No Man Is an Island
by Thomas Merton
From the Publisher:
"A recapitulation of his earlier work Seeds of Contemplation, this collection of sixteen essays plumbs aspects of human spirituality. Merton addresses those in search of enduring values, fulfillment, and salvation in prose that is, as always, inspiring and compassionate."
“A stimulating series of spiritual reflections which will prove helpful for all struggling to...live the richest, fullest and noblest life” (Chicago Tribune).
Mr.Wonderful Writes:
No Man Is an Island by Thomas Merton is an exhaustive study of religion. Although he was a Catholic (and a Trappist monk), most of the book covers concerns and beliefs of all Christians. However, it is more like a college textbook than an easy-reading tome.
No Man is a series of spiritual reflections from love and hope to solitude and silence.
It's not something anyone without an extensive background in the Christian religion would find enjoyable.
It's quite densely written and one could spend a week of contemplation and study amid the pages each of the sixteen chapters.
However, unlike William F. Buckley's book, Nearer, my God, No Man doesn't use words that require research, but instead thoughts that require contemplation and study.
"And there is the despair which dresses itself up as science or philosophy and amuses itself with clever answers to clever questions--none of which have anything to do with the problems of life."
"Without God, we are no longer persons. We lose our manhood and our dignity. We become dumb animals under pain, happy if we can behave at least like quiet animals and die without too much commotion."
"As long as we are on earth our vocation is precisely to be imperfect, incomplete, insufficient in ourselves, changing, hapless, destitute, and weak, hastening toward the grave."
(No doubt written during a period the delivery of lithium to the monastery was restricted. Actually, being a Christian isn't, or shouldn't be, quite this traumatic or tragic. M.W.)
"A man of sincerity is less interested in defending the the truth than in stating it clearly, for he thinks that if the truth be clearly seen it can very well take care of itself."
"In hell, there is no recollection. The damned are exiled not only from God and from other men, but even from themselves."
reviewed: April 9th, 2008
Begun: 03/15/2008 Finished: 03/27/2008
Purchased: May 2007
Where:
Half-Price Books
B&N Net Rank: 46,436
Pages: Hardback, 264pp
Cover price: Unknown
Purchase price: Unknown (new)
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No Man Is an Island
Thomas Merton
ISBN: 1590302532
ISBN-13: 9781590302538
Copyright © 1955
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Nearer, My God
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Sundiver
by David Brin
From the Publisher:
"No species has ever reached for the stars without the guidance of a patron--except perhaps mankind. Did some mysterious race begin the uplift of humanity aeons ago? Circling the sun, under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in history--a journey into the boiling inferno of the sun."
Mr.Wonderful Writes:
Hoping to repeat the pleasure I found in David Brin's twenty years later scifi novel, Kiln People, I purchased Sundiver, based on the author's name alone.
I think he attempted a too monumental task with too many characters and too many plots, so that it was difficult to keep track of who was doing what to whom.
He also came up with an idea that each sentient species was not created or evolved but basically designed by a more advanced species. By the date of the book humankind had advanced both chimps and dolphins to sentience, so we were entitled to be called their sponsors.
Author Brin comes up with a galactic government, as is the typical writer's dream, but as in reality, it is as crooked as our U.N. is today.
The book involves exploration of the Earth's sun and the creatures that apparently live on its surface. It has the 'good guys' turning into bad guys, and might have been helped if it had not forced a happy ending on its readers.
Way too confusing and complicated and well, boring for me.
reviewed: March 22, 2008
Typos:
Page 43 "...there has been the other ships to watch..."
Page 90 "...or a giant ground sloth, or an orangutang."
Page 210 "...and the chattering incresed, but Culla worked faster."
Begun: 02/24/2008 Finished: 03/16/2008
Purchased: ...December 2007
Where:
Half-Price Books
B&N Net Rank: 60,587
Pages: Paperback, 340pp
Cover price: $5.99
Purchase price: $2.38(used)
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Sundiver
David Brin
ISBN: 0553269828
ISBN-13: 9780553269826
Copyright © 1980
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WordPress®
for Dummies®
by Lisa Sabin-Wilson
From the Publisher:
"Are you a wannabe blogger? A seasoned pro migrating your blog to WordPress? Looking to do more cool stuff with your existing WordPress blog? Then this fun guide is for you! WordPress for Dummies is a veritable smorgasbord of WordPress information, ideas, tools, resources, and instruction on everything you need to create and maintain your dream blog.
