Tag: books
-
Review: Hamilton’s the Greek Way
The Greek Way Edith Hamilton This is a really bad book. Like, really bad. Well, perhaps bad isn’t the right word. Hopelessly dated and irrelevant might be better. Hamilton (author of the excellent introduction to Mythology) attempts to explain the unique and superior nature of ancient Greece through a review of its culture and comparison…
-
Review: Hamilton’s Mythology
Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes Edith Hamilton When I asked for a quick and dirty overview of the major Greek and Roman myths, everyone recommending this. I’m glad they did. When I started Mythology I was already half way through Hamilton’s the Greek Way, which is pretty bad, and I did not have…
-
Review: Delany’s Times Square Red, Times Square Blue
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue Samuel Delany Delany’s memoir/ examination of 1970s era Times Square through the lens of late 1990s Times Square gentrification. This is a memoir of a young man exploring his sexuality in the in the porn theaters and sex shops of Times Square. It is also more than that. It…
-
Review: Delany’s Dhalgren
Dhalgren Samuel Delany When people ask me what my favorite book is, I generally demure. Does anyone have a single favorite? I know I do not. But as I hem and haw about what it means for a book to be my “favorite” I almost always end up discussing Dhalgren. It isn’t my favorite book,…
-
Review: Epictetus’s Discourses
Discourses and Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) Epictetus (trans Robert Dobbin) If Marcus’s Meditations are the most popular introduction to stoic philosophy, Epictetus discourses are perhaps the most substantive. Together, they are the two books of ancient stoic thought one really must read. Born a slave, Epictetus eventually gained his freedom and taught philosophy in Rome…
-
Review: Popper’s Digital Gold Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money
Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money Nathaniel Popper Just the bitcoin book for me – the kind of guy very interested in the personalities involved and the political and economic repercussions, perhaps not the book for people interested primarily in the technical issues related to…
-
Review: Warrick’s Black Flags: The Rise of Isis
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS Joby Warrick First books about major events and movements are usually a bit thin and haphazard (Taliban is an exception). In the first year or so after a major event occurs such as a terrorist organization taking over vast amounts of one of the most contentious areas in the…
-
Review: Rashid’s Taliban
Read in 2001 Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Second Edition Ahmed Rashid The original edition, written before the September 11th attacks, this book went from minor work to one of the best selling books in the history of the Yale Press overnight. I bought it, in the Strand, about a mile from…
-
Review: Seistad’s One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway
One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway Anse Seiestad We’re only two weeks into 2016, but I think I may have my nonfiction book of the year in Asne Seierstad’s story of the Anders Breivik’s terrorist attack/mass murder in Norway. Do you remember that one? Breivik was a ultra-nationalist,…
-
Review: MacDonald’s H is for Hawk
H Is for Hawk Helen MacDonald A wonderfully strange memoir of a woman training a hawk while morning her father and reflecting on the life (and failed falconry) of the author T.H. White. Generally, I couldn’t care less about training birds to hunt things, or the life of White, or the joys of the English…
Milo and the Calf 