Arms of Nemesis, Steven Saylor

Arms of Nemesis: A Novel of Ancient Rome by Steven Saylor is part of the Roma Sub Roma series which I have enjoyed.

Started:  2/6/2016

Completed: 2/17/2016

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended by:  Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

desultory --lacking a plan, purpose, or enthusiasm

encaustic -- using pigments mixed with hot wax that are burned in as an inlay

Review:

Great, just great.  I could hardly put this book down.  Each evening as I sat and read this book, I had to decide it was time to stop.  There was no good stopping point, no good pause, nothing.  Just a great book all the way through.  I usually don't like mysteries because they are almost impossible to decipher, but all the data was there all the time.  It was fantastic.

I also enjoyed the detail (both good and bad) about ancient Rome that littered the book like the detritus of a triumphant battle.  What a great author.

The Tale of Genji, Lady Murasaki

The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki as translated by Arthur Waley is traditionally identified as the world's first novel.  It was written in the 11th Century.  I have no idea why I picked it up.  The cover and back cover do not encourage me to read it now, so there must have been some other reason I chose it.  Perhaps it is a revisiting of classical literature that one might have expected to have read in high school.  I have no other explanation.

Started:  1/29/2016

Completed: 2/6/2016

Recommendation: Not Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

augue -- malaria or some other illness involving fever and shivering

blue-stocking -- a derogatory term for an intellectual or literary woman

censorious -- severely critical of others

coquetry -- flirtatious behavior or a flirtatious manner

effacement -- to wipe out; do away with; expunge

loggia -- a gallery or room with one or more open sides, especially one that forms part of a house and has one side open to the garden

lugubrious -- looking or sounding sad and dismal

parlous -- full of danger and uncertainty; precarious

plashing -- splashing

postilion -- a person who rides the leading left-hand horse of a team or pair drawing a coach or carriage, especially when there is no coachman

preponderant -- predominant in influence, number, or importance

prosody -- the patterns of rhythm and sound used in poetry

viand -- an item of food

Review:

This is a story of court intrigue and basically follows Genji's effort to bed every woman of beauty in the land.  There are a few interesting sub-plots but the structure of the story is more of x happened then y happened without a lot of insight into the how or why behind it.  There was a huge amount of poetry exchanged (which must have titillating in its time), but, for the most part, the story was rather base.  At some level there seems to be a deeper meaning that love (or lack thereof) can kill, but that meaning is so well concealed in allusion and secondary reference that it is not well substantiated.  I read the book, but I did not enjoy it.  It was not so horrible that I had to stop reading, however.  The prose was interesting, stilted and yet somehow poetical as well.

Buddha's Brain, Hanson, Mendius, and Siegel

Buddha's Brain:  The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, & Wisdom by Rick Hanson, Richard Mendius, and Daniel J. Siegel is a book that talks about the neuroscience behind the practice of meditation (as well as some other aspects of being a Buddhist).  I picked this up at the library (and later bought it) because I wanted something to hear in the car and I am beginning to understand the value of meditation.

Started:  November 2015

Completed: 2/1/2016

Recommendation: Highly recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

It is great to see some of the science that is trying to understand meditation as a practice.  In particular, some of the principal foundations of Buddhist practices (such as sitting straight while meditating) are supported by straight-forward scientific explanations.  The Buddhists have known to do these things for thousands of years and here is an effort to start to understand why some of the practices work the way that they do.  It is very interesting and this book is going to require several visits.  I don't usually reread books, but this one is more of a manual and the volume of material that is presented is substantial.  I have this on audio so that I can listen to it while driving (a practice broadly discouraged by the author as one should focus on one thing), but it is nice to have something that I can start to absorb in the car and then think intensively about when walking to work or waiting in line or some other task.