What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was pleasant enough to read if you're not a runner but are a Murakami reader (like me). It seems like he ran out of things to discuss despite the book's short length since he started talking about swimming as well.

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The Sibyl by Pär Lagerkvist

The Sibyl by Pär Lagerkvist
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am having a lot of trouble coming up with actual reasons why I liked this book so much. I think it's the character of the Sibyl which is so powerful and unique. The beginning outline of her story follows a realistic one, with a virgin in the village being chosen to be the sibyl for the temple and how all was accomplished in the temple. But it's really her feelings and religious devotion which make the book what it is. All her love mixed with rage jumped off the page and grabbed me. I really enjoyed the book.

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No Baggage by Clara Bensen

No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering by Clara Bensen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think I heard about this book back when it came out because it got a lot of media attention for the gimmick of the book which is that two people that just started dating travel Europe together with no luggage. A minimalism book meets travelogue. In reality, the book is more about her existentialism, her strange romance with her travel companion, and a little bit about mental illness. She a very good writer so the existentialism is especially fun to read. The romance was a little difficult to read as her romantic companion is in turns withholding and teasing, and that is totally not my scene.

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Apology by Plato

Apology by Plato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Interesting, moving, my favorite dialogue so far. Though we've all heard "the unexamined life is not worth living" I particularly enjoyed the full quote (depending on your translation this may vary obviously):

"And if I say again that the greatest good of man is to converse daily about virtue and all that which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, that you are still less likely to believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it hard for me to persuade you."

This quote is a great precursor to Jesus:
“The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.”


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Meno by Plato

Meno by Plato
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This dialogue is Socrates's attempt to make the handsome Meno tell him what every instance of virtue has and only virtue has. Meno is a little slow and talks about "getting good things" rather than any soulful or golden-rule type answers.

Shortly thereafter, Meno tries to give up. So Socrates teaches a slave boy some geometry to prove that people are better off realizing all that they don't know rather than thinking they do know and being incorrect.

Then Socrates launches into some strange religious ideas he doesn't substantiate or explain in any convincing way. He ties reason and use of logic to "anamnesis" or recollection of a past life's knowledge.

Anytus comes by and makes death threats to Socrates.

Then is my favorite quote because it is the only part that makes sense to me:
"... none of us remarked that right and good action is possible to man under other guidance than that of knowledge (episteme);-and indeed if this be denied, there is no seeing how there can be any good men at all. "

But then Socrates goes on to say "right opinion" is just as good as knowledge. Seems dubious to me, since "right opinion" would likely still have a basis in knowledge of the things opined about or similar. Although, further research tells me that this might just be a bad translation, and Socrates is actually saying that a logical working out of a solution (via the Socratic method) is as good as knowledge.

Then finally Socrates concludes that since goodness isn't something we are born with, nor something we can learn, it must come from the gods. My online research tells me scholars disagree about whether he is being serious or sarcastically dismissing Meno because he can't be taught anything.

He certainly seems serious in the dialogue but he can't be because he's endeavoring to do the very thing he claims is impossible to do? Though, irony on top of irony, I don't know how effective Socrates has been in this dialogue. At least, I don't feel any smarter after reading this.


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Poetics by Aristotle

Poetics by Aristotle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Aristotle discusses the forms and best practices of tragedy, comedy, and epic poetry. There’s a strong emphasis on The Iliad, The Odyssey, and parts of The Orestia (which I am familiar with) and some other works with which I am not familiar. His literary critique and description is surprisingly timeless. Also, it’s so short and readable that there’s no reason to put it off if it’s on your reading list.

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Worlds at War by Anthony Pagden

Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West by Anthony Pagden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was interesting but crazy. Obviously, over 2000 years is a lot to cover in one book. I was oftentimes lost in the early history section because I didn't have a lot of background in the historical players, and sometimes I wasn't even sure which one Pagden was referencing when he said "he." Even though his thesis about the difficulty and incompatibility of Islam with modern secularism has to rely heavily on more modern times, the Epilogue begins in 1991. Of course, it makes sense he has to rush through history if he's going to cover all that time to make a bigger over-arching point, but why does he spend so much time talking about Napolean and Lawrence of Arabia?

