Fundevogel starts her challenge

Currently reading: books

Progress:
Classes.......................10/10 = 100%
Divisions.....................52/99 = 52%
Assigned Sections........92/908 = 10%
Unassigned Sections....1/92 = 1%
Bertrand Russell..........4

Welcome - you've got a great list here.

FYI (from personal experience): you might want to split your list into multiple posts before you get too many comments in between. I wish I had split mine into more sections earlier on :)

Class 000: Computer science, information & general works
7/84 Assigned
0/16 Unassigned/No Longer Used

000 Computer science, knowledge & systems
001 Knowledge The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan
002 The book Warmly Inscribed - Lawrence Goldstone
007 Unassigned
008 Unassigned
009 Unassigned

010 Bibliographies
013 Unassigned

020 Library & information sciences
024 No longer used -- formerly Regulations for readers
029 No longer used -- formerly Literary methods

030 Encyclopedias & books of facts

040 No longer used—formerly Collected essays by language
041 Unassigned
042 Unassigned
043 Unassigned
044 Unassigned
045 Unassigned
046 Unassigned
047 Unassigned
048 Unassigned
049 Unassigned

050 Magazines, journals & serials

060 Associations, organizations & museums
069 Museum science Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder - Lawrence Weschler

070 News media, journalism & publishing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

080 General collections
082 Collections in English Distory: A Treasury of Historical Insults - Robert Schnakenberg

090 Manuscripts & rare books
096 Books notable for illustrations The Douce Apocalypse (The Library of Illuminated Manuscripts) - A. G. Hassall
098 Prohibited works, forgeries & hoaxes Reforging Shakespeare : the Story of a Theatrical Scandal - Jeffrey Kahan

Class 100: Philosophy and psychology
7/89 Unassigned
0/11 Unassigned/No Longer Used

100 Philosophy & Psychology
104 No longer used -- formerly Essays

110 Metaphysics
112 No longer used -- formerly Methodology

120 Epistemology, causation, humankind
125 No longer used -- formerly Infinity
129 Origin & destiny of individual souls Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife - Mary Roach

130 Paranormal phenomena
132 No longer used -- formerly Mental derangements
133 Parapsychology & occultism The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination - Robert Place
134 No longer used -- formerly Mesmerism and Clairvoyance
136 No longer used -- formerly Metal characteristics

140 Specific philosophical schools

150 Psychology
151 No longer used -- formerly Intellect
157 No longer used -- formerly Emotions
159 No longer used -- formerly Will

160 Logic
163 Not assigned or no longer used
164 Not assigned or no longer used

170 Ethics (Moral philosophy) The Ethics Of Spinoza: The Road to Inner Freedom - Baruch Spinoza
173 Ethics of family relationships Marriage and Morals - Bertrand Russell

180 Ancient, medieval, Oriental philosophy
188 Stoic philosophy Handbook of Epictetus - Epictetus

190 Modern Western philosophy (19th-century, 20th-century)
192 Modern Western philosophy British Isles Unpopular Essays - Bertrand Russell
198 Modern Western philosophy Scandinavia Fear and Trembling - Sören Kierkegaard

Class 200: Religion
11/89 Assigned
0/11 Unassigned/No Longer Used

200 Religion God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (audio) - Christopher Hitchens

210 Natural theology
211 Concepts of God Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects - Bertrand Russell
215 Science & religion Science and Religion - Bertrand Russell
216 No longer used -- formerly Evil
217 No longer used -- formerly Prayer
219 No longer used -- formerly Analogies

220 Bible Jesus, Interrupted - Bart D. Ehrman
222 Historical books of Old Testament Who Wrote the Bible - Richard Elliot Friedman
225 New Testament Misquoting Jesus - Bart D. Ehrman

230 Christian theology Mere Christianity - C. S. Lewis
232 Jesus Christ & his family The Case for Christ - Lee Strobel
237 No longer used -- formerly Future state

240 Christian moral & devotional theology
244 No longer used -- formerly Religious fiction
245 No longer used -- formerly Hymnology

250 Christian orders & local church
256 No longer used -- formerly Religious Societies
257 No longer used -- formerly Parochial schools, libraries, etc.
258 No longer used -- formerly Parochial medicine

260 Christian social theology

270 Christian church history
277 Christian church in North America Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller

280 Christian denominations & sects
288 No longer used -- formerly Unitarian

290 Other & comparative religions
291 Comparative religion Epics of Early Civilization: Myths of the Ancient Near East - Time-Life Books
298 No longer used -- formerly Mormonism
299 Other religions Santeria: The Beliefs and Rituals of a Growing Religion in America - Miguel A. De La Torre

Class 300: Social sciences
12/90 Assigned
0/10 Unassigned/No Longer Used

300 Social Sciences
305 Social groups The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin
306 Culture & institutions In the Garden of Desire - Wendy Maltz
308 No longer used -- formerly Polygraphy
309 No longer used -- formerly History of sociology

310 General statistics
311 No longer used -- formerly Theory and methods
312 No longer used -- formerly Population
313 No longer used -- formerly Special topics

320 Political science Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them - Al Franken
329 Not assigned or no longer used

330 Economics

340 Law
345 Criminal law BLACK'S LAW: A Criminal Lawyer Reveals His Defense Strategies in Four Cliffhanger Cases - Roy Black
349 Law of specific jurisdictions & areas The Code of Hammurabi - King Hammurabi

350 Public Administration
355 Military science The Men Who Stare At Goats - Jon Ronson

360 Social services; association
363 Other social problems & services Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 - Stephen Puleo
364 Criminology Murder Most Foul: the Killer and the American Gothic Imagination - Karen Halttunen
365 Penal & related institutions Screw, a guard's view of Bridgewater State Hospital - Tom Ryan

370 Education
376 No longer used -- formerly Education of women
377 No longer used -- formerly Ethical education

380 Commerce, communications, transport

390 Customs, etiquette, folklore
391 Costume & personal appearance The World Beard and Moustache Championships - Michael Ames
394 General customs Gentlemen's Blood: A History of Dueling - Barbara Holland
396 No longer used -- formerly Women's position and treatment
397 No longer used -- formerly outcast studies
398 Folklore The Annotated Brothers Grimm - Maria Tatar

Class 400: Language
7/85 Assigned
0/15 Unassigned/No Longer Used

400 Language The Way We Talk Now - Geoffrey Nunberg (of NPR)

410 Linguistics
416 No longer used—formerly Prosody (linguistics)
417 Dialectology & historical linguistics The Power of Babel - John McWhorter

420 English & Old English
423 English dictionaries The Meaning of Everything (audio) - Simon Winchester
424 No longer used -- formerly English thesauruses
425 English grammar Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog - Kitty Burns Florey
426 No longer used -- formerly English prosodies
427 English language variations Poplollies and Bellibones - Susan Kelz Sperling
428 Standard English usage English As She is Spoke - Jose da Fonseca

430 Germanic languages; German
434 Not assigned or no longer used
436 Not assigned or no longer used

440 Romance languages; French
444 Not assigned or no longer used
446 Not assigned or no longer used

450 Italian, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romanic
454 Not assigned or no longer used
456 Not assigned or no longer used

460 Spanish & Portuguese languages
464 Not assigned or no longer used
466 Not assigned or no longer used

470 Italic; Latin
474 Not assigned or no longer used
476 Not assigned or no longer used

480 Hellenic languages; Classical Greek
484 Not assigned or no longer used
486 Not assigned or no longer used

490 Other languages
491 East Indo-European & Celtic languages Tri Porosenka (read-a-long Russian) - L. Buristrova

Class 500: Science
7/95 Assigned
0/5 Unassigned/No Longer Used

500 Natural sciences & mathematics A Short History of Nearly Everything (audio) - Bill Bryson
504 Not assigned of no longer used
507 Education, research, related topics The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments - George Johnson

510 Mathematics
517 Not assigned of no longer used

520 Astronomy & allied sciences
524 Not assigned of no longer used

530 Physics

540 Chemistry & allied sciences

550 Earth sciences

560 Paleontology; Paleozoology

570 Life sciences
573 Physiological systems of animals Skeleton (DK Eyewitness Books) - Steve Parker
574 No longer used -- formerly Homologies

580 Plants
589 No longer used -- formerly Thallophyta

590 Zoological sciences Through a Window - Jane Goodall
591 Zoology Swift as a Shadow:Extinct and Endangered Animals - Rosamond Wolff Purcell
595 Other invertebrates Butterfly & Moth - Paul Whalley
599 Mammalia (Mammals) Upright: The Evolutionary Key to Becoming Human - Craig Stanford (my prof!)

