Category: Books & Reviews

Literature, culture, fiction, non-fiction, writers, authors and the craft of writing.

Boccaccio’s Decameron

Books & Reviews / Literature / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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I never read The Decameron in any original, or complete translation. I have a bowdlerized edition I read in part some time ago, perhaps the 1970s. I recall seeing an art film based on the book, in the 1970s (directed Pier Pasolini). But I can’t recall it in any detail, except that it was subtitled. I have an old Penguin edition upstairs, its pages yellowing, mostly unread, but saved for that time in my life I felt able to tackle it. Seems that time has come. This week I found a copy of a recent translation of the Decameron at ……… click below for more ↓

Team Assessment

Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Following my last piece on the relevance of Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, to Collingwood Council, I felt I should explore some of Lencioni’s ideas, as well as look at how a team’s performance is assessed. Teams (or groups) can be assessed several ways: the best way is internally (by their own members). The second is by a professional outsider who has the competence to do so after observing their behaviour in meetings. The third is by outsiders whose role is merely to watch them (as we watch council online or on TV). The three methods ……… click below for more ↓

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Municipal Politics / What I'm Reading Now4 Comments

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You can’t help but think, when you read that title, of five block-thinking, dysfunctional members of Collingwood Council. But, relevant as that description may appear in our political sphere, it is actually the title of a book by Patrick Lencioni, about how teams fail to coalesce and work together. I found it at a local bookstore this week and read it in a single night. Unlike many of the self-help books on management and leadership I’ve read over the years, this one actually made sense and explained itself well. As I read it, I realized quickly that Lencioni’s model of team ……… click below for more ↓

The Venereal Game

Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymology3 Comments

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The Venereal Game is the provocative subtitle of James Lipton’s 1968 classic, An Exaltation of Larks (reprinted in 1977, and later expanded in the 1993 “ultimate” edition). Venereal, in this sense, comes from venery which in turn comes from the Latin venari, to hunt or pursue, rather from the sexual connotation.* The collective nouns in much of Lipton’s book come mainly from hunting terms (terms of venery), many originating in the 1486 Book of St Albans and similar contemporary works that Lipton documents. Since that publication, creating collective nouns has become a game for many of a lexicographical bent, hence the venereal game. Even Conan ……… click below for more ↓

Anthony and Cleopatra

Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / Literature / Personal Reminiscences / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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While Julius Caesar is my favourite of all Shakespeare’s plays, I think Anthony and Cleopatra is my second favourite. I know it’s hard to choose any favourites from his plays, they’re all so good, but this one seems to resonate with me more than most others, enough to encourage me to reread it this week. Perhaps it’s because both lead characters are past their prime (as I am), but – like all of us who have put a few years behind us – reluctant to acknowledge it and still see themselves as their younger selves. In that, Cleopatra shines, while Anthony ……… click below for more ↓

The Road Not Taken

Books & Reviews / Culture / Poetry & LyricsLeave a comment

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I was surprised to read a recent piece in the New York Post that suggests a poem I have long loved was actually not what I thought it was about. It was one of those epiphanies that made me reassess my attitude not only towards the poem but towards what I had assumed it meant. The poem is Robert Frost’s famous piece, The Road Not Taken. You might remember it as “The Road Less Travelled” by which it is sometimes misnamed. It’s a short poem, only 20 lines long, each with a mere nine syllables. Many of us read it in ……… click below for more ↓

Reading Tennyson’s Ulysses

Books & Reviews / Personal Reminiscences / Poetry & Lyrics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Last weekend, while watching the delightful movie, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I heard Bill Nighy make a wedding speech that included lines from one of my favourite poems: Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson. I recognized it immediately and it made me open the poem and read it again. The poem was written by Tennyson in 1833, but not published until 1842. I can’t recall exactly when I first read it, but it was in high school, in the 1960s. I’ve read it many times since. It’s funny how one can read into a poem something entirely different on another ……… click below for more ↓

Going Clear Reviewed

Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Cults / Faith / Pseudoscience & Quackery / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19YGhuORcJk] I found it difficult to read Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright (Random House, 2013): it gave me a sense of unease, forcing a frequent over-the-shoulder glance to see if someone was following me just because I was reading it. But nonetheless, it proved compelling – so much so that I dropped all other books and read it cover to cover, uninterrupted earlier this summer. It is by far the most complete, detailled expose of the church I’ve read  to date, and it made me wonder, why hasn’t all of this come to light before? Or did ……… click below for more ↓

