Posted inBooks

“But What If We’re Wrong?” Great question. Great book.

Browsing through the terrific bookstore in Sisters, Oregon -- Paulina Springs Books -- I knew that I'd buy Chuck Klosterman's newest literary offering as soon as I saw the upside-down title on the front cover. But What If We're Wrong?  I've been wrong about so much, so many times, over so many years, this theme immediately resonated with me. Turning the book over, the subtitle was almost equally appealing: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past.  I already do this in a certain sense, since I'm unable to keep up with the magazines that we subscribe to.…
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Posted inBooks Current affairs

“On Tyranny” is a disturbingly great read for these Trumpian times

On Tyranny by historian Timothy Snyder is a small 126-page book that I read in about ninety minutes. But it's impact on me was huge.  Yes, good things come in small packages. And in this case, only cost $5.26 (from Amazon).  Snyder never mentions Donald Trump by name. But his frequent references to "the president" make it clear about the tyrant he's warning us about.  This is the most astounding thing about Snyder's book: that he wrote it.  Now. After Trump's election. To alert Americans to the danger of tyranny arising in our liberal democracy that, until recently, was generally…
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Posted inBooks

Life lessons I’ve gotten from the “Gray Man” novels

Last year I wrote my first blog post about the Gray Man, "Lessons for living from a fictional assassin, the 'Gray Man.'" Now I've read two more books in the six-part series about Court Gentry, so it's time to update the life lessons I've absorbed from the astoundingly engrossing novels. What I said last July still holds: But something about the Gray Man appeals to me on a deeper philosophical level. Again, this is weird, because the fictional Court Gentry seemingly isn't much like the real person Me.  Seemingly.  This excerpt from "The Gray Man" points to the main thing…
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Posted inBooks Family

My memories of growing up with books in the 1950’s and 60’s

Listen up, you youngsters who read blog posts like this (if you exist): an old man is going to tell some tales of what it was like in the Old Days when books -- yes, books, of the paper variety -- were way more important in people's lives than they are now.  These memories were stimulated by the donation I made today of eight boxes containing 201 books to the Friends of Salem Public Library.  Needing to downsize my collection, I spent quite a bit of time culling through a bunch of books, deciding which of them I'd fallen sufficiently…
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Posted inBooks Current affairs

“Listen, Liberal” is a must-read book for progressives

I'm finding my progressive views being challenged by Thomas Frank's new book, "Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?" He's the author of "What's the Matter With Kansas?" which took shots at Republicans. Now he's aimed his considerable rhetorical and intellectual skills at Democrats. To great effect.  I'm about halfway through with the book. Though I'm still a Hillary Clinton supporter in this year's presidential primary contest, I can now better understand why Bernie Sanders' supporters feel like the Democratic Party has screwed over ordinary people.  I couldn't resist peeking at the last pages of…
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Posted inBooks Philosophy

Greek island wisdom for old men: Cialis yes, testosterone no

Back in my college days, the summer of 1968 it was, I spent some time on a Greek island. Wonderful experience. Bright sun. Blue ocean. Whitewashed buildings. Laid back. I just finished a book by Daniel Klein, "Travels With Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled life."  Reading it also was a wonderful experience, in large part because I could relate so easily to its central themes. Klein is nine years older than me, in his seventies. He went to the island of Hydra, armed with a bunch of philosophy and psychology books, to ponder…
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Posted inBooks Current affairs

Buddhism explains the “angry white men” phenomenon

Happens to me all the time: I say something to a group of people that makes so much sense and is so eloquent, when I stop talking I expect a standing ovation. (Guess I don't have a self-esteem problem.) Last Saturday I made some observations about "angry white men" that filled this bill. It was during a meeting of our monthly Salon discussion group. One of the members, Steve, has been reading Michael Kimmel's book, "Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era." Here's part of the Amazon book description: Kimmel locates this increase in anger in…
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Posted inBooks Current affairs

What modern women want… spanking and submission?

A blindfolded woman, bright red lipstick, with the title of the Newsweek cover story above her right breast: "The Fantasy Life of Working Women: Why Surrender is a Feminist Dream." Looking at the issue I thought, "This is why print magazines are going to survive. Glad I've stuck with our Newsweek subscription after The Daily Beast took it over." The old Newsweek wouldn't have had such a provocative article. Kudos to the new Newsweek. Many of the online comments on the story appear to be from feminists who aren't surrendering to the notion that what successful, powerful, confident, independent women…
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Posted inBooks Current affairs

Reality doesn’t register in the Republican brain

Yesterday Amazon delivered Chris Mooney's new book, "The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science -- and Reality."  I've only read a few pages so far, but I can tell that I'm going to like it. And not just because Mooney agrees with how I see the two major political parties, Republicans being way more reality-denying than Democrats.  I want to understand why Republican science-deniers do what they do. Like all human behavior, they really can't help themselves. Something in their brains causes them to look upon facts in decidedly unfactual ways.  Us liberals will be ineffective in…
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Posted inBooks Current affairs

Sam Harris’ “Free Will” says liberals understand role of luck

It's pleasing to my progressive self when modern science confirms one of the foundations of Democratic/liberal political philosophy. Such as, that we humans don't have free will. It's an illusion. Such is the message of Sam Harris' captivating new book, the pleasingly short (66 readable pages) "Free Will." Harris is a neuroscientist whose first book was "The End of Faith," which brought him a lot of well-deserved attention.  I hope "Free Will" reaches even more people. On my other blog I've talked about the dizzying joy of being freed from a belief in free will, and how free will is…
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Posted inBooks

Books are made to be highlighted and written in

Jeez, just what I needed...another outrage that demands my attention, energy, and blogging time to complain about. I've already got my hands full with climate change, cougar hysteria, Republican filibustering, and getting Cafe Yumm to come to Salem. Now I'm forced to react to an opinion piece in yesterday's Oregonian that was horribly, insanely, unforgivably wrong: Douglas Yocum's ridiculous "Spare the scribbles and leave those pages pristine." Is he serious? Is this a joke, a put-on? Don't ruin books by writing in them. More books probably are ruined at Christmas than any other time of the year. Instead of buying a…
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Posted inBooks

Keep independent bookstores alive! They can’t die.

