Becky’s Book Reviews
Books & Culture: A Christian Review
The Book Swede and His Blog
Chicago Tribune
Discover
Entertainment Weekly
Faith Inspired Books
HistoryNet
In the Bookroom (Library Journal)
Los Angeles Times
National Public Radio
The New York Review of Books
New York Times
POD Book Reviews & More
Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County
SMS Book Reviews
Zitna’s Reviews
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query library. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query library. Sort by date Show all posts
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Monday, October 22, 2012
Bibliography
I notice Man vs.
Fiction has posted a bibliography
of the books reviewed on the blog so far.
I typically include bibliographic information with all my reviews.
Is bibliography important? I
think it is a matter of context.
In academic or research settings where it is important to produce
verifiable results, it is important.
In a context like this blog, it is not very important. One can find a book pretty easily online or
on a library’s computerized catalog with just the title or author’s name. Readers of this blog aren’t likely to be
helped by additional publishing information except possibly the year of
publication. Some people are mainly
interested in recent books, though obviously I’m not. A detailed bibliography is not necessary for
a blog like this, but it is easy to include, so I do.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Halloween Links
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Interesting Stuff Feb. 17, 2011
Comics Code Authority Seal of Approval
-Archie Drops CCA in February
-Censors and Sensibility: RIP, Comics Code Authority Seal Of Approval, 1954 - 2011
-Comics Code Authority—Defunct Since 2009?
-Comics Code Authority is Dead
-DC Replaces Comics Code Approval
-The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu
Deconstructing Lichtenstein: Source Comics Revealed and Credited
February is Earthquake Preparedness Month (Missouri)
Interesting Stuff Jan. 27, 2011
Joanne Siegel, Inspiration for Lois Lane, Passes
-Joanne Siegel dies, widow of Superman co-creator, model for Lois Lane
-Joanne Siegel, Inspiration Behind Superman’s Lois Lane, Dies at 93
-Joanne Siegel, the Inspiration for Lois Lane, Passes Away at 93
-Joanne Siegel, the Model for Lois Lane, Passes at 93
-Joanne Siegel, Widow of Superman Creator Jerry Siegel, Dies at 93
-RIP: Joanne Siegel
National Engineers Week (February 20-26)
-Discover Engineering
-Future City Competition
-Let’s Celebrate Engineers
-National Engineers Week Foundation
-Popsicle Stick Bridge Contest
The New York Public Library’s Extremely Useful Predecessor
Teenager Invents Working Solar Death Ray, Athenians Rejoice
-Archie Drops CCA in February
-Censors and Sensibility: RIP, Comics Code Authority Seal Of Approval, 1954 - 2011
-Comics Code Authority—Defunct Since 2009?
-Comics Code Authority is Dead
-DC Replaces Comics Code Approval
-The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu
Deconstructing Lichtenstein: Source Comics Revealed and Credited
February is Earthquake Preparedness Month (Missouri)
Interesting Stuff Jan. 27, 2011
Joanne Siegel, Inspiration for Lois Lane, Passes
-Joanne Siegel dies, widow of Superman co-creator, model for Lois Lane
-Joanne Siegel, Inspiration Behind Superman’s Lois Lane, Dies at 93
-Joanne Siegel, the Inspiration for Lois Lane, Passes Away at 93
-Joanne Siegel, the Model for Lois Lane, Passes at 93
-Joanne Siegel, Widow of Superman Creator Jerry Siegel, Dies at 93
-RIP: Joanne Siegel
National Engineers Week (February 20-26)
-Discover Engineering
-Future City Competition
-Let’s Celebrate Engineers
-National Engineers Week Foundation
-Popsicle Stick Bridge Contest
The New York Public Library’s Extremely Useful Predecessor
Teenager Invents Working Solar Death Ray, Athenians Rejoice
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Superman versus the Ku Klux Klan by Rick Bowers
On February 5, 1946, The Adventures of Superman radio
program opened with a new introduction:
Google
Yes, it’s
Superman. Strange visitor from another
planet, who came to earth with powers and abilities farbeyond those of mortal
men. Superman, defender of law and
order, champion of equal rights, valiant, courageous fighter against the forces
of hate and prejudice!
This announced the beginning of the radio Superman’s
struggle with post-war social issues, especially a campaign against racial and
religious intolerance. In this adventure,
Jimmy Olsen
infiltrated the Guardians of America, a fictional
stand-in for pro-Nazi
groups that were operating in the United States
at the time. This was only the
beginning. Later that year, Adventures would feature a 16-episode
story in which Superman took on the Clan of the Fiery Cross, a stand-in for the
Ku Klux Klan
(KKK).
Behind these fictional stories of Superman were real-life
adventures. The KKK was attempting to
launch a new national membership drive, playing on the insecurities people felt
after World
War II. There were real infiltrators
of the KKK and other organized hatemongers who exposed the workings of these
organizations in the media. Rick Bowers
tells the story of these men and the producers of the comic
book and radio Superman in Superman
versus the Ku Klux Klan.
Superman had been dealing with cultural concerns from his
beginning. When Jerry Siegel
and Joe
Shuster, Jewish
high-school students in Cleveland,
created Superman in the 1930s, they pitted
him against criminal
gangs and crooked politicians. As Nazi Germany began to
rise as an aggressive European power,
the hero opposed Nazis at home and abroad.
During the war,
he protected the home front. Though it
is not the focus, Bowers describes how Superman has changes with the concerns
of the times.
The Klan has roots going back to the Reconstruction
era after the Civil
War. It started as a jokey order of
former Confederate
Army officers in Tennessee who
imitated the mystery religion-inspired
fraternal orders that were popular at colleges, with mysterious rituals and
strange names. It spawned imitators that
secretly gathered in Nashville to
organize themselves in 1867. Former Confederate
General Nathan
Bedford Forrest was the first Grand Wizard, who lead the Klan in opposition
to Reconstruction, including domestic terrorism
against blacks and white proponents of racial equality and Reconstruction
policies. The violence of the Klan
members, called Ghouls, eroded the organization’s popularity.
William
J. Simmons launched a campaign to revive the Klan, taking it national in 1920. For Simmons it was largely a moneymaking
scheme, though he seemed happy to promote intolerance of blacks, Jews, Catholics, immigrants and
anyone else who wasn’t a white, male Protestant. (I’m a white, male Protestant and I find
nothing in Protestantism, or Christianity
in general, that justifies the intolerance promoted by the Klan.) Successors led the Klan to political activism
in the 1920s, and it became very powerful, but front-line violence and
leadership hypocrisy undermined their position.
