordered the paperback edition so have to wait a few more weeks for it.

#36

I've never set up a thread for my reading challenge. I keep a pocket calendar with folded 5x8" sheets written with books I want to 'look' at. I have been doing this for years, and I've never committed it to an electronic format. I am running about 2-3 years behind on my list. These are really what I call second tier books. First tier books are ones that I automatically know that I want to read (like the "next" Harry Potter novel, when they were being published). I have to first determine whether I want to read the book, and there are three ways of figuring this out.

a) Looking at reviews in LT
b) Looking at Amazon reviews
c) Looking at the book in a library
I sometimes do all three efforts for a book.

The next set of books I want to look at are:

Chasing the Sun: the epic story of the star that gives us life by Richard Cohen (I'm not sure that I am ready for an astronomy book, so this book has to have a really good pull for me to check it out of the library, even greater if I decide to buy it, print or Nook)
It's really all about God: reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian by Samir Selmanovic (I've already looked at this a couple years ago, and now its time to reconsider)
What I eat: around the world in 80 diets by Peter Menzel (presumably breezy, and I could sweep through this one, if I choose).
Infinite City: a San Francisco atlas by Rebecca Solnit (Solnit is a good essayist -- I'm not sure I'm going to be able to find a copy in a Long Island library)
The guild of xenolinguists by Sheila Finch (I've also looked at this one before, and need to get the library copy to figure out why I let it lapse -- this is science fiction).

So, my list goes on and on, about 1/3 fiction and 2/3 non-fiction. I only read about 25% of the books on my list.

I do have an occasional book that is impossible to find. That means, there is little to no info on Amazon, no one on LT has reviewed it, and no library on Long Island owns it. So, then I look it up on Worldcat, and try to figure out whether I could order it through interlibrary loan, and then deciding to go through the hassle of doing that. If the only libraries that have it are Harvard University, Library of Congress, or New York Public (non-circulating copy), then I have to more or less give up on it, because these libraries usually only send to certified scholars, which I'm not.

I just checked on The Guild of Xenolinguists, and I did put it on my LT wishlist, so I'll probably try to check it out. (I just ordered it from another library, it is not available on the Nook).

What I eat is available in East Meadow, and so I usually gather my East Meadow wants into a trip every 3 months. (I live in North Bellmore).

Infinite City is not available on the Nook or through a Long Island library. I might check Kindle, as I have a Kindle app on our I-pad, which my wife mostly uses. I more often use our Snow Leopard.

Chasing the sun: the epic story is available at my local library.

I've also ordered from another library It's really all about God.

Another book on my list is The accidental Anglican: the surprising appeal of the liturgical church by Todd D. Hunter, and that I can get for my Nook, but not at the library. I really like Anglican/Episcopal books, so I'll probably buy the Nook version.

While I was in an ordering mood for my local library area, I've also ordered Religions of Star Trek by Ross Shepard Kramer.

The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain

This was another Librivox book. This very short novella explores the human side of a foundational Judeo-Christian myth, from a day or two after the creation of Eve to the casting out of Eden. Twain makes full use of hilarious gender stereotypes to project a fanciful depiction of Adam and Eve's relationship. Adam, the simple-minded oaf, wants nothing more than to be left alone to laze around all day. He wishes the woman would just stop talking. Eve reads his silence at her conversation as a sign that he enjoys it greatly, and follows him around talking for hours on end. Eve is flighty, emotional, somewhat silly: not good stereotypes. But she is also more imaginative, more multidimensional, and for me more likable. Worth listening to.

This book adds one more to my biblical fiction category.

Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott
Imagine a world in two dimensions. You are a square. Your best friend is a pentagon. You navigate social situations by a complex process of feeling those around you to see how many angles they have.

Can you guess that Flatland is a strange novel? In fact this is one of the strangest novels I have ever read. Part geometrical fiction and part Victorian satire, this book begins with lengthy descriptions of the strictly regimented society of flat shapes the author is a part of. More angles translate to great social status; so common laborers are triangles, working professionals are squares, and high priests are circles. Women, being lowly and of childlike intelligence, are flat lines, and because of the danger of their points must be constrained in tight quarters.

Things start to get interesting when the dimensionality aspect of the novel is explored. The narrator encounters a one-dimensional universe where the king, a line, becomes outraged at being told his domain is minuscule and unimportant. Later, he finds a zero-dimensional universe, consisting of a single point. Quite a pathetic spectacle. But things really get fascinating when he gets a visitor from the 3-D world.

This book was very slow and Victorian in its long-winded prose, but if you want a novel that is really a glorified thought experiment, this was a fun read. I listened to the Librivox recording, which was of good quality.

This goes into "Classics of Science Fiction."

Flatland sounds like quite the unique read! Adding it to my 'and now for something completely different' list for possible future reading.

>47 JDHomrighausen: iirc there are pictures in the physical book which may make it an easier "read"?

> 49

There are diagrams, but I listened to it on audio with no diagrams and was able to follow along.

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex by Charles Darwin

The book that started evolutionary psychology. Right now I'm taking a course called "Darwin and God"* in which this book was assigned. Our professor believes that The Origin of Species is often over-emphasized, and that some of Darwin's most powerful ideas come from this lesser-read book (on LT, Origin has over 7000 copes, and this only 751!). Because this is the book where Darwin looks at human nature.

Darwin amasses a lifetime of evidence-gathering to argue for his thesis that many features of homo sapiens are derived from other species. Even features that seem unique about humans, such as our moral sense and belief in deities, are a difference of degree, not kind, from our close mammal relatives. Darwin humorously employs the example of a dog's devotion to his owner as a precursor to human devotion to God. And while our moral sense is unique, being in part derived from conscience (which requires rationality), are our basic social instincts not shared by many other mammals?

Darwin, though a wealthy and secluded Englishman, took copious notes on various cultures and peoples (not just birds and bugs!) on his journey around the world on the Beagle. He uses these observations in this book, but along the way reveals his racism, or at least its more benevolent cousin ethnocentrism. Primates are to savages what savages are to Europeans. Darwin's casual ranking of cultures often stemmed from ignorance about them and is jarring to this modern reader. His frank support of eugenics in the last three pages of the book does not help:

"The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless marry, the inferior members tend to supplant the better members of society."

But of course, he was a product of his time, and it was the same British colonialism that fueled his journey around the world in the first place. This book caused quite a stir when it was published. The captain of the Beagle, a conservative Christian, was outraged that his journey had spurred the writing of what he was as an amoral and atheistic work. As a writer, Darwin rambles on interminably, but employs so many fascinating examples to make it worthwhile. (Although I must admit I did not read the chapters about insects.) If you want to know where modern evolutionary theory applied to homo sapiens began, this is the book.

* In case anyone is curious, the reading list beyond this book:
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Theodosius Dobzhansky, The Biology of Ultimate Concern
William Paley, Natural Theology
Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
David Pleins (my professor), The Evolving God: Charles Darwin on the Naturalness of Religion

This fits into the science category.

