Review: Lukewarming

Lukewarming: The New Climate Science that Changes Everything by Patrick J. Michaels
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was an extremely readable, well-researched and documented look at the current state of climate science and the politics surrounding it. Because of all of the charts and graphs and pieces of information, I had to read it in chunks to digest the information thoroughly, but I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a better understanding of what is true and what is hype.

View all my reviews

Meditations

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book has taken me a long time to get through. I have set it aside and returned to it a number of times, and I realized today that I needed to just plow through and finish it. I think that I would have enjoyed it more if the Kindle version weren't written in archaic English, with "thees" and "thous" and "hadst" and "shouldst." Even with the benefit of having grown up with the King James Bible and archaic language in church, it still slowed me down.

It was interesting to read the thoughts that this powerful man wrote down almost 2000 years ago. It has been nearly thirty years since I did any formal study of philosophy, but I could pick up his Stoic views in the writings. Ultimately, I am glad that I read it, and relieved to finally check it off my list.

View all my reviews

Faust

It was poor planning on my part reading Faust in January, because it doesn't fit the category for my 12 Month Classics Challenge, because I haven't always wanted to read it. However, it is the first title for my other classics challenge, and for that challenge I have some blogging prompts.

WHEN I Discovered This Classic
WHY I Chose to Read It
WHAT Makes It A Classic
WHAT I Thought of This Classic
WILL It Stay A Classic
WHO I’d Recommend It To

I am not really sure when I discovered Faust. I think I heard of Goethe while I was in high school, and I'm fairly certain that my first knowledge of the name "Faust" was because of the opera. At some point in the last few years, as I've been assembling a list of books that are gaps in my knowledge, I decided that Faust was one of them. I saw a review of this particular translation, and it sounded promising, so I ordered it.

I think Faust is a classic partially because the basic story has had many retellings in many forms--including Goethe's own revisions--over time. The poetry was the best part for me. I'm assuming that the translation was really well done, because there were none of the issues that you often run into with translated poetry. It isn't a book that I enjoyed all that much--except again--the poetry, but I'm sure it will remain a classic.

I would recommend it to my daughter and oldest son, especially since they could read the original German, too. And I think they would enjoy it.