Unlike other blog hosts, WordPress gives you the ability to create a blog that is tailored to your own tastes and needs. Sure, the codes, tags, and terminology can seem a little intimidating at first, but WordPress for Dummies breaks it all down to show you just how intuitive, friendly, and extensible the software really is..."
Mr.Wonderful Writes:
After I read Blogging for Dummies I was sold on using WordPress for my soon-to-be world famous blog. I even began updating my new blog on a non-regular basis. Sadly, I did not have the time to create and publish both on my programming intensive, HTML-driven web site, and learn WordPress while blogging at WordPress.com.
I found some of the avante garde language at WordPress hard to decipher and right away I saw my postings were being credited to the incorrect writer with no way to correct it.
So when I came across WordPress for Dummies I got excited and couldn't wait for my usual used, or remainder copy, and splurged for a pricey $17.99 new copy.
There are three versions of WordPress: WordPress where the user utilizes a template, kind of like buying a tract home, called WordPress.com. And it is free, and while many users will find it second nature simply to begin blogging, your Mr.Wonderful, being a perfectionist, did not feel 100% comfortable blogging. There is a self-hosted system where the WordPress software is downloaded to your chosen server, giving you total control of your blog. This is known as WordPress.org. And finally there is WordPress multi-user, which is what I imagine the blogs posted by national news organizations use, named WordPress.mu.
Now that you are aware of the WordPress blogging software, start looking for the "Powered by WordPress" notice on your favorite site, I think you will be surprised by how many web publishers use it. As a matter of fact, Microspotting, the Microsoft blog for their employees, according to Deb Perelman at eWeek magazine, is not run on their own 'Spaces' blog platform but on WordPress.
I'll have to admit that I stopped reading at page 186, about 87 pages into the "Self-Hosting with WordPress.org", because it got far more complicated than I was prepared for at that point.
The 384 paged book is split into six parts titled, such as: "Introducing WordPress", "Using the WordPress Hosted Service", and "The Part of Tens." Each of the three versions have their own section allowing the reader to only peruse the version(s) of WordPress she is contemplating using, explaining my choice to halt my own reading at page 186.
For myself, with my WordPress for Dummies laid flat and opened at "Part II Using the WordPress Hosted Service", I plan to get acquainted with the tract-home-template version at WordPress.com. And then once comfortable with it, migrate onto the vastly more flexible Self-Hosted version provided at WordPress.org.
Author Lisa Sabin-Wilson, insists that a blog is not a blog if it doesn't allow comments (which prior to anyone seeing, can be edited, spell-checked or even deleted by you) to be left by your readers. Of course, like many authors who write about blogging, Ms. Sabin-Wilson assumed my writing would concern flowers, or flavors of coffees, or my favorite flying saucer story. However, I write about contentious subjects and things that actually matter, and I can hardly wait to witness what kind of bile is tossed into my comment container.
Like the usual "for Dummies" book this one seems to cover everything anyone could need to know about any of the three versions of the WordPress platform and I highly recommend it.
reviewed: March 10, 2008
Typos:
Page 37 "An e-mail is also sent to you that contain your user name..."
Page 55 "Refer to figure 4-2...See the two buttons in the bottom-right corner of that image?
Buttons are not displayed in figure 4-2
Page 155 "(Figure 8-11 show the Categories box expanded with the minus sign in the...")
Should refer to Figure 8-12, not 8-11
Begun: 02/14/2008 Finished: 03/05/2008
Purchased: February 2008
Where:
barnesandnoble.com
B&N Net Rank:
18,189
Pages: Trade paperback, 384pp
Cover price: $24.99
Purchase price: $17.99 (new)
|
Wordpress for Dummies
Lisa Sabin-Wilson
ISBN: 0470149469
ISBN-13: 9780470149461
Copyright © 2008
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Plague Year
by Jeff Carlson
From the Publisher:
"The nanotechnology was designed to fight cancer. Instead, it evolved into the Machine Plague, killing nearly five billion people and changing life on Earth forever.
The nanotech has one weakness: it self-destructs at altitudes above ten thousand feet. Those few who've managed to escape the plague struggle to stay alive on the highest mountains, but time is running out-there is famine and war, and the environment is crashing worldwide. Humanity's last hope lies with a top nanotech researcher aboard the International Space Station-and with a small group of survivors in California who risk a daring journey below the death line."
