I'm a little torn with regard to this book. On the one hand, it has beautiful pictures and ten short selections from Holst's Planets suite that play tI'm a little torn with regard to this book. On the one hand, it has beautiful pictures and ten short selections from Holst's Planets suite that play throughout, which is awesome. My five-year old really enjoys reading this with me as a result.
On the other hand, the text totally misunderstands the music and Holst's purpose behind it. The book is about astronomy when Holst composed with astrology in mind. So the author really reaches trying to tie the music cues to the pictures of the planets, suggesting that the angry war drums of "Mars" are supposed to be the rumbling of our rocket as we lift off; or that the light, beautiful, romantic themes of "Venus" have something to do with the real planet's violent, totally inhospitable, lethally hot atmosphere; or that "Jupiter" has big melodies because it is the biggest planet. The text completely falls apart trying to explain "Saturn," a brooding musical meditation on time, age, and death illustrated with fantastically beautiful drawings of the real planet's rings.
I still recommend this book because the illustrations are gorgeous and definitely appealing to kids, and the excerpts of Holst's music are wonderful. This might be a good introduction to The Planets as a result. Just don't rely too heavily on the storybook's text.
If you want a fun, entertaining dive into Holst and his composition of The Planets, check out this video from one of my favorite YouTube channels. I've shown this to my older kids (ages five, seven, and nine), and they love it and learned a lot from it....more
Fun illustrations, but not as well written, researched, or organized as the same author’s Illustrated History of UFOs. There’s probably just way more Fun illustrations, but not as well written, researched, or organized as the same author’s Illustrated History of UFOs. There’s probably just way more to this subject than the other, which makes the task of narrowing, sorting, and coherently arranging the material harder. Old Norse aptrganga, haugbui, or draugar, varieties of corporeal ghost that I know a good bit about, don’t even get a mention, and many others from around the world that are mentioned receive no explanation.
The book also gets weirdly ideological, as when we’re told twice that ghost hunters are usually white men (so what?), or when the author suggests that 19th century mediums like the Fox sisters were harassed because they were powerful independent women (as opposed to, say, suspected or even proven frauds), or that “white lady” legends are meant to reinforce the patriarchy, or when “appropriation” comes up, as in this sentence: “Today the property [Sherman Ranch in Utah] is marketed as Skinwalker Ranch, appropriating a creature from Navajo mythology.” A normal person might say it is “named after” the skinwalker, but whatever. As wide-ranging and as spare as the text is, with simple one-sentence or one-paragraph explanations of many people, stories, and events, these are odd directions to go.
Conversely, some explanations are unbelievably vague, as when an infographic of a “Catholic exorcism kit” is shown to contain “assorted cloths and candles.” Other information is just wrong.
There are also a ton of typos and generally bad writing. Whoever copy edited this book did the author a huge disservice.
I’ve mostly dwelt on what disappointed me about this book but it’s still fun and I love the format. It’s great to leaf through even when you’re not actively reading it. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, though, Boardman’s UFO book is much better.
If you absolutely have to have something on ghosts, Roger Clarke’s Natural History of Ghosts, which I read a few years ago and is recommended in the back of this book, is probably your best bet, despite having some similar organization problems and, alas, no fun illustrations....more
The clearest and most approachable edition of Aristotle's Poetics I've come across. Freeman does his best to break up the work visually, with chapter The clearest and most approachable edition of Aristotle's Poetics I've come across. Freeman does his best to break up the work visually, with chapter headings and bullet lists and some small glosses worked into the text itself, and his succinct clarifying endnotes and short introduction provide just enough context for the newcomer to understand the main body of the work. ...more
3.5 stars rounded up. Part memoir, part reflection of the writing and creative process, part general self-help advice, Turning Pro has a lot of helpfu3.5 stars rounded up. Part memoir, part reflection of the writing and creative process, part general self-help advice, Turning Pro has a lot of helpful general pointers scattered throughout as well as some kind of aimless spiritual-but-not-religious hoodoo (if you’ve read The War of Art you’ll know what I mean), which is at least offered in the service of the larger, more practical points.
Especially good is Pressfield’s repeated emphasis on the distinctions between amateurs and professionals. I found the best stuff came in Part III, where Pressfield really buckles down with some of the application—the “What does this look like?” aspect—of his reflections. His emphasis on developing a “practice” a la Alasdair MacIntyre and his nose-to-the-grindstone, rain-or-shine attitude toward doing the work required of one’s calling are perhaps the strongest and most important of his messages.
I have to wonder if Pressfield is a Nietzsche fan. Not only is some of his artistic advice a lot like Nietzsche’s call for the Übermensch to rise and cast off all that impedes him, but his non-fiction self-help reads a lot like Nietzsche: terse, urgent, aphoristic, and in an irresistibly high poetic register. It goes down smooth, which helps with the parts they don’t make as much sense.
Many years ago when I read The War of Art I recommended treating it like a smorgasbord or buffet: look at all of it, take only the best parts. I’d say that here, too. Worthwhile....more
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