Tag Archives: Book Review

BOOK REVIEW: Fresh Out of the Sky by George Szirtes

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Fresh Out of the SkyFresh Out of the Sky by George Szirtes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This is a collection of nested poems and other short creative writings of varied formats. There are four sections in the book, each with parts and sub-parts. The titular work, “Fresh Out of the Sky,” consists of five parts, each having five parts in turn. It explores memories of an immigrant childhood and being “Citizens of nowhere.” [Szirtes was Hungarian born but his family moved to England in 1956, the year of the uprising that was brutally suppressed by the Soviets.]

The second section, “Inside the Yellow Room,” has an eerie surrealism to it that I found unexpectedly intense. The penultimate, “Going Viral,” touches on the present-day pandemic world while continuing to revisit memories in a hazy, ethereal sort of way. The last section, “Five Interludes” has the tightest interconnectedness of themes, touching upon breath, dreams, and the animal-human world at turns.

I enjoyed this collection, finding it evocative, phantasmagoric, and nostalgic.


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BOOK REVIEW: Lucifer: Book One by Mike Carey

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Lucifer, Book One (Lucifer, #1)Lucifer, Book One by Mike Carey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This sixteen-issue collection consists of three issues of “The Sandman Presents: Lucifer” in addition to the first thirteen issues of “Lucifer.” As the former title suggests, this is based on a character from the vast cast of “The Sandman” comics, and this volume does occasionally touch upon the broader Sandman universe, though it largely sticks to the Abrahamic mythology bits.

Each of the five story arcs in the volume standalone, but the last three (i.e. “Born with the Dead,” [1 issue,] “The House of Windowless Rooms,” [4 issues,] and “Children and Monsters,” [5 issues]) form an epic arc with a young girl Elaine and a portal to an alternate dimension at its heart. This larger arc impressively works to biblical proportions, involving grandiose stakes. I will say the first arc [from “The Sandman Presents…] was harder to follow the motives driving the story, but I can imagine it would be much easier for those who’d followed The Sandman comics from the outset. [Also, it’s only fair to have some challenges in finding a direction when dealing with such a massive cast and sprawling over-universe.]


If you’re wondering how this Lucifer compares to the television version, this one is less neurotic (though flawed in many of the same ways) and is more serious and a tad more wrathful. The TV version is lighthearted and comedic to a larger extent, while the comic book version bumps up against horror a bit more, but that’s not to say the comics have no comedy or the television version lacks all intensity. From a broader perspective, the Lucifer comic also not only more frequently touches on the Sandman universe, but also on mythologies outside that of Abrahamic religion – e.g. Lucifer ventures into the realm of Japan’s Izanami / Izanagi in “The House of Windowless Rooms.” It’s always nice to see a show can diverge from the source material and still be good, and I think that’s very much the case here.


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BOOK REVIEW: Transforming Trauma with Jiu-Jitsu by Jamie Marich & Anna Pirkl

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Transforming Trauma with Jiu-Jitsu: A Guide for Survivors, Therapists, and Jiu-Jitsu Practitioners to Facilitate Embodied RecoveryTransforming Trauma with Jiu-Jitsu: A Guide for Survivors, Therapists, and Jiu-Jitsu Practitioners to Facilitate Embodied Recovery by Jamie Marich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Out: March 15, 2022

This book proposes that jiu-jitsu can be beneficial and therapeutic for those with trauma-related conditions (e.g. PTSD,) and it offers advice and insight to martial arts teachers, therapists, as well as trauma survivors considering jiu-jitsu. I’m curious to see how much merit these ideas prove to offer. By that, I mean neither to insult the bona fides of the authors, nor even to foreshadow skepticism. What I am saying is that this proposition isn’t one that’s been studied thoroughly and systematically. [The authors acknowledge as much. They’re at the vanguard of an idea here.] Therefore, the good news is that the book is bleeding edge, but the bad news is that it’s based largely on anecdotal evidence and the application of tried concepts to an untried (and quite unique) domain.

On one hand, few activities can teach one: breath control, now-centric living, command of emotions, and increased comfort with being in close proximity to people (who may seem physically intimidating) like the martial arts. Those all feel like positive features for a trauma survivor, and some of them (e.g. breath control) are addressed extensively in the book. On the other hand, the way martial arts teach one to keep one’s focus in the moment is via the pressure of an attacker – defender dynamic. If one is triggered by intense, seemingly aggressive activity, that’s hard to reconcile with the nature of the martial arts — which should always be safe but do necessitate a certain degree of intensity to mentally prepare students for a combative experience.

