The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

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The Picture of Dorian Gray | [Oscar Wilde]Summary: A Faustian bargain to keep beauty and youth in exchange for your soul.

One of my reading priorities this year was to read more classics.  I have not done very well on my other reading goals, so when Amazon and Audible released a ton of free classics to promote their new Whispersync for Voice I decided to pick up most of them and try to start reading more classics.

Honestly, other than the reference in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I had never heard of Dorian Gray (and I did not even know there is a Dorian Gray movie until I started looking around for this review.)  I knew that his portrait aged instead of his body.  I assumed it was some sort of faustian bargain with the devil.

The actual book leaves a lot to the reader.  There is a sort of prayer that Dorian Gray says when he is first shown the portrait where he says that he would give anything to keep his beauty and youth as the painting shows.  But there is no explanation, supernatural or otherwise, for why Dorian stops aging and his portrait starts aging.  Similarly, we are not really told whether it is Dorian’s own nature that he becomes evil and depraved or whether there is some connection to his soul being lost in the bargain that causes him to become depraved.  I assume that Wilde just was allowing his reader to make the faustian connection.

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Apology to Email Subscribers

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I am currently using built in WordPress email system to allow people to subscribe to Bookwi.se post via email.  Lately there have been several problems. 1) The ‘continue reading’ links do not work.  This is a problem with the email system and not my formatting unfortunately.  If you click the post title at the top of … Read more

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson

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The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest: Book 3 of the Millennium Trilogy (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

This is really the second half of the second book.  There is no real separation other than the fact that it is too long for a single book.

Larsson split the two books in a good place.  There was a nice cliff hanger and it made sense.  But this third book picks up immediately after the conclusion of the second.

Again, this book is fairly focused on Lisbeth (my preferred main character) but because of the result of the second book her actions are restricted.  In many ways, this book is about Lisbeth allowing people into her life and understanding her need to depend on others.

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Conquests and Cultures: An International History by Thomas Sowell

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Conquests And Cultures: An International HistoryTakeaway: Culture is the result of a wide variety of influences.

Thomas Sowell is an economist.  I have read three of his economics book (Basic Economics, Applied Economics and Economics Facts and Fallacies). These books, while clearly from a conservative approach to economics were focused on education and not propaganda.  I would recommend any of the three books to help you understand how economics works.  (Basic Economics is an intro to economics, Applied Economics focuses on national level and Facts and Fallacies is more focused on countering bad economic thinking at many levels).

Conquests and Cultures is the third book in a series of historical exploration of culture.  (Race and Culture and Migration and Culture are the first two). These are historical looks at culture using Sowell’s common tools of economic and broad level research.

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Advertising on Bookwi.se

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Blogging is not a lucrative project.  Since starting this blog my return has been less than $0.50 per post, and that is before expenses.  My blogging is not primarily to make money, but I also do want to pay attention to both costs and my time.  Last fall I added advertising spots onto the blog. … Read more

Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids by Kara Powell and Chap Clark

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Bookwi.se Note: Vikki Huisman wrote this review for her church blog but agreed to let Bookwi.se repost it here. 

You shouldn’t wait to get this book.

Seriously.

Youth experts, Chapman and Powell completed a 6-year research project, “œThe College Transition Project”. Based on their research, they concluded that between 40-50% of youth group kids stick with their faith in college. If you have two children, the odds are only one of them will stick with their faith after college.

Sticky Faith contains a lot of research and data at the beginning of the book and I must be honest, the statistics are unnerving. I was ready to toss the book aside and never finish it because it seemed so depressing. But I’m glad I didn’t.

Powell and Clark tell us that there is no magic formula or quick fix to guarantee that your kids will have a faith that lasts. This book is not a 10 step program to turn your child into Billy Graham by Monday. Just as there are many different types of people, there are many avenues you can choose to pursue in your home to point your child in the right direction.

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The Dip: When to Quit (And When to Stick) by Seth Godin

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The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)“The difference between a mediocre club player and a regional champion isn’t inborn talent. It’s the ability to push through in the moments when it is easier to quit.”

Those words so struck me that I stopped and copied them down while I was listening to this short (free) audiobook.  Seth Godin likes provocative phrases.  And after listening to the whole book, I know that what Godin means is that it is inborn talent and the ability to push through in hard times.  But that is not what he was actually saying here.

The story of Rudy isn’t that he worked really hard and his hard work paid off and he became a great football legend. He worked really hard and after years, and a lot of points where most people said he should quit, he got a chance, not because of his performance, but because of his heart and other people’s willingness to step aside to help him out.

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Little Fuzzy by Henry Beam Piper

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Little FuzzySummary: Classic Science Fiction look at what it means to be sentient.

Several weeks ago I had never heard of H Beam Piper or his book Little Fuzzy.  Instead I was looking for books by John Scalzi.  Scalzi is a contemporary Science Fiction author and over the past several months I have read two of his books (both narrated by Will Wheaton).

I picked up Fuzzy Nation, which happens to be a retelling of H Beam Piper’s classic Little Fuzzy.

The audiobook of Fuzzy Nation included both the new and the original.  I have already reviewed the new, so this is the review of the original.

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Ebook Price Fixing Settlement Results In Some Lower Prices

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The Department of Justice sued HarperCollins, Hachette, Apple, Macmillian and Penguin over price fixing.  Essentially, Apple proposed that the publishers should be able to set the retail pricing of their ebooks instead of the retailer.  When the iPad came out, five of the six major publishers in the US worked together to require all ebook sellers sell … Read more