Lives of Roman Christian Women, ed. Carolinne White

Two chapters of this book were assigned reading for my Roman Empire class last quarter - but it was so interesting I read the rest of it. White has collected a great selection of works from the first 3-4 centuries of Christianity that describe individual women and the lives they led. Like much of women's' history, we have little in their own voices, but much description in mens' writings. The writings in this book range from famous patristic authors such as Gregory of Nyssa and Jerome, down to ones I had never heard of such as Palladius. They range from eulogistic letters to advice on how to raise a virtuous daughter to a story of two women martyrs and the miracles surrounding them.

Half of the selections in the book are by Jerome, who was known for being a spiritual and intellectual mentor for wealthy Roman widows. Jerome, despite being perhaps the greatest biblical scholar of patristic Christianity, was also a difficult man to be around. It was said that Paula the Elder, who he writes a forty-page paean to, was the only person who could put up with his moods and soothe his temper. (This was, of course, further proof of his holiness.) This book also includes his "Education of Little Paula," exhorting the parents of this young girl to shield her from idle gossip, educate her only in Christian authors, and rarely let her leave the house for fear of spoiling her virtue.

From a faith perspective, some of the stuff in here was hard to connect with. Paula the Elder's abandonment of her children for the sake of her leaving society and becoming a wandering ascetic? Nope. If Paula tried that today she's be tried for child neglect. I do not resonate with miracles of martyrs very much either. But it is hard to not be inspired by some of the exemplars of holiness in this book, especially when described in Jerome's brilliant rhetoric so crammed with biblical allusions.

Thankfully, Penguin Book has another volume titled Early Christian Lives, so I can read up on mens' lives too. Even better, it's the same translator and editor, British scholar Carolinne White, whose introduction to this volume was illuminating and readable.

This goes into the "Books by/about women" category.

Some very nice reviews here! I'd read Flatland decades ago, when I first started getting interested in math (which I eventually ended up studying in university). I really need to read it again. It's definitely a classic.

GIVE ME THIS BOOK

I'd like to borrow please!

Which book, Bre?

Love's Executioner: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy, by Irvin Yalom

This is one of the most enthralling books about psychology I have ever read. Yalom is a psychiatrist at Stanford University and a practitioner of what he calls existential psychotherapy. This method of therapy seeks to help patients come to and cope with core existential realities and problems: the inevitability of death, our ultimate loneliness, the need to create/find meaning in life, and our terrifying freedom. While these are rarely openly discussed, they often linger in the background of other issues his clients bring to him. This book is composed of case studies of different clients who came to him, how the therapy worked, how he felt and reacted, and what the outcomes were.

Yalom is not afraid to be self-critical. He includes one chapter in which his method didn't work at all. In another chapter he openly (perhaps too openly) reveals his disgust at a client who was obese. I discussed this book with my therapist (a Jungian) and we agreed that Yalom seems rather guiding than what we are doing. He knows where he is going and tries to bring the session there, whereas my therapist follows what I do and only suggests possible directions. More starkly, my method of therapy affirms the reality and importance of the sacred, whereas Yalom sees it as an illusion to avoid existential reality.

So this book not only helped me see more of how Yalom's mode of therapy works, but also how mine works by contrast. I enjoyed the book but would not want Yalom to be my therapist.

This book is in my "books to give away" pile. it's good enough that I'd recommend it to a friend, but not so instrumental I feel the need to keep it.

On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century, by Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Rabbi Abraham Skorka

When I found out Pope Francis was our new pope, I immediately googled around to see what he had written. To my dismay, nothing - at least not in English. Of course, this book was translated rapidly, and I received it in the mail the day it was released.

This book consists of a series of dialogues between Bergoglio and Argentinian rabbi Abraham Skorka on issues ranging from the nature of faith, contemporary moral issues facing society, and the history of Argentina. Bergoglio and Scorch are clearly friends. Their relationship reminds me of that between John Paul II and Elio Toaff, late chief rabbi of Rome.

The impression I get of Pope Francis in this volume is a man who is firm, perhaps conservative in his moral values, but also not afraid to reach out across divisions and learn how to coexist with other people. For example, Bergoglio tells a funny story where he was at a prayer meeting with an Evangelical group. They asked him if he would kneel to be prayed for, because they wanted to show that they supported his episcopal ministry. The next week, photos of him kneeling to the Evangelical congregation ran in a newspaper with the headline: "Sede vacante: the Archbishop commits the sin of apostasy"!

The Pope's comment: "For them, praying together with others was apostasy. Even with an agnostic, with his doubt, we can look up together to find transcendence, each one praying according to his tradition. What's the problem?" (221)

Another great quote: in one chapter devoted to discussing the Church's history of anti-Semitism, the rabbi says: "I believe that the point of this dialogue we are having is to break these vicious cycles; to get a fresh start and to remind us of our shared heritage. If some people believe that Jesus is G-D made flesh, and we say that G-D would not do that because no human can represent G-D in bodily form, that discrepancy is no reason to breed hate or resentment. Some day we will know the truth, but in the meantime we can and we should be working together." (187)

Overall, this book was a good window into the current pope's thought. But it was a fogged window: it stayed at a very general level, covered many subjects, and did not penetrate too deeply. The middle part of the book, where they discussed moral issues, was the most bland. Perhaps I am expecting too much considering our last two popes were philosopher-theologians who wrote original theological treatises. But in some ways I feel the fact that this book was written at all - an interreligious book! - says more than its contents themselves.

This goes into the "Pope Benedict" category. I originally created that category to make myself learn more about the thought of the then-current pope. Now that Benedict is in retirement, I will let myself use this book to fit the category.

Dead Man Walking by Helen Prejean

Though this is probably best known as a movie, it was based on the true story of one nun's advocacy for Louisiana's death row inmates. Prejean, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph, was working in urban ministry in a poor section of New Orleans when a friend suggested her as a spiritual advisor for death row inmate Patrick Sonnier. Though she was repulsed by his crime and sometimes his character, her loving listening to his pain was enough to lead her into a greater awareness of the injustices of the death penalty.

For me, the death penalty is such an obvious bad idea that it hardly merits discussion. This makes it tough for me to explain to others why I think so. (Saying "Catholic social teaching" doesn't usually cut it.) Often I ask whether or not they would be willing to have the executioner's job. That usually gets less enthusiasm. This is essentially what Prejean finds. It's easy to be pro-death penalty when it's discussed in terms of deterrence arguments and financial convenience. Much harder when you are in a room watching someone be killed, or when you are with them in their last panicked hours.

Prejean didn't just face enemies in the political realm. She faced them in her own church. The book is riddled with descriptions of hypocrites in her own cloth: a bishop who advocates for the death penalty, death row chaplains who refer to the inmates as "scum," lay Catholics who write her letters castigating her for seeing Christ in murderers and rapists. She patiently points out that the death penalty is against Church teaching and flatly contradicts the pro-life agenda. To me the most horrifying part is the sexism: people telling her that nuns should be doing menial service work for the Church, meek and mild, not pursuing their own calls from God even if it means knocking some heads and ruffling some feathers to combat injustice. I really admire her for her ability to stand up to (and in this book, name) those who do not speak the truth.

