This is a book I never heard of and wouldn’t have chosen to read. But since I received it as a present, I felt a little obligated. Mount Analogue: A Tale of Non-Euclidean and Symbolically Authentic Mountaineering Adventures was published posthumously in 1952 in French. According to Wikipedia, Daumal “was a French spritual para-surrealist writer and poet.” I don’t have a full [or any] understanding of spiritual para-surrealism, which might have contributed to my inability to really get into this one. It also didn’t help that […]
Not My Life Philosophy
This book took me forever to get through. It is gift-book sized and has fewer than 300 pages, but it was a slog. Some of the information was interesting, for sure, but if Professor Irvine’s understanding of Stoicism is correct, there are definitely a few things that I definitely disagree with. The book starts with a bit of a background on Stoicism, and how it is misunderstood. Since we commonly use the word stoic to mean unemotional and humorless, Prof. Irvine argues that this is […]
Arrested Development, No Bluths. No, strike that, I refuse to be flippant about this gorgeous novel.
When I read Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History” over a decade ago, it stuck with me for quite some time. I think “The Goldfinch” is going to haunt me even longer. I don’t know how she does it, but Tartt’s writing style is, for me at least, the literary version of an earworm that has no burn factor. I could not stop thinking about this book every time I put it down. I kept bringing it up with people at work. My dreams were screwed up. […]
Why is this book over? How am I not still reading it?
What a breathtaking novel. Enormous in every possible way, and yet somehow totally personal and relatable. I devoured “Alif the Unseen,” and I wish I were still reading it. On its surface, “Alif the Unseen” is the story of a young man, a hacker in a present day un-named police state in the Persian Gulf. He has girl troubles and so he codes a pretty little program to hide his digital presence from his ex-girlfriend, and in doing so taps into the world of jinn […]
The Philosopher’s (Rosetta) Stone
Several years ago, the X and Philosophy pop culture series was really hitting it big. Barnes and Noble had a sale on several hardcover editions, including Harry Potter and Philosophy and The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy, both of which I love. So I snagged them both and promptly didn’t read either for years. Now that I’m going through my Marie Kondo phase, trying to eliminate as much extra kitsch and junk from my life as possible, I’m motivated to read ALL the books on […]
This book might make you question yourself and your relationships
A Lover’s Discourse came recommended by a very good friend with very good literary taste, so I did not question a thing about the book when I picked it up. I went into it blind. Finding out that it was actually a philosophical treatise on the language we use as lovers was the least jarring of discoveries. Depending on what type of person you are, and what type of relationships you’ve been in, A Lover’s Discourse functions more as a mirror, and it can be a painful and […]