Category Archives: Reason: Well-Educated Mind Challenge

June 4, 2019 · 5:06 pm

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

Pilgrim’s Progress is a bit of a heavy-handed over-the-top obvious allegory, but I found myself enjoying it. The author did a pretty good job of telling how to get to heaven and navigate through life’s challenges. The version I read had the Biblical references written in the text inside parentheses in italics and I found that took away from the enjoyment of the story and so after a while began to just skip over them. There are quite a few illustrations throughout. I recommend this book to anyone who has ever wanted to read Pilgrim’s Progress, but never got around to it.

4 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2019: 65
Pages Read in 2019: 17,584
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May 7, 2019 · 6:13 pm

1984 by George Orwell

1984 is one of those books with themes that continually appear in pop culture and everyone, whether they’ve read it or not, know the basics of how it goes. There’s Big Brother and the Thought Police and the constant fear that you’ll be picked up and just vanish because you said something in your sleep or made a face that was construed as being anti-Party. The main character, Winston, realizes that history keeps getting rewritten (he works in the department where they do just that after all) and that things aren’t what the government claims. The only problem is pretty much everyone else seems to buy into it all, and if they don’t they no longer exist (and never existed). Some things in the book are frightening when you look around and see shades of them in real life (don’t believe what you see and hear… only I tell you the truth). The gaslighting is amazing. If anyone wonders what gaslighting is, reading 1984 should help them understand. The end is rather depressing and give a bleak outlook on what a society like the one portrayed would do to free thinkers. I highly recommend reading it to older teens and up.

5 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2019: 55
Pages Read in 2019: 14,783
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May 1, 2019 · 8:52 am

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Don Quixote is very long and sometimes interesting. It is a collection of stories of the adventures of a self-proclaimed knight-errant and his madness. Some of the stories are interesting, some are ridiculous, some are boring. If you feel the need to read lots of classic books, Don Quixote is a decent choice.

2 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2019: 52
Pages Read in 2019: 14,049
Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks (more book reviews!)

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