Islam By Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

As you can tell from the title, Islam By Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood is about the religion of Islam. I said this once before, I'm a compulsive buyer. The book was interesting. It was really intense, not that I didn't expect that. It would have to be, like Christianity. To be able to talk about something and form an opinion, you need to know what your talking about. I'm agnostic. I have no religion but I want to be able to correct people who blatantly insult something they have no right to. Did you know that Muslims believe in Jesus? He is regarded as one of the greatest of all prophets, the miracle worker. They also believe in his virgin birth (sound REALLY familiar?). They do not, however believe that he was the Divine Son of God. This book is facinating, I haven't finished it. It covers many things in it like; worship, traditions, festivals and specail days, mosques, diet, sex, drugs, alcohol, friendship, birth, marriage, divorce, crimes, punishment, modernism and modern Islam. Pretty much everything that, I feel I as a westerner should know. Maybe if others knew it to we wouldn't have the conflict we see today in the middle east. If I could suggest anything to the military generals leading our armed forces today, it would be; educate your soldiers. Respect can resolve almost any problem. The leading cause of casualties, I believe are related to respect that was not properly given of this beautiful religion and culture.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

My last post was spent whining about Bill Bryson. Sorry! He frustrates me. To make up for that I'm going to write about why Bryson is such an impressive writer. First off, I think he might be the most knowledgeable man in the world. He seems like a genius, or man who strives to understand the world. I hold him in the utmost respect on account of that. Because he has the drive to find things out, understand them and write it down. People with such a work ethic are rare. Even rarer are the one who can take the knowledge they have and put it in a fashion that could be understood by the Joe-Six-Pack-Next-Door. That's what teachers do. Most of them, some teachers are a mystery... maybe they just like to socialize. Anyways, he really has a skill, in taking information and connecting it to a million other things he's so good he can pick a topic and create a novel. For example he spent about 500 pages talking about Australia. Nothing ever happens in Australia, he says so himself.. as he writes a bajillion pages on a country that doesn't have a life. He gives Australia a life. Not a surfer bum one but a history. He makes Australia seem real. He gives earth a history in 544 pages. Just 544. He crammed it in. That, my friends is skill.

Australia By Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything also by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson, has received two chances; Australia published in May 2001, and A Short History of Nearly Everything published September 2004. I enjoyed the material but felt so overwhelmed... it was terrible. I am, a bit of a reading freak. I don't get overwhelmed at least, not until Bill Bryson Came along.. He crams so much information onto a page that I CAN'T TAKE IT ALL IN. I re-read countless pages trying to understand a few paragraphs. It wasn't extremely complicated, there was just too much! It took me weeks to finish both the books, that's shameful. I finished Kite Runner in one school day, it was amazing, by the way. However I cannot get through Anything by Bill Byrson. Maybe its nonfiction in general? Look at these sentences, "The first attempt at measurement that could be remotely scientific was made by the Frenchmen Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, in the 1770's. It had been long known that the Earth radiated appreciable amounts of heat-that was apparent to anyone who went down a coalmine-but there wasn't any way of estimating the rate of dissipation. Bryson includes so many dates and names it is almost impossible to keep track. You're doing well if you remember a first name at the end of the chapter. It possible he writes about so many that you can pick and choose you're favorites to remember. Maybe he intends for you to not remember them all? Does he? It would be hell to be his editor. Imagine checking all those facts.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll

I love Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland. Now all I need to do is see the movie. Movies never seem to do the books they take after justice. How ever it is interesting to see a director or company to portray the images you read. I feel Tim Burtons portrayal of Alice in Adventures in Wonderland will be very vivid and trippy unlike Disney's which I imagine will be family friendly and pastel colored. However Lewis Carroll's has written a story with so much creative imagery, and situation that taking on the task of recreating Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland seems very daunting. Millions have read the book and each pictures Alice, the Cheshire cat, and The Queen of Hearts in a different way. The crochet scene alone; Mission Impossible 6. Alice says it's confusing herself. It has so many little crawly creepy objects running around; hedgehogs, headless cards, cats, flamingos, soldiers. I read the croquet episode three times so I could take it in. Rather like a AP Lang multiple choice passage :) Oh goodness.
One thing I want to touch on before I end this post, did Lewis Carroll have an alternative motive in writing this? Was he trying to send philosophical messages to society? It feels like he was. "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "you must be, said the cat, " or you wouldn't have come here." It seems like he has so much to say that I don't understand. Mostly because I was born in the wrong time period and have nothing to base my understand off of. Who was he again? He seems to be a disturbed yet, talented man.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll AKA Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, published in 1865 (Until I wikipediaed the book, I had no idea that Lewis Carroll was a pseudonym. That's kind of life changing.) I , had to read a classic so I raided my little sisters bedroom book shelf, and found Alice's Adventures in wonderland. Since I never read it or have seen any of the movies I figured it was something I had to do before I left high school. It was. Carrol or excuse me, Dodgson, was a word and literary genius. I never realized how often he was quoted from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. For example "I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir, because I'm not myself you see." (personal favorite), "We're all mad here.", "Off with his head!" Now those are the famous ones but there were so many others that were as good, "She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed: it was labeled "ORANGE MARMALADE," but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody underneath, so she managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it." Isn't that strange? How does one think up something so peculiar. It reminds me of when in Latin, Mr. Pendrick gives us latin half sentences we have to translate and complete. Everyone fills in the most ridiculous thing they can think of. Today my favorite was, "Because the seas had boiled, the child exploded softly." Now that sounds violent but can't you see a grumpy child flash into a puff of smoke? The situations he thinks of are so unearthly and he came up with this during the 1850's. It seems so science fiction like. Maybe Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy or something but not... English industrialism like.

The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Lowell

How did the first passage of the book lead you to anticipate the ending of the book? I just finished The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Lowell and according to the first passage of the book, "For anyone who has spent any portion of their childhood as a ward of the state, the notion of emancipation has multiple meanings. Though I was legally and financially emancipated at the requisite age of eighteen and had always been fiercely independent, it wasn't until I was forty-three years old and a working mother of two that I finally set myself free." This passage tells the whole story, pretty much. It tells none of the details but, it led me to the conclusion that it would be about survival and life lessons. It was. She survived no, she thrived. Taking everything that was offered for her. Now she's almost 50? and I, the reader feel proud of her, for making it through the "system." Orphans or children in the foster care system have very difficult lives, they die earlier, are permanently emotionally scarred, go into a life of crime much more often than someone raised in a caring two parent family. Without the support we can not expect them to win so those who do, are...stars. In my mind she is a hero. She is an actress, a major supporter and fundraiser, leading bills and laws to improve the lives of children like her who are in the foster care system. Raising money so they can take acting lessons, dance lessons, and improved living conditions.

The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell #2

In The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell, my favorite part of the book was Mrs. Rowell's descriptions. This one in particular was great. "Can we take your picture of you with your mother?" The Collinses asked in a matter-of-fact manner as though Dorothy [her mother] was still alive. I realized this would be the only photograph of me and my mother together, so I obliged with the stipulation that they send me copies. And they did. I stood in front of Dorothy's casket and looked defiantly into the Collinses' collective lens. Flash went the cameras." Rowell clearly has a gift for explaining things. This was during her mothers funeral, which she had learned of almost accidentally and decided to attend although she was unwelcome by her mothers' biological sisters. It was such an unusual and powerful situation to read about. To do that took guts. She felt it was her duty to attend the funeral so she did. Her recollection of the event for me, the reader was great. I could clearly see the character acting through this and felt the awkward wonder Rowell meant to give the reader.