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Monthly Archives: November 2013
God, Torah, Suffering and Death
My last post ended with a quotation from this book, by Rabbi Neil Gillman, Believing and its Tensions, picked up from a display at the local library. As Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh is a strongly Jewish community, this gave me as … Continue reading
When is a pond an Ocean? Ask Neil Gaiman.
When you are Lettie who has been eleven for a long time. The story is the story of a seven year old boy, now middle aged, who let a “flea” from outside the world into him, and even with the … Continue reading
Infidel :Moslem women
Ayaan Mirsad Ali is a name I remember from political news. She was a member of the Dutch parliament and a colleague of Theo van Gogh, who was assassinated because of a joint project they had worked on, about women’s … Continue reading
Posted in biography, non-fiction, world religions
Tagged Ayaan Mirsad Ali, Theo van Gogh, ethics, families, immigration, Somalia, women's lives
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Arthur’s legend: Tolkien
The new Tolkien: Christopher, J.R.R. Tolkien’s son, has edited and published his father’s unfinished poem about King Arthur. His ambition was to give the English their own mythology- which he did in the end with Middle Earth and hobbits, elves … Continue reading
The Invisible Sex
“Homo Ergaster‘s diminished sexual dimorphism” does not sound like a phrase from a book called The Invisible Sex– but it is. As in Adovasio’s and Page’s earlier book, a chatty style (in spite of the quote above) conveys a whole … Continue reading
Posted in history, non-fiction
Tagged archaeology, evolution, J.M.Adovasio, Jake Page, Meadowcroft rockshelter, Olga Soffer
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Women’s Lives.
My hard drive died. But I kept reading- four novels about women’s lives, in very different settings: The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier, Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin, The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby and Cleaner Of Chartres by … Continue reading
Posted in Novels
Tagged families, Gaile Parkin, Salley Vickers, social justice, Tracy Chevalier, Wiifred Holtby, women's lives
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