The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are lots of really beautiful parts to this. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

“You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth.
You are also as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean
by the frailty of its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

View all my reviews

The End of Power by Moisés Naím

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be by Moisés Naím
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Considering this was written in 2013, it was practically prescient regarding the dissipation of power in politics. So many sentences read as if the writer knew about Trump's takeover of the Republican party or even Brexit. I wonder how far this trend will go.

View all my reviews

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám by Omar Khayyám

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám by Omar Khayyám
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have a beautiful copy of this book with Edward FitzGerald's first and fifth edition and beautiful illustrations. I liked the irreverent poems especially the ones about wine. I liked some of the poems skeptical of religion - one even seemed to reference a sort of Buddhist conception of a lack of self - but they got a little tired after a while. FitzGerald's translation rhymes but I would have gladly sacrificed that for more ease in reading. My eyes kept glazing over and I had to read some of the poems repeatedly.

Favorite, #37 in the first edition:
Ah, fill the Cup:-- what boots it to repeat
How Time is underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-Morrow, and dead Yesterday.
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!

View all my reviews

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.


View all my reviews

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this novel. Hosseini did a good job of writing about some of the complications of friendship and family. I could relate to the experience of immigrants and refugees trying to adjust to a new country, culture, and language.

The setting of Afghanistan in two different times was also really interesting. I've read some of the history of the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan but I still think this book could have benefitted from explaining a bit more clearly what was going politically to understand the relationship to what was happening in the plot of the story.

View all my reviews