The Suburban Jungle

Have you ever opened a book and loved it from beginning to end? That's happened to me many times. Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" and "Rights of Man" come to mind, but also every book by Marvin Harris.
I first encountered Marvin Harris' writing as I read through the book pages on Derek Siver's site. The first, was Cows, pigs, wars and witches and I highly recommend you check that out....

In keeping with my plan to write up a review for every book I read, the most recent book in my bookshelf is The Stranger, by Albert Camus.
This a short story, written in 1942. The year is important. In fact, it may be the only important part of this book. There is no reason to beat around the bush, I did not like The Stranger. It's only saving grace was it's brevity. It felt great to finish...

Old books hold useful knowledge, but they also hold mold, stains, and dust. As we have been building our own library, it's been very exciting to add books from hundreds of years ago. Unfortunately, many of these books come with issues.
In general, I always smell any book I plan to purchase. Unless it is exceedingly special or rare, I will not buy a moldy book. Damaged covers can be removed and replaced. Moldy pages....ugh...

It took having children for me to understand that people think differently than I do. And it took having multiple children for me to realize that much of those differences are part of the person's innate structure - coming with them from the beginning...