Category: Books
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Readings in Late Antiquity
This spring semester, I’m teaching a class on Late Antiquity. When I say that, people usually ask, “What is Late Antiquity?” Late Antiquity is the period of transition from the late Roman Empire to the early Middle Ages. Often we talk about the the Fall of Rome as if it was something that happened in 476…
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Heir to the Jedi—Review of a Star Wars Novel
Heir to the Jedi is the first Star Wars book that I’ve read since Disney bought the universe and rebooted the novels with a fresh continuity. I had hoped that Disney would do a good job protecting their property, but they should have exercised more quality control with this book. Heir to the Jedi takes place…
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What We’ll Be Reading this Spring Semester
Today is the first day of the spring semester so I thought I’d give a run down of what we’ll be reading in my classes. Western Civilization I This class covers roughly the ancient and medieval world. We’ll be reading the same primary-source reader that I developed over the summer. This reader has excerpts from over a dozen…
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What I’ll Be Doing in the Fall Semester
Today is the first day of the fall semester. Expectations run so high that the beginning of the new academic year takes on a sacramental quality. Incoming freshmen look forward to beginning the rest of their lives. Returning students anticipate catching up with friends after three months at a monotonous summer job. No one has…
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Reading Children’s Books as an Adult: Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain
My last two blog posts have been about my difficulty in finding anything worthwhile to read. I had been in search of a contemporary novel suitable for light summertime reading, but my choices had disappointed me. Last week, however, was a change of pace. In the name of doing research for our next family read,…
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More Adventures in Disappointing Novels
Last week I wrote about how my summer-reading theme seemed to be “disappointing science fiction,” and I claimed that I was giving up on the genre. Unfortunately, I still seem to be stuck in my theme. Someone recommended that I read Vicious, so I gave it a try. Vicious isn’t technically science fiction, but it’s probably close enough…
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Why I’m Done with Science Fiction
I usually spend part of the summer catching up on contemporary fiction, and often my summer reading ends up falling into some sort of theme. This summer I fell into a science-fiction hole, but I think I’m going to climb back out. When World Magazine announced that Michel Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things was its fiction book of the year,…
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Did a 19th-Century Novelist Understand our Attitudes toward the National Debt?
We all like to spend money. Unfortunately most of us don’t have as much money as we’d like to spend. This isn’t merely true for individuals. Nations can spend too much money as well. Greece has decided that it can’t handle the austerity measures necessary to put it on the path to financial stability. They’ve elected…
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Augustinian Morpheus
Well, it’s time to have our minds blown by the most mind-blowing of all theologians, Augustine of Hippo. In City of God 4.4, Augustine does a little political theorizing. He doesn’t care much for empire. He thinks Rome lost its justice long before. Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large…
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When Is a Boat More Than a Boat?: Noah’s Ark
Peter Leithart calls Noah’s ark a floating ziggurat. Nice. He notes these points of comparison found in the book The Tabernacle Pre-Figured by L. M. Morales. Morales summarizes the evidence that the ark is to be understood as functioning like a temple, even if we can’t say that it is a temple: It is like the cosmic…
COLLIN GARBARINO 