As I read through the panoply of challenges that might arise – from inability to train with someone who looks vaguely like one’s attacker to not being able to be experience a mount (one of the most fundamental jiu-jitsu positions) – I often had the feeling I’d have in response to a book entitled, “CrossFit for the Severely Arthritic” [i.e. not all fine objectives work together.] The authors do discuss alternatives like private lessons and specialized workshops / classes, but those are more realistic solutions in some cases others. (i.e. I feel that few of the dojos I’ve been in could afford to offer the range of classes for special demographics that are mentioned [workshops, probably.] But there’re only a few hours a day one can hold classes that people who can afford to attend aren’t working, and paying rent on a larger space on the amount that can be earned from those few hours a day is daunting enough.) If you can attend special trainings for trauma survivors, the book’s guidance all seems quite workable. But, otherwise, I had to wonder to what degree one could accommodate those with these needs without losing those who feel they benefit from the existing approach. [e.g. Many dojos I’ve been in used a rotation scheme so that everybody trained with everybody else, and in virtually all there was an expectation of a certain level of decorum and discipline of behavior on the mat — e.g. not wandering off in the middle of practice, not holding side conversations, and not picking / choosing what techniques one will / won’t practice. (All of which, were activities mentioned that could happen in the trauma-sensitive school, and all of which I feel I benefited from having trained out of me.)]

There was a tremendous amount of useful information in the book. How to recognize an individual has been triggered. How to best respond. It’s certainly worth reading for those reasons alone, and – maybe – they’re onto something.

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BOOK REVIEW: Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction by Julia Annas

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Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short IntroductionAncient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction by Julia Annas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Annas’s task of creating a concise guide for such a broad topic is a daunting one. For perspective, I’ve read books in this series [AVSI] on Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Socrates – each of which is a slim subset of the material called “Ancient Philosophy.” Furthermore, it’s not as though there was great homogeneity of ideas among the ancients. And, adding to the challenge, the author attempts to address the full scope of ancient philosophy: i.e. ethics, epistemology, logic, and metaphysics.

The book is forced to both restrict itself to an inch deep (because the subject is a mile wide,) but also to make choices about what schools, philosophers, and sub-topics it will address. History did part of the work – e.g. for many ancients, only fragmentary or secondhand evidence of their positions survived. So, we see a lot about Plato and Aristotle because their words remain. The book also devotes a disproportionate emphasis to what some call “philosophy of life,” i.e. ethics and how / whether to pursue a happy and meaningful life – i.e. how to live. This emphasis is both because that’s what many ancients focused upon, but also because it’s what people find relevant when looking back to them. [As opposed to ancient metaphysics, which science has largely made obsolete, ancient ethics and thoughts on happiness aren’t necessarily outmoded.] The first chapter sets up this focus on philosophy of life in an interesting way by discussing humanity’s mixed motivational system — reason v. emotion.

One question that the book robustly considers is the degree to which ancient philosophy is still relevant. This is taken up most directly in chapter two, but the final chapter (on what constitutes ancient philosophy) also has germane things to say on the subject.

I found in this book a quick guide to comparing schools of the ancient world across the breadth of philosophy, and would recommend the volume – particularly as a starting point prior to delving deeper into sub-topics.


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BOOK REVIEW: Radium Girls by Cy

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Radium GirlsRadium Girls by Cy.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Out: April 6, 2022

This is a graphic novel that tells the same story [based on actual events] as the similarly titled, but otherwise unrelated, popular book by Kate Moore. The “Radium Girls” were women who worked at watch factories, painting luminescent numbers on watch dials. Unfortunately, the luminescent material being used was radioactive, and the painting process that these women were taught involved touching paintbrushes to their lips between strokes, causing them to ingest minute amounts of it everyday, often over many years. In today’s world, a person who found themselves glowing in the dark from a job (without protective equipment) would know something was radically wrong, but this took place about a century ago and understanding of radioactivity was much less – though scientists clearly understood that precautions needed to be taken when working with radium.

