Unapologetic by Francis Spufford

Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense by Francis Spufford
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The best part of this book is how smart and flippant Spufford is. He's hilarious, rude, and thoughtful all at once. Despite the confusing reviews, this book is definitely in support of Christianity. The reviewers who claim Spufford is an atheist either didn't read a single word of the book or have a super insular view of Christianity.

View all my reviews

Jesus, Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman

Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don't Know About Them by Bart D. Ehrman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is very good and thorough and I would have highly valued a book like this in high school. But it can be a little tedious for those of us who long ago surmised the central tenant of this book which is that the Bible cannot be literally accurate in its depiction of events. There is no end of proof to that thesis, many of which come from other fields.

But personally, I think Ehrman undersold the value of the Judeo-Christian faiths separate from the literal truth of the Bible collection and that might be misleading to some less educated readers. Ehrman came to his religious conclusion via the religious extremist route, then learning real scholarship, slowly liberalizing, and finally rejecting his religious beliefs. But if you were never so wedded to the literalism in the first place you might find more longterm value in the religious metaphors. Sometimes metaphors are more real than reality. That's what I've arrived at via the study of literature, philosophy, science, and even politics. If you've dedicated so much of your life to just one field, you're likely highly educated and have been exposed to a lot of knowledge in other fields, but maybe you haven't had the opportunity to afford them equal weight or consideration.

View all my reviews

A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought I would feel smarter than I do when I finished this book. Nonetheless an interesting review of the classical philosophers. I don't think it would have killed him to throw in at least one woman, at a minimum with reference to western feminist philosophy, especially considering he included some not terribly deep political philosophers (who weren't necessarily concerned with consciousness or the cosmos but only political realities). I know this suggestion makes me sound like a millennial, but I assure you I'm not.

Bertrand correctly predicted that science would take over a lot of the inquiries on reality- as it has in consciousness and the cosmos, though he wasn't correct that, as in theoretical physics, it would never be based in thought experiments. I wish someone wrote a summary of philosophers and their central ideas picking up where Russell left off.

View all my reviews

Free Will by Sam Harris

Free Will by Sam Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This makes me deeply uncomfortable, but nonetheless, it's difficult to dispute. I'm also not comfortable with a leap into public policy based on this, unless as Harris suggested we focus the prison system on containing dangers, instead of punishment.

There is a section about observing our thoughts arise on their own that might make more sense to people that have studied and attempted meditation.

View all my reviews

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Despite being a very short book, this is a good critique of fanatical literal Christianity and fanatical religions in general. It is also a good critique of the liberal denial of the threat of Islamic fanaticism on Western society and its values. I agree for example that misogyny shouldn't get a pass just because it's Islamic misogyny. Does try to answer the question of why the more moderate religion Karen Armstrong proposes is still a danger and ethically harmful.

Nonetheless, he fails to address how he can preclude a superpower of some kind in a (multiple?) universe that operates under such totally unexpected and not-rational-seeming rules of physics. So he still comes off as sounding nearly as arrogant as the religious fanatics he critiques.

View all my reviews

Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment--And Your Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Just the basics. I like that it's short but there wasn't too much you can't find in all the other mindfulness books.

View all my reviews

A Confession by Leo Tolstoy

A Confession by Leo Tolstoy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tolstoy trying to figure out the meaning of life. Remarkably similar to my own experiences except I never got to be a successful sinful writer. Haha. I don't feel terribly satisfied with the end of his essay or my (same) current status. Hopefully, there's some step after this.

View all my reviews

From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun

From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present by Jacques Barzun
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I did not especially enjoy reading this which is why I initially gave up after 200 pages. But I hate quitting things, and this is one of my dad's books, so I persisted. It's definitely interesting the way he handles European culture of 500 years, which is too long a time period even for a book this long, but it was a good try.

I initially was thinking 3 stars, but I bumped up my stars when I got to the end and read his summation of more modern history. I wonder how I would have viewed the previous 400-year summaries if I'd read the end first. It's a pretty good summary of life as we know it though it's pretty damning as well.

Finally, another reason for bumping to 4 stars is that I intend to keep the book as a list of "people and things to read about next."

Big demerit for spoiling the plots of many classical books on my to-read shelf! Almost enough to keep me to 3 stars, but I was feeling generous because I was so happy to be finished with this tome.