The post-war membership campaign, led by Samuel Green
who was Grand Dragon of the Georgia Realm,
was thwarted by law enforcement and equal rights advocates with help of medial
like Adventures.
The library helpfully labeled Bowers’ book with a sticker that reads, “TEEN.” I suppose it is a young adult
book, though I think it is within the grasp of many middle school
students. It is an unusual introduction
to the history of bigotry in American and the movements that promoted equality,
but the tie to a popular superhero might make the subject more appealing to
kids in school. It made me pick up the
book, and I’m far passed my school days.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel
Steel, Piers. The Procrastination Equation: How to stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done. New York: Harper, 2011.
I don’t have a reputation as a procrastinator. In fact, some employers and clients have hired me because of my ability to get things done. However, looking around my home and office I saw many unfinished and delayed projects that indicated procrastination was a problem for me in some areas.
In The Procrastination Equation, Piers Steel describes the reasons behind procrastination and its scary costs, both to individuals and society. Fortunately, he also provides strategies for overcoming procrastination.
The big issue for procrastinators is impulsivity. I balked at this at first; I didn’t see myself as an impulsive person. When I read Steels description of how it works, I admitted to myself that I was more impulsive than I realized.
Impulsivity is an issue for nearly all procrastinators, indeed for nearly all people. Our limbic system drives use to respond to immediate concrete payoffs. Most of us live and work in a world of more distant, abstract goals, the realm of the prefrontal cortex. In the battle between the will of the prefrontal cortex and the urges of the limbic system, the limbic system is much stronger, so most of us are wired to give in to immediate gratification and give up, for a while, on seemingly far off, ethereal and uncertain objectives.
The way we live hits us from both sides. The greatest benefits accrue to those who can delay immediate gratification for greater, later benefits (eat vegetables instead of cookies, exercise instead of sleep in late, save money rather than spending it on the latest gadget). On the other side, we are bombarded with distractions that have immediate payoffs (especially television and the internet).
Steel offers methods for bolstering the prefrontal cortex, reducing distractions and even turning our impulsivity to our advantage. Even before I was finished with the book, I was seeing ways I could put some of these techniques into practice for myself.
There are other reasons for procrastination, but not many. You can take a short test in the book to find out why you procrastinate. In my case, one other factor in Steel’s equation was significant in my procrastination. I could see how it influenced my delaying habits throughout my life, even going back to my rebellion against spelling homework and multiplication tables in third grade (it’s amazing that I passed third grade).
I haven’t eliminated procrastination overnight (I just finished reading the book), and Steel doesn’t suggest anyone can. One can start doing something about it right away, and the science-based approaches offered in this book offer a reasonable expectation of success.
As an aside, I tweeted that I was reading the book and Dr. Steel and he replied with a humorous tweet that demonstrates my theory that published authors are also salesmen. (By the way, the tone of his book is often humorous, too.) Any of us who have a product or service to offer are salesmen, including me. Anyway, if you’re reading this, Dr. Steel, I managed to return the book to the library on time. Perhaps a few of the readers of this review will due us both the favor of buying a copy of the book.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein
One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer
The Richest Man Who Ever Lived by Steven K. Scott
I don’t have a reputation as a procrastinator. In fact, some employers and clients have hired me because of my ability to get things done. However, looking around my home and office I saw many unfinished and delayed projects that indicated procrastination was a problem for me in some areas.
In The Procrastination Equation, Piers Steel describes the reasons behind procrastination and its scary costs, both to individuals and society. Fortunately, he also provides strategies for overcoming procrastination.
The big issue for procrastinators is impulsivity. I balked at this at first; I didn’t see myself as an impulsive person. When I read Steels description of how it works, I admitted to myself that I was more impulsive than I realized.
Impulsivity is an issue for nearly all procrastinators, indeed for nearly all people. Our limbic system drives use to respond to immediate concrete payoffs. Most of us live and work in a world of more distant, abstract goals, the realm of the prefrontal cortex. In the battle between the will of the prefrontal cortex and the urges of the limbic system, the limbic system is much stronger, so most of us are wired to give in to immediate gratification and give up, for a while, on seemingly far off, ethereal and uncertain objectives.
The way we live hits us from both sides. The greatest benefits accrue to those who can delay immediate gratification for greater, later benefits (eat vegetables instead of cookies, exercise instead of sleep in late, save money rather than spending it on the latest gadget). On the other side, we are bombarded with distractions that have immediate payoffs (especially television and the internet).
Steel offers methods for bolstering the prefrontal cortex, reducing distractions and even turning our impulsivity to our advantage. Even before I was finished with the book, I was seeing ways I could put some of these techniques into practice for myself.
There are other reasons for procrastination, but not many. You can take a short test in the book to find out why you procrastinate. In my case, one other factor in Steel’s equation was significant in my procrastination. I could see how it influenced my delaying habits throughout my life, even going back to my rebellion against spelling homework and multiplication tables in third grade (it’s amazing that I passed third grade).
I haven’t eliminated procrastination overnight (I just finished reading the book), and Steel doesn’t suggest anyone can. One can start doing something about it right away, and the science-based approaches offered in this book offer a reasonable expectation of success.
As an aside, I tweeted that I was reading the book and Dr. Steel and he replied with a humorous tweet that demonstrates my theory that published authors are also salesmen. (By the way, the tone of his book is often humorous, too.) Any of us who have a product or service to offer are salesmen, including me. Anyway, if you’re reading this, Dr. Steel, I managed to return the book to the library on time. Perhaps a few of the readers of this review will due us both the favor of buying a copy of the book.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein
One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer
The Richest Man Who Ever Lived by Steven K. Scott
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Scholastic’s A+ Guide to Book Reports by Louise Colligan
Colligan, Louise. Scholastic’s A+ Guide to Book Reports. New York: Scholastic, 1982.
I found a copy of Scholastic’s A+ Guide to Book Reports, authored by Louise Colligan, at a library book sale. It is in near mint condition. There is no crease in the spine. The pages are yellowed after 30 years, but otherwise spotless. The corners of the unfaded cover are slightly foxed, but I think that came from my handling. I guess I’m the first person who read this copy of the book. Presumably, someone who may have been in high school about the same time I was deprived himself of the good advice in this book.