This book captures the highs and lows of a small group of workers from one of the watch / clock factories involved, the one in Orange, New Jersey. Ultimately, this is a sad story of deteriorating health and premature death, but it also shows a relatively new phenomena of women holding jobs that allowed them to increase control their own destinies. By showing the women as they tasted the good life, the experience of the bottom falling out created a more visceral experience. The women did earn a good wage — not the kind of money that makes cancer worthwhile, but higher pay than the usual salary available to women of the day.

I thought the story was well told and touching. The art was in an interesting style – sure to be the cup of tea of some but not others – but nevertheless clearly conveying events of the story. I’d recommend this graphic novel for readers interested in the subject.


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BOOK REVIEW: The Medea by Euripides [Trans. Gilbert Murray]

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The Medea of EuripidesThe Medea of Euripides by Gilbert Murray
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Project Gutenberg

This tragedy follows up the myth of “The Golden Fleece.” That hero’s journey culminated in three trials which Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts) must complete in order to acquire the golden MacGuffin. Jason succeeds in large part because (arguably, entirely because) Medea, daughter of the fleece’s owner, i.e. King Aeetes, gives Jason some potions to make the trials a cinch. She does this in exchange for Jason’s everlasting love.

And, herein, lies the heart of this play’s conflict. Jason – like many heroes of Greek Mythology – is kind of a jerk. In flashing forward to the beginning of this play, we find Jason has traded Medea in for a younger and higher stature wife (i.e. a princess whose father doesn’t despise and disown her). [Note: Technically, Medea may not be married to Jason because of legalities, but she did bear him two boys.] To add insult to injury, Jason’s new father-in-law (King Creon) insists that Medea and her two boys be exiled, effective immediately.

What makes this play so fascinating is that we have sympathy for Medea’s plight, but then her inner monologue turns to the nuclear option she will employ – killing Jason’s new princess-wife and, more disconcertingly, her own children. Medea goes back and forth about her plan, showing reluctance to kill her boys, at least. So, the reader (viewer) ends up finding Jason loathsome because he steadfastly refuses to accept any blame for how poorly things have gone, but – on the other hand – he’s being more reasonable. (i.e. He talks kindly and isn’t murdering anyone.) It’s a fascinating reflection on the battle between rationality and passion.

I’d highly recommend this play. It’s a short and straightforward story, but it does present a great deal of food-for-thought.


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BOOK REVIEW: Miracles: A Very Short Introduction by Yujin Nagasawa

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Miracles: A Very Short IntroductionMiracles: A Very Short Introduction by Yujin Nagasawa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This concise guide to miracles is built around the intriguing observation that, according to polls, a majority of people believe in miracles, and yet we don’t witness supernatural events [at least not ones that can be confirmed by objective investigation.] There are coincidences (boosted in salience by selection bias and / or a lack of intuitive grasp of probability,) there are patterns that our minds turn into significant images (e.g. the Madonna on a taco shell,) and there are cases of spontaneous remission in which a serious medical condition disappears where treatments haven’t worked or weren’t tried (experienced by the devoutly religious, the marginally religious, the agnostic, and the atheistic, alike.) But those events can be explained more simply without resorting to the supernatural (i.e. probability, the human brain’s great skill at pattern recognition [re: which is so good that it often becomes pattern creation,] and the fact that under the right circumstances the human body’s immune system does a bang-up job of self-repair.)

The five chapters of this book are built around five questions. First, what are miracles – i.e. what criteria should be used, and what events that people call miracles fail to meet these criteria? Second, what are the categories of miracles seen among the various religious traditions [note: the book uses examples from both Eastern and Western religions, though generally sticks to the major world religions?] Third, how can one explain the fact that so many believe despite a lack of evidence? This chapter presents hypotheses suggesting we’re neurologically wired to believe. Fourth, is it rational to believe? Here, philosophers’ arguments (most notably and extensively, that of Hume) are discussed and critiqued. The last chapter asks whether non-supernatural events can (or should) be regarded as miraculous, specifically acts of altruism in which someone sacrificed their life for strangers.

I found this book to be incredibly thought-provoking, and it changed my way of thinking about the subject. I’d highly recommend it.