Mr.Wonderful Writes:
While the cover blurb by E.E.Knight claiming, "Part Michael Chricton, part George Romero" is a bit much, Plague Year by Jeff Carlson is an okay scifi novel.
Nanotech claimed as having been designed to cure human cancer, by eating only cancerous cells and pumping out clones of itself (but actually is created to grant 'everlasting' life to the sponsor) is accidently let loose during a poorly planned industrial heist. Since the little beasties were not yet precisely targeted for cancer, they feed on organic tissue to build more copies of themselves and once released into nature they soon consume and kill most humans and many animals.
A built-in safety fuse is that they 'die' at elevations above 10,000 feet. So what is left of Mankind is on the tops of mountains and ski resorts and winter cabins and living in such privation, separated from food supplies and having to burn furniture for warmth, that they sometimes turn to murder and cannibalism.
What is left of the U.S. Government and several hundred thousand citizens are at high altitudes and working on an antidote nanobot. Even higher, with the most sophisticated equipment operational to study nanotech, above "the plague", is the space shuttle Endeavour. It's a rush to find the cure before mankind and animalkind are wiped out by the nanobots.
Back on Earth, there are some really interesting power struggles in the United States, China and Russia, that sadly, author Jeff Carlson has correctly predicted what would probably occur if this Plague Year were to happen.
I tried to read Plague Year a few pages at a time and could not comprehend or keep track of what was happening. I came to the conclusion that a well-written novel can be read and enjoyed in small pieces, like warm banana nut bread. Novels written by Joe Haldeman, Alastair Reynolds and John Hersey, to name a few, can be read this way. It me months to finish John Hersey's White Lotus and when I was done it was like waving goodbye to an old friend at the train station.
Once I upgraded Plague Year to daytime reading of large sections at once, it actually became exciting. However, for reasons I couldn't discern, in order to be able to follow their progress, action scenes had to be read at the same speed as I would read a passage on building a quantum computer.
As I mentioned earlier, Plague Year is an okay book, especially considering it's author Carlson's first one. If you enjoy the nanobot scene and would be interested in learning one possible outcome, along with a few pretty cool actions scenes, and devious political maneuvering, read Plague Year.
reviewed: February 29, 2008
Begun: 02/06/2008 Finished: 02/24/2008
Purchased: December 2007
Where:
Half-Price Books
B&N Net Rank: 48,948
Pages: Paperback, 292pp
Cover price: $7.99
Purchase price: $3.18 (used)
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Plague Year
Jeff Carlson
ISBN: 044101514X
ISBN-13: 9780441015146
Copyright © 2007
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Nearer, My God
An Autobiography of Faith
by William F. Buckley Jr.
1925-2008
From the Publisher:
"This is the story of one man's faith, told with unrivaled reflection and candor. William F. Buckley, Jr., was raised a Catholic. As the world plunged into war, and as social mores changed dramatically around him, Buckley's faith -- a most essential part of his make-up -- sustained him. In Nearer, My God, Buckley examines in searching detail the meaning of his faith, and how his life has been shaped and sustained by religious conviction. In highly personal terms, and with the wit and acuity for which he is justly renowned, Buckley discusses vital issues of Catholic doctrine and practice, and in so doing outlines for the reader both the nature of CathoLic faith and the essential role of religious belief in everyday life. In powerfully felt prose, he contributes provocatively and intelligently to the national interest in the nature of religion, the Church, and spiritual development."
Mr.Wonderful Writes:
Nearer, My God, is densely written and salted with such words as: animadversion, antimony, éminence grise, funicular, *objurgations, piquant (a favorite), *proleptically, solipsism and *zucchetto. The asterisked words were not even listed in my 180,000 word Oxford Pocket American Dictionary. That fact makes me believe that many of the people who  bought this book did not finish it, which is a loss for them. Speaking of 'people' there are not many who, like William F. Buckley, Jr., can work the word funicular into everyday conversation and experience.
For this baby-boomer born in the fertile fifties, and growing up watching Bill Buckley on his Firing Line program and making special appearances elsewhere on television, it really was something to get a prolonged look into bits of his personal life.
Nine brothers and sisters, fluent in three languages, a father richer than Croesus raised in multiple family homes in both America and Europe, with nine full time servants could explain his trademark relaxed pose as during interviews or discussions, he seems almost like a wet towel carefully draped over the chair to dry.
