Book: What about Hitler? Wrestling with Jesus’s Call to Nonviolence in an Evil World, by Robert W. Brimlow Grade: B- Disclaimer: This may be an unfair grade, since this is my first venture into the theology of pacifism. I’ve been increasingly fascinated by the practice and philosophy of nonviolence as I’ve worked my way through [...]
Books: Various Collective Grade: Hmmm… I’m actually a chapter or so into next week’s book, a set of theological essays on God and genocide called Show Them No Mercy, and I’m finding it enlightening. But I started it last week and then, for various reasons, needed a week of just plain fun reading. So instead [...]
Book: The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick Grade: A- Why: The first fully successful alternative history. Japan and Germany triumph in World War II, but a novelist living in Japan-controlled Cheyenne has written a bestselling alternative history in which Germany lost. Fearing German reprisals, the writer has retreated to a guarded [...]
Book: How Fiction Works, by James Wood Grade: C Why: Too much micro-analysis, too little attention to the whole; too much scorn for the “popular,” too much delight in his own prose (“Nearly all of Muriel Spark’s novels are fiercely composed and devoutly starved”), way too much jargon (“Characterological relativity”? Really?). Wood is intensely interested [...]
Vacation is great. I haven’t set my alarm since my last post on December 20th, and my husband bought me HUGE chocolate-peanutbutter cups at the local candy store and I’ve had one for breakfast every morning. Next week I’ll actually be getting back to work, since I haven’t finished up the maps, timelines, and illustrations [...]
