Politics, Religion, and Her. It seems that some things resonate through time.
[image]
So I've only read Inferno, and I thought dear god, i really don'tPolitics, Religion, and Her. It seems that some things resonate through time.
[image]
So I've only read Inferno, and I thought dear god, i really don't get what he's going on about and maybe it would behoove me to look into all the little nuts and bolts of what Dante was talking about. Because to me he just seemed like some guy with a lot of religious fervor and a bone to pick with some people. And you know what? Well, I wasn't all that far off base! Sure, there's a lot more to The Divine Comedy than just a really long poem, but for once in my life I wasn't reading the room as wrong as I thought.
[image]
Ok, and I didn't realize how into this poem so many people were. I mean, like they spend their lives re-reading this and picking it apart and making it into a part of their whole worldview. The two lecturers, William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman, were very passionate about it. Sometimes I got the feeling these guys thought this was the real deal. Not gonna lie, that kind of spooked me and caused me to stop taking the lecture quite as seriously.
[image]
I respect that this was an incredible poem, an enduring piece of literature, and a well-thought-out religious outlook. Certainly better than Chick Tracts!
[image]
But it doesn't resonate with me at all because it leans so heavily on belief in God and sin. I just ended up feeling kind of bad for Dante having wasted all this time and effort trying to unpack an afterlife in relation to how we live our lives on earth. That is not me saying this is a useless piece of literature, just that it doesn't hit me in the feels. However, if you ARE the target audience for this, I think these guys are incredibly excited and informed about the subject matter. I would highly recommend this for anyone thinking of undertaking reading this sucker because there is just so much background information that you need to know to even really begin to understand what Dante was saying.
[image]
I probably won't read any more of the Divine Comedy stuff any time soon...or ever? Because if Inferno is supposed to be the most interesting, then I can't see Purgatorio & Paradisio tickling my fancy at all. I'm sorry to say this is just not my bag of cats....more
So much of this went over my head. So veryveryvery much. But I walked out of the room a tad smarter than when I walked in, so we'll call this a win. And So much of this went over my head. So veryveryvery much. But I walked out of the room a tad smarter than when I walked in, so we'll call this a win. And isn't that the point?
[image]
Sean Carroll takes the reader on an adventure that spans years (and years and years) telling a story of all the stops and starts as dedicated scientists drum up the funding for what would eventually be CERN's Large Hadron Collider. And there have been lots of payoffs for their hard work, but the most famous is the Higgs. If you pay any attention to the science-y side of things you'll remember what a huge deal it was when they found the evidence they were looking for to confirm the Higgs boson particle.
[image]
And while quarks, black matter, and string theory are all things I strive to get my tiny dinosaur brain to make sense of, I think I can say now at least that I understand the importance of the Higgs, even if I don't understand everything about particles or physics. Carroll has such an engaging manner that even when what he was talking about was going in one ear and out the other, I was still enjoying myself.
[image]
Ironically enough, I wouldn't even be writing this review right now if it weren't for scientists at CERN needing to share massive amounts of data information with each other, leading to Tim Berners-Lee developing the World Wide Web. Proving once again that the search for answers for the sake of the question typically leads us to new and interesting places.
[image]
The moral of the story is that science is fun, inspiring, and just really fucking cool. Hopefully, we will always have little kids with big imaginations and loads of curiosity, who grow into big kids with even bigger imaginations and loads of international funding, that allows them to continue discovering the secrets of our universe. Recommended....more
I saw this and thought it would be a fun little lecture series - and it was! But not in the way I thought it would be. I didn't read the blurb, I just lI saw this and thought it would be a fun little lecture series - and it was! But not in the way I thought it would be. I didn't read the blurb, I just looked at the title and mistakenly assumed it was about Vlad the Impaler. No.
[image]
And while you might think that I should have learned my lesson about that sort of thing by now, my itchy trigger finger has honestly opened the door to a lot of books that I probably would never have found if I had done my due diligence instead of just grabbing something because it looked cool.
[image]
Ok. So what this actually is, is a lecture on the history of vampires in folklore. It centers on the history and cultural effect of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but they also go into the history of vampires from the oldest known folklore (where vampires were a lot like the fae), to fairytales (Snow White), to Anne Rice's Interview, to Marvel's Blade, to the sparkling reimagined vampires we have today.
