Sean

Winters continues his meditation on the question, “What would you do – no, really, what would you do – if the Earth – no, forget all that claptrap, this is for real, what would you really do – if the Earth were definitely going to end soon. I do not normally read police procedurals and such-like, but these books are riveting.

Fun. I read it more for professional reasons than personal, so I'm not invested enough to write a review.

An immensely satisfying “prequel” to the Tommy Taylor books. Carey does not get sidetracked. What could have been a simple “origin story,” continues his philosophical exploration of the intersection of story and reality. Yes, he reveals many details of Tommy's early life, his father, and Mr. Taylor's intentions, but it all serves the larger, cosmic story.

Carey continues to play a quick shell game with the reader. He pretends to be writing Harry Potter fanfic while actually telling a story of ideas that has nothing to do with Potter at all. The ingenuity and imagination of the Tommy Taylor books is here embodied perfectly in the beautiful artwork of fine drawers and colorists.

It pretends to be science fiction, perhaps, but is a surreal exploration of intentionality and getting old. I found it worth the read.

I don't have much to say about tis book except that I love it and all the Skippyjon Jones books. (I'm 50 years old, by the way, and I don't have children.) The opening sentences, though, deserve to be mentioned, since they had be doubled up in laughter in the lunch room at work.

Skippyjon Jones was a real High-Wire Henry. And that made his mama as worried as a worm in a wading pool.
“Oh, my fleas,” wailed Mama Junebug Jones. “Come down from that wire before you break all your bones!”
“He can't hear you,” sang his sisters, Ju-Ju Bee, Jezebel, and Jilly Boo, “cause Skippy's up in squirrely world.”

“Skippy's up in squirrelly world.” I still laugh.

This book is a novelization of a Athabascan Indian legend.

I have had several friends who romanticize or “spiritualize” Native Americans (and other, non-European peoples) to the point of making them unhuman. I once had a friend who told me about how the virtuous arctic peoples would deal with food shortages in Winter. The eldest would stay behind so they would not be a burden to the rest of the people. This was done, in her telling, voluntarily and with great serenity. I could almost see their halos as she told the tale. BUT, the little voice in my head yelled “BS!” Sure, it might well have happened that way sometimes, but I know human beings (despite being of European descent, I am not totally unfamiliar with the human race.) Humans want to live! Humans abandon other humans and feel like crap for it. Humans sometimes are jerks.

This book shows the tribe abandoning these two old women, and it is not pretty at all. We are allowed to witness slow murder. It feels real. Not romanticized at all, this story is an authentic picture of humans in extremis. Of course, there is a necessary and fitting happy ending, but it did not invalidate what went before.

An excellent little book for what I conceive its purpose to be. I would recommend it to typical church-going adults who need an overview of the Apostles' Creed and experience looking thing up in the Bible. The theological understand of my Celtic Catholic tradition means that I would have to provide some guidance if I were to offer it to one of my parishioners, but the format is quite helpful and pleasant to use, and it seems to be a good introduction to the subject. I would like other such books about the rest of my Church's liturgy. I may have to write them, using this book as my model. Good work!

Colfer is to be commended for attempting the impossible and pulling it off so well. He wrote a book which, by its style, certainly fits in with Adams's corpus, but which never gives the impression of trying to counterfeit him. Not quite as funny or heart-moving as some of the original Hitchhiker's books, it was nevertheless an enjoyable read.

I think if I had read this before Salmon of Doubt I might have been disappointed that it was not Adams himself. But Salmon, with its incompleteness and sudden ending, saddened me greatly and drove home that Adams is no more, so I was not expecting his exact voice in Another Thing.

Gorgeous art and a rivetting story, but somehow not as gripping as the novels. The GN versions become a bit of a slog for me to get through, and I think I shan't read any more of them. Maybe too much gore for my taste. But, for a person who might like the style, I highly recommend them.

A bit difficult reading for someone not used to this type of poetry (and who nowadays is?), but quite fun. I read it because it contains “Chile Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” which was an inspiration for Stephen Kings Dark Tower books. Some eery and disturbing images in several of the poems.

I liked it, even though the pictures did not match those formed in my imagination while reading the first King novel. Roland looks wrong to me. I was amazed at how different the graphic novel is from the book upon which it is partly based, how different the atmosphere and mood. The novel is more moody, philosophical, ... I had the feeling there was some idea I could almost but not quite grasp behind the words. The graphic novel was, for me, just a shoot-em-up. An atmospheric and odd one, but more mundane.

A fun read. A bit too sweet perhaps. It seemed like the author asked himself, “How can I improve somebody's self-esteem today? I'll write a book!” But there are times in life when a boost in confidence is just what is needed. I can easily picture a kid needing the feel-good “be yourself” message this book offers. Some people have complained about the stereotypical portrayal of a gay kid in the character of Joe, but I have known kids just like him. They need to read about someone like them. What they do not need is “It's OK to be gay, just as long as you aren't too swishy.” Yes: swishy, too-fem gay guys can drive a person nuts, but the alienation which comes from being told that they are not suitable for depiction in a novel is sure to make things worse, not better.