And as an adult he filmed a never-seen documentary inside the Sistine Chapel, met with two Popes and beginning in 1959 was able to 'take off' two months each year, to "write and ski" in Switzerland calling as neighbors, actor David Niven and Princess Grace, who were also friends. In addition to being recruited by the CIA, when the words 'world traveler' are looked up in the encyclopedia, or these days Google, there is a photo of William F. Buckley Jr. looking out at you.
Nearer, My God was one of the very few non-fiction books in which I read every single word, from the tear-page's, "Praise for William F. Buckley, Jr.'s Nearer My God", squinting at the microdot-sized footnotes, and all the way through Appendix A and B located prior to the twelve pages of the Index.
This is a fascinating, personal and explicit book about why this vastly accomplished man believes as he does. Having been raised in the Lutheran Church (broken away from the Catholic Church in the 1500s) I had a little more insight into Catholicism than another non-Catholic reader might have.
He steps through church history and along the way provides concrete evidence for Man's creation by a loving God. He visits most arguments for and against God and also why, other than being raised in it, he continues to abide with the Catholic magisterium, even after Vatican II and its major manipulations of various facets of the faith.
While he answers many questions a non-Catholic, or as in my own case, being a lapsed Lutheran, an 'anti'-Catholic might have, he still hasn't convinced me that the Catholic church is the 'One Church'. On many of his points, the answers hinge on the belief that the Pope in Rome is the voice of God, and what that Pope states is gospel truth. To which he himself, might respond in another discussion by citing, "That that is circular reasoning." Of course, in actuality, he would use six and seven syllable words, not heard outside of a national spelling bee, to say the same thing.
The last chapter is a tribute to his mother Aloïse Steiner Buckley, which I loved since so many accomplished and successful men fail to recognize the almost absolute necessity of having a loving mother during childhood.
Nearer, My God An Autobiography of Faith should be read by any well-educated person who is questioning the existence of God, for this book has many answers. All non-Catholic practicing believers should also read it. And it certainly must be read by all Catholics, and as the National Catholic Reporter stated, "Read it and wince, read it and weep, read it and smile, but read it."
reviewed: February 22, 2008
Begun: 02/09/2008 Finished: 02/19/2008
Purchased: August 1999
Where: Unknown
B&N Net Rank:
276,876 (2008)
Pages: Trade paperback, 313pp
Cover price: $14.00
Purchase price: $14.00 (new)
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In The News:
February 27th, 2008:
William F. Buckley Jr., 82, Dies;
Sesquipedalian Spark of Right
Mr.Wonderful's Buckley Obituary
Nearer, My God
An Autobiography of Faith
William F. Buckley Jr.
ISBN: 0156006189
ISBN-13: 9780156006187
Copyright © 1998
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The Now Habit
A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination
and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play
by Neil Fiore, Ph.D.
From the Publisher:
"Originally published by Tarcher in 1988, The Now Habit has sold more than 58,000 copies, and is as relevant as ever!
Author Neil Fiore offers the first comprehensive strategy to overcome the causes of procrastination and to eliminate its deleterious effects. His techniques will help any busy person get more things done more quickly, without the anxiety and stress brought on by failure to meet the workplace's pressing deadlines ..."
Mr.Wonderful Writes:
The Now Habit is one of my old standby's. Examining my previous highlighting strokes, this may have been my third time reading it through, which the large font and the under 200 page count makes quite easy. And unlike many of the self-help genres author's, Neil Fiore holds a Ph.D. in psychology.
He begins with the idea that the reason we procrastinate (as I did in postponing this review by over two weeks) is to keep us safe from criticism. And also that many procrastinators are not lazy but suffering from perfectionism, fear of failure and criticism.
In chapter one, "Why We Procrastinate" there are a series of questions to be internally answered and if you find your head nodding 'yes' and maybe even an eye beginning to fill with tear, this is the book for you.
With chapters of "How We Procrastinate", "How to Talk to Yourself", and "Fine Tuning Your Progress" the book steps the reader through what needs to be done to get 'done'.
One of the most unique tools is his use of the 'unschedule', where, among other things, we learn to work backwards from the date of projected completion and do a little bit, he suggests thirty minutes each day until we are done. Right away, the reader thinks that thirty minutes isn't enough time to even get started. But Dr. Fiore immediately comes back with the fact that for most of us procrastinators thirty minutes is longer than we've worked on our project in the last year.
