- Murdered by Mumia: A Conversation With Maureen Faulkner
Posted on 03 Jan 2008 in Non-Fiction Reviews, Politics, True Crime
“The man lifted his arm and fired a single shot in Danny’s back. Danny was able to turn and fire one return shot at Abu-Jamal that hit him in the abdomen. Danny then fell onto the sidewalk. Mumia Abu-Jamal approached him as he lay unarmed and wounded on the ground and pointed his 5 shot Charter Arms revolver at Danny. He fired three more shots at him; two pierced his jacket but did not hit him. Jamal then moved closer, bent down and placed his gun to within 6 inches of Danny’s face. He fired his final shot into Danny’s forehead and the bullet came to rest in his brain.”
- Four Shipwrecked Castaways Cross Sixteenth Century America
Posted on 19 Dec 2007 in History, Native American, Non-Fiction Reviews
“But at that point most of the expeditionaries perished as a result of Indian attacks, illness, and starvation. In fact, several expedition members resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Eventually, out of three hundred men comprising the original land contingent, only four survived. These four castaways remained as slaves of the coastal Indians of Texas for six years until they finally made their escape into what is now northeast Mexico.”
- Hanna Rosin Discusses God’s Harvard
Posted on 09 Oct 2007 in Education, Non-Fiction Reviews, Politics, Religion
“Tensions often arise between secular teachings and Biblical beliefs. Many students are reading, say Kant and Nietzsche for the first time. They may be alarmed, but they also may find those writers intoxicating.”
- Michael Behe on The Edge of Evolution
Posted on 24 Sep 2007 in Non-Fiction Reviews, Religion, Science
“I conclude that Darwinian processes account for little of the machinery of life, and that most positive evolution must be nonrandom — guided somehow — and I argue that result fits well with the fine-tuning of the universe discovered by physics.”
- Alfred S. Posamentier on the Fibonacci Numbers
Posted on 29 Aug 2007 in Mathematics, Non-Fiction Reviews
“The golden ratio is also quite ubiquitous in art and in architecture. We find it by placing a rectangle around the Parthenon (Athens, Greece) and the United Nations building (New York), as well as at the doors of the Cathedral of Chartres (France). Let’s not forget that the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C. must contain the golden ratio as do all regular pentagons.”
- Jeffrey J. Kripal, Author of Esalen
Posted on 01 Aug 2007 in Non-Fiction Reviews, Philosophy, Religion
“By human potentialities, Huxley and Esalen meant to refer to all those aspects of the human being that have not been generally developed in western educational practices and culture but are nevertheless quite real. It was Abraham Maslow who gave the Esalen actors a vocabulary and psychology to express how such potentialities might be actualized.”
- A Talk With Cullen Murphy, Author of Are We Rome?
Posted on 27 Jun 2007 in History, Non-Fiction Reviews, Politics
“That said, the thinking that lay behind the invasion of Iraq—the notion that we could transform a society more or less overnight, and in the process “jumpstart democracy” in the entire Middle East—was a colossal act of hubris. And it was essentially a Roman act. It was undertaken with America-centric motives, and with little understanding of the people on the receiving end, or of their ability to oppose us. Those haunting words from Velleius—’as if on a picnic’—pretty much sum up our approach to this and to too many other things.”
- Sophie Osborn on Saving the California Condor
Posted on 15 Jun 2007 in Environment, Nature, Non-Fiction Reviews
“I think hunters need to start demanding more research into the human health impacts of hunting with lead bullets. Saving condors may benefit us more than we ever imagined.”
- T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting Discusses Hip Hop’s Attitude Toward Women
Posted on 15 Jun 2007 in African American, Music, Non-Fiction Reviews
“The title was inspired by Snoop Dogg. It captures the ethos of the new gender politics I explore in the book–which is essentially that women are disposable, exchangeable, throwaway commodities to charismatic males who bond around keeping them “down” or in their place.”
- An Interview With Louis Kahn Biographer Carter Wiseman
Posted on 15 Jun 2007 in Architecture, Art & Design
“I think the most powerful common thread running through Kahn’s work was his humanity. He seems to have believed deeply in the idea that humankind is perfectible, and that architecture could play a role in that.”
- An Interview With “Pistol Pete” Maravich Biographer Mark Kriegel
Posted on 13 Jun 2007 in Non-Fiction Reviews, Sports
“One of the components of genius, I would argue, is an unnaturally high tolerance for practice. Pete could stay on the court longer than other kids. Much longer.”
- Allen Shawn Discusses Phobias
Posted on 13 Jun 2007 in Non-Fiction Reviews, Psychology
“When I finally encountered the concept of ‘agoraphobia’, I recognized myself. I have an intense fear of being trapped or isolated.”
- Mark Harris Discusses A “Natural Way of Burial”
Posted on 05 Jun 2007 in Death, Environment, Non-Fiction Reviews
“Above ground, the local cemetery may look bucolic and natural; below the surface, it serves as a de facto landfill of hazardous wastes and non-biodegradable materials.”
- Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
Posted on 11 Apr 2007 in Classics, Death, Non-Fiction Reviews, Philosophy, Psychology
According to Becker, man is torn between his symbolic, self-conscious awareness and his animal nature. The same creature that names himself, imagines, explores and speculates is in the end, food for insects.
- An Interview With Thriller Writer Stephen White
Posted on 03 Apr 2007 in Fiction Reviews, Thrillers, Writers
“When I started writing the pages in 1989 that later evolved to became my first book, I had no intent, conception, premonition, or clue that I was creating characters that would endure for over a dozen books.”
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