Class 600: Technology
8/94 Assigned
0/6 Unassigned/No Longer Used

600 Technology (Applied sciences)
609 Historical, areas, persons treatment Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner - Michael M. Baden

610 Medicinal sciences; Medicine
611 Human anatomy, cytology, histology Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
615 Pharmacology & therapeutics The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison - John Elmsley
616 Diseases Girl Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen
617 Surgery & related medical specialties My Lobotomy - Howard Dully

620 Engineering & Applied operations
621 Applied physics Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons - George Pendle
626 Not assigned of no longer used

630 Agriculture
635 Garden crops (Horticulture) Gardening 101 - Martha Stewart Living Magazine
636 Animal husbandry All Creatures Great and Small - James Harriot

640 Home economics & family living

650 Management & auxiliary services
654 Not assigned of no longer used
655 Not assigned of no longer used
656 Not assigned of no longer used

660 Chemical engineering

670 Manufacturing

680 Manufacture for specific uses
689 Not assigned of no longer used

690 Buildings
699 Not assigned of no longer used

Class 700: Arts and recreation
13/94 Assigned
0/6 Unassigned/No Longer Used

700 The arts
704 Special topics Devils - Gilles Neret
709 Historical, areas, persons treatment Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art World of Our Time - Calvin Tomkins

710 Civic & landscape art

720 Architecture

730 Plastic arts; Sculpture

740 Drawing & decorative arts
741 Drawing & drawings Family Man: Volume I - Dylan Meconis
744 Not assigned or no longer used
746 Textile arts The Bayeux Tapestry - David MacKenzie Wilson

750 Painting & paintings
756 Not assigned or no longer used
759 Historical, areas, persons treatment Egon Schiele Drawings and Watercolors - Jane Kallir

760 Graphic arts; Printmaking & prints The Artful Dodger: Images and Reflections - Nick Bantock
762 Not assigned or no longer used
768 Not assigned or no longer used

770 Photography & photographs Carny: Americana on the Midway - Virginia Lee Hunter
777 Not assigned or no longer used
779 Photographs The Bone House Joel-Peter Witkin

780 Music
781 General principles & musical forms Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (audio) - Oliver Sacks
782 Vocal music The Rose & the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad - Sean Wilentz
789 Not assigned or no longer used

790 Recreational & performing arts
791 Public performances If Chins Could Kill - Bruce Campbell
796 Athletic & outdoor sports & games The Tracker - Tom Brown
799 Fishing, hunting, shooting The Man Eaters of Tsavo J. H. Patterson

Class 800: Literature
12/98 Assigned
0/2 Unassigned/No Longer Used

800 Literature & rhetoric
804 Not assigned or no longer used
808 Rhetoric & collections of literature Antigone - Sophocles

810 American literature The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003 - Dave Eggers
811 Poetry Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein
812 Drama Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
813 Fiction A Good Man is Hard to Find - Flannery O'Conner
814 Essays Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
817 Satire & humor Letters From the Earth - Mark Twain
819 Not assigned or no longer used

820 English & Old English literatures
822 English drama Dr. Faustus - Christoper Marlowe
823 English fiction Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories - Michael Sims

830 Literatures of Germanic languages
833 German fiction The Neverending Story - Michael Ende

840 Literatures of Romance languages
843 French fiction The Hermitage - Marie Bronsard

850 Italian, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romanic

860 Spanish & Portuguese literatures Borges: Collected Fictions - Jorge Luis Borges

870 Italic literatures; Latin

880 Hellenic literatures; Classical Greek

890 Literatures of other languages

Class 900: History, geography, and biography
8/90 Assigned
1/10 Unassigned/No Longer Used

900 Geography & history
904 Collected accounts of events Great Ship Disasters - Kit Bonner

910 Geography & travel A Night to Remember - Sir Walter Lord

920 Biography, genealogy, insignia Foreskin's Lament: A Memoir - Shalom Auslander
921 No longer used -- Formerly biographies of Philosophy Ernie Pyle's War - James Tobin
922 No longer used -- Formerly biographies of Religion
923 No longer used -- Formerly biographies of Sociology
924 No longer used -- Formerly biographies of Philology
925 No longer used -- Formerly biographies of Science
926 No longer used -- Formerly biographies of Useful Arts
927 No longer used -- Formerly biographies of Fine Arts
928 No longer used -- Formerly biographies of Literature

930 History of ancient world
935 History of ancient world; Mesopotamia & Iranian Plateau History Begins at Sumer - Samuel Noah Kramer

940 General history of Europe
949 History of Europe; Other parts of Europe Anne Frank: the diary of a young girl - Anne Frank

950 General history of Asia; Far East

960 General history of Africa

970 General history of North America
973 History of North America; USA Aaron Burr: Conspiracy to Treason - Buckner F. Melton Jr.
975 History of North America; Southeastern USA Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt
979 History of North America; Great Basin & Pacific Slope Mysterious California - Mike Marinacci

980 General history of South America

990 General history of other areas
991 Not assigned or no longer used
992 Not assigned or no longer used

4>

070 is the journalism section, so it's not that odd of a place -- it's certainly a fairly clear consensus among copies on LT.

Oh, and welcome!

Thank you :)

I had been under the impression that it was more of a slightly fictionalized memoir than journalism, but I guess these things aren't so clear cut.

15>

But it's a memoir of a journalist, and memoirs and biographies are often classified based on what their subject is known for, rather than in a biography section (so, for instance, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman is in the 530s, for physics.)

16> well that explains how I managed to kill the 'applied physics' section of my challenge with a biography.

I've finished Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 (363)which was very interesting and pretty easy to read, though at first the narrative style made me a bit weary. It makes me suspicious when non-fiction books unfold with the narrative detail of fiction. 'How could the author possibly know what so-and-so was thinking as he walked the streets of Boston at 3am?' I wonder. It makes my suspect the author is filling in gaps with his own imagination. But then I got to the part where they mention the tens of thousands of pages of text the trial generated with over 100 witnesses...and then the level of detail makes sense.

I also added All Creatures Great and Small (636) which I had forgotten about.

I finished Demon-Haunted World which seemed overly fatty relative to the complexity of content. There was definitely some interesting reading, and the thesis was strong and well supported, but he went off track a bit on some contemporary issues, and I really didn't need to hear so much about aliens.

I also added The World Beard and Moustache Championships (391)which is a fun little book that was given to me by a friend after we attended the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Both the book and the event are delightful, but it is most fun in person.

I added two I just remembered: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003 (810) and Mysterious California (979).

Mysterious California feels kinda dated, and I'm pretty sure some of the information isn't accurate, but it is an interesting read. It collects accounts of interesting and places and surrounding events of California's past. I was particularly entertained by the chapters about Joaquin Murietta and the Salton Sink. Other chapters mentions things like the ghost town of a real estate scam and what may have be the home of Napoleon's exiled widow.

Overall it's a good read and not too sensational, I feel pretty confident that what inaccuracies exist are a result of its age and not an attempt to create "mystery" or sensation.

The other is a collection of short writing assembled by Dave Eggers of McSweeney's. there's a definite attempt to keep the writing diverse which keeps things fresh if a little uneven.

I've finished a bunch of books in the past couple of weeks.

171 Ethics: the Road to Inner Freedom This is the first philosophy book I've ever read (though I have read manifestos and such before) and as far as old school philosophy goes it was very understandable, though overly verbose. I was impressed with Spinoza's intensive analysis of human emotion but not so much by his pantheistic ramblings.

200 God is Not Great I listened to this one on disc, (which I've decided isn't cheating). It has a lot of interesting and diverse stories both historical and contemporary. I found it more engaging than Demon-Haunted World and occasionally funny.

760 The Artful Dodger This is far from comprehensive survey of Nick Bantock's art career, particularly his books. A lot of the images are stunning, sometimes printed full bleed and his stories very honestly represent the fears, insecurities and victories of a developing artist.

394 Gentlemen's Blood This is a light, almost overly so, history of dueling from it's roots in early tribal justice til its final death knell around World War I. It turns out once a generation of young men have thrown themselves in the trenches they don't have anything else to prove. There are a lot of details and interesting stories but I would have liked more context establishing the sort of cultural and historical elements that drive dueling. As it is the sense the honor that drove dueling is still hard for me to understand.

759 Egon Schiele: Drawings and Watercolors An extensive and absolutely beautiful survey of Schiele's drawings and watercolor. I had a lot of fun browsing his erotic pictures. The text is fittingly brief, as it should be in an art book, but provides a decent amount of insight into the artist, his method and his art. My only complaint is that on the occasion images were printed as two page spreads the crease ate a lot of the image.

779 - The Bone House is a well executed photography book by the artist Joel-Peter Witkin. Witkin's photos mesh classical compositions and framing in his elaborate and macabre still lifes. Witkin frequently uses cadavers and body parts borrowed from the police and morgue to create his very disturbing, but oddly graceful images.

591 - Swift as a Shadow:Extinct and Endangered Animals is part science book part art book. It is the result of photographer Rosamond Purcell's invitation to photograph the extensive taxidermy collection of a Scandinavian natural history museum. Purcell chose to only include extinct and endangered animals in the book which makes the fact that her images are of stuffed animals rather than living creatures more significant. Especially for creatures extinct so long and preserved so awkwardly that it is clear the it's only remaining likeness is a poor representation of the original creature.

Each photo is accompanied by a brief description of the animal, where it lived and how its existence was cut short or is at risk. There a lot of interesting details, like the Laughing Owl's fatal affinity for accordion music and the Bush Wren's extinction being single-handedly orchestrated by a cat named Tibbles.

I like how you've annotated these as you've gone along - nice job!

Also, sounds like Dark Tide: the great Boston Molassas Flood was somewhat slow going at times. Perhaps appropriate for that sticky stuff ;-) Quirky book, nonetheless.

It's wasn't slow for me, I just get suspicious when non fiction books have an overly narrative voice. I start thinking that the author is filling in holes for the sake of a good story rather than giving me the facts. The bit about the trial alleviated my suspicions, but it would have been nice if I had known about the richness of the source material earlier.

