Getting to the Other Side of Grief by Zonnebelt-Smeenge and De Vries

July 30, 2020, South Amboy, NJ.

Paperback 1998, 222 pages.

Subtitle: Overcoming the Loss of a Spouse
Authors: Susan J. Zonnebelt-Smeenge and Robert C. De Vries

The book explores how one overcomes grief from the points of view of a psychologist and a pastor, who are both Christians.

Mythos by Stephen Fry

August 13, 2019, South Amboy, NJ.

Paperback 2018, 442 pages.

Subtitle: The Greek Myths Retold

This book tries to recast the Greek myths as told by authors like Homer and Hesiod in a way that is more accessible, mostly by using contemporary language, and adding various touches to make the episodes more realistic.  I picked up the book at the British Museum during our trip to London in late May.

The bottom line is I finished the book, which is a lot more I can say about my prior attempts.  That is high praise from me.

I do wish the author had made it clearer which parts of the story he made up.  Since myths get embellished and edited every time it is retold, there are no intrinsic problems with that.  However, the reader might want to know if there are substantial variations from Homer's and Hesiod's versions of the stories.

Greek myths are so complex, and there are multiple versions of stories, so there shouldn't be any expectations that the book would be able to provide a definitive account.  Indeed, the booked started with Chaos, Erebus and Nyx, the Titans, the second order, and the Olympians.  The cast of characters is limited enough that one could trace how each individual came to be (barely).  After that the book concentrated on individual characters and their stories.  What I didn't get was how limited the scope of the book was, compared with the totality of myths out there, and whether they were selected because of their prominence or their storylines.

Still, the book helped with my understanding of some of the stories, such as how Venus came on the shore of Cyprus (Botticelli), the statue of Eros and Pysche, and the roles Prometheus and Pandora played in the fate of the human race.  Perhaps when I see art related to Greek myths in the future I will have more appreciation?

 Statue of Eros and Psyche, taken during our visit to the Louvre in 2012.

 Prometheus and the vulture.  Sculpture in Academy of Art Building next to the Brandenburg Square in Berlin.  Taken during our visit earlier this year.

Birth of Venus by Botticelli.  We visited the Uffizi gallery before, but didn't take any photos of this painting.

My last entry in this blog was in 2013.  Does that mean I have not done any reading for over five years?

Heart of Darkness by Jeremiah P. Ostriker and Simon Mitton

December 17. 2013, South Amboy, NJ.

Hardcover 2013, 299 pages.

Subtitle: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe

This book in the Science Essentials series where scientists prominent in their fields are invited to bring "cutting-edge science" to a general audience.  No doubt a great disappointment to those that expected a thriller.

The authors go through the history of cosmology (from second century BC) to the current thinking of dark matter and dark energy.  Even for a (former) student of science, the concepts are at times difficult to follow.  The gist is the different scientific theories and experiments are consistent with a world where dark matter and dark energy make up the bulk of the universe (what we call "baryonic matter" constitutes only 4 or so percent) in the "Lambda Cold Dark Matter" model.  Since I started off knowing that already, the book in some sense did not add much to my understanding of the subject.

While the authors seem to be quite satisfied with the extent of scientific knowledge, I find such level of satisfaction unwarranted.  After all, 95% of "stuff" in the cosmos is dark (i.e., unknown) beyond some basic properties (gravity for dark matter, repulsive force for dark energy).

I do wonder if the authors' description of the universe is consistent with Stephen Hawking's description in the book Grand Design.

How to Be a Hero to Your Kids by Josh McDowell & Dick Day

August 29, 2013, South Amboy, NJ.

Paperback 1991, 234 pages.

Read in preparation to lead a discussion on "how to raise your kids."  Authors (most of book was written by McDowell) talk about the 6 As of parenting: acceptance, appreciation, affection, availability, accountability, and Authority.

The End of Illness by David B. Agus, MD, with Kristen Loberg.

July 26, 2013, La Bruciata, Montepulciano, Italy.

Paperback 2011, 351 pages.

My physician brother, who hosts a radio show in Hong Kong on health, was about 70 pages into this book when he gave it to me to read.

The claims made in the beginning of the book were certainly gripping enough: a revolutionary way to look at illness and a way to maintain our health until the day we die.  To me the book was just a collection of the author’s ideas on how to be healthy, an assertion supported by the list of 10 things to do/avoid at the end of the Q&A portion of the book.

The novel assertion in my judgment is the body is a complex system, and this leads to the author’s campaign against vitamin D and other diet supplements.  On the other hand, he is very much into statins, aspirins, and flu vaccines.  The arguments against the former group are somewhat supported by what he references, but there is no equal rigor to the things he recommends (perhaps with the exception of aspirins.)

While the book doesn’t live up to the hype, it is nonetheless not a bad book to read, and the advice is generally helpful.  However, the author seems to have a typical physician’s ego when he makes all these claims about how the book is different from others.

Meanwhile, I am trying to get my MD daughter to read it and tell me what she thinks.

The Spiritual Danger of Doing Good by Peter Greer with Anna Haggard.

June 7, 2013, South Amboy, NJ.

Advanced reading copy, paperback, 179 pages.
Original hardcover publication date: August 2013.

Peter Greer is president and CEO of HOPE International.
Forward by Brian Fikkert, author of When Helping Hurts.

The Fifth Witness (A Lincoln Lawyer Novel) by Michael Connelly

February 15, 2013, Mannering Park, NSW, Australia

Paperback 2011, 421 pages.

First, the protagonist Mickey Haller is called the Lincoln Lawyer because he works out from a Lincoln town car.  Although for this case he rents an office so he can be close to the courthouse.

Lisa Trammel, whose has retained Haller in a foreclosure battle with the bank, is accused of murdering someone in the bank.  Haller initial doubts about his clients claim of innocence eventually dissipated as the case moves forward.  Despite the DNA evidence obtained by the prosecution, Haller wins his case by putting up an alternate theory that the murder is a gang-related hit.  He puts on a fifth witness who eventually pleads the fifth, thus generating reasonable doubt that gets Lisa Trammel acquitted.  At the celebration party afterwards, Haller realizes how his client actually used balloons to get the victim to look up and then murdered him.  The client is arrested again after the police discovers the buried body of her husband in her yard.

I would rate this book average.  It hangs together by-and-large, although at the end the reader is left with: so I spent hours reading this book to get to this?  To me it was a page turner, not because of the suspense, but because of the desire to get it over with.  Some of the twists and turns are quite clever, but not delivered in such a way that I would consider thrilling.