The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli →
The Prince was written as a handbook for rulers, not as a guide to finding the ideal, but focused on the reality that would-be leaders would face and have to deal with. The book brought the philosophy of political manipulation and differentiating truth from the "effectual" truth to become essential skills, and the mastery of these skills was considered "Machiavellian.
The Prince's general theme is accepting that princes' aims – such as glory and survival – can justify using immoral means to achieve those ends. Princes were advised to appear virtuous but not with a motive. Machiavelli wrote that a strong military was essential, and the best laws flowed from their presence. He noted that it was necessary for a prince if he wanted to remain in power not to be hated by the people, but he also of hatred and love for the leader were much safer than being feared by the people.
Quotes by Machiavelli
“There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.”
“Never was anything great achieved without danger.”
“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”
“Everyone sees what you appear to be; few experience what you are.”
“If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”
“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.
Devoted, by Dean Koontz →
Woody Bookman is 11 years old and has not spoken a word. He lives with his widowed mother, Megan, but spends a lot of time in an imaginary world with virtual resources. His father was killed in a helicopter crash, and Woody uses the dark web to find out what happened.
Kipp is a Golden Retriever and one of a special few advanced dogs who can communicate with each other and even read. They hear each other’s thoughts on something they refer to as the wire. They call themselves the Mysterium. If you have read Koontz’s “Watchers,” Kipp is very much the same character. Both dogs care deeply about their masters.
The plot seems to involve more subplots than needed. When Kipp’s caretaker dies, her estate and ownership of Kipp transfer to the former housekeeper, who is with us through the rest of the book, for some reason?
Multi-billionaire Dorian is the CEO of Refine, a multibillion-dollar division of his more giant conglomerate, and he has Lee Shacket running the company as COO. Everyone is killed except Shacket, who runs away and becomes a monster. Shacket had worked with Woody’s father before he died, and he remembers Megan and decides to go after her. After some grizzly deaths, he finds Megan and tells her saying. "I am becoming the king of beasts," boasting his new powers.
I thought the plot was messy. The violence might have been the book’s focus, but several things tried to be the focus. This book was a disappconsistentlynt for an author who has always delivered attention-grabbing plots and characters. If you want to read about a Golden Retriever who has everything going for him as Kipp does and gets a grand scheme to work with, read Watchers by Dean Koontz.
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America, by Bill Bryson →
This book received only a 2 STARS review
The Lost Continent had been lost primarily to Bill Bryson. He returns from spending a decade in England, where he had spent a decade polishing his skill after growing up in Des Moines, Iowa. The comedy begins on the first page when he says, “I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.” Flippant approach to comedy, and it is mostly downhill from this point.
He returns to attend his father’s funeral and decides to explore the US by driving around it. For a better approach to that plot, check out John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. It is a great book and perhaps was the inspiration for Byson, but the attempt at the theme is similar, but Bryson’s version is not that good.
The plot unfolds with him crisscrossing the nation, complaining, and wisecracking most of the way, visiting mainly small towns. Bryson's grandparents' Iowa house, he tells us, is merely a "shack" surrounded by "cheap little houses." Mostly he finds plenty to complain about. His attempt to be positive comes with scenes like the Grand Canyon and the baseball Hall of Fame.
Finally returning to Des Moines, he declares that what he sees are all that make this city “friendly, decent and nice.” How convenient the only place he finds worth like that is his hometown.
Bryson may seem funnier and smoother if you have read all his books and allow him to be on the pedestal he preaches from
#bookreview
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman →
Fredrik Backman’s latest novel, Anxious People, brings together various characters at an apartment viewing when you first encounter them. They seem like a band of misfits that each have their own confusing story, but eventually, your perception changes and they steal the show.
The story takes place in a Swedish small-town the day before New Year’s Eve and is an odd time for the events to take place, but the unusual storyline pulls us in as we try to see how all the connections fit into the plot.
The story starts with a distraught parent, short on rent and afraid of losing child custody, failing miserably to rob a bank to get rent money. It is a cashless bank, and with the failed attempt, the robber, who is wearing a ski mask and carrying a toy handgun, escapes to a nearby apartment building walking into an open house, apartment viewing, and unintentionally turns the event into an extraordinary hostage situation.
