if you're bored, you're not paying attention
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 of the cartoon figures that I pictured them as before.… Read the rest
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 chapter, and as thrilling as that is, it can also be difficult to bear.… Read the rest
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 life.… Read the rest
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.… Read the rest
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 the children they are using.… Read the rest
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.… Read the rest
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.… Read the rest
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