View all my reviews

The I Ching or Book of Changes by Anonymous

The I Ching or Book of Changes by Anonymous


This is the strangest book yet. It’s an ancient choose your own adventure prophesy book. The prophesy are written in the form of indecipherable aphorisms. Perhaps a lot is lost in translation.

“If you abandon jaws of it all and good fortune will prevail...”

View all my reviews

The Way of the Bodhisattva by Śāntideva

The Way of the Bodhisattva: A Translation of the Bodhicharyavatara by Śāntideva
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some interesting things to think about. Some weird stuff. Short but dense. Read it because Dan Harris said Dalai Lama recommended it. Hm.

I was particularly interested in some (accidental?) overlap with Christianity (love thy enemy) and modern particle physics.

As one reviewer mentioned, this is definitely not an introductory text for Buddhism but a more advanced book, and despite the previous Buddhism books I've read, a substantial amount was probably just above my head.

View all my reviews

10% Happier by Dan Harris

10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works by Dan Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a surprisingly wonderful book! I picked this up by accident because I thought it was a popular science book about the phenomenon of our happiness set point and the small change we're able to make to those set points. A few pages in, I realized I was reading a memoir about a news anchor who was not the kind of person I find it easy to relate to usually. I checked on Goodreads and saw some not-so-positive reviews, and I almost gave up reading the book. I'm so glad I didn't.

The author first takes us on his journalistic investigation of religion, especially Evangelical Christianity, which then leads to his own spiritual quest. He skeptically interviewed some self-help gurus. He then went off in a different direction by examining Buddhism. This leads to a significant portion of the book examining the practice, purpose, and pitfalls of mindfulness and meditation. All the while, the author is describing how his quest helped him grow as a person, and I realized how much I can and do connect with the author.

I'm not sure if I could have totally understood the value of this book two years ago, but since then I've also regularly practiced (with some inconsistency) and read widely about meditation. This is one of my new favorite books about meditation. Harris has a very non-guru approach which was very refreshing to me because I am also not a meditation guru. He had every skeptical thought I had in my early learning process, but more importantly, he addressed problems that I had not yet resolved in my own practice. He provided information that was new to me despite the books I've read about meditation and mindfulness, and this has encouraged me to go back to practicing more regularly and possibly for longer sessions. I think I also want to go to one of those multi-day meditation retreats now.

View all my reviews

The Upanishads by Anonymous

The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit by Anonymous


As a rule, I don't rate Holy Books. I will say this is more the sort of thing one would expect from a holy book if you were imagining the concept from scratch. The philosophy here overlaps a bit with Buddhism. It also does not depend purely on reasoning, as the philosophy can be better understood through the practical application of meditation. Not all of it makes great sense to me, but I'm not a great Yogi, so I wouldn't expect it to anyway.

View all my reviews

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice by Shunryu Suzuki
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I took a Buddhism class in college and this was part of our required reading. At the time, it made no sense to me. This is because this book did not explain how to meditate. Since then, I've read books about how to meditate, I've attempted meditation (hundreds of times at this point), and I've read about consciousness. So now it makes sense. Even so, it was a horrible choice for an introductory Buddhism course with no discussion of meditation. It's also a poor book if you haven't already learned about meditation and attempted it, especially because he doesn't give any explicit directions about meditation beyond sitting in the correct posture. Meditation itself is barely implied. You only know that what he's talking about if you already have a background in it.

There's no explanation of how Zen is a school of (East Asian) Mahayana Buddhism, or that there are even branches of Buddhism with different beliefs. Is zazen just another word for meditation or is there something unique about it? Meditation with no purpose? I can't really figure it out from the text. You will acquire something from this practice but you can't practice it in order to acquire something or it is not zazan? Ah, koans even where we don't expect them. "Intellectually my talk makes no sense." Well, I agree with that.

Despite the name, this is an intermediate or advanced meditation book, with an emphasis on zen practice specifically which like I said is just one kind. There are some interesting thoughts here worth considering. Some of it reminds me a lot of Christianity.

View all my reviews

3:16 by Max Lucado

3:16: The Numbers of Hope by Max Lucado
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is helpful if you don't know the basic premise of Evangelical Christianity. If you're already an Evangelical, you will probably enjoy this book like a warm hug or comfort food. If you don't fit either of those categories this book probably won't enlighten or persuade you (even if you're looking to be persuaded) as there isn't much substance to it.

View all my reviews