September Non-fiction CAT: Religion and Philosphy

Thank you for the suggestions. Please keep them coming, everyone.

Christianity

Suggestions from Christina_reads

- Anything by C. S. Lewis, but Mere Christianity is a great starting point if you've never read him
- Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton
- Time for God and Interior Freedom by Jacques Philippe, both of which are extremely good and extremely short

Suggestions from LadyoftheLodge

- Living with the Monks by Jesse Itzler
- The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton (anything by Merton)
- The Genesee Diary by Henri Nouwen (anything by Nouwen)
- How to Read Church History Vol 1 and 2
- Church History in Plain Language
- Holy Men and Women (or anything by Pope Benedict)
- My Life with the Saints by James Martin (lots of stuff by James Martin)

Many Religions, from the Web

- Five Books: Religion Various experts recommend the "best five books" on a range of religions and religious topics.
- Top Ten Books About Muslims and Islam - from the HuffPost
- Ten Great Buddhist Books

To be continued

Philosophy

From the Web

Best Five books: Philosophy
The Most Important Philosophy Books Ever Written from The Reading Lists
The Best Modern Philosophy Books from The Reading Lists
Where to Start Reading Philosophy an article in The Conversation

From my own shelves

Anger and Forgiveness by Martha C. Nussbaum
At the Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell
How Are We to Live? by Peter Singer
Practical Ethics by Peter Singer
The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer
Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
Orientalism by Edward Said

From SallyLou61

Something by the influential, radical-feminist academic, theologian and philosopher, Mary Daly
Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism
Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy
The Church and the Second Sex
Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation

Popular Philosophy

Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer

I am going to read Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save - How to Do Your Part to end World Poverty.

For philosophy I recommend Sophie's world by Jostein Gaarder. It's a very accessible panorama and history of philosophy for the lay person.

I will probably read Petit traité des grandes vertus by André Comte-Sponville unless something else mentioned here catches my fancy,

I have How the World Thinks on the pile to read.
I also have Revelations of Divine Love, but I doubt I'll get to both of them.

I'm going to get a head start on my pick for this CAT, The Spirit of the Liturgy by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI).

I'm going to read Cafe Theology by Michael Lloyd, which has been on my shelves since 2005 (I remember the year as he was the speaker at the last church weekend away I attended before moving away from London to go to Scotland).

I think I will read Paul: A Very Short Introduction by E. P. Sanders for this and maybe When God Spoke Greek by Timothy Michael Law

I’m planning on reading Why Buddhism is True.

>5 Helenliz: How the world thinks seems quite interesting! I really like this global approach rather than focusing on the western culture.

>9 LittleTaiko: This sounds quite interesting also! I have established a small meditation practice and am interested in Buddhism for this reason. I have to say that I find the title overly assertive though. From the back cover blurb it seems to me that the author focuses on meditation and how it helps change your mind but does not address the reincarnation part? I'll be very interested to read your thoughts about it.

COMPLETED Paul: A Very Short Introduction by E. P. Sanders

Starting When God Spoke Greek by Timothy Michael Law

I finished The Spirit of the Liturgy, which I found very meaty and thought-provoking. It's definitely more of a deep dive than an overview, so I'd only recommend it for people who are somewhat familiar with Christian, and specifically Catholic, liturgical practices.

I've finished Peter Singer's The Life You can Save. In these sad pandemic times it's good to read a book as uplifting as this, and to know that it is well within our capacity to save not just one life, but many. Go to thelifeyoucansave.org to get a free copy and to find out how to donate.

COMPLETED When God Spoke Greek by Timothy Michael Law

I've been reading The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton, but at my rate, I won't be finished before the month is up.

October thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/324360#

I chose a short one for this, Götter und Kulte der Germanen, which tells us how little we actually know for sure about the gods and and cults of the early Germanic world.

Oops, I missed posting what I'd planned to read! I have a ton of FLDS stuff on my tbr, so it was going to be one of those.

And here it is:

The Secret Lives of Saints / Daphne Bramham
4 stars

“Saints” in the title refers to the religion, “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” (LDS), or more specifically, fundamentalist LDS (FLDS) – that is, the polygamous branch of the LDS/Mormons. This book includes info from various, mostly former, FLDS – that is, it includes some memoir-type info with regard to some people (again, mostly those who have left), but the second part talks about the law, courts, trials, and even that some governments look the other way (British Columbia in Canada seems the worst for that).