This book is aimed at teenagers, especially high school students, who are assigned to write book reports. I’ve been out of high school a while, but I assume that still happens. Colligan’s advice still applies to that task, and some of it is applicable to other writing.
Part of the system described in the book involves good study skills and organizing work. It is simplistic, narrowly focused and prescriptive, but that is probably appropriate for a teen. I did not have such good habits in high school, and the demands of college and work pushed me into taking an organized approach to my work, which is second nature now. I recommend learning this skill as early a possible.
The rest of the system focuses on the book report, though still in an organized manner. Colligan provides ideas on how to select and appropriate book, approaches to reading with the task of writing a report in mind, and tips for writing different types of book reports. She also lists a number of creative alternatives to essay-style reports.
The understanding of the book is that this activity takes place in a school. Students are encouraged to get appropriate input from the teacher and to focus on the assignment, not going off on tangents.
One of the things that interested me was the list of recommended books. Because of its age, it doesn’t include anything published in the last 30 years. Classics, though, don’t go out of style. I was assigned a few in high school, such as The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, which I recommend. Like many boys, I enjoyed science fiction and fantasy and on my own read Dune by Frank Herbert and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (the one fantasy trilogy that rules them all).
Another interesting thing about the book is that there is no mention of the Internet. It didn’t exist. I don’t know how the Internet has affected the high school book report. I suspect that it has had little effect. Colligan’s sound little manual is probably as useful today as it was when I was a freshman, and I have a very nice copy available for a reasonable sum.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard
You Can Write for Magazines by Greg Daugherty
Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.
Google
I found a copy of Scholastic’s A+ Guide to Book Reports, authored by Louise Colligan, at a library book sale. It is in near mint condition. There is no crease in the spine. The pages are yellowed after 30 years, but otherwise spotless. The corners of the unfaded cover are slightly foxed, but I think that came from my handling. I guess I’m the first person who read this copy of the book. Presumably, someone who may have been in high school about the same time I was deprived himself of the good advice in this book.
This book is aimed at teenagers, especially high school students, who are assigned to write book reports. I’ve been out of high school a while, but I assume that still happens. Colligan’s advice still applies to that task, and some of it is applicable to other writing.
Part of the system described in the book involves good study skills and organizing work. It is simplistic, narrowly focused and prescriptive, but that is probably appropriate for a teen. I did not have such good habits in high school, and the demands of college and work pushed me into taking an organized approach to my work, which is second nature now. I recommend learning this skill as early a possible.
The rest of the system focuses on the book report, though still in an organized manner. Colligan provides ideas on how to select and appropriate book, approaches to reading with the task of writing a report in mind, and tips for writing different types of book reports. She also lists a number of creative alternatives to essay-style reports.
The understanding of the book is that this activity takes place in a school. Students are encouraged to get appropriate input from the teacher and to focus on the assignment, not going off on tangents.
One of the things that interested me was the list of recommended books. Because of its age, it doesn’t include anything published in the last 30 years. Classics, though, don’t go out of style. I was assigned a few in high school, such as The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, which I recommend. Like many boys, I enjoyed science fiction and fantasy and on my own read Dune by Frank Herbert and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (the one fantasy trilogy that rules them all).
Another interesting thing about the book is that there is no mention of the Internet. It didn’t exist. I don’t know how the Internet has affected the high school book report. I suspect that it has had little effect. Colligan’s sound little manual is probably as useful today as it was when I was a freshman, and I have a very nice copy available for a reasonable sum.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard
You Can Write for Magazines by Greg Daugherty
Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard
Bayard, Pierre. How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. Trans. Jeffrey Mehlman. New York: Bloomsbury, 2007.
Regarding talking about books you haven’t read, Pierre Bayard might echo the Nike slogan, “Just do it.” Books are so much a part of a larger culture, so quickly forgotten and so interpreted through the internal experiences of readers that having read one brings little advantage to discussing it.
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read has three major parts, possibly an accidental homage to the lessons of a composition class. Bayard considers the issue of reading and non-reading (and how hard it is to tell one from the other), the social context of talking about non-read books and offers a new model for discussing books.
Reading is largely a matter of non-reading. We can’t possibly read every book there is, so the choice to read some is necessarily a choice to not read others, and a cultured person may choose to not read any of them. We may read every page or skim, and skimming may be a better way to understand a book as a whole. Even when we read a book, we immediately start to forget it. We hear about books we haven’t read.
This puts us in the position of talking about books we haven’t read (at all, or just skimmed, or forgot) whenever we discuss books. Bayard describes several such social situations, throughout building a case that what we really end up discussing is virtual book, made up of our own internal conceptions of the book and its place in the common library of our culture (including other books we probably haven’t read). He argues that we can’t exactly discuss a book because of all the factors of non-reading. Instead, a book becomes a pretext for discussion, a mental place for building common ground for communication (or so completely devoid of common understanding that people end up talking to themselves in exchanges with others).
In light of all of this, Bayard recommends laying aside the grade school shame of non-reading and discussing books anyway. He carries this pretty far, arguing that books are not fixed and we invent books out of our non-reading rather that discuss the books themselves. Discussions about books are really means of discovering and expressing ourselves.
Bayard can make our interactions with books seem so abstract and subjective that it may truly be best to not read them at all. Since he is a literature professor and an author, he probably doesn’t want people to actually go that far. His point is to get away from a narrow view of books and reading that limits the way people talk about them and move toward more creative and cultured engagement.
Regarding talking about books you haven’t read, Pierre Bayard might echo the Nike slogan, “Just do it.” Books are so much a part of a larger culture, so quickly forgotten and so interpreted through the internal experiences of readers that having read one brings little advantage to discussing it.
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read has three major parts, possibly an accidental homage to the lessons of a composition class. Bayard considers the issue of reading and non-reading (and how hard it is to tell one from the other), the social context of talking about non-read books and offers a new model for discussing books.
Reading is largely a matter of non-reading. We can’t possibly read every book there is, so the choice to read some is necessarily a choice to not read others, and a cultured person may choose to not read any of them. We may read every page or skim, and skimming may be a better way to understand a book as a whole. Even when we read a book, we immediately start to forget it. We hear about books we haven’t read.
