The Journey (Adam Hamilton)

Short meditation on the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. Emotional, touching at times, but for me, marred by too much imediacy ("how do you think Mary would have felt", etc, when realy, how can we possibly know that?).

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Quotes:

Much of the Old Testament was written predicting, or in response to, the destruction of Israel. The northern half of the country was destroyed by the Assyrian Empire in 722 B.C. The southern half of the country, known as Judah, was destroyed by the Babylonian Empire in 587 or 586 B.C.

Kecharitomene is literally "one who has been filled with grace."

virginal conception is not mentioned by the apostle Paul or in the Gospels of Mark and John

Luke's begins in Nazareth with Mary. Matthew's story is set in Bethlehem. People tend to merge these accounts, which makes for a less-than-accurate view of what took place.

Joseph and Mary's engagement was most likely long-distance,

Unlike Nazareth, which was virtually unknown, Bethlehem was a well-known town. Though not large, it was known as the place where Rachel had died giving birth to Benjamin.
Bethlehem was also the setting of the Book of Ruth.
Yet it should be noted that even in the days of Joseph, the town of Bethlehem was primarily a working-class town of people who served the needs of those with resources in Jerusalem. Once more we find that God demonstrates a propensity to choose and use people who live in relative obscurity and whose lives and spirits reflect true humility.

"Jesus, like that first Immanuel, was a sign sent by God that you might know God is with you, that you might know he will never leave you, that you might know he will deliver you! What happened in the days of Isaiah is happening again!"

In so many ways today's Palestinians are modern-day Samaritans. Much of the West Bank was Samaria in the time of Jesus. The conflict between Jews and Palestinians defines life in the Holy Land today. Like so many first-century Jews, American Christians avoid passing through the West Bank territories or staying in West Bank towns like Bethlehem while visiting the Holy Land. Few of us have taken the time to understand the conflict.

On Talking Terms With Dogs - Calming Signals (Turid Rugaas)

A short and excellent book that is a good companion to Patricia McConnel's books. Everyone who interacts with dogs (which is, potentially, everybody) should read this book. Understanding dog language will allow you a better rapport with our canine friends, and will very probably save you from a few bites as well.

If you're trying to figure out the name, she's Norwegian.

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Quotes:

I have seen dog people (and some wolf people as well) caught up in the idea of always maintaining high rank by aggressive means, believing their only choices are between forcibly dominating the animal or submitting to it. The problem with this approach is two-fold. Firstly, aggression may well escalate, and secondly, an either-or choice between forcible dominance or submission is not the only choice available to wolves, to dogs or to humans.

Wolves and dogs try to avoid conflicts. They are conflict-solving animals.

When you jump and wave and scream a lot to make the dog run faster, it will often have the opposite effect. The dog gets slower in order to calm you down.

When you approach a dog that you want to put on leash, the slower you move, the better chance you have of making him stand still.

Bowing can be an invitation to play, particularly if the dog is jumping from side to side in a playful manner. If he stands still in a bow the possibility of it being a calming signal is high.
[...]
You can use a similar signal yourself by stretching your arms, rather like when you yawn, but stretching down towards the ground.

For a dog, lying down on his back, belly up, is submission. Lying down with his belly to the ground is an act of calming.

Sniffing is one of those signals that are difficult for people to use. I find it hard to practice sniffing. But something similar can be used: you might try sitting down, pretending to scratch the grass or to examine something on the floor.

Mature dogs do not usually go straight toward each other. They might, if they use other clear signals, but it is impolite to do so and most of them try to avoid it.

A wagging tail is not always a sign of happiness. In order to interpret it properly you need to look at the whole dog.

Dogs are experts at this. Conflict solving is a part of their heritage from their ancestors the wolves, and they read each other like we read books. It is a part of their survival instincts and pack behavior. We will never be as good at it as the dogs are, but we can understand more about what they are telling us. We can observe, understand, and let the dog know we understand. We can give signals back to reassure them we understand. We can communicate better during training and daily life together with our dog.

There is no, absolutely no, reason or excuse to punish, be violent, threatening, or forceful towards a dog or to demand too much of him.

Do not stoop towards the dog coming to you. If you do, in most cases he won't come all the way up to you at all, but will run past you, looking away from you. Stand upright, maybe with your side to the dog and then it is much more likely that he will come right up to you.

Do not hold a dog tight.

always let your dog have an "emergency exit" and let him use it if he feels like it

For many years it has been a myth that you have to take a leadership position to prevent a puppy from trying to take over and to be the boss. Many sad dog destinies and many problems have come out of that myth, and it is not the way it works. Stop using the word leadership, and use instead the word parenthood, as this is exactly what it should be.

Remember that every time you are close to a dog, you have a choice how to behave. You can act in a threatening or a friendly way. There is no, absolutely NO, excuse for scaring a dog.

