Charles Spurgeon's sermons on Proverbs

This isn't so much a book as it is a collection (available from that link as a pdf - free) of sermons, by the great Victorian preacher Charles Spurgeon, on the biblical wisdom book of Proverbs; I've been devotionally reading it one sermon at a time along with my dad for over a year. Rather than working meticulously through the whole book, Spurgeon selects one or two proverbs from each chapter and reflectively spins these out into biblically-rich, theologically-sound and spiritually-edifying sermons. He manages to walk a fine line incredibly well indeed - both developing the inner concepts of the proverbs to demonstrate their wisdom, and extrapolating from them ways that such wisdom can and should lead us deeper into the realities of the gospel. He was very clearly an amazing preacher and thus is in my view deserving of his reputation; erudite in his speech yet accessible to common language and sensibility. The "Victorian-ness" of the prose is a minor gripe but read aloud, as me and my dad did, this evaporates; you are left with Spurgeon in all his intellectual heft weaving points and leading you into Christian exhortation. While I can't definitively say so, I strongly suspect most of his other sermons to be of equal value, and loads of them are online - so check them out. If you're particularly interested in the gospel-centred application of Solomonic wisdom, check this one out specifically.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

This book is the final instalment of J.K. Rowling's series. The reason I have said so little about these books in my posts is that the franchise is so ubiquitous that it seems redundant to offer an explanation. Also I'm not going to give a lengthy chunk of reflection on "separating the art from the artist" when it turns out that the author of a series I enjoyed quite a lot as a kid (hence my recent rereading of it - I wanted to see if it was as good as I remember) has committed herself tooth-and-nail to making life painful for trans folks; my reason for not doing this is that Jessie Gender has already done it very thoroughly.* Weirdly for such a self-proclaimed defender of women, this doesn't seem to have filtered through to JK's female characters, as Caroline Easom elucidates (she also has a very long video breaking down the thirty characters who teach children the worst lessons). Moreover, I'm not going to dissect all the problematic elements in the books themselves, because hoots has already done that perfectly (see too - Ember Green also covers its ableism) - and I'm not even going to complain about how the magical franchise has morphed into a grotesquely needless corporate behemoth, since verilybitchie has that covered - nor even the reasonable assertion that the series isn't even that original, as Caelan Conrad explains, or even the far more in-depth critique that Sheep In The Box has done. If you're curious, yes I did enjoy rereading them, but I was also far more aware of ways in which they kind of suck more than its fandom gives it credit for - to wrap up I'll leave you with Ursula K. Le Guin's reaction to reading the first one: “I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a school novel, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.” I don't think I'm likely to ever feel the need to revisit this series, so I'm giving all seven to my Hungarian friend who is weirdly obsessed with them but has never read the actual books.

* I know I'm linking a LOT of YouTube video essays in this post but honestly the great folks of leftist YouTuber communities have done far more to dissect all that is wrong with Harry Potter far more than I could hope to. I'll unapologetically keep editing this post to add new ones when I stumble across them.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

This book is the sixth in J.K. Rowling's series.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

This book is the fifth, and in my opinion the best, of J.K. Rowling's series.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

This book is number four in J.K. Rowling's series.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

This book is the third in J.K. Rowling's children's fantasy series.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

This book is the second in J.K. Rowling's very famous series.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

This book is the first in J.K. Rowling's series, and it likely needs no introduction or explanation.

Sons of Destiny

This book is the final instalment of Darren Shan's vampire saga - and as such, I will in this post be giving away major spoilers for the series as a whole in my ruminations on the series' overall plot, characters, themes and whatnot. You've been warned. (Check through all 11 of my previous posts this month if you want extremely-brief spoiler-free overviews of all the other books in the saga. If you're not bothered about me spoiling what is a Thoroughly Solid children's/teenagers' fantasy series, go ahead and read this one.)

   First off a quick note on the premise as a whole. While there have been a slew of vampire series across both adult- and youth-oriented reading markets in recent decades, and admittedly I have read very few of these (yes, I've never read Twilight, and I'm not likely to), the creative approach taken towards vampirism in world-building terms here is well-developed and innovative in ways I doubt many comparable series have been. They have culture, history, traditions, and so on, that go far beyond just "sparkling in the sunlight and having beef with werewolves". And across the saga you really get a feel of immersion in the vampire world; helped no doubt by the fact that Shan, while he could never be accused of being some poetic or prosaically-experimental genius, is a damn good writer who consistently comes up with good, bitesize stories, and tells them well, using both well-fleshed-out characters with meaningful arcs and punchy dynamic descriptions and action scenes to do so.

   Thematically, I think the saga can be split into four distinct chunks that parallel its sub-trilogies. The first three are a pretty by-the-book coming-of-age deal, albeit with vampirism as a context, in which the protagonist (also, confusingly, named Darren Shan) learns how to stand on his own two feet and assert himself as a person, bonds with new people who accept him for who he is and a mentor who promises to take him to new heights, falls in love, yada yada yada. The next three are much more concerned with how one as a newfound adult tries to integrate with a new strange society (so just, society then); the challenges faced by Darren in books four to six really force him to grow in the main ways we saw he was stunted in the introductory three. The third sub-trilogy doesn't impose much depth of character development from its happenings, and so the themes of growth and self-worth are less clear, but here also we should consider that it is going on against the backdrop of the vampire-vampaneze war - and this makes for great stuff in that it can really get into dealing with themes of hate, revenge, right and wrong in messy conflicts; things like that. Finally the fourth wraps up the whole saga pretty much perfectly on a developmental level in my opinion, dealing heavily with concepts of destiny, mortality and sacrifice - woven deftly into the narration as Darren has to face these weighty themes head on.

   Plotwise I've talked briefly about all eleven prior instalments already, and am hesitant to talk about what happens in this the final one, because that does really spoil the whole series, and I'm already going to be dropping several fat spoilers in the next paragraph about characters, so I'll do you the mercy of not ruining the saga as a whole. But trust me, the ending is pretty epic; unexpected, well-earned, and totally logical within the constructed world. Looking back over the whole saga it is honestly hard to spot anything that stands out as an obvious plot-hole, which is pretty impressive for a twelve-book teen series - and while the pacing may feel too slow or too fast at times, it packs its punches where it needs to and tells everything that needs to be told; there are actually not many elements you could take out of any one book and have the whole thing have the same story impact. Which is a sign of great writing.

   Okay, and finally - the characters. Major spoilers coming up in this bit. Darren, the narrating protagonist, is arguably quite bland and overdependent on luck or contrivance for his victories; but I don't have a problem with this for two reasons: firstly, bear in mind that he is functioning not only as a vampiric being in his own right but also as the "innocent" audience-explanatory bridge into that world, and the tensions of this probably made him pretty hard to write about, let alone from; secondly, aside from the fact that luck is a touchstone of vampire religion anyhoo and so this is a silly criticism, I actually think the ways in which his successes are contrived are well-explained enough by the lore to be able to overlook this criticism as well. My primary gripe with Darren as a whole lies at the very beginning of his story - I know he had to save Steve, but the kid we're introduced to at the start of the book just deciding that becoming a half-vampire vampire's assistant for the rest of his now-much-longer life is a step he's willing to take to see his friend survive struck me as something of a leap. But now we've mentioned Steve, so let's talk about Steve; and, oh, Steve Leonard/Leopard, why are you the way that you are? Getting rejected by Mr Crepsley must have been a blow, but a blow serious enough to devote your entire life to hunting and killing vampires, even becoming a vampaneze (even the Vampaneze Lord later on), in order to enact vengeance upon? As a revenge motive it doesn't quite ring true. But then, Mr Crepsley did say his blood had darkness in it; and we can kind of see this - Steve is by any account not a nice kid at the start of the series, even though he's Darren's best friend; and the fact that even at such a young age he devoted so much time and effort into researching the occult does sound the warning gong to my ears. The "I can taste evil in his blood" explanation is a little hokey but it feeds directly into the final set of conflicts and betrayals in the last six books so I can accept it. Next up, Mr Crepsley - and I've gotta say, I don't actually have much to say about him; the archetypal grouch-with-a-heart-of-gold that anyone plunged into the vampire world would want as their father substitute; my only complaint would be that he died too early, but it was entirely justified and in fact demanded by the story, so, yeh. Then of course Kurda Smalht/Harkat Mulds - the Vampire Prince who turned traitorous ally-to-the-vampaneze and was executed then brought back as a Little Person to aid Darren and Mr Crepsley in their quests. I just love this character, on both sides of his afterlife. Or however the story's internal metaphysics is meant to conceptualize this kind of transformation, I'm not entirely clear. Kurda is a brilliant vampire character for his willingness to transgress the strictly-upheld norms of his society with excellent reasoning behind why he does what he does, even if you (as the readers) won't notice or appreciate it at the time. Harkat is just a fantastically different, sturdy, amusing absolute dude who brings a weird kind of morbid liveliness into every scene he plays any significant role in. Oh man, there are so many great characters in this series that I would be here all night if I were to talk about all of them; Debbie and Alice Walker, Vancha March, Seba Nile, Gavner Purl, Mr Tall, RV... the list continues. But the final one I will talk about here is, you guessed it, that most superlatively sinister of evil entities, Mr Tiny. I think Shan in writing Tiny as the supreme antagonist to the whole saga is a stroke of pure brilliance; he's so unassuming in his depiction and yet oozes a malevolence in dialogue that very few "bad guys" achieve and the whole thing strikes a totally discombobulating inscrutability that genuinely sets you on edge. And then as the series progresses from your first introduction to Mr Tiny and you see, or rather come to suspect via hearsay (which only adds to the mystique) of all the truly heinous acts he has committed, the schemes he's schemes, the machinations he's machinated; and by the revelation of his final goals in the last sub-trilogy you are literally even rooting for the vampaneze over Mr Tiny.

