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And 4 years later I have finished the Old Testament!

Christ, I’m two sentences in and already immersed in the author’s giddily love of throwing stupid new made-up terms at the reader as if we care.

I don’t have high hopes for this, having given 3,3 and 4 stars to previous books by this author. Hoping for a pleasant surprise, planning for a slog…

Numbers 2022/04/13

Leviticus: 2022/03/24

At 2520 ultra-thin pages with tiny two-column font, this baby is gonna take me years to complete, but I intend to read it all. “How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time”

Dates of completion of each book
- 2021/04/01: Genesis
-2022/03/13: Exodus

2022/03/13 - Exodus

At 2520 ultra-thin pages with tiny two-column font, this baby is gonna take me years to complete, but I intend to read it all. “How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time”

Dates of completion of each book
- 2021/04/01: Genesis

At 2520 ultra-thin pages with tiny two-column font, this baby is gonna take me years to complete, but I intend to read it all. “How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time”

At 1950 ultra-thin pages with tiny two-column font, this baby is gonna take me years to complete, but I intend to read it all. “How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time”

I am 20 minutes into the audiobook and can tell this is going to be so painful, but it feels like a necessary pain.

I do not yet know why this book is labeled “controversial”, having never seen the movie or read a review. BUT, maybe it is this description of the military: “A functionless organ, utterly obsolete, living on the taxpayers. A decidedly expensive way for inferior people who otherwise would be unemployed to live at public expense for a term of years, then give themselves airs for the rest of their lives.”

Rarely have I enjoyed the beginning chapters of a book as much as I’m enjoying this! Can’t wait for more!

Done with CD 6 of 7...the early 20th century.

This was MUCH harder to follow than any of the previous lectures. Possibly it's because everyone *knows* who Socrates, Augustine, Hume and Marx were. The modern thinkers are unknowns. I only knew about Freud and James. And it also seems like the "single thread" which was Western thought has now become a complicated "web". Let's hope it wraps up well.

Set 5 of 7 done! This covered the age of "ideology", or as it's better known, "the 1800s". Post-enlightenment thinkers, dominated by Germans, but not exclusively. Kant, Kierkegaard, Adam Smith, Marx, Nietzsche and more. This one was hard to follow, and would almost require a require a re-listen.

Highlights:
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Kierkegaard's "Leap of Faith"
Marx's economic theories

4 of 7 sets down. #4 was on "The Enlightenment", that period more or less around 1680-1715 (+/- 80 years). Driven by Isaac Newton on the one hand, but also saw the rise of some other classic texts on human thought, such as Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations". The rise of Deism, and David Hume's scathing criticism of "Natural Religion" (seeing proof of God by studying nature). A great addition to the series!

3 of 7 done! And now that we're beyond the medieval Christian lectures, things are starting to get interesting again. It is still somewhat disheartening to see so many great minds (Descartes comes to mind) trying desperately to tie themselves into knots fitting "God" into mathematics, logic and science.

However, the lecture on Newton was VERY inspiring! I never quite appreciated all he'd accomplished!

Finished with the 2nd (of 7) CD sets, lectures 13-24. Unfortunately, this whole set is about the foundation of Christian thought. And while the lecturers make it clear that the "Western Intellectual Tradition" includes a blending of classic Greek thought and Biblical Hebrew/Christian thought, I found this whole section rather troubling. It all sounded like "pseudo-profound bullshit". Let's hope Set 3 gets better.

Just wanted to say: If an author has the balls to name his lead character "Hiro Protagonist", I give 'me full props ;)

Just wanted to say: If an author has the balls to name his lead character "Hiro Protagonist", I give 'me full props ;)

Finished Part 1 of 7 (first 12 half-hour lectures out of the 84 in the series). Will fit the remainders in as time allows, but not sure I can grind through 42 straight hours of history lectures, no matter how interesting.

Finished Part 1 of 7 (first 12 half-hour lectures out of the 84 in the series). Will fit the remainders in as time allows, but not sure I can grind through 42 straight hours of history lectures, no matter how interesting.

I'm 100 pages in and for pity's sake she repeats the same God damned cliffhanger over and over and over. No joke! FOUR times now we've seen character "Badri" say "something's wrong" at the end of a chapter. We revisit him OVER and OVER and the story does NOT progress. How can you be a professional author and not progress your story over four chapters?

Sigh...a female author writing about a young woman going alone back in time. Didn't I just SUFFER through this with that freaking "Outlander" atrocity?

ARGH! I am dangerously close to quitting this trampy, tawdry novel. It reads like I would expect horrible for-lonely-women-only "romance novels" would read. Burly men, broad shoulders, and lurid sex scenes. I keep turning off the CD, and screaming at the car stereo "Stop with the slut talk!!! Get to the point!"... But then, I am beginning to believe, the smut *IS* the point of this book. Blech...

Spoiler alert:

Is this really in the "fantasy/sci-fi" category where I found it ("NPR's top 100 fantasy / sci-fi list").

It sure smacks of "cheap romance novel" to me. Please forgive me, but when the following phrase is in a novel, I cringe:

"She guided him to the warm, moist cleft between her legs".

And this was written by a woman. Tawdry and uncomfortable, yes. But fantasy/sci-fi? Not so much...

Typo on page 25 of 1987 printing--Merlin refers to his mother as Jasra, not Dara. Probably not caught by either author or editor becAuse of how unnecessarily complicated the book has become

Typo on page 25 of 1987 printing: Merlin refers to his mother as Jasra, not Dara. Probably not caught by either author or editor because of how unnecessarily complicated this whole set of books has become.

177 pages (out of 310) to FINALLY make it to the Abyss? For shame!