If you want your dog to respect you, you must also respect your dog.

I feel privileged to be able to do what I have always wanted to do. I will go on doing it until the end of my days, using all my skills, my energy, and knowledge to help as many dogs as I can - doing something for dogs, because they have done so much for me.

The New York Trilogy (Paul Auster)

Criss-crossing stories exchange themes and characters freely... characters and writer exchange places, fight and sometimes try to kill each other. This book can be read at different levels:

1. A commentary in the art of creation and the relationship between creation and creator
2. Does "truth" exist on its own, or only to the extent we create it?
3. The complex relationships between language and reality.
4. Construction and deconstruction of personality.
5. Descent into madness through obssession.

Paul Auster hijacks the detective thriller form and makes it fit his own purposes masterfully, without losing anything in the process. These stories still read very well as thrillers.

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Quotes:

Auster’s detectives are pilgrims, questers.
If the city is a forest and the detective is a pilgrim, the author is a pilgrim as well. He is the one who makes it out alive, who can exchange his story for supper and a bed of straw.

It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.

“Is this Paul Auster?” asked the voice. “I would like to speak to Mr. Paul Auster.”

In effect, the writer and the detective are interchangeable. The reader sees the world through the detective’s eyes

I have not been hired to understand—merely to act.

“You see, the world is in fragments, sir. And it’s my job to put it back together again.”

But people change, don’t they? One minute we’re one thing, and then another another.

Memory is a great blessing, Peter. The next best thing to death.

“Lying is a bad thing. It makes you sorry you were ever born. And not to have been born is a curse. You are condemned to live outside time. And when you live outside time, there is no day and night. You don’t even get a chance to die.”

The red notebook, of course, is only half the story, as any sensitive reader will understand.

First of all there is Blue. Later there is White, and then there is Black, and before the beginning there is Brown. Brown broke him in, Brown taught him the ropes, and when Brown grew old, Blue took over. That is how it begins. The place is New York, the time is the present, and neither one will ever change.

In every report he has written so far, action holds forth over interpretation. For example: The subject walked from Columbus Circle to Carnegie Hall. No references to the weather, no mention of the traffic, no stab at trying to guess what the subject might be thinking. The report confines itself to known and verifiable facts, and beyond this limit it does not try to go.

This isn’t the story of my life, after all, he says. I’m supposed to be writing about him, not myself.

He says to himself: what happened is not really what happened. For the first time in his experience of writing reports, he discovers that words do not necessarily work, that it is possible for them to obscure the things they are trying to say.

What he does not know is that were he to find the patience to read the book in the spirit in which it asks to be read, his entire life would begin to change, and little by little he would come to a full understanding of his situation—that is to say, of Black, of White, of the case, of everything that concerns him.

Writing is a solitary business. It takes over your life. In some sense, a writer has no life of his own. Even when he’s there, he’s not really there.

But that was a long time ago. We grew up, went off to different places, drifted apart. None of that is very strange, I think. Our lives carry us along in ways we cannot control, and almost nothing stays with us. It dies when we do, and death is something that happens to us every day.

who wouldn’t jump at the chance to redeem himself—what man is strong enough to reject the possibility of hope?

Stories happen only to those who are able to tell them, someone once said.

Only darkness has the power to make a man open his heart to the world [...]
I had entered my own darkness, and it was there that I learned the one thing that is more terrible than anything else: that sexual desire can also be the desire to kill, that a moment comes when it is possible for a man to choose death over life.

I was a detective, after all, and my job was to hunt for clues.

A month is a long time, more than enough time for a man to come apart.

The same holds for the two books that come before it, City of Glass and Ghosts. These three stories are finally the same story, but each one represents a different stage in my awareness of what it is about.

This man was Fanshawe because I said he was Fanshawe, and that was all there was to it. Nothing could stop me anymore.

My name isn’t Fanshawe. It’s Stillman. Peter Stillman.

Names aren’t important, after all. What matters is that I know who you really are.

the truth was no longer important

I did not die there, but I came close, and there was a moment, perhaps there were several moments, when I tasted death, when I saw myself dead. There is no cure for such an encounter. Once it happens, it goes on happening; you live with it for the rest of your life.

You can’t possibly know what’s true or not true. You’ll never know.

All the words were familiar to me, and yet they seemed to have been put together strangely, as though their final purpose was to cancel each other out.

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Alexander McCall Smith)

I enjoyed this! I thought the male, English author got a very good perspective of the female African hero and all the other African characters. This is one of those books that make one fall in love with Africa all over again. And a very good detective book, too. It could be a good step up for the Nancy Drew readers, though it does have a small amount of adult content in it.