Inside that apartment, eight diverse, quite different people who were strangers before that day are checking out an apartment for sale. When confronted by the bank robber, they receive a tearful apology and are told, “I’m having quite a complicated day here!”
These strangers do not seem lovable or even likable at first; they all seem to carry a lifetime of grievances and hurtful events of their own, and soon they all seem to be boiling over.
Backman’s writing style is immediately recognizable, but the story’s outcome is a surprise. The book is excellent and is not only just a joy to read but a focus on human nature worth reading.
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People Quotes
“The truth is that if people were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet because no one having a perfect day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.”
“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past were all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. We are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”
#bookreview
Moby-Dick: by Herman Melville, A Review →
Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville, was rated by “The Guardian” as #17 in the top 100 best novels ever written. Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Why Read Moby-Dick” claims that he read the book more than a dozen times, adding that he thinks this is the most outstanding American Novel ever written. It is too bad Melville didn’t get this feedback during his lifetime. Nathaniel Hawthorne and several well-known writers that day told Melville that they also saw the book as a masterpiece. Still, even with that, it didn’t even outsell Melville’s earlier books.
The story begins, “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago-never mind how long precisely having little or no money in my purse and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”
Ishmael is the narrator, and Captain Ahab enters the Pequod, ready to sail. It takes 135 chapters to tell the story of his search to revenge himself on the great white whale that had bitten off his leg. He plots and plans and chases the “hooded phantom” across the oceans, and he feels as though he is fighting the God that becomes part of the symbolism of the whale. The story becomes an investigation into the meaning of life.
As the Pequod and crew chase the great white whale, they meet other ships advising where the whale was last seen. They do kill and process several whales. Sperm oil is cooled to congeals and then squeezed back into the liquid state; blubber is boiled in pots on the deck, and warm oil is decanted into casks and stowed in the ship. Whale meat is eaten, and we learn more than we ever expected about whales and even squid, which is a crucial food for whales. The book is rich in technical information about whales which in a day when so much of the world needed and depended on whale oil was necessary.
Much has been written about the philosophy and meaning conveyed by this story. Ahab believes that Moby Dick is evil because he bit his leg off and that he needs to learn why it happened. He assumes he will know a great truth. This may lend to the idea that symbolically, the “whiteness” of the whale meant something, but Melville denied it.
The Epilogue offers us a quote from Job 1:14-19, “And I only am escaped alone to tell thee…..” Job, it seemed, had lost everything but on the Pequod. Who was that last survivor who lost everything? Does the Epilogue seem to tell us that it is Ishmael? Whether Ishmael was just an imaginative character or a real one isn't clear, but he was the story’s narrator. He tells us that "It so chanced…that I was he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab's bowsman."
It seems that both Job and Ishmael survived their ordeal because, as we’re told, they escaped so someone would be left to tell us the story.
Quotes from Moby-Dick
“Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.“ “It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts.”
“Ignorance is the parent of fear.”
“Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.”
“for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.”
The Archivist by Martha Cooley
Matthias Lane is 65 years old and, in every way, seems the very definition of what an archivist would be. He has organized, preserved, and maintained control over the essential documents of a prestigious university and loves his work.
T.S. Eliot was well known as a poet and author of the day; his wife Vivienne was committed to an asylum, he converted to Catholicism, and his many letters to Emily Hale, a woman he loved, are part of the sealed correspondence that Matthias has control over. The letters were not to be unsealed until 2020, but their subject of love and emotion are known.
Matthias’ wife Judith has been committed to an asylum and struggles deeply with the atrocities against the Jews in world war two and Christianity. Judith’s parents died due to the war, and she was raised by an Aunt and Uncle who had their struggles with religion and the persecution of the Jews.
Grad student and poet Roberta Spire come to Matthias and request permission to look at the sealed correspondence between Eliot and Hale. Roberta is a poet, but her interest in letters is not just academic. She feels that Eliot’s conversion to Catholicism may help her understand why her parents when they fled Germany during the war, converted from Judaism to Christianity.