Victor Hugo’s Hunchback

Books & Reviews / Culture / Film & ReviewsLeave a comment

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I have just finished listening to a well-read audio book (in English) of Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, Hunchback of Notre Dame, or more properly, Notre Dame de Paris, as the original title was written. I had read the novel several years ago in a more recent Penguin edition, but hearing it on my peregrinations around town with the dogs gave me time to focus on some sections I had glossed over in the written form. Unlike the abysmal Disney animation of 1996, and unlike all the films and TV series that have been made of the story since the first (Esmeralda, 1905), the novel ……… click below for more ↓

The Geometry and Topology of Pasta

Books & Reviews / Food & Drink / Pasta2 Comments

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I’ve always had a geeky appreciation – and awe – of mathematics. I have spent countless hours tinkering with programs that create math-based designs like fractals and Spirograph-style curves. As a young teenager I spent hours playing with an oscilloscope making sound waves dance on the tiny screen. But I never really thought much about the math behind pasta until I stumbled on two books: The Geometry of Pasta and Pasta by Design. And once you open them, you have one of those ‘ah ha!’ moments where you discover mathematics and cooking intersect. These books offer radically different approaches to pasta ……… click below for more ↓

Pasta Books Reviewed, Part 1

Books & Reviews / Food & Drink / Pasta2 Comments

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While I can’t say my collection of pasta making and recipe books is as exhaustive as it could be had I an unlimited amount to spend and equivalent time to read and make pasta, I have garnered a few useful books over the past month. I wanted to share some opinions and comments about those I have collected to date. Also see part two of this review for more titles. Books on pasta have been around ever since cookbooks themselves. But the art of making pasta at home – outside Italy or by those of Italian descent – seems to ……… click below for more ↓

Pasta Books Reviewed, Part 2

Books & Reviews / Food & Drink / Pasta2 Comments

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This follows from part one of my book reviews, posted on this blog. Please see that post for the introduction. These, with either the Pasta Bible or Pasta Cookbook (preferred) by Jeni Wright, from the first post, are the recommended books. I’ve rated the books from A (highest) to E on TRIPDO – technical content (T – what details they offer, whether they use weights and volume measurements or only volume, how much technical information about ingredients is presented, etc.); recipes (R – quality and quantity); imagination (I – what variety of ideas, what variations in items to make, what new or unusual ……… click below for more ↓

This week’s reading

Books & Reviews / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Going Clear by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright is an expose of the Church of Scientology. Fascinating, scary stuff and it makes you want to keep looking back over your shoulder to see if someone is watching you. A great read, though, and a real eye-opener if you’ve ever wanted to know the inner workings of this group (they hate to be called a cult but it’s hard to think of a better name as you’re reading this). The New York Times called it “essential” reading. It’s also the inspiration for an HBO documentary of that name, apparently not (yet?) ……… click below for more ↓

How Many Virtues?

Atheism & Spirituality / Buddhism / Christianity / Ethics & morality / Faith / Philosophy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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The Greeks had but four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and courage (or fortitude). To this, many centuries later, the Catholic church (notably Aquinas) added three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity (or love). These are the seven basic virtues of Western culture. But they’re not the only ones. In 410 CE, Aurelius Clemens Prudentius listed seven ‘heavenly’ virtues in his religious poem, Psychomachia: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. Writing in the New York Times recently, David Brooks said. It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. ……… click below for more ↓

Thirty Seven Days

History & Biography / TV / War & Military / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Back in the mid-1970s, the BBC launched a dramatic, 13-part series called Fall of Eagles, about the last decades of the 19th century and the lead-up to World War One. It also chronicled the end of the royal dynasties in the aftermath of the war. It was a brilliant series, sweeping in its broad brush across the royalty and politics of Russia, Austria, Germany, and England. France got a mere cameo role because France was not ruled by any of the dynasties which form the central cast in the series. Viewers got from the series an image of the complex network ……… click below for more ↓

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