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How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. Isaiah 52:7
ARJ Vol 2, Table of Contents by ChaptersRead Bobby's Other Works:
Essay: Art Is The Process of Destruction
Book: A Reader's Journal, Volume 1
Book: A Reader's Treasury
The spires of the St. Louis Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in this country, soars over the centuries old French Quarter and Jackson Square in my hometown, New Orleans. Like Rome, if one would understand New Orleans history, one must take a journey to New Orleans someday. But if one would like to understand New Orleans culture, one must set down roots and live there for the rest of their lives. That is one of my ongoing Journeys into Understanding as the subtitle of A Readers Journey says, so I have designed this webpage to give you some visual hints of this journey of mine.
Why another webpage for A Readers Journal, Vol. 2? one might ask. There is already a full chronological list of the reviews that I wrote after I published ARJ Vol. 1 in book form. The reason is to give new readers of ARJ2 a chance to read the reviews by Category. The categories are the Chapter Headings listed at the top of this page.
It is not always practical to acquire books of every author that one is interested in, so I offer these reviews to you, dear Reader, for your reading enjoyment and edification. Through reading these reviews you will be able to accompany me on my journey into understanding only know this: that your journey will be different than mine because it will be your unique journey into understanding or at least a journey that you and I have taken together. As Orson Scott Card says in his book, Ender's Game in the Introduction:
[page xxv] The story of Ender's Game is not this book, though it has that title emblazoned on it. The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather as something that we made together.
Readers in countries around the world have acquired bound copies of ARJ 1. The reviews that followed the publication of ARJ 1 were posted immediately to the Internet and will remain available in chronological order [newest to oldest] there, with new reviews being added each month. In addition, reviews are being written and posted to A Reader's Treasury, which when completed will contain over 860 reviews of books that I have previously read some 15 to 30 years ago. These books stem from a time before I began writing reviews of books directly I completed them. And, of course, there are the approximately 400 reviews of ARJ 1 that are now posted for reading on-line.
To Keep Up-to-date on Latest ARJ2 and ART Reviews, Click Here to Subscribe to our Digest now. (Send pre-filled email.) Not sure you want to subscribe without reading it first? No problem we've accommodated you by placing the archived Digests on-line. Click Here.
Volume 2
A Reader's Journal Journeys into Understanding
One of the joys being a writer is receiving praise from readers, especially praise that describes one's writing pointedly such as that which filled this email from Sandy Sellers from Ontario, Canada. For his perspicacious critique of my work, we made him an Honored Reader for February 2003. Heres an excerpt from that email in which he talks about my reviews.
Dear Bobby,
I've been visiting your website the last few days and reading your reviews. I am suitably cautioned by what you said in your review of The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom: a reading of original texts allows one to form a vital understanding of issues that a reading of shallow rehashes of such texts does not."Your work, of course, could never be considered a shallow rehash: it is of a different genre entirely, and seemingly all your own. It has a freshness and honesty born of the entry of your person into the essays. Kind of a "integrating participatory syntopic" style if I had to attach labels.
It is a privilege and inspiration to witness and read these reviews-- outward and visible signs of what I daresay is an intimate spiritual practice. The reviews are simultaneously original creations and simulacrums of the original works. Borrowing upon your metaphor of books, [Books are Lighthouses Erected in the Sea of Time] I sometimes see the collected reviews as providing one mariner's chart of the lighthouses that have been left for us by the authors past and present.
While grazing through the website, I am struck by the extra care you have brought to the presentation of each review. I am thinking of the animation of the Burning Bush, the stained windows of the Gospel writers, the awesome chart on the Two Jesus's with the review of Steiners St. Luke, and the like. Such things speak to me of a reverence you have for the work and the reader: it all adds a quality of warmth to this all-too-cold Internet.
