What are you reading in May 2017?

Now Reading

More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief – Bernardo Kastrup

“With each turn, the book seeks to convey a more nuanced and complete understanding of the many facets of transcendence. Part I puts forward the controversial notion that many religious myths are actually true; and not just allegorically so. Part II argues that our own inner storytelling plays a surprising role in creating the seeming concreteness of things and the tangibility of history. Part III suggests, in the form of a myth, how deeply ingrained belief systems create the world we live in. The three themes, myth, truth and belief, flow into and interpenetrate each other throughout the book.”

Last Five Books Read

Words at the Threshold – Lisa Smartt

An in-depth investigation of what people have said while nearing death, collecting more than one hundred case studies through interviews and transcripts, showing how the language of the dying can point the way to a transcendent world beyond our own.

Time of the Quickening – Susan B. Martinez

The book reviews the cycles of history from biblical times to the present and prophecies of the future from Nostradamus to Edgar Cayce and Jeanne Dixon, revealing that our current “time of troubles” is not the beginning of the Apocalypse, or Armageddon, but of the embryonic stage of a Utopian Age.

Fatelessness – Imre Kertesz

This is the novel on which the movie Fateless was based. A reviewer on amazon.com said, “Not only a remarkable book by a Nobel prize-winner, but also a remarkable movie. It is not often that the movie does justice to a great book. Each is a work of art; each compliment the other; and both will leave you speechless and on your knees. The last two pages of the book, and the final scene of the movie where the young man muses, are like nothing you've ever read or heard. The language will leave you breathless. Nothing has reached so deeply into the human condition and the search for happiness.”

Pedro Paramo – Juan Rulfo

Susan Sontag called this Mexican novel from 1955 “One of the masterpieces of 20th Century world literature. Dark, mysterious, and surreal, it was the beginning of the genre known as “magical realism”, later used by Gabriel Garcia Marquez who is said to have known the book by memory and said that it brought up some of the most powerful emotions he had encountered.

Infinite Awareness – Marjorie Hines Woollacott

One of the best books I’ve read on the nature of reality and our spiritual nature. While it does repeat several well known NDEs and again discusses Ian Stevenson's studies on reincarnation, it is always with a fresh approach. In addition, this is one of the very few books I’ve read that discusses our power to create our own reality through intention.

Books waiting to read

Reflections on the True Shakespeare – Gary Goldstein
Myth and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict – Mitchell G. Bard
How Soon is Now? – Daniel Pinchbeck
Survival in Auschwitz – Primo Levi

I am thinking of buying the book "Fallen" after seeing the weird trailer of the film based on the book. It has got a supernatural element to it and I´ve always been intrigued by that. Has anybody read the book or seen the film?

Finished both 'The Way You Wear Your Hat' by Bill Zehme and His Way 'The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra' by Kitty Kelly. Of the two the Kitty Kelly book was the one most worth the time reading as it examined Sinatra's tumultuous political ties with the Kennedy's and his need for vengeance against Bobby Kennedy that eventually lead him to support Nixon and Agnew. From Sinatra's amazing comeback in the early 1950's, his Bogart 'Rat-Pack', his long volatile relationship with Ava Gardner, his attacks on the press and the amount of influence that he wielded for a short-time in the late 50's are all really interesting and almost reads like a good fiction novel rather than an actual living person.

Reading, Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie it's from the volume of the Five Complete Hercule Poirot Novels/Avenel books.

Finished A Dance with Dragons... it was better than book 4 but still kinda boring, too long and introduced way too many new characters.

Started Ken Kesey's Sailor Song. About 1/4 through it and thus far it is nowhere near the same league as Cuckoo's Nest or Great Notion.

Almost finished readingTo Brew or Not to Brew: A Brewing Trouble Mystery by Joyce Tremel.

Reading Tangled Up In Brew by Joyce Tremel

Worthwhile?