What Are You Reading Now?

[Jacob]

Great book - a must read for anyone interested in WW II!

I'll have to get to it after I finish Mein Kampf. I'm not very impressed with Hitler's prose or persuasion.

[Pelado]

I'll have to get to it after I finish Mein Kampf. I'm not very impressed with Hitler's prose or persuasion.

I read somewhere that Nazi leadership were embarrassed by Mein Kampf. I don't think I got all the way through it, but I can understand that sentiment.

[LA Ute]

I'll have to get to it after I finish Mein Kampf. I'm not very impressed with Hitler's prose or persuasion.

Read Shirer's "The Rise and Fall" instead. You'll get the important parts of Mein Kampf without all the tedium. Also some interesting eyewitness accounts of how scarily effective the Fuhrer was in oral presentations.

[ERCougar]

Dear Leader - a first hand account of the defection of Kim Jong Il's poet laureate of sorts. I liked Orphan Master's Son more for the look inside North Korea than for the literary quality, and for that, this is even better. There are horrifying details of the abject poverty of the Korean people, of course, but what I found even more fascinating was the relative prosperity of rural China, where the author defects. Yes, rural China. The defection involves so many narrow escapes from both Korean and Chinese authorities that you wonder how anyone manages to defect at all.

The Invention of Wings - fictional account of the historical Grimke sisters, some of the first abolitionists and women's suffragists, who grew up in early nineteenth century South Carolina. The story alternates narrators between Sarah Grimke and her slave. That's tricky to pull off well without becoming cliche, and Sue Monk Kidd does it reasonably well. She adds a few nice fictional touches to the story, but mostly this is a great way to come to know two pretty amazing women in history.

[SteelBlue]

All the Light We Cannot See By Anthony Doerr. This was a fantastic read that I believe will become increasingly popular over the next several months. Set during WWII and beautifully told. Like The Goldfinch, it rides a line between literary fiction and thriller but I'd say it leans further toward thriller than The Goldfinch did. Without question this has been my favorite novel of 2014.

CS bonus: one of the main characters is a child prodigy in the field of engineering.

The NYT review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/bo...ony-doerr.html

[SteelBlue]

The Invention of Wings - fictional account of the historical Grimke sisters, some of the first abolitionists and women's suffragists, who grew up in early nineteenth century South Carolina. The story alternates narrators between Sarah Grimke and her slave. That's tricky to pull off well without becoming cliche, and Sue Monk Kidd does it reasonably well. She adds a few nice fictional touches to the story, but mostly this is a great way to come to know two pretty amazing women in history.

Just finished this today and really enjoyed it. I knew absolutely nothing about the Grimke sisters prior to reading this book and found them (or at least this historical fiction version of them) to be quite inspiring and courageous. As I'm sure you did, I thought often of the OW movement as I read. The Invention of Wings would be a good read for anyone who is looking to understand how some women might feel at their core when their aspirations/dreams are constrained by and/or in conflict with a system of belief or a way of living.

Also recently finished Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. An interesting book about a woman who dies at birth on the book's first page, and then keeps being reborn on the same date and reliving life, sometimes remembering just enough to keep her life going longer. It's a cool idea, and I really enjoyed it for a while, but for whatever reason my attention began to fade as the book wore on.

[SteelBlue]

Just finished Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh. This was another favorite of this year for me. It's a Cyberpunk novel set in a dystopian NYC after a dirty bomb has driven most everyone away who can afford to leave. The novel follows Spademan, a garbageman turned likeable hitman after the bomb. He states from the get go that he'll kill men and women equally but that he draws the line at children. The novel begins as he takes a contract job on a young woman who has only been an adult a few weeks. He learns something about her that drives the novel (no spoilers here) and around which much of the plot is centered.

