And for my Good Readers, heres the new reviews and articles for this month. The ARJ2 ones are new additions to the top of A Readers Journal, Volume 2, Chronological List, and the ART ones to A Readers Treasury.
1.) ARJ2:
A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys
Where do you start to describe a novel of 1120 pages whose first paragraph, "encompasses the
cosmos," according to one reviewer? A book that Colin Wilson calls a "New Age Novel." A
book that contains in its pages the Holy Grail, the haunts of King Arthur and Merlin, the Druids,
the blood of Christ, and the tomb of the man who carried the blood to Glastonbury, Joseph of
Arimathea.
Between its covers the following happens:
1.) a midsummer festival with crucifixion
2.) a capitalist, a communist, and an anarchist forms a
Glastonbury commune
3.) a miracle cure
4.) a resurrection
5.) a conscious suicide by drowning
Powys glues these isolated events together in a web of interconnections and liaisons of
various town people that is reminiscent of a Jane Austen novel or the dark TV series, Twin
Peaks. Of course, no has time to read such long books today, but if you're interested in the
review, check it out at: http://www.doyletics.com/arj/agr88rvw.htm This is a newly
recovered review that was first written in 1988.
2.) ARJ2:
David's Question "What is Man?" by Edward Reaugh Smith
In Psalm 8, David asks the question, "What is man?" and this book strives to answer David
question with details that have never been pulled together in one place before.
Here are some modern versions of David's question:
- What is it that
distinguishes human beings from every other species on Earth?
- Are humans simply advanced
animals, descended from apes as Darwin would have us believe?
- Did we begin in a Big Bang of
inert matter from which consciousness somehow evolved?
- Isn't that the same as asking did
grains of sands maneuver themselves over aeons of time into the silicon CPU chip that powers
my computer?
In addition to David's question, Smith shares with us many more questions and
their answers may be surprising and enlightening to you.
Read the Review at:
http://www.doyletics.com/arj/wimrvw.htm
3.) ARJ:
NP A Novel
by Banana Yoshimoto
What happens when you peel the banana? You get a feng shui of a novel. A story and a writing
style so sparse that you seem to live in an almost empty room at times, listening over the
shoulder to one, two, or at most three people talking about life. About life and death. About life
and a book. A book that seems to create death in those who translate it. Don't worry it's
already translated.
Don't bother to read the review, read the book. It's short and sweet. It's an amazing style. For a
short trip to Japan, try this book no standing in line at the airport. For the review just click and you're there:
http://www.doyletics.com/arj/nprvw.htm
4.) ART:
The Invented Reality
by Paul Watzlawick, editor
The review starts off with an example of a sloppily invented reality:
In the inside of the front of this book I pasted a Jim Davis Garfield comic
strip from the Times-Picayune of Feb 8, 1985. It shows Garfield on a fence
getting hit by a thrown shoe and the word SPLUT! marks the sound of the
shoe's impact. Garfield turns, raises his index finger and objects to the
cartoonist, "Hey, wait a minute! Shoes don't go 'SPLUT'!" In the next panel,
a pie hits him in the face with a SPLUT! and he says, "That's more like it."
Then it goes downhill from there. Epistemology? Who cares? Just gimme the review to read!
Okay, click below to read the Review:
http://www.doyletics.com/art/
tirart.htm
5.) ART:
Change
by Paul Watzlawick et al.
Everyone by now has heard about the problem with the nine dots and knows that one is supposed
to "think outside the nine dots" or "think outside the box" but how many remember what the problem setup is? Or why
it's important?
The review contains the problem, its solution, and will tease you with it a bit,
maybe help you remember the solution or at least why the solution is important, among other
things. Not bad for a ten minute read.
Want to learn to open up completely without busting a gut muscle? Good, that will put you on
the evolutionary scale a tad above that of the oyster.
For other fun and games, read the review at:
http://www.doyletics.com/art/changart.htm
6.) ART:
The Language of Change
by Paul Watzlawick
Want to learn to use the elements of therapeutic communication?
This is bound to sound a bit
ridiculous, but you can learn them from reading this book. If you still don't believe that
could be possible, let me say that this book contains relatively simple processes, which I'm
almost sure that you are not going to understand or like at first, especially if you feel that the
processes are a little sneaky. It will likely be difficult for you to accept these processes and
actually apply them in your life and work because on the surface they will seem quite absurd at
first. When in doubt, leave this review out.
If you are still not convinced that you must not read this review, go ahead and click away:
http://www.doyletics.com/art/tlocart.htm