[image]
And while Stoker and his Dracula get the most page time, they also delve into other cool stories, like Polidori's Byron-inspired Vampyre. I've always wanted the skinny on that whole relationship, so that was worth the price of admission right there.
[image]
This was fun. And the two lecturers were kind of adorable with the way they did this little back-and-forth with each other. At first, I thought it might be annoying but they were just geeky enough to pull it off. And it's not a long lecture, clocking in at only about 4 and a half hours. So if you're looking for something a bit different to kill time on a long car ride, this would fit the bill.
The skinny gist is that thanks to different experts in their respective fields sharing information with each other, they've found that some of their information about The Black Death wasn't accurate. Several long-held assumptions about the spread were wrong, including Gabriele de Mussi’s famous plague story of the Mongol siege of Caffa where corpses were catapulted over the wall as the world's first attempt at biological warfare. Good stuff, and a reminder that not even history is written in stone.
[image]
Ok, so this was recorded in 2022. That means that COVID-19 was still big news and highly politicized. And an unfortunate portion of this (very short) lecture is focused on scolding people who weren't doing what the experts were telling them to do, and making comparisons between the two pandemics. I get where she's coming from, but the righteous anger at the end of the lecture came off as a tad cringy if I'm being honest. I really wish she'd just stuck to the new information because I don't think this lecture will age well, even though I very much agree with the sentiment that blaming the others for our problems seems to be an irksome part of the human condition. Recommended for Plague Doctors....more
It doesn't really tell you in the Audible Audio Original description but this is a graphic audio story with a full casExcellent mother/daughter story.
It doesn't really tell you in the Audible Audio Original description but this is a graphic audio story with a full cast (Nick Choksi, Harsh Nayyar, Annapurna Sriram, Bernard White, & Rita Wolf). I went into it thinking that it was a regular audiobook but I seriously regret nothing because even though this was only a few hours long, it was fantastic. The entire story is told through phone conversations and voicemails, which you would think might be terribly annoying. But no! So good! Soooo good! I'd already seen the movie (and loved it, btw!), so I was pretty thrilled to have accidentally stumbled onto this little gem as an Audible freebie.
[image]
The story starts out innocuously enough with a young woman in California being lovingly harassed by her mother who lives in Delhi to please take finding a husband seriously.
[image]
She's happy as she is, but (un)willingly goes to meet one of the many men her mother has found on matchmaking sites for coffee. And while waiting in the coffeehouse for the guy her mom wants her to meet, she runs into the most wonderful man, and they begin a fairytale relationship.
[image]
But something about the relationship flips a switch in her mother, and she seems to be losing it. She doesn't trust this guy even though he is quite literally everything that someone could want in a son-in-law. He's rich, handsome, comes from an excellent family, and has fallen head over heels for their daughter. She demands her daughter break it off, claiming to her husband that her abusive ex-boyfriend has been reincarnated in this new boyfriend.
[image]
Is she crazy? Did her past relationship break her mind? Or is this the epitome of the sinister cycle of violence repeating itself? Listen to it. You'll like the way this one ends....more
Marduk vs Tiamat! Straight outta Ancient Mesopotamia, this action-packed thrill ride (not really) is one of the oldest creation myths that we know abouMarduk vs Tiamat! Straight outta Ancient Mesopotamia, this action-packed thrill ride (not really) is one of the oldest creation myths that we know about. Tune in to hear about waters mingling (wink, wink), an elder god getting pissed about how loud his kids are, and how humans were created as a slave race to feed and clothe the gods. Good stuff.
[image]
Now, this version was the one translated by Leonard William King and (from what I could find) is apparently quite respectable, but I'm not at all an expert. I would assume there are better/more complete translations available now, and I've got my eye on a few that I've already put on my wish list. It's hard for those of us who can't read and write in ancient Sumerian and Akkadian to fully grasp what the smarty-pants people are getting up to on archeological digs, but goddammit, I'm going to give it the old didn't-go-to-college try. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.
