After talking about it yesterday oh my brothers, I got curious, and your humble narrator checked out the book. Overall, I couldn’t believe how much of the book was fit into the Kubrick movie. It made me respect the movie that much more. To me, it seemed to perfectly communicate the ideas of the book without much loss in translation. Anthony Burgess wrote it in 3 weeks. He originally wrote it with 21 chapters to signify 21 years, the age of an adult, but when trying to get it published in New York the publisher wanted to cut the last chapter. Needing the money, he agreed, and this is the version that the film was based on. Naturally this burned the author’s beans and he thought that this was a huge mistake. Inevitably, this book ended up becoming his most influential as well as his least liked book that he authored. ...

I find myself questioning how things are typically done to see if there are any better ways out there. Currently my interest is focused on education. This book is widely recommended by overanxious parents everywhere. If I remember correctly Alethea was founded on some classical principles that were most likely inspired by Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) and Sayers is a contemporary of Mason (1842-1923). Most likely influenced by her. Their methods have a lot of overlap but some differences as well. Charlotte Mason thought that all kids should have the right to an education and not just the rich ones. She came up with her own method of education which minimized the amount of time talking by the teacher and replaced it with the students “narrating” what they had just read. This narration is a cornerstone to her method as she believes it cements what the student has learned in their minds and helps the student to incorporate the new knowledge into their brains. I sure hope this is true as this is the main reason I write these reviews. She also believed that children did not need to be trained how to think but instead should be exposed to the best thinkers and use their innate reasoning to process the best kinds of information. She believed that every subject (excluding math) should be taught in a literary form as story is the best way to learn. The younger children would narrate paragraph by paragraph, then chapter by chapter and then finally an entire book at a time. This narration would start out in verbal form but would eventually become written. In short starting from around age 6 children should be exposed to the best art, literature, music the world has to offer and this “mind stuff” will be good food for a growing brain. This nutritive aspect of learning is also prominent in Mason’s thinking. For the postmodern push back, Mason assumed everyone would be on the same page when she said “best stuff” i.e. Dickens, Rembrandt, Mozart etc. But why not Peterson, Heffner, and Cardie B? I tended to agree with her approach as I feel like kids often underachieve because they aren’t asked to achieve anything worth achieving. The other thing about her method which was interesting was she didn’t like tests, or homework, but structured her curriculum to be consumed (dependent on stellar focus, which may be a relic by now) at high speed in the morning and then in the afternoon to work on handicrafts or learn out in nature. Give the children beautiful things to think about and they will become beautiful thinkers. Overall, I enjoyed the book, and it gave me some valuable perspective from a very experienced and well-read person. The downside of this is that I don’t know how realistic it was as a lot of it sounded insane in a modern context, but I would love to be wrong on that point.

I’ll keep this one short. As the cover says, this book was written by the guy who also wrote kite runner, which was a very good book. This being my second book of his the appeal wasn’t there as much for me this time around. This story was also centered in Afghanistan (I started reading before the US troop pull-out and subsequent Taliban takeover in 2021, so it was synchronistic) and follows the life story of two women who end up living in the same house because one of them was forced to marry this dude as a child and the other was kind of forced due to the ongoing war. Similar to Kite Runner its cool to get a glimpse into the life of folks where you have no clue how they do what they do. This book was really entertaining and easy to read. The story itself was very dark. I enjoyed reading this book but wouldn’t label it as a “must read” especially if you get your hands on any of his other stuff first. Good stuff, prepare for despair.

Poe isn’t my favorite author, but I bought his complete works by accident (can’t’ remember why) and so my rule is that everything on the shelf has to have been read. The book presents his works in three stages. His poems, his short fiction and essays and one long from essay and one short novel at the end of the book. I must say I was not a huge fan of his poetry (not that I am any authority) either from confirmation bias or some other mechanism his more popular poems like the Raven and the bells seem to stand head and shoulders over the other works, like a band that made that really good song once upon a time. That isn’t to say there wasn’t anything worthwhile in this section, here is one of my favorites. ...

Enjoyed, a few points that stuck out to me. If people with high IQs learn to practice emotional intelligence or EQ then we are all screwed -Unlike IQ there is no test (author claims there might never be) to measure EQ. -The way your brain works against itself will never stop being interesting. -EQ seems like the alpha version to something that better quantifies the right brains responsibilities.

So, in this surprising newsflash, we feature a story about how Ernest Hemingway is actually a really good writer. This story was set in the Spanish civil war where a mix of communists and republicans were fighting an established fascist government. The book follows an American named Robert Jordan who is fighting for the communist resistance. He is employed as a dynamiter and instructed to blow up a bridge behind enemy lines. There were two things that stuck out to me from this book. First is that Hemingway is probably the manliest man I’ve ever read. But in the best way possible. In my opinion this book is a great antidote to “toxic masculinity”. There is no machismo, chest thumping or other forms of “compensation”. Instead, there is a confident determination to carry out one’s responsibilities and to not be found wanting when the key moment arises. The main character is a blueprint of competency without arrogance. He managed to do that as well as write two female characters that seemed complex and layered. Hats off to you sir. The second thing was, it has been a while since I’ve read a book where I felt like I could see exactly what the main character was seeing. Hemingway manages to describe the setting and scenes so well I felt myself in the pine forests in the mountains of Spain. Or as an eyewitness to a massacre perpetrated by victorious rebels. This book makes you feel a full range of emotions.