This puts us in the position of talking about books we haven’t read (at all, or just skimmed, or forgot) whenever we discuss books. Bayard describes several such social situations, throughout building a case that what we really end up discussing is virtual book, made up of our own internal conceptions of the book and its place in the common library of our culture (including other books we probably haven’t read). He argues that we can’t exactly discuss a book because of all the factors of non-reading. Instead, a book becomes a pretext for discussion, a mental place for building common ground for communication (or so completely devoid of common understanding that people end up talking to themselves in exchanges with others).
In light of all of this, Bayard recommends laying aside the grade school shame of non-reading and discussing books anyway. He carries this pretty far, arguing that books are not fixed and we invent books out of our non-reading rather that discuss the books themselves. Discussions about books are really means of discovering and expressing ourselves.
Bayard can make our interactions with books seem so abstract and subjective that it may truly be best to not read them at all. Since he is a literature professor and an author, he probably doesn’t want people to actually go that far. His point is to get away from a narrow view of books and reading that limits the way people talk about them and move toward more creative and cultured engagement.
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Scan Artist by Marcia Biederman
When I want to find some
information, I can pull my cell phone out of my pocket and search for it
using Google (or some other search engine, but
probably Google). I can remember a time when that was not an option. If the
information I needed wasn’t in the dictionary or encyclopedia I had at home (which was already of
date in some areas), I’d have to go to the library for additional references or—heaven forbid—the
morgue of a newspaper office. Getting useful information
was not a trivial affair. The generation before mine that saw a pre-Internet explosion of printed information
after World War II especially felt the difficulty of
keeping up. Evelyn Wood was there with an answer; Marcia Biederman tells her story in Scan Artist.
Evelyn Wood did not invent speed reading. She did not even like the term. However, for decades her name and face was more strongly associated with it than any other person. Though she built her reputation on being a school teacher, she never was not a regular classroom teacher (she was a school counselor) and she was not a reading specialist. She had a master’s degree in speech, earned under the direction of a professor who a studied theater.
Theater may be the lens for looking at Wood’s career. She started writing and staging plays when she was in high school and a college undergraduate. Many of these had religious themes related to her Mormon faith. When she was in Germany, where her husband served as president of the Mormon mission in Frankfurt as the Nazis began their aggressions, she fell in love with the opera and cajoled her way into back stage of the opera house. She began bringing what she learned of stagecraft into her own productions.
Back in the U.S. the Woods put Evelyn’s theatrical skills to work as lecturers on their European experience. They changed their focus as American sentiments shifted from Germany to Britain. They also put a pretty heavy spin on the Mormon relationship with the Nazis and greatly embellished the dangers they face leaving Germany.
Evelyn Wood’s success as
a seller of her speed-reading system was largely built on such theatrics and
embellishments. She claimed student could read thousands of words per minute;
the faster one read the better their comprehension. (The fastest people can
actually read is about 900 words per minute. Anything faster is skimming, and
comprehension suffers when one skims). She managed to get endorsements from senators and she encouraged, or at least never
corrected, the misconception that she was tied to John F. Kennedy and his reportedly fast reading
speed. (Ted Kennedy took her course as a senator, and
staffers in the Kennedy, Nixon and Carter administrations took the course,
including Jimmy Carter himself, though Wood was not the teacher.)
The company she started changed hands and business models several times. A lot of money was made with her name and methods, and in the sale and resale of the company, but the Woods received only a small portion of it. Even so, she was ready to promote herself, her methods and the company that still paid her a consulting fee. She slowed down, but continued to make appearances and accept interview requests even after suffering cancer and a stroke.
While one may sympathize with her, especially in her illness later in life, the Evelyn Wood presented by Biederman is not easy to like. The Wood adopted a teenage girl largely to have a live-in nanny for their natural daughter when they moved to Germany; they never really acknowledge their adopted daughter or even saw her much once she was an adult. Wood was in some ways a con artist who played on the insecurities of her marks, some who were never knocked in spite of the mounting evidence that her program was at best an overprice lesson in skimming.
Wood found a way to take advantage of the insecurity of her day. She built a brand on it. While primarily a biography of Wood, Scan Artist reveals interesting things about America of the time and the obsession with self-improvement. It has not disappeared. Speed-reading apps still claim to greatly increase both speed and comprehension. TED-talkers claim to read a book or more a day. The Internet makes it easy to acquire a shallow knowledge of almost anything quickly, so perhaps people have become satisfied with what they can learn from skimming hundreds of books a year. Deep learning and understanding remains slow and effortful.
Biederman, Marcia. Scan Artist: How Evelyn Wood Convinced the World that Speed-Reading Worked. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2019.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers
Carothers, Merlin R. Power in Praise. Escondido, CA: Merlin R. Carothers, 1972.
I bought a copy of Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers at a library book sale. It sat on my shelf for months. I have more appetite for books than time. I was surprised to find it listed in bibliography of Melody Beattie’s last self-help book, Make Miracles in Forty Days. Because reviewing books is inherently about comparing and contrasting books, I made reading Power in Praise a priority.
At a very basic level, Beattie and Carothers have a similar message. Be grateful for everything. Carothers would say praise God in everything.
Our thanks and praise, especially for those things we for which we don’t necessarily feel grateful, brings about in us a peace, contentment, and new perspective on our situation. It often leads to a change in our circumstances, too.
The two authors differ on their view of how this works. For Beattie, it is a universal law. It works because that is the nature of the universe. You can blend it with whatever religion you like or none. Expressing thanks for the hard things will change your life regardless of your religion.
Carothers, in contrast, sees God as the author of our lives. He is in control of all. The hardships, pain, setbacks, and everything else in our life is under His control.
We can praise God even in the worst situations because we trust Him. God loves us and had a good plan for our life. If He permits difficulties, it is because it will produce good. First is the good of coming to God and acknowledging Jesus Christ as our savior. After that comes the producing of a godly character and preparation for work that shows God’s power, love and grace.
Power in Praise is, in part, a book of stories about people who have put Carothers’ principle to the test. Some of these come from the Bible, especially from Paul, who suffered all manner of calamities, but remained contented, peaceful, and even joyful, because He trusted God in all things. Many of the cases come form his experience as an Army chaplain.
As you might expect, people were reluctant to praise God for disease, accidents, failures and other troubles. Some were willing to try even if they didn’t feel it; Carothers writes that it is a matter of faith and not feeling or understanding. Those that tried discovered a transformation in themselves. For Carothers, this is the main thing. To know God and be closer to Him, trusting Him more, is the best thing. In many cases, these people saw quick changes in their circumstances, too.