Perhaps most interesting is the creation of a better kind of internet (the internet we use now is relegated to the poor) called the limnosphere, used by the wealthy. In the limnosphere actions and reactions feel just as real as they do in the real world. It was reminiscent of Bruce Willis' Surrogate in that users "tap in" via a bed while they are unconscious/asleep, and it spawn an entirely new economy for users who need security and nursing etc... while they are tapped in. As you can guess, users have begun to prefer the limnosphere to the real world and their bodies waste away as they spend all of their time tapped in. The novel is quite interesting and feels new and relevant. It's very violent and dark, but also thought provoking. Shovel Ready feels Hollywood Ready, and I'll be surprised if this isn't a movie within a couple of years. Highly recommended.

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[Jeff Lebowski]

All the Light We Cannot See By Anthony Doerr. This was a fantastic read that I believe will become increasingly popular over the next several months. Set during WWII and beautifully told. Like The Goldfinch, it rides a line between literary fiction and thriller but I'd say it leans further toward thriller than The Goldfinch did. Without question this has been my favorite novel of 2014.

CS bonus: one of the main characters is a child prodigy in the field of engineering.

The NYT review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/bo...ony-doerr.html

Almost done with Goldfinch (loving it). This one is next on my list.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Finished The Goldfinch. Overall, I thought it was great and a pleasure to read. If I have to nitpick, I will say that the entire novel could have used some editing. Would have been just fine at 4-500 pages. Loved the Boris character, but the Russian mob was way too warm and friendly to be believable. Requires some suspension of disbelief.

[SteelBlue]

If CS ever does a book club (old timers might remember we did that on CG), To Rise Again at a Decent Hour might be the most appropriate fiction selection ever. Mainly composed of the inner musings of successful, but increasingly miserable Paul O'Rourke a NYC dentist, and avowed athiest, the book's dark humor takes on many of the theological and faith related questions that CS and its predecessors have been debating for years. The plot is unique and strange, but so fitting for a gathering of progmos.

NPR had my favorite review on this novel, and if you're interested in the plot it's summarized here:
http://www.npr.org/2014/06/26/325529...-to-rise-again

The plot might sound unusual, but don't be fooled — it's at least twice as weird as you think, and countless times more entertaining.

I loved it, and hope at least a few of you will read it, as I'd love to hear your opinions.

9780316033978_custom-a2699ab7f8bf5dea9ab24e03c0410371a7497760-s2-c85.jpg

[BigPiney]

If CS ever does a book club (old timers might remember we did that on CG), To Rise Again at a Decent Hour might be the most appropriate fiction selection ever. Mainly composed of the inner musings of successful, but increasingly miserable Paul O'Rourke a NYC dentist, and avowed athiest, the book's dark humor takes on many of the theological and faith related questions that CS and its predecessors have been debating for years. The plot is unique and strange, but so fitting for a gathering of progmos.

NPR had my favorite review on this novel, and if you're interested in the plot it's summarized here:
http://www.npr.org/2014/06/26/325529...-to-rise-again





I loved it, and hope at least a few of you will read it, as I'd love to hear your opinions.

I really liked one of his other books, Then We Came to the End. I will put this on my ever growing list.

[ERCougar]