   As I think I may have mentioned in my post about the first instalment of this series, this is a saga I've read before - but only once, when I was about fourteen. Revisiting it as an adult I still enjoyed it a great deal; in fact probably moreso in many places as I was able to appreciate the depth of obvious plot-planning and integrated world-building that Shan has put into this, as I was reading it, from knowing what was coming up. There were also many bits that I'd forgotten and were great second-time-round surprises that even with foresight the text itself does make it hard to see coming. I'd strongly recommend this to teenage readers with a thing for horror or fantasy, all the way down to age eleven or so if you're a kid with a strong stomach - because dark and gruesome as it is, it's the kind of thing that will exhilarate you far more than give you nightmares. Though it may well do that too. You have been warned...

Lord of the Shadows

This book is the eleventh and penultimate instalment of Darren Shan's vampire saga (see post about the first one to get a handle on how I'm doing posts about the whole series).

   Obviously, ramping up to the end of the saga, a lot of plot threads are starting to wind up their intensity toward the ultimate climax. In this instalment, having completed their quest in mystical far-away lands, Darren and Harkat are plunged back into the vampire-vampaneze war - even as our narrator journeys back to his hometown, dark revelations are brewing that throw the future of vampire and vampaneze both into existential turmoil...

the Lake of Souls

This book is number ten in Darren Shan's vampire saga (see post about number one for how I'm handling posts about the whole series).

   Starting off our fourth and final sub-trilogy within the overall saga, this book is where things all in all start to get really wacky. Taking a time-out from the vampire-vampaneze war, Darren and Harkat are sent by the devilish Mr Tiny on a fantastical quest across strange lands, encountering bizarre beasts and testing ordeals; their objective - to reach the lake of souls, basically a giant pond in which the spirits of people who haven't reached the afterlife properly swim about for basically eternity, and fish out one particular soul (of whom, for sake of spoilers, I will not say until my post about the final book).

Killers of the Dawn

This book is number nine in Darren Shan's vampire saga (see post about the first one for my explanation of how I'm handling posts for the series).

   So, in this one - the culmination of the saga's third sub-trilogy - Darren and Mr Crepsley find themselves beset on all sides, with enemies new and old, the police, vigilante vampire-hunters, and more, all chasing them down; leading to an intensely dramatic climax which I won't spoil until my post about the last book...

Allies of the Night

This book is number eight in Darren Shan's vampire saga (see post about the first one for how I'm handling posts about this series).

   Aside from the fact that the vampire-vampaneze war is raging and Darren and his comrades Mr Crespley, Harkat Mulds and Vancha March are right in the thick of it, new problems seem to be surmounting on all sides. First off, there's a vampire hunter on their trail. Then old faces start popping up in new, surprising ways (saving all spoilers for my post about the last one). And worst of all... someone has told the police that Darren (who despite being several decades old at this point, because of the vampiric aging process still has the body of a fifteen-or-so-year-old) isn't going to school! So yeh, that's the nub of this instalment.

Hunters of the Dusk

This book is number seven in Darren Shan's vampire saga (see post about the first one for an explanation of how I'm handling the posts for this series).

   Six years have passed since Darren's ascension to become the youngest Vampire Prince (oop, spoiler there - sorry) and the war against the vampaneze is raging. Following the prophecy from the mystical-but-super-evil Mr Tiny that a vampaneze Lord will arise and end the vampires forever, unless one of our heroes finds and ends him; Darren is thus embarked on a hunt for this enemy leader along with Mr Crepsley, the blue-robed Harkat Mulds, and another of the Princes, one Vancha March (who, say what you will about this series, but he's a super cool character).

the Vampire Prince

This book is number six in Darren Shan's vampire saga (see post about number one for how I'm handling posts about this series).

   Having performed questionably in the vampire trials, and experienced several other dramatic events which for spoiler reasons I won't mention here, Darren at the outset of this instalment finds himself an exile living among wolves. But the vampaneze are up to something, and nobody but our narrator seems to know. So he risks everything to return to Vampire Mountain, where a crowning ceremony for the next Vampire Prince is about to take place. Needless to say, his arrival and his news cause quite the stir...

Trials of Death

This book is the fifth instalment of Darren Shan's vampire saga (see post about the first for explanation of my treatment of this series post-wise).

   Having arrived and settled at Vampire Mountain, things are not all  hunky-dory, as it is soon decided that Darren, for a variety of variably-legitimate/odd reasons, has to undergo the Vampire Trials, which are extremely dangerous. And so it is that he undergoes a horrendously intense training regime, and all his friends are extremely worried about him. Then the trials - he has to dodge a bunch of spouts of fire coming out of the floor, crawl through a cavern filled with super-sharp stalactites and stalagmites, fight a wild boar, and to top it all - contend with the arcane politics of the vampire Generals themselves...

Vampire Mountain

This book is the fourth in Darren Shan's vampire saga (see the post about the first one for how I'm treating posts for this series).

   In this instalment, Darren and his master Mr Crepsley are called to the administrative capital of the vampire world - the eponymous mountain. Their journey is long and hard, but softened by the presence of the supremely likeable Gavner Purl. Once at the mountain we are introduced to a whole host of other cool characters, like the smooth sharp Kurda Smahlt, the quartermaster Seba Nile, and more. We are also treated to several insights about the nature of the evil Mr Tiny and his blue-robed servants, but for spoiler reasons I will save all reflections about any series-spanning themes/elements to the final post.

Tunnels of Blood

This book is the third in Darren Shan's vampire saga (see my post about the first one for how I'm dealing with writing up my thoughts on the whole series).

   Mr Crepsley has been called by the Vampire Generals onto a secret mission, and he takes Darren and Evra with him. They settle in a city and try to keep a low profile, but Darren befriends a girl called Debbie regardless. All is not well however - corpses drained of blood keep turning up, and Darren suspects his master is behind it. That is, until we meet the real culprit - a mad vampaneze* called Murtagh - and the shit hits the fan...

* Sort of cousins to vampires, the key difference being that vampaneze always kill their victims by drinking all their blood instead of just a little bit, as proper vampires do.

the Vampire's Assistant

This book is the second instalment in Darren Shan's vampire saga (see my post about the first one for how I'm doing my posts about the series).

   Now serving as Mr Crepsley's assistant, Darren is thrown into the madcap life of a travelling freak show. He befriends the performing snake-boy Evra Von, as well as local normal kid Sam and an eco-warrior called RV. Without wanting to give away too many spoilers, this new circle of friends causes a lot of problems for the Cirque de Freak, with bloody brutal consequences...

Cirque du Freak

This novel is the first in Darren Shan's vampire saga. I'm reading the whole series in one long go* so I'll save my reflections on characters, themes, style, and the overarching plot - as well as my recommendations about the series as a whole - until my post about the final instalment, and here will just give a quick [spoilers] outline of the plot.