I'm definitely glad I read it, it was every bit as bizarre and terrifying as I had hoped.

Yeah, I hear you about the sources - I always wonder about the book if they're not there in some form or other - in at least an abbreviated form.

Story of Chicago May was kinda like that, where the author did inject imagination about scenes or thoughts or motivations etc, but was honest and upfront that she was doing so throughout in her analyses.

That would drive me nuts. I'm so twitchy about history I've pretty much given up on historical fiction--I was more interested in the footnotes than the plot.

I can be 'twitchy' too, I guess. The Chicago May book was interesting because the author used the biography to conduct analysis from a feminine perspective - which different from most of the biographies I've read. Most have the attitude that the author is primarily an objective observer without bias, voice, or selectivity (within the stated scope). But at some level, it's impossible to be completely objective, even about historical matters or biography.

I guess it lends itself to the question of which is more honest: statement of perspective/bias upfront, or pretending to be objective.

ETA: P.S. while I came to appreciate the different perspective and voice, I don't know that I'll read other books by Nuala O'Faolain

I only finished one this month, Unpopluar Essays (192) by Bertrand Russell. I found it quite enjoyable. Bertrand didn't hide his distain for some philosophers' (Hegel's) tendency to hide the actual content of their theories in writing so complex that no one could figure out what they were actually saying. Bertrand is straight forward. He wants you to understand him, he wants particularly stupid 10-year-olds to understand him.

As far as the content goes it is split fairly evenly between what Bertrand thinks of philosophy, other philosophers and their impact on the world and his own ruminations. He has a cheeky sense of humor and it often shows up without warning as he's pointing out the errors and shortcomingd of past thinkers and persistent but flawed views. He insists twice that Aristotle could have easily dropped his assertion that men had more teeth than women if he would have just asked Mrs. Aristotle to open her mouth rather than clinging to his own baseless beliefs.

I'd recommend this to anyone interested in modern philosophy and I plan to read more of his books in the future.

817 Letters From the Earth - This collection was published long after Twain's death and includes a fair amount of acerbic prose directed at Christianity. Much of it is laugh out loud funny, or at least snort worthy. I loved that Twain wrote an entire essay dedicated to why Fenimore Cooper (the author of Last of the Mohicans) was a bad writer and how Twain thought he could improve Coopers excessively pedantic prose. There's also a delightful piece outlining the proper way to rescue people from burning buildings and answering questions like whether or not it is appropriate to propose marriage to a woman as you carry her out of a burning building (it isn't). Some of the pieces are bit lacking, however these are invariably bits of writing that Twain did not finish before he died and are included for the most diehard Twain fans.

069 Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder - This turned out to be better than I expected. Quite good actually. It attempts to share a taste of the Museum of Jurassic Technology with the reader. I've been to the Museum (located in Los Angeles) which is not like any other museum I've been to. The book does a good job reproducing the seamless blending a fact with fantasy that happens in the museum even as the author retells his attempt to sort the truth from the fiction in the museum's exhibits and history. I can't imagine a more perfect approach to a book about a contemporary wunderkammen.

098 Reforging Shakespeare : the Story of a Theatrical Scandal Apparently back in the 18th century everyone was convinced the only plays worth anything at all had already been written. They judged works based on their authors and era of creation rather than the actual play. They only liked Shakespeare and Classical plays. So a 19 year old boy forged Shakespeare. He wrote all manner of documents and a new play stuffed with Shakespearean motifs. With his artistic skills he managed to convince almost everyone of their authenticity...for a time.

The story here is interesting. No question. Unfortunately The writing is pretty blah. If someone else had written about the forgery I would have ditched this one and taken my chances on the other.

425 - Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog I found this one a fun read. Its a whimsical look at the history and impact of sentence diagramming. The author has fond memories of diagramming and loves the challenge and art of creating a sentence diagram. But as much as this is a labor of love it is not one sided, she concludes early that sentence diagramming is essentially useless in teaching grammar since you can diagram a bad sentence as well as a good one and consequently one must already know grammar before one can diagram a sentence.

The author talks about the impact diagramming did or didn't have on famous writers and provides lovingly crafted diagrams of their sentences. Ultimately she says that diagramming has absolutely no effect on a person's ability to write well. Of the writers she mentions only Gertrude Stein devotes any breath to her love of diagramming. Keep in mind Stein doesn't believe in commas or question marks.

I'm going to have to check out the Twain book--the Fenimore Cooper essay sounds hilarious.

The Cooper essay was one of my favorites. Apparently his writing bothered Twain enough that he wrote two essays about how terrible his writing was. I'm going to have to track down the other one myself one of these days.

13> I am excited to see these classifications- I've never seen what they used to be used for...I now understand why Cheaper by the Dozen is a 926; efficiency is a very useful art :-)

33> Some of the no longer used sections are pretty vague, as far as I can tell the 921 I read has nothing to do with philosophy. But I like to see what they used to be too.

320 - I picked up American Government (Cliffs Quick Review) as a refresher. I thought I'd forgotten enough from high school too make diving into a more involved government book foolhardy (especially with stuff by Thomas Paine and John Locke on my list). In the end It doesn't seem like I needed something so basic.

This covers the exact stuff my old textbook did (it was published in 1997) and though it covers a wide range the extreme brevity of it's coverage means some of the explanations are misleading and a few were down right wrong. It did give me a few good ideas about what else I'd be interested in reading in the 320's and there were a few neat nugats. I hadn't known Jews and Catholics weren't allowed to vote until the mid 1800's.

355 - The Men Who Stare At Goats This was a page turner, though I do think it should be read with a giant grain of salt, primarily because the book is almost entirely based on interviews with crazy people with little or no substantiating content or critical evaluation. Certainly a lot of this stuff probably happened, but none of the interviewees had anything even approaching an objective viewpoint.

It's interesting, entertaining, humorous and kinda depressing. Definitely apply occam's razor while reading since the author is essentially documenting crazy people that work for the government, he isn't investigating their claims.

198 - Well I can now say that Kierkegaard deserves his reputation. The guy is hard to read. I might try him again in the future, but it will be a while and it definitely won't be his religious stuff.

Fear and Trembling had its moments. Some of them are really good. It deals with the question of whether or not God's command that Abraham kill Isaac was immoral (as it would be under every moral tenant known to man) or moral by virtue of being God's will. Kierkegaard clearly understands the problem. He understands it so well his presentation of why Abraham's actions are reprehensible are air tight. The problem is then he tries to argue against them and sincere as he is, the arguments in defense of Abraham are very hallow and sometimes just irrelevant. And I tend to get bored when philosophers argue points a clear-headed five year old could overturn. I'm not a fan of the "make something up and try to make reality fit it" brand of philosophy.

On the flip side he did have some really good thoughts in the book. His analysis of faith was impeccable, and one I hadn't heard before and some of his tangents were brilliant, just not the main push of the book.

Of those three, Fear and Trembling seems the most worthwhile - thanks for the posting!

Good luck with it if you decide to read it. It's slim but decidedly dense.

173 - Marriage and Morals - Bertrand Russell

My second Russell book for the challenge and certainly not my last. I picked this one up in hopes that my favorite philosopher might have some good I ideas on what marriage ought to be. I'm largely unsatisfied with the institution of marriage and knew Russell was as well. The first several chapters dealing with the history of marriage and the evolution of marriage in various cultures were fascinating (though a student of anthropology will recognize some things as dated).

His observations on sexual education and the general unhealthiness of Victorian stigmatizing of sex was similarly interesting and frequently scathingly sarcastic. I copied a few quotes I liked:

"It would be wise to subject all unmarried women once a month to medical examination by police doctors, and to send to a penitentiary all such as were found to be not virgins...in order to avoid the risk of certain abuses, it would be necessary that all policemen and all medical men should be castrated." --on maintaining virtue at any cost--

"The first essential is that the education of girls should be such as to make them stupid and superstitious and ignorant; this requisite is already fulfilled in schools over which the churches have any control." --on maintaining virtue through ignorance--

"Sex outside of marriage is sin; sex within marriage is not sin... but is a disagreeable duty imposed on man as punishment for the Fall, and to be undertaken in the same spirit in which one submits to a surgical operation. Unfortunately, unless great pains are taken, the sexual act tends to be associated with pleasure, but by sufficient moral care this can be prevented, at any rate in the female."

However when it came to his actual views on what marriage ought to be I found him more reactionary than reasonable in several aspects. He did however explain the system of companionate marriage proposed in the 1920's and I found that suitable for my own future-hypothetical marriage.

I'd recommend this book to people interested in the history of marriage, but also in the idea that the marriage institution is a human invention and one that may better serve it's function with a bit of reworking and personalization.

002 - Warmly Inscribed - Lawrence Goldstone

The whole idea of collecting books to have rather than to read is alien to me, and consequently I couldn't really relate to the authors of this book. Some stories were interesting. The account of their trip to the Library of Congress was pretty impressive and the story of the New England forger was pretty neat (though far too long). After reading the book I feel just slightly more qualified to write a dime-a-dozen mystery involving a rare first edition or a suspect Hemingway signature.

The strangest bit of reading this though was that this was essentially a book about books, and yet, rarely was any book content beyond the copyright page mentioned. Sadly, for a book about books I only picked up one addition to my reading list--something by Max Beerbohm. This was primarily because I liked his name and he hung out with cool folks like Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley.