I'm reading "The Heart of Christianity" by Marcus Borg. I haven't finished yet, but I'm enjoying it thus far as a nice follow-up to Zealot (different author), for those of you who have read it. Borg is a liberal Christian and brings a modern scholastic understanding of the historical Jesus to his Christian beliefs. The chapter "Jesus, the heart of God" is particularly interesting. An excerpt (apologies for the lack of paragraphs and the "delete this note add a highlight" inserts. I'm copying from my kindle app. )
" The fifth is the familiar sacrificial understanding of Jesus’ death: “Jesus died for our sins.” Though its ingredients are in the New Testament, its full development did not occur until about nine hundred years ago. Yet it is the one most emphasized in popular Christianity and is central to the earlier paradigm. In its developed form, it sees the story of Jesus primarily within the • Delete this highlight
Add a note
framework of sin, guilt, and forgiveness. We have all sinned against God and are guilty. Our sins can be forgiven only if an adequate sacrifice is made. The sacrifice of animals does not accomplish this, nor can the sacrifice of an imperfect human (for such a person would simply be dying for his or her own sins). Thus God provides the perfect sacrifice in the form of the perfect human, Jesus. Now forgiveness is possible, but only for those who believe that Jesus died for our sins. If taken literally, all of this is very strange. It implies a limitation on God’s power to forgive; namely, God can forgive only if adequate sacrifice is made. It implies that Jesus’ death on the cross was necessary—not just the consequence of what he was doing, but that it had to happen, • Delete this highlight
Add a note
that it was part of God’s plan of salvation. It also introduces a requirement into the very center of our life with God: knowing about and believing in Jesus and his sacrificial death. But in its first-century setting, the statement “Jesus is the sacrifice for sin” had a quite different meaning. The “home” of this language, the framework within which it makes sense, is the sacrificial system centered in the temple in Jerusalem. According to temple theology, certain kinds of sins and impurities could be dealt with only through sacrifice in the temple. Temple theology thus claimed an institutional monopoly on the forgiveness of sins; and because the forgiveness of sins was a prerequisite for entry into the presence of God, temple theology also claimed an • Delete this highlight
Add a note
institutional monopoly on access to God. In this setting, to affirm “Jesus is the sacrifice for sin” was to deny the temple’s claim to have a monopoly on forgiveness and access to God. It was an antitemple statement. Using the metaphor of sacrifice, it subverted the sacrificial system. It meant: God in Jesus has already provided the sacrifice and has thus taken care of whatever you think separates you from God; you have access to God apart from the temple and its system of sacrifice. It is a metaphor of radical grace, of amazing grace. Thus “Jesus died for our sins” was originally a subversive metaphor, not a literal description of either God’s purpose or Jesus’ vocation. It was a metaphorical proclamation of radical grace; • Delete this highlight
Add a note
and properly understood, it still is. It is therefore ironic to realize that the religion that formed around Jesus would within four hundred years begin to claim for itself an institutional monopoly on grace and access to God. • Delete this highlight
Add a note
In her recent book about the working poor in America, Barbara Ehrenreich writes about going to a tent revival meeting in Portland, Maine. The preacher’s theme was “Jesus on the cross” and the importance of believing in him in order to go to heaven. As she listened to him and looked around at the mostly impoverished audience, she thought: It would be nice if someone would read this sad-eyed crowd the Sermon on the Mount, accompanied by a rousing commentary on income inequality and the need for a hike in the minimum wage. But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious • Delete this highlight
Add a note
socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say. Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth. She concludes: I get up to leave, timing my exit for when the preacher’s metronomic head movements have him looking the other way, and walk out to search for my car, half expecting to find Jesus out there in the dark, gagged and tethered to a tent pole.20 "

[USUC]