The only downside of this tightly-written book is that some of the statistics are out of date or specific to Louisiana. But I doubt the realities have changed: the death row is still given to poor male racial minorities, it costs an exorbitant amount of money, etc. And after observing victims' families, Prejean argues that it fails to bring the closure many hope it will. (Another thing that seems obvious to me: vengeance won't bring healing.)

When this book came out, Prejean was roundly criticized from every angle. One journalist even alleged she had a romantic affair with one of the men she ministered to. Others alleged she co-opted the victims' families' stories for her own political advocacy, or that she failed to care about the families altogether. Yet in the book Prejean herself admits her biggest regret was not visiting the families of the victims sooner. She became close friends with two families of victims, one against the death penalty and the other a forceful advocate. Ultimately, her work is to bring about reconciliation and healing for everyone. Whether or not others understand that is not up to her.

Another for the "books to give away" category.

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke

It's been too long since I read any good sci-fi. Thankfully a friend loaned me a big pile of it. I read 2001: A Space Odyssey a billion years ago (okay, 5-6) in high school. This collection of Clarke's favorite of his short stories did not disappoint.

The first thing that struck me about these is how different they were. Some were short vignettes conveying an emotion. Others were bizarre plot lines with unexpected or comedic endings. Many were set in space, but some were purely terrestrial.

Clarke conveys a sense of awe at the possible workings of the universe. The stories are plausible. One, "Encounter at Dawn," depicts a prehistorical meeting between humans and space aliens. It's certainly plausible, and that is enough to get my imagination going. The wide extremes of space and time his characters confront remind me of the little-ness of myself and my species. Clarke, like many science fiction writers, is great at showing people confronted with the utmost of their abilities and imagination.

Another thought that came up during the course of this book: not only are we limited by body and time, but excepting luminaries like Clarke, we are too culturally and species-ly narcissistic to truly accept and live in harmony with another race. If aliens truly did land on earth, we would probably never agree on how to interact with them as a species, and if we did it would probably be to kill and dissect them. Perhaps the aliens have already seen us and know we are not ready.

Anyway, enough randomness. My favorite stories in here were "Before Eden," "Encounter at Dawn," "Transience," and "The Star."

One more down for the "classics of science fiction" category!

When A Woman Becomes A Religious Dynasty: The Samding Dorje Phagma of Tibet by Hildegard Diemberger

Diemberger's dense and well-researched book explores the life of Chokyi Dronma, the first and most important lineage of female lamas in Tibet. Some background: Tibetan Buddhism is unique in that its lineages - leaders of schools of Buddhism, abbots of monasteries, etc. - are not done by choosing a successor or by passing the power onto one's child, but by finding the reincarnation of the lama who has died. This centuries-old practice is how, for example, we got the Dalai Lama. According to Tibetan belief, he is the fourteenth reincarnation of the same bodhisattva, in this case an incarnation of the celestial bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. Like any other mode of passing on authority, lineage by reincarnation is subject to manipulation. Diemberger, an anthropologist at Cambridge, focuses on how these politics - especially gender politics - play out in the biography of fifth-century lineage founder Chokyi Dronma.

Chokyi Dronma herself was a Tibetan princess who, after the death of her only child, left behind her husband and his despised family to pursue a life devoted to the dharma. At first her husband would not let her leave, but she shaved her head - some say she scalped herself - and her possibly-insane devotion persuaded him. In time she came to be recognized as an incarnation of Dorje Pagmo (aka Vajrayogini), one of the most important female deities in Mahayana Buddhism. She studied under lama Chogye Namgyal and used her great royal wealth to act as a great patrons of the arts and sciences during the time of what Diemberger calls a "Tibetan Renaissance."

Soon after her death, her disciple Thangtong Gyalpo wrote her biography. Diemberger argues that he wrote it to legitimate the search for her successor, as the biography is full of references to how Chokyi Dronma was like Vajrayogini and how her rebirth lineage was prophecied during her life. Most tantalizingly, the end of the book is lost. Dronma was about to ascend Tsari Mountain, a holy site forbidden to women, which leads Diemberger to suggest that the end was censored because it flouted religious convention.

This is the fourth in my category of books written by or about women. Somehow this category turned into "women and religion." I'm beginning to see some commonalities in how women are depicted in the three religious traditions I am reading around. I see the most affinities here with the contents of Lives of Roman Christian Women.

First - the theme of insanity. Dronma had to feign insanity to make others take her religious devotion seriously. This seems to be something women have to do in different religious traditions, perhaps because their agency would not be taken seriously otherwise. When St. Jerome writes about his patron Paula the Elder, he cites her abandonment of her children - surely insane - as proof of her great devotion to God. In early Christianity as in Tibet, women had more obstacles to renunciation, and had to be more drastic in proving their desire.

Like Paula the Elder, Chokyi Dronma was born into the elite, and her fame as a patroness would not have been possible had she not had a lot of money to give away. Elitism rears its ugly head. One of the projects she sponsored were a series of iron suspension bridges around Tibet, build by tantric master and civil engineer Thangthong Gyalpo. Some of these still stand, supposedly made of an alloy resistant to rust:



Last but not least, the problem of finding women's' voices in history. Chokyi Dronma's biography was written one of her male disciples. Most of the texts in Lives of Roman Christian Women were written by men. Even when they are esteemed, womens' own voices are often lost to history. I am suspicious of efforts to uncover these voices, such as Miranda Shaw's, as they often seem to be inventing just as much as uncovering. The Red Tent provided a much better model, a way of imagining women's' voices and roles in history using fiction. Thankfully, Diemberger has one way of overcoming this problem: the fact that the Dorje Phagmo lineage is still alive and well in Tibet, as is her famous Samding monastery, rebuilt after its destruction in the Cultural Revolution. Diemberger does a great job of bringing the book back to the present and the continuing enigma of Dorje Phagmo.

This is book four in the "Books by or about women" category.

Hi! I'm catching up on threads today -- I'm very far behind. That's very interesting - women having to feign insanity in order to be taken seriously. I'll look for that in the religious books I plan on reading.
The picture of the bridge is amazing. Are those prayer flags that are draped everywhere?

> 63

I would assume so. Tibetans love their prayer flags, lol.

I'm glad someone is looking at this thread. I've got two category reads about to be reviewed. Summer is a good time to catch up.

Fascinating review, thank you!

I forgot to post this earlier. Two reviews for the Science category. Enjoy.

Cosmos by Carl Sagan
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Both Sagan and Hawking made a reputation as ambassadors of the wonder and beauty of astronomy, physics, and cosmology to a public unable to understand technical scientific literature. In Sagan's case, the book did that for me. I could not stop reading it. By contrast, Hawking's book was dense, loosely connected, hard to understand.

First, Sagan's book. Cosmos was published in the late 70s as a companion to the famous TV show Sagan hosted. Sagan felt the public would be impressed by what scientists were doing - at that time the first American land rover on Mars, laughably primitive by our standards. This book is a blend of three things: the hard science, stories of the scientists who made the discoveries and the historical contexts they wrote in, and Sagan's thoughts on how science fits into human life.