   Darren Shan is a pretty normal kid. He and his best friend, Steve Leonard, manage to get tickets to the Cirque du Freak - a travelling freak show. A fair amount of the book is just them at the freak show and descriptive depictions of all the acts (which include a bearded lady, a wolf-man, a two-bellied man, and a snake-boy); though chief among these for story purposes is Mr Crepsley and Madam Octa, his trained spider. Darren loves spiders and is immediately envious of Madam Octa - but after the show he overhears Steve talking to Mr Crepsley and realises that the spider-training freak is an actual vampire. So he steals the spider and leaves a blackmail note saying that if Mr Crepsley tries to get Madam Octa back he'll tell the world he's a vampire. Unfortunately however - Darren's new pet spider bites Steve, and to save his friend's life from the spider's venom our protagonist has to strike a deal with Crepsley: become a vampire himself and serve as Crepsley's assistant.

   Pretty great premise to kick a series off with, don't you agree?

* I have read the whole saga before but I was about 14 so this was half my life ago. Feels like it warrants a revisit to see if it holds up reading it as an adult.

The Hobbit

This book, the children's introduction to Middle-Earth by J. R. R. Tolkien, is a straight-up classic. Before diving into description of or reflection on it though I will just hazard to say that the edition linked there is virtually* unillustrated - which for me would be a deal-breaker as the version I have is fully and beautifully pictured by Alan Lee, that veteran Tolkien illustrator.

   Often described as a prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I think this description is as unfair as it is inaccurate - Tolkien wrote this first, after all - as it, as a story, has completely different aims in mind to its more epic successor. The Hobbit was written up after its various elements had emerged from bedtime stories Tolkien was making up for his kids, and it kind of shows. Not in a bad way, just in the sense that it feels quite episodic in places - the natural breaks being of course "no, that's it for tonight, you've had nearly two-thousand words of story, now go to sleep Christopher" - and the prose is somewhat whimsical, juvenile in places even.

   Brief overview of the story then - spoiler warning, if that needed to be said. Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit, who lives a quiet comfy life. Until, that is, a wizard called Gandalf comes round, and invites a dozen dwarves to his home for tea. Bilbo is not happy about this. It transpires that Gandalf and the dwarves (who are led by one particularly stern dwarf called Thorin) are planning a heist to recapture their ancestral kingdom from the dominion of a dragon called Smaug; and Bilbo is to be their party's burglar. Despite the notion of this adventure terrifying him at first, our eponymous hobbit acquiesces and finds himself soon leaving home with the wizard and dwarves. They have a short altercation with a trio of trolls, find a bunch of cool ancient weaponry, and continue into the mountains; however they are soon captured by goblins. Gandalf rescues them, but as they're running away through the mountain tunnels Bilbo falls down a ravine and becomes isolated. He finds a ring on the floor then meets a strange creature called Gollum, who lives in an underground lake, and, as is promptly made clear, wants very much to eat Bilbo - the pair have a contest of riddle-telling/solving, which Bilbo wins** when Gollum can't guess what's in his pocket (i.e. the ring). Gollum then decides to use his magic ring (same one as Bilbo has found) to turn invisible and eat the hobbit anyway, but Bilbo - no prizes for guessing this - uses the magic ring to turn invisible, and escapes. Meeting back up with the dwarves and Gandalf outside, the party evade goblins and wolves by the skin of their teeth and then go to visit a man called Beorn who can change into a bear. After this hospitality, Gandalf leaves them for business of his own wizardly kind, and the dwarves with Bilbo travel to the great forest Mirkwood, where they get lost, then captured by spiders, then liberated by Bilbo, then captured by elves, then liberated again by Bilbo (who is making great use of the ring by this stage). After escaping prison, they make their way down the river (quite literally, in barrels) to Lake Town, near the mountain where Smaug lives in the dwarves' old home with a shit-ton of treasure. The human inhabitants of Lake Town have mixed reactions to their arrival; some recall prophecies that when the dwarven king returns to take his throne prosperity will greatly increase in the region, while others think their meddling will just result in Smaug causing a load of carnage. Next, our party creeps up to Smaug's lair and Bilbo manages to sneak in through a secret door - once inside, and invisible obviously, he has a brief conversation with the dragon, and also manages to find the Arkenstone (a gem of immense value to Thorin), before sneaking back out. As the folk of Lake Town feared, it all does indeed backfire, and Smaug goes on a fiery rampage of destruction, until he is killed by an archer called Bard in something of an anti-climax. The dwarves' troubles aren't over yet though - once inside the mountain Thorin succumbs to "gold-madness" and gets very cross that he can't find the Arkenstone, while armies of goblins and wolves are drawing near, and an army of elves seeking revenge for the dwarves' jailbreak arrive and start asking for a share of the treasure (as apparently a fair bit of it was plundered from them by the dragon). Thorin gets increasingly paranoid, so Bilbo gives the Arkenstone to Gandalf and the elves for a bargaining chip. Then the evil armies arrive, there's a huge battle, Thorin is wounded badly, and dies after forgiving Bilbo; then all that's left to do is take his share of the treasure and travel home.

   In terms of my own reflections on it, I don't really have anything profound or even interesting to say - I just think this is a rollicking good story, one that entertains adults just as much as children, and breathes life into a fantastical world in ways few writers*** can pull off. Would of course highly recommend to anyone with a love of imaginative fiction, especially if you happen to be under the age of about twelve. Like, I first read it when I was six, and other than Gollum scaring the shit out of me I loved it to bits.

* I say "virtually" because it does in fact have nine black-and-white illustrations, as well as two maps, by Tolkien himself - but my edition has well over fifty full-colour illustrations as well as those original maps, so...

** One of the biggest injustices in Tolkien's whole canon, if you ask me. Never mind the fact that "what have I got in my pocket" is definitively not a riddle, if only Bilbo hadn't found the ring or even better given it back to Gollum when he realised it was the poor creature's property then Sauron would never have got wind of it and the wars at the end of the Third Age wouldn't have happened.

*** And even fewer film-makers - I mean, have you seen Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy? The first one is okay, but the second two are utterly awful - overall it falls so far short of Jackson's prior work on the LotR trilogy that it almost beggars belief. I mean, the main mistake was their need to make it into a trilogy at all. It should have been one single two-to-three hour film with Guillermo del Toro at the helm; and it should have retained the child-friendly fairy-story tone instead of selling itself as a tonal and narrative prequel to LotR - just - eurgh. Martin Freeman as Bilbo though was inspired casting.

Rebecca

This book, arguably the most famous novel by Daphne du Maurier, was another that I've been reading on my family holiday in Cornwall - where it is set, appropriately enough. In fact I acquired my copy of the book from Jamaica Inn when we were here last year - and as a tourist destination I would recommend this museum as a spotlight into 19th-century trade and culture. But enough said about that, onto the novel.*

   Narrated by an unnamed young woman, we are introduced to the high-society world of late-19th-century tourism. The narrator is working as a professional companion to a terrible lady on holiday in Monte Carlo, but her life is turned upside-down when she strikes up a relationship with Maxim, a handsomely wealthy man. She becomes his wife, quits her job, and travels with Maxim back to Manderley - his Cornish mansion/estate. However once there she soon finds herself becoming increasingly isolated in the bigness of the house and the rich shallowness of the life; and these factors are compounded by, in the flesh the creepy housekeeper Mrs Danvers, and in spirit by the memory of Maxim's first wife - Rebecca - who has been dead for several years. So follows a romantic mystery that I will not spoil here.

   I enjoyed this novel a lot more than I thought I would - historical romances not really being my favourite genre - and found myself shocked in many places at Maxim's cold treatment of his new bride, Mrs Danvers's scheming, and the unfolding of the plot. The characters (and alongside the main four I've already mentioned there are a wealth of side-characters) are extremely well-drawn and breathe vivacity and believability into the story, which is powerful in itself, and extremely skilfully told: du Maurier is a writer of immense subtlety and potency, and everything in this novel from the descriptions of Manderley's grounds to the narrator's inner turmoil are laid out in exquisite prose. I think leaving the narrator unnamed was a stroke of genius, as it really pulls you into her struggles in an empathic way.

   So, on reflection, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes period-piece drama/romance, with the caveat that what the story turns into is far more drama than romance - aside from, of course, Maxim's continuing obsession with the late eponymous Rebecca - and less strongly but still positively would recommend this if you just like a good novel. It's beautifully written, psychologically realistic, and narratively compelling; it will make you both envy and pity those who lived the kinds of lifestyles in the kinds of houses that these characters do.

* If you're into film versions, there are several - I've watched the classic old black-and-white version as well as the Netflix adaptation, and in all honesty enjoyed the latter more, but you do you.