I listened to this whole book, then went back and listened to the first half again, to try and cement an understanding of his argument which could be fairly complicated. The goal of the book was to give a convincing explanation of Scientific Materialism. So instead of “A Case for Christ” this would be “A Case for Darwin”. It was pretty nice to hear the best arguments for materialism from a guy who has spent much of his life studying the problem, but it took extra concentration to keep up as the reasoning was so different from the usual hippy pan psychic stuff I’ve been reading of late. Here are some thoughts, ...

I did this so you wouldn’t have to, and now you can at least take one book off your list. Gargantua and Pantagruel was written by François Rabelais in the 1500s. While the term “renaissance man” is often over-used it really applies to Rabelais. He was a genius walking contradiction. A Frenchman, a Greek scholar, a learned physician, a monk, a humanist, and is best known for his risqué satirical songs and writing. Whatever box you try to put him in, he seems to pop out of it. His characters have a love for life that flies in the face of the reserved stoicism that we generally associate with the 1500s. Whether it is taking a piss or reading Apollodorus each is treated equally in this book. Appearing in 5 books, the reader follows the adventures of Gargantua who is a giant, and his son Pantagruel who is also a giant. The book is filled to the brim with sex jokes and bathroom humor. Here is my favorite of each, for bathroom humor Gargantua is talking to his father about all the different objects he has used for toilet paper in his search for the perfect wiping sensation. The list includes but is not limited to old hats, slippers and velvet gloves. But his favorite is… ...

Consistently rated as American’s favorite book second only to the Bible, Gone with the Wind has undeniably shaped America’s culture and helped serialize the romantic ethos of ‘The South’. Written in 1936 it was an instant hit, selling more than a million copies before being turned into arguably the first blockbuster film three years later. Gone with the Wind follows the life of Scarlett O’Hara for around 15 years observing the start of the civil war and the tumultuous reconstruction that followed. This book has often courted controversy and how could it not? This is a story of the south, by someone who loved the south. —-Main Characters—- Scarlett The epitome of a southern belle, except that her charms are only skin deep. A beautiful headstrong girl who has always been the center of attention, surrounded by suitors and always pampered. As a main character I have never liked anyone less. The whole book is from her point of view which in the early part of the book is the same as being stuck inside a ditzy 17-year-old girl’s head. Scarlett isn’t stupid per se, but nothing abstract interests her, as such, much of the philosophy of the South is omitted from the book and instead is presented through motifs. Honestly this might be for the best, as because of this the book seldom gets bogged down in preaching for a way of life that we as a society have decidedly rejected. Scarlett may not be stupid in a classical sense, but she is clueless how to live life and to know what she really wants. In many ways she is the most believable of the main characters and while it is often not pleasant to be stuck in her head, I feel the same way about being stuck in my head sometimes. ...

I inherently don’t trust people who are named Dr. ‘X’, but they always seem to become popular. In a single sentence I would say that the book is full of BS that probably works. There were things in the book that triggered the Hank Hill “now that’s just asinine” response, but then she would follow it up with an explanation that would end up making a lot of sense. The foundation of this book is the idea that everyone is “Good inside”. She puts an emphasis on the idea that we are not our actions. A what she calls “two things are true” attitude. You did something that you aren’t proud of, but you are good inside. She takes this approach because she believes that people can’t change their behaviors until they believe they are good inside. She is anti-shame, so anything that promotes shame (like thinking you are bad inside) must go. So basically, a childhood completely opposite from the one I had. She promotes viewing everyone, but especially your kids through a “most generous interpretation” lens. The main role of the parent is to create an environment that is safe for the child to learn how to self-regulate emotions. So instead of shutting down kids’ feelings you are supposed to acknowledge them and let the kid feel them, so they know how to deal with their emotions instead of repressing them……sounds demonic. So, an example would be if your child is afraid of the dark, instead of trying to convince them they are not, you should approach things from a “trying to understand” way and ask why questions. Then you would tell your child, that you believe they are afraid, and that it isn’t bad or wrong to feel that way. You could then work together on trying to find solutions to mitigate the fear, instead of just telling your kid to not be “so dramatic”. That’s pretty much it, any feeling your kid has, you tell them that it is okay to feel that way, while holding boundaries. Overall, this book made me realize that I had been thinking through parenting through too much of a “me-centric” viewpoint. Focusing on what I can do instead of thinking through things from the child’s point of view. What is it like to be told what to do all the time? What is it like to have no control over your activities? How can we promote autonomy in such a structured environment? How can we learn to regulate feelings we aren’t allowed to have? So just take a moment, put your hand on your heart, deep breath in, close your eyes and say “I’m good inside”