[image]
The narrator isn't all that fantastic but I can't imagine that "Museum Audiobooks" is really doing a booming business with stuff like this, so I won't complain....more
Who knew a toothache could cause so many problems? When the Earl of Havershot goes to America to break up the potentially unsuitable engagement of his Who knew a toothache could cause so many problems? When the Earl of Havershot goes to America to break up the potentially unsuitable engagement of his cousin Eggy, he doesn't expect to end up swapping bodies with child actor, Joey Cooley. What, what?
[image]
But let's back up. First, he'll fall in love with the predatory actress April June, find out his cousin is planning to marry his lovely ex-fiancee, get a terrible toothache, then end up in a dentist's chair under laughing gas at the same time as 12 year old Joey. And as you all know, when two people go under anesthesia at the same time, the conditions are ripe for a soul swap.
[image]
The premise sounds funny, and there are moments of that P.G. Wodehouse gold that shine through, but this just isn't going to end up being a personal favorite of mine. It was a bit too weird and all of the jokes didn't land for me. I did enjoy the commentary on how horrible it would have been to be a child actor, even back in the day. And it had some cute moments. But for whatever reason I thought it was kind of too odd for it to go on as long as it did and because of that it just didn't work as well for me as most of his other stories do.
[image]
Still. I'm trying to work my way through all of his stories, so I'm not sorry I read it.
Recommended for Wodehouse completionists and fans of Freaky Friday....more
A pretty decent collection of bite-sized sci-fi stories.
3 stars Ark by Veronica Roth An asteroid is going to hit the planet. Can Aerosmith write anotherA pretty decent collection of bite-sized sci-fi stories.
3 stars Ark by Veronica Roth An asteroid is going to hit the planet. Can Aerosmith write another #1 before it hits?
4 stars Randomize by Andy Weir Quantum entanglement, Keno, and a casino owner. What can go wrong?
[image]
If you're into sci-fi shorts, you could do worse than this collection. They weren't all winners for me, but they were most definitely all readable. Recommended....more
Who else hit the pre-order button like this? It opens in South Carolina, I couldn't resist.
[image]
Steve and Amy Wheeler make one of the most charming cWho else hit the pre-order button like this? It opens in South Carolina, I couldn't resist.
[image]
Steve and Amy Wheeler make one of the most charming crime-solving duos I've read. A father-in-law and his daughter-in-law? That is a bit different. And while over the course of the novel, you learn a lot about each of them, you can tell that this is just the tip of the personality iceberg with both. Amy is a badass who loves her work as a bodyguard. Who doesn't want to go to exotic locations and throw grenades out of helicopters? She's also a very compartmentalized person. And so is her husband's dad, Steve, a widowed ex-London cop turned village detective. Steve is owned by a cat named Trouble who has allowed Steve to believe the relationship was his choice.
[image]
Amy and Steve have both been through things that have required them to shove their emotions into a tiny little box and suck it up, so they've formed this close bond through daily phone calls where they absolutely do not talk about their feelings. And they will both die on that hill. But they'll also both die on a hill protecting each other if necessary.
[image]
So when Amy is targeted by a (dare I say?) supervillain and set up for a string of murders that she didn't commit, there is only one person in the world she would trust to help her save her life. I mean, she adores her husband, but he's in finance... I really liked her husband, though. They have their own strange, special relationship with each other. And they’re both so confident in it that instead of being weird, it’s just…adorable.
[image]
Another character I loved was Amy's body-to-guard, Rosie, who has been threatened by a Russian mobster that she carelessly lampooned and wrote into one of her books. Oops. Rosie D’Antonio is a best-selling novelist who is sort of putting off this vibrant faux Jackie Collins vibe that I just loved. How old is she? Who knows? Anywhere from 65-85, she ain't telling, that's for sure. Age is just a number, and that number is directly related to how much booze you can still drink and whether or not you can crash at your good friend Barb's (that Barb for barbiturates, not Barbara, btw) shamanic therapy resort when things get hot. Full of life, full of energy, and I'm sure full of Botox, she’s still rocking her best life.
[image]
Ok, so if you're like me, and already a huge fan of Osman's Thursday Murder Club Series, you'll definitely want to check this out. HOWEVER. This isn't exactly another cozy mystery series. But it does sort of come off like a cozy thriller. Is that a thing? I feel like it should be a thing. It's fun. <--that's what I'm trying to say. I think you'll like it. I did. Highly Recommended....more
I didn't love it, didn't hate it, but also didn't get the point of it. Or, I guess that's not right. I got the point, but it didn't wow or horrify me.