Jurassic Park

This book is probably Michael Crichton's best-known novel. I am a big fan of the films* as most 90's kids typically are (who doesn't love dinosaurs?) and had read the book before - though way back when I was an easily-scared thirteen-year-old who wasn't thoughtful enough to get the most out of the story and its themes, so a reread was well overdue: as such I've been powering through it on holiday in Cornwall with my family.

   If you live under a rock and need a brief (spoiler free I promise) overview of what the book is about, here goes. An uber-rich science funder called Hammond has figured out a way of cloning dinosaurs by extracting their DNA from blood in mosquitoes fossilized in amber. His plan is to open a theme park where visitors can come a observe these ancient creatures doing what they do; but to settle various legal and ethical issues his project is (arguably unsurprisingly) suffering, he brings in a small team of experts to audit the park. Included among these are palaeontologist Alan Grant, palaeobotanist Ellie Sattler, and chaos theoretician Ian Malcolm. Everyone is blown away by the successes of the cloned dinosaurs - but the experts have their fair share of hesitations, which become more and more salient as the park starts to break down and the dinosaurs start causing violent havoc.

   On the surface this is already a great novel - an exciting, original premise; believable and well-sketched characters; deftly economic prose; pitch-perfect pacing. But it's the themes I really want to talk about. A good science fiction novel should force us to question not merely the ramifications within the story of what new scientific possibilities exist - it should prompt us to think about how those ramifications have implications for the conduct of science and culture in our actual reality. And this novel does that incredibly potently. Hammond's primary motives are profit and reputation; the problems and dangers with cloning creatures that have been extinct for 65million years or more barely occur to him. Hence the audit (during which, it is worth noting, the only "expert" who doesn't have strong reservations about the park is the lawyer who is on Hammond's payroll). The subtext prevalent throughout (often bubbling up via dialogue into the actual text also) provokes a great deal of thought about the ethical limits of science, what it means to "play God", surety and predictability, the natures of nature itself and the human relationship to it, and such.** However that is not to say at all that Crichton's novel is a mere think-piece - it is a powerful, compelling story in its own right, and helped change the game of what contemporary science-fiction could aspire to do. Plus the velociraptors are cool as heck.

   So - yes, I would immensely recommend this to anyone looking for a good read, even if you're not that big into conventional sci-fi as this (despite the dinosaurs, who in fairness are portrayed pretty much in just animalistic terms) stands up alongside more realistic novels on its own terms. Even if it weren't for the phenomenally successful film franchise it has spawned this will go on to become a modern classic.

* The original trilogy, that is (especially the first one, which is by far supreme). Jurassic World can do one; I haven't even bothered watching its sequels.

** A quick note on the "realisticness" of the science elements: Crichton has clearly done some not-inconsiderable legwork in his research into genetics, palaeontology, chaos theory, computer science and probably a couple of other fields I'm forgetting - and while it still requires some suspension of disbelief at least the characters in the narrative know what they're talking about. So even though one of the fundamental scientific premises of the novel has been debunked, if you're not too much of a nit-picker it still holds up as an internally-coherent and logically-satisfying fictionalization of science.

the Art of War

This book, the ancient Chinese classic by Sun Tzu, available for free online from that link, is one I've read before - and I don't really have anything new to say about it. I'm just re-reading to allow its insights to percolate a bit. Sorry for the disappointing post.

Tales from the Perilous Realm

This book is a collection of short fantastical stories* and poetry by J. R. R. Tolkien, master of the modern myth; as such they read like faerie tales. I will briefly describe each component in turn before a bit of reflection about the book as a whole.

• Farmer Giles of Ham: a farmer, named Giles, from a place called Ham, gets into a bit of a pickle with a giant, but after defeating it ends up becoming a seasoned blunderbuss-wielding adventurer even capable of overcoming a problematic dragon. Oh, and he has a dog that Tolkien is very keen to make sure all readers know is a cowardly idiot.
• The Adventures of Tom Bombadil: the collection of poems - ranging very little in style, but that doesn't matter because it's a nice familiar style. Most of them are about the life and attitudes towards nature of the eponymous Bombadil - remember he was that kind of pointless character from The Fellowship of the Ring - but several are more narrative and adventurous.
• Leaf by Niggle: an artist, Niggle, wants to paint a tree, but is so dedicated to his craft that after years of work he has only painted a single leaf despite the grandiose vision of his finished project in his head. Eventually he dies and sees "his tree" realised to its fullest in heaven.
• Smith of Wootton Major: a magical star gets baked into a cake, and a dude called Smith accidentally eats this star - which gives him the ability, unique among humans, to travel to and through the lands of Faery - you'd have thought he'd just shit it out or summat.

   So, there you have it. There are strong thematic elements that clearly spread out over all four "tales" included in the book, but no plot or character overlaps - which makes this collection a perfect bitesize way of experiencing Tolkien's unique style. And I know he hated allegory, so I will do him the justice of not trying to read any overarching metaphors into these tales - but in terms of applicability, which was a concern of his with regard to writing, there is a lot to take away from these stories. From Tom Bombadil's almost symbiotic relationship with the forest, to Niggle's dutiful perfectionism, to Smith's willingness to step into the unknown, to Farmer Giles's bravery - there's a lot going on here in terms of morals and messages.

   I would recommend this book to any Tolkien fan who has not yet read it - as herein you will find something perhaps more akin stylistically to The Hobbit but unconnected to Middle-Earth - which makes for a refreshing new taste of the great myth-maker's craft. Even if you haven't read any Tolkien at all, I'd recommend this book as something from which you can read to children, as I'm quite sure they were written with that "faerie tale" purpose in mind.

* Four of these - but the first one included in the book available from that link, Roverandom, is for some reason not included in the edition of the book that I have and read, hence why I'm only discussing three.

the Lord of the Rings: Appendices

This book is the seventh, and the only non-novel-component, of J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork. It comprises the appendix to the series proper - the reason for which I have done this as seven separate posts is that the books I own actually are seven separate books, which is the way the text was cut up in the original publications, a similar version of which I have linked above. But you know, these books are so famous that you'll probably easily find a version that suits you best - be it single-volume, triple, quadruple, seven[tuple]?

   Anyway. My six previous posts about this incredible trilogy are viewable below and devote themselves largely to summarising the plot - whereas in this final post I will give some more personal ruminations on the series itself and what it means to me. I will not be nitpicking changes between the books and movies, as Jess of the Shire is already doing that more than well enough; nor will I be relying on Tolkien's own philosophies of story, fantasy, language and interpretation to give any kind of exact statement of how one should read and imagine these characters in this world to be, as TolkienTrash already has a brilliant video covering that in-depth using queer readings as a launchpad. 

   A brief word on the appendices themselves: comprising timelines, family trees, pronunciation guides to the several languages Tolkien invented for/before this series, and historical overviews of events only alluded to in the main trilogy, as well as a bunch of other stuff - this is quite dry reading, but I love it because it shows how much depth and care Tolkien had for the imaginative consistency of this world he spent so long developing as a home for the languages he so lovingly created. I just think it's absolutely brilliant.

   That said though - ruminations on the whole series. I'll try to break these down into three main chunks:

1. Applicability of all the characters for a coherent moral framework: as is well-known among Tolkien nerds, he "cordially disliked allegory" and never meant for his stories to be taken as any sort of coherent real-world set of metaphors, instead preferring readers to simply enjoy the story on the merit of its linguistic beauties alone, and if deriving any lessons from what is told or done in the tales, to make these meanings themselves, knowing that there is a complex web of applicability built into the story so that many varying readings are possible and none completely wrong. That's a bold move from such an influential author - declaring his own death in the interpretative realm in the very prologue to his work, and saying "whatever this means to you, fine, let it mean that". But one aspect of this that I want to dive more deeply into is the non-allegorical but morally-consistent sense of Catholic virtue baked into the characters in the narrative, each with a universal lesson to teach a reader. Let me give a few examples:
• Frodo. We are all Frodo; sometimes called from the comforts of our known lives to undertake acts of bravery that scare and bewilder us, and we have to face those knowing we may fail.
• Sam.* We are all Sam; sometimes called by duty to support and uphold the struggles of our compatriots who are dealing with more than us, or even more than they can manage.
• Merry & Pippin. We are all "the spare hobbits"; free to attach ourselves, even ignorantly, to what seems like adventure or intrigue in the lives of our friends; and commendable when we achieve more in doing so than we could have ever expected.
• Gandalf. We are all Gandalf; expected to use our wisdom and experience to guide and protect those who are under our care.
• Aragorn. We are all Aragorn; expected to use our skill, strength and integrity to lead, inspire and fight for those who depend on us, also knowing that only by doing so can we become the men we are meant to be. (Sorry, there really aren't many female characters in these books. But my point stands.)
• Legolas & Gimli. We are all these dudes; worthy of utmost respect when we put aside our grudges to work together to repair generations-old wounds for the good of the world around us (especially when we're good at killing into the bargain).
• Boromir. We are all Boromir; capable of succumbing to temptation no matter how impenetrable we had thought our honour.
• Faramir. We are all Faramir; capable of overcoming temptation when not only our honour but the fate of the people we must defend is at stake.
• Eowyn. We are all Eowyn; to some degree boxed in by the norms and traditional expectations surrounding us, but capable of accomplishing incredible things when we throw off these shackles to carve our own path.
• Eomer. We are all Eomer; often thrust into geopolitical struggles that threaten our homes and families to extents that make us focus our anger outwards in ways we're not wholly safe in.
• Theoden. We are all Theoden; as devoted to our own realms as we may be, called to push past that factionalism and commit to international justice for the good of all.
• Treebeard. We are all Treebeard; often too stuck in our own little worlds, hoping that the troubles of the world will pass us by, even though we are strong enough to face those troubles decisively when we choose.
• Denethor. We are all Denethor; blinkered and thus prone to paranoia, and capable of abandoning our essential duties by giving up our hope.
• Saruman. We are all Saruman; far too susceptible to the lure of power even when we think ourselves too clever to become a victim of this trap, and so blind to the wretch we become when we fall into this.
• Galadriel. We aren't all Galadriel. Don't even try.
• Tom Bombadil. See Galadriel. Being as happy as him is worth a shot though.
• Gollum. We are all Gollum; there are things, vices or habits, in our life that can become so destructive that we become something unrecognisable even to ourselves, though we do not notice until those things are taken from us - and then we tend to lose our shit, and get into nasty patterns of untrustworthy neuroticism.
2. Richness of a lived-in world: Tolkien's worldbuilding is meticulous to the point of almost anal. Places' names have their own specific linguistic histories - they probably have numerous different names in different languages relating to when different people knew those places at different times. Same with people - Gandalf alone has at least four names I can think of off the top of my head. There are ruins that nobody remembers; there are scars on the landscape from battles millennia hence; there is a tangible sense of the shift shape of geopolitics between the lesser races watched over by the longevity and weariness of the elves; there is even, though religion is virtually unmentioned in the series itself, a strong sense of faith present in all the free folk - faith that the goodness with which Middle-Earth was created will ultimately always reassert itself, despite the temporal struggles it may be facing. The sheer depth to the massive history he made for this world is staggering - I mean, look at the dozen-or-so volumes The History of Middle-Earth that his son Christopher Tolkien has been painstakingly editing together out of his father's leftover notes. Frequent comparisons to George R.R. Martin are often made, but I haven't read Martin's works yet - so I'm reserving judgment on that particular for now.
3. You can tell how much fun he was having: though I'm sure it wasn't always an easy ride, Tolkien's love of language, and fantasy storytelling in particular, shines through on every page. Whether he's allowing Legolas to spend several paragraphs describing why the vibe of the trees in Fangorn Forest is so exciting only to be rebutted by Gimli spending several further paragraphs expounding the natural wonders of Helm's Deep's glittering caves; or whether it's writing entire stanzas of poetry in Elvish that a random character spits out and never bothers to even translate; or the bubbling undercurrent of good-humouredness and spirit - you really can just tell this was a labour of love. And that makes it all the lovelier to read.

   So there you have it. I read this whole series, excluding the appendix, when I was nine, and again when I was fifteen, so revisiting it with so much other reading and life-experience under my belt now truly was a delight. And I can't wait until I've finished reading enough other stuff to justify going back to it again. If you like reading for pleasure and beauty, these books are for you, even if you typically shun fantasy like the snob you are. If you love the movies but have never read these - oh man, there is so much extra depth you're missing out on.

* If you know the lore to even a halfway-accurate level, you will also approve of the fact that Sam is literally the only working-class character (other than maybe Gollum) in this whole list of main characters. All the rest of the major characters in this trilogy are royalty, aristocrats, or supernatural beings. Which - wtf, JRR?

Edit - obviously thematic interpretations of what Tolkien is saying these books are incredibly diverse, given the author's "cordial dislike of allegory in all its forms", and obviously a core thematic backbone throughout the trilogy is the Catholic ethic (expressed not allegorically but demonstratively), but I've just stumbled across a new YouTuber who summed up LotR's core theme in a profoundly succinct way: the conflict between "our desire to control the world against our need to control ourselves." Rich.

the Whitsun Weddings

This book is another poetry collection by Philip Larkin, and I enjoyed it just as much as the last one. Ignorance and the Importance of Elsewhere in particular resonated with me. I'm struggling however to learn much about the poetic craft itself from my readings of Larkin; skilled with words as he is it's quite hard to identify exactly what it is he's doing that is distinctive, but there certainly is something, as his poems ring with a style and character that is uniquely his. That said, I didn't read this just to steal ideas for my own poetic writings, and I did again very much enjoy it. A solid recommendation to anyone who likes original, striking poetry.

High Windows

This book is a collection of poetry by Philip Larkin, who I'd never seriously read before. I really enjoyed this collection; Larkin's poetry has an energy to it that I'm trying very hard to think of a better word than spunk - he takes relatively simple poetic forms and turns them into shocking, or funny, or unexpectedly both As Well As poignant things. This Be The Verse is probably my fave single poem from this collection, though that's probably just because I have a very amusing memory of a poet-friend of mine performing it live to the Match of the Day theme. All in all, a highly rewarding, engaging and accessible poetry collection.

the Lord of the Rings: book six

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the second half of the Return of the King, but deal with it mate) is the sixth and final instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post (and before you say "but that's this one!" there is a book of appendices, so eat your words), and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   Using the ring (oh did I not mention? It can turn you invisible) Sam sneaks into the tower of Cirith Ungol, and through a combination of dumb luck and the orcs' predilection for fighting each other they manage to escape. Then they trudge the long, slow, dark path across Mordor toward the volcano - Mount Doom, as it is so aptly named. When they get there however Frodo succumbs to the temptation of the ring and refuses to destroy it - but Gollum, who since Shelob's lair has been following the pair, loses his shit and bites the ring (finger and all) off Frodo's hand - only to fall into the lava when dancing about in victory. And so the ring is destroyed, Sauron is vanquished, and his forces lose all morale - which is great, because meanwhile at the gates of Mordor there are all the armies of good taking their final stand, which they suddenly win. Giant eagles show up and rescue Frodo & Sam from Mount Doom, taking them to safety. They meet up with resurrected-Gandalf and the remainder of the fellowship, celebrate a bit - then Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor, and after an entire chapter of people basically just saying farewells we follow a much-condensed journey home; back to the Shire with the hobbits. However the Shire has been taken over and industrialised by Saruman - though compared to everything our four hobbits have been through, this is small beans: they mobilise a large civil resistance against the evil wizard and confront him, only for him to then simply be stabbed in the back by his lackey. The work of rebuilding the Shire as an idyllic rural society begins, aided by Sam's gift from Galadriel of magical soil (idk). However - despite the happy endings all round - Frodo is still haunted by the wound he received all the way back in book one, and so he makes the choice to sail into the West, into the elven afterlife pretty much, with Gandalf and Galadriel and a few others, including his uncle Bilbo.

   And that's how it ends.

the Lord of the Rings: book five

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the first half of the Return of the King, but deal with it mate) is the fifth instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post, and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   Gandalf arrives with Pippin at Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor, where they try to warn the steward Denethor (as Gondor hasn't had a king for ages) of impending dangers. Meanwhile, the Rohirrim (as in the cavalry of Rohan) are mustering for war, including Merry and Theoden's badass niece Eowyn; but Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli have gone off on a side-quest to try to persuade a bunch of ghosts to fight alongside them, which the ghosts agree to because SURPRISE yep you guessed it Aragorn is the rightful King of Gondor and therefore the only person who can command the ghosts' loyalty. Back in Gondor things are bad; orcs and their allies are pouring out of Mordor and laying siege to the defences - fortunately the Rohirrim arrive in time to make a big difference to the climactic battle on the fields surrounding Minas Tirith, and when the defeat of the good guys hangs in the balance, Aragorn turns up with his army of ghosts, who win the day. Faramir and Eowyn (the latter of whom, with Merry's help, had in fact killed the leader of Sauron's wraiths) have both been wounded, and Denethor (assuming Faramir [his son] to be dead and knowing that Boromir [his other son] is actually dead too) tries to burn Faramir on a funeral pyre - fortunately Pippin intervenes, saving the life of the steward-in-waiting. Aragorn uses his skills as a healer to bring Eowyn and Faramir back to full health, and then an intense debate ensues about what to do next about Mordor - where it is finally decided that the remainders of Gondor's and Rohan's armies will ride right up to Mordor's gates, to draw out all the orcs within so that Frodo & Sam have a clear run to the volcano where they must destroy the ring. Unsurprisingly this turns out to be quite a big battle.

