Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw

Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Talk about unreliable narrators! The characters' intentions are a muddle, and this is surely done intentionally. The debate about good versus evil and Christianity versus capitalism is crystal clear and deeply depressing. Nothing changes in history.

Andrew Undershaft is pretty explicitly an antichrist figure. The Jesus of the Bible is clear about morality vis-à-vis poverty and wealth. I think Barbara represents most people- knowing it's all wrong but drawn to the allure of it nonetheless. Not to mention that while Undershaft could make his arguments with wealth from any industry and be more convincing, Shaw makes his industry the weapons industry, the business of which is literally to kill as many humans as possible. This makes Undershaft's arguments almost impossible to accept. I think Shaw made that choice on purpose.

I don't really see the play as anti-Christian just because Andrew Undershaft appears to prevail. I thought of it as having characters presenting two views. The expression for presenting an argument you don't necessarily agree with is "Devil's Advocate" for a reason... there are always great arguments against goodness or God, not that those are always the same thing in a debate.

I guess between Andrew's argument, and Shaw's little sticky points- I'm not persuaded by Andrew. The little sticky points being: Andrew makes the tools of war, Andrew doesn't pretend to care about charity at the beginning but then later uses it to win Barbara to his side, Barbara seems moved to Andrew's side more by greed than a continued desire to do good (though I'm not completely certain here), and Cusin's general spinelessness. And at the end, we're uncertain if Barbara has lost her soul or not.

It might just be a spoof on both sides and on society in general. Perhaps Shaw's view is: You can live in wretched poverty or destroy everything with civilization. Pick your poison.

Definitely the kind of play that's worth rereading for me. Lots to think about.

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Candida by George Bernard Shaw

Candida by George Bernard Shaw
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very original play. Looks into the inner workings of a marriage through a strange love triangle (a bit of a love square even).

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Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw

Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Raina Petkoff of Bulgaria lets a Swiss soldier fighting for the Serbians hide in her room. He's run off from the war, and the locals are searching for him as an enemy. Riana is already engaged to a patriot soldier Sergius but falls in love with the anti-war/cowardly Swiss soldier. Sergius, on the other hand, isn't very smart and is a strange hypocritical cheater. It was amusing but I didn't get much else out of it. I wasn't particularly engaged by the characters.

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Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though Professor Henry Higgins is a total jerk, I'd be into him in real life I bet. He's just so smart and witty. Funny even. It's my weakness. Great play.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As other readers have mentioned this book is more like two books. The popular science fiction portion of the book deals with the study of the HeLa cell lines named for the woman whom they were taken from, Henrietta Lacks. The other portion of the book is the story of Henrietta Lacks and her family which really highlights many of the injustices towards black Americans particularly in the realm of science and medicine. Both stories also lead into conversations about the evolving law regarding consent and control over one's genetic information and material.

The first story about the scientific research on HeLa is bazonkers (doesn't matter that bazonkers is not a word, something like that is needed for emphasis). I'm usually pretty up-to-date on what's going on in Science but I definitely missed some of the stranger HeLa cell research.

The second story about the family is touching, upsetting, and angering. Although at times this part feels a bit meandering with an examination of a large family. I was mostly interested in the story of her daughter Deborah probably because she's the person Skloot got to know the best.

The status of our rights regarding our genetic material is both frightening and frustrating.

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Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville

Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is actually pretty good because Melville is a deep soul. But I struggled with the beginning, and for such a short book it really took me a long time to force my way through it.

Here's my favorite quote from the book: "Is Envy then such a monster? Well, though many an arraigned mortal has in hopes of mitigated penalty pleaded guilty to horrible actions, did ever anybody seriously confess to envy? Something there is in it universally felt to be more shameful than even felonious crime. And not only does everybody disown it, but the better sort are inclined to incredulity when it is in earnest imputed to an intelligent man. But since its lodgement is in the heart not the brain, no degree of intellect supplies a guarantee against it." - Chapter 13

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The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Art of War by Sun Tzu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm reading some of the commentaries now, but on its own, it doesn't make a huge impression on me. It has some good points. The focus on the compassion of the ruler and "the way" was particularly interesting. (Now I also want to read The I Ching / Book of Changes which discussed "the way." I read the Tao Te Ching.) Overall, though it doesn't give a lot of context inside the text, or have much that will make an impression in my memory.


