What good book have you read lately? (New or old)

[tfferg]

I'm interested in the comments of people who are revived after being clinically dead.

[michaelflanagansf]

Whoa! Cool! Look at all the posts in the book thread!

[michaelflanagansf]

My faith is extremely agnostic (I enjoy going to church for the companionship, for the singing and for its familiarity since childhood), but I can’t give up the idea that I will be together with Michael again. Perhaps it is hope rather than belief though.

My interest in these books comes to a good degree from being raised Catholic and told as a teen that if I didn't live as a celibate that I would be going to hell. So there's not a good deal of comfort or hope associated with religion that I've been raised with and I'm interested in the evolution of both the beliefs and the moral code.

That said, I certainly understand the comfort that religion brings people concerning the afterlife.

[michaelflanagansf]

As for Bart Ehrman, I seriously recommend his How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (2014). Also Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan (2013) (great in my opinion because it places Jesus in the context of what was happening in Galilee and Judea from 100 years before his time through 100 years after his time). Also Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy, by John Shelby Spong (2016).[/font][/size]

Thanks for these Jeff! I can easily see how I could burn through a lot of Ehrman's books. I did this with Elaine Pagels earlier (I particularly like The Origin of Satan). The Aslan book has been on my list for a while. I've never read and Spong, so that's an interesting suggestion.

[michaelflanagansf]

I'm interested in the comments of people who are revived after being clinically dead.

I'm interested in this too, Tony, as well as in paranormal/ghost investigations (although, admittedly, there is an overwhelming amount of hucksterism associated with that).

What I am particularly interested in regarding Near Death Experience is the experience of people outside of Christian cultures. I would be interested in the experiences of people in Japan and in other Buddhist countries. There are some books on that:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1026461521146

There has also been some interesting work done on the Near Death Experience in indigenous cultures as well:

https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190872472.001.0001/oso-9780190872472

[gattaca]

^^^ NDEs have always intrigued me... ever since I was old enough to understand death, ERs, and that "out-of-body" experience often reported.  Don't misread my thoughts on "organized religions" or equate those with my appreciation that such things as souls and other dimensions of space, time and thought could easily exist.  There have been 2-3 times in my life where I walked into or onto something where I'd never been before and got a heafty dose of DeJa'Vu' .  The last time was when I visited the Manassas Va battlefield.  Talk about chill bumps and hairs standing on ends.... I just knew I'd been been there before...     YMMV.  V.

Now back to the "book thread" I followed up our earlier chat and read "Mustang Wingman" -> https://www.amazon.com/Mustang-Wingman-Historical-Fiction-Romance-ebook/dp/B09RVN16WW

BLUF:  I did not enjoy it as much as the author's earlier novel because the later parts felt "rushed" to the finish and some of their "alone scenes" just did not feel right for the times.  BUT, what do I know really about that era and being gay then?  Nada..

His first novel, "Lightening Wingman" -> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B099GDKFD7 which I wrote about earlier was better delivered.   Since this is 2 of 4, I'll keep an eye out for the others.

Nothing still holds a candle to "Wingmen" by Ensan Case - a must read if you have never read it.  Way ahead of it's time!  Search this thread for earlier discussions. Kindle + audible is really good! -->   https://www.amazon.com/Wingmen/dp/B00REUZAGI

Stay safe, stay alive.  Later.  V.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Thanks for these Jeff! I can easily see how I could burn through a lot of Ehrman's books. I did this with Elaine Pagels earlier (I particularly like The Origin of Satan). The Aslan book has been on my list for a while. I've never read and Spong, so that's an interesting suggestion.

You're welcome, Michael. I've only read a few of Spong's books (he died this past September), but I'm sure they're all worthwhile. What's not interesting about an Episcopal bishop considered a heretic by many? I met him once, just to shake his hand, really, when he preached/lectured at Christ Church here some years ago. (Same place I heard Gene Robinson preach, too.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong

I completely forgot about Elaine Pagels. I wanted to read The Origin of Satan.

