Social justice book reviews
If a book can be “hot” in the world of paleoanthropology, then Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art is that book. Published in the fall of 2020, Kindred is the latest in a long line of books about Neanderthals, but anyone who has read Kindred knows that it is not like the others.
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Every time I have written a post dedicated to my bookshelf over the years, I have gotten at least one comment politely suggesting that I get an e-reader. E-readers can save you money and shelf space, as well as the work of packing up boxes of books when it comes time to move. An e-reader also would have come in handy for me when I was covertly reading all those atheist books back in my closeted days. But for how difficult it was to disguise my God Delusion book, and how heavy all the boxes were when I moved, I wouldn’t trade my books for anything.
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I’ll be honest with you: Stamped from the Beginning is a very intimidating book in more ways than one. It’s a 511-page tome, which makes sense considering that it is, as the subtitle tells us, The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. It’s won several awards, and for good reason.
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When I was brainstorming on what to write about this week, I had the idea of doing a series responding to one of the short Christian apologetics books on my shelves. I landed on Josh McDowell’s More Than a Carpenter, which seemed like a shorter version of the famed The Case for Christ, surely featuring the same arguments that, after having educated myself some on the historicity of Jesus and the development of the gospels, should be easy to refute.
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After reading Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and The Demon-Haunted World, I decided that it was time to return for Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, the Cosmos sequel famous for the short but poignant speech of the same name. Pale Blue Dot is possibly the most humbling book you will ever read, and that rings especially true for anyone who believes that the Universe was created exclusively for humans.
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When a person leaves religion or loses their faith, I’ve found that they tend to go one of two ways. Some people lose interest in religion altogether and want to get as far away from it as possible. In a way, I think this is a shame, because I’m one of the people that goes the other way; I decided that I wanted to give religion a closer look. I turned back around after walking away to scrutinize the history of Christianity and determine which parts of it, if any, are really true. And what have I found?
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After reading The Demon-Haunted World, I was hoping to find a book that was a bit more fast-paced before moving onto something else academic. I started reading a book that I had had on my shelves for a few months: The Peking Man is Missing by Claire Taschdjian. The Peking Man is a group of fossils that has gone through several names but is now classified as Homo erectus.
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As you likely know, I recently finished reading Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark after it was suggested to me by many. For most of the book, I found myself making underline after underline, as Sagan (and in some cases, his beloved wife Ann Druyan) once again captured the awe one feels at the beauty of science and Nature. Additionally, everyone saying that his “foreboding” quotes are so applicable to modern times are correct as well; Sagan explains how only when a society is dedicated to science and skepticism can it stave off the grasp of authoritarian leadership. His stance is so eerily relevant that it feels appropriate for me to be re-reading these quotes on Halloween.
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Carl Sagan’s 1996 book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark has gained popularity in recent years as Sagan has been crowned a sort of prophet of science. I learned this while watching this video where Drew McCoy explains Sagan’s most famous “prediction” and raves that his viewers ought to read this book. I had been having difficulty choosing which Carl Sagan book to read next, so the video convinced me that it ought to be The Demon-Haunted World.
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Since I started this blog, I have posted a bookshelf update about once a year. After my latest one in April 2019, I didn’t know if I would do another one since my bookshelf changes so much, and anyone who wants to keep up with it can do so with my Goodreads anyway. Obviously, I’ve changed my mind and decided to share with you the way it has been changing and what types of books I’ve been into.
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