The hard science Sagan covers is nothing surprising. In fact, it's embarrassingly out of date in places. But he invites the reader to ask fun questions. What would an intelligent being from another planet look like? How would its biology function?(Hint: we don't know.) How do we date the universe? I especially liked his description of primordial soup in the second chapter.

Many scientists write popular books. Sagan goes beyond merely describing science. From tantalizing hints of what we lost at the library of Alexandria, to explaining how Kepler changed his mind about the perfect Pythagorean paths of the planets, to pining over the plight of whales unable to hear each other over our submarines and ships, Sagan situates science in the context of all humanistic inquiry. One page he will be talking about hard science, the next creation myths about the start of the world. I especially like how he discussed non-Western scientific achievement, such as the Chinese printing press (far before Europe's) and the Mayan system of astronomy.

"The Sun warms us and feeds us and permits us to see. it fecundated the Earth. it is powerful beyond human experience. Birds greet the sunrise with an audible ecstasy… Our ancestors worshipped the Sun, and they were far from foolish. And yet the Sun is an ordinary, even a mediocre star. If we must worship a power greater than ourselves, does it not make sense to worship the sun and stars? Hidden within every astronomical investigation, sometimes so deeply buried that the research himself is unaware of its presence, is a kernel of awe.

Mostly, Sagan wants to expand peoples' minds away from the parochial and petty human conflicts of the Cold War and into the thrill of contacting life on other planets. For him, the possibility of life on other planets takes on a salvific tone. If we could find - join, even - a network of extraterrestrial life lightyears away, we would be ultimately validated as a species. We would shed our arrogance, our belief that we are unique. As he writes: "we must be the most backward technical society in the Galaxy."

By contrast, Hawking's book just didn't grab me the same way. Yes, he had some very interesting explanations of how black holes work, and I really liked his summation of Einstein's theory of general relativity, but I was hoping for a thread to tie the book together. But Sagan is sadly passed, his book remaining un-updated. I would read Sagan for the wonder but read an astronomy textbook alongside it for the facts.

"I think that the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries." (233)

The World is Flat: a Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman

In 2004, less than a decade into the new century, Friedman had the gall to write its history. And not just idle speculation: 571 pages of data, interviews, and anecdotes. Friedman has identified what is one of the dominant trends of global history, a trend rapidly accelerating: the forces globalizing the world, converging its societies' economic, political, and cultural differences into global collaboration and cooperation. Friedman is an unapologetic advocate of globalization, and sees in it much hope for the future of humankind.

Friedman is a fan of lists. He has lists of global flatteners, lists of ways business should cope, lists of ways governments can ride the wave of global wealth, etc. I really like that about his book. He took a global phenomenon that I was frustrated at not understanding and wrote a monster size book to integrate all those ideas. Now I have a framework to look at outsourcing, the war in Iraq, energy resource wars, and other big-issue topics in the news.

Another thing I like about this book is Friedman's balanced approach. He is honest about the limits of globalization. It will be scary for many people - people in developed nations whose factory jobs go to China, people in developing nations who lack the infrastructure to open a business and grow their wealth, people who find traditional cultural patterns disrupted by capitalism. American workers who find that their services are being outsourced (e.g. tax returns) will have to creatively find ways to rethink their skill set and market themselves differently.
Friedman argues that out multiple identities and motives will come into sharper conflict in a flat world. So the consumer in us likes cheap electronics, but the laborer in us doesn't want American jobs going overseas, doesn't want the subpar working standards that often produce our iDevices. (My grandpa lived in Oakdale, California, where Hershey's used to have a chocolate factory. After they moved the factory to Modesto, he would check the labels of every Hershey's he ever bought to make it sure it came from their remaining American plant in Pennsylvania.)

Friedman is an advocate of "compassionate flatism." He sees globalization as a way to bring out every nation's potential, citing the fact that even untouchables in India can be brought out of their shameful discrimination. Also, he invents the "Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention," the idea that complex supply chains coordinated across many countries will prevent peace better than any treaties and protests. So China may want to invade Taiwan, but if they do so their trade will be cut off and China's factories and firms will suffer greatly. But because of the speed of globalization, Friedman also wants governments to ensure people are trained with the skills to be competitive in this new world. He slams Americans for being complacent, assuming they will always be successful, being lazy in school: "In China, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America, Britney Spears is Britney Spears. That's the problem." There is a wake up call here, but it can be made more compassionate if we train people and we ensure that no matter where factories are, working standards will be safe and adequate.

There's a lot of hope in this book. I enjoyed that. But at 571 pages, it's a bit long winded. (I listened to it on audiobook - it was 19.5 hours.) Friedman revised and expanded the book twice. After winning two Pulitzer Prizes, he may feel less need to work to get an audience, so he can distress, include more quotes, more vignettes. So while I loved this book, it felt repetitive in places, and Friedman eels to attribute everything under the sun to his theory of the flat world. Still, I wish someone had laid this on me when I started college at 18, and if I were a college president now I would make this required reading for all freshmen.

This goes in the "Book to give away after reading" pile!

Skills drawing from:
http://www.loosetooth.com/Viscom/gf/worldisflat.htm

> 68 - That is a really cool skills drawing!

2 great reviews! I read cosmos & a brief history of time relative recently and feel pretty much the same about them as you. I have on my wishlist the demon haunted world which I keep meaning to get to as I do like Sagan's writing

the world is flat sounds like the kind of book i could enjoy too!

Thanks psutto!

I always liked Sagan. He's accessible and I liked how he reconciled his scientific knowledge and his religious beliefs. The Demon Haunted World is among my favorite Sagan books.

The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan

I was taken by Sagan when I read Cosmos, and I am taken with him in this book, the record of his 1985 Gifford Lectures. Sagan tackles questions of religion and the future of humanity using the mixture of incisive thought and open humility that he does in his other books. His main idea is that religion, like so much human activity, is tainted by a thorough parochialism. We join the religion of our culture, not noticing the thousands of alternative true faiths. For some reason, apparitions of the Virgin Mary only show up in Catholic lands. The Abrahamic faiths progress as if humans are the only creatures in the galaxy of godlike intelligence.

Sagan is an unabashed religious skeptic. He spends one chapter picking apart arguments for God's existence. He spends another chapter looking at "extraterrestrial lore" and the mind's ability to fool itself. One alleged "flying saucer" sighting, but a highway patrolman, turned out to be a farmer's wheat silo. The fantastic detail of alien sightings and abductions and the total lack of evidence associated with them form an interesting contrast. Same with early twentieth century amateur astronomer Percival Lowell's belief that he could see canals on Mars - and the total lack of evidence from telescope photos. The human mind is very good at making itself believe whatever it wants. Thought is frail.

Instead of wishful thinking and parochial views on the cosmos, Sagan calls for a scientific approach to life in the broadest sense:

We have Ten Commandments in the West. Why is there no commandment exhorting us to learn? "Thou shalt understand the world. Figure things out." There's nothing like that. And very few religions urge us to enhance our understanding of the natural world.

Reading Sagan and other religious skeptics is good for a believer like me. It's like an enema: painful but makes me examine my beliefs.

