Bookfulness

This last fortnight, mainly I have been reading Karen Armstrong's 'The Great Transformation' on the philosophy and religion of major pre-Christian civilisations, and Moazzam Begg's 'Enemy Combatant' about four years of US detention in Begum and Guantanamo without trial.

Armstrong has taken on an enormous task- to objectively compare and contrast the roots of Judaic, Islamic, Buddhist, Shinto and Hindu traditions and their divergence, century by BC century. I'm interested and informed, and still worried. In my dumbed down interpretation, she is seeking and explicating some kind of ascending evolutionary human nature in what's termed the Axial Age or stage, when religion and spirituality gained a capacity for self-reflection and selflessness in different forms. I have to think on this further, and imagine what a beetle or a fluke would make of it.

Due to workfulness and a gift voucher from my dear Dad, I am happily swimming in books. Not only Hotboy's RaBlissBook but also Challinor's Beelzebub and a collection of recent bioscience. The first I've dug into is Carl Zimmer's 'Parasite Rex', which shows off some of the elegance and ingenuity of this prevalent lifestyle.