Very funny (if you catch it) and surreal, this book demanded my attention and would not let go. The author weaves together “real” fiction, Native American mythology (a quiltwork of borrowed ideas), movie tropes, and an ideosynchratic world-view which is charming and fun, and and which hints at hidden wisdom.

Why did I take so long to get around to reading this? Now I need to buy a copy of my own so I can re-read it, mark it, inwardly digest it.

Boethius has so much to say through the person of Lady Philosophy. I will comment on two of his points.

1. Philosophy urges the reader to let go of fear and hope. Fear is fairly obvious, but hope? It might even seem to be a contradiction, since in the last paragraph of the work she says that “hope is not placed in God in vain.” Having spent several years of my life struggling with the word “hope,” trying to figure out just what it means–it is, after all, a virtue, so it must mean more than just an expectation of a desired outcome–her injunction to dispense with it was a call to meditation. It seems obvious to me that the “hope” to let go of is the aforementioned anticipation of a desired outcome. Hope defined as confidence in God or–and here is the definition which really changed my views when I ran across it–the firm conviction that there is meaning underneath all that happens, is the hope which is not in vain, if it is placed in God.

2. Boethius asks Philosophy about God's foreknowledge of the future, and whether that destroys free will. She gives a good explanation of the difference between eternity and perpetuity. A living being is of necessity only in the present moment. It's future has not arrived; it's past is gone. Only the moment is present to it. But for an eternal being, there is no past or future in the sense of time gone past or time not yet arrived. Everywhen is fully realized as NOW. And so there is no “seeing into the future,” or predicting (even with an absolute degree of certainty) what will happen next. Everything to God is Now. So God sees all the times which to us are “future.” It's just that for him they are not future, but Now. So what he sees is the working out of our free will, not constrained by his “already having witnessed it,” but simply events working themselves out in God's eternal Now moment.

Delightfully surreal. A bit disturbing in spots–very disturbing in one–but well worth the read. I will most certainly be reading the next in the series.

Very good, but, since it was not what I was expecting or hoping for, a bit of a disappointment.

I have become very interested lately in listening to what Jesus actually has to say, as if his words mattered. Sadly, the downside of the beautiful and wise theology which the Church has come to understand is that we sometimes overlook Jesus' actual teachings. I was hoping for an exploration of his words, considered philosophically. But Kreeft, being Kreeft, gave me something different, though certainly very good. He presents Jesus himself as the answer to four primary philosophical questions. Theologically quite profound, and I enjoyed his presentation–maybe I even learned something lasting from it, let's hope. But since it was not what I am most interested in at the moment, it was a bit of a let down.

A person expecting a “philosophical” book, will, perhaps, be disappointed. He might throw up his hands and declare, “Why, this is just theology after all!” But Kreeft makes the case well, that Jesus, considered as Christians believe him to be (fully God and fully human), is philosophically pertinent. Jesus, the author claims, makes his philosophical claims simply by being, not by teaching. I would hope that the reader would allow the argument some respect and weight.

Gorgeous art. And it made me cry. At work.

Very interesting, insofar as it connects seemingly unconnected things and phenomena.

Magnificent. Books without words can be so much fun, and this one certainly is. The art is beautiful (surprisingly moving, in fact) and utterly captivating. I love the look on the boy's face when he looks at the first photo. The octopus in their living room gave me agood laugh. The starfish scene–I want that painting on my wall.

As he did with The invention of Hugo Cabret, Selznick masterfully combines words and pictures (beautiful pictures) to tell his story. Two stories, actually, with one being told only by the drawings, whcih intermingles and plays with the verbal story.

Wonderstruck is a tale of wonders, about two children who take matters into their own hands. With some help from unexpected friends, and the wonders of a wonder-ful museum, each finds a place in the world to call home.

I can actually draw now–a little bit–thanks to this book. I know I would be able to draw much better if I gave it some time and effort. I would have thought such a thing impossible before I opened this book. The author taught me how to stop and look at what is really there in front of me, not simply to rely on my ingrained symbolic representations of things.

I read this so many years ago I don't remember when, so I can not write a review of it now. But I can say that a few passages have stuck with me all these years, and I can even quote a line of dialogue. And that is saying something for a book after all.

I certainly understand why this book is praised highly and considered a classic. Sadly for me, I could not find any meaningful way to connect with it, so I abandoned it about half-way through.

I never really read Archie comics much when I was the target demographic, but I had to read this one, just because. Sappy and predictable and typically Archie, but I really enjoyed it.

This book made me want to be a member of the VFD and a better person. It quite literally is one of the books that has formed me into the person I am–at least the good parts of who I am now.