What I like about Sagan is that although he is an atheist or agnostic, he recognizes religion's power to change the world. These lectures, given in 1985 at the end of the Cold War (not that he knew that!), are concerned with the possibility of nuclear apocalypse. We forget how vast human history is, how expansive the universe is, and get caught up in petty conflicts that can have eons of repercussions. Sagan, ever the astronomer concerned with the big picture of life, calls us to think about the progress of not American, not Chinese, not Islamic, but human civilization as a whole. Would another, more advanced race be impressed by us? Or would it pity our stupidity, our efforts to play at grand civilization with stone age minds? Were Sagan alive I suspect he would be an activist for the Long Now foundation. As it is he recognizes the powerful ability of religion to change the world for the better. And as a scientific prophet, he calls for that change:

Christianity also says that redemption is possible. So an anti-Christian would be someone who argues to hate your enemy and that redemption is impossible, that bad people remain forever bad. So I ask you, which position is better suited to an age of apocalyptic weapons? What do you do if one side does not profess those views and you claim to be Christian? … You can also ask, which position is uniformly embraced by the nation-states? The answers to those questions are very clear. There is no nation that adopts the Christian position on this issue. Not one. (209)

Amen.

{This is the my first read in the "Gifford Lectures" category. I'm ready for more!)

And for my "Old Testament" category:

Jonah: A Psycho-Religious Approach to the Prophet by Andre Lacocque and Pierre-Emmanuel Lacocque

The Lacocques, a father-son team of a biblical scholar and a psychologist, have written a splendid book. Using the lens of historically-informed psychological criticism, they examine the book of Jonah. Using this book, they segue into some broader psychological issues, such as the "Jonah Complex" and the need to listen to the Outer Voice.

They start by positing that Jonah is a Hellenistic satire, akin to the satires of the Cynics. Hellenistic Judaism was forced to encounter a broader, universalistic culture, and Jonah was written to make fun of those who would only see God at work in the people of Israel. They point to elements of the story, such as the setting on a ship, that resemble a typical Greek romance. Most importantly, they see all in the story as deep symbol.

Then, in four chapters, they comment on the four-chapter book. Jonah 1, which the Lacocques title "Anonymity and Vocation," defines the "Jonah Syndrome," Abraham Maslow's term for those who are afraid of their own greatness and do not wish to stand out from the crowd. In being called to his greatness on his divine mission, Jonah is also being called to contemplate his life work, and hence his mortality. Instead, Jonah wants to be coddled, to retreat to the symbolic womb, the bottom of a ship where he can ignore his calling.

But of course, he cannot ignore his calling. So in chapter two, "From Nothingness to Being," Jonah hits rock bottom, finding that in fact his whole purpose in life is God. He must move from narcissism to self-oblation, from a running to death to an embracing life, embracing God. The fish's belly is a womb in which Jonah is reborn into God, who brings order even out of the chaos of a drowning prophet in the stinking, acidic, dark innards of a fish.

But when Jonah actualizes his call in chapter three, "Faith and Doubt: the Ambiguity of Commitment," he finds that he objects to God Himself. Jonah is mad that God wishes to forgive the Ninevites. He wants God to wreak vengeance on them. Typically this inability on Jonah's part to accept God's forgiveness is seen as a weakness, but in fact his is a normal human response. He simply thinks God's honor is too great, His mercy too special, to be cheaply given out. His logic is: that which is special must be protected and scarce. God's logic is: what I am, my mercy and love, are for everyone. Jonah's inability to accept this mirrors those in our own world who value orthodoxy over human life. Jonah's desire to cling to particularism when all the non-Israelite characters in the story are devout to the gods - the sailors and the Ninevites- makes Jonah look even sillier.

In chapter four, "A Matter of Justice," this conflict comes to a head. Is there any meaning to life, Jonah asks himself, once his righteous anger at Ninevah's sin and excitement about its destruction have been thwarted? This upsets Jonah so much that he leaves the city, leaves all human contact, a sign of either prophetic solitude (a la Elijah and Jesus) or psychotic disconnect with reality. Not only is he unable to deal with this new reality, not only is he suicidal, but he doesn't even get the last word. God does, leaving us unsure what happens to Jonah. Does he repent and realize God's mercy, His "compassion beyond justice and anger" (Heschel)? Or does he continue to curse God and wish for his own death?

Lacocque see Jonah as a story of the call to human authenticity. And in the Hebrew tradition, that call is always a call in tandem with God:

"The Hebrew Scripture posits that human vocation involves a certain quality of life, a becoming that brings humans to be themselves by means of an ongoing dialogue with the source of life, namely God." (74)

Jonah's story is a warning that we need to be careful, careful not to let the internal dialogue between the self and God devolve into a narcissistic monologue that prevents us from understanding the true God. Yes, we should be critical of our spiritual insights and blunders, but trusting as well. This includes the "Jonah complex" that "fear of greatness" that might say more about Maslow's humanistic psychology than about Jonah. For Jonah's ultimate pitfall was not fearing his own greatness, but God's. His true need was not to follow his internal voice, but the external voice.

Psychological biblical criticism is still a small subfield, and Lacocque and his son have written a neat volume in the area. Although their methodology was somewhat undefined - they never made it clear which psychologists or paradigms they were working with - their results are so insightful that it is worth the effort.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

In a way I am obligated to like this book, because I attend Hosseini’s alma mater and we have his portrait on our library walls. But Hosseini, though a great novelist, was a biology major, later getting a medical degree. He was also an Afghan refugee. All these experiences have made him write a great novel. I listened to this on audio (11 discs) and got through it in about two days.

My favorite part of this book was the beginning with the tense stories of Assef’s childhood. The tension between his commitment to his friend and the pull to satisfy his dad and fit into society’s inequalities was compelling. As the book wore on, however, it became more predictable, less compelling. Without revealing the end, I will say that the book’s main theme is redemption. Just when it felt that the plot was tied up, that the redemption had happened and the book could end, Hosseini added some odd extra scenes. Still, this was his first novel. I am going to read more of this guy!

(This goes in "books to give away.")

Altered Egos: How the Brain Creates the Self by Todd E. Feinberg

Feinberg, a neuropsychiatrist, draws on his expertise to dive into the problem of the self. He explores various neurological disorders that blur the self-world boundary and gives a theory for how the self is constructed in the mind.

In the first part of the book, he defines four types of disorders. The first are those that make us block a part of ourselves off as not being part of the self. Stroke victims who disidentify with an arm are one example. They think the arm belongs to someone else, or give it a name and treat it like an annoying friend. Other disorders affect the way we recognize extensions of the self, such as friends or belongings. For example, sufferers of Capgras syndrome, which effects the emotions of recognition, can still see that those around them look like their loved ones. But now feeling the jolt of recognition, they believe that their spouse and children have been replaced by imposters. The third type of disorder, personal confabulation, makes people invent stories about themselves. They may have forgotten their real identity or are in denial of psychological trauma, so they externalize it (“my brother just had a stroke”). The last type of disorder involves people not recognizing themselves in the mirror. These people will even stand in front of the mirror and yell at this mocking person who copies one’s own actions.

