The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann My rating: 5 of 5 stars I am not going to review this book in any serious or analytical way. It’s been reviewed by many clever readers already, over several generations and sprawling continents. It hardly needs my support. I am just going to offer my entirely subjective comments about what a great and thoroughly enjoyable read it is! The plot should be familiar to Western readers by now, as this classic is a century old and much discussed in literary circles. However, in case you missed out, here’s the synopsis from Goodreads: In this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Mann uses a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps, a community devoted exclusively to sickness, as a…
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This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch My rating: 1 of 5 stars I don’t usually give one-star ratings, for the simple reason that I rarely finish a book that I dislike enough to rate that low. I stuck with this one, because I was interested in the premise and because this is the fellow who wrote Psycho. (I never read Psycho but, of course, it was a brilliant Hitchcock film.) For reasons I cannot explain even to myself, I kept expecting this book to get better. The premise of this book is interesting. In each chapter of This Crowded Earth, Bloch illustrates a list of stupendous social ills caused by humans, in an effort to improve their lot. Each attempted solution creates…
Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion by Alain de Botton My rating: 4 of 5 stars There are many things to like about Botton’s book, for both religious and irreligious readers. He has a beautiful way of noticing and explaining the value of religion, and why it is a great loss to humanity to toss out the wisdom and traditions of the Church, along with beliefs in the Divine. His argument is that one need not embrace the supernatural in order to benefit from what religion has offered human beings over many centuries: a life of unified purpose, a sense of community, a focus on others that distracts us from our natural egocentricity, an idea of love that…