Carothers also deals with the flipside of praise and thanksgiving with a chapter on grumbling and complaining. He says that to complain is to make accusations against God. It is an expression of distrust. Arguably, mankind’s fall into sin came from distrusting God and it has caused us a lot of trouble sense. The better stand, the position of power, is to trust God in everything, believing that He has a good plan even when bad things happen.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
365 Thank Yous by John Kralik
Gratitude by Melody Beattie
Into the Depths of God by Calvin Miller
Make Miracles in Forty Days by Melody Beattie
Thanks! by Robert A. Emmons
Google
I bought a copy of Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers at a library book sale. It sat on my shelf for months. I have more appetite for books than time. I was surprised to find it listed in bibliography of Melody Beattie’s last self-help book, Make Miracles in Forty Days. Because reviewing books is inherently about comparing and contrasting books, I made reading Power in Praise a priority.
At a very basic level, Beattie and Carothers have a similar message. Be grateful for everything. Carothers would say praise God in everything.
Our thanks and praise, especially for those things we for which we don’t necessarily feel grateful, brings about in us a peace, contentment, and new perspective on our situation. It often leads to a change in our circumstances, too.
The two authors differ on their view of how this works. For Beattie, it is a universal law. It works because that is the nature of the universe. You can blend it with whatever religion you like or none. Expressing thanks for the hard things will change your life regardless of your religion.
Carothers, in contrast, sees God as the author of our lives. He is in control of all. The hardships, pain, setbacks, and everything else in our life is under His control.
We can praise God even in the worst situations because we trust Him. God loves us and had a good plan for our life. If He permits difficulties, it is because it will produce good. First is the good of coming to God and acknowledging Jesus Christ as our savior. After that comes the producing of a godly character and preparation for work that shows God’s power, love and grace.
Power in Praise is, in part, a book of stories about people who have put Carothers’ principle to the test. Some of these come from the Bible, especially from Paul, who suffered all manner of calamities, but remained contented, peaceful, and even joyful, because He trusted God in all things. Many of the cases come form his experience as an Army chaplain.
As you might expect, people were reluctant to praise God for disease, accidents, failures and other troubles. Some were willing to try even if they didn’t feel it; Carothers writes that it is a matter of faith and not feeling or understanding. Those that tried discovered a transformation in themselves. For Carothers, this is the main thing. To know God and be closer to Him, trusting Him more, is the best thing. In many cases, these people saw quick changes in their circumstances, too.
Carothers also deals with the flipside of praise and thanksgiving with a chapter on grumbling and complaining. He says that to complain is to make accusations against God. It is an expression of distrust. Arguably, mankind’s fall into sin came from distrusting God and it has caused us a lot of trouble sense. The better stand, the position of power, is to trust God in everything, believing that He has a good plan even when bad things happen.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
365 Thank Yous by John Kralik
Gratitude by Melody Beattie
Into the Depths of God by Calvin Miller
Make Miracles in Forty Days by Melody Beattie
Thanks! by Robert A. Emmons
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Welcome to Keenan’s Book Reviews
Welcome to Keenan’s Book Reviews. A couple of years ago I decided to help myself retain what I’ve learned by writing a review or summary of all the nonfiction books I read. About a year ago, I started posting those reviews on a blog.
A blog isn’t the greatest way to organize a set of book reviews and summaries in terms of quickly finding the book you’re looking for. It’s more like browsing in the library or bookstore. Use the topic links on the sidebar to get to your category of interest and enjoy browsing from there.
Like on many other blogs, you'll see ads on here and I may get a few coins if you click them. I choose the books I read based on my own interests and the reviews are my own opinions. I'll always try to be upfront about advertising in this blog. (See more about this here.)
I hope you enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks for visiting.
A blog isn’t the greatest way to organize a set of book reviews and summaries in terms of quickly finding the book you’re looking for. It’s more like browsing in the library or bookstore. Use the topic links on the sidebar to get to your category of interest and enjoy browsing from there.
Like on many other blogs, you'll see ads on here and I may get a few coins if you click them. I choose the books I read based on my own interests and the reviews are my own opinions. I'll always try to be upfront about advertising in this blog. (See more about this here.)
I hope you enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks for visiting.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Glossary
One of the most important books in a reader’s library is the dictionary. Here are a few words I’ve had to look up in my reading or that I thought were noteworthy.
Amended March 7, 2011
A
Acheron – a river from Greek mythology over which the dead were ferried by Charon
adamantine – hard, unyielding (the last syllable may be pronounced like teen, tin or tine, which could come in handy for rhyming)
aerolith, n. – a meteor (such as on might see in the empyrean)
aliquot – an adjective that describes something that is an exact divisor, or factor
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, OneLook
For example, when you factor a number, such as 60, you find its aliquot parts, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
angstrom, n. – unit of length equal to one ten-millionth of a millimeter (10-7 mm), mainly used to express electromagnetic wavelengths (named for Swedish astronomer Andes Johann Ångström)
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, OneLook
Argus – a giant with 100 eyes from Greek mythology
C
cagoule – a hooded, weatherproof jacket
Cambridge Dictionary, TheFreeDictionary
canescent – downy, as in the whitish or grayish down on some plants
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
caul – part of the amnion sometimes covering the head of a child at birth
Dictionary.com, OneLook
celebutante – a young woman who is famous for no discernable reason (from celebrity + debutante)
cicerone – a guide for sightseers (pronounced with a long e at the end)
cloaca – a sewer
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
concertina – noun musical instrument resembling an accordion with hexagonal bellow and button-keys – verb to fold or collapse like a concertina
Dictionary.com, OneLook
crepuscular – resembling or active at twilight
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
cuprous – containing univalent copper
Dictionary.com, OneLook
curlew, n. – a shorebird with a long beak that curves down, of the genus Numenius
D
dalton, n. – unit of mass used to express the mass of atomic and subatomic particles equal to 1/12 the mass of the carbon-12 atom; another name for an atomic mass unit (named for English chemist John Dalton)
TheFreeDictionary, Encarta, YourDictionary
disembogue – pour out
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
demimonde, n. – women with wealthy lovers who have lost standing in society because of indiscretions or promiscuity; courtesans or prostitutes (an individual woman of this class is a demimondaine)
Dictionary.com
“Humiliation no longer threatens the individual who hasn’t read a book, but the one who has; reading is seen as a degrading task that may be left to a woman of the demimonde.”
