Where is your nonfiction section please.
It's the most wonderful time of the year: Christmas stresses are over and it's time for year-end favorites lists! I love dividing up my year's favorite books by new releases and backlist selections because it means I can include more books. Also, since my blogging has deteriorated into a truly awful state, I realized that... Continue Reading →
Dragged Into the Light: Truthers, Reptilians, Super Soldiers, and Death Inside an Online Cult, by Tony Russo When a person lives their entire life in denial about the world around them, the world can start to fade away. In a world of monsters, resurrections, and orgone wars, a world where vaccinations lead to horrible diseases... Continue Reading →
Review: Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith, by Timothy Beal Perhaps you take to the road with the explicit aim of [...] discovering the world beyond your world. But what you end up discovering may be something more profoundly transformative and re-creative: yourself beyond yourself, in other... Continue Reading →
An unexpected benefit of lockdown (we have to take little joys where we find them) has been getting to virtually snoop through people's bookshelves in Zoom meetings. Some journalists have done the good work of putting together lists of titles they've spotted on shelves during interviews. Dr. Fauci's books made it into one of these... Continue Reading →
Quite the mixed bag today, eh? Although I try to avoid hard reading goals or challenges, I do set myself a soft challenge of reading at least one big book of Russian history every year. It's one of my favorite genres anyway and there are so many that it's a good way to make sure... Continue Reading →
Book review: Beyond Belief, by Jenna Miscavige Hill (Amazon / Book Depository) As Scientologists, we believed that when our current body died, the spirit inside it would begin a new life in a new body. Our founder, L. Ron Hubbard, said that, as spirits, we had lived millions of years already, and we would continue... Continue Reading →
Book review: Bright-Sided, by Barbara Ehrenreich (Amazon / Book Depository) An acquaintance told me about a friend of hers experiencing a breast cancer recurrence. That's harrowing anytime, but was coupled with shock since the friend was quite young. My acquaintance told me that her friend was in a relationship with a man she'd been "obsessed"... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Way of the Strangers, by Graeme Wood (Amazon / Book Depository) "Islam began as something strange and it will return to being strange, so blessed are the strangers." -- Sahih Muslim It's difficult to understand much about the extremist ideology of terrorist groups like ISIS, not least because your average non-Muslim doesn't... Continue Reading →
Book review: Unfollow, by Megan Phelps-Roper (Amazon / Book Depository) I was beginning to see that our first loyalty was not to the truth but to the church. That for us, the church was the truth, and disloyalty was the only sin unforgivable. This was the true Westboro legacy. Megan Phelps-Roper is the granddaughter of... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Caged Virgin, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Amazon / Book Depository) Any Muslim who asks critical questions about Islam is immediately branded a "deserter." A Muslim who advocates the exploration of sources for morality, in addition to those of the Prophet Muhammad, will be threatened with death, and a woman who withdraws from... Continue Reading →
Book review: Without a Prayer, by Susan Ashline (Amazon / Book Depository) Each year, Chadwicks had a Halloween parade, and families would line Oneida Street--except for the spot in front of the redbrick building. People from the church would chase them off the lawn. Though Oneida Street was a typical stream for trick-or-treaters, no one... Continue Reading →
Book review: Leaving the Witness, by Amber Scorah (Amazon / Book Depository) A Witness cannot just fade away without anyone trying to intervene, and it was hard to find enough mental space to gain any perspective. It's not the kind of religion that lets you walk away, because the people in it think that by... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 