These stories seem to fold into each other, but, in some ways, they are controlled by the hold Matthias has on each of them. Roberta gets Matthias to open up and feel his pain and guilt.
The poetry of Eliot is a constant throughout the stories and helps tie the stories together even more. In the end, letting go of the controls and allowing the truth not to create an act of trust and connection away.
The writing is graceful, and the reader connects with the several stories' emotions as if they were one story.
Quotes
“In a few minutes, I heard the books' voices: a low, steady, unsurpassable hum. I'd heard it many times before. I've always had a finely tuned ear for a library's accumulations of echo and desire. Libraries are anything but peaceful.”
“With a little effort, anything can be shown to connect with anything else: existence is infinitely cross-referenced. And everything has more than one definition. ”
“With a little effort, anything can be shown to connect with anything else: existence is infinitely cross-referenced.”
(People come to the archival profession for many reasons—to tell the story of a community, preserve a piece of history, hold people and institutions accountable, improve access through technology, connect researchers with the documents they need, and more. In this book the history that was preserved was repeated in layers and like situations)
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison
Kay Redfield Jamison wrote An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. A Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Honorary Professor of English at the University of St Andrew, whose work is centered on bipolar disorder, something she has had since she was a child.
Jamison says that the cultural and medical shift from calling the problem "manic depression" into the term "bipolar disorder" has not clarified anything or helped. She was criticized for saying about the condition of bipolar that: "We have known for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years that it is genetic.” She sees the illness as the effect of genetic disorders. The book presents her view and is her memoir that has shaped her life and ideas.
In the book, Jamison says, “Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try. Still, you know, and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable, paranoid, humorless, lifeless, critical, and demanding, and no reassurance is ever enough. You're frightened and frightening, and you're "not at all like yourself, but will be soon, but you know you won't.”
"People go mad in idiosyncratic ways," one chapter begins. This may seem obvious, but Jamison feels it is a clinical fact, and she shows it by writing about her childhood, family, work, and relationships.
The book is considered one of the most fantastic about manic depression or bipolar disorder.
Important Quotes
“No amount of love can cure madness or unblacken one's dark moods. Love can help; it can make the pain more tolerable, but, always, one is accountable to medication that may or may not always work and may or may not be bearable.”
“We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadnesses of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this--through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or medication, we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifetime. ”
“Which of my feelings are real? Which of me's is me? The wild, impulsive, chaotic, energetic, and crazy one? Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one? Probably a bit of bot,h hopefully much that is neither.”
Ashely Bell by Dean Koontz
Bibi Blair is a talented 22-year-old writer who lives near the ocean in Newport Beach, California. One day while sitting at her computer, one side of her body starts to tingle, and she realizes something is wrong. Doctors run tests and determine that she has rare brain cancer. When the doctor tells her about cancer, her reply is just to say, “we’ll see.” Then the next day, cancer goes away, to everyone’s amazement.
At this point, Bibi’s parents insist that she meet with a woman called Calida Butterfly, a “diviner” who supposedly can uncover “hidden knowledge by supernatural means.” It turns out the method she uses is Scrabblemancy. It is just what it sounds like, an assortment of scrabble-type letters on tiles that provides the answer to questions by spelling out words. One of the words is Ashley Bell, and she is told she will live because she must find and save Ashley from a terrible fate.
The book shows how our lives are shaped by our memories, especially our childhood influences, weaving this theme into a plot that, even while being unbelievable on the one hand, holds our attention and suspense to the end.
See More about Dean Koontz in Favorite Section
If I Ran the Zoo, by Dr Seuss →
Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which preserves the author's legacy, announced this week six books – "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," "If I Ran the Zoo," "McElligot's Pool," "On Beyond Zebra!," "Scrambled Eggs Super!," and "The Cat's Quizzer" – would no longer be printed. Mar 5, 2021
Why did this happen? The Republicans seemed convinced that the Democrats and President Biden were to blame. “Yes!” So what did the company that owns the rights to these books and Dr. Seuss’s family, who owns that company, find out about this book and decide to stop printing it? Read the review and re-read the book; maybe the answer is clear.
