The balance between the seriousness of Rachel’s story coupled with the humorous farce taking place around her makes for an engaging and surprisingly thought-provoking read. As one would expect of a creative writing instructor, Waterhouse has created a tight, fast…
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky by Charles Ginenthal
I was a young man when I read Velikovsky’s books, but I always though, in my mature years, that it was sad for Velikovsky to be denied recognition for his contribution to human understanding by so many prominent scientists, even after he was dead. And I always wondered how justified were his critics in their condemnation of him. This book by Charles Ginenthal: Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky clarifies what happened between Velikovsky and his critics, principally Carl Sagan.
A review of Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy by Henry H Bauer
In my readings, I have seen Velikovsky belittled in many scientific books, and yet, some of his widely ridiculed claims turned out to be correct, like the surface temperature of Venus being 800 °C. Because of the long standing controversy about Velikovsky, Henry Bauer wrote to set the record straight.
A review of Pharaohs and Kings by David M. Rohl
Forty-three years later, David Rohl published Pharaohs and Kings. Rohl, an eminent Egyptologist, spent twenty years examining the basis for the four pillars (or known dates) in Egyptian history. Benefitted by recent archaeological research, particularly by a catch of mummified Apis bulls (considered the sacred dwelling place of gods by the ancient Egyptians and carefully mummified when they died) Rohl and others constructed an unbroken line of dates intermeshing when the bulls were alive with the pharaohs who reigned when the bulls lived.
Cataclysm! Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B.C. by D. S. Allan and J. B. Delair
In the 1940s, a very well educated psychoanalyst, Immaneul Velikovsky, from his own studies of the human mind, felt these ancient myths weren’t 100% fictional after all. They had some similarity to what he was hearing from some of his patients who had suffered from overpowering fear. He studied and compared myths from cultures all over the world, Middle East, Mediterranean, Chinese, Mayan, Aztec, Inca, and others. They all seem to describe the same events. Velikovsky, therefore, thought the planetary orbits had been disturbed during historical times, causing havoc on earth and frightening people who, not knowing better, thought the planets were gods.
A review of Dead Piano by Henry Van Dyke
Throughout Dead Piano, there is a carefully evoked atmosphere, with recognizable and believable characters, but also strong farcical elements rooted in sudden reversals of conversational tone, with small matters becoming large, and accidents happening, and the establishment and/or subversion of…
The Betrayal of a Beautiful Man: Love and Death in Paris in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room
Giovanni’s Room, a book featuring a man who has chosen not to be free, might be considered James Baldwin’s declaration of independence: the book refuses to accept the usual boundaries of nationality, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality, turning these into open…
A review of Dropping Ecstasy With the Angels by Dee Rimbaud
This is not a lighthearted read. There are moments of terrible pain, of lonely emptiness, of insane decadence which will upset the prudish, and of spiritual crises.Dropping Ecstasy with the Angels is a serious and important collection with poems that are…
review of Write a Book on Anything in 28 Days or Less by Nick Daws
As an outline and motivational guide for writing a first draft, the course delivers reasonable value. However, a first draft is still a long way off the kind of work that needs to be written in order to find a…
A review of The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
As a distopia, the story effectively conveys the possibility that history could easily have been different, at the same time highlighting the delicacy of the structure of our current democracy–one that could change with little warning. There is plenty of…