Today I Have Mostly Been Reading...

Kate the Bookshop bought me this for my birthday... and yes, I recognized myself on nearly every page. The good news is that I also recognized myself in the latter pages, which are devoted to dudes who have regained their life after being workaholics. That's good!

It's basically very good photographs of animals, with captions underneath, which adds up to a simultaneously witty and serious message. It took all of ten minutes to read.

When I reviewed this book on Witchgrove, I just put a single word, 'Wow!'

Usually, when I'm reading, it's during fag breaks or just before going to sleep. I slip books into the cracks in my life and get through them that way. Not so this book. My life went on hold until it was read - 780-odd pages in 3 and a half days (1 and a half of which, I was at work). I took it with me into the loo, down the Balti, shopping. I read it in corridors, on the way to the car. You name it, if my eyes weren't required for something else, they were glued to this book.

Pixie put me onto it. She registered it with Bookcrossings.com and then sent it to me. Cerr has first dibs on it next, but my Mum wants to read it first. She can't believe there's a book so good it separated me from my computer for hours on end.

It's a book about two (three-ish) academics who are researching NDEs. They are either open-minded about what they are or else have very strong, subjective views about what they are. The first thing to make me smile was the academic standards part of the questioning, because that is so my life! LOL However, it's not about academia - I've just had a heightened awareness of those issues - it's about death and messages and disasters and humanity and letting go and not letting go.

My Mum's got the book at the second, so I haven't got it to quote the first passage that made me go cold - several of them did - but it was something along the lines of Joanna (the main character) wishing that she could have held someone's hand right into death's doors, because she couldn't bear to think of them making that final journey on their own. That resonated so loudly with me, that's precisely where I was three weeks ago.

This book has got me intellectually, emotionally, spiritually... I don't just recommend it, I demand you read it. It's one of the best books I've ever read in my life.

For the past few years, I have been one of the main points of Pagan advise and guidance for a lad who we'll call Warriormail Mike. I feel like I've watched him grow up, that I've been as much mother as friend to him, at times. I've definitely been HPS - which is one of the reasons I've currently lost faith in that title. With Mike, everything that he mused upon eventually involved his wife, Star Wars, Witchgrove, car mechnanics or Eminem. That was his terminology and you had to find analogies in those categories or else you could be there all day.

I decided to cut out the middle man and learn about Eminem, so as to make it easier to find such analogies. I bought this book but, before I could read it, Mike was killed in an accident at work, on August 22nd, 2004. A few days later, I spotted this book in my room and promptly burst into tears. There was no reason for me to read it now. So I read it.

I'm glad. This book has helped me through a time of personal religious and emotional crisis, which is a little strange given the subject matter! Let's just say some lessons need to be applied. I bought it so that Pagan lessons could be fed through the analogy of Eminem's persona, life etc. That happened. Just not the way I suspected.

Let me first say that this isn't a biography of Marshall Mathers. That threw me at first, I was waiting for the 'he was born on this date, at this place...' kind of trivia, but it's not like that. Bozza interweaves personal experience of being with Eminem, from the start of his career to the present day, with examinations of the issues around Eminem. One chapter is devoted to the history of Detroit, with emphasis upon its musical history. There are investigations in the issues of misogyny, youth trends, the context of American culture and the timing of Eminem, as well as the issues affecting the man himself.

I was able to explore the issue of identity - splitting your own personality into three and doing the whole 'caught in the crossfire between childhood and stardom' thing, then trying to integrate the three; the issue of how a working class background shapes your future workaholicism; approval, disapproval, pulling rabbits out of hats. I was able to explore a lot of personal issues right when I was losing my religion.

I'm now going to register this book with www.bookcrossings.com and then post it to a fellow Witchgrover, Jami. I hope it's all that to her too.

Saoirse put me onto this book, for a very good reason. I got the message. *grin* As for the rest of the book, I found it a nice easy read, particularly suited to where I was reading it - the Shambala Festival - and as far from the David Ray Griffin book, as I'd been reading, as it's possible to get.

It was easy, it was nice, there were one or two theories which caught my attention, but on the whole there was little here as I hadn't already read elsewhere. I think my brain is ruined when it comes to reading non-academic non-fiction! However, I did enjoy it and it arrived at a time when I needed to rest my brain a bit.

I started reading this at a friend's house and got so engrossed that I ended up buying the book just to finish it. I didn't think that I had any more questions to raise nor that I had any other non-official theories about September 11th 2001 to hear. I was wrong.

The thing which struck me about this book is that there is no conjecture, no giant leaps for mankind from one fact to the next. David Ray Griffin is an academic and therefore presents his evidence in a way which appeals greatly to me - open sources, footnotes, bibliography all present and correct. The book does have an academic feel to it, so if that doesn't generally suit, then you may find it a little dry. It's a lot of facts and figures, which I like but realize that many don't.

Yes, it disturbed me. I've been downright disturbed since it happened and it first occurred to me that certain things don't logically add up. David Ray Griffin helps to provide more evidence as to why I'm disturbed.