God: An Anatomy
by Francesca Stavrakopoulou
đ 333/608
I check the Kindle deals far more often than any reasonable person should. Like every day. When a book goes on sale, all my self-control disappears. This is where I find most of my âwild cardâ books (other than the used book store). These are books I probably never would have discovered otherwise but buy on a whim because why not? This is one of those books. Every reading life needs a little shake-up.
I started reading this book the night I downloaded it. I havenât been able to put it down since. Itâs one of the strangest, most fascinating books Iâve read in a long time. Iâm kind of obsessed with it right now.
Sometimes these wild cards end up being the best reads.
Wandering around a museum or the ruins of an ancient city, it is easy to forget that the religious past was a place of vivid colour. (p. 172)
It was common knowledge across ancient south-west Asia that when it came to their food, the gods could be ferociously possessive, exceptionally picky and woefully unforgiving of any culinary calamities. The God of the Bible was no different. (p. 205)
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
đ 45/466
And the title. And especially because it has hot pink in the book design. Sometimes my choices can be superficial, yes.
Started with the library copy. Ended up buying the Kindle version.
I think I was loving the whole vibe of this novel even before I started reading it. Now letâs hope the inside is as good as the outside.
Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett
đ 175/448
Following The Four Horsemen down the rabbit hole â starting with Dennett. (And, yes, I have both the Kindle and physical book đ)
I love the simple cover of the paperback. Wish my kindle version had the same cover.
Some quotes from Breaking the Spell:
"Miracle-hunters must be scrupulous scientists or else they are wasting their time..." (p. 26)
"One of the surprising discoveries of modern psychology is how easy it is to be ignorant of your own ignorance." (p. 31)
"Do you ever ask yourself: What if Iâm wrong?" (p. 51)
"African animalsâhave been known to get falling-down drunk eating fermenting fruit from marula trees, and there is evidence that elephants will travel great distances to arrive at the marula trees just when their fruits ripen." (p. 66)
"Sometimesârarelyâreligions go bad, veering into something like group insanity or hysteria, and causing great harm. Now that we have created the technologies to cause global catastrophe, our jeopardy is multiplied to the maximum: a toxic religious mania could end human civilization overnight." (p. 72)
"How clever of wild sheep to have acquired that most versatile adaptation, the shepherd! By forming a symbiotic alliance with Homo sapiens, sheep could outsource their chief survival tasks: food finding and predator avoidance. They even got shelter and emergency medical care thrown in as a bonus." (pp. 169-170)
Other books I'm reading right now:
A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko
đ 129/488 - A Kindle book I got on sale and it looked really good. Loving it so far.
The Story of Astrophysics in Five Revolutions by Ersilia Vaudo
Translated by Vanessa di Stefano
đ 77/202 - I've always enjoyed physics and astrophysics. Most books I read on this subject are written by men. I was intrigued to pick up this small book written by a woman. So far, I love it.
"The Sun, stars, and galaxies that we see are actually projections of a time gone by. Almost like magic. The fact that light travels at its own speedâtherefore not instantaneouslyâgives us the superpower to look into the past, even without any devices or telescopes. As we drink an aperitif and watch the Sun go down with a friend, the beautiful red sphere about to disappear behind the horizon in that shared present has been gone for more than 8 minutes. Realizing this is deeply stirring. The remote lights that pepper the night sky are glimmering flashes of times past twinkling in the silence. The beautiful star Rigel, shining brightly to the naked eye in the constellation Orion, is an image, a âphotographâ that reaches us today but which was âtakenâ around the time Dante Alighieri was born. A starry sky. Many layers of time overlapping, all within a single darkness." (p. 14)