   But that's where this penultimate instalment ends...

the Lord of the Rings: book four

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the second half of the Two Towers, but deal with it mate) is the fourth instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post, and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   Herein, rather than following the men and wizards and whatnot, we follow Frodo and Sam's journey toward Mordor - which gets off to a rocky start when Gollum (an ex-hobbit who had the ring for about five-hundred years before Bilbo found/stole it off him) sneaks up on them: despite his probable treachery, the hobbits decide that they need Gollum to show them the way, as he's been to Mordor before, unlike them. They take a shortcut across marshes full of ghosts, and sooner-than-you'd-expect reach the gates of Mordor - which are incredibly heavily-guarded, so they plan to find another way in. However along their route they are captured by Gondorian captain Faramir - who is quite suspicious of them, especially Gollum, whom he nearly orders to be killed. However the hobbits manage to make a good impression on Faramir and he releases them, with a warning to trust neither Gollum nor the route he's taking them. It turns out Gollum has been leading them to an incredibly precarious stair cut into the side of the mountains that surround Mordor, and at the top of this stair is a tunnel that is home to Shelob (an evil giant spider basically). Sam had become separated from Frodo & Gollum during the climb, and without anyone to look after him Frodo is incapacitated by Shelob - which is exactly what Gollum wanted, so he could take the ring back once the hobbit had been eaten. However Sam shows up in the nick of time, and with a combination of sheer ballsiness and the magical phial that Galadriel gave to Frodo, he manages to fight Shelob away from his friend and master. Unfortunately, Sam assumes that Frodo is dead - he is merely paralysed by Shelob's venom - and hesitates a bit too long, giving orcs from the nearby tower of Cirith Ungol the chance to stumble across Frodo's body. Naturally, they take him as a prisoner back to the tower, leaving Sam in quite a bind. Thank goodness he had the foresight to take the ring off Frodo just before the orcs turned up.

   That's it for book four...

the Lord of the Rings: book three

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the first half of the Two Towers, but deal with it mate) is the third instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post, and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   It's a mess, guys. Boromir has been killed by orcs, trying to defend Merry and Pippin, who themselves have been taken captive by aforementioned orcs, and with Frodo & Sam gone off on their own it falls to Aragorn to figure out what to do with the remainder of the fellowship. Along with Legolas and Gimli, he decides to pursue the orcs to rescue the hobbits. They soon run into men of Rohan, the horse-based civilisation, who are also pursuing the orcs. The men of Rohan in fact meet and battle and defeat the orcs holding Merry & Pippin prisoner - and the hobbits escape into the forest where they meet an ent (sentient tree basically) called Treebeard (sigh, yes, top marks to Tolkien for this character name despite the fact that ents have a language all of their own). Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli find the ruin from this battle and follow the tracks into the forest, where SURPRISE they meet a resurrected new-and-improved Gandalf - who tells them that much is afoot. The four of them travel to the capital of Rohan to talk with King Theoden, who is under a spell from the evil wizard Saruman: fortunately Gandalf is able to break the spell and they talk some sense into Theoden about all the orcs running amok. The men of Rohan muster at a keep called Helm's Deep, where there is a massive battle against Saruman's orcs (okay I know they're called uruk-hai technically but I'm trying to keep this summary as accessible to non-LOTR-fans as I can), which the forces of good manage to win. Afterward they travel to Isengard, where Saruman lives, and discover that Merry & Pippin are already there - not to mention the fact that it's flooded and ruined, because the hobbits managed to convince the ents to destroy it. Saruman tries to sway the good guys with his magical voice but fails. Pippin finds a magical seeing-ball (called a Palantir) in the wreckage and is intrigued by it - he looks into it (against Gandalf's warnings) and has a brief moment of connection with Sauron, who was on the other end.

   And that's where book three leaves off...

the Lord of the Rings: book two

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the second half of the Fellowship of the Ring, but deal with it mate) is the second instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post, and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   So soon enough Frodo with his elf-guardian arrive at Rivendell, and the master there, another elf named Elrond, is able to save him from his dagger-wound. Sam, Merry, Pippin and Aragorn soon arrive, and the five of them meet up with Gandalf, who has been waiting for them. We then meet a bunch of new people, including Gondorian military leader Boromir, another elf named Legolas, and a dwarf called Gimli; then Elrond calls a council, in which all characters already named and present attend, so that representatives of all the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth can decide what to do about the ring. It is decided that it must be destroyed - only the catch is it can only be destroyed by being cast into the volcano where it was forged, in Mordor - Sauron's dark realm. Frodo, almost by default, is chosen as the ring-bearer; and the other three hobbits, as well as Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas and Gimli all join his party - which is termed the fellowship of the ring. They set off on their journey towards Mordor, or at least in that general direction. Crossing the mountains proves problematic so they take a shortcut through the dwarven kingdom of Moria, where they discover that goblins have taken over and killed pretty much all the dwarves. Then a balrog (a kind of fiery demon type thing) shows up and everyone just about manages to escape - only after Gandalf sacrifices himself to defeat it. Escaping from Moria the remaining fellowship make their way to the elven realm of Lothlorien, where Frodo tries to offer the ring to elf-leader-lady Galadriel - who is tempted, but refuses to take it. After leaving Lothlorien laden with individual gifts from Galadriel, the fellowship realise that they are being pursued by orcs, and in the confusion Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo (who manages to get away, and takes a boat to continue his journey alone but for Sam).

   And that's where book two leaves off...

the Lord of the Rings: book one

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the first half of the Fellowship of the Ring, but deal with it mate) is the first instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post, and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   So there's a hobbit called Frodo, whose uncle Bilbo found a magic ring fifty years previously. After the party for Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday (don't @ me it's literally what hobbits call 111 as a number) the wizard Gandalf persuades Bilbo to leave the ring to Frodo along with everything else before he [i.e. Bilbo] wanders off into a retirement (not that he ever had a job I don't think) of meandering around the world talking to elves and whatnot. Gandalf then goes off and does a lot of research about magic rings, as the Dark Lord Sauron crafted a ring of great and nefarious power many ages ago, and this ring has been lost to time; seventeen years after Bilbo's party, Gandalf returns to the Shire (where the hobbits live) and confirms that Frodo's ring is indeed this lost evil artefact. Gandalf tells Frodo to head to the elven town Rivendell for further consideration of what to do with the ring. So soon after Frodo sets off with his gardener Sam; they run into their friends Merry and Pippin, and the four of them proceed on their journey. After they all nearly get eaten or drowned by a mean tree, they are rescued by a mysterious man called Tom Bombadil, who is utterly brilliant and totally pointless and 100% just an author-insert so Tolkien could rove around Middle-Earth as a borderline-omnipotent forest-dweller. Bombadil rescues them again (this time from ghosts) and sends them on their way, until they eventually reach the village of Bree - where they realise they are being pursued by wraiths, agents of Sauron himself. They meet a ranger called Strider who leads them on, and while camping on a hill called Weathertop the wraiths attack and their leader stabs Frodo with a magical dagger. Aragorn (as in Strider - you didn't think Strider was his real name did you? idiots) fights off the wraiths and a friendly elf shows up to ride Frodo to Rivendell before he succumbs to his wound.

   And that's where the first instalment ends...

A Guide for the Perplexed

This book by E. F. Schumacher is an attempt to develop a simple, cohesive, holistic philosophy that anyone can access and use in their own thought and life. While I don't think his proposed system necessarily achieves all that much in terms of engaging with actual philosophical issues and questions, it certainly does achieve its goal of putting forward a simple, cohesive, holistic system, so props to Fritz for that - especially given that he isn't building academically on ideas from previous philosophers, but developing an entirely new "map" (as he calls them) for inquiry.

