2 posts tagged “karen armstrong”

Aside from the fifth book in Naomi Novik's "Napoleonic Wars, plus Dragons!" series, my reading in June had a distinct theological bent.  Karen Armstrong's A History of God is as good as I remembered it for following the development of concepts of deity in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  The two Lois McMaster Bujold novels on my list deal with a thoroughly fictional world with a richly developed religious life in which five gods are worshipped by the orthodox Quintarians: the Mother of Summer, the Father of Winter, the Daughter of Spring, the Son of Autumn, and the Bastard, god of all things out of season.  Finally, Many Waters finds twins Sandy and Dennys (minor characters at best in the previous books of the series begun with A Wrinkle in Time) thrown into the middle of the pre-Flood society from whence Noah sprang.  It was a much stranger read than I remember it being when I was a kid, probably because I now have the religious studies background to scratch my head at some of the veiled allusions.

The theme for the first part of March was religion, with the majority of my reading time going towards a thoughtful rereading of Karen Armstrong's lucid and fascinating study of Axial Age insights across several different cultures. After a Discworld interlude (always worthwhile), I followed up with a look at Abraham from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim perspectives. Then I ditched the serious reading entirely for the nostalgic popcorn of Xanth. I loved those books when I was a kid, but got turned off by the author's attitude when I read his autobiography in high school. Rereading the first three books in the series as an adult, I am struck by a certain misogyny in the way the author portrays his female characters, though I am sure he would argue he was simply spoofing the way women have been portrayed in fantasy fiction in general.

Edited 6 APR 09, when I remembered that I had also reread Interesting Times in March. That's what I get for not recording books as I finished them.