Daniel L. Pals Seven Theories of Religion describes seven different attempts to describe what religion is, how it arose, and what it means to society. The book begins with a look at the two writers who first attempted to study religion through a scientific lens: E.B. Tylor and James Frazer. Both men described what they perceived as the evolution of religion across numerous societies around the world.
The premis of The Holographic Universe is not that the universe is a literal holograph, but that a holograph may be the best metaphor for understanding the universe.
Michael Talbot describes how holographs are made: using mirrors and lenses, you split a laser beam into two parts, the object beam and the reference beam. The object beam reflects off the object you want to record (a strawberry, or a bird, or whatever) onto holographic film, while the reference beam hits the same film at the same time from a different angle. The film records the interference patterns from these two beams.
Everything in this book is common sense, but it’s the kind of common sense people need to be reminded of all the time. Want to get along with people? Consider things from their perspective and treat them well.
Bad Boy was Jim Thompson’s first take at autobiography. Although he was only forty-seven when he wrote it, he had already lived a pretty full life. This volume covers his escapades through age twenty-three.
Thompson spent his early youth in Oklahoma, where his father was a county sheriff and one of the most popular men in town. When his father ran for state office on platform that included a commitment to racial equality, he was run out of town.
In this superbly written overview of the Western philosophical tradition, William Barrett traces the roots of 20th century existentialism back through Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard all the way to the Greek and Hebrew traditions that formed the foundations of Western European civilization. Writing in 1958, Barrett begins by describing Europe’s spiritual and intellectual crisis after two world wars. If twenty centuries of religious faith and scientific progress led only to slaughter and destruction, then what was the good of science or religion? And what better system of knowledge and belief could replace them?
The Coddling of the American Mind examines the political left’s intolerance of challenging and uncomfortable ideas, especially as it appears among the young on college campuses throughout the US. The authors examine a number of incidents in which university students have staged violent protests, shamed and ostracized fellow students, disinvited speakers, and tried to force the firing of professors whose ideas challenge their worldview.
Lukianoff and Haidt call this “safetyism,” and define it as the belief that students must be protected at all times from risk and discomfort. Safetyism is the manifestation of three intertwined untruths, which have become habits of thought:
Ben Fox from Shepherd.com recently asked me to write about five of my favorite books in any genre. You can check out my list of the best books from the golden age of American crime and noir and perhaps discover something new.
I recently had the pleasure of reading Charles Farrell’s Low(life): A Memoir of Jazz, Fight-Fixing and the Mob. If you’re into true crime, boxing, jazz, or just good writing from a sharp-minded observer who has led an interesting life, check it out. Follow the link below to read my full review on Medium.
Book Review of “(Low)Life: A Memoir of Jazz, Fight-Fixing and the Mob"
Charles Farrell’s Low(life) is a tour of the underworld from the 1960s through the 2010s told in a series of anecdotes and reflections that are sometimes entertaining, sometimes cringeworthy, sometimes enlightening and almost always fascinating.
In the 1960s and seventies, Farrell worked as a musician in mostly mob-run clubs in New England and New York. Later, he worked as a boxing manager and fight fixer. This isn’t a crime memoir, though those who are drawn to pulp fiction, classic crime novels and movies like Goodfellas will find plenty to like here.
Alan C. Logan’s The Greatest Hoax on Earth is a journalistic examination of the life of Frank Abagnale, the infamous con man immortalized in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 file Catch Me if You Can. That film, based on Abagnale’s autobiography of the same name, portrays a smooth charmer living a life of glamour and adventure.
The young Abegnale cons his way onto free flights around the world with beautiful women in tow. When he needs money, the master forger simply cuts himself a check at the expense of some international corporation so huge it will never notice the missing cash. When he needs a job, he becomes a doctor, a lawyer, a university professor. He has no training or experience in any of these fields, but he’s such a convincing impostor that no one notices. Except the FBI, who spends years pursuing him, and whom he repeatedly eludes.