   I will only extremely briefly give an overview of the book: he starts with the conception of philosophy as the provision of maps for thought, then discusses levels of being within the natural order, then considers that everything in its own teleological context must be "adequate" to its aim or goal, then treats in turn the four fields of knowledge and how we best engage them, then finally closing on an examination of the two distinct kinds of philosophical problem/question. Schumacher's writing is as non-scholarly and accessible as it is lively and engaging, and his actual system of thought has a great spirit of generosity to it - though ethics and politics aren't directly treated in his book, there are clear linkages between his metaphysical, epistemic and methodological sections that if taken seriously and followed would lead one into a far humbler (and therefore may we assume) more morally-integrated kind of life.

   I would recommend this book to anyone, even those uninterested in philosophy, as it functions not so much as a treatise on this or that particular arcane issue but as an orientation to systemic thinking along the same lines as Schumacher himself, and while I obviously never knew the man and so cannot say exactly to what degree he was right about everything, he is clearly (going also from Small is Beautiful, another book of his on economics) a man who thinks deeply, well, and with a great optimism for what humankind may be capable of were we only to slow down once in a while.

William Blake: the Complete Poems

This book is, as you probably guessed from the title, a complete collection of William Blake's poetic works, edited by Alicia Ostriker (who I presume also wrote the end-notes, which are of great help in getting the best out of this most-mystical of poets).

   What is there to really say? Blake was a romantic visionary so far ahead of his time that only now, nearly two centuries after his death, are we starting to catch up with the core essence of his writing. Be they the iconoclastic inclusive philosophy expressed in All Religions Are One, or the sheer depth of generosity-of-spirit and creativity with the written word as in his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (which together map out a thoroughly-interesting transition of how Blake changed as he aged between the two), or the spiky theological ruminations of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; and heck, I haven't even got to the best part - his epics. The unfinished draft of The Four Zoas, and the illuminated works Milton (which I was reading alongside this) and Jerusalem; the complete collection is worth buying just for these three oh-so-meaty texts. Herein Blake develops his own idiosyncratic-yet-coherent mythology, telling allegorical stories about Creation, the Fall, psycho-spiritual being in time, eschatology, and probably much more through the lens of his mythic figures (the "zoas") and their emanations. I wanted, in this post, to be able to summarise (or even adequately describe) these works, but I feel they are such in complexity, richness and depth that any attempt on my part to do so would detract from them. Let it merely be said that they truly warrant the label of "epic" as they put John Milton's best efforts to shame, and they are so thought-provoking in their twists, turns and sleights-of-hand (especially if you're using the end-notes to their fullest potentials) that you will come away from them changed.

   At the heart of all Blake's writing is the premise that imagination is the active home of the human spirit - and therefore that liberty and creativity and all their products are somewhat holy. His writing is accessible enough, perhaps surprisingly, but his ideas are enormous; tending to be either so simple in their holistic scope that they can be grasped easily enough, or else their meanings hidden under the obfuscations and elusive complexities of his mythological system. His understanding of God and biblical living are, weirdly, deeply orthodox - and yet what he does and seeks to imply from those doctrines is utterly unlike anything any poet I've come across even thinks about, let alone attempts to systematize into written form. Dismissed in his own lifetime as "an unfortunate madman" (as a reviewer of one of his art* shows put it), Blake has nonetheless had an immense impact on the development of poetic thought and practice - he was a lodestone to the Beats, he's a major influence on Kae Tempest, and he continues to draw speculative and analytic attention from the scholarly wing of creative writing to a degree unrivalled by most poets.

   I wish Blake were alive today, as his reactions to and/or against the myriad strangenesses of contemporary society would be just as left-field and potent as his responses to the problems and contradictions of his own day. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in poetry, mythology, theology, philosophy or spirituality; especially if you yourself are a poet you will find a wide wealth of inspiration from what he does and how he does it. Even if you have no interest in the fields I mentioned above, there are certainly things in here that would make you think and feel in a more open, receptive, gracious way - and surely that's one of the points of poetry?

* Yes, as well as a poet he was an accomplished visual artist. Which is maybe to be expected given that he worked most of his life as an engraver. I had the privilege last year to visit an exhibition of his work in London, and can only say that his paintings are just as weird, epic, and inspiring as his poems.

Paradise Lost

This book, the classic epic novel by John Milton, was a bit of a surprise. I mean, I knew it was about the Fall of humankind as described in Genesis 3, and I knew that Satan was the main character - but that's pretty much the extent of what I knew about it going in. Little could have prepared me for how truly, deeply, epic it actually is - and I'm using that word "epic" not in the modern sense of "yeh just really great" but in the traditional sense of scale and scope. Here we have depicted, in floral prose and incredible monologues, the war in Heaven that precedes the rebellion of Satan against God - and this war is descriptively depicted at quite some length, as are the metaphysical realms in which it takes place. A powerful work of imagination that has had an immense impact on the subsequent developments not only in poetic form but actual theology. I would recommend this book to anyone with a modicum of interest in what I will term "moral-theological" poetry, with no caveats as to the beliefs of the reader - even non-Christians will find Satan a compelling, if still ultimately evil, character. Adam and Eve likewise are well-developed and the reasoning around their being tempted by the Devil (and obviously succumbing to this temptation) is extremely cogent. This book wholly deserves its status as a classic. The only real gripe I have with it that I can think of is that Milton makes heavy usage of references that you basically need a degree in Classics to understand, so get a version with explanatory footnotes.

the Book of Chuang Tzu

This book, along with the Tao Te Ching, is one of the foundational texts of the ancient Chinese religion/philosophy called Taoism; traditionally credited to Chuang Tzu*, though in actuality he is unlikely to have written more than the first seven chapters of its thirty-three.

   When I read Lao Tzu's work I reflected that I could no longer in the spirit of intellectual honesty consider myself anymore only a Christian - but that I must be some kind of Taoist as well: and on reading Chuang Tzu's philosophy now too, I wholeheartedly embrace this polyreligious side to my own life and mind. The work presented in this book is utterly unlike any philosophical system or idealized religion anywhere else - it performs its functions through extended usage of parable, often humourous** and somewhat absurd, never less than thrillingly thought-provoking. Many of his little stories revolve around natural phenomena and processes and how they relate to the Tao; many are to do with governance or management and the follies of humanity in regard to these; quite a few are simply sideways (generous but still) jabs at Confucianism, which are among the most radical in their philosophical position. I will make no bones about the fact that this book is one I am completely unequipped to be able to summarize or even overview to any degree that really does it justice - I can only say that this text has stuck in my brain and fundamentally altered my perceptive attitudinal modes of being in ways that very few other things have, perhaps nothing other than the Bible itself. Which is odd, considering that while it has a great deal to imply about the nature of faith, goodness, transcendence, etc - Chuang Tzu says virtually nothing about what Western thought would call God. Instead focus is given to the lived experience of humans as creatures, in their quest for meaning and purpose, failing to find it anywhere they do not surrender themselves to the overriding principles of the Tao - and though "wu wei"*** is a core concept in the work, much of what the thinkers who composed this book have to say is actually of a deep and profound practicality in reference to activity, thought and spirituality.

   I absolutely loved this book. It challenged me throughout, while also liberating me into a bigger sensitivity toward the world and its contents and contradictions. It made me think, made me laugh, made me aware of my smallness as well as my potentialities - all the while being nothing less than a superbly well-written series of supremely idiosyncratic anecdotal little happenings, ponderings, reflections and recollections. If you are the least bit interested in Chinese history and culture, in philosophy or spirituality more generally - I cannot recommend this book enough. Chuang Tzu may not have written the whole thing but his spirit pervades it, and in truth he has become one of my few favourite thinkers from across all time and space.

* For an excellent all-age accessible introduction to this dynamic historic personality, check out this delightfully and appropriately idiosyncratic Chinese (with English subtitles fortunately) cartoon series documenting his life, work and influence.

** I shit you not, in places it is actually hilarious. You'd never laugh this much reading, say, the Talmud, were you to approach them even with the same spirit of openness.

