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 […]
I tried something new.
I feel like there are two types of people in the world: people who have read Atlas Shrugged, and people who would rather be eaten alive by maggots than read Atlas Shrugged. I’m joking, slightly, of course, but I was possibly the last indifferent person on earth to read it. To be clear, upfront: I have neither the intention, nor the energy, to pick apart and debate Rand’s actual objectivist philosophy within the scope of this review. (To poke the bear slightly, Mallory Ortberg sums […]
Read a Book, Ya Idjits!
I’m going to guess there aren’t too many places outside fan fiction where you’ll find Supernatural mentioned in the same breath or sentence as Hamlet. Let alone Aristotle, Karl Marx, Immanuel Kant (who’s a real pissant), or Thomas Aquinas. Or Simone du Bouvoir. Or many other philosophers. Just so we’re clear: yes. I mean *that* Supernatural. Not the idea of the supernatural, or defining the supernatural, though certainly some chapters address those topics and I think a great many philosophers have covered that ground. For those people who […]
For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on…
Once in a blue moon, someone gives you a book that you would have never picked up on your own, and you can’t put it down. Shantaram is one of those books. Set in Mumbai, India in the late 70s and early 80s, Shantaram is the semi-autobiographical story of Lin, an escaped Australian convict. Lin was serving nineteen years for armed robbery when he escaped over the prison walls, hopped a few planes, and wound up in Mumbai. What follows is a sweeping story that […]
Hauntingly Beautiful!
Fiftieth book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. Oh! Is there anything even close to an Oscar Wilde novel? If there is something that is horrifying and disgusting, yet somehow most reassuring and beautiful, this is it. A novel that shook up the world into which it was born. So ahead of its times! So exquisitely written with such a rich language and splendid narrative! I honestly don’t find myself capable of reviewing such a book. I write this only because I had decided that I […]