A huge roadblock, which I thought only I faced, that of not knowing where to begin a project, (in my case the great American Exposé, not unlike Upton Sinclair's 1906 classic The Jungle) is easily handled with the obvious answer: No one really knows where to start when they first begin. Fear of completion and many other fears are also dealt with.
Since I've been hypnotized during therapy and am the perfect subject (having been once mesmerized by a far away stage hypnotist, causing me to lay my face down on the plate in front of me) for some reason I felt uncomfortable with his foray into what I thought was self hypnosis. And then in the back of the book I was not surprised to read he was an expert in hypnosis. But each to his own, it's just that I'd rather pray.
All in all a wonderful book, if the reader will follow it's fairly easy to follow instructions on adapting The Now Habit.
reviewed: February 16, 2008
Typos:
Page 172 "...you have been unwilling to made a commitment to the work..."
Begun: 01/26/2008 Finished: 01/28/2008
Purchased: 1991
Where:
barnesandnoble.com
B&N Net Rank: 1,166 (2008)
Pages: Trade, 201pp
Cover price: $14.95
1991 Cover: $8.95
Purchase price: $8.95 (new)
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The Now Habit
A Strategic Program for
Overcoming Procrastination
& Enjoying Guilt-Free Play
Neil Fiore, Ph.D.
ISBN: 1585425524
ISBN-13: 9781585425525
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Paindgod and Other Delusions
by Harlan Ellison
From the Publisher:
"Robert Heinlein says, 'This book is raw corn liquor – you should serve a whisk broom with each shot so the customer can brush the sawdust off after he gets up from the floor.' Perhaps a mooring cable might also be added as necessary equipment for reading these eight wonderful stories: They not only knock you down…they raise you to the stars. Passion is the keynote as you encounter the Harlequin and his nemesis, the dreaded Tictockman, in one of the most reprinted and widely taught stories in the English language; a pyretic who creates fire merely by willing it; the last surgeon in a world of robot physicians; a spaceship filled with hideous mutants rejected by the world that gave them birth. Touching and gentle and shocking stories from an incomparable master of impossible dreams and troubling truths."
Mr.Wonderful Writes:
Paingod and Other Delusions, the 1983 edition in any case, displays delightful old fashioned cover art by Barclay Shaw. It is graced with both an introduction written in 1974, followed by the original 1965 introduction.
Judging from his, well worth reading, introductions, Harlan Ellison seems like an interesting guy, and certainly is a gifted and thoughtful writer.
Don't let the page number of only 178 mislead you because, because, in my edition anyway, it was printed in a tiny, tiny, '8' or '6' font, and every story in each of the seven first tales averages fifteen pages with the last one, "Deeper than the Darkness", penned in 1957, at thirty-four pages, Steven King's "Firestarter" seems to echo.
Like me, you may have been wondering how does a writer sit down and knock out eight short stories? In author Ellison's case, all of his were previously published in science fiction magazines as far back as the 1950s, which means that as a child, I most likely read some of Harlan's work.
From the Paingod, who makes certain to bring some usually undeserved pain into everyone's life in the entire universe, to the sad Bright Eyes, to robotic doctors, there is quite a bit of variety in the stories.
As a student of writing, as odd as it seems, short stories are much harder to generate than full-length books and Harlan Ellison did an excellent job on these eight short stories.
"Staying alive only has merit if one does it with dignity, with purpose, with responsibility to his fellow man. If these are absent, then living is a slug-like thing, more a matter of habit than worth."
Page 157 Introduction to: "Deeper than the Darkness"
reviewed: February 11, 2008
Typos:
Page 49 "...which she left laying in an orderlyn pile..."
Page 77 "Buy why haven't you shown this steel-pinching to the Watchers..."
Page 87 "Who would speak the elegy for the thousands..."
Page 142 "Carefully, Bergman delivered the appendix into the wound."
Page 172 "...hues were unknown skiiiiittered scud-wise, and popped out..."