If Gerald McGrew ran the Zoo, he'd let all the animals go and fill it with more unusual beasts--a ten-footed lion, an Elephant-Cat, a Mulligatawny, a Tufted Mazurka, and many more.
It’s a pretty good zoo.
Said young Gerald McGrew
And the fellow that runs it
Seems proud of it too
The first documented appearance of the word nerd is as the name of a creature in Dr. Seuss's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950), in which the narrator Gerald McGrew claims that he would collectMerkleye, a Nerd, and a Seersucker too" for his imaginary zoo. The slang meaning of the term dates to 1951
If I Ran the Zoo was banned for the line "all wear their eyes at a slant,” which refers to the helpers, accompanied by an illustration of Asian stereotypes. Dr. Seuss’s books were positive and inspiring, but some earlier books had disturbing images of hurtful, racially stereotypical drawings. The good news is that we see an evolution in cartoons and books. His later works, such as The Sneetches or Horton Hears a Who!, emphasize inclusion and acceptance. Disney’s old movies and comics had racial implications, and even Mickey Mouse had some racial threads in his creation. Disney covered those events by adding disclaimers and referring to the problem as “outdated cultural depictions.”
Work Matters: Insights & Strategies for Job Seekers in a Rapidly Changing Economy →
In Work Matters, author and career development coach Brent M. Jones ( yes, I am reviewing my book here, but then it is my website, and besides that, I think it is a good book needed right now) reflects on the current environment and what the implications are for those seeking work and offers insights on how to navigate the disruption with proven, time-tested job-search strategies.
A job for most of us is more than just how we make a living. It shapes how we see ourselves, as well as how others see us. It gives our days structure, purpose, and meaning. But in a rapidly changing marketplace — reshaped in recent years by technology and automation and devastated in 2020 by a global pandemic that has left millions out of work — finding a job has become exponentially more challenging.
The book is needed right now. We still face unexpected changes in the marketplace, and this book helps focus us on what to do next.
Buy the Paperback or eBook on Amazon click here to link to the site.
Six Years, by Harlan Coben
Six years have passed since Jake Fisher watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man, Todd. He went to the wedding and promised never to follow her and re-enter her life. His heart was broken but he just buried himself in his career as a college professor. Natalie has been on his mind every day for six years when Jake comes across Todd's obituary and cannot keep himself away from the funeral. The widow is not Natali,e and she has been married to Todd for almost 20 years. Jack may have once promised never to follow and stay out of her life, but he no longer believes he needs to honor that promise. Jakesearchede,s but he finds he does not know the truth about Natalie’s life. Some of the people he thought were part of her life can not be located and some do not remember her JakWhenn Jakelearnsd more about Natali,e he has his own life threatened.
The plot is a masterpiece of suspense, and you will not want to put it down looking and hoping answers come.
Quote from the book
“Part of the human condition is that we all think we are uniquely complex while everyone else is somewhat simpler to read. That is not true, of course. We all have dreams; hopes, wants, lust, and heartaches. We all have our brand of crazy.”
“Hope is cruel. Hope reminds me of what it almost was. Hope makes the physical ache return.”
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Suess →
The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), was first published in 1957. It is a story about a tall human-like cat who dresses in a red & white striped hat with a red bow tie.
With his companions, "Thing One & Thing Two,” they try to entertain some neighbors and wind up wrecking the house. Finally, the Cat uses a unique tool to clean everything up. He then says goodbyes and disappears just before the children's mother walks in.
The book offers lessons that need to be learned. For example, The Cat in the Hat is about stranger danger. Although it may seem fun to let a big cat into your house, maybe you should think twice before you do. That's just common sense for all ages.
This is the book that made Dr. Seuss famous. It kicked off an emphasis on beginning readers’ books. The focus on imagination for the characters and the ease of reading resulted in these books being read repeatedly. OK, the truth is they are often read every night. Many kids learned to read from them.