A sly look at the foibles and small evils of daily life, which includes the recognition that much more serious evil still lurks just beyond: “You can buy bones in Johannesburg. Did you not know that? They are not expensive.”

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Quotes:

MMA RAMOTSWE had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe—the only lady private detective in Botswana—brewed redbush tea. And three mugs—one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need?

Maybe you will find the real Daddy one day. Maybe not. But in the meantime, you can be happy again.

Some people think of God as a white man, which is an idea which the missionaries brought with them all those years ago and which seems to have stuck in people’s mind. I do not think this is so, because there is no difference between white men and black men; we are all the same; we are just people. And God was here anyway, before the missionaries came.

They kept us apart, because that is how they worked, these white men. The Swazis were all in one gang, and the Zulus in another, and the Malawians in another.

there are many sadnesses in the hearts of men who are far away from their countries.

He looked at me and nodded. Then he took my hand and shook it, which is the first time a white man had done that to me. So I called him my brother, which is the first time I had done that to a white man.

“We are the ones who first ploughed the earth when Modise (God) made it,” ran an old Setswana poem. “We were the ones who made the food. We are the ones who look after the men when they are little boys, when they are young men, and when they are old and about to die. We are always there. But we are just women, and nobody sees us.”

The Reverend looked down at the ground, which, in her experience, was where people usually looked if they felt truly sorry. The shamelessly unrepentant, she found, always looked up at the sky.

But Mma Malatsi was extraordinarily calm. “Well at least I know that he’s with the Lord,” she said. “And that’s much better than knowing that he’s in the arms of some other woman, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry. I did not mean to be rude. You’ve lost your husband and you must be very sorry.” “A bit,” said Mma Malatsi. “But I have lots to do.”

To lose a child, like that, was something that could end one’s world. One could never get back to how it was before. The stars went out. The moon disappeared. The birds became silent.

It was curious how some people had a highly developed sense of guilt, she thought, while others had none. Some people would agonise over minor slips or mistakes on their part, while others would feel quite unmoved by their own gross acts of betrayal or dishonesty.

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Do men really think they can fool us that easily?” she said. “Do they think we’re fools?” “I think they do,” said Mma Pekwane.

Yes—that was the difference between them. She was a fixer of lives—as so many women are—whereas he was a fixer of machines.

Lies are quite all right if you are lying for a good cause.

Hospitals were to her a memento mori in bricks and mortar; an awful reminder of the inevitable end that was coming to all of us but which she felt was best ignored while one got on with the business of life.

“If more women were in power, they wouldn’t let wars break out,” she said. “Women can’t be bothered with all this fighting. We see war for what it is—a matter of broken bodies and crying mothers.”
Dr Maketsi thought for a moment. He was thinking of Mrs Ghandi, who had a war, and Mrs Golda Meir, who also had a war, and then there was … “Most of the time,” he conceded. “Women are gentle most of the time, but they can be tough when they need to be.”

Mma Ramotswe did not want Africa to change. She did not want her people to become like everybody else, soulless, selfish, forgetful of what it means to be an African, or, worse still, ashamed of Africa. She would not be anything but an African, never, even if somebody came up to her and said “Here is a pill, the very latest thing. Take it and it will make you into an American.” She would say no. Never. No thank you.

There was so much suffering in Africa that it was tempting just to shrug your shoulders and walk away. But you can’t do that, she thought. You just can’t.

The woman looked at her scornfully “You can buy bones in Johannesburg. Did you not know that? They are not expensive.”

Ashes (Ilsa J. Bick)

I see this book as a "YA" version of Conrad McCarthy's The Road, in that a mysterious event creates a harsh post-apocalyptic world with lots and lots of walking. "YA" meaning the characters talk, like, whatever. There are lots of yucky zombies and plenty of kewl ultraviolence.

I'm not sure i'd give this to one of my daughters to read because of the violence -- lots of people and dogs get killed in nasty ways. But i have to say, it is a fun and captivating read, with interesting characters and an unusual plot (although i thought it dragged a little in the middle). And a lot easier to read than The Road

Then there is an abrupt ending that makes more sense now that i found out that this is the first book of a planned trilogy.

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Quotes:

Everyone was always so sorry when, really, sorry was just a word you said because it was more polite than whoa, better you than me.

“Oh.” Silence. “I wish I could do it all over again.” “Do what?” “Everything.

“As long as you’re alive, there is hope,” Jess said. “Hope is saying that I will live one more day, and that is a blessing, too.”

“Free will’s okay,” said Kincaid. “Only look where it got Adam.”

“You only want to brawl. You want a fight. Fighting tricks you into believing you can change the past, even when the past is dead and gone and all of it ashes,” said Jess.

Obeying orders just to obey is the mark of a person who has ceased to think. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing what is right than for doing what is wrong. Don’t fool yourself, Christopher. Peace comes with a price.”