Books this year: a book diary

I’m generally not a fan of short stories, but I decided to give these a try because I really love this author. It was definitely a nice surprise every time one of the stories had ties with Macondo. It was kind of like unexpectedly getting to say hello to an old friend. A lot of the characters you read about in Marquez’s novels have a way of haunting you, and I was very surprised that he manages to do that even in his short stories. From the ill fated couple in Eyes of a Blue Dog to Innocent Erendira and her heartless Grandmother I was riveted. Definitely something worth reading, and something I’ll probably read again.

This is the thirteenth novel in Pratchett’s Discworld series. It is the story of a slightly stupid monk named Brutha. Brutha’s job and greatest joy is working in the monastery’s vegetable garden, a place where food grows in the ground as slowly as a thought grows in his mind. However, fate had much bigger plans for Brutha than growing lettuce.

When the tortoise first started speaking to Brutha, he assumed he was going crazy. When the tortoise started telling him that it was actually the Great God Om, Brutha assumed he was being tempted by a demon. When his faith was strong enough for him to accept that the tortoise actually was the Great God Om, Brutha began the transformation from simple minded gardener and novice monk to the greatest prophet his faith has ever known.

Shortly after Brutha began carrying around a tortoise and speaking to it he was chosen by the head of the Omnian question, Vorbis, to accompany him to the neighboring town of Ephebe. He was chosen because even though he had never learned how to read and really hated to think, he was gifted with an eidetic memory that Vorbis thought would come in handy. They were going to Ephebe because there was a group of people there who were worshiping the Great Tortoise, because they believed the world was a flat disc riding on the backs of four giant elephants, which were in turn riding on the back of an even more giant tortoise. This seemed insulting to the Omnians, because they believed the Great God Om was the only real God, and that he would never manifest as something as lowly as a tortoise.

While in Ephebe, Brutha and Om became acquainted with three philosophers, and while talking to them Om came to the disturbing realization that even though many people worshipped him out of habit or due to fear of the Quisition, Brutha is the only person left who truly believes in him. This was a problem for Om because a god’s manifestations and powers are dependent on the number of believers they have, and if anything were to happen to Brutha, he would fade away. Fighting broke out between the Omnians and Ephebians, and Brutha memorized many scrolls from Ephebe’s extensive library before escaping in a boat. Brutha and Om wound up trekking back home through the desert with a badly injured Vorbis, and Om spent many anxious hours protecting Brutha from the various small gods floating through the desert looking for someone to believe in them. Once they came to the edge of the desert a recovered Vorbis tried to kill the tortoise, abducted Brutha, and rushed to Omnia to be declared the eighth Prophet.

Back in Omnia, Vorbis ordered Brutha to be publicly burned for heresy on the back of a brand new torture device that looks like a giant turtle. At the last possible moment, Om fell from the sky onto Vorbis’s head, killing him instantly. Upon seeing this miracle, many people began to once again truly believe in Om and he became powerful once again. He then named Brutha the eighth Prophet and allowed him to establish the new Church doctrines. Together they avoided war between Omnia and Ephebe, and Brutha lived on for another one hundred years, turning what was supposed to be the bloodiest century in Omnian history into a century of peace.

I guess what you get out of this novel depends on how you choose to look at it. Some people think it’s purely a fun read, some people think it’s a commentary on today’s religious disagreements, and some people think that whatever it was meant to be, it was horrible. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t use it as a way to frame my opinions of real world religious dynamics. Another good thing about it is that even though it is a part of the Discworld series, you don’t have to know any of the Discworld culture or backstory to enjoy it, so if you are wanting to familiarize yourself with Pratchett’s books it’s a good one to try.

In the beginning of this book, Marquez writes a note stating that while working as a cub reporter in 1949 in Cartagena, Colombia, he was asked to cover the emptying of burial crypts in a historic convent. While witnessing the events, he says that “the stone shattered at the first blow of the pickax, and a stream of living hair the intense color of copper spilled out of the crypt…attached to the skull of a young girl.” This discovery reminds him of a story he learned from his Grandmother about a twelve year old marquise with long hair who died of rabies from a dog bite and was venerated in several Colombian cities as a miracle worker. According to the wikipedia article for this book, there was a different, less interesting source for this story, but I like the way that the note in the beginning of this book sets you up for the story that follows.

