One Perfect Word: One Word Can Make All the Difference by Debbie Macomber
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book is very religious, and clearly a lot of people find it inspirational. It's a pretty easy short read and I don't regret reading it.
However, I just read Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America and this is the exact kind of "magical thinking" she argues against.
I have a big problem with the line of thinking that goes, "pray and your prayer will be answered, unless it's not and then either 1) you didn't pray hard enough, or 2) God has a different plan we can't understand." But did you know that people have studied whether or not prayer works in medical situations?:
Analyzing complications in the 30 days after the operations, the researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.
In another of the study's findings, a significantly higher number of the patients who knew that they were being prayed for — 59 percent — suffered complications, compared with 51 percent of those who were uncertain. The authors left open the possibility that this was a chance finding. But they said that being aware of the strangers' prayers also may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/hea...
So yeah, I can't get terribly excited about Macomber's message, though I don't reject it completely either. I think that focus, meditation, and determination can have big effects on a person's life, as can luck.
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I am addicted to reading. This is because 1) my dad died and I inherited his books, 2) my husband is a writer and he is really well-read, and he has tons of books in the house as well, 3) I discovered that I could get ebooks and audiobooks from my library online!
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a little confusing in the beginning, but it ended up being good. I think my favorite things were the diverse and realistic characters and the way the writer made sorrow seem beautiful. That's a hard thing to pull off.
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My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a little confusing in the beginning, but it ended up being good. I think my favorite things were the diverse and realistic characters and the way the writer made sorrow seem beautiful. That's a hard thing to pull off.
View all my reviews
Sunday, June 3, 2012
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Pretty linear vaguely boring story about magically appearing on Mars.
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My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Pretty linear vaguely boring story about magically appearing on Mars.
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Saturday, June 2, 2012
The Aeneid by Virgil
The Aeneid by Virgil
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
We read portions of this in my Latin class over the course of two years, and I read this English translation mostly on my own at the same time. Nothing will make you love a book like pouring over it for multiple years. We also all used Latin names in class and I was Dido Elissa, which I liked because she was a powerful queen and an important character in The Aeneid. But I disliked having her name because I felt like the whole business with [spoiler alert] throwing herself on a pyre was kind of pathetic and definitely not feminist. Overall, it was such a gift to get to pour over this in Latin with a teacher to guide us through. (Thanks, Mrs. Simon.)
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My rating: 5 of 5 stars
We read portions of this in my Latin class over the course of two years, and I read this English translation mostly on my own at the same time. Nothing will make you love a book like pouring over it for multiple years. We also all used Latin names in class and I was Dido Elissa, which I liked because she was a powerful queen and an important character in The Aeneid. But I disliked having her name because I felt like the whole business with [spoiler alert] throwing herself on a pyre was kind of pathetic and definitely not feminist. Overall, it was such a gift to get to pour over this in Latin with a teacher to guide us through. (Thanks, Mrs. Simon.)
View all my reviews
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