Begun: 01/24/2008 Finished: 02/05/2008
Purchased: January 2008
Where:
barnesandnoble.com
USED FROM OUR AUTHORIZED SELLERS
B&N Net Rank: 212,240
Pages: Paperback, 178pp
Cover price: $14.95
1983 Cover: $2.95
Purchase price: $2.48 (new)
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Paingod
and Other Delusions
Harlan Ellison
ISBN: 0759229945
ISBN-13: 9780759229945
Copyright © 1965
Paingod
and Other Delusions
(1983 Cover
by Barclay Shaw)
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Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog
The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences
by Kitty Burns Florey
From the Publisher:
"In its heyday, sentence diagramming was wildly popular in grammar schools across the country. Kitty Burns Florey learned the method in sixth grade from Sister Bernadette: 'It was a bit like art, a bit like mathematics. It was a picture of language. I was hooked.' Now, in this offbeat history, Florey explores the sentence-diagramming phenomenon, including its humble roots at the Brooklyn Polytechnic, its "balloon diagram" predecessor, and what diagrams of famous writers’ sentences reveal about them..."
Mr.Wonderful Writes:
I had been searching for years for a book about diagramming sentences, and when I saw Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog-The Quirky History of Diagramming Sentences and I immediately ordered it through Title Wave Books out of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Upon receiving it, I also immediately discovered that the improper sentences I wanted to avoid could be perfectly diagrammed, with the result that this book would not help me with my sometimes troubled sentence structure.
Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog is a reminiscence of language, great writers, and the 1950s and 1960s schooling both author Kitty Burns Florey and myself received. Although she felt her Catholic schooling too strict, while the public school strictness I received, at the expense of my screaming butt cheeks, saved my life. Albeit my taxpayer funded education ending in the 1960s would be today likened to a private religious school.
As long as I simply skimmed my eyes over the examples of diagramming, the reading was fine and I picked up a lot about the English language and famous writers. For instance, with her odd use of the language, as cited in S.B.B.D., I know I won't be reading much of Gertrude Stein's work, who sounds as if she could have benefited from a good verbal fanny spanking.
One thing I really appreciated was that the footnotes were off to either the right or the left of the text for easy reading, and were almost always the informative variety, not the typical dry references to sources, dates and pages.
Reading the book, Ms.Florey has assumed the reader would know all the parts of the English language and their proper usage, while she identifies and only explains one, the gerund.
Her attempts at humor almost always fall flat just like so many angry* Liberals. She couldn't help injecting jabs at President George W. Bush. I'm coming to understand that at any point and any place these Liberals, or Progressives, must inject their politics. Politics in a book about diagramming sentences?
But this is how so many of these sad sack Progressives operate.  On a level battlefield, where facts, and not feelings, are the weapons of war, 99.9% of them cannot defend their ground without basically admitting that Marxism is the only way to true equality in American society.
And that they alone, not Marx, Tolstoy, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Kim Jong, Mao Zedong or Hu Jinto, know how to finally make it work. Of course going in, they and they alone (once again) would realize, as the ruling farmyard pigs did in George Orwell's book Animal Farm , that All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
So I'm tooling along, reading this book about diagramming sentences and here she starts to beat up on our president. When one visits my Mr. Wonderful Talks Politics web page, one does not expect to find recipes for Vegan Amish meatloaf or how to handle a case of persistent 'morning stiffness'. And likewise, when reading a book about the English Language and diagramming sentences, the very last thing one would expect is to see rants against a sitting president.
* It's almost as if they are emotionally constipated with hate because they see America as the most unjust, cruel, polluting, empire-building (that Puerto Rico, what a catch), unfair, selfish, and religious nation ever, but yet cannot reconcile their politics with what they see around them, starting with how good their own lives are. And where a hearty laugh, generated by a good joke, which always has some basis in truth, a truth they cannot acknowledge, would function like ex-lax® on their constipation of hate, they'd rather deny the truth, make horrible jokes, and stay angry.
reviewed: February 07, 2008
Begun: 01/28/2008 Finished: 02/03/2008
Typeface: Century Schoolbook
Purchased: November 2007
Where:
barnesandnoble.com
USED FROM OUR AUTHORIZED SELLERS
B&N Net Rank:
20,758
Pages: Trade paperback, 150pp
Cover price: $14.95
Purchase price: $7.99 (used)
|
Sister Bernadette's
Barking Dog
Kitty Burns Florey
ISBN: 0156034433
ISBN-13: 9780156034432
Copyright © 2006
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|
Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam
(and The Crusades)
by Robert Spencer
From the Cover:
You think you know about Islam. But did you know:
- Islam teaches that Muslims must wage war to impose Islamic Law on non-Muslim states
- American Muslim Groups are engaged in a huge cover-up of Islamic doctrine and history
- Today's jihad terrorists have the same motives and goals as the Muslims who fought the Crusaders
- Muslim persecution of Christians has continued for 13 centuries--and still goes on
"May Allah rip out his spine from his back and split his brains in two, and then put them both back, and then do it over and over again. Amen."