That disputed author’s note serves as a springboard for the haunting story of Sierva Maria de Todos los Angeles, the daughter of a spineless, fearful marquis and his drunken, drug addicted wife. The parents hate each other so much that they hate their own daughter because they can see each other in her. They send her to live with the slaves and she becomes enamored with their lifestyle, moving around silently (even when her mother forces her to wear a bell around her wrist), worshiping their gods along with practicing Catholicism, and lying just as easily as she tells the truth. One day when one of the servants takes her with them to the market she is bitten on the ankle by a dog. It is just a small wound, so the servant dresses it and sends the girl on her way without even thinking to tell her parents. The next day, the servant returns to the market and sees that the dog had been killed and hung up to let people know that it had rabies. Everyone then becomes consumed with the fear that Sierva Maria has the disease. From then on, things just keep getting worse for the poor girl. Even though she never shows any signs of rabies, she is subjected to so many different treatments that what was once a healed wound became a festered sore that she couldn’t even walk on. A doctor befriends her father and treats the girl, but says that there is nothing that can be done.

The local Bishop summons the girl’s father to his home and tells him that he believes the girl is possessed. After a while, the father decides to listen to the Bishop and has his daughter committed at a local convent. The nuns and the abbess immediately start attributing every bad thing that happens in the convent on Sierva Maria. She fights them, tears up her cell and her clothing, and becomes little more than a wild animal in response to their treatment. Then the Bishop sends his personal librarian to be the girl’s exorcist and from there everything begins to change. The priest makes sure the girl is treated humanely, and she begins to respond to him. Eventually, the priest and the girl fall in love. It is fascinating to watch the love story between the two characters unfold, and heart breaking to see all the obstacles that come between Sierva Maria and any form of happiness. Once again, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has crafted a unique and entertaining story that will linger in the minds of its readers for years to come.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I saw the movie long before I read this book. I’m kind of glad that I did though, because even though the movie was okay on its own merits, if I had been comparing it to the book I would have been bitterly disappointed. Gaiman has said that Stardust is actually a prequel to a book that may very well never be written, and I find that very intriguing.

The hero of Stardust is Tristran Thorn, from the small English village of Wall. Wall is a town that borders on the magical land of Faerie, and the gateway between Wall and Faerie is guarded at all times. Except, of course, for once every seven years when people come from all over England to be allowed to cross through the Wall and into the Faerie marketplace. Unbeknownst to him, Tristran is the result of a chance encounter between his father and a mysterious woman at one of those market places. When he was born, he was pushed through the gap in the wall with a note, and since there were only restrictions on people going into Faerie and not coming out, he was given to his father.

One day, while trying to convince the girl that he loves to marry him, Tristran notices a falling star. The girl tells him that if he brings back the star, she will marry him. Tristran goes off to retrieve the star, and is allowed to cross the wall into Faerie to find it since that is where he came from. Unfortunately, bringing home a falling star is easier said than done. Not only are there witches trying to find the star too, the rules of everything in Faerie are different and hard for Tristran to comprehend. It also doesn’t help that the star actually turns out to be a woman, and she doesn’t want to be rescued.

Gaiman has altered his style in this book in homage to the old fairy tales that were the inspiration for it, but his personality comes out in the humor and the ridiculous escapades in this book. It is a fascinating, vividly described story full of intriguing characters and whimsical turns of plot. Very entertaining, and a must read for anyone who is a Gaiman fan.

This book is a concise history the Muslim world, spanning from Muhammad’s Revelation in 610 AD to the present day. It follows all of the caliphates, the civil wars, and the differences between Sunni and Shi’i and the reason for the initial split. It shows the rise and fall of several Muslim empires, and draws stark differences between Muslim society now and the ideal society dreamed of by Muhammad. It also shows the difficulty of transitioning the Muslim world from an agrarian society to a western one, and how different the Islamic ideal of democracy is from the Western ideal. The book is extremely informative, and I learned a lot of things about Islam that I didn’t know before. However, I wouldn’t recommend that you read it unless you are extremely interested in learning about the subject, because I found the way that the information was presented to be really dry and very trying to get through in a lot of places.