This book does focus more on the Canadian FLDS (and leader/prophet Winston Blackmore) than any other I’ve read, so that was interesting to me. I’m in Calgary, Alberta, and though I knew about Bountiful, BC (actually called Lister, which I didn’t know), I did not know that there is a small population of FLDS in Alberta, as well, mostly in/around Cardston. The FLDS is so intertwined, though, that it started with a history, and there is also much about the communities in Utah and Arizona, and of course, about Warren Jeffs.

I have read quite a bit about the FLDS so many names are already familiar to me in that I’ve read some of those memoirs. I know that a few of the Canadian FLDS had a trial wrap up in BC last year, so I’m going to look that up to refresh my memory on what happened there. This book was published in 2008, so things have happened since then (like the trial in BC). I found the second part of the book – the legal stuff – much more interesting than I expected, and found myself even more interested than in the first half of the book; I guess much of that was exasperation and frustration at all the laws they are breaking... and in some cases, flaunting (in addition to polygamy, there is, of course, all kinds of abuse, plus bilking the government (i.e. taxpayers) out of as much money as possible – they need all that extra income to feed their 15+ wives and 70+ children (ok, that might just be Blackmore with that many, but you get the picture)).

Educated / Tara Westover
4.25 stars

In this memoir, Tara Westover primarily recalls her childhood, growing up in a Mormon family in Idaho. Her parents didn’t believe in education, or public health, or anything government-related. Her father sold scrap metal from his junkyard, and enlisted all his kids to help, including his youngest, Tara. As she and her siblings grew up with no education, a few of them decided to leave to get that education they’d been missing. Tara was left at home along with her extremely abusive brother, Shawn, until she was able to get away, as well.

It started off a bit slow, but it built and built, I thought. It was hard as the book continued on – even as Tara left TO get that education she missed out on while growing up – to watch how hard a time she had cutting ties with her abusive family. I guess – it’s her family. Even as she grew to know how they were just wasn’t right, they were still her family.

Why Buddhism is true by Robert Wright 4★

With this book Wright promises that we can learn to use meditation as the key to enduring happiness by seeing the world clearly. I'm sure that my attempts at meditation have not been enough to find the clarity he is trying to achieve, however, I found this book not only interesting, but well-written in an appealing conversational style.

"Don't try to use Buddhism to be a better Buddhist. Use it to ba a better whatever you already are. --Dalai Lama"

How the World Thinks by Julian Baggini, ****

I've not read a great deal of philosophy (if any), so this was a really great introduction to the world's philosophies. It it titled a history, but it isn't a chronological history, instead it is themed. It starts with how the world knows, then proceeds to examine different schools of thought in how the world is, who we are and how the world lives. I found the thematic approach really interesting, rather than tracing the evolution of each of the major schools of thought. I like that he also atempted to include the oral traditions, this wasn't exclusively limited to the aritten tradition.

I will be honest, the first few chapters were hard going. But they set a foundation and I found that the remaining secitons were much more readable and understandable, maybe as a result of having put some building blocks in place. I felt that I learnt a lot, recognising the aspects of philosophical thinking that I have unconciously embraced without even knowing it. It might not be meant as an introduction to philosophy, but for me it functioned reallly well as exacltly that.

I won this from the #Al-Rhodan prize, which aims to enhance cultural understanding - in which case it's an excellent winner.

>22 Helenliz: Sounds fascinating - wishlisted

I just noticed the spelling mistake in the title. It has probably been glaring at everyone else!

>24 pamelad: Usually I am all over typos but I actually didn't notice it!

>24 pamelad: I never noticed, either!

I've just barely started Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle. Luckily enough, it works for next month's topic, too.

Unfortunately, once a thread is set up, it is not possible to change the header. Years ago I misspelled Germany in a header, and, finding it relatively early, made a new thread and copied the very few entries to the new thread. It happens.

>28 sallylou61: Never even noticed!

>24 pamelad: Oops! I never saw it, either!