Praise for the author from RevivingIslam.com.
Mr.Wonderful Writes:
The Politically Incorrect GuideTM to Islam (and the Crusades) was a hard book to read and a difficult book to review. Digesting the book and its twenty pages of endnotes both scared and depressed me.
Scared me because the book proves that Islam, as envisioned by Muhammad, is a patriarchal, misogynistic, cruel, violent, and rigid religion. Actually more of a political philosophy, since like few other religions, Islam is only 'complete' when the entire planet has been conquered and is under the yoke of Islamic Sharia Law. Talk about a One-World Government.
I am depressed because as chapters 17 and 18 explain, Islam has so many well-meaning but incredibly misinformed friends in the U.S. and elsewhere, that their conquest of the entire Earth seems entirely possible.
How can Muslims continue to generate friends outside of Islam? By applying the power of billions of Petro-Dollars where they will do the most good, by funding rapacious and soul-less lawyers to sue the average citizen or even corporation into oblivion, by lining the pockets of hundreds of lobbyists world wide, and by building elaborately decorated mosques where only half the truth is preached.
Another reason for Islam's spectacular growth is the explaining away of, but never apologizing for, or condemning, suicide bombing as the work of a small fundamentalist minority of believers, when in actuality, this fraction of the faithful numbers in the tens of millions and is spreading the word of Allah exactly as the Qur'an instructed 1300 years ago.
Note that according to the same above mentioned holy book, practitioners of Islam may lie to, may mislead, may enter into contracts that they fully intend to break, and may do or say anything to nonbelievers as long as it advances Islam.
Scattered throughout the book are an eye opening set of grayed-out boxes titled "Muhammad vs. Jesus" which demonstrate by quoting the Bible and Islamic writings, side by side, how Christianity and Islam could not be more dissimilar.
For instance, we have from the New Testament, Matthew 5:7, 46-7, the time Jesus is instructing his followers to love people who are not easy to love:
"For if you love those who love you what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethen, what more are you doing than others?"
Contrast the Qur'an 48:29 instructing:
"Muhammad is Allah's Apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another."
This should awaken the reader to new awareness about several things, one being that Christianity is a forgiveness-religion, and that Islam is a pride-religion, that must be defended over any and all slights. After reading a few, albeit translated, quotes from the Qur'an, it is obvious that it is as well-written as the Book of Mormon, I cite 1 Nephi, 4:37:
"And it came to pass that when Zoram had made an oath unto us, our fears did cease concerning him."
For bedtime chuckles, when we weren't reading about Appalachian Snake-Handlers, my then preteen son, Mr.Wonderful III, and I, would occasionally crack open a Book of Mormon (where the art displayed the pre-Columbian American men as all looking like Fabio) and turn through it in an attempt to discover the one page that had the most "And it came to pass" phrases. I believe we once found thirteen repeats on a single page.
A third thing that might come bubbling into the consciousness of the reader, is that anyone presenting Islam and Christianity as in any way alike, is either ignorant or lying through his teeth ... or burqa, whatever the case may be.
Another set of grayed-out boxes are titled "A Book You're Not Supposed to Read" which lists books that many Muslims would rather we not read. There are far too many to list, but one that I've seen cited elsewhere (that I intend to read should I survive the writing of this book review) is The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah by A. Guillaume, published way back in 1955 and still in print.
Among so many other not generally known facts, author Robert Spencer explains how many of the Crusades were actually about taking back Christian lands from the conquering Muslims (who are never identified as being Muslim's in school books) and rather than bringing the Crusaders riches, as the story books tell us, bankrupted many of them and cost them their lives. As to the cruelty shown during battle and conquest, it was demonstrated equally by both sides. It was, as Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof would say, "tradition!"
"In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue ..." goes the grade school memory-rhyme. What they failed to teach us was why Columbus was so desperately searching for a new route to Asia? And that is because of the fall of Constantinople to the Muslims in 1453 closed all known overland trade routes to the east. Islam, being the religion of peace, would certainly have welcomed 'Christian' traders would they not?
Reading the P.I.G. to Islam tells the truth about the religion and its founder and explains why it can only be spread by violence and suppression, not by discussion, examination, prayer and conviction. According to The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, it truly is Islam versus the Western World.
