DYLAN TWENEY

books

7 posts
Rough Drafts

Fifth Sun

Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend Camilla Townsend has pulled off a remarkable magic trick in this book, reconstituting the Mexica empire with an amazing level of detail and sensitivity. It makes the Aztecs feel like a real people, with a vibrant and complex culture, instead
Dylan Tweney 1 min read
Rough Drafts

The tree with the lights in it

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard My rating: 5 of 5 stars It took many months for me to finish reading this book, as I could only manage it in small doses. Dillard writes with an intensity level that starts around 7 or 8 and cranks up to 11 by the end of each […]
Dylan Tweney 1 min read
Notes

(Untitled)

This is the University of Chicago “Great Books of the Western World” collection, edited by Mortimer Adler and published in the 1950s. My grandmother, a single mom on a budget, scrimped and saved for months to buy this for my father when he was quite young, maybe 12, and it shaped the rest of his […]
Dylan Tweney 1 min read
Rough Drafts

Zen, death, love, and an exorcism.

Love and Fear: Stories from a Hospice Chaplain by Renshin Bunce My rating: 5 of 5 stars A Zen Buddhist chaplain’s memoir, with many stories shining light on what it means to die, and some of the many different ways it can happen. Written with a gentle, understanding, open heart, and a knack for tell
Dylan Tweney 1 min read
Rough Drafts

The Institute, by Stephen King

The Institute by Stephen King My rating: 3 of 5 stars “The Institute” is a dark vision of psychic power and how it could be abused by a shadowy organization that transcends any one government — people who believe they are doing massive good for the world while actually inflicting tremendous evil on
Dylan Tweney 1 min read
Rough Drafts

Occult America (book notes)

I was under the weather the entire first week of July, so I spent July 4 in bed, reading this book by Mitch Horowitz. Published in 2009, Occult America is an entertaining survey of a variety of “occult” religious trends that blossomed over three centuries of American history. Horowitz starts his acc
Dylan Tweney 3 min read
Rough Drafts

The Haiku Apprentice.

The Haiku Apprentice, by Abigail Friedman (Stone Bridge Press, $15), is both a gentle introduction to the art of haiku and a charming travelogue. The author was a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service, serving in Japan, when she stumbled upon a haiku-writing group. The book describes how she was welc
Dylan Tweney 1 min read

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