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Troublemaker by Leah Remini

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Legitimately interesting memoir by Remini about her family, career, and her challenges with Scientology. Discusses why she left Scientology.

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You Can't Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson

You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was good. Funny and educational. She's an amazing wordsmith (and is in the very modern comedy family of Aziz Ansari) so it might be tough for older audiences (or foreign audiences) to follow her amazing turns of phrases and pop culture references. I basically didn't put the book down until I finished it, unless you count the 1 million times my daughter needed things today. At least she goes to school tomorrow.

And yes, that mostly true about Karens.

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Based on a True Story by Norm Macdonald

Based on a True Story by Norm Macdonald
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked this one up because I saw Norm MacDonald's Netflix standup special. The special got some mixed reviews, including from MacDonald. I've been going through a tough time because my mother is progressively getting worse from terminal kidney cancer and MacDonald's dark humor about life really struck a chord with me.

So this week, my mother switched to hospice care, and I turned to MacDonald's book to get away from all the heavy stuff I've been reading but also to get some dark laughs in. Gotta laugh or go crazy right?

My dad died from the same kind of cancer in 2010, which is what originally kicked off my reading extravaganza as I attempted to read all the books he left behind (still in progress).

Okay back to MacDonald's book. It's one of these comedian memoirs that are so popular now but MacDonald invents a new genre. It's like nonfiction-fiction comedy-noir autobiography. It's probably not everyone's taste but it helped me pass some time pleasantly in a bad time.

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The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very fun and short. It's almost a puzzle to solve with fictional futuristic tools. Two funny or irritating things (I can't decide which) are 1) the big plot hole in the resolution, and 2) Heinlein's creepy sexism and hilarious projection of sexism into the future.

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Holy Bible: New International Version

Holy Bible: New International Version by Anonymous


I started at the beginning of the year and it took about an hour a day for 8 months. Sometimes I'd skip a few days, but then sometimes I would do 2 hours to make up for falling behind. The Old Testament is much longer obviously and I think I made it feel even longer by reading The New Testament's Gospels, The Old Testament, and then the rest of the New Testament. I spent 6 of the 8 months on the Old Testament and only 2 months on the New Testament.

A few thoughts on the Old Testament, it's very long, and I think there's a lot of merit in the Jewish tradition of focusing on the first five books (the Torah). Genesis and Exodus are particularly interesting. [Repeat from my Tanakh review:] Much of the rest of the Old Testament is wars and God getting angry for his worshippers breaking rules, especially marrying those of other religions. A few notable exceptions: Song of Songs is very romantic, Jonah is the stuff of great adventure books, and the locusts are as scary as a Steven King novel.

As for the New Testament, the Gospels are really interesting, in particular, the Gospel of Matthew. Not to be outdone by the locusts in the Old Testament, Revelation is some scary stuff.

Since I finished the Bible in less than a year, I'm going to try to read nonfiction books about the Bible for the rest of the year.


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Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have so many thoughts. One is that Moby Dick is an amazing work of literary fiction. It's also an amazing nonfiction book detailing nearly everything that was known at the time about sperm whales. I'm not sure it was a great idea to make these two amazing books into one. It certainly seems to throw a lot of people off- including me. This was my third attempt at reading Moby Dick and my first successful one. My first attempt was in high school, which I guess technically shouldn't count. It's probably useful to have some real grief or heartbreak in your life to understand some of the best sentences.

Another issue is that the foreshadowing is so out of control. Okay, I get it! This is a terrible idea!

The last three chapters pack an action-adventure punch and I was mystified by how Melville made the scenes come to life. There was a very cinematic feeling throughout.

Chapters 83, 93, and 110 were my favorite. They're so good that I don't need to justify 5 stars any further than those three chapters, but I'll add that my Kindle tells me I made 392 highlights.


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