redrobinbookreviews

The Narrow Road to Oku Matsuo Bashō
In exquisite prose and perfect haiku, Bashō recounts his summer journey through Japan in 1689. This volume has the original Japanese on the left page and Donald Keene’s translation on the right. It also contains beautiful illustrations by Miyata Masayuki. A wonderful way to start the days. Didn’t want it to end.

The God Delusion Richard Dawkins
A bit of a slog, but a valuable description of many of the implications of belief in a god. Really geared to be another salvo in the battle between science and religion. The raising consciousness about natural selection was a little too much, but otherwise a useful account of the delusion that a belief in a god, any god, really is. Interesting ideas about whether teaching children religion is child abuse. Glad I read it, and glad I’ve finished it.

Sergeant Nibley, PhD Hugh Nibley
I knew Nibley a little when I lived out here in the 70s and 80s, and I worked tangentially with him against the Vietnam war. He had referred obliquely a few times to his experiences in WWII, so I was really interested to read this book by him and his son Alex. It was a lot more work than it needed to be because it is very poorly organized and crowded with unnecessary pictures and sidebars. I guess the editor thought it needed to be dumbed down for the Mormon readers even though it pretends to be for a non-Mormon audience as well. Still glad I worked my way through it. He still means a great deal to me in my intellectual and spiritual development.

If the Dead Rise Not Philip Kerr
Latest in the Bernie Gunther series, number 6. Now he’s in Cuba, but most of the book takes place during 1934. Again Kerr’s sleek prose that slips us through the narrative. His pre-war and Third Reich world is good history as well as compelling fiction. Really liked it. Hope he keeps writing them.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything Christopher Hitchens
“Read” this as an audio book, and it was great listening to Hitchens read his own prose as I drove around in my Beetle. He loves to skewer people and our preconceptions, so there is a glee in this book as well as some good insights and history. But he is not a philosopher, and his arguments wind around a little even though they are, for the most part, right on the money. Very good, really glad I read it.

Once a Spy Keith Thomson
Entertaining novel about a spy with Alzheimer’s disease and his loser son. Started out great with a nice satirical bent, but devolved into a giant, cartoonish, comedic chase scene. Not too bad, but could have been better with a little more of an edge.