-Pierre Bayard, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read
doyenne – a woman with seniority in her profession or organization (feminine form of doyen)
“Sue Carter of the University of California at Irvine is famous as the doyenne of research on this potent hormone of attachment [oxytocin], which she has studied extensively in the prairie vole.”
-Stephen Post & Jill Neimark, Why Good Things Happen to Good People
E
elegiac, adj. - expressing sorrow or mourning
empyrean – sky
“The very empyrean seemed to be a secret.”
-G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday
endogenous – internally originated
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, TheFreeDictionary, Encarta
“Because the internally focused [performance assessment and evaluation] frameworks of the [community water system] sector are based on endogenous measures of performance, they narrowly asses performance in terms of core processes, which differ by [community water system].”
-Jeffrey W. Rogers & Garrick E. Louis. “A standard efficiency metric for evaluation performance of community water systems.” Journal AWWA 97.10 (2005): 79-80.
G
ghee – clarified butter
Dictionary.com, OneLook
glaucous - greenish blue or bluish green
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
I
inanition, n. – exhaustion from lack of nourishment; lethargy
L
lacuna – missing part (the middle syllable is pronounced like queue)
Laocöon, n. – Trojan priest who warned against accepting the horse left by the Greeks (Trojan horse); he and his sons were killed by serpent bites
lido – a beach resort or open-air swimming pool
Dictionary.com, OneLook
M
mantic – related to or having the power of divination
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
meretricious, adj. – having a flashy or vulgar allure, insincere or pretentious; characteristic of a prostitute
moue – a pout
Dictionary.com, OneLook
multitexting – the rude and dangerous activity of reading and writing text message on mobile communication devices, including e-mail message in the case of crackberry addicts, while engaged in other activities such as walking, driving, attending meetings and dining with others (from multitasking)
O
ouroborus, n. – a symbol of a snake or dragon eating its tail
Dictionary.com, OneLook
outré, adj. – unconventional or bizarre
P
patulous – spreading
Dictionary.com, TheFreeDictionary, Merriam-Webster Online, OneLook, YourDictionary
"Above the spire of St Paul’s, patulous white clouds deepened to a shade reminiscent of overwashed socks."
-Christopher Fowler, The Water Room
phenology – the study of the timing of recurring natural events
Websters, Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster
plover, n. – a shorebird having a thick neck, compact body, and pigeon-like beak, of the family Charadriidae, or a similar bird
putsch, n. – a revolt or uprising
Merriam-Webster, Encarta
R
retrosexual, n. – a man who cares little for or minimally attends to his appearance (i.e., the opposite of a metrosexual), or a man who adopts an old-fashioned masculine style (especially the suit-and-hat style of the 1950s and 1960s)
Merriam-Webster
S
sesquipedalian, adj. – multisyllabic
Merrian-Webster.com
“Do not build monuments to obfuscatory sesquipedalian tergiversation.”
-Elizabeth Slatkin in How to Write a Manual
sibilant, adj. - hissing
soidisant – self-styled, so-called, pretended (from French and pronounced in something of that style, i.e. swa-dee-zahn’)
spoor, n. – track or trail, especially of a wild animal
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster.com
“The victory always lies in our hunger for the spiritual intimacy of our union with Christ. In some since it is more than a hunger, it is a stalking—pursuing God as a safari tracks the spoor of big game”
-Calvin Miller, Into the Depths of God
stoat – the European ermine, Mustela erminea
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
suspire, v. – to utter with sighing breaths
Wordnik.com, Yahoo! Education
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame:
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
-T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets
T
tergiversation, n. – a constantly changing, unclear or misleading opinion or attitude
OneLook.com
threnody, n. – a song of lamentation
traduce, v.t. – to speak maliciously or falsely, to slander or defame
V
viridescent – greenish
Dictionary.com, OneLook
vulpine – fox-like
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
W
whinge, v. – to cry, to complain, to whine
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster
X
xanthic – yellowish
Dictionary.com, Dict.org, The Free Dictionary, Webster’s Online, Your Dictionary
Amended March 7, 2011
A
Acheron – a river from Greek mythology over which the dead were ferried by Charon
adamantine – hard, unyielding (the last syllable may be pronounced like teen, tin or tine, which could come in handy for rhyming)
aerolith, n. – a meteor (such as on might see in the empyrean)
aliquot – an adjective that describes something that is an exact divisor, or factor
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, OneLook
For example, when you factor a number, such as 60, you find its aliquot parts, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
angstrom, n. – unit of length equal to one ten-millionth of a millimeter (10-7 mm), mainly used to express electromagnetic wavelengths (named for Swedish astronomer Andes Johann Ångström)
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, OneLook
aprioristic,
adj. – preconceived, or considered valid independent of observation or evidence
“The
grid for historical interpretation is more than something that facilitates the
selection and interpretation of evidence: it offers an all-encompassing aprioristic view of reality into which
the phenomena of history must be made to fit, whether by fair means or foul.”
Argus – a giant with 100 eyes from Greek mythology
C
cagoule – a hooded, weatherproof jacket
Cambridge Dictionary, TheFreeDictionary
canescent – downy, as in the whitish or grayish down on some plants
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
caul – part of the amnion sometimes covering the head of a child at birth
Dictionary.com, OneLook
celebutante – a young woman who is famous for no discernable reason (from celebrity + debutante)
cicerone – a guide for sightseers (pronounced with a long e at the end)
cloaca – a sewer
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
concertina – noun musical instrument resembling an accordion with hexagonal bellow and button-keys – verb to fold or collapse like a concertina
Dictionary.com, OneLook
crepuscular – resembling or active at twilight
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
cuprous – containing univalent copper
Dictionary.com, OneLook
curlew, n. – a shorebird with a long beak that curves down, of the genus Numenius
D
dalton, n. – unit of mass used to express the mass of atomic and subatomic particles equal to 1/12 the mass of the carbon-12 atom; another name for an atomic mass unit (named for English chemist John Dalton)
TheFreeDictionary, Encarta, YourDictionary
disembogue – pour out
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
demimonde, n. – women with wealthy lovers who have lost standing in society because of indiscretions or promiscuity; courtesans or prostitutes (an individual woman of this class is a demimondaine)
Dictionary.com
“Humiliation no longer threatens the individual who hasn’t read a book, but the one who has; reading is seen as a degrading task that may be left to a woman of the demimonde.”