As I've stated elsewhere: "A Muslim America will have no temples, no churches, no meeting houses and no atheists." Not to mention, no homosexuals, no women's rights, and judged by a 'rule of law' based not on any logical/religious or moral code, but entirely on the whims of a faraway Caliph.
If you're interested in reading a brutal, true-adventure book that demonstrates how the adherents of Islam, when they have the upper-hand, have for very many centuries treated 'Christians', read the gut-wrenching Skeletons on the Zahara. If you'd like to read a totally whitewashed, but enchanting and interesting true story of growing up in an Islamic harem, read Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood, by Fatima Mernissi, Fatema Mernissi.
reviewed: January 26, 2008
revised: January 29, 2008
Begun: 12/22/2007 Finished: 1/22/2008
Purchased: October 2006
Where:
zooba.com
B&N Net Rank:
2,022
Pages: Trade paperback, 270pp
Cover price: $19.95
Purchase price: $9.95 (new)
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In The News:
March 2008:
Afghan lawmakers chant
"Death to the enemies of Islam"
Sketch That Roiled Muslims
February 2008:
Sentenced to 4 Months in Jail, 30 Lashes for Walking Dog
Kuwait Hardliners Take Aim at Valentine's Day
Adoption of Islamic Sharia law in Britain is
'unavoidable', says Archbishop of Canterbury
Religious police in Saudi Arabia
arrest American mother
for sitting with a man
Iranian sisters face
stoning for adultery
Afghan student's death
sentence hits nerve
January 2008:
'Latest Attack on Islam: Alternative Version
of Quran found'
July 2007:
Salute the Danish Flag!
It's a Symbol
of Western Freedom
March 2006:
Replacing Burqa
with Surgical Mask
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Politically Incorrect
Guide to Islam
(and the Crusades)
Robert Spencer
ISBN: 0895260131
ISBN-13: 9780895260130
Copyright © 2005
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The Bohr Maker
by Linda Nagata
From the Publisher:
"It is the most powerful technology known to humanity, microscopically small, allowing its user to control and change other's moods and emotions, and even to reprogram his or her own genetic structure. Its potential as the ultimate weapon or an instrument of peace has led to its ban by the Commonwealth.
Someone has stolen this outlaw technology, the Bohr Maker, from the secret files of the Commonwealth Police, at the command of a man with a genetic time bomb coded into his DNA... "
Mr.Wonderful Writes:
I was drawn to The Bohr Maker by its pinkish and orange cover and the exciting premise of a nanobot technology let loose.
However, the book was more confusing and confounding than using Arizona voting ballots printed in both Spanish & English. Reading it made about as much sense as listening to Tom Cruise explain Scientology®.
Let's see, there are 'atriums' which are spaces created in peoples' heads and is the way the 'civilized' world communicates both with each other and control much of their machinery. The action begins in an atrium, which immediately threw off and upset me.
Unless the reader proceeds at a pace one would read about recent quantum physics discoveries, it is almost impossible to discern when the action is in the atrium of a character or in the physical world. Citizens of the Commonwealth, which is the civilized world, also have the capacity for their essence/spirit/soul/being ('ghost') to visit the atrium of other individuals, kind of like an organic GoToMeetingdotcom®. They also have the ability to send their ghost to inhabit and control the physical body of other humans (those with their atrium set to 'slave-mode') and animals and corpses stored in distant places around the world.
There is also a city named Summerhouse where dissidents from Earth are allowed to live in an entirely DNA-engineered and manipulated environment. It seems that the city is one end of the typical space elevator with the other end being Earth.
There's a lot more to The Bohr Maker, but for me it was simply a mishmash of words and technology and futurism that I couldn't quite seem to comprehend and did not excite me.
For an outstanding science fiction book about the ability of the human spirit to inhabit more than one body, read the awesome book by David Brin, Kiln People.
reviewed: February 01, 2008
Typos:
Page 221 "'You can't meant to release the Maker on Earth.'"
Begun: 01/11/2008 Finished: 01/24/2008
Purchased: December 2007
Where:
Half-Price Books
amazon.com Net Rank: 176,781
Pages: Paperback: 324pp
Cover price: $4.99
Purchase price: $1.98 (used)
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The Bohr Maker
Linda Nagata
ISBN: 0553569252
ISBN-13: 9780553569254
Copyright © 1995
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Kiln People
David Brin
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