920 Foreskin's Lament: A Memoir 1/1/10
A good read. Another reviewer said that this is more like what he (or she) had expected from The Year of Living Biblically and I agree. The author faces down his relationship with God, family and religious community here remembering the fear of God he was taught as a child and living the consequences of that fear in the present of the book.

As an atheist I feel sorry for Shalom. I can relate coming from an overly zealous and unquestionable religious evangelical background. I know what it is like to live in a situation where you are indoctrinated with screwy things and reviled when you question them, or worse, evaluate them fully and discard them as nothing more than archaic myths.

But Shalom is not like me. Despite our somewhat similar experiences with religion Shalom is in a worse position than I. He is all too aware of the screwy things about his God. They made sure he knew about God's bottomless need for strange acts of appeasement and for the following of inexplicable rules and the punishment for the slightest foul up. So Shalom, who can't stop believing in God, instead believes that his God is a sadistic bastard that is out to get him. That is after all what they've taught him all these years...though they can't figure out way he thinks so.

So Foreskin's Lament is a collection of stories. Some are of his childhood with the frightening Rabbi's at the Yeshiva or the frightening nights diffusing tension at the Shabbos table. Other stories dwell on the consequences of this on his adult life. Here he seems neurotic (but in a funny way). With every good turn he imagines how God is going to spoil it for him thinking, "that would be so God." He bargains, and pleads and curses God, and while it makes for a rather wonderful mix of darkness and humor it is ultimately sad that his parents, rabbis, and the Jewish community of Monsey has cast such a long dark shadow that many years later Shalom still can't escape them.

It should be noted that despite the highly critical attitude this book takes toward God and religion I read much of this (more than half) aloud with my mom. My mom is of course a committed evangelical, but she seemed to enjoy it and didn't make any negative comments about the content or tone of the book.

The dry, but somewhat melodramatic delivery and sardonic humor makes this a very fun book to read aloud.
Have a taste.

500 A Short History of Nearly Everything (audiobook) 1/2/10
This was a good one to listen to. It's easily digested and clearly explains some commonly misunderstood science. It is more of a history of science than a science book though. There are lots of mini biographies and interesting tidbits (Curie's papers are still too heavily radiated to handle). It doesn't really live up to the title though. A disproportionate amount is allocated for the evolution of life on earth and human life in particular. If it's meant to be a "short history of nearly everything" it should have have more about physics, the cosmos and the earth.

He also had a tendency to misrepresent statics when it came the chances of what came to be coming to be, ignoring that everything that has happened has been forced to exist in a manner that is congruent with the conditions that already exist. He has a slight tendency to phrase things in the vein of "isn't it amazing that everything came together to allow for this!" perspective. Though, in all fairness, he is explicit in denying the idea that evolution acts with purpose.

On the whole it was fun to listen to and packed with stuff I had limited knowledge of or could do with a refresher on.

Both book are recommended to people predisposed to like such things.

10/10 = 100%
45/99 = 45%
71/908 = 7%

232 The Case for Christ

OH MY GOD IT BURNS.

Do yourself a favor. If you're not already a Christian nothing this book insists is evidence is even slightly convincing. If you are a Christian don't give this to you're non-Christian friends to try and convert them, you'll just annoy them.

It is obvious to any skeptic reading this book, that for all of Strobel's insistence that he was a hardcore atheist and bristling skeptic he has absolutely no idea what sort of questions and answers matter to skeptics. Nor does his interaction with his all Christian interviewees suggest anything but compliant and soft handling. He appears to be wearing two or three pairs of kid gloves. He'll say that he can't let them off the hook and that he's going to give them a tough question and them lob some sort of crackpot theory no self respecting skeptic would ever take seriously.

The formula it this.

1. Start chapter with an exciting, but irrelevant anecdote about criminal investigation. It's a terrible and transparent gimmick aimed it showing that investigating the Bible is the same as investigating contemporary crime, even though there aren't any witnesses, material evidence, forensics or really any means at all to demonstrate anything concrete whatsoever.

2. Talk about the dude you're going to interview. Spend a page talking about his credentials, but then tell us not to worry about him bein' some unrelatable academic snot. He likes hockey! And has pictures his kids drew! And and he looks like a nice guy! Frankly I'm surprised he never got around to comparing them to lovable pop culture icons.

Reading this ridiculous dribble about why I should like this academic every-man I couldn't help wondering what he would have said about skeptical academics had he actually interviewed any. I doubted that he would talk about them in such sappy heartwarming language. Would he simply omit the gratuitous page of leg-humping (which really didn't need to be there at all) or would he mention the "cold uncomfortable feeling he felt in their presence" and describe the "lack of human touches in their office"? I don't know. It's one more reason I wish he had included interviews from people that weren't all presenting the argument he was selling.

3. Next you dive into the interview. This involves Strobel asking a question involving the theme of the of the chapter and immediately accepting whatever answer is given. Sometime he admits that that was enough to convince him, but asks a few more softball questions anyway to demonstrate his commitment to academic pursuit. Almost all examples of scholarly opinion and evidence is only vaguely referred to and lacking reference. They say things like "every one agrees that..." but fail to say who everyone is, or more importantly why they agree. It is assumed that hearing that some unknown theoretical scholars think it is as good as actual evidence and evaluation. It's not uncommon for them to insist that agreement is unanimous in the academic community regarding an issue when a simple google search shows it isn't.

4. Having declared the previous claim fact without actually applying any sort of rigorous evaluation or providing any evidence you use it to prove more claims. This is basically all the book is. Making a claim, not really investigating it, declaring it inequivocally proven and then using it to prove other claims.

5. Throw in some strawmen versions of skeptic arguments and you're good to go.

In a nut shell, this book argues that what the Bible says must be true because the Bible says it. It never addresses any real arguments against religion in general or Christianity in particular and on the occasion Strobel accidentally raises a legitimate objection his subject wasn't prepared for it is dismissed with a wave of the hand rather than actual logic or evidence. Unless you already accept the Bible as fact this is just going to be a lot of self appreciative nonsense and a giant waste of time.

I'm so glad there are plenty of actual academic books to read in the 200's. If they're weren't I dive into Lorax's boat.

I also finished Devils (709) and The Meaning of Everything (423) neither of which merit a review.

10/10 = 100%
45/99 = 45%
74/908 = 8%

428 - English As She is Spoke - Jose da Fonseca 1/21/10

This is an odd little book. It is purported to be a Portuguese to English phrasebook written by "men to which English was entirely unknown" in the 19th century. Apparently this was accomplished with the aid of a Portuguese/French dictionary and a French/English dictionary. Between the tragic grammar, bizarre word choice and inexplicable statements demanded by 19th century living you end up with nuggets like this:

"These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in mouth."

"The pantaloons is to narrow."

"Is it complete this parlour furniture in damask crimson?"

"Don't you fear the privateers?"

"I shall you neat also your mouth, and you could care entertain it clean, for to preserve the mamel of the teeth; i could give you a opiate for to strengthen the gums."

I'm about 85% percent sure this book is what it claims to be. But I can't completely believe it because it was published by McSweeney's.

129 - Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife - Mary Roach 1/25/10

I didn't like this one as much as Stiff, probably because I don't believe in souls so spending so much time speculating about them seems less interesting than actual history and phenomena. But that's me. I'm pretty sure considering the section this is as good as it gets for me. That said there were some pretty interesting stories. The chapter about ectoplasm was hilarious and there were plenty of Mary Roachisms sprinkled throughout to keep me amused. This book confirms my suspicions that Mary and I would get along very well.

082 - Distory: A Treasury of Historical Insults - Robert Schnakenberg 1/28/10

It's got some pretty good quotes and some pretty mediocre ones. Some people I had thought merited respect spat out some pretty baseless ad hominem attacks. John Adams called a lot of people names for no good reason and even Thomas Jefferson said some pretty nasty and unqualified things. Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine got a lot of hate I thought was unjustified.

The problem is that none of the quotes are explained. No context is given, just the speaker and the subject of their venom. It leaves you completely unable to figure out when and to what degree the slurs were justified.

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40 - The Case for Christ - "OH MY GOD IT BURNS."
Hahah! That's pretty funny.

41 - Your description of the Spook book reminded me of an xkcd comic I saw: http://xkcd.com/373/
The dorkiness in me comes out, but I heart xkcd.

And the combination of these two books is mashed up in this comic:
http://xkcd.com/459/

I tried that comic a while back and sadly I'm not smart enough to get all of the math jokes :(. le sigh.

I bought English as She is Spoke for a friend for Christmas. I couldn't decide if it was for real, either, but it sure is funny.

781 - Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (audio) - Oliver Sacks 2/28/10

Interesting book, though much of it is more strongly related to neuroscience than music. The thing is I was more interested in the sections where the connection to music was overshadowed by the neurology. The sections more strictly on topic had a tendency to be repetitive and somewhat banal. Sachs also had a somewhat irritating habit of over-referencing specific music. It made sense to do so with a lot of his patients' stories since often the type of music had a relationship to their case, but when Sachs tells his personal stories it comes off like he just wants to display how evolved his musical tastes are. By some amazing coincidence (maybe) almost everyone mentioned in the book seems to almost exclusively listen to classical music, invariably Bach or Chopin.