Then Feinberg presents his theory of how the self is constructed. He’s an emergentist: from smaller systems, larger ones emerge that cannot be reduced to their parts. So just as atoms form parts of the cell, which in turn for the cell, so brain cells which form parts of the brain also construct the self. The “self” is not to be identified with one part of the brain, as Descartes thought, but is a dynamic construct emerging from many lower-level functions of the brain. Feinberg postulates two emergentism: that it is unpredictable how lower-level systems create higher-level ones, and that the lower levels are constrained by the activity of the higher levels. So the “self” constrains its parts by ordering them, but the parts constrain the self, as in these neurological disorders. Finally, the “self” as Feinberg describes it is defined by purpose. Rather than some static notion of the soul, the self can be defined as whatever function, purpose, or meaning all the parts of the mind are working in concert toward. It’s a telenomic system.

Feinberg’s clinical examples are interesting, but I don’t see how they connect to the second half of his book. If the self-world boundary as is malleable as he demonstrates, would this not defeat any notion of the self and lead us into Humean non-self? And while I think emergentism is the right direction for philosophers of mind to go in, by no means is it a complete theory. We still don’t have a clear idea of how higher levels or organization are formed from lower. Why do certain cells elicit consciousness and not others? Feinberg is better with clinical experience than with philosophy. I would read this book for the first half, but read someone else for the philosophical reflections.

Altered Egos: How the Brain Creates the Self by Todd E. Feinberg

Feinberg, a neuropsychiatrist, draws on his expertise to dive into the problem of the self. He explores various neurological disorders that blur the self-world boundary and gives a theory for how the self is constructed in the mind.

In the first part of the book, he defines four types of disorders. The first are those that make us block a part of ourselves off as not being part of the self. Stroke victims who disidentify with an arm are one example. They think the arm belongs to someone else, or give it a name and treat it like an annoying friend. Other disorders affect the way we recognize extensions of the self, such as friends or belongings. For example, sufferers of Capgras syndrome, which effects the emotions of recognition, can still see that those around them look like their loved ones. But now feeling the jolt of recognition, they believe that their spouse and children have been replaced by imposters. The third type of disorder, personal confabulation, makes people invent stories about themselves. They may have forgotten their real identity or are in denial of psychological trauma, so they externalize it (“my brother just had a stroke”). The last type of disorder involves people not recognizing themselves in the mirror. These people will even stand in front of the mirror and yell at this mocking person who copies one’s own actions.

Then Feinberg presents his theory of how the self is constructed. He’s an emergentist: from smaller systems, larger ones emerge that cannot be reduced to their parts. So just as atoms form parts of the cell, which in turn for the cell, so brain cells which form parts of the brain also construct the self. The “self” is not to be identified with one part of the brain, as Descartes thought, but is a dynamic construct emerging from many lower-level functions of the brain. Feinberg postulates two emergentism: that it is unpredictable how lower-level systems create higher-level ones, and that the lower levels are constrained by the activity of the higher levels. So the “self” constrains its parts by ordering them, but the parts constrain the self, as in these neurological disorders. Finally, the “self” as Feinberg describes it is defined by purpose. Rather than some static notion of the soul, the self can be defined as whatever function, purpose, or meaning all the parts of the mind are working in concert toward. It’s a telenomic system.

Feinberg’s clinical examples are interesting, but I don’t see how they connect to the second half of his book. If the self-world boundary as is malleable as he demonstrates, would this not defeat any notion of the self and lead us into Humean non-self? And while I think emergentism is the right direction for philosophers of mind to go in, by no means is it a complete theory. We still don’t have a clear idea of how higher levels or organization are formed from lower. Why do certain cells elicit consciousness and not others? Feinberg is better with clinical experience than with philosophy. I would read this book for the first half, but read someone else for the philosophical reflections.

(Also goes in "books to give away.")

sounds intereting - I read Bruce Hood recently the self illusion I think I'd like to read altered egos to see the clinician's point of view as Hood is a cognitive scientist

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

"There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."

Just as avidmom said it would be, this book was amazing. Corrie ten Boom was a Jew-hider in the occupied Netherlands in World War II. The secret compartment build into her third-story bedroom was so seamlessly constructed that Nazis who raided their house and arrested the entire family could not find it. Ten Boom, who by wartime was a middle-aged spinster daughter of a respected watchmaker, endured the depravities of Nazi prisons and the Ravensbruck concentration camp with her sister. Her sister died in the camp.

Ten Boom built a home after the war for survivors of concentration camps who needed space to recover from their trauma. She even opened her home to former Dutch Nazi-supporters who were shunned and berated after the war. She found that only those who could forgive the Nazis were able to find peace.

Until her death at age 91, ten Boom traveled the world preaching and writing about God's forgiveness. She may seem like an incredibly pious woman but in the book she constantly makes the point that her sister was her real role model in holiness. She could find God in anything. When the ten Booms got to Ravensbruck, the flea epidemic in the dorms disgusted Corrie. Her sister said to thank God for the fleas. Months later, they found that guards refused to go into the dorms because of the fleas, making it safe for Corrie and her sister to lead forbidden Bible studies and prayer groups without being caught.


Ravensbruck, the concentration camp only for women where the Ten Boom sisters stayed.

(This book is in the "books to get read of" category.)

The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness by Martha Stout

We often think of people with multiple personality disorder as raving lunatics, dramatic shifters like Sibyl and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.



Stout, a clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma, identifies these kind of dramatic shifts between opposite named personae as only the extreme end of a spectrum of Dissociative Identity Disorders. These can range from people who blank out mentally at a triggering stimulus to Sibyl. Her point is that by stigmatizing DID, we often do not see it in our midst, instead labeling someone as "absent minded" or as a "space cadet." But DID is neither a joke nor a rare phenomenon. Stout identifies it as a protective reaction to extreme psychological trauma, especially in childhood. She tells stories of clients who were horribly abused, including a man who had childhood memories of watching his brother beaten to death by a sadistic uncle. By creating dissociative states and identities who take the blow of the shame and trauma of abuse, the primary ego is able to remain protected and insulated. Stout is most impressed with the way in which multiples can still retain a strong sense of responsibility for the reckless and suicidal behavior of their dissociative states and identities.

Like many psychology books this one got me thinking about my own experience. My brother and I, at 13 and 8 respectively, were in a horrible car crash in which we witnessed our parents' death. In the hospital afterwards he remembered the scene while I did not. Later I remembered and he did not. Now we both remember (not that we talk about it!). Of course there is also the possibility that one of us created the memory. Stout admits this is a possibility with "repressed" memories, especially when hypnosis is involved. But then again, aren't all of our memories (especially ones central to our self-narrative) created to some extent?

It can be a little discomforting to read how unstable our egos and memories really are, but this was a fascinating book full of great stories. I especially enjoyed reading about those who were able to heal.

(This book is in the "books to get read of" category.)

I have started my 2014 Category Challenge thread:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/158882

@ 79 -- You've reminded me that I really need to read The Hiding Place! I'm adding it to my list of possibilities for 2014 right now...

