Heaven and Hell, Bart D. Ehrman

Heaven and Hell:  A history of the afterlife by Bart D. Ehrman is a book that I saw reviewed somewhere, but cannot remember where.  I have had a fascination with the concept of hell for a long time and so books like this tend to catch my eye.

Started: 5/24/2020

Completed: 5/26/2020

Recommendation: Not Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I never understood Hebrew poetry.  I assumed that the lack of rhyme and meter was due to an effort to translate literally and that the Hebrew would be more beautiful.  Not so.  Hebrew poetry uses parallelism (two lines espouse the same or contrasting ideas).  That is pretty cool and a type of poetry that I understand much better.  I love learning stuff like that.

The book opens with a good survey of information about how early Jewish populations and the populations with which the Jews interacted viewed the afterlife.  This was a good foundation for further analysis.  The review of the Torah and Old Testament, more broadly, also seemed reasonable and consistent.

The latter part of the book became, "here's how I interpret the Bible."  That is OK, but the author states up front that he is not trying to shape beliefs or views--basically, let's just get the facts out.  His interpretation, however, is one-sided (maybe that is simply the right side, I don't pretend to know).  The author rarely mentions any possibility of inconsistency in his view while railing about other forms of inconsistency.  When he does (with the case of how to interpret Jesus' words to one of the thieves, the author makes clear how an interpretation inconsistent with his views makes more sense, but then just moves on.

Before the book is over, almost every format of afterlife has been considered ranging from reincarnation to everyone being saved.  I think it would be better to think of this as a biased survey.  The author pretty clearly thinks the afterlife is unlikely, but attempts to provide an opportunity for everyone to take a look at all the different varieties of afterlife available along with the arguments against pretty much all of them.

This is less a history and more of a Judea-Christian inspection of the afterlife.  It seems to come from a philosophical perspective, but philosophy seems to be the wrong tool when looking at religious matters.  Philosophy thrives on understanding, but religion thrives on belief.  Not exactly oil and water, but it is exceedingly difficult to find the overlap.  There comes a time when religion quotes:

• "For we walk by faith, not by sight." 2 Corinthians 5:7
• "But the righteous shall live by faith." Habakuk 2:4
• "As for those who fear their lord unseen, for them is forgiveness and a great reward." Quran 67:12

I'm sure that there are others.

The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen is a book I cannot remember why I selected, but it seemed to me at the time like the author was particularly good.  I think it had something to do with the National Book Award.

Started: 5/22/2020

Completed: 5/24/2020

Recommendation: Mild Recommendation

Recommended By: National Book Award?

Review:

This is a carefully crafted story with insights into how it might feel to suffer from dementia.  It is also about how people fool themselves and others.  It is rife with mistakes that people could make and rife with patterns of mistakes that people can fool themselves into making.  The story is told from multiple points of view that occasionally overlap.

It feels like this is a vignette in a much larger story that starts well before the book does and goes on well after.  That makes sense.  The anchor to the story line is an aging father and grandfather who starts on the edge of dementia (though flash backs show a fully lucid individual, as one would expect) and ends with his being in full dementia.  This is not, really, however a story about his dementia, but more a story about how everyone around him changes during his struggle with reality.

I was not moved by the story and, though it was well told, have some trouble recommending it.  I didn't gain any insight from it and tale is overall a little sad. 

The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune was identified on a classic list of fantasy books that everyone should read.

Started: 5/18/2020

Completed: 5/22/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: A fantasy list

Review:

In some ways this is the island of the misfit toys set to fantasy.  It is a story of inclusion.  It is not yet, if it ever will be, "classic fantasy."  In a sense it is a coming of age story for the protagonist who really doesn't seem to live until the after the story begins.  It is also a story of bigotry and the fight for acceptance.  It is also a story of orphanages.  In modern fantasy novels it seems in vogue for the protagonists to be gay and this book does not disappoint.  It feels to me like the poem, "I am a piece of paper" was written before the book.  Whether it was or not, the poem stands on its own.

How To Be An Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi

How To Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi was recommended by Shaun King.

Started: 5/15/2020

Completed: 5/18/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By: Shaun King

Review:

Kendi's journey from a perspective of what is racist to what is truly anti-racist focuses on results.  If the results disproportionately favor one race over another, then that result is racist.  Seems pretty clear, right?  So, when looking at policy and/or behavior one must look at the results.  Is the result toward equity (not absolute equity...if a minority makes up 10% of the population, it shouldn't expect to be 50% of the CEOs, but it would be reasonable to expect to be 10% of the CEOs; similarly if 100 people in a population of 10,000 are a minority, the minority would not anticipate being 10 of the 20 CEOs--that kind of equity is distorting).