I probably would have liked this more if it was read by the author. Professional readers always sound clinical to me, like they're more interested in proper enunciation than what they're reading. When authors read their books they are much more engaged in the reading and the content comes more alive for me.

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#45 The book I read last month for 781, This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin, sounds similar but I was more entranced by the sections focusing on the music side of things. My author also referenced lots of music, but included tons of popular tunes - many of which I'd never heard of - in addition to the expected classical pieces. I recommend it if this is a subject you'd like more of.

I have both of those music books on the shelf but haven't gotten to them yet. Maybe it would be nice if they sold them with a CD of the songs referenced!

fundelvogel - great review on A Case For Christ. You really should make a copy to the book's review page. I suspect you'd have a "hot review" on your hands.

@48 I'll do that, though I doubt it will be hot. Dissenting opinions are rarely all that popular. Case in point.

@46 I think listening to the Musicophilia book taught me that I'm more interested in listening to music than digging into why I like listening to it. I'm probably too musically illiterate to properly appreciate it. Thanks for the recommendation though.

I usually prefer audiobooks read by the author, but I've found an exception in the audio version of Born to Kvetch. The author has a really distracting accent. It only affects the unaccented parts of certain words so he can sound pretty normal and then completely bizzare as his pronunciation suddenly draws out a long monotone thud of a syllable. It seems to be primarily associated with certain vowel sounds like the "uh", "er", "or" and "ee".

It's completely distracting to me, when he goes from totally normal sounding before he slips in a long drawn out "Talmuhhhd" or "soyuhhhl" (soil).

I may try reading the book later, but this certainly isn't one I could listen to.

417 The Power of Babel - John McWhorter

Not exactly a page turner, but really, are any of the 400's? Even so it definitely rocked how I see languages which is probably a sign of a good language book.

His roman letter transcription of Russian words was a bit dubious though. I may have been a shaky Russian student, but I remember how you pronounce "bread" (among others) and that ain't it. He also missed an excellent chance to talk about "feeling yourself good" with self reflexive constructions or whatever they're called.

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211 - Why I am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

Honestly this book didn't seem all that focused on religion or Christianity, especially considering Russell seems to always find a way to tie a complaint or two about religion into his books. (At least he has in every one I've read so far, I imagine it would be harder in his math books.) The essay the book takes it's title from doesn't put any significant consideration into why Russell was an atheist, just why he disapproved of the Christian church, which seems like a pretty big piece to leave out of a book by an atheist that's theoretically about religion.

There are several essays that directly relate to religion, I really liked "Can Religion Cure Our Troubles" and there are a few that you might be able to kinda sorta relate back to religion, but you'd be making the connection there, not Bertrand. An example of that would be the essay on Thomas Paine. I know Thomas Paine was very outspoken about religion, but the extent to which it comes up in the essay is that he pissed off Jefferson and Washington for running his mouth off about his non traditional beliefs (he was Deist). They shared those beliefs they just weren't about to admit it and didn't like Paine's uncompromising literature. That probably accounts for about two sentences of the essay.

Another of my favorites, "Nice People", could certainly point the finger at hypocritical behavior of some Christians...or any other person that projects a mantle of moral superiority while acting without disregard for the well-being of other people. It certainly never singles Christians out, or any other group for that matter. The essay does just fine coyly listing examples of the sorts nice behavior practiced by "nice people". For example:

"Above all they keep alive the pleasures of the hunt. In a homogeneous country population, such as that of the English shire, people are condemned to hunt foxes; this is expensive and sometimes even dangerous. Moreover, the fox cannot explain very clearly how much he dislikes being hunted. In all these respects the hunting of the human being is better sport, but if it were not for the nice people, it would be difficult to hunt human beings with a good conscience. Those whom the nice people condemn are fair game; at their call of "Tallyho" the hunt assembles, and the victim is pursued to prison or death. It is especially good sport when the victim is a woman, since this gratifies the jealousy of the women and the sadism of the men."

All and all the book is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the essays are great. But a fair chunk are just so-so and two of them didn't read like Bertrand at all. This is the consequence of the essays being drawn from the first fifty years of Bertrand's writing. Two essays written in the 'ots lack all of the confidence, wit and simplicity that make Bertrand so enjoyable to me. They sounded an awful lot like a unsure, but overachieving college student that tries too hard to write seriously by using cold, formal and overly decorated language.

The book ends with a reasonably detailed account of Bertrand's dismissal from New York City College before he actually got a chance to start. It's a pretty outrageous case of ideological bigotry. Though he had widespread support of the college's board, students and their parents Russell was ousted by what amounted to an angry mob and a shady judge that decided that Bertrand's astonishingly modern, but shamelessly misrepresented views on sex, marriage and (egads) masturbation would corrupt students and encourage them to violate New York's penal laws. These were laws that among other things made extramarital sex and cohabitation a felony, especially if it was with "an unmarried female of any age of a previously chaste character".

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349 - The Code of Hammurabi - King Hammurabi

I finished this up earlier but wasn't really sure what to say about it. It's a historical document, and you'd be hard pressed to find many documents older this one. The carving has been dated to approximately 1790 BCE, which makes it several hundred years older than the earliest estimates for the writing of the first books of the Bible (which were just bumped back by a lot).

As such it doesn't really seem fair to judge it by my normal book stands...the fact that its the law of Babylon as dictated by King Hammurabi (according to the will of the gods) seems to support that. I mean who judges the literary merit of a code of law? Even when it is divine?

So what can I say about this other than that its short and the Victorian intro was somewhat ethnocentric? Honestly, it sounds an awful lot like some of the legal parts of the Bible. It tells you way more than even the average ancient Babylonian would want to hear about what your recourse is should your neighbor eff up the irrigation on it's way to your crop or cut down your tree. On the other hand it's pretty neat to see the similarities between how the Babylonians and Hebrews dealt with things like unfaithful wives, rape and slavery. Some of the Babylonian laws are actually pretty progressive for the time, like protecting a woman's right to own property (under certain circumstances). Of course there are also a lot of pretty strange and barbaric ones.

If you're interested in ancient history and government this would definitely be a good thing to check out. It probably won't be of interest to a general audience, but it may just be the coolest thing in 349. If you are interested you can check it out at Project Gutenberg.

There really are a lot or interesting laws listed and I wish I could share them all. However in the name of brevity I'll just share an example of the similarities between the Code of Hammurabi and the Bible. Here's a pre-Bible precedent for the Biblical "eye for an eye" creed. It is admittedly more awkwardly worded (and classist) than the pithy Bible version.

196. If a man has caused the loss of a gentleman’s eye, his eye one shall cause to be lost.

197. If he has shattered a gentleman’s limb, one shall shatter his limb.

198. If he has caused a poor man to lose his eye or shattered a poor man’s limb, he shall pay one mina of silver.

199. If he has caused the loss of the eye of a gentleman’s servant or has shattered the limb of a gentleman’s servant, he shall pay half his price.

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935 - History Begins at Sumer Samuel Noah Kramer

I picked this one up so I'd be more familiar with ancient Mesopotamia for when my Jo Hos come by. I think I've had a mini victory in that they're not letting the lightweights come along anymore, probably afraid that I'll lead them astray. But that's beside the point.

My library's copy was from the 50's so I'm certain there is more up to date information, but I really enjoyed the approach Kramer takes. Kramer was (is?) a honest-to-god Sumerologist and spent his days and possibly nights translating cuneiform tablets. Each chapter is dedicated to a notable bit of history or development in Sumer drawing exclusively from primary sources, often focusing on just one in a chapter. This gave me a wonderful introduction to a wide cross section of Sumerian culture without the sacrifice of nuance and analysis that so often occurs in books that attempt to present a complete history of such epic subjects.

Reading History Begins at Sumer certainly hasn't left me a mini expert in Sumeria, that really isn't the point of the book. It has however whet my appetite to continue reading the ancient history of the area and gave me enough of the foundation in the subject to make me feel more comfortable picking up more formidable books on the subject.

And I'm pretty sure it mentioned every character for the They Might Be Giants song "The Mesopotamians". I loved that.

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EDIT: hey look at that, I've hit fifty divisions! That's my first major milestone in...a long time.

54,
Congrats on the milestone.

What are Jo Hos?

Would you recommend it overall or do you think there are better books out there on Sumer? The other reviews about were fairly negative. You may want to consider putting yours up as an actual review to balance it.

Congratulations on the milestone!

@55 Thanks, Jo Ho's are what my sister dubbed Jehovahs Witnesses.

I rarely give unconditional book recommendations. People's tastes are too diverse, I'd rather explain why I liked it. History Begins at Sumer was the first book I've read about Sumer, and it's fifty years old so I'm sure there are more up to date books and considering the very specialized purpose there must also be more complete books on the subject. What I loved about this is that it was written by a Sumerologist that was very much in the middle of the research that was happening. Some of the chapters were about texts that had only been translated by him at the time. Because of this, the book was entirely based on primary sources, which seems so rare in books intended for a general audience and I personally value reliance on primary sources. It also seemed to me that there's always a bit more passion when the writer has such a close relationship to the material.

I'm predisposed to getting warm fuzzies reading history and such, so I suspect I'm automatically more likely to like a lot of non fiction that the average reader may never get that into. The other reviews seem pretty lukewarm, but honestly none of them seem to say anything that would make me think it was a bad book. They make valid points, they just weren't things that spoiled the book for me.

