J.G. Elliot (Author of My First Sonnets)

Derek Kreider rated a book liked it Mark Twain by Ron Chernow	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The book was very informative but I just found Twain much less interesting than I thought I would. He was great on many justice issues, like the Congo, but he just seemed like a creepy, childish, arrogant human.
Sep 04, 2026 12:49AM · like · see review
Derek Kreider is currently reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Aug 31, 2026 05:58PM · like
Derek Kreider rated a book it was ok The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Aug 28, 2026 11:37AM · like
Derek Kreider rated a book liked it The Fisherman by John Langan	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed the first 1/3 and the last 10%, but didn’t find the middle very compelling. The exploration of grief was particularly interesting
Aug 28, 2026 10:42AM · like · see review
Derek Kreider rated a book it was amazing East of Eden by John Steinbeck	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I can’t really explain why I enjoyed this work so much, but I was captivated by the story at almost every moment.
Aug 28, 2026 04:25AM · like · see review
Derek Kreider rated a book liked it Where Love Is, There God Is Also by Leo Tolstoy	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Aug 24, 2026 03:51PM · like
Derek Kreider rated a book liked it The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Ok. Enjoyed a few of the discussions on despair.
Aug 24, 2026 03:50PM · like · see review
Derek Kreider rated a book really liked it Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A lot of Tolstoy’s theology is put on display here in narrative form. It reminds me of his other book, I think entitled “What I Believe,” where he makes the quote below. Also reminiscent of Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish” towards the end All doctri ...more
Aug 19, 2026 04:15AM · like · see review
Derek Kreider rated a book liked it In the Distance by Hernan Diaz (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Aug 17, 2026 11:53AM · like
Derek Kreider rated a book liked it The Strength of the Few (Hierarchy, #2) by James Islington (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
There was definitely a lot of cliche in the first book, and I overlooked that because it was an engaging story. The superlative nature of the protagonist continues here, and it just got a bit tiring. I noticed I wasn’t fully engaged when a few import ...more
Aug 17, 2026 03:16AM · like · see review

Derek Kreider rated a book liked it

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The book was very informative but I just found Twain much less interesting than I thought I would. He was great on many justice issues, like the Congo, but he just seemed like a creepy, childish, arrogant human.

Derek Kreider is currently reading

The Outsiders
by S.E. Hinton (Goodreads Author)

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The Wood at Midwinter
by Susanna Clarke

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The Fisherman
by John Langan

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I really enjoyed the first 1/3 and the last 10%, but didn’t find the middle very compelling. The exploration of grief was particularly interesting

Derek Kreider rated a book it was amazing

East of Eden
by John Steinbeck

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I can’t really explain why I enjoyed this work so much, but I was captivated by the story at almost every moment.

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Where Love Is, There God Is Also
by Leo Tolstoy

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The Power and the Glory
by Graham Greene

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Ok. Enjoyed a few of the discussions on despair.

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Resurrection
by Leo Tolstoy

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A lot of Tolstoy’s theology is put on display here in narrative form. It reminds me of his other book, I think entitled “What I Believe,” where he makes the quote below.

Also reminiscent of Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish” towards the end

All doctri A lot of Tolstoy’s theology is put on display here in narrative form. It reminds me of his other book, I think entitled “What I Believe,” where he makes the quote below.

Also reminiscent of Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish” towards the end

All doctrine that reveals the truth is chimerical to the blind. We may say, as many people do say (I was of the number), that the doctrine of Jesus is chimerical because it is contrary to human nature. It is against nature, we say, to turn the other cheek when we have been struck, to give all that we possess, to toil not for ourselves but for others. It is natural, we say, for a man to defend his person, his family, his property; that is to say, it is the nature of man to struggle for existence. A learned person has proved scientifically that the most sacred duty of man is to defend his rights, that is, to fight.

But the moment we detach ourselves from the idea that the existing organization established by man is the best, is sacred, the moment we do this, the objection that the doctrine of Jesus is contrary to human nature turns immediately upon him who makes it. No one will deny that not only to kill or torture a man, but to torture a dog, to kill a fowl or a calf, is to inflict suffering reproved by human nature. (I have known of farmers who had ceased to eat meat solely because it had fallen to their lot to slaughter animals.) And yet our existence is so organized that every personal enjoyment is purchased at the price of human suffering contrary to human nature.

We have only to examine closely the complicated mechanism of our institutions that are based upon coercion to realize that coercion and violence are contrary to human nature. The judge who has condemned according to the code, is not willing to hang the criminal with his own hands; no clerk would tear a villager from his weeping family and cast him into prison; the general or the soldier, unless he be hardened by discipline and service, will not undertake to slay a hundred Turks or Germans or destroy a village, would not, if he could help it, kill a single man. Yet all these things are done, thanks to the administrative machinery which divides responsibility for misdeeds in such a way that no one feels them to be contrary to nature.

Some make the laws, others execute them; some train men by discipline to automatic obedience; and these last, in their turn, become the instruments of coercion, and slay their kind without knowing why or to what end. But let a man disentangle himself for a moment from this complicated network, and he will readily see that coercion is contrary to his nature. Let us abstain from affirming that organized violence, of which we make use to our own profit, is a divine, immutable law, and we shall see clearly which is most in harmony with human nature,—the doctrine of violence or the doctrine of Jesus.

What is the law of nature? Is it to know that my security and that of my family, all my amusements and pleasures, are purchased at the expense of misery, deprivation, and suffering to thousands of human beings—by the terror of the gallows; by the misfortune of thousands stifling within prison walls; by the fear inspired by millions of soldiers and guardians of civilization, torn from their homes and besotted by discipline, to protect our pleasures with loaded revolvers against the possible interference of the famishing? Is it to purchase every fragment of bread that I put in my mouth and the mouths of my children by the numberless privations that are necessary to procure my abundance? Or is it to be certain that my piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that every one else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat?

It is only necessary to understand that, thanks to our social organization, each one of our pleasures, every minute of our cherished tranquility, is obtained by the sufferings and privations of thousands of our fellows—it is only necessary to understand this, to know what is conformable to human nature; not to our animal nature alone, but the animal and spiritual nature which constitutes man. When we once understand the doctrine of Jesus in all its bearings, with all its consequences, we shall be convinced that his doctrine is not contrary to human nature; but that its sole object is to supplant the chimerical law of the struggle against evil by violence—itself the law contrary to human nature and productive of so many evils. ...more

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In the Distance
by Hernan Diaz (Goodreads Author)

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The Strength of the Few by James Islington

The Strength of the Few (Hierarchy, #2)
by James Islington (Goodreads Author)

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There was definitely a lot of cliche in the first book, and I overlooked that because it was an engaging story. The superlative nature of the protagonist continues here, and it just got a bit tiring. I noticed I wasn’t fully engaged when a few import ...more

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