Characters: The Cat in the Hat,
Thing One, Thing Two, Sally, Sally's Brother, Fish & Mother
The moral of this story might be “Be careful inviting neighbors over! or Beware of who you let in the house.
#Children’s Literature
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell →
(See the “Taking others for Granted” article in the Positive Thoughts section for more on what the Meaning of this Book is?)
It is 1933, and it will be 10 + years before Orwell publishes Animal Farm and 1984, both of which will warn of the dangers of totalitarianism and promote his beliefs in a fairer society. In his book, Down and Out in London & Paris, he writes about poverty and how he survived.
Orwell was a tutor in London, but he went to Paris. He has no job when he arrives, and he cuts back on food and later pawns his good clothes to get by for a few days. He finds an old friend Boris, a fat Russian, but he is also out of work. They struggle for weeks, and eventually, the two of them finally do find work-Boris as a waiter and Orwell as a dishwasher. Find work- Boris The dishwashing job is 14 hours a day of cleaning in the sweltering heat of kitchens on the bottom floors of the hotel basements.
Orwell's Paris experience with poverty was eating at restaurants, living in rented rooms, and working in almost prison-like circumstances; no mention is made of goals or desires. He can see that there are few opportunities to rise above where one starts in life. He describes drinking on a Saturday night as the "one thing that made life worth living.” At one point, a murder happens right outside where he is sleeping, and he tells us that within three minutes, he has gone back to sleep, not wanting to waste time over it.
Boris talks Orwell into going to another hotel to work because of the promotion to maître d’ he can get. Orwell follows him, but the new kitchen, where he is still a dishwasher, is even more hot and cramped than before. He now works 18 to 20 hours a day and makes less. Finally, he is so demoralized that he returns to London, which comprises the book's second part.
Orwell describes London’s poor as mobile, unable to rent or stay in a job long, but forced to wander from shelter to shelter across London. When he arrives back in London, his plans to be a babysitter for a wealthy family fall through. He has no money and must pawn his best suit again. He finds that he must join others wandering from shelter to shelter and living off food that is barely fit for human consumption, living as a beggar and a tramp. The hunger and filth are with him constantly, and he feels the challenge of being considered disagreeable to others.
When the book ends, Orwell can get the job he had initially planned. His closing remarks are that poverty is a condition best to be avoided.
This book will add to how you see George Orwell's books Animal Farm and 1984. This autobiography precedes those books and suggests how his viewpoint on society may have evolved.
Quotes by George Orwell
“It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.”
“The stars are a free show; it doesn't cost anything to use your eyes.”
“Within certain limits, it is true that the less money you have, the less you worry.”
“It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.”
“Dirt is a great respecter of persons; it lets you alone when you are well dressed, but as soon as your collar is gone, it flies towards you from all directions.”
Catcher in the Rye by JD. Salinger →
The Catcher in the Rye is a novel by J. D. Salinger initially intended for adults. Still, the book’s strong themes of alienation and its critique of the superficiality of society led to it being widely read by adolescents. The book was widely banned because of its language and focus on sex.
The book covers 16-year-old Holden’s last day at Pencey, a fashionable prep school, from which he has flunked out and been expelled, and the following two days, which he spends in hiding in New York City. Confused and disillusioned, he is obsessed with preserving his innocence: he wishes to be “the catcher in the rye” to protect the children from falling off the cliff. This wish is interpreted as a metaphor for entering adulthood which is probably suggested because, at the same time, part of him wants to connect with other people on an adult level in a sexual encounter. In contrast, part of him wants to reject the adult world as “phony” and retreat into his childhood memories.
The hero and heroine of this novel, Holden’s dead brother Allie and Jane Gallagher, never appear in it, but they are always in Holden’s consciousness, together with his sister Phoebe. Caulfield is depressed throughout the book, unable to concentrate, and lacks interest in everything. He appears to be both manic and psychotic.
Holden is crazy about Jane, always thinking of her, always wanting to call her up, but he never does. He is always about to but does not because he’s never “in the mood.”
The two days are full of events, and the literalness and innocence of Holden’s point of view in the face of the tremendously complicated and often depraved facts of life make for the humor of this novel.