Fair enough. I just ask because I also tend to enjoy out of the way nonfiction and works that rely on primary sources, and a number of your other reviews/recommendations have been helpful to me in the past.

I particularly got a kick out of Poemblaze's review because it was ambiguous enough so that it could be read regarding either Sumerologists or Sumerians:

"Although the information may be dated in places, it is still interesting to read what people were thinking 4 to 6 thousand years ago."

It just tickled me.

Thanks :)

I like that take on Poemblaze's review. And the one above it by Keylawk isn't really a review, just a lament about the impediments to archeology in Iraq, which are pretty lamentable.

222 - Who Wrote the Bible - Richard Elliot Friedman

The title is a bit miss leading. Friedman really only addressed the first five books of the Bible traditionally attributed to Moses. However as complicated as those origins become once Moses' authorship is shown to be purely pseudo epigraphical it makes sense to devote a whole book to them. The author (a Biblical scholar studying the origins of the books for ten years prior to this book) presents his version of the Documentary Theory. Simply put the Documentary Theory states that the Bible (at least the parts in question) was compiled from various preexisting sources in such a way that they were literally intertwined. The theory was originally introduced as an explanation for the often contradictory story doublets and inconsistent language and purpose of the text. Essentially, rather than all the Pentateuch being written by a single man it is composed from four separate works known as J, E, P and D.

That makes sense to me, Friedman does a fine job of explaining the evidence for this theory and the four sources. After that you dive into his personal attempts to place the sources in time and authorship. He explains that J & E were oppositional texts that appeared when Israel and Judea split. They maintain the important Jewish traditions that had already been established, but have differing emphasis relating to their own political and religious status. Later, once outside invaders crushed Israel, the two Jewish sects are reunited and their separate texts are combined in what is likely and political and religious compromise. Then the P source arises which serves to solidify the role of the current priesthood. D is a response to P reflecting shifts in practice and perspective in the time of the second temple. Friedman makes a strong case for these positions, I'm a bit more leary of his attribution of D to Jeremiah and his naming Ezra the redactor of the all five books. There simply doesn't seem to be much available to support such specific claims of authorship.

All told I found it terribly informative and easy to read. However the complexity of the research and Friedland's failure to more specifically explain the sources of his theory leave me reluctant to simply swallow all of his assertions. It would have been nice if he had explained what came from literary analysis, what was supported by archeology or outside sources and when he simply relied on the content of the Bible. That's really the shortcoming of the book. It produces a lot of plausible theories that depend on complicated research that is unavailable in the book. It's also really frustrating to read about the intertwining of the various sources without being able to to crack open the Pentateuch and see for yourself where one source stops and another begins. I'd like to be able to do that and maybe get a feel for how the sources were recognized to begin with, at least as well as a non Hebrew speaker can. All and all it's a good read, but I don't think it shuts the book on the subject. There are simply too many unknowns, as far as I can tell, to prove all of Friedman's positions.

There is an odd bit at the end. I read the first 13 chapters unable to tell if Friedman was a believer or not. Simply put he was only addressing scholarly issues in scholarly terms. And then at the end the last chapter becomes a plea that his previous arguments do not in any way threaten Christian belief. That really doesn't make sense to me. how could a case that the Pentateuch not only had multiple authors, but that they had significant differences in politics and religion and that they were later combined in a way contrary to their original intent not threaten the veracity of the Bible? I guess ultimately as compelling as his research is, it doesn't really have any bearing on Mr. Friedman's faith. This is a man that can put on his scholar hat and do some good work, and then put on his religious hat and be completely immune to any problems raised by his own research.

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Thanks for your thorough and thoughtful review on Who Wrote the Bible?. Very interesting.

Thank you.

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why - 225

I really enjoyed the book and I think it would have even been better to read before Who Wrote the Bible?. That book was somewhat overwhelming in its detail while Ehrman does a better job of easing you into the complexities of Biblical research. The book is entirely focused on the fact that the original Biblical writings were lost unknown ages ago and the surviving manuscripts were produced by hand from copies of copies culminating in a vast degree of diversity in Biblical manuscripts.

I was aware the the Bible had changed, but I didn't really understand just what it took to copy a book before printing and the extent to which that effected the text. Ehrman uses textual criticism to sort out which textual variations are most likely the oldest (but not necessarily the original) and comments on whether or not what he thinks is the oldest version is usually present in the widely available Bible translations. I found it interesting to keep my Bible at hand check which variant appeared in it (The New Oxford Annotated Bible). I was pleased to find that though it didn't necessarily use the same version in the main text it almost always noted the variation in the footnotes. It was also pretty good about putting later additions to the texts in brackets and annotating that they were not part of the original book.

Misquoting Jesus is essentially a book of academic mystery attempting to unravel how those years of hand-written copies changed the Bible, whether it was through copyist error, well intentioned corrections or theologically motivated changes.

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A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (audio) - 291

I don't think I would have bothered finishing this if I had checked out an actual book, but it turned out to be a worthwhile listen. It really does attempt to cover the entire history of the Abrahamic religions so it can't get in to very great detail, but it does give a very even-handed survey of ideological course each religion has taken. It even covered the advent of the Enlightenment and the shifts away from the mainstream religions with mystical variants like Kabbalah as well as more philosophically or rationally based religions like pantheism and deism and finally the appearance of atheism.

Armstrong seems sympathetic to religious belief in general, but doesn't allow herself to show favor to one religion over another nor does she express preference for religion over atheism or the reverse. Possibly because this book covers so much time and focuses on shifting ideology it doesn't spend much time on the darker side these religions have sometimes shown. However Karen does make it clear that though she thinks religion can have positive effects the fundamentalism that each religion has manifested, often in current times, is a dangerous thing.

note: Kabbalah is not in my spell check...but Kalevala is. Spell check has spoken.

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That's a huge book, isn't it? It does seem like a good choice for an audio book.

I hadn't looked, but you're right, it is pretty big. Strangely though it only took up 5 cds as opposed to the 8 or so with Musicophilia or The Meaning of Everything

I'm impressed you managed A History of God in audio. I had to do a lot of flipping back a few pages trying to keep what beliefs went with what groups straight.

P.S. I'm shamelessly stealing your idea for 349.

Honestly I didn't feel terribly obligated to try and keep everything straight. I prefer more focus so when I read or listen to broader surveys I do it as an intro to give me an idea of what I might be interested in checking out in more detail. Honestly both A History of God and Misquoting Jesus got me looking forward to Lost Christianities. I'm really interested in learning more about the early sects of Christianity.

Go for it! It can get a bit tedious with the laws regarding agricultural disputes but there's some pretty interesting stuff in there. You might want to read a little background on it if you don't already have a sense of the world it was made for. It think it's significant, that for all the death and dismemberment it was considered very progressive at the time.

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (507) was a quick interesting read. I vaguely remember them being mentioned in science classes way back when. Of course here they are presented in much greater detail and with attention to events leading up to the discoveries. Unfortunately, what with my dodgy science dept growing up (I'm pretty sure several of my high school science teachers never went to college) there were several experiments I had trouble following because I had never been taught important things like what exactly electricity is or how color and light functions.

I guess I need to look into these things.

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Hah, you finished that one long before me (that whole only reading it in five-minute intervals while waiting for the carpool really slows me down). I can certainly see that, of the ones I've read so far, Faraday's in particular would be utterly mystifying if you didn't know the electromagnetic nature of light.

Yeah that one had me totally boondoggled. But I did pretty good with the Pavlov and Michelson experiments since I already had a decent understanding of what they were studying. I think luminiferous aether might be my favorite bit of aborted science.

I'm looking forward to what you have to say when finish. I don't suppose you could make me any recommendations on where I can read up on things like electricity, electromagnetism, heat and light? I'd really like to get my head around how these things work.

Religion and Science (215) - Bertrand Russell

Of the books I've read by Russell so far I think he is the easiest on religion here. I see two reasons for this. One, he never talks about sexual repression which is the subject that consistently gets him riled up about the church, and two, at the time this was written (1935) he was optimistic that the days of Christianity fighting progress were behind us and saw the real threats coming from the state. He was keenly aware that the governments of Russia, Germany and to a lesser extent his own Britain were throwing their citizens' freedoms under the bus. His later work shows that he later abandoned the optimism he had towards Christianity, but the important thing to remember is that he was pretty darn optimistic here.

The nice thing about the book is Bertand doesn't particularly take a stand on whether or not religion and science are incompatible. Indeed his optimism about the future of Christianity suggests that at the time of this writing he thought that they could coexist. The first half is really just a history of instances when the church determined that science was incompatible with its teachings. The first few chapters are each dedicated to a specific scientific discovery the the church ardently opposed, often with the power of the state and serious threats against the scientists involved. This included discoveries like that the sun was the center of the solar system, that the earth was not a mere 6,000 years old and that the strata of rocks not only pointed to a very, very old earth, but did not show any evidence of a worldwide flood. He briefly mentions evolution, but doesn't seem to realize just how troublesome it would continue to be to many religious people.