He touches on the problem of fanatical religions generally, and there is no shortage of fanatics in Christianity- historically or today- but he offers no good explanation for why there's been a big difference in the development of secular societies. If President Bush wasn't slowed down by Jesus's statement to render onto Caesar what is his, then how big an impact did that one sentence really make?

I gave it 4 stars mainly because I liked reading about 2000 years in such a (relatively speaking) short book.

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nonfiction, 2000-09, author-male, dads-books, history, politics, greece, iran, iraq, afghanistan, law, slavery, war, islam, christianity, religion, syria, turkey, serbia, sexism, president-wilson, israel, palestine, france, england

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This has everything: moral conscience, adventure, family, romance, feminism, politics, and religion. It's literary fiction and it has an element of fantasy. Some of it reads like a poetry. Worth reading.

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The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I didn't particularly like it. It didn't seem clever or funny or otherwise interesting with the exception of the wife. Also thought it was interesting that it was set in an ancient Greek city that's in modern day Turkey (Ephesus).

Do we have Shakespeare to thank for all those Twin movies of the 1980's?

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Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Everyone knows the general story of Oedipus, but wow, this play is intense and amazing. It's not a just a tragedy, it's a horror of sights and emotion. Sophocles really railed against the injustices of fate.

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The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus

The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one is really intense, even compared to the first one, "Agamemnon."

[2500-Year Old] Spoiler Alert:
Orestes kills his mother after she begs him not to. His motives are a bit dubious. Does he not know his father killed his sister Iphigenia? Is he actually just mad his mother sent him to live outside of the castle? Is he just a super religious opportunist who has to follow the Oracle or risk life-failure? Maybe all of these things.

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Agamemnon by Aeschylus

Agamemnon by Aeschylus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have a lot of sympathy for Clytaemnestra. Reading a more generalized Greek mythology in high school I loved the character of Cassandra, but Aeschylus doesn't really have a lot of patience for her, and that's fine.

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A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle

A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some light spoilers ahead, but I tried to refrain from really telling anything.

First, this book is not for kids unless you're prepared to discuss sex, consent, and people taking advantage of teens.

As background, Calvin and Meg are 41 years old now, and move back to the US for Calvin's job. They settle on another island, this time in South Carolina. Their 7 children are a little older now: Polly (16 years old), Charles (14), Sandy "Zan" (12?), Den (10?), Peggy (8), Johnny (6), and Rosie (4).

While the whole family is mentioned, this story is mostly about Polly's "coming of age." She makes friends with a bunch of much older people in South Carolina: Maxine and Ursula who are in their 50s, and a medical intern Renny that she's dating. He's the absolute worst person in this book in my opinion, but Polly doesn't seem to notice. Max encourages her to take a trip to Athens, where she meets a total creeper guy Zachary in his 20s. He's the second or third worst person in this book. Again Polly doesn't seem to notice. Instead she focuses on being mad at Max for basically no reason at all. The story flashes back and forth between her town in South Carolina and Athens.

There are a lot of issues with this book, the biggest is that it is SO MELODRAMATIC. Maybe that's perfect for teenage girls? Another problem is the super high number of creepy characters willing to hit on 16-year-old Polly. Polly is tall, but she makes it clear that she does not look like an adult, so it's not an innocent mistake. Given that this was written in the 1980s we can't blame culture for this disaster. Another issue is that a whole bunch of new characters are introduced about 70% of the way through the book. Nope, sorry, I can't care about new people this late in the game.

Nonetheless, if I grade it on a curve, it's the best in O'Keefe series, and maybe one of the better in the bigger Kairos series (which is the 8 books in the Time quintet + O'Keefe series). There are references to great books, and there are a few deep thoughts.

More of a spoiler: Netson's Disease is fictional but I'm not sure why, as there are plenty of parasites that injure the heart. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/americans-may-be-more-at-risk-from-deadly-heart-parasite-than-realized/

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