[I didn't love it, didn't hate it, but also didn't get the point of it. Or, I guess that's not right. I got the point, but it didn't wow or horrify me.
[image]
A person wakes up on a table and can't see. They can't remember...anything. For most of the rest of the book, a voice from another room instructs them in activities that will hopefully bring their mind and body to a state of health. The first few pages were interesting but I ended up thinking that it was ultimately kind of long and drawn out for what seemed to me to be a pretty foreseeable ending.
(view spoiler)[So what that she's making clones of her dead husband and none of them have survived? So what that he didn't "authorize" her to make the clones? When you're dead, you're dead. You won't care what happens to your DNA. It's like how I've never understood why some people get so freaked out over the idea that someone in a funeral home might fuck their dead body. Who cares? You're dead. If some weirdo has a last hurrah with my corpse...LOL! Are they gross? Yes. Does it concern me? No. (hide spoiler)]
This seems to be a favorite from the Forward Collection, but it was too disjointed to be a five-star read for me.
[image]
So, the premise is cool and tThis seems to be a favorite from the Forward Collection, but it was too disjointed to be a five-star read for me.
[image]
So, the premise is cool and the first half of the story really gives you a lot of food for thought. If you could choose your unborn child's temperament using genetic "nudging", would you? A fertility clinic gives a man the opportunity to see three different versions of what his son's life will be like using statistical probability based on what personality attributes they can bring to the forefront. Would you want your child to be content and stable if it meant they never lived up to their true potential? Would you choose a path that had creativity and passion if it also meant addiction and chaos? Would you pick a life where charm and charisma meant skating through life as an asshole until life invariably teaches them a hard lesson? You gotta think about that for a minute, right?
[image]
Because you're not just trying to weed out diseases or decide on an eye color. You're plotting out a roadmap for their life, and not in the hopeful let's make sure they go to a good school sort of way. No, you've gone whole hog in a manipulatively invasive way. Oh, wow! That's something to chew on.
[image]
Then it veered off the rails and went in a whole new direction when he left the clinic to mull things over. Without giving any spoilers, I'll put it like this: Pretend you're sitting at a bar and you strike up a conversation about {insert SPORT here} that's playing on the television. Then suddenly, this other guy starts ranting about the ice wall around the flat earth and how 5G cellphone towers have been installed by the government to send out mind control signals. It's not where you thought your night was headed when you casually mentioned that you were pulling for the college basketball team on the television.
(view spoiler)[Sam's having doubts about his life choices and daydreams that his wife is having an affair with the fertility doctor, so he hits a bar on the way home. The bartender gives him some sob story about having triplets after their first child, causing him and his wife to have to re-arrange their priorities (this equals being poor), then tells him about his one smart daughter and 3 not-as-smart sons and all the sacrifices they made for her to get into the best college, only to be told by her doctor that they all needed to sit down and talk because ISSUES, and the whole family saw a therapist and the kids all talked about their childhood, and it was just the most specialist thing ever. Then the bartender and another patron proceed to tell him that they think the military is funding the clinic to make super-soldiers. Yes. Seriously. So Sam gets in his self-driving car and rides back to the clinic and snags his sperm. He hops back in his car, goes to the pub, and slaps his container full of spooge down on the bar. I'm taking my DNA back, baby! The three guys eyeball his jar of goo as the story fades to black... (hide spoiler)] I get it, but that whole last bit ruined the initial what if coolness of the first part of the story for me. It overexplained things in a way that took the fizzle out of it.
[image]
The first half was such a great premise that I can't give it less than 3 stars, though....more
Very cute. So the gist is that (sometime in the future) a bunch of the 1 percenters got on a spaceship as the Earth was hitting a crisis point in the eVery cute. So the gist is that (sometime in the future) a bunch of the 1 percenters got on a spaceship as the Earth was hitting a crisis point in the ecological sense. They made a new version of Earth. A "better" version. One where they don't have to deal with peasants. Now they've sent back someone in the servant class to retrieve some kind of resource that they need, with the promise that he'll get this perfect skin as a reward. That part was very hard for me to visualize, but whatever. Basically, he'll get to be blond with a big dick. Earth was dying when they left, so all he's got to do is navigate this barren planet and get the goods. But he is in for the surprise of a lifetime.