When discussing "micro-aggressions" of white people against black people, Kendi gives the example of "...calling the cops on us for running down the street...."  I was instantly in mind of Ahmad Aubrey who was killed by two white men who ambushed him while he was jogging in the middle of the street.  This type of aggression has leapt out of "micro" to become lynching and it feels like it started with Trump's comment about "good people on both sides" from Charlottesville, although it has been present in Republican dog whistles for as long as it was not politically correct to be outright racist, like congressman Stephen King today and Barry Goldwater at the linchpin of a sense of treating people with at least "political" correctness instead of overt hatred.

"Anti-racism should lead to racial equity between integrated racial communities."  That says most of it.  Racism needs to be fought at a policy level first.  Policy needs to be measured by the degree to which it creates racial equity in order for things to change.  Fix the policy and the minds and hearts will follow.

Dark Towers, David Enrich

Dark Towers:  Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an epic trail of destruction by David Enrich is a book I saw reviewed in the New York Times.

Started: 5/9/2020
Completed: 5/15/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: New York Times

Review:

Deutsche Bank just seems toxic.  Employees commit suicide.  The bank interacts with criminals hiding assets.  There are endless tales of shell companies, oddly cozy relationships, and disgusting risk taken on behalf of the share holders.  Shady internal bookkeeping coupled with with underfunded regulation has allowed Deutsche Bank to wreak havoc on the world's economies.

Meanwhile, Trump's hand along with his relatives is all over the bank.  The question the book raises, but cannot answer, is whether Trump and family loans are backed by Russian banks.  It seems possible, but there is no proof in the material in this volume, just a smoke.

It is hard for me to highly recommend this book because there is an enormous attempt to humanize the protagonists by going into great deal into their personal lives.  I think that Enrich did this in an effort to understand the motives for the actions taken and this is part of what keeps the book from being a dry report.  On the other hand, a dry report would be much shorter.  In a sense, the motives don't matter to me, so I'm not interested.  In another sense, there is a certain fascination in trying to figure out how people who do this kind of underhanded stuff that destroys so many other people justify their acts to themselves.  In some cases, they find they cannot live with themselves.

The Topeka School, Ben Lerner

The Topeka School by Ben Lerner was on the New York Times best book of the year.

Started: 5/5/2020
Completed: 5/9/2020
Recommendation: Not Recommended, unless you are a forensic type...then it is hard to resist
Recommended By: The New York Times

Review:

It was interesting and darn near shocking to hear a recounting of a high school debate.  I never expected to read a book that talked about "first affirmative."

Other than the near constant debate references (I also never expected to hear about Lincoln-Douglas debate, either), which gives the book its title, I  find this book unappealing.  The disjoint nature of the story telling was uncomfortable to me.

The writing was well done though I did not like it.  There was a scene in which a father would not help keep peace on a play ground.  It brought back to me my own experience with other parents at a play ground and how it had almost become a physical altercation.  As I read the scene my own adrenaline returned from that event in my history.  I kept trying to suppress my own reaction, but could not as the events described in the book kept taunting my own emotional response back.  It was very well written and extremely uncomfortable. 

The Stone Sky, N.K. Jemisin

The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin is the third book in The broken Earth series.

Started: 5/2/2020
Completed: 5/5/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is just fantastic.  It is so clear why this book won both the Hugo and Nebula awards.  The thoroughness of the development of this world is amazing.  The way that Jemisin gracefully links together story lines is amazing.  It is mildly jolting in a good way as each puzzle piece clicks into place and the richness of the design snaps into clarity.  Three books that are deliciously used to build a concept, a sense, of what it means to be human, a soul, or, better, just alive.

The System, Robert Reich

The System:  Who rigged it, how we fix it by Robert B. Reich is a book my wife saw and I have been following Robert Reich on twitter, so it seemed like a good idea to read it.

Started: 4/30/2020
Completed: 5/2/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By:  my wife

Review:

So, hold onto your hat.  You are about to get pounded with fact after relentless fact that makes it clear we live in an oligarchy.  Reich does repeat himself, a lot, but I think that it is intended to set up a pattern in the book.  Sort of a chorus to which he comes back after discussing one of the myriad ways that really, really rich people are busy taking over the country.  What can we do?  Well, for starters, we can come together.  Bernie was my hope (and it seems like Reich's as well), but that hope doesn't have to die.  We have to bring together the vision Bernie, AOC, and, frankly, FDR put together and put it back in place by brute force of majority rule.  The GOP is just in the pocket of big business and they simply will not help.

I was interested to see how Reich played out the change from a stakeholder held corporation to a shareholder held corporation.  The pivot to businesses "maximizing shareholder value" even if it meant destroying the underlying company was shocking in detail even if known in scope.