Book discussion

Book discussion: Enlightenment Now

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Is the world going to hell? Are we all doomed? Steven Pinker has consistently argued that not only is this view mistaken, the long-term trends of the world show steady improvement in human well-being. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress provides many specifics in support of this position.

Englightenment Now coverAlarm and disasters sell in the news media. People want to appear serious by citing problems rather than progress. Organizations looking to raise money or get people involved focus on what needs fixing. Taken together, they can create the impression that only terrible things are happening and they’re getting worse.
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Book review: For Faith and Freedom: A Short History of Unitarianism in Europe

This entry was posted in Book discussion and tagged books history religion on by

Cover, For Faith and FreedomThe title of this blog post includes the subtitle, because otherwise the book title sounds like a conservative political treatise. Charles Howe’s For Faith and Freedom is part of my growing research collection for the Thomas Lorenz novels. Before reading it, I was worried that Frieda might be unrealistically advanced in her views for the 16th century. After reading the accounts in this book, I understand better that it was entirely possible to launch a full-scale attack on the Christian orthodoxies of the day. You just had to take into account the likelihood of being denounced, physically attacked, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and burned alive.
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Book review: Retaking College Hill

This entry was posted in Book discussion and tagged books education fiction Objectivism on by

Walter Donway
Retaking College Hill: The Adults Are Back
Paperback or e-book, Amazon.com

Cover, Retaking College HillRetaking College Hill is a novel of both action and ideas. It deals with a topic which is an excellent source of dramatic conflict but hasn’t been used in literature as much as it should. That topic is the battle for academic freedom, for making universities a place for teaching and controversy without fear of retaliation.
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Fanfic discussion: Banned from Argo 3

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If it’s a stretch to call a fan fiction novel on the Web a book, it’s only a slight one. More than a few people reading this will be interested to learn that Leslie Fish’s Star Trek fan novel Banned from Argo is now available for reading.

Warning: When you follow that link, you may be required to agree to massive terms-of-service and privacy policy documents before you’re allowed to read the novel. There are ways to get around them, the simplest being to turn off JavaScript. I’m positive that Leslie would approve.

If you’d like to support Leslie, see her Bandcamp page.
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Book meta-discussion: Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy 1

This entry was posted in Book discussion Censorship and tagged Antifa books bookstores censorship on by

This will be the last of my regular Monday book posts for a while. In preparation for moving, I’ve put a lot of my books in boxes, and it’s getting harder to find the books that I want to reread and discuss. Naturally, this isn’t stopping me from acquiring even more books. This post is about an upcoming book by Andy Ngo, called Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy. Or rather, it’s about Antifa’s attempt to suppress the book. I have it on pre-order from Water Street Bookstore but haven’t read it yet.

There’s a lot of misinformation about Antifa. On the one hand, mainstream media articles keep claiming it’s an “anti-fascist” organization. It’s anti-fascist in the same sense that the Capitol riot was “patriotic”: not at all, but the people involved find it handy to appropriate a term which they don’t deserve. On the other hand, some people on the right have built it into a ten-foot-tall organization which is behind everything. It’s even supposed to have been the real people who invaded the Capitol. What it mostly does is disrupt speaking events it doesn’t like. It’s basically a gang of thugs who hate freedom and aren’t hugely important.
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