[image]
(view spoiler)[ Earth is flourishing. Filled to the brim with not only plant life, but people! And they're happy in their ecologically sound cities, where everyone has everything they need to live and no one is forgotten or abandoned. They even get paid if they don't work! It appears as though life got better for the have-nots once the haves left en masse.
[image]
Inside his mind, he's got this chip with basically a downloaded version of the new world leaders' consciousness that's constantly talking to him and telling him what to do, how to do it, giving out information (that's a sunset, that's a tree, that's a woman, etc.), while informing him how gross it is on Earth when compared with the perfection they've created on their planet.
[image]
At the end, our unnamed astronaut has to decide what he wants to do with this information.
Unfortunately, I'm not rich. And I've met my peers. Some are wonderful, some are horrid. Greed and callousness aren't character traits relegated only to the wealthy. So, while it's a lovely idea to say that if only we could get rid of the people in charge, the borders would come down and we would all peacefully work toward finding solutions that would benefit mankind as a global unit, I'm afraid that's just not so. What would realistically happen if they all disappeared is that their Great Value counterparts would step in to take their place. We'd still have wars, we'd still have genocide, we'd still have people that lacked basic necessities. It doesn't mean it's useless to try to make the world a better place, it just means that there's no such thing as a quick fix. (hide spoiler)] But this is fiction and I liked the story. Sci-fi, ftw!...more
An NPC in a game gains sentience. How? Why? No idea. Its creator spends years of her life trying to unpack what that means and trying to ensure that herAn NPC in a game gains sentience. How? Why? No idea. Its creator spends years of her life trying to unpack what that means and trying to ensure that her new life form doesn't get out of control. As with all new technology involving AI, it works out splendidly for the humans.
[image]
Ok, this is one book that I would recommend you go the audio version. Rosa Salazar killed it with the narration - the amount of emotion conveyed was just *chef's kiss* I mean, I'm talking about her voice cracking and everything. Good stuff, good stuff.
[image]
In the end, I was on the side of the AI. (view spoiler)[I mean, everyone's going to die someday, so why not kill everyone off and upload them into a reality without all the nonsense and anxiety? I didn't really see what all the fuss was about. Our main character was miserable already. And as far as the "noooo! just let me end!" argument, well...you are ending. It's whatever cleaned-up version of you that the AI uploads into their new reality that will keep on keeping on. (hide spoiler)]
When a genius gets her husband to help her cheat at Keno with the help of a quantum computer and entanglementThe house always wins. Or does it?
[image]
When a genius gets her husband to help her cheat at Keno with the help of a quantum computer and entanglement theory, it looks like she's covered all of her bases. But she forgot that while she's got brains, the owner of the casino has decades of experience catching would-be cheaters. So what's a girl to do when it looks like the chips are down?
[image]
I loved this one! It was just long enough to tell a story and get me invested in the characters. It can be hard to do that with shorts, but Weir managed it. Recommended....more
When a genius gets her husband to help her cheat at Keno with the help of a quantum computer and entanglementThe house always wins. Or does it?
[image]
When a genius gets her husband to help her cheat at Keno with the help of a quantum computer and entanglement theory, it looks like she's covered all of her bases. But she forgot that while she's got brains, the owner of the casino has decades of experience catching would-be cheaters. So what's a girl to do when it looks like the chips are down?
[image]
I loved this one! It was just long enough to tell a story and get me invested in the characters. It can be hard to do that with shorts, but Weir managed it. Recommended....more
You're not going to get a deep dive into any of the ancient religions, but Lam does manage to hit some major ones and sCompact but interesting.
[image]
You're not going to get a deep dive into any of the ancient religions, but Lam does manage to hit some major ones and shows connecting threads that link them together. I think most people are aware of the similarities between the creation story in Genesis and the ancient Mesopotamian creation myths, but what I found really interesting were the similarities between all of these. Seeing how one culture influenced another was fun.