-Pierre Bayard, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read
doyenne – a woman with seniority in her profession or organization (feminine form of doyen)
“Sue Carter of the University of California at Irvine is famous as the doyenne of research on this potent hormone of attachment [oxytocin], which she has studied extensively in the prairie vole.”
-Stephen Post & Jill Neimark, Why Good Things Happen to Good People
E
elegiac, adj. - expressing sorrow or mourning
empyrean – sky
“The very empyrean seemed to be a secret.”
-G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday
endogenous – internally originated
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, TheFreeDictionary, Encarta
“Because the internally focused [performance assessment and evaluation] frameworks of the [community water system] sector are based on endogenous measures of performance, they narrowly asses performance in terms of core processes, which differ by [community water system].”
-Jeffrey W. Rogers & Garrick E. Louis. “A standard efficiency metric for evaluation performance of community water systems.” Journal AWWA 97.10 (2005): 79-80.
F
fissiparous,
adj. – tending to split into factions
“Marxism
has proved as fissiparous a
philosophy as it has a political ideology.”
G
ghee – clarified butter
Dictionary.com, OneLook
glaucous - greenish blue or bluish green
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
I
inanition, n. – exhaustion from lack of nourishment; lethargy
L
lacuna – missing part (the middle syllable is pronounced like queue)
Laocöon, n. – Trojan priest who warned against accepting the horse left by the Greeks (Trojan horse); he and his sons were killed by serpent bites
lido – a beach resort or open-air swimming pool
Dictionary.com, OneLook
M
mantic – related to or having the power of divination
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
meretricious, adj. – having a flashy or vulgar allure, insincere or pretentious; characteristic of a prostitute
moue – a pout
Dictionary.com, OneLook
multitexting – the rude and dangerous activity of reading and writing text message on mobile communication devices, including e-mail message in the case of crackberry addicts, while engaged in other activities such as walking, driving, attending meetings and dining with others (from multitasking)
O
ouroborus, n. – a symbol of a snake or dragon eating its tail
Dictionary.com, OneLook
outré, adj. – unconventional or bizarre
P
patulous – spreading
Dictionary.com, TheFreeDictionary, Merriam-Webster Online, OneLook, YourDictionary
"Above the spire of St Paul’s, patulous white clouds deepened to a shade reminiscent of overwashed socks."
-Christopher Fowler, The Water Room
phenology – the study of the timing of recurring natural events
Websters, Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster
plover, n. – a shorebird having a thick neck, compact body, and pigeon-like beak, of the family Charadriidae, or a similar bird
prolegomenon,
n. – scholarly preface (you can tell it is scholarly by its length)
putsch, n. – a revolt or uprising
Merriam-Webster, Encarta
R
retrosexual, n. – a man who cares little for or minimally attends to his appearance (i.e., the opposite of a metrosexual), or a man who adopts an old-fashioned masculine style (especially the suit-and-hat style of the 1950s and 1960s)
Merriam-Webster
S
sesquipedalian, adj. – multisyllabic
Merrian-Webster.com
“Do not build monuments to obfuscatory sesquipedalian tergiversation.”
-Elizabeth Slatkin in How to Write a Manual
sibilant, adj. - hissing
soidisant – self-styled, so-called, pretended (from French and pronounced in something of that style, i.e. swa-dee-zahn’)
spoor, n. – track or trail, especially of a wild animal
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster.com
“The victory always lies in our hunger for the spiritual intimacy of our union with Christ. In some since it is more than a hunger, it is a stalking—pursuing God as a safari tracks the spoor of big game”
-Calvin Miller, Into the Depths of God
stoat – the European ermine, Mustela erminea
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
suspire, v. – to utter with sighing breaths
Wordnik.com, Yahoo! Education
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame:
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
-T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets
syncretistic,
adj. – attempting the reconciliation of opposing principles, practices or
parties
“Catholicism’s
commitment to the developing cult of the saints was surly one of its great
strengths during the church’s massive expansion during the fourth and fifth
centuries, and the winning strategy of a somewhat syncretistic pattern of handling folk religion right down into the
fifteenth century.”
T
tergiversation, n. – a constantly changing, unclear or misleading opinion or attitude
OneLook.com
threnody, n. – a song of lamentation
traduce, v.t. – to speak maliciously or falsely, to slander or defame
V
viridescent – greenish
Dictionary.com, OneLook
vulpine – fox-like
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster Online
W
whinge, v. – to cry, to complain, to whine
Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster
X
xanthic – yellowish
Dictionary.com, Dict.org, The Free Dictionary, Webster’s Online, Your Dictionary
Friday, November 19, 2010
Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall
Frank, Thaisa, and Dorothy Wall. Finding Your Writer’s Voice: A Guide to Creative Fiction. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Thaisa Frank and Dorothy wall take an organic view of writing. It begins with the voice.
Voice is not something abstract. They mean a person’s actual, natural voice. It is our native instrument of communication and expression. Like a musical instrument or a singer’s voice, it can be mastered by practice and the developing skill of the instrumentalist or vocalist.
The early chapters of the book are devoted to getting to know your instrument. This is your raw voice. Voice has the advantage of being uniquely yours and fitted to you. Using your raw voice is more than just doing what comes naturally. Like mastering other instruments, one learns is range and the variety of notes and timbres it can produce. Several exercises are offered to help you get to know your raw voice and to explore all you can do with it.
The voice of the story is more like that of a composer. It understands the instrument, the raw voice, but it also engaged in making decisions about key, tempo, and amplitude over an entire piece and each movement and how it all fits together. The raw and story voices work together as the writer works, making writing improvisational, like a jazz musician using his instrument spontaneously while leaning on a mastery of scales, techniques and musical conventions.
Frank and Wall cover many of the things one might expect on a book on fiction writing: character, plot, point of view, tone, revision, and the writing life. In their book, voice serves the source and context of all these things. They spring forth from the raw voice of a person and are developed as a story by the polished voice of a writer. The craft of writing is developed on the job, working the materials supplied by the voice into stories.
Even in revising, there is an organic sense of spontaneity, improvisation and creative working within constraints. Revising is not a process of simple mechanics. It is a chance to creatively reengage a story, testing it with the creative force of raw voice and the helpful voice of internal editors who understand the workings of a story, a beautiful turn of phrase and how to get things write. Writers can easily get stymied at this stage, as they might at others, but frustration here is often an opportunity to take a story to a better level.