[michaelflanagansf]

You're welcome, Michael. I've only read a few of Spong's books (he died this past September), but I'm sure they're all worthwhile. What's not interesting about an Episcopal bishop considered a heretic by many? I met him once, just to shake his hand, really, when he preached/lectured at Christ Church here some years ago. (Same place I heard Gene Robinson preach, too.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong

I completely forgot about Elaine Pagels. I wanted to read The Origin of Satan.

And I've met Elaine Pagels! I was in a cafe in Menlo Park (where I work) and I heard a familiar voice, turned around and said "Professor Pagels! I love your books!" She was in town to give a lecture at Grace Cathedral for the release of Revealations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation (which I attended - and got my book signed).

[michaelflanagansf]

For the book group I lead at the library I work at we're reading the 1953 novel The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley. Hartley was closeted and died in 1972, right after publishing his only subtly gay themed novel The Harness. A Guardian reviewer had an interesting take on the earlier novel, however:

"With its vision of "foreignness", of the marginalisations inherent in class and sexuality, of the different possible self, the "different tale", it can also be seen as a gentle gay novel, and one of immense sophistication. Part defeated by repression, part glorious in discretion, part melodrama, part Hardy, part Lawrence; I wonder if its appearance in 1953 and its boldness then with the more surface issues of class and sexuality are partly responsible for Lady Chatterley's Lover finally seeing unexpurgated publication, which it did a decade after the appearance of The Go-Between. Its spirit, unlike Chatterley's, is gloomed, overshadowed by terrible new knowledge, two world wars, the Holocaust and the atom bomb: an "abyss", as Hartley puts it, at the core of the glorious new century. Hartley returns again and again in his critical essays, bewilderedly, as if he can't look away, to this "abyss"."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/17/lp-hartley-go-between-ali-smith

[michaelflanagansf]

Here is the biography of L. P. Hartley (see last post) from the glbtq archive online:

http://www.glbtqarchive.com/literature/hartley_lp_L.pdf

[killersmom]

I'm going to go read it in a bit, Michael. The link wouldn't open on my phone, so I went to my lap top. I'll read it on there. Thanks for the link.

[michaelflanagansf]

I'm going to go read it in a bit, Michael. The link wouldn't open on my phone, so I went to my lap top. I'll read it on there. Thanks for the link.

Good Linda - I think you might like his writing. "The Go-Between" was made into a movie in 1971 with Julie Christie and Alan Bates in it (and a screenplay by Harold Pinter, which seems weird, but what do I know):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Go-Between_(1971_film)

[frokes]

Thank you very much to all of you for your book recommendations! I have bookmarked several of them.  

[oilgun]

The last book I read was quite light.: Richard Ayoade's Ayoade on Top.. (Brits will know who he is. He was in the TV show The IT Crowd). It's "the definitive book about the best cabin-crew dramedy ever filmed View from the Top, starring Gwyneth Paltrow." A film that absolutely nobody has actually seen. The book is absolutely hilarious.  https://www.amazon.com/Ayoade-Top-Richard/dp/0571339131

[Flyboy]

For the 'afterlife' crowd here, I just read a story on the Net about a Mother who's 2 year old Son keeps telling her about his past life in the Desert searching for water. I guess he gives very detailed information that a 2 yr old might not be aware of at that age. I have many relatives/close friends pass away during my Lifetime, and even been at the bedside of several of them when it happened too. I've never 'felt' their presence anywhere, or at any time after they passed. Maybe that's just me though. I've also never visited a new place and felt like I'd been there before! haha......maybe I need to travel more, no? Although I am a traveler. Also, I've never had that experience where you met a stranger, but you're POSITIVE you know them from somewhere in the past. Never had that......I'd love to believe in some kind of afterlife, or continuing existence after mortal death, but I cannot get my mind around that concept. I'm a little like Sara, I attend Church, and stayed with it in adulthood because I loved to sing, and I like being around people. I try to listen to the Sermons/Message to see if it makes sense to me or not. I find most of my Pastors take a passage from the KJ Bible, then try to apply to current life here, and embellish it quite a bit so people don't fall asleep, and VIOLA, a message to share. I've been known to SHAKE MY HEAD during a Sermon!
At any rate, my Church is a Mission Church, and I do support and like that part of it. Since I always volunteer a couple days a week at their Food Ministry Mission. Maybe that just makes me 'feel good'......