Tag: Religion
Educated: A Memoir (Tara Westover)
Educated: A Memoir: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her ‘head-for-the-hills’ bag. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged metal in her father’s junkyard.
Her father distrusted the medical establishment, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. Continue reading…
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved (Kate Bowler)
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward ‘blessing.’ She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son.
Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. Continue reading…
The Nightingale (Kristin Hannah)
The Nightingale: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“A #1 New York Times bestseller, Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year, and soon to be a major motion picture, this unforgettable novel of love and strength in the face of war has enthralled a generation.
With courage, grace, and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of World War II and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. Continue reading…
Origin (Dan Brown)
Origin: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“Robert Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, arrives at the ultramodern Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend a major announcement—the unveiling of a discovery that ‘will change the face of science forever.’ The evening’s host is Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old billionaire and futurist whose dazzling high-tech inventions and audacious predictions have made him a renowned global figure. Kirsch, who was one of Langdon’s first students at Harvard two decades earlier, is about to reveal an astonishing breakthrough… one that will answer two of the fundamental questions of human existence. Continue reading…
A Column of Fire (Ken Follett)
A Column of Fire: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clash, testing friendship, loyalty, and love.
Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious conflict dividing the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth. When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England. Continue reading…
Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment (Robert Wright)
Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“From one of America’s greatest minds, a journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness.
Robert Wright famously explained in The Moral Animal how evolution shaped the human brain. The mind is designed to often delude us, he argued, about ourselves and about the world. And it is designed to make happiness hard to sustain.
But if we know our minds are rigged for anxiety, depression, anger, and greed, what do we do? Continue reading…
Love Story (The Baxter Family Book 1) (Karen Kingsbury)
Love Story (The Baxter Family Book 1): Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“From #1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury comes a new book featuring everyone’s favorite family—the Baxters, which tells the story of how John and Elizabeth first fell in love.
From the day they met, John and Elizabeth were destined to fall in love. Their whirlwind romance started when they were young college students and lasted nearly thirty years—until Elizabeth died of cancer.
So when John Baxter is asked to relive his long-ago love story with Elizabeth for his grandson Cole’s heritage project, he’s not sure he can do it. Continue reading…
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Anonymous)
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“Curious book created in Russia and published at the beginning of the 20th century. The book describes a plan to achieve global domination by the Jewish people. Following its publication, a series of articles printed in The Times in 1921 revealed that much of the material was directly plagiarized from earlier works of political satire unrelated to Jews.”
New Books Playground says: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a book we don’t know what to think of. Continue reading…
Highlights from The Jewish State (Theodor Herzl)
Taking over the meiert.com series, here are some snippets and highlights from Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State (1896).
Emphasis as it appears in the original work may be missing, and our own edits, though marked, may be broad. Important: By sharing these highlights we neither endorse nor recommend respective authors and their views. Assume that we know little of the authors, and that we have nuanced views on the matter—as with all our book recommendations.
[…]the childish error that commodities pass from hand to hand in continuous rotation.
The Dawn of Christianity: People and Gods in an Age of Miracles and Magic (Robert C. Knapp)
The Dawn of Christianity: People and Gods in an Age of Miracles and Magic: Learn more at Amazon or at Goodreads.
“Ordinary people of antiquity interacted with the supernatural through a mosaic of beliefs and rituals. Exploring everyday life from 200 BCE to the end of the first century CE, Robert Knapp shows that Jews and polytheists lived with the gods in very similar ways. Traditional interactions provided stability even in times of crisis, while changing a relationship risked catastrophe for the individual, his family, and his community. However, people in both traditions did at times leave behind their long-honored rites to try something new. Continue reading…