This is the story of Taylor Helzer, a Mormon who convinced his brother and a woman that he was a prophet who came to save the world from the Apocalypse. They planned on kidnapping leaders of the Mormon church and forcing them to declare Taylor the new leader. In an attempt to finance their crazy plan, they ended up kidnapping and murdering five people in the summer of 2000.

Apparently, Taylor Helzer was a perfectly normal, devout Mormon until he went to a self help course that taught him that right and wrong don’t exist. I maintain that if he was perfectly normal, one really horrible self help course wouldn’t have been enough to take him from successful stockbroker to self proclaimed prophet and mass murderer, but to each his own I guess. This book was extremely well researched, and pays excellent attention to detail. Even the murders are recorded down to the last drop of blood.

This is a gripping story and a fascinating look into the mind of a madman and the people who followed him like sheep. The details of the crimes are not really for those who are weak at heart, but I commend the author for including the ugliness of the reality instead of glossing over it for the sake of the book. Definitely worth reading once, but not something I plan to read again in the future.

This is one of my favorite books, and I have read it several times. However, I hate to say anything about it because it is so much better to experience it without any preconceived notions. This isn’t the only story that Hesse has written about a young man struggling to find his way, but I believe it is the most striking one. It’s amazing how much imagery and emotion is packed into 160 pages. For example, towards the end of this book there is a completely amazing description of a rock. Yes, I said a rock. And if you can describe a rock in a way that makes someone want to read it over and over and over again, you’re a freaking genius.

I’m sure that if someone were to put in enough effort to blog this book properly it would contain paragraph upon paragraph about finding your enlightenment, and the symbolism, yadda, yadda, yadda. Screw that. I say you should read the book for yourself, draw from it what you will, and then if you’re interested read what other people have to say about it.

I think I learned more from this book than from anything else I’ve read so far this year. My main complaint with it was that I didn’t always feel like the author was speaking from an objective standpoint on some of the issues. I probably can’t complain about that too much though because it didn’t really interfere with the book, it was just a little bit annoying.

As I’m sure you could guess from the title, this book takes a look at some of the more prominent religious sects and attempts to explain some of their doctrines, a little bit about their history, and their meeting/worship styles. The different groups covered are: Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Liberalism, New Thought, Christian Science, Spiritualist, and Theosophist. The information is presented in several different ways so that you can choose to go through it in whichever way suits you best, and even though there is a lot of information it isn’t overwhelming. If you have any interest in learning about these sects and what they believe in, I highly recommend this book.

This is a pretty good history of the Roman Catholic Church and its leaders. It takes you through the confusing succession of Popes and anti-Popes, the crusades, and the scandals that have been an integral part of the Catholic history. De Wohl wrote several books about Catholic saints and different periods of the Bible after being told by Pope Pius XII to write about the Church and its mission in the world. Founded on a Rock has enjoyed added success due to the fact that it is required reading for RCIA students.

If you have any interest in becoming more familiar with the history of the Catholic Church, this an excellent place to start. It is an engaging read and is quite easy to follow. Louis de Wohl has made writing about the (Catholic) Church his mission, and it clearly shows through his writing.

This book attempts to explain various concepts of philosophy through some really corny and mediocre jokes, with a few mildly humorous jokes thrown in for effect. I’m not even sure why I read this book; I think I let my enjoyment of the cover art override my common sense.

Obviously, if you want to learn anything about philosophy, reading a book of jokes is not the way to go. I didn’t start the book expecting to learn any mind shattering truths, therefore I wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t. I guess maybe this would work for you if you are hoping to use jokes as a way to make people think you know something about philosophy.

The good news is, the book is incredibly short so if you’re curious about it you can read it without a very big time commitment. However, if you do try it and think it’s not good, don’t blame me for recommending it.