I'm a long-lapsed Catholic, but it still felt right to call my purchasing of a book in the wonderful Paulina Springs Books a penance. That's what I said to my wife after we met up again in charming Sisters, Oregon. Laurel had returned from her clothes shopping safari, and me from a bookstore exploration. (We do this a lot, having different material desires.) I showed her my big, thick, intellectually meaty/tofuy copy of David Deutsch's "The Beginning of Infinity." I knew I was going to buy this book almost as soon as I read the subtitle: Explanations That Transform the…
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Posted inBooks Writing/Weblogs

Self-publishing loses its stigma. So…write a book!

Ah, the times they are a'changin, just like Bob Dylan said they would. What was shameful not so long ago has come out into the open, standing tall and proud. And I'm not talking about homosexuality. Rather, self-publishing. My print on demand (POD) loving soul was thrilled to read in a recent issue of Newsweek, " Who Needs a Publisher?" Until recently, reviewers and booksellers looked down on self-published authors the way Anna Wintour scorns Dress Barn. Now new writers and established authors alike are increasingly taking publishing into their own hands, and the publishing establishment is paying attention. According…
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Posted inBooks

Nook is appealing, but lacks tactile reality

Damn. I want a Nook, Barnes & Noble's new well-reviewed eBook reader. Just like I wanted Amazon's Kindle.I love high-tech gadgets. Heck, I just got a computerized (sort of) flashlight, the marvelous Fenix LD 20. It's terrific. But last February I returned a Kindle 2 without even trying it. And even though I spent quite a bit of time yesterday trying to talk myself into buying a Nook, I figured that I'd end up not being happy with it -- mostly for the reason I wrote about before.I love my MacBook laptop. And my iPhone. Reading on a screen feels…
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Posted inBooks

My review of “The Ego Tunnel”– 5 stars

I buy lots of books from Amazon. I don't post many reviews about them. Just four, something I'm not proud of.Because I love to peruse the Amazon reader reviews when I'm trying to decide whether to purchase a book. Often what someone has said determines if I click the buy button. So it's sort of strange that I usually don't take the time to offer up my own impressions of a book.Guess I figure that all of my blogging, which frequently includes a mention of books I've been reading, fulfills my review-karma. But once in a while I'm drawn to…
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Posted inBooks

Why I don’t want a new Kindle 2

I must be one of the first people to get a Kindle 2 in my book-loving hands and return it the same day. Namely, yesterday.Amazon sent me my order for its upgraded electronic reading device much more quickly than I expected. I'd been leaning toward canceling my purchase, but figured I had some time to do the deed, since Amazon said it was giving preferential Kindle 2 treatment to owners of Kindle 1.So after I got an email saying my Kindle was on its way, all I could do was wait for its arrival. I felt sort of sorry for…
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Posted inBooks

“Return to the One” published under new imprint

In case you're wondering what happened to my best-selling book (in the admittedly narrow Greek philosophy: Plotinus category), "Return to the One" is still available on Amazon.I've published it under my Adrasteia Publishing imprint, having gotten the rights back from Unlimited Publishing as of January 1, 2009.So now the book is in a transition zone. The old Amazon listing doesn't show any decently priced new copies available, because that edition is out of print. But the positive reader reviews are still there.The new "Return to the One" listing lacks the reviews, which hopefully will be copied over by Amazon soon.…
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Posted inBooks Home life Science

Happiness is a new mountain bike. Maybe.

My birthday has begun. Actually, it started five days ago. It’ll culminate on October 7, which used to be known as my “birthday.” I’ve decided to celebrate it like Ramadan—a full month of honoring what I reverence most: me. This makes perfect sense, because the older I get (have started to become 58), the fewer birthdays I have left to celebrate. Therefore the celebration should get longer as I age, to make up for fewer future celebratory opportunities. If I live to 100, I suppose I’ll be celebrating continuously. Anyway, here’s my first major gift to myself. A black 2007…
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Posted inBooks Current affairs

Osama Bin Laden’s mistress, a topless womanist

Kola Boof claims that she was Osama Bin Laden’s mistress in the mid-1990s. In her book Boof reveals juicy details about Bin Laden’s sexual and cultural predilections. From a Harper's excerpt I learned that Boof’s Al Qaeda boy toy made her dance naked to Van Halen; he didn’t know the difference between being vicious and being tender (shock!); he enjoyed hitting the hookah before sex; his favorite TV shows were The Wonder Years, Miami Vice, and MacGyver; and he adored Whitney Houston so much, he wanted to give her a mansion in Khartoum. I believe it all. Sure, there are…
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Posted inBooks Philosophy

My satori is near at hand

Clearly my final enlightenment—satori!—is near at hand, for I have bought a book that will lead me there: D.T. Suzuki’s “The Zen Koan as a means of Attaining Enlightenment.” The clerk at Salem’s Book Bin was suitably impressed with my purchase, telling me “We hope you’ll come back after your enlightenment and share your realization.” I said, “Absolutely. I plan to charge $8 for this dispensation of wisdom, which will enable me to realize a 50 cent profit from buying this $7.50 book.” Obviously my spiritual motives are pure. So pure that a humble part of me continually whispers, “Brian,…
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