Later chapters move away from the structure of relating the history of science being repressed by the church. This is of course because the church no longer had the power or, in Russell's opinion, the inclination to directly oppose science. Instead he focuses on religious schools of thought (not necessarily Christian) that are ideologically incompatible certain scientific thought. There's a chapter on determinism and the threat it poses to the doctrine of damnation (though it should be mentioned that Russell makes it clear that right now there is no way to know if determinism does in fact describe the movements of all things). Then he discusses mysticism and cosmic purpose. Sadly, because these two concepts really describe countless subsets of belief I found the chapters insufficient to really address them completely.

He finishes off with a chapter addressing the popular criticism of science that it doesn't say anything about morality. He did an excellent job talking about how, while technically true this doesn't mean that dependence on science will lead to immorality. Quite the contrary. He dismisses the idea of intrinsic morality and a conscience as an illusion covering up the fact that morality is learned. Ultimately he ends up breaking down exactly what subjective morality is. He's 100 percent in step with Spinoza's Ethics though he more fully addresses the real world effect of a world where each person has their own personal morality which in some ways contradicts his fellows'. If nothing else that chapter alone deserves a read as it is the most complete and concise treatment of community and ethics I have come across.

The reason I made a fuss at the beginning of this review about Russell's relatively lenient attitude toward religion here and the fact that he himself does not declare religion and science incompatible is because of the introduction that was given to this book. It was written by Michael Ruse and by the time I had finished it I was certain that he hadn't read a word of Russell prior to getting the gig writing his intro. And after reading the book I'm not sure Ruse ever got around to reading this one either. He seems to think that it is Russell that asserts science and religion cannot coexist when Russell only recounts instances in which religion sees science as incompatible with itself. To make matters worse Ruse doesn't seem to have a clue what either Russell or Spinoza thought of ethics, though that doesn't stop him from claiming that without religious morality Hitler's actions cannot be considered immoral. This is of course ludicrous since the entire basis of both Russell's and Spinoza's "good" is the fulfillment of the well-being of the individual and his community. It doesn't take a genius to know that the Nazis acted to annihilate the well-being of millions of people for the benefit of a few. I was stupefied that someone so ignorant of Russell and his ideas was given the task of writing his intro, it's really quite shameful. I've never come across such a poorly researched introduction before in my life.

Progress:
Classes.......................10/10 = 100%
Divisions.....................50/99 = 50%
Assigned Sections........88/908 = 9%
Unassigned Sections....1/92 = 1%
Bertrand Russell..........4

Well, I finally finished Borges: Collected Fictions (860) which I've been reading off and on for over a year. The book contains every work of fiction Borges ever wrote, reprinting each volume in sequence. Consequently, having completed it, I now feel like I have inadvertently witnessed the life and death of Borges. It made finishing the book difficult and depressing.

The problem is, brilliant as Borges was he shines most fiercely in his most celebrated work Ficciones. Ficciones deserves it. It contains the strongest collection of stories of all of his books. This is where you will find "The Lottery of Babylon", "The Library of Babel", "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" and, my favorite, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", a summary of a book that doesn't exist about a world that never existed. The quality of his writing begins a subtle decline immediately after Ficciones. To be sure he wrote some very fine stories after Ficciones, "Death and the Compass", "The Gospel According to Mark", and "Brodie's Report" to name a few. But these are buried deeply among lesser stories. These lesser stories preserve the familiar themes (tigers, gauchos, knife fights, labyrinths, magical objects, etc.) and the air of intellectualism, but contain no real insight or invention of their own.

The further I went the more I felt I was being sold a bill of goods, that Borges was trying to pass off pseudo-intellectualisms as the real thing on the laurels of his past accomplishments. My suspicions were all but confirmed by a line in one of his later stories ("August 25, 1983"), "I was taken for a clumsy imitator of Borges--a person who had the defect of not actually being Borges yet of mirroring all the outward appearances of the original." And that really sums it up, Borges fell into to sort of imitation of himself, his airs and themes, but lost his grip on the interesting ideas that had driven them. It's quite sad really.

I speculated on what was behind the decline of his writing and always came back to two things. The first was the loss of his eyesight. Borges went blind later in his life and the subject of blindness and impaired vision comes up a few times in his later writings. I can't imagine how difficult it would be for a blind man to do rewrites and editing and I imagine this impediment took it's toll on his writing. The second is that Borges seems to have had an almost 180 degree shift in his philosophy. His early works use mystical elements as metaphor or framework for philosophical and intellectual puzzles, but his later works often just glorify mysticism and faith in mysticism. This is probably the part that frustrated me most about his later works, because it sees what had been used as an effective package for complex and interesting ideas become the focus of the story. It's like presenting an blown out eggshell as if it as substantive as a whole egg.

I apologize for how down on Borges this review has been. It's just very difficult to face a talented writer stagnating and fading away. I do whole-heartedly recommend Ficciones. Borges did write some unforgettable stories, he just couldn't keep it up for a lifetime.

Progress:
Classes.......................10/10 = 100%
Divisions.....................51/99 = 51%
Assigned Sections........89/908 = 9%
Unassigned Sections....1/92 = 1%
Bertrand Russell..........4

Gardening 101 (635) - Martha Stewart Living Magazine

This is essentially a crash course in gardening and garden design. It evenly provides instruction on the how-tos of growing as well as providing advice on planning an attractive garden or landscape. An awful lot of it didn't apply to me because of my growing situation. For instance I live in a very hot arid climate making all the info on cold weather gardening superfluous to me and I'm an apartment dweller which removes any possibility of gardening beyond what I can do on my patio.

Despite all the information not of immediate use to me I thought this was an excellent book for beginning gardeners. It covered every aspect of gardening you could think of from raising seedlings, drip irrigation, how to check soil pH and countless other things making it a good introductory source for most any information an aspiring gardener could want. The best part is that it provided step by step instructions so neophytes like me weren't just left with the principles of say preparing a bed or composting but clueless about how to go about employing those principles.

On the whole the book emphasizes gardening for your geography and goes a long ways to facilitate putting together a garden that will thrive with the natural conditions rather than struggle against them.

Progress:
Classes.......................10/10 = 100%
Divisions.....................51/99 = 51%
Assigned Sections........89/908 = 9%
Unassigned Sections....1/92 = 1%
Bertrand Russell..........4

I think it's hard to find good books about growing plants in containers on patio or deck. A lot of them seem superficial and not that helpful.

Well I've marked a couple for my list so hopefully at least one of them will be good.

The Annotated Brothers Grimm (398) - This isn't a new section for me but I figured I'd include my review since the book that was occupying the spot was read so long ago that I'm not comfortable reviewing it.

Honestly I found this book disappointing. It isn't my first time reading Maria Tatar or the Annotated Books series and expected more based on my past experience with each. I read Tatar's The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales and The Annotated Alice several years ago and found both terribly interesting and informative, The Annotated Brothers Grimm doesn't compare to either. The pictures are pretty good, but the footnotes are on the slim side for the series. They aren't particularly insightful and often repeat themselves.

To make matters worse Tatar's translation was underwhelming. To be fair this is hardly the first time I've been frustrated by an artless Grimm translation, but it's always disappointing. One of the things I love best in a good Grimm translation is the poetic repetition. There is a lot of variety in how the verse in Grimm stories in translated, but the versions here lack the grace and focus of more artful translations.

Compare the exchange between the princess and the horse head from Grimm's Fairy Tales: Twenty Stories with Tatar's rendering of the exchange.

'Alas! dear Falada, there thou hangest.'

And the Head answered--

'Alas! Queen's daughter, there thou gangest.
If thy mother only knew thy fate,
Her heart would break with grief so great.'

Tatar's:

'Alas, poor Falada, hanging up there.'

And the horse's head would reply:

'Princess, princess, down and out,
If your mother found this out,
There's no doubt--her heart would break.'

I might not know what 'gangest' means but it's a hell of a lot better than a verse that hinges on rhyming 'out' with 'out'.

And then there's the dire warning in the Robber Bridegroom:

'Turn back, turn back, thou bonnie bride,
Nor in this house of death abide.'

Tatar's:

'Turn back, turn back, my pretty young bride,
In a house of murders you've arrived.'

Yes she's managed a real half rhyme here, but the rhythm lacks the musicality of better versions. It isn't exactly hard to versify dire warnings either. The story Mr. Fox (not printed in this collection) does just fine with its variant.

Mr. Fox's warning:

'Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,
Lest that your heart's blood should run cold.'

Tatar's translations may owe their flatness to accuracy at the expense of art, but clearly I favor flash and rhythm over strict accuracy.

As if this wasn't enough all of the stories except the ones 'for adults' were taken from the Grimm's last edition after the stories had been heavily edited to be more suitable for Christian children. This means that all hints of sexuality were purged (Rapunzel's pregnancy), gratuitous mentions of prayer and piety were inserted (though the stories were of pagan origins) and blame was shifted off of fathers to mothers (Furrypelts) and off of mothers to stepmothers (an awful lot of them) to maintain the sanctity of parenthood. The only reason the 'stories for adults' escaped unedited was because after the first edition they were deemed inappropriate for printing and were purged from the collection. Actually that's not completely true. One of the stories, "Jew in the Brambles" was only deemed in appropriate by later editors. Jacob and Wilhelm printed the anti-Semitic tale in several of their books.

I guess Grimm's Fairy Tales: Twenty Stories is still my favorite.

Progress:
Classes.......................10/10 = 100%
Divisions.....................51/99 = 51%
Assigned Sections........89/908 = 9%
Unassigned Sections....1/92 = 1%
Bertrand Russell..........4

Wow, your examples really show the difference in the translation quality. I can't imagine trying to translate into rhyme--it must be really difficult.