[image]
I wasn't as interested in the Greek and Egyptian to start with, mostly because the characters from those creation myths are more well known. But it was cool to look at them in relation to older stories and see how certain themes were passed down. It's one of those once-you-see-it things, except in a good way. If you ever accidentally saw a grandparent naked, you know what I'm saying.
[image]
I think Lam does what he set out to do by providing a very short introduction to some of the oldest creation stories out there, what we know about them, and what they show us about ancient peoples. While this isn't what I'd call a thorough lecture on any specific story, if you're interested in a well-done overview, I think this would be the ticket. Recommended....more
Martien Halvorson-Taylor weaves a tale that spans thousands of years, using what we know about the ancient history of the Near East to piece together Martien Halvorson-Taylor weaves a tale that spans thousands of years, using what we know about the ancient history of the Near East to piece together the who's, how's, and why's of the texts we call the Old Testament. The stories make sense when you step back and look at them through a historical lens, and I've been looking for a lecture that covered it this way for quite some time.
[image]
Her love of the history of the Old Testament is evident in the way she explains the stories behind the stories in the Bible. You can tell she's very aware that she is dealing with a religious text that means a great deal to people around the world and is respectful of that, while still giving a secular lecture about the origins of the scriptures.
[image]
She not only goes into the history of the Bible but also goes into the history of the scholars throughout the ages who have tried to figure out the origins of the stories in the Bible. For example, the Documentary Hypothesis is something that anyone who has looked into this subject will have heard a lot about, and she does an excellent job explaining what it is, how it came about, and why it is generally thought of as flawed in some ways.
[image]
The little oddities in translation that gave us stories like Joseph's coat of many colors, instead of a long-sleeved tunic, is just one of the ways that the text has changed and morphed and become something for new generations of readers. Regardless of how it came to be, it has become part of our own lore and new authors have taken the core story and made it into something present-day people find recognizable and perhaps relatable.
[image]
I was particularly interested in the origins of the Septuagint, having just listened to a lecture on ancient Egypt. I didn't realize that it was so different from the Masoretic Text that is (mostly) used in English translations of the Christian Bible. Very cool.
[image]
I found the parts about King Josiah far more interesting than I originally anticipated. The idea that the written word was possibly considered sketchy at first was a new concept to me. The prophet Jeremiah seems to be saying that perhaps the word of God should not be written down but only spoken through prophets like himself. This might have been a reflection of a turning point when the oral traditions were starting to become written traditions. Jeremiah 8:8 New Revised Standard Version How can you say, “We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us,” when, in fact, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie?
[image]
It's a fascinating lecture on a misunderstood and sometimes maligned ancient text. Check it out....more
Bok, bok, bok! An author gets hauled along for a wacky ride when his friend decides to become a chicken farmer and sell the eggs.
[image]
Ukridge is an Bok, bok, bok! An author gets hauled along for a wacky ride when his friend decides to become a chicken farmer and sell the eggs.
[image]
Ukridge is an idiot with idiot ideas. He thinks his chicken farm will be a money maker because he'll borrow the initial chickens, then return them once he's got his own flock going with a nice little thank you note to the chicken lenders. And since it certainly doesn't cost anything to take care of chickens, the whole enterprise will be pure profit, don't you know? Not having any experience with either chickens or farms shouldn't be a reason to question the validity of his dream, so let's get to cracking those eggs!
[image]
Jeremy ends up as the "partner" in this egg-laying scheme because he forgets how to say the word no when Ukridge and his wife Millie show up at his house. Now, if you're thinking this whole thing will be a complete clustercluck for him, you'd be wrong. Why? Because across the way from their unprofitable little farm lives the lovely Phyllis and her father. Phyllis caught his eye on the train down when he noticed she was reading his book. A gal with taste and beauty? Jeremy was a gonner. All that was left to do was woo her.
[image]
Unfortunately, Ukridge ends up blithely insulting Phyllis' father at a get-together and taking Jeremy's good name down with him. So, in an effort to get back in her father's good graces, Jeremy hatches a plan to save her father from drowning - after he pays the boatman to tip the old man into the water. Success! Until, of course, it isn't.
[image]
Each hair-brained scheme leads to a dozen more as the story tilts and whirls around one mishap after another. Can true love be hatched among the chickens? If you're already a fan of Wodehouse, don't miss out on this one.
Loading...
