lory_enterenchanted's Reviews (582)

What would the Devil do in a hell created by humans? That is the question at the heart of this story, which starts out with extreme gruesomeness based in the horrors of WWI, and gradually shows a more tender side. War certainly shows the worst in human beings, but also brings out the best: their capacity for self-sacrificing love. The Devil wants to rob us of the emotions that both bring us pain and teach us of our indelible spiritual connections; he offers us oblivion to soothe the first, but in so doing breaks the second. With her images and events based in the experiences of war, Arden brings the situation to life and makes us think about how we would choose.

Read for the 1962 Club, this was not top tier Heyer, but diverting as usual. Waldo was a bit too perfect and boring, and the misunderstanding between him and Miss Trent too ridiculous. The secondary romance was also quite bland. Tiffany's horrendous selfishness and vanity was the centerpiece, with the other characters trying and ultimately failing to manage her - shades of Lydia in Pride and Prejudice.

I want to read everything by Henri Nouwen. His humble, honest way of engaging with the spiritual life, its gifts and challenges, is exactly what I am looking for. A simply wonderful guide to being human, and incidentally Christian.

Some good information and advice, somewhat padded out with narrative that strove to connect with the everyday, while claiming to be based on solid research. I was not always enamored of Brown's folksy style, which I think would come across better in person.

Also, I think her part about shame is a bit off; elsewhere I have seen the difference not between shame and guilt, but between a closed cycle of shame that encourages shutting down and silence, and an opening spiral of 'Pro-social shame' that encourages confession and reparation for one's faults. I think that's a better way to think about it.

It is clear however that how we cope with shame is a major factor in how our psyches are formed, and any discussion of how to do that in a healthier way is all to the good.

Really fascinating theories, but I think I need to read this book on paper. I need to cross-reference and see the charts, which do not show on my e-reader.

Some interesting information, but I would have much more appreciated a version that acknowledged Discworld was a literary creation, and straightforwardly talked about its sources and influences in folklore, rather than the pretense that it is a real place and the similarities are "amazing coincidences."

Read for my Spiritual Memoir challenge, a book engaging with atheism or agnosticism.

Only a portion of this short book was a memoir, and I failed to gain much of a picture of the author's life. The anecdotes he shared were specifically in support of his current work as an interfaith activist, and the latter part focused on arguments for why atheists should be open to interfaith dialogue (while making clear that atheism is not itself a religion).

The memoir portion covers Stedman's religion-free (aside from a slight acquaintance with Unitarianism) childhood in a liberal family, then a period in adolescence when he joined a fundamentalist church, unfortunately closely followed by his growing realization that he was gay. The pages detailing his agony over his supposed sinfulness are absolutely heartbreaking. Eventually, his mother noticed his distress and brought him to a more tolerant Lutheran minister who put him on a better path, religion-wise, and he became involved in more liberal Christian circles to support his social idealism. While going to a Lutheran college and majoring in religion, though, he lost his faith, and although briefly angry at religion he soon rejected militant anti-theism and became an interfaith enthusiast. Since he wrote the book before turning 24, there may be even more changes in store, but that's the story so far.

It seemed to me that Stedman was never actually religious in any real sense at all; he was looking for human community in the church, probably out of loneliness as his parents divorced and his mother had no time for him (she was frantically working and going to school to support her family). Shedding this transient cloak of religiosity was the honest thing to do, but seemed to represent more a return to his roots than a real transformation. At least those roots meant 

Stedman is brave in many ways, championing an ideal of love and human solidarity even in the face of great prejudice. I wish there had been more stories and less pontificating; the latter was not as powerful.

Tale of an isolated Armenian mountain village, where the inhabitants have suffered much and death seems imminent, but new life mysteriously touches them. The scenes, the characters, their simple but deeply human situations, will long stay with me. 

Some of the usual great Discworld elements, though by the end the conceit began to falter. I laughed out loud at the bit where Teppic picks apart the logic of the Sphinx's riddle - classic Pratchett. The satire of modern business practices in the form of ancient pyramid building is also hilarious.

Having just read the recent biography, it struck me that the hazardous pyramids probably owe a lot to his experience as a publicity official for a power company, who had to do a lot of convincing people that nuclear energy was safe. 

As a drawback, I'm never convinced by the circular argument that the gods are a human invention, but then they become real, because we invented them. It's like wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

Very much a biography of TP as a writer; some personal areas were respectfully left untouched. We hear little about family relationships for example, although one can read between the lines that they were not always easy. And the feverish writing had something compulsive about it, hinted at but never explored. Nevertheless, I came away, as did the author, with awe and gratitude for the creativity of this man who brought us so much pleasure, and a rare kind of wisdom, which need not wrap itself up in glum solemnity, but dares to dance with the improbability of existence. Clearly a labor of love by a talented writer himself — the tone is perfect, footnotes and all.