Perhaps the problem is that some translators, while capable linguists are not poets.

I'm guessing that the pool of capable linguists is much larger than the pool of poets, and that the pool of capable linguists who are also poets is tiny.

I think you're probably right.

188 - Handbook of Epictetus - Epictetus

Stoics are weird. And I'm kinda surprised so many people reviewed this book as some amazing bit of timeless philosophy.

The Handbook is just that, a handbook. An ancient Roman self-help book from the Stoic perspective. Some of the the advice still holds true, things like:

- don't doddle and miss your boat, a literal boat, not a figurative one
- know that there are things in your power and things beyond your power, don't confuse them
- do be disciplined in your undertakings and don't procrastinate

Good stuff right? Unfortunately that is pretty much all of the advice he gives that still holds true. The rest doesn't make sense unless you live in ancient Rome and the world is innately perfect and harmonious and magical even when shitty things happen. This seems to be the gaping hole in Stoic philosophy, the conviction that the universe was perfect and harmonious despite evidence to the contrary. When shitty things happen to you, according to the Stoics, they aren't really shitty, they just seem shitty because you have let yourself become out of sync with the universe. Your wife and child died? Well of course they did! That's the nature of the universe, you should have expected it and accepted it. You're a slave? Well that's just how it is, you can't very well expect to be free can you? Just try to get used to it.

This is the backbone of Epictetus' advice, lowering your expectations so that they coincide with the course your life is probably going to take anyway. No one ever rocked the boat or overcame great odds based on Stoic philosophy. Throw in some quick advice about how to respond to omens and when you should and shouldn't see a fortune teller and that's about it. Well, that and advising you to be as boring as possible, not talking at all if you can help it, not hanging out with non philosophers, not swearing but frowning to show your disapproval when others do and certainly not having sex if you can avoid it. Stoics sure tried their darnedest to live boring, unremarkable lives.

But ol' Epictetus wasn't a complete twat wet blanket. He understood that there are somethings you just can't live without.

"Take what has to do with the body to the point of bare need, such as food, drink, clothing, house, household slaves, and cut out everything that is for reputation and luxury."

Timeless, no?

Ultimately this is a quick, fairly amusing read, but I certainly wouldn't take it too seriously.

Progress:
Classes.......................10/10 = 100%
Divisions.....................52/99 = 52%
Assigned Sections........91/908 = 10%
Unassigned Sections....1/92 = 1%
Bertrand Russell..........4

843 - The Hermitage - Marie Bronsard

This is a short, intense book about the continuing consequences of a ten years past relationship. The story is delivered in short emotional bursts in the form of the last letter the teller will write to their lost love, but never send. The letter is written over the course of a single night and recounts the strange twists and turns of the relationship and explains the authors life after the relationship, alternately chasing and fleeing the memory of the lover. Memories are questioned and reinterpreted but the letter writer still seems blind to the more obvious defects in the relationship regardless of the writers' mercurial feelings towards the lover and the man that came between them.

Aside from the intensity of the past the story is also intriguing in the the ambiguity of the relationship. The characters are never named and I'm not even sure if the gender of the writer was ever revealed, though for some reason I assumed it was a woman. What is certain is the writer is completely attached to the "You" addressed in the letter, though they rarely talked since their first night together and it's doubtful that they've been lovers since that night either. What they did have is proximity and habit and it seems like with or without love or romance they somehow needed each other.

This strange codependent dance is thrown into chaos with the arrival of "Him" and "You" is instantly obsessed with the new man.

I really enjoyed this book. The pain of heartache is fresh and stinging in the pages, but even so the cherished illusions are laid bare. They force you to question if the relationship ever was what what the writer thought it was.

This isn't a new section for me. I'm just swapping this with the previous book in the spot, The Three Musketeers, which I read way back in middle school.

Progress:
Classes.......................10/10 = 100%
Divisions.....................52/99 = 52%
Assigned Sections........91/908 = 10%
Unassigned Sections....1/92 = 1%
Bertrand Russell..........4

291 - Epics of Early Civilization: Myths of the Ancient Near East - Time-Life Books

Well I knocked out another on Mesopotamia and I expect the subject will continue popping up in my reading. I can't stop coming back to it since it played such a significant role in laying the foundations of western civilization and it such a difficult part of history to get a firm grasp on. In variably books on the subject, including this one, tend to roll 2000 years of history and mythology from several different cultures together into one book. The fact that the various cultures had a way of appropriating and merging eachother's religions and practices just leaves more room for confusion.

I am slowly getting a better grasp of who's who historically and mythologically but it will take a lot more to make me feel comfortable with the subject. Hell, I'm not comfortable with the 2000 years of Common Era history we have, the fact that the 2000 years before it is lumped together as a single historical unit is insane.

This isn't a new section either. I'm swapping this with A History of God which I listened to as an audiobook.

Progress:
Classes.......................10/10 = 100%
Divisions.....................52/99 = 52%
Assigned Sections........91/908 = 10%
Unassigned Sections....1/92 = 1%
Bertrand Russell..........4

220 - Jesus, interrupted - Bart Ehrman

Scanning the reviews its' apparent I'm the odd one out with this book, but I'm sorry to say I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Despite the seemingly straightforward subheading, "Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)", the book doesn't really have a clear thesis. Probably since Ehrman got away from the Biblical text and tries to tackle the early development of contrary sects of Christianity, a subject way too involved to shoehorn into a book supposedly about Biblical contradictions. The result is chaotic. The chapters have little relation to each other and sometimes even the content within chapters is woefully desultory. There is some good research and theories here, but they have a tendency to get muddled up with less compelling content and some really poorly explained theories and superficial conclusions.

And then there's the last chapter, "Is Faith Possible?" or as I like to call it, "The Argument For Cognitive Dissonance". This isn't the first time I've read a book that dismantles the historical and theological foundations of the Bible only to turn around and assure it's readers that they don't really need any of that to be Christian. Previously I've really just been baffled by these assurances. But here I'm rather disgusted by them. Perhaps part of it is do to the building frustration of reading such a poorly delivered book but I had a hard time stomaching the last chapter. In it Ehrman not only says faith is still possible, he seems to be actively arguing that readers should maintain their faith even though he has spent a book demonstrating why that faith is unjustified. That bothers me. It's one thing to believe because you really and truly think that its the truth, its another thing entirely when you can't abandon a belief has been shown to be very problematic. As someone that holds knowledge dear it is a slap in the face to be told that hard-won knowledge is irrelevant to forming a concept of the world and that you might as well just cherry pick what "feels" right. It stinks of truthiness and I don't like it.

Ehrman clearly bit off more than he could chew with this book and it becomes painfully obvious that, top notch Bible scholar though he may be, he is not a historian, nor is he adequately familiar with the non Biblical sources he mentions and what they can tell us about the historicity of the Jesus (not much) and he certainly doesn't have the spine to follow his studies to their logical conclusion. It's hard to believe that this was written by the same guy that wrote Misquoting Jesus. I still planning on checking out Lost Christianities at some point, hopefully that one is more like Misquoting Jesus and less like Jesus, Interrupted.

220 isn't a new section for me so I'm still where I was before. This book replaces The Year of Living Biblically which was a lot better, but I read it before starting this challenge so it's out.

Progress:
Classes.......................10/10 = 100%
Divisions.....................52/99 = 52%
Assigned Sections........91/908 = 10%
Unassigned Sections....1/92 = 1%
Bertrand Russell..........4

The Epictetus book looks pretty entertaining.

Re: the Mesopotamia book: I think it does take a long time to get historical facts and timelines all sorted out when you're not studying them in school, because most of us don't sit down and read five or ten books about the subject all at once and because we're not cementing the information learned by discussing it with classmates. Then it's easy to forget bits and pieces in between books on the same topic, and sometimes it's necessary to sort out the different perspectives of different historians.

Ancient self help books are pretty amusing.

On Mesopotamia: Don't forget the concept of history hadn't been invented yet so written accounts of events were always served up with a healthy dose of legend and myth. My history OCD really acts up when I have to face the fact that it is pretty damn near impossible to know what actually happened in any great detail. Even the Battle of Hastings is murky and that isn't even ancient history.

28. 306 - In the Garden of Desire - The Intimate World Of Women's Sexual Fantasies - Wendy Maltz

Honestly this wasn't as interesting as I expected. It's meant to be a study of women's sexual fantasies, but while it is even-handed and reasonably inclusive nothing was very surprising or revolutionary. The books is clearly derived from Maltz experience in sex therapy and seems more oriented at providing the sort of information and advice that is most likely provided at her workshops. It doesn't really have the meat you would expect of a serious academic work.

It is nice to be able to read a broad cross section of real women's fantasies to get an idea of the sort of diversity in fantasy but in all honesty I found most of the fantasies boring and stereotypical. Thankfully Maltz did mange to include a few that I did find notable, either for their humor, creativity, sexiness or shock value. On the whole it was a decent sex positive book and I don't think I wasted my time, I was just hoping for something with more meat to it.

Progress:
Classes.......................10/10 = 100%
Divisions.....................52/99 = 52%
Assigned Sections........92/908 = 10%
Unassigned Sections....1/92 = 1%
Bertrand Russell..........4