*** Wu wei means "actionless action", "non-action" or something like that - it's a complex phrase to translate, but essentially means not striving toward a pre-determined goal, instead merely being content to follow the natural flow of events and things as they are in themselves, and acting only when spontaneous context compels you to act freely. I think, anyway. If you're a Taoist sage reading this and want to correct me please do so in the comments, though given the inherent notion within the Tao of not contending, I recognize you are unlikely to do so.

the Holy Bible

This book* is, you probably need no explanation, the foundational Scripture of Christianity, the world's biggest (and my primary) religion. It is the most widely-translated and best-selling book in human history. I haven't listed an author for this book for three main reasons:

1. It's not "a book" so much as sixty-six texts, some a page long, others spanning large chunks, all organised together into what is more like a library
2. Many of the texts in the book are either anonymously composed or their authorship (as attested by Judeo-Christian tradition) is contested by scholarship
3. As a Christian it is my belief that the Bible is the divinely-inspired word of God, but it feels odd to list my Creator as a mere author

   What's it all about then? In a nutshell, God's liberation of humanity. In less-of-a-nutshell though, I will try to give a succinct and satisfying summary of the overarching narrative found in this book. Hold onto your hats, this is going to be a long paragraph. You probably know the rough shape of how it starts - "in the beginning" God creates the universe, including humanity. The first humans, Adam and Eve, live in total harmony with God, each other, and the world; that is, until a serpent persuades them to do the one thing they have been told they cannot do - eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil - and in punishment they are pushed out into a world that now suffers, as they do. They have children and populate the Earth, etc. The next big things that happen are that God, in frustration at the evil humanity is perpetrating, decides to wipe out humankind with a flood - survived only by Noah and his family, and two of every animal to repopulate the wild; next is again humanity acting out of a sense of cosmic superiority and trying to build a tower to Heaven, which results in God scattering them into a whole host of differing nations and languages. Then we meet a man called Abraham, to whom God promises land, innumerable descendants, and great blessings: so we follow him for a bit, then his son Isaac, then Isaac's son Jacob, who meets and literally wrestles with God and is thus renamed Israel (and yes, I did hear the Bible-novices among you just go "ohhh!"). Jacob's dozen sons settle in Egypt, where they multiply to such an extent that they are made slaves by the Egyptian state. With the help of God sending ten plagues on the Egyptians, a man called Moses liberates the Israelites from slavery and leads them into the wilderness on their journey to the land promised to Abraham: along the way, God legislates a system of laws for them, including the Ten Commandments (which I'm assuming you've heard of) alongside a meticulous programme for appropriate sacrifices and such. Moses dies, but under the leadership of his second, a man called Joshua, the Israelites conquer and settle the promised land. Then things fall apart a bit. Everyone starts eroding in their respect for God's law, and even under the stewardship of a string of prophetic/military leaders called judges, they rebel against it again and again. Eventually the Israelites decide they want a king to lead them, like the other nations; God says this isn't a great idea but nevertheless concedes, but (aside from a short but high-impact Golden Age under the reigns of David, who wrote a great number of poems about the God-ward life, and wise thinker Solomon, who built the temple) the Israelites, just as under the judges, fall into cyclical patterns of rebellion and repentance - with even their kings becoming [a-bit-more-than]-occasional idolaters, tyrants and so on. To nudge Israel back onto the right track, God starts sending prophets - some, like the early Elijah, to confront ungodly kings directly; others like the later Ezekiel and Jeremiah to mourn the godlessness of Israel and expound messages of redemptive hope. In the prophets we read of God's judgement against the nations surrounding Israel as well as against Israel herself - in fact, several of the prophets foretold that Israel would be colonized by the Babylonians and Assyrians, which she was.** Prophets like Daniel continued their work of realizing God's plans for them even during this period of exile; and we begin to see the emergence within God's speeches the specific promise of a messiah, a redeemer, who would wholly and totally liberate Israel from sin and death. Eventually the Israelites are allowed to return home and rebuild their temple, and this more-or-less concludes the Jewish section of the Bible, known in Christianity as the Old Testament - called such because here comes the New Testament. This next (much shorter) Christian section of the Bible begins with the coming in Bethlehem of a man called Jesus, whose birth had been promised to a woman named Mary, a faithful virgin. Jesus grows up and becomes a radical peripatetic rabbi - accruing an enormous number of followers (a core twelve hand-picked by him at the start of his ministry and many more just following him as he goes along because they were intrigued and liberated by what he had to say), healing people, casting out demons, telling parables, pissing off the religious authorities, etc. In a bizarre twist, despite their devotion to him, Jesus's followers didn't really understand who he was - that is to say, the messiah promised in the prophets; especially in the prophetic writings of Isaiah, who had foretold that Israel's messiah would be misunderstood and rejected by them, and ultimately killed. Next, you guessed it - Jesus is killed: betrayed by one of his disciples, taken before the religious and political leaders (at this time in Israel's history it was a Roman colony) and condemned to crucifixion. However our story continues; three days after his death several female followers of Jesus find his tomb empty, and sure enough he then reappears, resurrected from the dead, to his disciples - with the express intent of assuring their conviction that yes he was and eternally is the messiah, and sin has been defeated, and the disciples are to kick-start the task of bringing this good news to the world. Jesus ascends into heaven and the disciples go about their God-given task, only to be heavily persecuted by the Jewish religious authorities and met with ridicule by the predominant Hellenistic culture surrounding Israel. A member of the suppressive class, a man who came to be known as Paul, was challenged by a vision of Jesus, and became a co-worker with the disciples in spreading the good news of Jesus's death and resurrection. Most of the rest of the New Testament is letters written by Paul and other disciples like Peter to various churches around the Roman Empire, exhorting them to continue the work of spreading the good news and developing the huge theological points implied by Jesus's teaching, life, death, and undeath. Finally we close off the whole thing with an apocalyptic series of visions revealed to Jesus's disciple John about the consummation of God's plans for world history.

   I hope that was enough of an introductory overview. Whether you're an ardent Christian fundamentalist who thinks everything I've just talked about is the utterly-literally-true history of our world, or a hardcore skeptic who thinks some (or quite a lot maybe) of it is little more than fanciful myth; it cannot be denied that in the Bible is a wealth of wisdom and historical reflection that can deepen and sharpen our hearts and minds. Reading the Bible is ideally an inherently radical act of self-emptying submission to the truth of God, in our efforts to make sense of its narratives and teachings.

   So, there's an excellent Christian quote by I-forget-whom; "one should visit many good books, but live in the Bible," and I hold to this as an approach to literature. I read parts of the Bible as a regular part of both my devotional life in relationship with God and my philosophical life in all my seeking for a satisfyingly-developed and coherent worldview. The reason I'm doing a post about it now is that I finished reading it cover-to-cover - and while throughout my life I've probably read most of the Bible multiple times or at least once, this was the first time I've worked through the whole thing as a singular entity.

   Would I recommend this book then, verily the book of books? Yes, cautiously, with caveats. It is a complicated library, that spans a narrative of over two-thousand years, and many parts are pretty impenetrable even to people who have devoted their entire lives to studying them; to get the most out of the Bible it is probably recommended (certainly is by me) that you read it alongside commentary, theology and doxology.*** And while I do believe that engaging with the Bible can, in the hopeful light of the Holy Spirit, lead one into a real meaningful relationship with our God - it has to be approached with a certain degree of humility and open-mindedness; as a non-believer who is diving in to try to find justificatory ammunition in their efforts to repudiate Christianity will likely be able to find a lot in there for their purposes, but this would be a misuse/misunderstanding of the text.**** This book is neither a moral rulebook nor a philosophical treatise on reality - it is primarily an account of God's relationship with humanity through the specific lens of ancient Israel, coming to its climax in the life and person of Jesus, who was God incarnate. Come to the Bible with an expectancy that God will meet you halfway and testify to you about Himself, breaking into your heart with liberating conviction, and you're on the right track.

* Over 150 translations of the Bible are available for free from that link. The version I finished was the New King James Version, though for the majority of my reading I tend to use either the English Standard Version or the New Living Translation; as I'm not familiar enough with the breadth of versions out there I can't make any solid recommendations as to exactly what would be the best fit for you, so try out a variety, but for newcomers who have never read the Bible and would like something both accessible and accurate to the ancient texts from which our modern forms are translated, I'd go with the New International Version.

** A quick note on "prophets" - the contemporary understanding of this term has been boiled down to a bastardisation that merely conveys predictions about the future, in a similar kind of category to "seer" or even "wizard". But in the biblical sense, a prophet is someone with a particularly close relationship to God who seeks to share this relationship with those around them by both denouncing the godlessness of others' lives and pointing to the hopes of redemption and true betterness when people return to right relation with God; visions of the future are merely the means by which God's promises and goodness are mediated from eternity into humankind's experience of time.

*** For starters, though there are many theological and doxological texts that I've reviewed for this blog, I wouldn't highlight any one book as I don't know how or where you're going to start your Bible journey - but this YouTube channel, the Bible Project, has some truly fantastic resources for getting to grips with particular books and concepts.

**** Any problems, intellectual or moral or otherwise, that you have with either the Bible or Christianity, are too wide-ranging for me to address here - but if you have a bone to pick do so in the comments and I'll do my best to reply with honesty and humility.