Monthly Archives: December 2014

The new Atheists and the New Christians

Posted on December 31, 2014 by readingmater

Grandchild stories to begin. For Christmas our grandson got a make-your-own volcano which he immediately constructed, enthusiastically and messily over the next two days. In the course of the project, he learned about plate tectonics, and hotspots in the mantle … Continue reading →

Posted in history, non-fiction, theology, world religions | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion

Posted on December 30, 2014 by readingmater

Do you know who you are? Do you like who you are? This story begins with a mother, Sookie, who has just organized her last daughter’s wedding and looks forward, exhausted, to sleeping for a year- but at the same time, … Continue reading →

Posted in Novels | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Voices

Posted on December 29, 2014 by readingmater

I love the way Science Fiction can make us imagine different ways of being, in different worlds, for example, Ursula Le Guin’s world where people are either male or female at different times, and sexually undifferentiated and uninterested in between. … Continue reading →

Posted in non-fiction, science, sociology | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Christmas favorite reading

Posted on December 26, 2014 by readingmater

Do you have a book you read again at Christmas? I see people posting on Facebook about movies they watch at Christmas-Home Alone for example!- but not books.  Maybe A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens? I know someone who reads that yearly. The … Continue reading →

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Being fat.

Posted on December 24, 2014 by readingmater

All my life I have fought the mainly female past-time of worrying about weight. Won’t diet. This book, Why We Get Fat, by Gary Taubes, was put in my hand to explain why the bit of the family I am … Continue reading →

Posted in non-fiction | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Karamazov

Posted on December 21, 2014 by readingmater

I finished what i am sure is one of the greatest  Russian novels, The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoievski. Finally.I would never have got through it without my Pittsburgh Book Group, for whom this was their annual summer novel, instead of … Continue reading →

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Nomad

Posted on December 19, 2014 by readingmater

When I told a nun friend that I was leaving the convent- back in 1967- she said to me,”I wish I could do that. It’s just too scary to try to make a life on my own at my age.” … Continue reading →

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Year of Wonders: 1666

Posted on December 18, 2014 by readingmater

The year 1666 in England, a plague year. Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks, describes a village, Eyam, which voluntarily quarantined itself to avoid further spread when the plague arrived there, probably in cloth bought from London. Plague -the Black Death- … Continue reading →

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Growing old: The Gift of Years

Posted on December 14, 2014 by readingmater

Skip this post if you are still in the first half of life, (unless I am your mum; then, read it.) I’m not in the first half of life, and I am interested in how others see what is happening … Continue reading →

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Ice Ages and Climate Change.

Posted on December 11, 2014 by readingmater

I sit here in a cozy house finishing a book, The Last Lost World, about the Pleistocene- when ice sheets ebbed and flowed from the North over Europe (and North America and elsewhere.) I remember finding rocks, flints, in the … Continue reading →

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