--- Sandy Sellers of Ontario, Canada (2003)
These words came from the author of Blowing Zen:
Bobby, someone forwarded your excellent book review of Blowing Zen. I can't say I've ever seen a more comprehensive and detailed report on any book. You know, when you have to send in an outline of the book to an agent or an editor it often seems more difficult than the actual writing of the book. I would have been well pleased with what you came up with. -- Ray Brooks, California (2003)
These next two emails came from the author of Lewis Creek Lost and Found and Bright Colors, Falsely Seen:
Dear Bobby,
Man, oh man, these reviews just keep getting better and better! Thanks for the Christian Mystery review. I loved hearing you give new meaning to "Good Mountain Review"; I'll think of that mountain of books--and mounting knowledge--from now on.
--- Kevin Dann of Woodstock, Vermont (2003)
A few days later when Kevin got his photo posted in the author's slot at top left of two of his books I've reviewed, I wrote to him with the Subject line: "See Kevin Smile." He wrote back:
Bobby,
Smiling I was when I went to your newly illustrated reviews--not from the photo, but your jaunty reviews. I reread them and found myself getting re-interested in these subjects which had become old news. . .
Thanks for the smiles!
Kevin
Received this from a good reader in New Orleans:
Here's a comment from a good Reader about my first ever movie review, Beavis and Butthead Do America:Bobby,
Just finished reading your review of Steiner's The Christian Mystery. It was fabulous. I want to read the book myself now but think I really grasped a lot from your review. Thank you for this one and all your reviews.
--- Jean Watts of New Orleans, Louisiana (2003)
I was wondering where you were going with this --- the Mr. Magoo perception is the first idea that allows B&B to make any acceptable sense. But, I must admit, I had no idea that the point you were going to make would be so short, so sweet, and so alien to the nature of the subject! Good point!
Carol Golden, Florida (1997)
If you read a review by Clicking on a Book in One of the Chapters below and wish to RETURN to the Chapter you were reading from, you MUST Click on the BACK Button of your Browser. [This is different from ARJ1, ART, and the Chronological ARJ2 pages on which when you click the book cover of the review you're reading when done with it, you go to the next review in line.]
Reviews will be sorted within a Chapter: first by Author's Last Name, then by Title.
| Author ( First Name Last Name) | Full Title of Book Reviewed |
|---|---|
| Edelglass, Stephen | The Physics of Human Experience ; |
| Edelglass, Stephen and Georg Maier, Hans Gebert, John Davy | The Marriage of Sense and Thought Imaginative Participation in Science |
| Pylkkδnen, Paavo | Mind, Matter, and the Implicate Order |
| Rosenblum, Bruce and Fred Kuttner | Quantum Enigma Physics Encounters Consciousness |
| Author ( First Name Last Name) | Full Title of Book Reviewed |
|---|---|
| Abel, Alan | How To Thrive on Rejection |
| Farrelly, Frank and Jeff Brandsma | Provocative Therapy |
| Freud, Sigmund | Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria |
| Happι, Francesca | Autism An Introduction to Psychological Theory |
| Hayman, Ronald | A Life of Jung - A Biography |
| Hesse, Hermann | Demian The Story of a Youth |
| Kast, Verena | Joy, Inspiration, and Hope |
| Layard, John | The Lady of the Hare A Study of the Healing Power of Dreams |
| Lazarus, Richard S. and Bernice N. | Passion & Reason Making Sense of Our Emotions |
| Meier, C. A. | The Unconscious in its Empirical Manifestations, Vol I of Psychology of C. G. Jung |
| Watzlawick, Paul | The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious |
| Williams, Donna | Nobody Nowhere |
After reading a review of a Rudolf Steiner book, if you wish to read the entire text, it may be on-line, available for download at no charge in the Rudolf Steiner Archive.
Click to Enter Archive.
These books are all about going on. All the way. To our common destination. To which none of us wants to go ignorant and alone. Hence, into the dark, we write.
Nancy Mairs in Voice Lessons
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