Directions: The date at the beginning of each book is the date on which my review was published in this blog. Each review consists of three parts: 1. “Why read it?” 2. Sample ideas from the book, either paraphrased or quoted, and 3. Final, thought-provoking quotes. To locate the review, look at the “Blog Archive” at the right of the blog. Click on the year 2007. Find the month in which the review was published, click on it and go to the date of the review.
Sunday, May 20, 2007. The Flowering of New England. Van Wyck Brooks. Tells the story of the “New England Renaissance” in the period between the Revolution and the Civil War, the time of Emerson, Longfellow, Thoreau, Hawthorne, among others. A time of excitement and achievement in learning.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007. For the Glory. Ken Denlinger. The story of a Penn State football recruiting class. Nonfiction. It’s the story of football recruits in all major college football programs.
Friday, May 25, 2007. Fox at the Wood's Edge: Loren Eiseley. Gale Christianson. Biography of a scientist, a paleontologist, who wrote essays on nature and the meaning of evolution. Some of his essays are unforgettable. He conveys a melancholy, yet joyous, view of life. The miracles he discovers are in everyday existence.
Sunday, May 27, 2007. From Time to Time: A Novel. Jack Finney. If we could travel back in time, should we try to change future events by manipulating circumstances in the past?
Monday, May 28, 2007. Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber shot down Over Germany in World War II. Thomas Childers. Vivid re-creation of the experience of training for and flying a B-24 in the last days over Germany in WWII. You are there. The story is pieced together from the letters home, documents from the government and interviews with German citizens who were there when the plane crashed. Again, irony is the theme of war.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007. F Scott Fitzgerald on Writing. Ed. Larry W. Phillips. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s thoughts on writing.
May 30, 2007. The Future of the Novel: Essays on the Art of Fiction. Henry James. In his inimitable style [read, “convoluted sentences”], James writes about the authors of his time, Dickens, George Eliot, etc.
Thursday, May 31, 2007. Future Shock. Alvin Toffler. People overwhelmed by change. Acceleration of change. Future shock: too much change in too short a time.
Friday, June 1, 2007. The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure and Effects of National Socialism. Karl Dietrich Bracher. How and why did Hitler succeed?
Sunday, June 3, 2007. Giants in the Earth. O.E. Rolvaag. Novel. The effects on the pioneers’ character of the desolate, endless, malevolent landscapes on which the they lived and worked.
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