I'm reading "The Heart of Christianity" by Marcus Borg. I haven't finished yet, but I'm enjoying it thus far as a nice follow-up to Zealot (different author), for those of you who have read it. Borg is a liberal Christian and brings a modern scholastic understanding of the historical Jesus to his Christian beliefs. The chapter "Jesus, the heart of God" is particularly interesting. An excerpt (apologies for the lack of paragraphs and the "delete this note add a highlight" inserts. I'm copying from my kindle app. )
" The fifth is the familiar sacrificial understanding of Jesus’ death: “Jesus died for our sins.” Though its ingredients are in the New Testament, its full development did not occur until about nine hundred years ago. Yet it is the one most emphasized in popular Christianity and is central to the earlier paradigm. In its developed form, it sees the story of Jesus primarily within the • Delete this highlight
Add a note
framework of sin, guilt, and forgiveness. We have all sinned against God and are guilty. Our sins can be forgiven only if an adequate sacrifice is made. The sacrifice of animals does not accomplish this, nor can the sacrifice of an imperfect human (for such a person would simply be dying for his or her own sins). Thus God provides the perfect sacrifice in the form of the perfect human, Jesus. Now forgiveness is possible, but only for those who believe that Jesus died for our sins. If taken literally, all of this is very strange. It implies a limitation on God’s power to forgive; namely, God can forgive only if adequate sacrifice is made. It implies that Jesus’ death on the cross was necessary—not just the consequence of what he was doing, but that it had to happen, • Delete this highlight
Add a note
that it was part of God’s plan of salvation. It also introduces a requirement into the very center of our life with God: knowing about and believing in Jesus and his sacrificial death. But in its first-century setting, the statement “Jesus is the sacrifice for sin” had a quite different meaning. The “home” of this language, the framework within which it makes sense, is the sacrificial system centered in the temple in Jerusalem. According to temple theology, certain kinds of sins and impurities could be dealt with only through sacrifice in the temple. Temple theology thus claimed an institutional monopoly on the forgiveness of sins; and because the forgiveness of sins was a prerequisite for entry into the presence of God, temple theology also claimed an • Delete this highlight
Add a note
institutional monopoly on access to God. In this setting, to affirm “Jesus is the sacrifice for sin” was to deny the temple’s claim to have a monopoly on forgiveness and access to God. It was an antitemple statement. Using the metaphor of sacrifice, it subverted the sacrificial system. It meant: God in Jesus has already provided the sacrifice and has thus taken care of whatever you think separates you from God; you have access to God apart from the temple and its system of sacrifice. It is a metaphor of radical grace, of amazing grace. Thus “Jesus died for our sins” was originally a subversive metaphor, not a literal description of either God’s purpose or Jesus’ vocation. It was a metaphorical proclamation of radical grace; • Delete this highlight
Add a note
and properly understood, it still is. It is therefore ironic to realize that the religion that formed around Jesus would within four hundred years begin to claim for itself an institutional monopoly on grace and access to God. • Delete this highlight
Add a note
In her recent book about the working poor in America, Barbara Ehrenreich writes about going to a tent revival meeting in Portland, Maine. The preacher’s theme was “Jesus on the cross” and the importance of believing in him in order to go to heaven. As she listened to him and looked around at the mostly impoverished audience, she thought: It would be nice if someone would read this sad-eyed crowd the Sermon on the Mount, accompanied by a rousing commentary on income inequality and the need for a hike in the minimum wage. But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious • Delete this highlight
Add a note
socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say. Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth. She concludes: I get up to leave, timing my exit for when the preacher’s metronomic head movements have him looking the other way, and walk out to search for my car, half expecting to find Jesus out there in the dark, gagged and tethered to a tent pole.20 "

Interesting, although this statement is as annoying as Republicans claiming they represent God's divine direction.

... the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist,...

Although not entirely related, this reminds me the premise to Karen Armstrong's The Case for God, where she contends that before the enlightenment and rise of religious fundamentalism, scripture was not read in a literal manner but had a long tradition of allegoric interpretation. Not sure if I completely buy this argument but interesting none the less.

[ERCougar]

Interesting, although this statement is as annoying as Republicans claiming they represent God's divine direction.



Although not entirely related, this reminds me the premise to Karen Armstrong's The Case for God, where she contends that before the enlightenment and rise of religious fundamentalism, scripture was not read in a literal manner but had a long tradition of allegoric interpretation. Not sure if I completely buy this argument but interesting none the less.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the political interpretations. I included that last paragraph (which is not his) because I agreed with the idea that the humanity of Christ is squelched at church, not because of the politics. The book is thus far apolitical, for the most part.

[cowboy]

"Phase Line Green: The Battle for Hue" by Nicholas Warr.

The author was a BYU grad and fought in the Battle of Hue in the 1st Marines. My best friend commanded a battalion of Marines in Afghanistan and, knowing I have always had an interest in Vietnam for personal reasons, gave me a copy of the book signed by the author. I'm normally an escapist reader, and my book shelf is full of airplane books that have happy endings. Life is difficult enough, so I like to read happy stuff when I read a book, but this book is excellent. It's very technical, and may lose a reader who is not interested in military strategy or the Vietnam War in general, but I have thoroughly enjoyed it. It also speaks to the timeless wisdom of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War."