by Marcus Aurelius Not long ago, I was reading Aldous Huxley’s The Doors to Perception with the full intention of reviewing it, but I was struggling to come up with anything meaningful for discussion. I found the book to be extraordinary in many ways, even important enough to help me through some difficult times, but…
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translated by Coleman Barks Jelaluddin Rumi was a sufi mystic who lived in Persia and Anatolia in the thirteenth century. I’ve read not only that his works have been hugely influential on Middle Eastern literature, but also that translations of these poems remain extremely popular in the West––as I feel they should be after experiencing…
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by Robert A. Heinlein Oh, Heinlein. I had my doubts about this one after my last foray into his work, but mention of Stranger in a Strange Land being on the bookshelf of an author I respect within another book I loved made me think that it might be worth a look. (Besides, the copy…
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by Meša Selimović Taking place in eighteenth century Bosnia, Death and the Dervish follows Sheikh Ahmed Nuruddin as he attempts to navigate the corrupt Turkish bureaucracy to free his brother Harun from their city’s foreboding dungeon and almost certain death. Most of the story involves Nuruddin’s paralyzing internal conflict between his morals and cowardice, and…
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Rubáiyát are tetrastichs, independent stanzas, each composed of four lines of near equal length. In their traditional form, all except the third line rhymes, though, occasionally, all lines of the verse rhyme. Omar Khayyám’s rubáiyát are probably the most famous poems written in the form, though they were obscure in the Western world until Edward…
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edited by Daniel Sinker We Owe You Nothing is a collection of select interviews from Punk Planet magazine from the late ’90s and early noughties. Most of the interviewees are musicians from punk bands, but also people from the ’biz side––people running record labels or distribution networks––as well as individuals and groups involved in politics…
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by Jordan Tannahill In Liminal, the health of Jordan Tannahill’s mother, Monica, has been in a bit of decline. She’s just started going on the mend after having a mini-stroke, but she hasn’t felt great recently. After she doesn’t emerge from her bedroom long after she normally would in the morning, Jordan investigates. Seeing his…
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by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry In The Little Prince, an unnamed narrator crashes his airplane in the middle of the Sahara Desert. With a dwindling supply of water, he works frantically to repair his craft, but is met unexpectedly by a small boy who doesn’t seem to understand the urgency of the situation. The boy questions him,…
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by Robert M. Pirsig I must say, this year in reading’s been an interesting one for me. I mean, it’s had its ups and downs––nowhere near as many books that I love, love, LOVED like last year, but not one but two where I had something akin to a religious experience while reading. The first…
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