Group reads on LT:

Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Line by Jason Rosenhouse

Rosenhouse, a math professor, did his postdoc in Kansas. While there he worked with the state department of education developing science and math curriculum. This was during a time when creationists were lobbying the state to teach their "science" in the classroom. So Rosenhouse went to one of their conferences. He was hooked. This book is the record of Rosenhouse's experiences at various creationist and intelligent design conferences and the Kentucky creationist museum. Interspersed throughout the book are his refutations of creationism and ID and his explanation of his own secular atheist beliefs.

I admire the way he respectfully debates with creationists. Most people find their ignorance of science irritating. Rosenhouse reports that he enjoys debating with them because in them he sees a passion for the big scientific questions that he shares. He finds a broad spectrum of creationists, from Bible-thumpers to ones with scientific backgrounds who are at least attempting to find viable scientific models for the flood, for the days of creation, etc. What Rosenhouse sees as their concern is not evolution per se, but the perceived dehumanizing effects of evolution. What special and sacred place do humans occupy in a world where we are not starkly separated from primates? I admire the way in which we tries to dig deeper into their worldview and sympathetically understand their concerns.

What else should we know about the creationists? For one, they are expert scienticians.** They are good at throwing around scientific terms, although they often misuse them. Rosenhouse catches this especially when he hears a talk involving information theory, which is one of the foundations of intelligent design. As a mathematician he is not afraid to stand up at Q&A and point out the blatant misuse of terms and bad chain of logic that a speaker has employed. Ironically fellow conference participants - most of whom have no scientific background - often tell him he needs to learn more about science!

Another interesting feature of this subculture is their common belief in a doctrine called the "perspicuity of scripture." If God wrote the Bible to speak to everyone, they say, then anyone who is literate should be able to comprehend scripture. If Genesis says "day," then by gum, it means day! This mindset is rather foreign to me, fascinated as I am by historical and literary approaches to the Bible. They seem to forget that a literate layman's ability to read the Bible presupposes a Biblical expert's need to translate it, which always involves some amount of interpretation. But this kind of dissecting of the broader background of the creationist worldview makes this book a great window into creationist thought.

And liberal Christians don't come off any easier in Rosenhouse's estimate. He reviews various liberal theologians' approaches to Genesis and finds most of them lacking. The main hermeneutic he seems amenable to is just admitting that the Bible is written by humans who bring their culture into the way they understand God, and rather than being God's word word-for-word the Bible is a human document that provides glimpses into God. I have thought this for some time but Rosenhouse's subjects do not.

One of my favorite chapters was his description of his identity as a cultural Jew. I have long admired Jewish culture for their focus on education and debate. Rosenhouse wants the culture without the metaphysics - one might call him a religious non-realist. There are days I feel the same way. But like Rosenhouse, one wonders if cultural religion will last. If every Jew went this route, would there still be synagogues? Are the creationists right in believing that once you start to let go of literalism and fundamentalism, secularist atheism isn't far off?

A dinosaur at the Creationist Museum in Kentucky. Creationists believe not only that we co-existed with them, but that we domesticated them too.

Is that supposed to be a tame triceratops...?? Hmm, interesting.

For some reason that picture makes me think of the Doctor Who episode "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship". :)

> 86

It's kinda sad when one's version of science can only remind an intelligent citizen of a sci-fi show.

I had no idea Creationists believed in dinosaurs. Or that they had a museum. During a visit to the Museum of Natural History I saw a young boy trying to drag his mother into the dinosaur room. She said " No honey, we don't believe in that". I figured they were Creationists. Hmm..
That dinosaur does look like the one that Rory and Mark ride in Doctor Who. AND, guess what is on BBC America RIGHT NOW? Dinosaurs on a Spaceship!! Strange coincidence.

Aren't Triceratops supposed to be 20-30 feet long? He says realising that that's not the only problem with it....

Haven't been around here in a while! School has been pulling me away. I have been reading, but not much within my categories. (Check out my thread in Club Read 2013 if you want to see everything I've been up to.)

As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg



"'You know, Nicholaus,' Elisha replied obliquely, 'I have of late made an interesting discovery about the processes of living. In our Tradition there are a number of epigrams about the prerequisites of jiman happiness. One of the sages generations ago enumerated truth, justice, and peace as essentials; another, God's law, His service and acts of mercy. Actually the stuff of spiritual peace is of a much less heroic character. A man has happiness if he possesses three things - those whom he loves and who love him in turn, confidence in the worth and continued existence of the group of which he is a part, and last of all, a truth by which he may order his being…. These are just the qualities that are passing from my life.'"

The protagonist of this novel, Elisha ben Abuyah, has a dilemma. He is one of the most respected rabbinic authorities in the land, having been elected to the Sanhedrin. He has also begun questioning God's existence. This novel, imbued with philosophy, and history, follows him on this pursuit. It comes to a startling conclusion.

Steinberg, an American and Conservative rabbi, first published this novel in 1939. I can only imagine what kind of tumult Judaism was in worldwide at the time. How were Jews to relate to the larger world? Would outside ideas invigorate Judaism with a new idiom or debase and distort it? Steinberg uses the example of Hellenistic and Jewish thought to speculate on this question. Here Jewish thought is tradition-based and devotional, focused on legal questions more than philosophical. Greek thought, on the other hand, is pure reason, beginning with no presuppositions (think Euclid). Elisha is caught between the two, struggling to develop a synthesis.

I really, really enjoyed this novel. It reminds me of Herman Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund, another highly philosophical novel that I read in high school. Unlike Hesse's novel, this is historical fiction based on a figure described as an apostate rabbi in the Talmud. Steinberg not only speculates on the historical Elisha's life journey but convincingly recreates the milieu of Judaism between the destruction of the Second Temple (70 AD) and the Bar-Kochba revolt of 131-132. This is what led my Talmud teacher to recommend it to me in the first place.



Sadly, Steinberg himself died at 46 in 1950. It was thought that he had nothing else to write until an unfinished novel of his, The Prophet's Wife, was published in 2010.

(N.B. Though this book isn't strictly about biblical characters, I'm going to file it under "biblical fiction" because it covers first- and second-century Judaism so well.)

The Hiding Place would be a good re-read for me. Thanks for the reminder. I really enjoyed it when I read it years ago.

Blood Brotherhood by Robert Barnard

I needed some light reading last weekend and this fit the bill. Barnard's book tells the story of a murder mystery at a monastery. Most of the characters are Anglican clergy - both easily despised and hysterical characters. I hadn't read a murder mystery in years so this was a good way for me to read something out of my usual groove. :)

Love the cover BTW:



This goes in the books to give away category.

The Grace of Silence: A Family Memoir by Michele Norris

I came across this book as my girlfriend was weeding through her room. In 2011-2012 all students at Sac State (where she was) were encouraged to read it, and it was assigned for her composition class. She didn’t care for it too much. Her loss, I say.

Norris’s name might be familiar to you who listen to NPR. She is one of their news correspondents. In 2011 she began writing a book about Obama and what his election means for African-Americans. She wound up writing a book diving into her family history and how it intertwined with many seminal events in black history. She found out things about her maternal grandma and her father that they hid from her (and everyone else) for life.