I should have given this book more time than I did (it was due back at the library). It’s a class for writers and, like most classes, getting the most out of it requires doing the homework.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed
Thaisa Frank and Dorothy wall take an organic view of writing. It begins with the voice.
Voice is not something abstract. They mean a person’s actual, natural voice. It is our native instrument of communication and expression. Like a musical instrument or a singer’s voice, it can be mastered by practice and the developing skill of the instrumentalist or vocalist.
The early chapters of the book are devoted to getting to know your instrument. This is your raw voice. Voice has the advantage of being uniquely yours and fitted to you. Using your raw voice is more than just doing what comes naturally. Like mastering other instruments, one learns is range and the variety of notes and timbres it can produce. Several exercises are offered to help you get to know your raw voice and to explore all you can do with it.
The voice of the story is more like that of a composer. It understands the instrument, the raw voice, but it also engaged in making decisions about key, tempo, and amplitude over an entire piece and each movement and how it all fits together. The raw and story voices work together as the writer works, making writing improvisational, like a jazz musician using his instrument spontaneously while leaning on a mastery of scales, techniques and musical conventions.
Frank and Wall cover many of the things one might expect on a book on fiction writing: character, plot, point of view, tone, revision, and the writing life. In their book, voice serves the source and context of all these things. They spring forth from the raw voice of a person and are developed as a story by the polished voice of a writer. The craft of writing is developed on the job, working the materials supplied by the voice into stories.
Even in revising, there is an organic sense of spontaneity, improvisation and creative working within constraints. Revising is not a process of simple mechanics. It is a chance to creatively reengage a story, testing it with the creative force of raw voice and the helpful voice of internal editors who understand the workings of a story, a beautiful turn of phrase and how to get things write. Writers can easily get stymied at this stage, as they might at others, but frustration here is often an opportunity to take a story to a better level.
I should have given this book more time than I did (it was due back at the library). It’s a class for writers and, like most classes, getting the most out of it requires doing the homework.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Share Your #booksthatshapedme
Inspired by the Library of Congress exhibit on Books that Shaped
American, I’ve been encouraging people to tweet about books that matter to
them using the hashtag #booksthatshapedme. I previously wrote about books
that matter to me and recently shared it on Twitter.
I’m be interested to know what books
influence you. Use the hashtag #booksthatshapedme. If you’re a fan of this blog, mention me (@kbpatterson).
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Friday, August 14, 2009
What I Read (9)
Date: March 24, 2007
Title: The Beethoven Factor Author: Paul Pearsall
Thoughts: “Remember, the first mental food of your day will set your mental tone for the entire day” (quote from the book).
Date: March 31, 2007
Title: The Big Sleep
Author: Raymond Chandler
Thoughts: These stories don’t end when everything seems to be tied up. If things to feel right to Marlowe, he’ll unravel his case, put a new twist on it and tie it up in a new way.
Date: April 12 & 14, 2007
Titles: Henry Huggins, Beezus and Ramona, Ramona the Brave
Author: Beverly Cleary
Thoughts: I read and enjoyed these books as a kid. I enjoyed them again, especially Beezus and Ramona. These books were loaned to me by a friend who still had them from her childhood. The first time I read them, I checked them out from my elementary school library.
Date: May 6, 2007
Title: The Richest Man Who Ever Lived
Author: Steven K. Scott
Thoughts: I have taken the challenge to read Proverbs every day.
Date: May 8, 2007
Title: Proverbs
Thoughts:
“I love those who love me [Wisdom],
And those who seek me diligently will find me.
Riches and honor are with me,
Enduring riches and righteousness.
My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold,
And my revenue than choice silver” (Proverbs 8:17-19).
Date: May 10, 2007
Title: The Ghost Map
Author: Steven Johnson
Thoughts: There seems to be a subtle implication that Rev. Whitehead’s r
easonableness was unique among religious people, not the norm.
Date: July 8, 2007
Title: The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life Author: Hannah Whitall Smith
Thoughts: I enjoyed this book. I wish I had come across it as a young Christian. I’d like to read it again some day.
Date: July 12, 2007
Title: The Relaxation Response
Author: Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper
Thoughts: This is very interesting. If we have such a way to manage stress and counteract some of its worst effects, why aren’t we using it? I’m not signing up for TM, but surely, I can elicit this response in an appropriate way.
Other parts of What I Read:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5,
Part 6, Part 7, Part 8
Title: The Beethoven Factor Author: Paul Pearsall
Thoughts: “Remember, the first mental food of your day will set your mental tone for the entire day” (quote from the book).
Date: March 31, 2007
Title: The Big Sleep
Author: Raymond Chandler
Thoughts: These stories don’t end when everything seems to be tied up. If things to feel right to Marlowe, he’ll unravel his case, put a new twist on it and tie it up in a new way.
Date: April 12 & 14, 2007
Titles: Henry Huggins, Beezus and Ramona, Ramona the Brave
Author: Beverly Cleary
Thoughts: I read and enjoyed these books as a kid. I enjoyed them again, especially Beezus and Ramona. These books were loaned to me by a friend who still had them from her childhood. The first time I read them, I checked them out from my elementary school library.
Date: May 6, 2007
Title: The Richest Man Who Ever Lived
Author: Steven K. Scott
Thoughts: I have taken the challenge to read Proverbs every day.
Date: May 8, 2007
Title: Proverbs
Thoughts:
“I love those who love me [Wisdom],
And those who seek me diligently will find me.
Riches and honor are with me,
Enduring riches and righteousness.
My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold,
And my revenue than choice silver” (Proverbs 8:17-19).
Date: May 10, 2007
Title: The Ghost Map
Author: Steven Johnson
Thoughts: There seems to be a subtle implication that Rev. Whitehead’s r
easonableness was unique among religious people, not the norm.
Date: July 8, 2007
Title: The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life Author: Hannah Whitall Smith
Thoughts: I enjoyed this book. I wish I had come across it as a young Christian. I’d like to read it again some day.
Date: July 12, 2007
Title: The Relaxation Response
Author: Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper
Thoughts: This is very interesting. If we have such a way to manage stress and counteract some of its worst effects, why aren’t we using it? I’m not signing up for TM, but surely, I can elicit this response in an appropriate way.
Other parts of What I Read:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5,
Part 6, Part 7, Part 8
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)