A Book a Week

 Finished April 21, 2022 I enjoy survival and apocalyptic fiction, and I recognize that this book is not the high-minded literature that "The Woman in White" or "Romeo and Juliet" is. But it is loads of fun. So there you have it.  The author takes both his idea and the method of telling it from Max Brooks' World War Z , a book that terrified me 15 years ago. At first, I thought this was a rip-off, but it's really an homage. As Taylor explains in his introduction, he loved World War Z and kept waiting for a sequel, or a prequel, or some other follow-up. When none was forthcoming, he wrote his own. And did a very good job. As with  World War Z,  what makes this book riveting is the gritty realism with which it is told. A worldwide zombie apocalypse is told from various viewpoints, like the app developer who got rich creating an app to help people spread the word that zombies are in the area, and ends up living on a cruise ship at a remote island. Or the Chine...

Finished April 16, 2002 I love that feeling of complete integration when I'm listening to a podcast or audiobook and I get so fascinated that I have to pull over and park, and listen with all my being. It's like a feeling of falling in, but pleasantly so.  That happened today with a sequel to a book in which it had happened before. The first book, Hatchet , concerned a 13-year-old boy named Brian who must survive in the Canadian Rockies when his small plane crash lands. Hatchet contained several scenes in which I "fell in." The sequel (one of several sequels), Brian's Return , contained a poignant scene in which Brian has an experience reading Shakespeare that changes his life. In the story, Brian's friend had recommended that he take a few -- just a few -- books with him when he went back to his beloved forest. He recommended Shakespeare and told Brian to read slowly and out loud. Feeling a little silly, Brian does one day, as he waits for his clothes to dry...

  Finished March 23, 2022 Mortimer Adler is to philosophy what Thomas Sowell is to economics and public policy; he clarifies complex ideas so that the lay person can easily understand complex concepts. And that's what he did in this book.  Many of the reviewers on Amazon have stated that although this is a populist book, it is not for the reader to whom philosophy is unknown. I would disagree. I have never read nor studied Kant, Aristotle, or Locke -- indeed, I have a high school education -- yet I understood 90% of what Adler teaches in this book. I listened to the audiobook, but I plan to purchase the paperback format so I can go through it again, making annotations.  One of Adler's main points to the reader is to understand the difference between knowledge, understanding, and opinion, and how we acquire each of these. He also points out where accepted philosophical assumptions need to be clarified or corrected. Adler is not a Christian, and his worldview necessarily co...