Her maternal grandma, it turned out, worked as an “Aunt Jemima” saleswoman in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Norris even managed to turn up a newspaper article about her grandma, celebrating her achievement as a representative of a major brand. Aunt Jemima was actually based on racist “slave mammy” stereotypes, evoking nostalgia of pre-Civil War days. Norris tries to dive into her grandma’s mind and make sense of the ambivalence she would have felt, using something traumatically racist for her own benefit and fortune.

She also found out that her father had been shot by a white cop as a young man. She was shocked. Her dad, the most law-abiding man she ever knew, a man who worked hard and took pride in his perfect garden and polished car – attacked a cop. This was in 1946, in Birmingham, a city later reviled during the Civil Rights era as the “most segregated city in America.” He had just returned from his armed forces tour overseas. Norris does some amazing searching to find police records from that time, and interviews some elderly people who were involved in her dad’s shooting and arrest.

But why did he never say? This is where Norris captures the “grace of silence.” Her grandma, dad, and all her other relatives scarred and traumatized by racism were not passive or too frightened to speak, she argues. Instead they chose to not dwell on the negative. But how, Norris asks, can the healing begin without any testimony? She understands the grace of silence, but prefers the catharsis of opening old wounds. Thankfully her way of writing about those wounds is clear, deftly mixing personal and political. Her conclusion – about bringing in everyone to conversations on racism, not just victims – is spot-on. A neat book.

Also in the books to discard pile!!

Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature by Liz Wilson

This is one of the best academic books I have read in a long while. Wilson examines early Buddhist hagiographies to find ways in which holy women lived under the gaze of male viewers. Female bodies, with all their sexual attraction, represented everything antithetical to monastic virtues: sex, lust, the attachments of family. Wilson looks at how women represented themselves as disgusting, disfiguring themselves to meet monks’ expectations. (Super gruesome.) Wilson is actually a good writer, not always common for an academic.

(Goes in the books about women category)

In honor of the last day of the year, I'm posting a short reflection on what I've done in 2013 reading-wise. Sadly I failed the 13 in 13, but in other ways this was a good year.

2013 reading reflections

Statistics:

Men vs. women
24 (15%) women
133 (85%) men

Date of Publication: Before or After 1900
19 (12%) before 1900
138 (88%) after 1900

Nationalities and Ethnicities
111 European-American
17 English
4 Dutch
4 Jewish
3 African American
2 Ancient Greek
2 Medieval Italian
2 Hispanic
2 Arab-American
2 Tibetan
1 Afghani-American
1 Indian-American
1 Algerian
1 Italian
1 Chinese-American
1 German
1 Argentinian
1 Vietnamese
1 Persian
1 Indian
1 Thai
1 Ancient Roman

Fiction vs. nonfiction
25 (16%) fiction
132 (84%) nonfiction

Most boring: books I have a hard time saying anything nice about
King David by Kyle Baker: poorly drawn, not much rethinking of the biblical story
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking: too technical, couldn’t understand it (contrast to Carl Sagan)
Bestsellers: A Very Short Introduction by John Sutherland: tedious and un-analytical

Most Innovative: books that opened new questions for me, often about things I don’t ponder much
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman
I don’t know much about economics, so I really appreciated Friedman’s overview of the economic and political problems and opportunities associated with global capitalism.
The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois
I don’t know much about African-American history, but Du Bois is a great expositor of many of the social, economic, and moral problems that still affect them today.
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
A food bible.
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
Sagan’s book is dated but really made me gain a sense of wonder at the beauty of the universe and our quest to understand it.

Most Influential: Books that have a longer impact on my intellectual development, especially as a budding scholar of religions
Vain Debates: The Buddhist-Christian Controversies of Nineteenth-Century Ceylon by Richard Fox Young
Young’s book is an excellent look at how interreligious apologetics play out in the public sphere. He helped me think about ways in which interreligious discourse should NOT happen.
Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious by Chris Stedman
Ever since reading Richard Dawkins for a spring class, I have wondered how the current atheist/humanist movement is moving its positive issues forward rather than the negative ones Dawkins focuses on. Stedman gives a great explanation of what interfaith work means to him as a secular humanist.
Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism by Rita M. Gross
Gross’ book really helped me think about ways in which current paradigms can reread the past. How can feminists retrieve models from the past, if the past if misogyny and denial of womens’ ability?
Animal Guides: In Life, Myth and Dreams by Neil Russack
I read Russack’s work after having a profound dream involving some of my childhood cats. Russack, a Jungian analyst, gave me great insight into how animals function in dreams and fit universal archetypes.
Turning Suffering Inside Out by Darlene Cohen
Late Zen teacher Cohen helped me see an often-underemphasized side of Zen: its compassion, gentleness, and patience. I want to read this again in 2014.

Authors I discovered and want to read more of
G. K. Chesterton
H. P. Lovecraft
Milton Steinberg, although he only has one famous novel
Barbara Brown Taylor
J.R.R. Tolkien
Oliver Sacks
Barbara Ehrenreich
Irvin Yalom
George MacDonald

Questions:
What changed my reading habits this year?
Definitely audiobooks. It started with Librivox. Then one day I went to the public library and discovered its audiobook section. Then I started listening to courses on iTunes U. Then I got an Audible subscription and started listening to the Great Courses series. I have now done 3 Great Courses and 2 iTunes U courses.

How can I change next year?
I passed the 75 books challenge this year – not hard for a university student whose job it is to read. But I failed the 13 in 13 challenge. Next year I would like to pass the even-harder 14 in 14 challenge.

I would also like to reach 175 books. Last year I reached at least 150, and this year I hit 157. Within a few years I would like to get to 200.

Next year I would also like to re-read some of the books I mentioned above and read more of the authors above.

One other thing: this year I have done quite well in weeding out my collection (especially the last few months): moving from dorm to apartment, donating about 80 books over Thanksgiving break, etc. Every unread book is another thing chomping away at my life, stressing me out with its "you should read me" message. It's like having a house full of unfinished projects. Last night I weeded out 3 bags full for donation. This coming year I hope to keep more strictly to my book buying limits and get through much of what is already in my library.

I'm off to star your 2014 thread. I always enjoy your reviews. Happy New Year!

Thanks! Happy New Year to you as well!

Impressive stats. Well, except for the number of female authors. Congratulations on the book weeding. A few years ago I donated a number of books that had been sitting on my shelves, unread, for 13+ years. It felt good.

Nice recap of the year. It sounds like you did indeed have a very good reading year. I enjoyed your thoughts on Cosmos. I'd read several of Sagan's books as a teen and have fond memories of them. I've been wondering whether they are worth a reread or whether they will feel dated. After seeing your review, I might give them a try again.

Mathgirl - it was startling to read Sagan describing the "recent" Mars landing of the '70s. I wish he were still alive to do a revision of his book and series. I also read The Varieties of Scientific Experience, his Gifford lectures, and while they repeated a lot of his asides in Cosmos it had some interesting thoughts on religion.