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BOOK REVIEW: How to Live Like the Little Prince by Stéphane Garnier

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How to Live Like the Little Prince: A Grown-Up's Guide to Rediscovering Imagination, Adventure, and AweHow to Live Like the Little Prince: A Grown-Up’s Guide to Rediscovering Imagination, Adventure, and Awe by Stéphane Garnier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Out: April 12, 2022

Given my reading of this book, I’m clearly a huge fan of Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince,” and yet I had lukewarm regard for this book and found it a slog to read – despite its short page count and readable style. Don’t get me wrong; the writing is fine and the book raises some interesting points, but still I came away unsure that this book has a reason to exist. Ultimately, I figured out what bothered me is that it’s a little bit like going to hear your favorite comedian and then spending twice as long listening to someone else explain and elaborate upon their jokes. “The Little Prince” is brilliant, but it’s a simple book with a simple theme and simple lessons, and I don’t know what value is added by even a skillfully crafted self-help elaboration upon the book. As far as stars go, I give the book the benefit of the doubt based on the fact [full disclosure] that I almost never like self-help books, and exceptions to that rule only come about if the book can teach me something about which I had no idea or if it is in itself so clever or beautiful of language that I’m moved.

If you liked “The Little Prince” (and, note: you’ll have to have read it for the references in the book to make much sense,) and you like self-help books, this will probably be right up your alley. But if you like “The Little Prince” and aren’t a self-help fan, then just read the original story again.


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BOOK REVIEW: Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide by Maggie Hyde

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Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide (Introducing...)Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide by Maggie Hyde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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I find Jung’s ideas fascinating. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t believe most of said ideas have scholarly merit, but they’re brilliantly creative and eccentric. Some will say this would’ve been a radically different book if it’d been written by a psychologist or the like (rather than by an astrologer.) I don’t disagree. It’d likely have focused more on his work in personality types and on the unconscious mind (i.e. the work that people in psychology still talk about, whether they like it or not,) and also probably would’ve barely footnoted his ideas about “the uncanny,” synchronicity, and astrology. In short, its priorities would’ve been reversed, and it’d be a book that’s more boring but more relevant to those who are interested in Jung’s long-run influence on psychiatry / psychoanalysis.

For my purposes, I prefer the book as it is. I shouldn’t give the false impression that the author only addresses Jung’s mysticism, or that she completely avoids pointing out where Jung’s ideas were controversial and what critiques were leveled against him. The book comes across as a serious description of Jung’s work (albeit focusing relatively intensely on dream analysis, collective consciousness, and the more out-there aspects of his work.) I will say, I’ve read a few books from this series now, and Hyde does seem more a cheerleader (less a dispassionate scholar) than most of the other authors. It’s fascinating to read about Jung’s criticism of Freud. Don’t get me wrong, I’d agree that Freud was sex-obsessed, but Jung’s accusations of Freud being too concerned with one ill-supported idea does create a bit of a pot / kettle situation.

I enjoyed this book. I found the descriptions of Jung’s ideas compelling, if unpersuasive. However, I’d argue that if you specifically want to know about what ideas are still being talked about in classrooms (mainstream, not the New Age-y ones,) there’re probably better books. However, if you’re curious about Jung the mystic, this is a great place to start.


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BOOK REVIEW: Angels: A Very Short Introduction by David Albert Jones

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Angels: A Very Short IntroductionAngels: A Very Short Introduction by David Albert Jones
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This book offers an overview of angels in the Abrahamic religious traditions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.) [It does take a quick dip into angel-like beings from other religious traditions – e.g. Hindu and Parsi – but generally comes down on the side of it doing a disservice to everybody to equate such beings across mythological traditions – with the possible exception of the New Age angel which is predominantly an offshoot from Abrahamic mythology.] The book considers the evolution of theological thinking on angels: how they’ve been portrayed in art; what they are [made of;] what their purposes are (i.e. messengers, healers, guardians, warriors, etc.;) and, occasionally, how they play into popular culture.

I took away a great deal from this book. For example, I learned about the differences between the djinn of Islam mythology and demons of Judeo-Christian mythology, and the theological underpinnings of this difference (i.e. Muslims do not believe angels have free will, and thus angels can’t be fallen, and so the djinn are a separate entity altogether [rather than being fallen angels.]) I found the book to be readable, interesting, and balanced in its approach to the topic. If you’re looking to learn more about how angels (and related beings, e.g. fallen angels / demons) have been treated by thinkers of various ages, without getting deep into the minutiae, this is a fine book to consider.


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